A tribute to Mr. King Kon

I would just like to say a few words about my friend Mr. King Kon. He is my anime buddy.

He is named Mr. King Kon on this space because it is a name he devised for himself, unlike everyone else who I mention on my blog (yes, I make up most names). It is a name that suits him remarkable. Mostly because the name reflects his giant ape size (well, giant sized stomach) and his personality akin to a soul stuck in a stuffed teddy bear shaped as a pathetic lion.

Very fitting indeed.

When I needed to share the awesomeness of anime, and was harrowingly rejected by all my friends and all strangers, (much to my personal demise) he was there, ready to discuss and share the awesomeness.

I am eternally grateful To Mr. King Kon for being able to read whatever manga I recommended just so that I could talk to him about it afterwards (due to everyone elses' cold rejection).

That's all I wanted to say! err... sort of.....

Manga of the Month- September

I shall take this precious blog space to vent out my fandom towards the best graphic novel in all History: 'Akira' by Katsuhiro Otomo.

Like all brilliant works of literature, art and film, Akira is a manga that actually doesn't make much sense, I could read all 6 heavy volumes 3 times and still not understand what the message is meant to be.

Being such a brilliant manga it is also difficult to describe the storyline, but I'll take a stab at trying anyway. Set in the future, a givernment organisation held scientific experiements on young children, often leading to death, one of them thrives, however, the power etched into this young child's mind is too great to control, without knowing, the organisation had created an uncontrollable unconscious monster: his name is Akira, he is then frozen in time for 30 years in order to maintain national security.

Meanwhile, Kaneda, a 15 year old boy, has some unusual occurrences surrounding him, one of which was the loss of his rather jealous friend, Tetsuo. Who ended up becoming addicted to an unkown powerful drgug, resulting in his mental and phsycial deformities in addition to its powerful potential. Tetsuo then unleashes akira in a bid to take over japan and eventually the world.
My little summery might sound lame and really does not reflect a tenth of the awsomeness of this series so I urge you to try and find out about it yourselves.

Of all the manga I will ever talk about, I seriously think people should not keep going on living life without reading this one. It is that amazing.

The success of Akira was not only limited to Japan, it was THE manga that changed the face of France and America by exemplifying a part of modern Japanese culture. They and other countried in europe now hold a strong esteem of manga, resulting in their widespread selling potential and the prescence of manga volumes in virtually every book store in France, europe and America. It is unfortunately Britain who are rather slow on the uptake and conservative in their views of sturdy newspapers than graphic novels.

Now onto the drawing style of Akira: the mangaka cannot draw women to save his life in my personal opinion, all the female character's looked like men... but you kind of get over that while reading the volumes as you get used to the drawing style. Women are the only flaw that Otomo has in his style of drawing, due to the countless scenes of destruction and the setting in the future, Otomo has exemplified how creative and imaginative his drawings can be; they take size and detail to the limit and I remeber being consumed by awe as I read some of of the pages and just wonder how on earth he had drawn it all.

Overall, Akira is a must read, despite the prediction that you will be rather confused by the end of it all, the drawing style, plot and issues of power, corruption and governmental control wll blow your mind away :D However, like most of the manga I seem to review about, it is not ment for childrens' eyes, it does have some mature content in one of the volumes and if you're not fussy about strong violence, then everything else is okay.

This day 10 years ago

This day 10 years ago, it was 21 degrees centegrade, I took my green jumper off because my seat in the classroom was in direct contact with the sun's rays; flooding the room through the windows with the broken blinds. I was sitting in one of my first math's lessons in my first week of being a high school student.

We were starting geometry.

I remember flipping through my brand new homework diary, and being all excited about my new educational environment and thinking to myself 'I won't foget this scene on the day of 9th day of the 9th month of the year 1999'. My memory kept true to my word.

Now it is ten years since that sunny day, I don't use geometry. But I reminice happily about a time full of carefree days where the only worry was finishing the homework I'd fogotten to do in the morning with everyone else in the school foyey, crouched down on the floor with books spread out everywhere.

Now I have finished my education, and sit doing nothing, but with less regrets than what I could have ended up with.

*sigh* oh well.

Dessa's Ultimately Mega Huge RANT!

I can't get sleep! Isn't this enough reason to rant? I hope my dear audience will oblige me one more time, in allowing me to rant my heart out.

1. I can't sleep!!! Oh... I've already said that. Well, I'm sure you can't actually understand the full extent of thse suferings with me saying it only twice, soo: I CAN'T FRIGGIN SLEEP! 'Why?' I hear you say, well, mostly because I have the most horrid thoughts plaguing me when my mind is ment to rest from all thought, these thoughts I'll be explaining later on.. but somehow my mind branched out to the vision of Gollum.. naturally no-one would even try to sleep when his ugly face is stuck in your mind.



