One of my (many) failings is that I tend to obsess over things. When I get something new, I immerse myself as deeply into it as I am capable of. Now, this may not last, especially if the work in question is Not To My Tastes, but since I generally pre-filter my entertainment through intense scrutiny of reviews and what few fellows who share my opinions I can muster, I often find that by the time I think to myself "this is pretty fun, but I probably should take a break around now", the authorities may well have already declared me legally dead.

Right now, the obsession of the moment dictates that I cannot look at a withered, leafless tree without getting the urge to paint a circle around it.

You know, the weird thing is that I had to stare at this poster for the longest time before it dawned on me that technically speaking, they were right.

Technically my favourite character from Rental Magica is Manami Kuroha, but she seems to get unusually short shrift in terms of screentime and characterization. A pity for a character so interesting.

Kalium gave me this.

Blame him.

And so, on the last day of the year Two Thousand And Seven of our lord and saviour Sephiroth the Pretty Kefka the Disturbing, I have once again engaged in Deep Dental Diving and ingested my daily dose of painkillers, hopefully for the last time, if only because I have a limited supply of brain cells teeth.

Being that I am mentally unsound to provide a post of actual value, I shall instead provide you with one picture from what I believe to be Comp H's 2007 calendar, one year late.

If it helps, imagine the female three-fifths of the SOS Brigade giving the year a send-off, instead of welcoming it in.

Occasionally I wonder if some of the references I toss out here and there in my loquacity is too byzantine for the casual reader to truly connect to, in the manner of one speaking in tongues as yet unknown to the rest of the civilized world. I cannot even claim the defense of Pop Culture, since it is such a miniscule and mildly eccentric corner of aforesaid Popular Culture which may not fit the definition of Popular, much less being Cultured. It is the corner occupied by the sort of person who is far more interested than is psychologically sound in the little details of a given setting or lore, even if he completely misses the point of the story in question.

It may well be the case that the only person who gets all of my references is myself, since it is not a given that the various interests and fandoms being alluded to will overlap with the average reader's experiences. I try to explain these as best as I can without spoiling the joke, mainly by linking to the Wikipedia article or some such. For some, like the more esoteric discussions about my MMORPG of choice, I reword and rephrase until the sentence is structured to my satisfaction, for the balance of impact and understanding. For others, like a mention of some game mechanic in a Final Fantasy game, I just leave it as it is, since such things are ubiquitous, even if one does not personally partake of the fandom in question (for example, I do not even like the Harry Potter books, but I do recognize a fair number of references from it), and it is an educated guess that a reader is likely to recognize that offhand comment about One-Winged Angels accompanied by Ominous Foreign (generally Latin, being Foreign to everyone still reading it, effectively a dead language) Chanting.

And yet sometimes, explaining the joke in any way would ruin it, which is why I doubt anyone not already in the know can truly comprehend the amusement I obtain from the confluence of Portal and Eddie Izzard.

Therefore (using this convenient segue), like the events in the Enrichment Centre, further passageways and links are made in these labyrinthine Walls Of Text and the reader is led through logic-defying apertures and might very well end up upside-down or inside-out or whatever orientation is the most inconvenient for figuring out where one needs to go next. The best way to deal with times like these, I find, is to jump right in, after quicksaving.

The analogy could use some work, I admit.

On a side note (pun unintended), thanks to what may possibly be overuse of the theme, or perhaps simply a leitmotif for a character with much screentime, I cannot quite think of Kotomi without hearing "Etude pour les petites" (literally, "Etude for children") in my head. For those wondering, it's that chamber music-style melody which plays whenever Kotomi appears, and probably a few other occasions.

I am doped up on painkillers at the moment, so do forgive any ramblings lost and occasionally run aground in the sea of logic. Celebratory holiday eggnog has nothing on this.

While other bloggers are doing some sort of summation of the anime which aired this year, or perhaps a deconstruction or conscious parody thereof, I have opted not to join in, largely because I am lazy. It should probably come as no surprise that my constant sin against which I battle is that of Sloth, and that bit of irrelevant persiflage should probably fulfil the requisite religious (to make a hollow laughter) quota for this Christmas post.

(Rant excised For Your Convenience.)

