I must be feeling better today considering the fact I'm devoting a great deal of my concentration to Simounsian biology...

I really should get back to watching that anime.

A small cacophony emanates from behind my laptop monitor. The cheap speakers muffle the sound of some song by The Dillinger Escape Plan. I try to ignore it, but that only seems to magnify the noise. Noise in front of me, noise within me, I think wryly.

A few hours ago I had been laughing over a new copy of the omnibus edition of Azumanga Daioh. It's hard not to become nostalgic over that series. I had read it once years ago. A friend on the east coast had loaned me a copy of the series a half-year before it became popular. Reading the story was like reminiscing about old friends. While Ayumu "Osaka" Kasuga is everyone's favorite character (I named a computer after her), Yomi is my personal favorite.

As with many stories of this kind, I often imagine myself trading places with one of the characters. I add those character's experiences to my own, taking with me the memories pleasant or touching. I'm sure I'm not the only one that does this. One could argue that the first person perspective by its nature puts you behind the eyes of the narrator. When presented with a choice, I often gravitate to characters similar to me, or similar to how I wish to be. Depending on the events of the story, this empathy can either be inconsequential or can leave me stunned.

This can be a kind of therapy. In every life, there are regrets, "missing" experiences, and missed opportunities. I have my own share. Taking the place of a character in a story can often lessen the ache left by all the gaps in my experiences. Unfortunately, this does have the nasty side effect.

I hate finishing the story! As I get closer and closer to the end of the book (or movie, or series), I feel the desire just to simply stop, leaving it unfinished. In my mind, the untied plotlines hang in midair, a lingering question that goes on forever. I don't want the story to end, because then my contact with that world is severed. I will never know what happens in the lives of the characters from that point onward. It's almost sorrowful.

It's rare that I can keep this up for long. Eventually my need to know the ending gets the better of me. I sit down and rush my way through the ending. I never can quite outrun the lingering sadness of finishing a particularly enjoyable tale. Azumanga's ending isn't particularly climatic, but it is rather touching.

What happens now? I ask myself. I still want to know the lives the characters following the story. Sometimes I make up the continuing lives of the characters, sometimes not. Less often I imagine a story set in the same world (Haibane Renmei is one example) but never quite get around to writing it.

I haven't gotten around to writing much of anything lately. Paper Girl has been stalled for weeks now. I had also made a promise to myself to post more often, but both of these tasks have been very, very difficult. I can't seem to work past the noise in my mind, the cacophony of voices that warn me that others will set their eyes upon my ragged sentences and click their tongues in disappointment. In the meantime, I bury myself in book after book, wondering about in a haze of psudo-nostalgia.

A background I created with some imges from Azumanga Diaoh. This was the desktop image of one my computers for 3 years.

Over the last week I have bee devouring reading material. I suspect it isn't so much that I've become a voracious reader, but that my material has been shorter and easier to snack upon.

I've done away with the first 9 volumes of the Claymore manga. While I enjoyed the anime, the last 3 episodes were terribly unsatisfying. It happened near the end of the War in the North arc -- exactly where it diverged from a what had been a faithful following of the manga. Sadly, my loaned supply of books was exhausted in just four nights. I had also done away with volume 5 of Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days and Multiple Personality Detective Psycho. Reading the former  felt odd as I'm sure I had only read volume 1. The latter I had read too quickly, and had become lost in the prose several times.

Otaku Syndrome aside, I have been consuming a more traditional book. I was loaned Stephen King's On Writing some weeks ago. I hadn't picked it up until I finished rereading books 1-3 of The Vampire Chronicles. Now more than half-way through it, I am beginning to suspect this is another part of a conspiricy among my friends to make me a proper writer.

On Writing begins with a short life story of the author himself. It was surprisingly honest, lingering one his faults more than I would have expected. He focused on his writing and how it developed from his childhood through his first breakthrough novel. I'm jealous of him in a way: While I have been often told I have writing talent, I have often ignored it. "Writing!?" I'd cry, "I can't make a living on that!" Programming still remains my true love.

My artistic ability had an earlier start. I had exercised it extensively during the City of Light: InterLock project. I was encouraged by a group of 3D artists in a chat room to improve and create more. Yet I still treat it the same as writing when compared to my skill with technology. When looking at my artwork my coworkers often ask me, "What are you doing here?" as if I had made some terrible mistake in choosing my career. I always answer practically: "Rich artists are dead artists, I am neither."

On Writing then moves on to the elements of the craft. In a few short pages, he conveyed to me what all my English professors had failed to do. If they had only handed me this book instead of harping about the horror of the passive tense and handing out mind-numbing exercises on identifying the elements of a sentence, I might have enjoyed their classes.

There was, however, one notable exception. I did actually enjoy my college Creative Writing class. I put in a surprising amount of effort into each assignment. He let me turn in assignments days or weeks late without docking my grade. He told me, "I don't grade you as a student, I grade you as a writer." Perhaps that's what my earlier education lacked, a writer speaking to me as a writer.

