Georgia Pok Guy

As I found out from my primary anime on DVD source, it turns out that we should soon be getting some big news about one of my new favorite series, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱)! Apparently, someone put up this website with the auspicious date of December 22nd, the two thousand sixth year of a Jewish carpenter, prominently displayed. Looks like someone may have licensed it and has decided to announce this on the 22nd. Or, someone is toying with me (and a good number of other people, if the AoD messageboards are any indication) and deserves to die. Either way, something comes to pass this Friday. It would be quite boss if this title were licensed. I was actually going to write a post about it last week when I finished watching it, so I guess I’ll write something now! I loved this show. It is clever and original, and really it reminded me why I like anime in the first place. Definitely something you don’t see very often. Since graduating from college my anime watching has suffered a precipitous drop, but I have been inspired to start trying new series again. Thank YHWH for the buying power of nerds, without which none of this would be possible!

Note: This post gets filed under three categories!

Also, here is a link to the video for the series ending, which has to be one of the coolest ending animations…

This is soooooo 1981…  Still, I would not want to mess with that little girl.  And now, I fear children with backpacks…  Also, here is the slightly better Daicon IV opening done by Gainax in 1983.  Oh, anime.  23 years later, it’s still all about chicks, robots, spaceships, and violence…

Happy belated Beethoven’s Birthday, everyone!  I know I’m posting this on the 17th (barely), and it is generally accepted Beethoven was born on the 16th, but whatever.  He was baptized on the 17th.  So we could celebrate that, I guess.  That aside, he wrote some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard.  So, if you get a chance this weekend, pop in one of his symphonies and enjoy.

Occasionally my co-workers and I will grab lunch at the local Manchu Wok. Frankly, it is rather crappy Chinese food, except for the sweet & sour chicken that I get. Actually, I think I’ve only had good Chinese food once since coming to D.C., at Charlie Changs down in Shirlington. But that’s beside the point. One neat thing that Manchu Wok does is that their fortune cookie fortunes (is there any other name for them?) have rudimentary Chinese language lessons (read: vocabulary) on the back. The only problem is, they aren’t always correct. I’ve seen some where the hanzi have been cut off, so you only get part of the character. And then today I got one where the transliteration was just completely wrong. The word I got was 果子, which means fruit. The lesson transliterates it as “Shui-guo.” However, I knew this was incorrect since the last character is usually written “zi” like “Kong Fu-zi.” So, when I got home I went to my trusty online Chinese resource and looked up fruit, only to find that it is written “guo zi.” Check and mate. Not really, of course. Still, I proved to myself I know how to say at least one word in Chinese… And actually, I’m not too sure how to pronounce it… I really should take Chinese lessons. You know, real ones, not ones from Manchu Wok… Also, I found out the “r” at the end of a word in Chinese, like in char siu bao (叉燒包), is suppose to be pronounced like how a Brit would, more like an elongated vowel. No wonder I was tripped up! Damn Brits! Speak English!

Is it any wonder only Texans like Texas?  I mean, could you at least try to not humiliate the rest of us?

Watching Whisper of the Heart tonight, I couldn’t help but cry.  Like all Studio Ghibli films I have seen, it is beautiful and lyrical, evoking strong emotions, and goddamn it you don’t want it to end.  But it does, since every story must.  Whisper of the Heart is not fantastical, like the films directed by Hayao Miyazaki.  It is set in the suburbs of Tokyo, a rather mundane stage.  But as the author of the site I got the recommendation from (can’t remember where) said, you come to see the beauty of those suburbs in a way only Studio Ghibli can make possible.  It is a story about self discovery, about determining who you really are, which is why I love these types of movies, because I can’t help but feel I’m still in the midst of that same process (and doing a horrible job of it).  And because of this film I now have John Denver’s “Take me Home, Country Roads” stuck in my head, and really I don’t mind because it plays such a wonderful role in the story.  This is the kind of movie where I realized in the middle of it I should have just bought it, rather than rented it, because who was I to doubt something from this brilliant animation studio?  Needless to say, I’m rather regretting having to drop it in the postbox tomorrow, sending it back from whence it came…