So we shall look at how anime celebrates Christmas. This is related to how Japan celebrates Christmas, but seen through a technicolour lens, akin to how Christmas might well be observed by watching television specials. We have the mandatory mention of the Christmas Cake, both in the literal sense of a cake bought and presented on the twenty-fifth, leading to many adventures regarding the delivery of said cake, as well as the metaphor of the twenty-five-year old unmarried woman, which has always struck me as being a little unfair.

Christmas in anime tends to be a romantic occasion more than anything else, although this may be observational bias in action. Being alone during Christmas is seen to be unfortunate, as seen in Lucky Star (even though I actually spent my last two Christmasses doing exactly what Kuroi-sensei does, namely playing MMOGs) and Love Hina's Christmas special. In fact, the theme of romance is strong in anime Christmas specials in general, unlike in Western Christmas (or "holiday") specials which concentrate largely on (or mercilessly satirize) believing in Santa, with varying degrees of commercialization. Witness, for example, Di Gi Charat: Winter Garden, or the one-shot Itsudatte My Santa manga by Ken Akamatsu, which later spawned a two-episode OAV of which the second episode is inexplicably a summer beach episode.

Speaking of Itsudatte My Santa, Santa Claus has a greater chance in anime of appearing as a somewhat attractive female character, even if just in bit parts like Chocotto Sister, where Biker Chick Santa delivers unto the male protagonist a little sister. If nothing else, the viewers get a nice Christmas present in the form of fanservice and the kind of outfit which would certainly not be suitable for high-altitude sleigh-rides, what with windchill and all.

Personally, I have nobody (speaking romantically) to spend my Christmas with, and I am not especially religious, save in the sense shared by proponents of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Invisible Pink Unicorn, the sort which compels people to put "Jedi" under the Religion field, which I have expounded upon before. Like Miyuki from Lucky Star, my childhood belief in Santa Claus was shattered when I innocently researched all that I could about this mysterious being who can manage to deliver presents down chimneys all over the world, even in the absence of chimneys in tropical Singapore. And so I have to come up with something else to believe in during Christmas, which is actually quite easy to do.

As holidays year-round are boiled down to be more or less excuses to party and eat lots of good food (I wholeheartedly approve of this), I've taken Christmas, or the Winter Holidays, or Hogswatch, or whatever you want to call this time of the year, as an excuse to be, well, more generous. I could treat myself to a little present, or I could put it off for another year, and give it to a charity instead. At any other time, that little doubting voice would caution me against profligate spending even in a good cause, but now is the tail end of the year, and there's nothing else this year I can spend it on. It's an excuse to give spontaneously to others, and instead of being met with suspicion that I would want something back (save in actual commercial transactions, I never do), there is merely generic gratitude and the understanding that it's Christmas, so of course I have the Spirit Of Giving. The lack of inconvenient questions is reward enough for me.

And it's also an excuse to be nice to people, to complete strangers, to friends, to family. Spend time with your loved ones, and if you're separated by insurmountable distances, give them a call or email, through the MAGIC of global communications. Smile a bit more, even if the holiday itself is leaving you frazzled and stressed; remember why you're doing all this, and forget about trying to impress other people. If anyone gives you a hard time, well, it's the season to give, and you might as well give them your patience and forgiveness. It's amazing how many people's tirades falter in the face of a serene smile, although this may be because of the general creepy factor of such.

I've preached quite a bit in this entry, it seems. Maybe I'll edit it later, maybe not; the post has strayed quite far from my original intent of… whatever my original intent was. In apology, have the attached pictures of vague Christmassy happenings to put you in the festive mood.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Hope you have a good one.

Have obtained one artbook, looking quite posh, titled "Super Lollipop" (ISBN 978-4-86199-096-0), with the subheading of "2nd drawing works of POP". It contains various artwork of, among others, Moetan (the English textbook, rather than the anime, it seems), and Fairy Musketeers (aka Otogi Jushi Akazukin).

Upon browsing its contents, I had to admit that it was pretty much everything that I thought it would be, and probably everything you'd think that it is too. Also, I have to wonder how this is even legal, much less being sold in uptight Singapore.

Surprisingly, the above image (from Danbooru) is about the closest I can find any scans of the book online. (I don't have a scanner, nor do I know how to come up with high-quality scans even if I did.) If nothing else, the picture on page 119, namely a chibi version of Anime Tenchou, should be good for some laughs.

