Garamon's Land of Fun

A week or so ago I ordered the anime "Whisper Of The Heart" online. You know the Studio Ghibli film. A few days later it landed in my  mailbox.

Oh. My. God. What a great film! This is one of the best films... hmm well at least one of the best drawn films that I have ever seen! It's so damn good! Besides the extremely good craftmanship of the drawings, which is present in most if not all of Studio Ghibli's productions, the story is great too in my opinion.

I'll just say a little about it story-wise, and try not to spoil anything. Shizuku is a young girl who... no I don't think I can say anymore without spoiling the story for you. OK I can say this much I guess: There's a cat named Moon or Muta that you might think is not very important to the story, but if you think about it then you might decide that he/she is important anyway.

This is what I suggest: Watch "Whisper Of The Heart". Then watch "The Cat Returns" (also by Studio Ghibli). Both films are connected in a way, and having watched one greatly enhances the enjoyment of watching the other. I suggest you watch them in that order too, but it's not very important. Myself I didn't, but that was because I didn't know any better. :)

They can both be watched independently though, but as mentioned you should really watch both.

The "Tveita" in the headline? It's my cat, a 13 year old tiger-striped female. Although it being a bit off-topic I thought I'd mention her anyway.

She's a regular cat, no particular race I think but I love her. She's extremely cute and very well-behaved. :)

Tveita:

Tveita

I wonder if the use of the word "have" is going to disappear soon. I see lots of people substituting it with the word "of"; like when they write "should of" instead of "should have". I don't know if they actually think that "of" is an appropriate word to use in that context, or if they're just too lazy to write the slightly longer "have".

Maybe it's a result of texting. When writing SMS messages people often tend to shorten words, or in other ways modify them so that they can write the messages faster.

If it's so damn important to write as fast as possible, then why not take it further? Why not get rid of, or alter, other annoyingly long words too? I mean it not only makes you write faster, it also gives the reader a lot less to read!

Let's say you spent one minute to read what I wrote above. Let me try to write it more efficiently...

I wndr f "have"'s gnna go soon. Lotsa peeps use "of" insted, tats cool! "Of"'s lots better! Txt mssgs showed u te way, txt mssgs rulez!!

Wrting fast's way imprtnt! Lose lotsa long boring wrds, ten we cn wrt fast'n reed fast!

The paragraph above said about the same as the first paragraph, but used a lot less words. I can see other benifits too: People use less paper for printing. If you lose a few keys on your keyboard you can still use it. These aspects shows that the new way of writing is also environmentally friendly, in that it lessens the use of natural resources.

Conclusion: To hell with "have" in my opinion. Good riddance!

After watching Hitomi Shimatani's "Angelus" PV, which I downloaded some time ago (don't remember when), I got to thinking a bit. Let me first say that I loved it at once, and it bugged me not remembering when or where I got it and not having watched it sooner. It's a great piece of music and video in my opinion.

The PV immediately reminded me of Bon-Bon Blanco, which I think is not surprising since "Angelus" is heavily latino-inspired, as is most of B3's songs - at least the ones I've heard. 

By the way, if you don't know what B3 (short for Bon-Bon Blanco) is, then don't feel ashamed... they're only one of the most talented and under-promoted jpop bands around....

Namida no Hurricane is one of my favorites:

The similarities between the B3 ones I've seen and this Hitomi PV, inevitably led me to compare them. My conclusion was that I like them all, though I'd like to elaborate a bit...

I LUUURV B3, I have since I first saw and heard them. I LOVE the songs, the girls and their genki-ness, and above all I love their vocalist Anna Santos. She's an extremely talented singer/artist, and a beautiful young girl to boot.

Hitomi Shimatani is pretty new to me. I've seen a couple of PVs but they didn't do much for me. "Angelus" is different in that respect. I loved it at once! In fact when I first saw it I thought that it might be a B3 video that I named wrongly. (After having watched it a few times, and also the other videos I have of her, I can safely say that it's Hitomi Shimatani though. :))

I love her voice and her beauty. She has a very, very good voice in my humble opinion, and she's really pretty - hmm I already said that I think.

Now here's my point: With all Hitomi's beauty and skill and her one lovely song (based on "Angelus"), and B3's beauty and skill and lovely songs, I think I prefer the latter. Why? Because B3 is cuter in my opinion.

I think Hitomi has such a good voice that if she wanted she could become a singer of classical music. B3 has something else though, something I have a hard time putting into words... It has something to do with un-professionalism I think... a naivet'e maybe, something which I find very endearing, like Sayumi's (Morning Musume) singing voice for example.

To conclude: I think that skill might be combined with cuteness, but you'll have to look long and hard to find both. One exception that springs to mind - besides B3 - is W (Double-U), with Nozomi Tsuji and Ai Kago.