I suppose that other titles should have drowned in my eyes as soon as Ispotted these titles: the much-awaited second season of K-ON!, the hyped up Black*Rock Shooter anime, and my recent shoujo manga favorite Kaichou wa Maid-sama. However, Nakamura Hikaru’s Arakawa Under The Bridge caught my interest easily. The plot seemed simple enough: a high-profile guy, who has vowed to never be in anyone’s debt as long as he lives, met an eccentric woman who lives under the bridge. And as expected,  fate would have it, this woman–who believes she comes from Venus–ends up saving his life and now he owes her big time. He returns the favor by being the woman’s boyfriend…who will live with her under the bridge. Hence the title.

The plot was somewhat cliche, if you think about it. It was simply like an inverse “damsel in distress” plot or a classic tale of  ”guy met a girl and turned his world upside down.” And there, for me, was  the very thing that made me so curious about it. I am a sucker for cliched plots and its endless possibilities. Technically, I know that there’s only one way from Point A to Point B, but you just got to love how different people would (and could) circumvent that simple plot and turn it into an epic tale.

The First 22
In 22 pages, I was introduced to Ichinomiya Kou who lived off the principle of never owing anyone anything. Not even  small favors such as someone else picking up his eraser on the floor. He is a straight A student studying in a prestigious university with “bright future” written all over him, and “one should never create a debt to other people” written all over his necktie quite literally. He lived his life bound by that rule, and that’s exactly what got him into serious trouble.

You see, a few kids stole his pants. And the scene was a remarkably funny panel. It was a picture of a supposed well-groomed boy running with his pants down and a few street kids trying to steal it from him. One could simply deduce how Ichinomiya Kou grew up in a sheltered environment if those runts could bully an almost college graduate into losing his pants. His pants ended up getting hung on a relatively high area of the bridge (stop wondering how the kids managed to do that; I quit after thinking of three ‘plausible’ ways.) Now our high-profile loser was bent on retrieving his pants without anyone’s help–never mind that he looked silly just wearing his boxers at the side of the bridge, risking ‘indecent exposure’ to the girl with a fishing rod who offered to fish it for him.

I simply loved his conflict at this stage. Every time the girl offers help, he would resort to a flashback of how his principle ruled his life–from his manly babysitter to his early exposure at the company, and each memory is amusing. Quite an imagination, that he has. I could say that he was really tempted to throw the towel at the ring (especially when he realized that no matter what he does, he would be showing his junior to the world). But no, he trudged on and protected his reputation as “The Man Who Can’t Be In Debt To Anyone”, which was the chapter’s title. You can either admire his perseverance… or laugh at him for his stupidity. (Come on, can’t the son of the “world’s  best enterprise” call a copter or something and order them to get it for him? Haha.) Therefore in his refusal, he fell (duh) on the water and almost drowned because of the pipe that was weighing him down. When his consciousness returned, not only did he find himself french kissing a fish and still without his trousers, the girl also just informed him that he owed her his life. The very thing that he was avoiding. When I wrote the last two sentences, it seemed so anti-climactic. But when I think about it, I know that the fun has just begun. Just how would he take that ‘devastating’ news? And just what would the girl ask from him? Well the answer is pretty much given, but hey, I’ve just read the first chapter and simply jotting down my first impressions on this creation.

Hook, line, sinker
The art is simple, but not generic anime-looking. In some pages, the characters looks mature. Ichinomiya is usually drawn comically, and I notice that the bridge girl has a rather wide forehead. It’s not your everyday anime art, but the style grows on you after a while. Overall, I find this a quirky read. The transition from one scene to another is smooth; like a well-delivered joke with punchlines coming in smoothly one after the other. Reading through the first chapter of Arakawa Under the Bridge made me feel like I was a fish. Someone cast a line and I fell for the bait: ”Humans are so picky,” said the girl from the bridge. “Here they live with so many people, yet they choose only one person to be theirs.” I was owned; hook, line, sinker. And that was just the first page. There was no dull moment or wasted page in this chapter. I turned the last page, knowing and believing that the next chapter would deliver the same effect to me.

I shall post this now, and will continue to happily read through.