I don't really have any point to this post other than to mention how flipping through the book results in the words "Lolipedofin, lolipedofin" marching through my head.

Not only does Miyuki wear glasses, she's also incredibly smart, and most importantly very nice. It's actually kind of surprising how few "nice and smart people" there are in anime who have a main character role, rather than side character; the primary one which comes to mind offhand is Belldandy from Ah My Goddess, but her Divine Intellect is not exactly portrayed often in either anime or manga. (In fact, she's kind of spacey in the earlier manga chapters, played up for comedy.) Also, Yomiko Readman from Read Or Die, one of the sexiest characters I've ever seen.

I'm under the impression that after a while, a particularly high intelligence in Real Life tends to result more in cynicism, rather than optimism. On the "nicer" end of the scale, we get the Deadpan Snarker, like (famously) Kyon from Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. As we progress towards less empathy and more RAGE, we end up with the "I hate people because everyone except me is stupid" types, which I've always had problems talking to. My worldview is that everyone should be nice to each other, and they believe that they have an inalienable right to be a complete… well, I'll just leave it at that to prevent myself from descending into a full-blown rant.

I wonder what sort of character archetypes Miyuki would be classified under in the Great Fandom Classification. (Yes, I'm aware that many times, these pigeon-holes are not precisely accurate, or even appropriate.) There's the obvious meganekko, and as Konata points out, she also has elements of dojikko, a trait which I've never seen portrayed as "cute" except in anime, although once again absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I don't know if there's a fandom term for "smart girl", "nice girl", or "smart and nice girl". I wonder if "smart and nice", male or female, really are that rare, in anime or in Real Life.

Yes, I went there.

Mentioned I before about the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya artbook received from a friend, from the December 2006 copy of Newtype. While flipping through its hallowed pages, one of the centerfolds (which I am told was originally printed in the Newtype October 2006 copy) was that of the above picture.

The first few times I looked at it, I simply basked in the picture composition, enjoying the picture as a whole. And then I got it in my head that maybe KyoAni put in some sort of reference, perhaps more books that Yuki would read or some such. Haruhi apparently has a fictional copy of her own book series, in a rather meta way, while I cannot quite make out the book Yuki is holding, but am sure that it is significant in some manner. The other books on the ground I don't recognize, but upon reading the title of the book Mikuru is holding, I just about fell out of my chair.

To be precise, the movie is not actually a retelling of the novel (which was published in 1965), but more a continuation or sequel, or so I hear. The movie (which is rather good in its own right) was released in July 15th 2006, which makes it plausible that the reference of the book in Mikuru's hand is based on that. Presumably that title was chosen because of the theme of, well, a time-travelling girl.

I kind of know the feeling of wishing to include random references in stories, just to see who will catch them. Often, the trick is never to make it utterly blatant unless going for complete parody, and definitely never to assume knowledge of the reference; the story should be enjoyable in its own right, divested of any pop culture baggage. But occasionally when writing, I'll toss in a throwaway line about something here, and a sideways glance about something else there, and soon it becomes a game of spot-the-reference, which does require a very canny editor to slice out. The audience wishes to experience a story, rather than a game of trivia, and any reference should be miniscule as to be irrelevant (tossed in just because "we need something there"), or useful to the story anyway. Thankfully, MoHS does this fairly well, and the references almost never detract from the story. (Heck, the original novels were full of references anyway, mostly via Kyon's and Haruhi's analogies.)

Basically, I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of "wouldn't this be cool", and any creators who manage not to let it take over their works gets my respect.

Anyway, a final note on this particular reference, and the reason I noticed it in the first place: another friend of mine was present when I received the artbook, and was raving enthusiastically about The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which won Animation Of The Year at the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2007. Quite coincidentally (or rather, not really that surprisingly), another award winner, this time in the Television category, was The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Mere words cannot describe the unspeakable joy I felt when I held in my hands the Limited Edition Box Set that came with the first Region 1 DVD of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I'm sure that you're all tired of the hyperbolic religious references by now, so I'll just assume that you've already gone through the mental image of me squeeing like an over-excited and disturbingly hyper fangirl who happens to not actually be female.

I lack an actual method for providing clear and high-quality pictures of my purchase, at least until I get my camera fixed. And so, this entire post will contain merely pictures that are only tangentially related to the box set, inasmuch as they may possibly have something to do with it apart from being of the same series.

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