Terrible Infants

A fascinating musical of short stories about the lives of some strange kids, injecting dark humour and a moral at the end. A little girl made of scraps of fabric. A girl who told tall tales. A boy who was stinky and turn things moldy. A boy who was so quiet and got forgotten by people around him. The lines were witty. Excellent performance by the 5 actors who danced, sang, played various instruments and with the help of props and puppets brought the stories alive. The stories were quirky and at times sad. My sis, friend and I enjoyed the show very much at the Esplanade Recital Studio last Fri evening.

This is their website: http://www.lesenfantsterribles.co.uk/

On the plane to Tokyo

Our flight to Tokyo on 2 May (Sat) at 11.30pm was delayed to after 2am on 3 May due to some technical problem. Sis and I went out of the gate and had some comfort food and drinks at Delifrance - quiche and tea. Surprisingly, the flight wasn't full. There were quite a number of empty seats and the other passengers spread out to make themselves more comfortable.

Instead of getting more sleep, I watched Suspect X, a Japanese movie. The story is about a mathematics teacher/genius who helped his next-door neighbour (a lady and her daughter) to cover up the murder of her ex-husband by building an alibi for them. 2 police detectives sought the help of a physicist (who knew the maths genius back in college days) to solve the case. The story is interesting as things are not what they seem to be and even though the geniuses try to use logical thinking, human emotions are unpredictable. I cried at the end and managed to sleep for around 2 hours.

Vampire Knight and Vampire Knight Guilty

Sis and I watched the 2 seasons of Vampire Knight over 3 nights and 1 afternoon this week and finished watching the 26 episodes last night at around 12.30am. I like the story and how the characters were drawn but compared to Nabari no Ou , it is more complicated due to the romance element. It is not the straight forward happily ever after storyline. There are darkness (presence of evil characters), sadness (death of loved ones). Of course, there are light hearted moments. Sis and I as usual teared and cried at certain scenes.

The anime is based on the manga series of the same title and the story revolves around a school (called Cross Academy) attended by vampire students in the Night Class and human students in the day class. The Chairman of the Academy set up the school, hoping to establish peace and harmony between humans and vampires. The leader of the Night Class was a Pureblood vampire, Kaname Kuran who was respected by his fellow vampires. The Chairman took care of 2 children, Yuki and Zero who both had a sad past and were the Guardians of the Academy to ensure the students of the Day and Night class observed the rules. Kaname was very nice to Yuki and he was the one who saved her from a level E vampire when she was little and brought her to Chairman Cross. Zero came to the Academy a year later when his family was killed by a Pureblood vampire. Zero appeared gruff to Yuki but cared deeply for her. The question when we were watching the anime was whether Yuki would end up with Zero or Kaname.

While discussing with Sis about the anime earlier, Sis asked me to look for another interesting anime. Watching anime is addictive and a luxury. I can tear my eyes away to eat, feed the cats and attend to some tasks but I didn't revise Jap, do some office work, iron clothes as originally planned. I guess it's okay to watch anime once in a while but I need to control the frequency, knowing how time consuming it can be :)

Watching anime

I have not been crazy about watching anime. The only time that came close was quite some time ago when Central (TV12) was showing Inuyasha at 11.30pm. Mom, sis and I would try to catch it on those weekday evenings. But that anime was quite long and came in a few seasons, so after a while, we stopped chasing after it. The storyline revolves around the adventures of the half-demon, Inuyasha and a schoolgirl, Kagome and their friends in fighting demons. Both Inuyasha and Kagome were from different era and had special powers. I like the storyline which is interesting, funny and sad but it was hard trying to catch up with it. Maybe I will try to follow the later seasons when I have the time.

Recently, I was listening to the Jap song on Sweeteepye's blog and like the tune. I was curious and started to find out what the anime Nabari no Ou was all about. Last Thurs till this Mon, I was watching the anime. I love it, the storyline, the music, the characters (how they were drawn and the colours). I laughed at the earlier episodes and as the story gets darker and sad, I teared/cried at times.

The story is about Miharu, a schoolboy who had some secret art/power in him - he didn't know about it at first and people (who were ninjas/samurai in the Nabari world) were interested in his power. Some became his friends and others just wanted to use the power for their own gains or to create their ideal world. It shows how misguided some people can be by destroying lives around them just to get what they want. There is also goodness where strangers became Miharu's friends and were there to help him. Another important character is Yoite who had the power of Kira and was also called the Death God. The scenes of him and Miharu were very touching as the 2 of them were similar in some ways and they shared a special bond.

I also like how the anime portrays some baddies with some goodness in them and even the good guys had some secrets they were keeping. Things were not what they seemed to be. It was fascinating to see how the story developed. I feel it's kind of unpredictable. Initially, I was attracted to the ninja fighting scenes, then in the later part, it was how the feelings and emotions of the characters were played out.

Most of the guys in the anime (especially Thobari Sensei)look cute and I initially thought one of them (Raiko) was a girl with his pink colour hair. Thobari sensei (another good guy) looks very cool and he was very funny to have a phobia of taking any form of transport. I managed to catch a few familar Japanese words that I have learnt but my eyes were catching the English subtitles all the time. Nabari no ou is only 26 episodes (about 30 mins per episode). I'm not sure if this is the usual length of anime but Inuyasha was more than 100 episodes. It will be wonderful if I am able to understand the anime in Jap. That is, if I continue to persevere in my Jap lessons (still at basic level and not been studying hard for it).

I don't think I will get addicted to another anime soon. Anyway, I could only watch it late at night when I finish checking on the community cats and the 2 rascals at home. But I have been feeling good about being able to catch Nabari no ou. At least I don't feel that I have wasted my time and it's not often I get glued to the computer for hours other than for work. Hee.