A few months ago, I’ve gone on an extreme manga marathon mode. I’ve read romantic comedies like crazy–from Akuma to Love Song (unfinished), Skip Beat (unfinished; impatiently waiting for the next update), Kaichou wa Maid-sama (unfinished), Cherry Juice, Dengeki Daisy, Gojinko Monogatari, Kimi wa Petto… suffice to say, these are just but some of the titles I’ve read. I sort of grew tired of reading the same plots with a few unique twist for each manga. I love the variation of each mangas artworks though so I guess that’s partly the reason why I kept on reading even thought I can pretty much predict what happens next.

This prompted me to search for some other genres. Maybe I should go back to reading action/thriller/mystery types? I bought Kamen Tantei and wasn’t disappointed. Two high school teens co-writes a mystery manga and won a competition. Turns out that their lead character comes to life to save them during tight spots in their amateur detective investigations at school. I reread Naruto, Bleach and eventually got hooked on Beelzebub. I also turned to reading sports mangas then. I read Crimson Hero (volleyball), Beach Stars (beach volleyball), Bamboo Blade (kendo), Over Drive (cycling), and Kuroko no Basket (basketball) before I finally found gems like Fantasista and Area no Kishi, both of which are heavily into soccer. Fantasista focuses more on the technicalities of soccer and how a ‘provincial’ guy would fare in a junior league through the help of his ace coach sister as a local ‘fantasista’, a term given to players who can stir overwhelming emotions in the audience making them anticipate for every play that he will make. While Fantasista is somewhat a me-and-the-world-of-soccer, Area no Kishi (Knight of the Area) focuses more on the position of ‘knight’ to the soccer ‘king’. It is deeply emotional and made me shed a tear or two. In here, the lead character’s personal life has affected much of his soccer career and team unity is highly explored in this manga.

These two currently remain unfinished as well. And therein lies my want to find more sports manga. They aren’t updated as regularly as the other mangas I’ve been reading and I needed to fill in that void in my sports series. And then I found Baby Steps by Kachiku Hakiru. The manga tells the story of E-chan Marou or “All A”. As expected, he’s a straight-laced, straight-A type of guy at school. He’s borderline obsessive-compulsive with his note-taking and has “honour student” written all over him when you meet him. As a freshie in high school, he decided to exercise at least once a week just to fill in his “honour student planner” (according to his school friend). Before he could even decide on it, his mom pushed him to attend STC or the local Southern Tennis Club where he met Natsu once again, another freshie from class 2 who borrowed his notes and dirtied it accidentally. E-chan, being a perfectionist, has been pushing himself to recreate the sensation he felt upon hitting a ball correctly while he was being temporarily coached by Natsu, who happens to be one of the club’s top players. On one of his practices, Natsu spied the determination and E-chan’s overwhelming focus to make things happen the way it needs to happen and decides that E-chan will be force to reckon with if she and Takuma, another strong tennis player, stop improving.

I’ve read only until Chapter 3 and I’m really liking it so far. It has stirred a powerful interest in me. I wanted to know more about E-chan and I wanted to follow his ‘baby steps’ towards being a pro tennis player. I’m really a sucker for people who try really hard for something they want. It reminds me of the days that I used to practice for a number of hours just to perfect a particular move. It also brings back the feelings of finally being able to do a certain attack with such ease after practicing. It would be easy for any reader to relate to E-chan’s determination and I guess us interested readers would be following closely how Natsu sees E-chan’s skills.

Of course, to spice up this manga is a seemingly love triangle in the making between the normal-looking E-chan, the school idol Natsu, and the tall, arrogant ass-type Takuma. From what I’ve read so far, Kachiku Hikaru has managed to pinch a good amount of comedy and seriousness into this piece. I’ll definitely be looking forward to reading more chapters of this manga.

Currently reading at www.onemanga.com/Baby_Steps.

Then I got the most exciting project at work as of late. I am to write a 5-issues worth of script for one of our games. The issue will be an independent publication. I’m practically having a nerdgasm upon receiving this project. This is the kind of break that I needed and I hope that I do well on this project. This is the motivation I’m looking for to finally finish a story.

What we’re aiming for in this comic is to give life to the 4 main characters of the story. I don’t plan any of the stories to become half-baked so I delved deeper into their boxed characterization and researched more about their motives via the old files that I edited. I am to do a background story of the game and make it easier for the players to parallelize themselves in the main characters’ stories. That, and for them to symphatize in the cause. I hope the project turns out right.

