♣ Anime spring 2013 - final watch.

Anime musim semi uda lama diputer di tv. Beberapa judul uda mulai masuk ke bagian serunya. Yang pada bikin daftar anime musim semi yang mau ditonton, uda komentar ini itu. Ada yang suka, kecewa, bilang mau lanjut liat, ada yg berhenti.

Kalo aku? Aku masih liat tiga anime.
1. Suisei no Gargantia
Diiming-imingi nama Gen Urobutchi, aku langsung positif mau liat ini. Waktu pas liat, aku takut. Entah gimana, aku dapet kesan aku ga bakal suka. Soalnya sebelumnya aku liat posternya dulu langsung komentar, "Pipinya chubby". :P Tapi ternyata enggak (chubby, khayalan aja kayaknya). Setelah liat, aku suka. Walau aku rada kecewa karena aku agak expect anime ini nguras emosi macem Psycho-Pass.

Kenapa masih nonton? Karakternya, Led, mirip Heero Yuy. Tentara, militer, perilakunya stoic, ada kesan anti-sosial (dikit, kalo Heero kan parah). Juga karena aku nunggu kejutan plot dari Urobutchi.

So far rating: 3.5/5

2. Red Data Girl
Anime ini yang paling biasa dari keseluruhan anime musim semi yang aku liat. Temanya paling umum. School life, future slight romance (?), supernatural, sama damsel in distress.

Aku suka liat anime school life. Menurutku genre ini paling gampang diterima ceritanya. Ga begitu suka sama yang pake supernatural sih, tapi kalo olahannya oke ya ditonton juga. Damsel in distress.. ga suka juga. Apalagi kalo si cewek kesannya lemah banget. Sukanya tuh macem Sakura Haruno dari Naruto Shippuden. :D

Kenapa masih nonton? Ada karakter yang penampilannya 11-12 sama Heero Yuy (lagi). Makin lama makin cakep rasanya kalo diliat. :P Tapi sayang, namanya sering lupa sesering aku coba inget nama dia.

So far rating: 2.5/5

3. Aku no Hana
Selama liat anime ini, perasaan sama pikiranku jadi ga tentu. Banyak komentar (kesan) yang muncul. (1) Aku ga suka desain karakternya. Aku belum pernah liat desain karakter kayak di anime ini. Aku ga tau desain karakter seperti ini pernah dipake di anime lain ato belum. Buat mataku, ini aneh. (2) Nakamura ngeri. Aku bersyukur ga ketemu orang macem dia waktu masih sekolah. (3) Lagu endingnya juga ngeri, well, kalo itu bisa disebut lagu sih. Unik sebenernya. Jadi inget lagu I Just Wanna Say I Love You punya Melly Goeslaw. Tapi kalo punya Melly Goeslaw kesannya lebih lucu, imut, orang yang denger bisa seneng; kalo endingnya Aku no Hana ini kesannya meneror.

Kenapa masih nonton? Sederhana. Karena aku ga baca manganya, aku nonton ini jadi full of surprise. Aku penasaran endingnya.

So far rating: 4/5

Anyway..
anime spring 2013 belum selesai, tapi aku uda pengen liat anime summer 2013. Aku bisa prediksi, paling enggak, ada satu anime school life yang aku pilih. :D

Kalo kamu masih nonton anime musim semi 2013 yang mana?

Image via AnimexMusic, Crunchyroll, Dao's subarashii blog.

♣ Sherlock & What Happened in the Darkened Swimming Pool

Sherlock is never merely about solving cool crime in cool ways.

I wish I had known that from the start --from the moment my friend urged me to check on this BBC's modern take of Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary fictional detective story. Well, in a way, it is about solving cool crime in cool ways because, come on, it is Sherlock Holmes and what is not cool about him, right? But there are so much more than that. And if only I had realized this, I wouldn't have been so caught up in picking every little detail on the technical way of solving a case, one clue leading to another clue, or being trapped in the whodunit scheme that in the end only leads to the not-so-plausible reveal (I'm talking about the disappointing reveal of the cabbie and the oh-so-unthreatening Black Lotus).

