Impressions: About Hana-Saku Iroha Episode 19 And This Anime In General

If someone had asked me 6 weeks ago what my favourite anime was, I would have answered "Hana-Saku Iroha" immediately. I really enjoyed the first half of it, however, the second half just doesn't seem to be as good. I don't know if it's just me, but even after almost 20 episodes, the characters still feel kind of superficial. Excluding Ohana, obviously, she's a doll! And her storyline is basically the only thing that keeps me interested in this anime, the issues with Kou, her mother and grandmother are the things I look most forward to.

Episode 19. A quick summary: as an aftermath of episode 18, Nako seems to have really opened up herself more to her work colleagues, which can be seen when she compliments Ren-san for having a cool looking gash in his eyebrow ( well, you have got to give her props for the compliment's originality at the very least). Minko is acting as she does usually, she's grumpy and tsundere all the time, except for the times when there is something that has to do with Tohru. Here, for instance, she's mad about him talking happily with my cute Ohana.

At school, it's festival time and 2-A's decided to do a cafe. The people are split into two groups: maids (Yuina is the leader here) and cooks (Minko doesn't want to take up the role of the leader at first but changes her mind after she finds out that Tohru will be visiting the festival). Ohana, meanwhile, is really feeling the "bonbori" spirit and can't wait for the festival to kick in. On the other hand, Nako's class isn't oh so enthusiastic and only Nako and another artist girl are in charge of organising an art exhibition.

As this is a two episode arc meant for fleshing out Minko, it ends with a bang when it comes to her and her cooking group's meeting, where she shows her hypocritical self after telling off a girl for mixing up work and personal life. My dear Minko, at least learn to conceal the hypocrisy that possesses you, as do other hypocrits.

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Thoughts: what can I say - I've never been a fan of Minchi, and now I like her even less. To me she's just a stuck up tsundere, who talks gibberish and never gets the rightful answer back (meaning a good slap in the face for a wake up call). On the bright side, the scenes that took place in the inn were as pleasant as ever, I believe that these every day scenes are what make this show shine.

Give me money

Lately, I've been really feeling the need of having more money. I don't know whether the time has come for me to invest more into my looks or what (no, not plastic surgery, simple makeup and clothes still do it for me) but I really need to find a source of money. And fast. Smartass people would probably advise me to get a job. And kudos to them - the advice is as good as it gets. However, it's already kind of late into the summer, and in the country I live in nobody really wants to employ people for such s short period of time like 1 month.  So this option needs to be ruled out - at least for now.

But, my dear friends,  I have thought up an idea which would help me get some money. I decided to sell my old children books online. It's been going pretty well actually, have sold over 10 books in just a week. My only observation so far is this - my clients have been solely women. Does that indicate that men read less books? I don't think so. Though honestly, back at school, I really had no guy classmates that liked reading books. If it weren't for the books you simply had to read for literature classes, some would have stayed completely ignorant to such a way of passing time as reading. I guess that means that compulsory education does have its advantages because getting a person into the habit of reading books is no easy feat. I even heard that if you don't get used to reading before you're 18 years old, you never will. A big loss, I'd say. I once had an argument with a friend about how much experience a book can give you. He argued that there are just a few books one has to read during one's whole life and that everything should be experienced by the person himself. I disagreed. Books really have taught me some things, i.e.  romance like that from 18th century doesn't exist in real life. Well, obviously, I guess, since it's the 21st century now. O.K., I seem to have gone way off topic here.

Back to the money issue. Here's a summary for what I wanted to say in the first place about money. I want it. I need it. I can't live without it. The funny thing is - I don't consider myself a materialist.

The first blast off

Hey there, everybody or nobody (cause I'm not expecting any visitors on my blog, really)!

Just as my blog's title states above, I'm very bored. I've just finished high school this spring and am waiting for my going to university in fall. By the way, I'll be going to study abroad (in UK, so this blog is also an opportunity to enhance my written English), so the waiting is of the scary kind. Anyway, thought I would share a revelation I've made over the summer - a person should have friends. Seriously. If I had known this earlier, I would have tried harder to, you know, do the mysterious thing called "going out" or "hanging out". Maybe then this summer wouldn't be as drawn out as it is to me at the moment. Well, most people have probably made this revelation when they were at the very least 10 years younger than I am now, but what can I say, except for you live and you learn. Because apparently, my initial opinion that one is just fine on his own was wrong. Ugh, who would have thought that a day would come when I actually admit I was wrong about something? And here I thought I wouldn't have to admit that for at least another decade.

Anyway, I thought I should also say what I'm going to write about in this blog. So from the topics that come to mind now: anime, rock/alternative music and last but not least - "the random".

If I had to give an advice to my readers (who I don't think will ever be existent) - don't expect much from me, and that's a warning! Because I easily get bored and might drop blogging altogether after just the introductory post. That's just how I am. In my whole life I've only been able to stick to being interested in playing the piano, music in general and Japanese culture. I think that expectations from other people of any sort should be very minimal in every person's life, else you won't be able to deal with all the disappointments that will keep coming your way. How about that, at least I made THIS revelation about 10 years earlier than some of my peers. This could be just my wishful thinking, though. Or the thinking of a coward (referring to the my personal "revelation" statement before).

Would love to post a picture to sort of liven up my writings a bit, yet I can't because of technical problems on my side. Note to self - buy a memory card reader.