Slash of consciousness on "Miss Hokusai"

Oh, the nostalgia... I too have a dad who taught me how to draw. Well, he didn't actually "teach" me, but rather helped me discover that I happen to have a flexible wrist when it comes to putting pencil to paper. When I was 4, he drew a horse on a napkin and asked me to look at it and draw one myself. Other than horses, I could copy all the animals he drew almost perfectly, but whenever it came to horses, as soon as I made a mistake, my dad would take the piece of paper from under my fingers, crumble it, throw it away, put a fresh piece of paper in front of me and exclaim "again!". It was so much fun, that I remember making some mistakes deliberately.

My father is far from being a shy man... but if I ever were to draw erotic pictures and he'd find them, I'd be in for an ass whooping, I'm telling you that much - and I'm in my 20's, mind you!

Quick overview of Keiichi Hara’s Miss Hokusai...

The relationship between O-Ei and her father, Master Hokusai: two halves of the same brain; the relationship between O-Ei and her blind younger sister, Onao: two halves of the same heart; the relationship between O-Ei and the rest of the world: two halves of the same spirit - really, the entire movie is so heart-clenchingly well balanced, it's just.... AAaaagh! *!I want to be Japanese!* 

It's funny, because as I was watching the movie come to an end, it dawned on me: the dynamics are SO good, that you can't tell if there are a lot of things happening while leaving the impression that nothing is happening at all OR that nothing is happening while leaving the impression that too many things are happening at once!

I don't want to spoil too much, but fuck it, I actually do: the entire movie is a canvas of realism. Here and there though, you have instances of fantasy, but these instances come in perfect amount and are SO well elaborated, that they don't bother at all, but the contrary - they enforce the realism and authenticity of everything that's happening and yes, if this sounds familiar to what Hayao Miyazaki is doing in his movies, I'll have you know that he uses the exact same technique, but the other way around (canvas of fantasy with instances of realism to make the fantasy stronger. get it? No? That's okay, I sometimes can't understand the way my head works either.) 

It's an absolutely beautiful movie, and don't let the erotic picture-painting session I mentioned at the beginning of this Slash fool you: it's a kid-safe movie. If you're an open-minded parent, that is. I actually find it kind of funny that master Hokusai finds his daughter's erotic paintings and says that she needs more "experience in the field" to draw them more realistically. What the hell, man?! When I was 16, my dad said that I'll be damned if I won't remain a virgin until I'm 30! God bless the Edo period, I guess...

I love the simplicity of the animation style, really, creators, it's a home run - nothing braids realism as well as good 'ol 2D, eh?! If the animation would have contained some multi-dimensional visuals like AOT or Ajin, I'm quite certain I wouldn’t have taken it as seriously. And *Yoda voice* take it seriously I did! I almost cried. I ALMOST cried and, so you know, there is not one melodramatic moment in the entire movie.

SPOILER ALERT: when Onao died, my heart ached as if she were MY little sister. I have no little siblings, mind you, I'm the youngest one of my sisters, but DAMN! Onao, you shall be missed... *sob*.

Slash of conciousness on "Blood Lad"

Oi! I just finished watching 'Blood Lad'.

A little background story before I dive into my little slash ('cause, yes. I tend to view my personal opinions as slashes): I f*cking hate vampires. No, really. I do.

They're EVERYWHERE. And, get this: I'm Romanian. Not only that, but I come from the Transylvanian part of Romania and I actually live quite close to the Bran castle (the 'Dracula' castle, FYI). I mean... a bus ride of max. 30 minutes is 'close', ain't  it? (No much to it, though, believe me. Just old furniture and a ton of rooms that are closed to the general public, but hey! Go visit Romania, it's an awesome country to visit anyhow. No sarcasm, really. You'll have TONS of fun.)

Back to me hating the fictive bloodsuckers: authors! And movie directors! Give it a rest already, we get it! Vampires are hot shit among fictional monsters. They suck the lives out of their victims from the main artery – that's the introduction to every sexual fantasy out there, we know, we have them ourselves, and we all understand why you needed to take Stoker's damned, ugly, smelly, creepily dressed and funny-accented creatures, to turn them to female fap-material. 'Cause, let's be honest: the fanGIRLdom is a super strong force. It is. Hell, would Kpop have been so strong if it weren't for the women that are shipping it 24/7? When it comes to idolizing, boys aren't even CLOSE  to what girls can do. Seriously, if women could focus their shipping skills on conquering the planet, men all over the world would be walking on all fours about now.

What are you tripping for? Get your panties out of your butt crack, you know I'm right.

Back to vampires: with all due respect to Stoker ('cause, hey, he gave birth to one of the coolest myths regarding my country), vampires are simply not what they used to be anymore. I read it all. I did. I'm a curious motherf*cker, I had to know what "twilight" is about and even though I hated it, I must admit: that Meyer chick knows her shit. She knew EXACTLY what to write about in order to get famous. The girl that wrote "50 shades of Grey", too. Haven't read it, but I recognized the "Meyer" recipe from the reviews and the general opinions she received. Aka, my girlfriends. Oh, I could see in all their eyes that they wet their seats at the cinema - and not ONE of them felt guilty about it. I'm tellin' ya: women is the devil! *wink*

Anybody ever heard of J. R. Ward? She wrote this series called "Black Dagger Brotherhood": it's "twilight" and "50 shades of Grey" combined. Vampires and pornography. F*ucking hate the vampire inserts because of all the reasons mentioned above, but the series is HOT. Read it all. Not proud of it. Deleted everything out of my Kindle as soon as I finished it, but I couldn't stop and refresh my IQ with some Clive Barker until it was DONE. I'll burn in a pink-walled bibliographic Hell, I know, don't remind me.

Sorry for traumatizing you with the exaggerated intro. Back to Blood Lad:

LOVED it! 10 episodes and I drank them all in one go, like coffee for a student on the night before the finals - finals he hasn't studied for, mind you. Oh, it was so refreshing... not the vampire inserts necessarily, but the HUMOUR.

God, how I love that witty, unexpected humor in the most *shit, son!* of situations. 

And the twists! I love me a good story twist, and even though nothing was *my mind just shat bricks* twisting, it was all pretty clever. Furthermore, if it’s something you're looking for in an anime, I'll have you know that the pacing of the plot is really good.

Like, really good.

Not great though, 'cause we've been promised a season 2 by 2015 by the... makers (I shall not insult hard working people who start new projects and forget about their UNFINISHED old ones) and, guess what! The first half of 2016 is almost over and NADA. No season 2 of the bloody lad. *sigh* And the OVA is terrible! Stay away from it! Start another series!

Oh well, it was a nice trip anyhow. Just finished a Staz portrait to post on my inspiration wall. If this blog ever grows to something good, I just might post a photo of the wall in question for you to see.

If you liked this post, I'm quite certain our tastes are similar and you'll want to see this wall of mine... see?! We barely know each other and we already have internal jokes. God bless the internet.