Yes, it literally took an entire first series to get me hooked. And it's not only because Moriarty in The Great Game is a lot more interesting criminal mind, but also because this episode kind of wakes me up. Suddenly I felt like I'd only been sleep-watching it all this time. What happened in The Great Game? John Watson happened.

It's what John did in the "darkened swimming pool". Against Moriarty, John offered his own life to save Sherlock's. His action not only shocked Sherlock himself but also shocked me. Up to this point I saw Sherlock as being annoying, irritating, a bad person who is selfish, doesn't care about anybody else and has been treating John like a doormat. But how could John, a man with high standard of morality, be willing to die for someone like Sherlock? What. Do. I. Miss?

As the series continued and their "relationship" became more and more interesting with each episode, I still couldn't exactly figure it out when I finally finished second series and I asked my friend (still the same friend I mentioned earlier), why is John sooo emotionally dependent on Sherlock? He obviously has better social skill, he can make friends easily, WHY does he NEED Sherlock?

Of course my friend is so nice, she bothered providing me with such a very diplomatic answer. But now that I look at it again, my question itself is slightly misleading. See, John barely had friends when we met him in A Study in Pink so I doubt that my statement is even right. He obviously doesn't get along with just anyone. There is obviously something. Something not too obvious that makes our war vet John Watson decide to not only befriend the peculiar Sherlock Homes but also to basically devote his life to him.

But why? W. H. Y.

I am not going to explain anything here, though. I just want to point out about what I said in the beginning that Sherlock is never just a detective story. It is a very interesting look at human personality and its complexity. It is about how two men with their different  --even opposite-- personalities can form a solid, endearing friendship we possibly can only imagine we have. It is how an introverted-sensing John and an introverted-thinking Sherlock can function as a complement to each other. Like an actual soul mate. Seriously, someone has done this Myers-Briggs analysis on them and I think whoever wonders why John is so attached to Sherlock and vice versa should definitely read it here. In short, they are attached to each other because they can give what the other one needs and because of this they are in sort of life-debt to each other. To semi-quote F. Scott Fitzgerald's words: they understand each other just as far as they want to be understood, they believe in each other just as one would like to believe in himself… maybe even more.

Seeing it from a totally different perspective now, even The Blind Banker becomes a great episode (read here why) and the taxi driver's *cough* lame *cough* modus operandi to murder people suddenly has redeeming quality. The whole final showdown between him and Sherlock was to show how close Sherlock had come to being self-destructive if only John Watson hadn't come to his life. While I'm busy nitpicking the plausibility of every case presented in the show, the show actually offers a whole different side to it, which is the dynamic between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

Image via aithine.org.

♣ Anime Spring 2013.

RDG: Red Data Girl

Daftar Anime Spring 2013 uda keluar sejak februari. Aku uda pilih beberapa anime yang mau aku tonton.

1. Gakkatsu!
Setelah Psycho-Pass tamat kemarin, aku nonton Naruto SD. Beda banget kan sama PP. Alasan aku pillih Naruto SD itu karena PP uda nguras emosi banget. Aku capek kalo habis PP terus liat anime yang berat yang bikin aku "masuk" ke anime itu. Setelah nonton beberapa episode, ternyata aku suka. Aku sampai ngakak kalo liat ini. Karena alasan ini juga makanya aku pilih Gakkatsu. Walau uda season dua, tapi aku pikir anime ini bisa ditonton sendiri tanpa liat season satunya.

2. Red Data Girl
Alasan masukin list-ku bisa dibilang subyektif. Aku liat salah satu artwork-nya dan lansung tertarik sama karakter utama cowoknya. Sejak liat Gundam Wing, karakter yang stoic begini dengan penampilan rambut warna gelap, muka galak, .. jadi daya tarik tersendiri di mataku. Aku uda liat episode 1, prediksi karakteristiknya ga mengecewakanku.

3. Aku no Hana
Liat deh tu artwork-nya! Pohon (ato bunga?) di tengah-tengah bangunan. Terus juga pewarnaannya. Anime ini jadi satu-satunya yang ada di list karena aku langsung tertarik sama artwork-nya.

