lucathia

Vietnamese translation of Tension, a Bakuman fic, thanks to Hyouton Inuki! I love fic translations. :)

Here's the link!
♥ Tension

Speaking of Bakuman, I caught up with the 3rd season of the anime! \o\ Although the pacing is a lot faster now, it doesn't feel too rushed. I'm actually glad the 2nd Nanamine arc was cut out, since it didn't build on his character much at all. I hope I'll find the ending satisfactory! Will be a little sad to see the series conclude though.

Fire Emblem, ah, Fire Emblem. Awakening has been out of stock and delayed everywhere!!! I pre-ordered Fire Emblem Awakening at GameStop because I wanted the artbook that came with pre-orders, and I wanted to get the game on the day of the release. That was supposed to be Monday, and now it's Friday. -__-; I've been calling GameStop a lot to check if they'd gotten the game yet. (The answer was always no, check back tomorrow! We're getting it tomorrow! And then, of course, the next day, the answer was "no" again...) On Tuesday, I went to buy something at my local electronics store, saw FE:A on the shelf (there were only two available, I picked one up, started checking GameStop's cancellation policy for pre-orders and put the game down, and then this guy came over... I thought it'd be best to grab the game again, and lo and behold, he grabbed the last copy. And then started checking his phone too. =P ) I ended up buying the game and was so conflicted over my pre-order. -___-; I haven't canceled my pre-order, so I guess... I'll end up with two copies, one for my brother. ^^;; I'd planned on lending the game to him after I finished, but now I'll get to keep my copy, haha. I didn't think I'd be one of those who bought multiple copies. I still haven't gotten my pre-order yet though. Hope I can pick it up today after I wake up. (Thankfully, my work day isn't as long this Friday) Am really loving the game. <3 Went with a female avatar named Ruka for this playthrough.

Yu Wo sounds like she's starting to write part 2 of When Teacher Wasn't Yet Teacher. Trying to make it for Chinese New Year, I think. XD In it, Chasel mentions a person he was hoping to have in his platoon. However, that person ended up in the Sun Knight Platoon. Might this person be the vice-captain Chasel appointed for Neo? XDDDD (I'm bouncing all over the place. Vice-captains!!! :DDDD For some reason, I really like the vice-captains...) I do wonder who this character will turn out to be, even if not the vice-captain.

Chinese New Year this weekend! I will be off at my relatives' for the weekend but am hoping to be able to find some time to write. :) It is more likely that I'll be playing FE:A though, haha. |D;; (I haven't finished FE12...)

Yu Wo has started posting the beginning of the Legend of Sun Knight spin-off here. There will most likely be two volumes, with the first volume being published in the near future. My heart was just about to burst as I read this teaser, ahhhhhhh. This spin-off uses third person, so we get to see Grisia from other people's POVs. ♥ And oh, what a teaser. The ending of this teaser ends right when Adair is about to start recounting how Grisia chose him as the vice-captain! KLJDF;ASJD;FJA;SJFDKA;JFA ADAIR??? ADAIR BACKSTORY? KJ;DFA;LA My heart can't take this, ahhhhhh.

Ah, Olympics. I remember the previous Olympics when I was trying to write daily for 31_days with Bokurano drabbles. (I was doing well until the Olympics started. Then I was glued to my TV!) I am always completely distracted by the Olympics, so I know I'm not going to get much writing done for the next two weeks. My current priority is my parallelsfic assignment that is due very, very soon (August 1), and then Bittersweet Sweetness. A Bittersweet update might actually happen before I finish my Parallels assignment, since I'm always more motivated in doing what I shouldn't be doing when I feel the need to procrastinate on something else, haha...

Anime-wise, I caught up with Moyashimon season 2~. Cute microbes return! More of Kei! \o/ I love Mitsuki Saiga's voice~.

Oh look it's not a fic post for once. I've been really bad at blogging and leaving comments. I actually don't have the next part of Bittersweet Sweetness done for this week because I haven't had too much alone time to write... D: So for anyone who's waiting for it... the wait will be a bit longer than usual.

Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone! I got flooded by so many, both in person and online. ♥ Haha, it makes turning older feel marginally better (I don't want to turn older!!) As for gifts, Arc send me a really cool bone necklace that arrived with perfect timing. I also received cute art from gem2niki and Elphie. Rykatu in the first one, and Sun in the second one~ :D (Rykatu is so cute!). My brother bought me Minecraft and is bent on stealing what little free time I have. I bought myself a smartphone! Finally saying goodbye to my 4 year old phone! Quite exciting! I just received it today and still need to tinker around a lot more to figure my way around. If anyone has any suggestions for apps I should get, let me know. :D

I've watched quite a few movies with friends in these past few weeks~. Random movie talk under the cut!

