SerasAshley's Blog

Anime Relations: Howl no Ugoku Shiro

While I was reading Annarasumanara, I experienced several emotions along the way, but the main one is that it serves as a reminder that once we become adults, and assume that mantle of maturity and responsibility, that we forget to take the time to look around and appreciate the simple things in life. We lose our innocence, and can't just appreciate things as they are, but often times look for deeper meanings, instead of just taking it as it comes. We can often feel guilty, and don't like to engage in "childish " pursuits as we can feel it allows us to stray too far from that adulthood, and the tasks we have to accomplish. Heck I have been chided about watching anime on several occasions by others since they see it as "for kids."

Children have that freedom to immerse themselves in fantasy, and magical worlds, and feel the wonder and awe in things. As adults we are too jaded, and negative, to sometimes enjoy life, as we know how challenging life can be. Once we have set upon a course of action to accomplish our goals, we can become blind to other options that may arise and lets face it, we forget to have fun along the way. Just like Na, Il-Deung, we can find ourselves on that asphalt road, and it is indeed a hard and lonely way to travel.

This story reminded me to take the time and enjoy life more, to celebrate the small wins as well as the big ones, and to try and remember all the good things that are all around me. And despite the fact that my life, as it is for so many of us , has had it's share of tragedy along the way and challenges, I do believe in magic ^_^

When I started watching anime regularly, I guess it would be safe to say that I was an action junkie. Of course, at the time that was pretty much all I had access too-the shows that were shown on TV on Toonami and Adult Swim.

After joining my first anime forum though (Anime Zen) I read how others acquired their anime, and I learned about the various sites, and tools, to use to acquire my own.
At this time it would still be safe to say that action shows still dominated my viewing habits, but now I could see them in the original Japanese, and far less edited. (RK is a show that I really need to revisit and watch all of, I saw the toonami version.) Shows like Trigun, Big O, Scryed, Hellsing, Gungrave and many others still hold a special place in my heart.

Now, I am not one to believe in fairy tail romance stuff, (for various reasons) so I was loathe to try any anime in this genre, so I kind of started my branching out in shows with comedy/ecchi content. Shows like DearS, He is My Master, Excel Saga, Abenobashi, Azumanga Daioh showed me that there can be laughs and life lessons without all the action.

Then I decided to watch Slice of Life, and yes the aforementioned romance genre. Fruits Basket is one of the first shows I watched, and although it has action, it does have a lot of drama as well as the romance aspects to it.

After the success of shows like Kanon, Air, Clannad it seems that more shows than ever were being produced along those lines. I went with the flow, and found myself watching shows and making myself finish them, even when they were not too my taste and left me feeling unsatisfied. (kind of like censored Hentai, or Decaff, what's the point?)

Lately a large debate exists about shows being produced with nothing new or innovative in them, and many of these just have ecchi content added to draw in the viewers.Now there is nothing bad about ecchi, and if it is there for a reason it can be hilarious and greatly enhance a show. For example in Elfen Lied and DearS the clothing issues both of the female leads had were funny. I found the perverted aspects of He is My Master also fun to watch. One show that had plenty of ecchi moments in it that I feel detracted from the show, and were added in just because they had nothing else, was The Sacred Blacksmith. All the constant boob jokes (by other females mainly) were just overkill, and the female lead needed the help of the very unlikeable male lead constantly.

These are just shows of the top of my head there are many others that I could list.


There are many shows that came out in the spring that I really like, Durarara!!, Hakuouki, House of Five Leaves etc. I am really glad that I have given other genre's a try even though some shows were not too my taste. If I hadn't, I would have missed seeing Nodame and Chiaki, The Minami Sisters, the awesome Honey & Clover franchise, and other shows like Lovely Complex and Kemono no Souja Erin. And a special mention must go to Kimi ni Todoke: just a wonderful show, and my favorite romance (yes I said that word) show.

But still I have to say that even though my tastes have changed, and been refined over these last couple of years, I still find myself drawn back to action. Currently I am waiting to see more of The Hellsing OVA, and other such awesome ness, because after all the heart tugging sweetness and life lessons, I need a little bloodshed.

A little butt-kicking after all the sweetness does a body good!

I heard about MYAnimeList on other anime/manga forums I am a member of, and I recently saw a link in a member's post on one of those forums, so I followed it. I wasn't going to join up, but I thought about it, and I realized that it would be very nice to have a database that I could check from time to time to remind myself just what I have watched, and what I had never gotten around to finishing, and what I would like to watch, as like a lot of people, I lose track of series sometimes, because let's face it- there is SO much one could watch if we only had time ^_^

Most of the anime series in my dropped list are ones that I saw on TV, or watched on a friend's DVD. I have Anime Network (which recently changed though to the Funimation Network( basically) on my cable Provider. Which is not bad, but before the entire series would be free,( some still are) but now they tease you with the first episode and you have to pay for the rest- again, not bad, but I am rather broke at the moment, and I do prefer my anime subbed for the most part- there are exceptions though. I must admit that some of the series on the dropped list are some I tried and just did not find to my liking.

So when I started this list, I realised it is a labor of love, as there is really no way I can recall ALL of the anime I have watched, and some (Like DBZ and Pokemon) are such large series, there is no way you can recall it all if you watched it on tv like I did so long ago. (and some of course I dislike now but still I watched it so I am trying to include it all Remeber Hamtaro or Ultimate Muscle?).

A surprising thing occurred while I was looking up anime . I needed to jar my memory, and I found out several series I watched when I was very young were anime, and I didn't even realise it then. Series such as Maya the Bee - I never knew it was anime. Maybe shows like those started me off on this anime journey, and if so, I owe them a large debt of gratitude because to me, anime is not just images on a screen, it is a artform and one that can convey many emotions and cause me to feel all those varying emotions as well. Anime has it all : Drama, comedy, romance, horror, fantasy-you name it and anime can supply it.

I will continue this journey of mine, and I am glad to be able to look at this list and see just where I have gone and know where I wish to head in the future.

Thanks for this site. ^_^