~Mother, from All the Wrong Reasons by RockFan

It’s an old and overused line already: I’m tired, I’m suffocated, and I’m overly pissed off already. I woke up to lazy Sunday morning with nothing but thoughts of hoping that  the December days would pass by me every time I blink. My Sunday plans had been shot down the drain; all the excitement I was trying to pool or muster for the past few days have dissipated after a well-aimed head shot a few hours before I woke up.

I never got out of bed. I read some fiction off my cellphone to help me clear my mind; escape from whatever was bothering me again or else I’ll succumb to the old me’s moments of breakdown whenever I’m alone. I drifted in and out of sleep for the whole day, wishing that I was on another Time when I open my eyes. Of course, that was shooting for the moon.

I’ve never asked for more than what’s necessary. I just wanted to live a simple life: just me dictating what and how I use my Time. Most people have said that I’ve a lot to be thankful for. Sure, thanks; but that doesn’t mean I can’t wish for an improvement.

The ideal situation I’ve been wanting seems normal enough. I sometimes lose a sight of me. And it seems like I’m going back to square one. New level, but still square one. It’s clearly fucking me up. I could write and rant the whole day and any reader would not have an idea what I’m talking about. I’m just tired and whenever I think of other different situations, I just feel weak-kneed. It feels like I’m never gonna find my solace from “that”. I’d have disappeared once again to a place far away from “that” if only I didn’t have a gold band on my finger. It’s the only thing that’s been keeping me hopeful. I just hope I’m strong enough to sustain the crush, because I feel that my old wounds are slightly opening again.

I don’t want to go back to that dark place again… Please don’t push me back there again. I’m tired. I love you and all but you drain the life out of me… Just, please.

He got a copy of the anime version of this old RPG “Tales of the Abyss” for me a week ago when I craving for an anime marathon. I watched it over the weekend and completely fell in love with the anime. I liked it so much to the point of wanting to play the game. It’s a story about a guy named Luke von Fabre who was destined to bring prosperity to Auldrant, as prophesized by the great Yulia in the planet’s Score. But an RPG wouldn’t be complete without some group trying to stop this from happening or the protagonist’s group of friends (or reluctant comrade in arms) to support him. Tales of the Abyss completely blew me away. The anime was well-paced, has a good mix of humor, beautifully rendered fight scenes and very memorable characters. *sob*

Aside from its engaging story, it has an equally beautiful soundtrack. Its opening song was sung by Bump of Chicken (“K“, “Tentai Kenzouko”) called Karma (or KARUMA) and the lyrics couldn’t have been more apt for the anime. I’ve been listening to it for days already and trying (helplessly) to sing along with it. Just hearing its opening strains in the anime gives me the goosebumps.

Karma by Bump of Chicken – Opening Song in the Anime:

Karma lyrics

Garasudama hitotsu    otosareta    oikakete mou hitotsu okkochita
Hitotsubun no hidamari ni    hitotsu dake nokotteru

I dropped a marble; when I chased after it, I dropped another
Only one remains in a single sunny spot

Shinzou ga hajimatta toki    iya demo hito ha basho wo toru
Ubawarenai you ni    mamoritsudzuketeru

The moment their hearts begin to beat, like it or not, people claim their own place
They keep protecting it so that it isn’t snatched away

Yogosazu ni tamotte kita te demo    yogorete mieta
Kioku wo utagau mae ni    kioku ni utagawareteru

Though I kept my hands clean, they look dirty
Before I doubt my memory, my memory will doubt me

Kanarazu bokura wa deau darou    onaji kodou no oto wo mejirushi ni shite
Koko ni iru yo    itsudatte yonderu kara
Kutabireta riyuu ga    kasanatte yureru toki
Umareta imi wo shiru

We’ll meet each other for sure, making our identical heartbeats into our landmarks
I am here, because I’m always calling
When our worn-out motives overlap and tremble,
I’ll know the meaning of my birth

Sonzai ga tsudzuku kagiri    shikata nai kara basho wo toru
Hitotsubun no hidamari ni    futatsu ha chotto hairenai

So long as we continue to exist, we can’t help but claim our own place
It’s impossible for two to enter a single sunny spot