4. Otona Joshi no Anime Time
Diliat dari summary-nya, anime begini jarang aku liat. Makanya aku tertarik juga. Tapi kalo inget PP kemarin, kayaknya aku belum siap. Jangan-jangan bikin stres juga. Tapi yah, siapa tau..

5. Suisei no Gargantia
Suatu hari aku chatting sama temen. Dia bilang, "Ada animenya Urobuchi di Anime Spring 2013, Suisei no Gargantia". Anime ini langsung masuk list-ku. Sebenernya aku ga tertarik sama penggambaran tokohnya (kesan pertama pas liat artwork-nya). Bukan seleraku. Aku jadi inget Ragnarok. Padahal aku ga begitu tau Ragnarok. Tapi since ada Urobuchi di anime ini, I'll definitely watch it.

PS.
Yup! Anime-anime di atas yang uda aku pilih dari daftar Anime Spring 2013. Sejujurnya aku ga merasa bener pake kata "artwork". Sebenernya itu yang ada di daftar anime poster bukan sih?

Image via Crunchyroll.

♣ Choosing movie & anime.

Here are my rules of choosing movie or anime that I'm going to watch.

1. Choose based on the theme or actreess or actor.

It depends on my mood. For example, when I re-watched Gundam Wing and read Final Mission Status, it influenced me to watch military or war or soldier movies. It doesn't have to be 100% exactly like that but the movie has that kind of element. What did I watch? Atonement, The Lucky One, Bourne trilogy, etc. And since I love James McAvoy in Atonement, I watched his other movies such as Penelope, Becoming Jane, Starter for Ten, etc.

2. After that, I'll check the rating.

I'm one of those people who think that considering rating is helpful. Honestly, the reason why I watched Sherlock from BBC was because the rating (It has so many version, doesn't it? But why do I see its rating is high on IMDB?)

3. The last thing I check is the summary.

I personally think that looking for the movie from summary will take so much time. It will help but I don't pay so much attention to it. Most movie whose summary I read, the summary isn't well-written. It's not persuasive enough. 

Those three are points I use for choosing movie that has been released already. If it's not, I usually check the summary and trailer (oh yes, trailer!). The actreess or actor who plays there doesn't matter. The genre doesn't matter. As long as I'm interested to one of those summary or trailer, I (usually) will watch.

Now what about anime? Basically the same. But until this second, I choose anime like this..

1. Poster or artwork.

Seduce my visual first! If the picture is something like Wedding Peach or Sailor Moon (fairy tale, anyone?), you know, pretty and cute girl, I normally don't watch it anymore. My friend asked me, "What's wrong with poster? What does it do?" My theory is it's for promotion, isn't it? Years ago, I found that Harry Potter the 1st and 2nd poster are not better than the rest. If HP were some-times-ago-movie, I wouldn't be interested to watch the 1st and 2nd movie.

2. Rating

3. Summary

That's all. At least those are some criterias that I use. Everybody has different taste or opinion. I realize that some of you may disagree. But yeah, they are mine.

PS. Sailor Moon and Wedding Peach are my chilhood favourite. But if anime nowadays is like that, I don't like it.

Image via Margarita Bloom.

♣ 2013 resolutions.

1. drink 8 glasses of water every day for natural body detoxification

2. exercise more often like when I was freshman (I was diligent enough at that time and now I try to exercise since I've gained 6 or 7 kg during last year and worse these three months)

3. not carried away to think too hard when I have problem

4. routinely consume some tablespoons of honey every day

5. watch not only more anime but also pay more attention to the staffs behind the work

6. blog more

7. empty some skincare products before buying the new one

8. stop buying lipstick for a while (I have 4 lipsticks that I use alternately)

9. tweet with quality not only babbling this and that

10. use computer more often than laptop

11. change hair color (because my hair start to look like ugly ombre)

12. do body scrubbing more often

13. lengthen my fringe  until it reaches the longest hair and lengthen hair until it touches my shoulder and keep it like that (which means I'm going back to trim hair every 3 months)

14. keep my room neat all the time

15. have healthy skin (or healthy looking skin?) like Japanese women

16. to be nice, to be grafteful, and if I don't have anything nice to say, I won't say anything at all

17. finding soon-to-be-husband more serious

18. will be added later

Image via weheartit.