Oh Holy Hell

I have never felt more icky in my life.

( Cut For Health TMI )

Now I'm shunning food and hoping this passes. I swear, I will stop whining about my health soon. :/

Observations On Shifting Trends

As some of you know, I have a 12 year old niece. She's in middle school, she's popular, she's at the top of the social totem pole. Earlier this year, I got her the first DVD of Fruits Basket. I didn't know how she'd take to it - she'd seen my manga and some of my anime DVDs, and she knew that lennaofmidearth and I watched anime, but I figured it couldn't hurt. And the first DVD was the only DVD of the series I was missing, so if she didn't like it, it wouldn't be a waste.

Fast forward about a month. She's watching the series over and over again every day. She has it memorized. She's introduced it to all of her friends. They all love it. I'm boggled. Lenna is boggled. We're amazed by this. We start looking around into other anime to show her. I don't bother with manga because I had no idea how she'd take to it. Neither Lenna nor I are big manga readers. And besides, it's easier to get anime than manga out here in Middle of Nohwere.

Last week, I'm out on the deck smoking. D (my neice) comes out. She's holding something in her hand. She walks up to me and asks 'hey auntie, have you read this manga yet?'. I don't even remember the title of the series, I was too busy going 'where did she get this?!?' and 'holy crap, my niece is bringing me manga!' It was a Shoujo Beat title, some middle school romance. And it was volume three....

( Mechas to Mainstream: Anime Then and Anime Now )