Garasudama hitotsu    otosareta    ochita toki    nanika hajikedashita
Ubaitotta basho de    hikari wo abita

I dropped a marble; when it fell, something split open
It bathed in light at the place where I plundered it

Kazoeta ashiato nado    kidzukeba suuji de shika nai
Shiranakya ikenai koto ha    douyara ichi to zero no aida

When you think about it, the footsteps you’ve counted are nothing but numbers
Somehow, what I have to know is somewhere between “one” and “zero”

Hajimete bokura wa deau darou    onaji himei no hata wo mejirushi ni shite
Wasurenaide    itsudatte yonderu kara
Kasaneta riyuu wo futari de umeru toki
Yakusoku ga kawasareru

We’ll meet each other for the first time, making our same scream’s flags into our landmarks
Don’t forget, because I’m always calling
When we bury our collective motives together,
We will exchange a promise

Kagami nanda    bokura tagai ni
Sorezore no karuma wo    utsusu tame no
Yogoreta te to te de    sawariatte
Katachi ga wakaru

We are mirrors, each of us meant
To reflect every bit of the other’s karma
We will touch each other’s dirtied hands
And grasp their shape

Koko ni iru yo    tashika ni sawareru yo
Hitoribun no hidamari ni    bokura ha iru

I am here, I can definitely feel you
We are here in the same sunny spot

Wasurenaide    itsudatte yonderu kara    onaji garasudama no uchigawa no hou kara
Sou sa    kanarazu bokura ha deau darou    shizumeta riyuu ni juujika wo tateru toki
Yakusoku wa hatasareru
Bokura wa hitotsu ni naru

Don’t forget, because I’m always calling from inside the same marble
That’s right, we’ll meet each other for sure; when we build a cross on our submerged motives
We will fulfill our promise
We will become one

They were after us

My dad and I were off to somewhere. He was driving and I was in the passenger seat. It was raining. The sky was purple…

I was standing on the bed in the guest room near the tinted sliding window, a flimsy translucent pina cloth covering my nakedness. My mom was on the floor doing something with a bunch of scraps of cloth with an impassive look on her face. My dad was in the garage reaching out through the window and trying to grab my cover. I slap his hands away and cry out for him to quit what he was doing…

I slapped his arm once again and when I look at my hand, I was clutching a silver necklace with a pendant in the shape of a cornucopia.I was assaulted with a flashback of the pendant’s history: it was owned by a dwarf who fell in love with a human woman. He gave up the essence and his nature of being a dwarf–his image, his powers–and turned human to wed the woman. A battle happened in his old world and he was summoned back as a human. He died and his wife was carrying his child.

The woman disappeared from her town for a while. When she got back, she brought a healthy baby girl with her. The baby was wearing the silver necklace with the cornucopia pendant. The woman’s return was celebrated by her friends, including me. We were seated inside a bamboo treehouse, a TV mounted on the trunk of the tree. Looking down from where we are, I saw an open sarisari store and a bunch of guys were there.

Our group walked out and went inside a dark room with several seats, a stage upfront. I later realized that it was an opera house but it was being used in secret by “our” people and where the “other” people (from the sarisari store) hold meetings. Then every activity stopped. Someone announced that the owners of the opera house has arrived. Everyone went into a state of panic. The side doors burst open and I looked back. I saw a group of people dressed like they were the very audience of the Phantom of the Opera. They looked very regal, confident… and looked very much like they were about to kill us.

I flew out through the entrance doors opposite the stage. I was welcomed by the ocean with rocks as tall as an average human person. Someone mentioned that the war between the vampires and the stone people started a long way back. I now assume that I am part of this Stone People. And that behind the shores and the large boulders lie the portal to a safe dimension. All I definitely knew at that moment was that they were after our princess… Our Baby Fish Princess and they were after the pendant.

Our group reached a hilltop with a number of abandoned houses. Our group was divided into smaller groups, each finding an abandoned house to fortify and serve as defense lines. I found an old two-seater chair and lifted up the seat. I made myself fit in the space before covering myself up in the seat. I don’t know how long I’ve stayed there but I survived an attack in that hiding place.