( Hunger Games, Avengers, Dark Shadows )

I've been meaning to ramble off about current anime I'm following this season, but I've mostly fallen 1~2 weeks behind every series. But here's what I'm following. No blurbs. I've been slapping random screencaps of stuff I'm watching all over tumblr if anyone's interested. :3;;

New this season: Eureka seveN AO, Kimi to Boku s2, Ginga e Kickoff!, Hiiro no Kakera, Kuroko no Basket, Uchuu Kyoudai

Started watching but haven't gotten far (maybe watching?): Shirokuma Cafe, Sakamichi no Apollon

Plan on checking out: Accel World

Continuing from previous season: Hunter x Hunter, SKET Dance

Maybe dropping: Area no Kishi (it hasn't been animated in a very interesting way...I'm super behind with the anime now.)

My need to finish list is still the same as previous season's. When will I ever finish watching those series...

Out of the new series, my favorite is Ginga e Kickoff at the moment! It's so cute and I look forward to new episodes a whole lot.

Too long a post, so here's part 2. XD;; Part 1 was over here.

( lots of screencaps )

More screencaps here and here. (they've been resized)

1. Leave a comment to this post, specifically saying that you would like a letter.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Post the names of five fictional characters whose names begin with that letter, and your thoughts on each. The characters can be from books, movies, or TV shows.

I received the letter F from cairnsy~. Had a lot of characters to choose from but decided on these five from series I'm currently following. I wonder if I'm missing anyone obvious. XD;;

( my answers )

Haven't mentioned this yet, but No Hero, which was slated to be 7 volumes in all, with 6 volumes already published and the 7th and last volume soon to be published, is now going to be 8 volumes long. Legend of Sun Knight almost went the same route, with the last volume being too long for one book. I kind of wish LSK had been expanded!! Yu Wo has started posting teasers of No Hero v7 in her blog~. I wonder when the official release date will be? (And when will she start working on Female Warrior and the next volume of Gong Hua?)

Watched the second Prince of Tennis movie. It was hilarious. Nothing as epic as Tezuka killing the dinosaurs, but still... does this movie want me to ship Fuji and Kite? Shiraishi and Tezuka? XD;; I'm going to post up some screencaps later, haha.

I've been scarce on LJ! OTL Trying to play some catch up with everything this week. I can't believe March is almost over.

I came across a fishbone hairclip the other day though. Much awesomeness! That immediately went into my collection.

Random snippets about various series below.

Bakuman
The manga!! This is like, the moment everyone has been waiting for from the start, right? All the characters have come so far! ♥ The anime - Season 2 ended! I've yet to watch the last four episodes. I won't be too sad though, since season 3 will start in the fall. Tanto kind of brought a lull to the series, but PCP really brought the momentum back~

Natsume Yuujinchou
Ahhhhh, watched the finale of season 4 today! One of my favorite endings yet with how Natsume confronted the past and moved forward. I really appreciated the exploration of Natsume's past in this season. Like I said before, I feel I've learned so much more about Natsume in this season.

Magi
I started reading Magi last week~. I'm on ch.93. Favorite character is Alibaba. :D He's not all powerful or all that confident, but he feels so much and tries so hard. He's totally the type to rise up to the challenge. I always thought Aladdin was more grown up than this. I think I was mistaking Sinbad for the main character then. XD; The idea of dungeons and magoi and djinns is quite fascinating~. I'm just being introduced to Hakuryuu at the moment. I wonder what he'll bring to the story~.

Otoyomegatari
Another manga series I started reading. I've wanted to check it out since last year (it was one of the fandoms I could have written for parallelsfic. Now that I know who the characters are, I want to dig up dropsofviolet's requests again...). The artwork in this series is stunning. The content revolves around young brides' stories, starting off with Amir, who is 20, and her husband Karluk, who is 12. I thought they would be the main focus (and that the age difference might be a main point) but the story instead moves on from Amir and Karluk and touches upon other brides (and brides-to-be), branching off from Amir and Karluk's story, though maybe the story will eventually return to them. The age difference isn't a very large factor, and Amir and Karluk truly appreciate each other. There's a linguist called Henry Smith who stays with Karluk's tribe to study the culture and language. He later moves on from the tribe, and the story moves on with him! Though he's not the main character (at least I don't assume he is...), it's pretty interesting how the scene changed with him. I wonder if the manga will continue borrowing Smith's presence to show us various tribes and their brides-to-be. Perhaps we were with Amir and Karluk in the beginning because Smith was there!

Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo (Yamada and the Seven Witches)
A body-swap series by Yoshikawa Miki, mangaka of Yankee-kun to Megane-chan! Yesssss. I'm so there. XD; I love her humor~. It's set in high school yet again, though this time with some more supernatural elements, it feels like!

Avatar: The Legend of Korra
Watched the premiere yesterday. SO AWESOME. I can't wait for more. I already like Korra, and I like Tenzin a whole lot too. I was getting strangely emotional during the two episodes because wow, their world has changed but it's still so very easily recognizable as the same world. Loved seeing the influences of the previous cast on this new world. It's so sad to think that most of them have already passed on. Pro-bending has been pretty cool so far too!

Let's see, anything I'm forgetting... I've been borrowing manga from gem2niki. First up was Kami no Shizuku (Drops of God) about a guy who must correctly identify 13 wines left behind by his father (a famous wine critic) in his will in order to inherit his legacy. Only two volumes are out in English so far~. I look forward to seeing Shizuku learn more and more about wine! :D (I still can't believe this is written by the same person who wrote Kindaichi, Tantei Gakuen Q, Area no Kishi... so many different series!) I borrowed Pluto and Ooku next from g2n, but I haven't started on them. *cough* it was Magi's fault

Oh, and A Game of Thrones. I had to return my library copy, so I ended up buying the book after all. XD; It's going to take me a while to read!

Sket Dance

I started watching Sket Dance and bawled my eyes at during episode 25. Sket Dance, I thought you were supposed to be a comedy series. =/ (It normally is. The main three characters are part of a school club that helps people. So far the series has mostly been episodic).

Surprisingly, I enjoy the humor in this series quite a lot even though a lot of it is just them talking in their clubroom, and they're often so over-the-top. All the episodes feel so high-strung, haha. I thought it might fall flat for me. I'm surprised at who became recurrent characters too (am enjoying Roman and Shinzou's scenes. They never fail to amuse me). Watching Sket Dance makes me want an Oresama Teacher anime. That series has some pretty random, over-the-top humor too, and the main character is part of a club that goes against the student council. (also, Tsubaki Sasuke from Sket Dance reminds me so much of Ayabe Reito from Oresama Teacher, and both are student council members).

( comparison pic and other pics )

*turns this into a summary of recent anime I watched / am watching* I guess this is a random check-in halfway through the winter season. :3

( marathoned: Time of Eve )

( continued from previous season: Chihayafuru, Bakuman s2, Hunter x Hunter )

( newly following: Area no Kishi, New Prince of Tennis, Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou, Natsume Yuujinchou Shi, Poyopoyo, Recorder to Randoseru )

( stuff I need to finish: UN-GO, Kaiji, Working season 2, Hanasaku Iroha )

LSK!!
Whoot, Kingstone is doing pre-orders for the LSK merchandise I linked to in this post. *preorders everything* Too bad they only ship within Taiwan for this, and darn, the first two items (posters) are already sold out, or else I would have gotten those instead since that'd cover all the different designs (there are six designs). Orders ship out on February 1. Looks like I'm going to have more merchandise lying about in my relatives' house, haha...

Shin Tenipuri episode 1
Oh gosh, I was grinning so hard through this. I've really missed watching Tenipuri weekly. This makes me all sorts of nostalgic (the bgmmmm!), and damn, the animation looks pretty and the characters look pretty too when the first anime was not even close to this quality. I so hope the quality continues with future episodes! The opening is weird and the ending is quite weird too. XD; I don't know if they'll grow on me. Haha, the characters were so posing all over the place. This scene <- I'm reminded of Eyeshield. XD;

I bought Kanzenban season 2 volume 10 (features Sanada on the cover) but damn, my bookstore still doesn't have volume 9! (the one with Niou and Yagyuu on the cover). I've gone three times already, so I doubt they'll ever have it since they already have volume 10... *orders volume 9*