2. I can't get a job! At the beginning of my job search, I said to myslef 'I can take a few rejections' and I was right, I can only take a few, not a heapful. It's not like I'm dying by these rejections, It's just been a very long time that I've been job searching and I have patience, but there has not been a shred of good news, just continuous darkness. There's only so much rejection I can take before my own esteem turns on me and shrinks the way water slips from cupped hands. As a result, I've become bitter, jealous and sour, refusing to communicate with friends, not wanting to go out or see anyone (I have Miss. Hepburn to drag me out though). I know my friends mean well when they ask me how life's going and what I have planned, but I feel so low about it that I blow off everyone who asks, afraid of what they might think or say...even though it can't possibly be worse than what's going through my own head. It's precicely what runs on my head that plaugues me so when I lie my head down to sleep, I feel so trapped by them, like they force me into a box of restlessness.



3. I'm stuck at home!!! I'm starting to consider being stuck at home for the past 3 and a half months as nothing short of punishment. With no intectual stimulus, my mind is actually rusting and diminishing, I'm worried I won't have two brain cells to rub together by the end (whenever that will be!) It is mainly for this reason I so want a job, just something to challenge me, to feel like a member of society, to make my brain function!

4. I'm so silent! I've taken to not really saying much at home, mostly because I feel lke I have to fight with Miss. Sort fuse's ears to work and listen to me. That's IF shes not already talking to one of her kazillion friends, (usually this is Miss. High Heels, but I like her, so it's all good). The efforts I've had to employ myself wih in order to be made heard by Miss. Short Fuse has resulted in a false reputation of being 'clingy'. Well excuse me! I'd try and vent my speech energy on Miss. Pain in the Ass, but like I've said before, she's incompatible with the human race (though deep deep deep deep deep down she's actually a nice person). So yes, I'm now a mute.

5. It's ramadan so I feel kinda guilty about ranting as I'm supposed to be calm and patient and forebaring :( Which I'm not exactly exemplifying right now... so yes, I'm feeling guilty ontop of everythng else.

6. I am unable to complete my writings. I have started 3 works of literature, and I simply cant finish them, which is a certain cause for annoyance to me. I think there are several reasons for this; the switching from plot to plot will obscure focus and so I am unable to think straight; I keep adding to plans and plots after I start writing, so it requires rewriting alot of the time and finally: I don't get enough time on the computer to write much.

In conclusion, I'm not too good, but I am happy it's ramadan, I hope my friends can understand a little of why I'm considered anti-social at the moment, probably for more than just at the moment (Mss.Tooting remarked this to me recently). But with Allah's help, things will get better ^_^

How to survive 16 foodless hours

Firstly: to Miss. Huda: I'm sorry I haven't replie to your text yet, I shall get round to doing it today :)

It's RAMADAAAN!!!! I'm about 11 days late in stating this, but better late than never :D

The first couple of days were okay for me, didn't feel hungry, just tired. lately I've taken to not eating before dawn, so now I am indeed hungry.. or only hungry when people mention food.

The best things about ramdaan is that I feel like I earned my food, and so, eating in the evening hours feels much happier and fulfilling than normal. Other good things are:

1. Mum makes nice soup she only makes in ramadan (although there is no force on earth stopping her making it the rest of the year).
2. Everyone's too tired to argue/fight/get angry (though tension is sometimes high as is normal when you haven't eaten for a long time).
3. I have loads of time to read (I don't see why I didn't find this out before, maybe eating normally takes out a lot of time in our daily lives)
Quran on a daily basis (though I'm about 100 pages behind) and hence I physically feel a lot lighter than normal.
5. I stop reading crappy manga and read good manga (you have to stop bad habbits)
6. MY STOMACH IS FLATTER!!! (because there is no food inside it)
7. I eat loads of dates when time permits me.
8. Me and Miss. Short-Fuse stay up till 2 am reading/chatting/eating.
9. I have taken up baking carrot cakes.



To update you all I've gone into a sort of reading frenzy, as it passes time really well, and getting absorbed into another world helps take your mind off the one you're already in. Books I've read are:

1. Harry Potter 6 (brilliant, but the film was rubbish)
2. Harry Potter 7 (It was time I re-read it)
3. The Yacoubian Building (already mentioned before)
4. Persuasion by Jane Austen (Wentworth, I love you!)

I have picked up David Copperfield by Dickens at the library, I don't know why, probably because Mr. Fullah couldn't stop talking about it, but the sheer size of the book ensures that it'll keep me occupied for the rest of Ramdaan. However, I want to read Pride and Predjudice for the upteenth time again, and I'm in a dillemma as to which I should start....

On a slightly different note, I have been reading manga, some of which I will be reviewing on my blog soon, They are:

1. Onidere
2. Hadashi de bara wo Fume
3. Naruto/
4. Bleach
5. Eensy Weensy Monster (just finished now.. so cute!)
6. Love Letter (war time romance.. sad)
7. Nodame Canatabile (read 5 chapters and am very impressed, despite it being all about pianos which I know nothing of)

And countless other that I'm not bothered to mention.... But I really do like Nodame Cantabile, the characters are so unique and matched well in the plot for maximum entertainment.. I should stop talking about manga...

But one last note! I am having trouble deciding what to talk of for the Manga of the month this month... I'm thinking of Akira, Onidere, Naruto, or Until Death do us Part... I'm not sure which yet. I'm more inclined to do something on Onidere.

And here's a random Manga pic for ya!