Someone suggested that we should all try to hide in the most unexpected places, or better yet, hide in plain sight. I thought it was kind of ridiculous but I was pointed to hide on top of a shelf cabinet in the living room, which is completely visible to the front door. As I lay down on my side, someone placed a green plastic divider and placed it between me and the edge of the shelf to hide me. The mother of our Fish Princess hid in the cabinet at the corner of the room with her on the lap. The cabinet had glass doors. Right after our “general” secured us, the door burst open and a vampire man stood there, wearing a loose white long-sleeved polo tucked in beige breeches. He looked right at me and at the person hiding on the shelf I was on top of. I jumped out of the window and into the next house and I was chased by more rabid vampire people. I managed to avoid them. The next thing I know, I hear the mother screaming from the other house. She was saying that she left her princess alone in the room. The mother was crying loudly and was very angry at the vampires for destroying the 18th birthday celebration of her daughter. These vampires are kind of unusual since they attack us during the day. At night, we were free to roam around. That time, night was approaching already and we were confident that the vampires would retreat. When the vampires retreated, we went in search of our princess and found her on the toilet bowl… She has finally morphed into a fish and was still wearing the necklace.

She told us something about the necklace and then everyone was going out of their houses. She told us of a plan to finally defeat the vampires. We took off our clothes and changed into the clothes we found in the abandoned houses. I was feeling icky when I had to do that because I thought that dead people wore these clothes and we didn’t even have time to wash them. The plan of the princess was to confuse the vampires because they can only sense us via our scents. They cannot truly “see.” She said that when the vampires attack, we should all lead them to the edge of the hilltop where the golden boulders are. Before we were finishing with our strategies, daylight came and I was forced to hide behind a door of a house nearest me. A vampire soon found me and I ran screaming for the golden boulders. I picked up a golden rock and threw it at the clad-in-white vampires and to my surprise, it hurt them. They started to bleed every time we hit them with a golden rock.

I still don’t know if I survived or who won in that battle. I don’t know if the Fish Princess lived and if her mom is still carrying her around in the palm of her hand. And I still don’t know the deal with the cornucopia pendant. I was curious but the dream just ended the moment I realized I could kill a vampire with the gold rock.

~~~

I had made it a habit of writing down every oddest dream that I’ve ever had since I started taking interest in literary fiction. I’ve had the devil chasing after me with his pitchfork, walking upside down on the stairs while being stared at by a headless barong, found myself as a cyborg in post-apocalyptic high tech world, getting mocked by own reflection as I pray, and dying countless times in different ways.

For quite a while, there hasn’t been anything that left me wondering or shocked or scared when I wake up. Then the cycle started all over again. Recently, some of my dreams spoke of a central theme… and some scenes have come true. This is the latest dream that I had and I remember to write down the keywords on my phone upon waking up… and hoping to make sense out of some instances. Or maybe take some of these as plot inspirations.

Keywords / Dream sequence:
Long drive with dad
Dark garage/guest room
Dwarf pendant
Girl who got pregnant
Gave birth to a cute girl
Celebration
Angas boys
Chase
Opera
Opera owners arrived
Chase
Vampire versus stone people
Houses with hiding places
Girl with pendant turns to fish
18th biirthday
Gold rock and stone people…

Has it ever happened to you? You know something’s up, but you cannot exactly pinpoint where these strange vibes are coming from.

For weeks I’ve noticed a shift in my working environment. Maybe I was merely amassing this general feeling because I was feeling it too. Disappointment and dissatisfaction, that is. It seems like there’s a brewing conspiracy here. Something that could get me fired. Or if not, something is going to happen and I would end up being responsible for it.

I can’t help but feel a bit ostracized or something. It’s not that I feel glum about being left out. I’m kinda used to being an odd one out. But there’s just something in the air that smells funny. Yeah, yeah, one could even take that one quite in literal sense.

I can’t help but more suspicious than ever. I don’t think the people here are happy with me right now. Maybe they feel that I’ve slacked off with my workload? There’s no use itemizing all the things that I’ve been doing. All that I know right now is that as much as possible, I’m gathering enough energy to finish everything that has been dumped on me so far without getting work in the way of other things. Like my life.

What just pisses me off is that there’s something going behind my back and I’m pretty sure that it has something to do with me. I don’t like it one bit. And my intuition with these type of things are hardly ever wrong. This time, I’d like to be proven wrong. Tension at the workplace is the least thing I want right now.