I also picked up Houkago v2! Yay, volume 2! I didn't know it was already out! (It is sooo much fun). I've only flipped through it, but one of the comics has Shiraishi visiting Seigaku and trying to solve a murder mystery (he claims Tezuka is dead after drinking Inui Juice). Yagyuu pops out of nowhere to join in as a detective. XDDD

Hikaru no Go
I like to play anime/dramas/drama CDs in the background while I make decks for colors_tcg. (Something I've watched before is usually best, or else I end up not understanding everything). This time, after catching up with Rajipuri (oh gosh, they're going to be labeled as Shin Tennis no Oujisama on the Radio now! Shin Rajipuri?), my choice was Hikaru no Go! This series. Oh, this series. I'm reminded all over again why I like this series so much. (And now I cannot. stop. rewatching.). Sai has always been likable to me, but other characters have always interested me more. This time, I've paid Sai more attention. He is very endearing. (his flailing over modern things is so cute) ♥ Mitani is still my favorite though. That episode where Sai hears Mitani resign (but no one else does) still hits me hard. If I'm not careful, I'll probably end up watching the whole thing all over again... (I found it really funny when my family started going, "huh? phone!??" because my ringtone is from Hikaru no Go, so watching the series kept making all of us think my cell phone was going off. A lot.).

Recorder to Randoseru
LOL. I did not know this was only a 3 minute per episode show. I wonder if future episodes will all be so short. The episode did make me LOL though, and hearing Okiayu Ryoutarou play this role is even funnier.

Last day of the year! I finally got around to reading some Yuletide stories that weren't gifts for me yesterday. Or well, this morning. I pretty much opened all of the fandoms I even passingly knew, but there were a lot that I'm not familiar enough with to appreciate fully. I had to stop halfway though. Saved everything else for later, though I was hoping to leave comments and kudos before reveals (feels more... special to me? and I remember I never did go back after reveals last time...).

This Kimi to Boku fic absolutely broke my heart. It is a thing of beauty, and the characterization is so much love. My heart goes out to Yuuta.

not where it starts, but where it ends (3510 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Kimi to Boku | You and I
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Asaba Yuuta, Asaba Yuuki, Tsukahara Kaname
Summary: Even twins grow apart.

I've yet to answer most of the Advent Calendar posts over at colors_tcg. Gotta do that before the year ends!

Utena Marathon
I had a holiday marathon of Utena with gem2niki. Finally watched this classic. :) I expected it to be mind-breaking, but it was not as mind-breaking as I was expecting, though there were parts I didn't understand, and whoa, themes galore. Sometimes I felt the show was cryptic just for the sake of being cryptic, and some parts were truly repetitive (yet I did look forward to the repetitiveness of the duel openings and the elevator scenes because they offered familiarity to me, and the duel of the week set-up does appeal to the part of me that appreciates battle and sports manga, which also have similar set-ups to have fights happening. The repetitiveness also allowed us to fast-forward through those parts, haha, otherwise the marathon would have taken even longer). I came out of the show with "zettai unmei mokushiroku" stuck in my head. And gosh, just how many times did people get slapped in this show? (I also had moments when I finally understood the naming behind decks submitted for colors_tcg. Truly fitting names like cowbell for Nanami and onion for Wakaba, hehe). I couldn't help but hear Hikaru in Utena's voice, though I guess it was probably the opposite for others.

( more babbling on the show )

Stuff I'm watching this season~. (Hope I don't fall behind, haha...) Planning to watch Kimi to Boku, Bakuman season 2, Chihayafuru, Working!! season 2, and Hunter x Hunter. Except for Hunter x Hunter, all the other series can be said to be slice-of-life series. That says a lot about what I like, huh?

Kimi to Boku

I've been following the manga and got into it in 2008. It was pretty much unknown back then, and I couldn't even find the manga in my bookstore! Back then, KtB was being serialized in GanGan Powered, a bimonthly magazine, and wasn't very well known. It got a bit more recognition after the serialization moved to GFantasy, but it still got very few color pages and furoku. When the anime got announced, GFantasy started advertising the series a lot, and now KtB is on consecutive covers of the magazine, getting furoku almost every month, and lots of people are talking about the series. Ahh, what anime does for the popularity of manga... well, I'm happy, since this means I'll get more merchandise of KtB when merchandise was pretty much non-existent before this!

kimitoboku_fan -> KtB community if anyone's interested~. Haha, there was 0 members for the longest time, but now it's grown to a reasonable size.

( more on KtB, thoughts on Bakuman, Chihayafuru, Working, Hunter x Hunter )