I just hope I'm worthy of the mantle.

I'm not one of these people who posts reviews often. Mostly I've come to keep my opinions about consumable media quiet. I think part of this is that I had very few allies who liked the same things that I did. Everyone else seemed quick to make fun of me for this reason. When I first got into anime, I always had to explain it to people that "Yes, it is animated, but it's not a cartoon. It's not something for kids just because it's drawn rather than acted." Roughly the same time I was big into electronica, and was mocked for my "videogame music". After a while, I just stopped trying. Why invite mockery?

Today I'm still into anime, but my music tastes have shifted toward heavy metal. Over the last month I've come to enjoy two particular creations in each genre. Curiously, both involve the French, and both involve the Japanese. Weird, huh?

Le Chevalier d'Eon

Le Chevalier d'Eon

The first is an anime series that's currently running through the fansubbing network. Le Chevalier d'Eon is a 24 episode series produced by Production I.G. The story centers around d'Eon de Beaumont, a knight of King Louis XV. It's pre-revolutionary France, and d'Eon's sister Lia is found floating down the Seine river in Paris. Her corpse bizarrely incorruptible, the church denies her a Christian burial. d'Eon dedicates himself to finding the killer.

d'Eon, however, soon finds himself plunged into a world of alchemy, Western magic, and royal intrigue. Thankfully, he's not alone -- ever.

Unable to go to Heaven, the spirit of Lia takes up residence in the body of her bother. At first, d'Eon did not notice this. When enraged or threatened, Lia takes control and completes the battle at hand. Spiritual possession is not a new subject in anime. Hana-Kimi -- one of my favorite manga -- also features a possession subplot. Other examples exist. What particularly drew me to this series, is what happens to d'Eon when Lia takes control.

Throughout the series, it's noted how similar d'Eon and Lia look. Indeed, a properly attired d'Eon would (and does) appear to be a splitting image of his sister. During battle d'Eon isn't simply possessed by her sister, but becomes her. Subtle details betray the transformation: Posture, lip coloration, eye design, and most obvious, a change in voice. This isn't a Ranma 1/2 style transformation with it verging on fantastical. You can see an example at wikipedia. The effect is so subtle that the characters even use this to their advantage at key moments. How far the transformation extends -- are there actual physical changes or not? -- has yet to be answered at the episode I'm currently at.

This isn't the only thing fascinating about the series. The story is deliciously laden with conspiracies, secret societies, and plots against royalty from several countries. A type of Alchemy and Western magic based on the Book of Psalms predominates the series. Even without all the gender changing, this is a wonderful series.

I was only incidentally attracted to this series due to the title. Another series I have yet to complete, Blood+, also makes copious use of the word Chevalier. Upon researching the series and it's titular transformation sequence, I had to see it myself. It sometimes can be curious watching a series set in France, with French characters, where everyone speaks Japanese. This can be a bit confusing for a native English speaker. Despite other "high-priority" series on my anime queue, such as Ergo Proxy and Nana, Le Chevalier d'Eon has moved to the top of my list.

Gojira - From Mars to Sirius Gojira - From Mars to Sirius

For the last year, I've developed in interest in Heavy Metal. I've been introduced to several fascinating bands in that time through my Sirius Satellite Radio subscription. While "anything heavy" sounded appealing at first, I've come to adore bands that edge more toward Progressive Metal, Post-Rock, and Sludge Metal. Many of these bands are (reportedly) drug influenced.

A few months ago a new song appeared on my receiver, "To Sirius" by Gojira. The DJs would always crack at the incidental relationship between the song title and the corporation name. Despite that, it was a spectacular song. When I finally remembered to look up the lyrics, I was even more impressed. "To Sirius" told the story of a group of beings that left a dying world to seek beings on a planet orbiting Sirius C. I hit record on my Stiletto 100 and repeated the song often.

One afternoon I decided to seek out the entire CD. It had been years since I liked a CD. A few songs, sure, but the entire CD had always been a miss. Lacuna Coil's Karmacode was an exception to that trend last year. I was also happy to find out that Gojira's latest, From Mars to Sirius was also an exception.

Much like "To Sirius" (the second to last track), the entire CD revolves vaguely around the same subject. While some tracks are brutal examples of metal with curiously spiritual lyrics, others are more wistful. I've found myself listening to the CD again and again. Even more strange, I listened to the tracks in the order in which they're given. From Mars to Sirius tells a story best read (or listened to) in order.

The band was originally named "Godzilla", after the famous Kaiju. Due to licensing problems, the band decided to adopt the original Japanese name "Gojira". The band, however, isn't Japanese. From their songs you can tell they are singing in English, and despite the death metal grunting, no accent. To my surprise, the band members are French. Given the pride in which native French speakers have in their language, this seems surprising to me. A French band with a Japanese name that sings in English; if that doesn't suggest it belongs in my menagery of tunes, go listen to it yourself.