As the Moon, So Beautiful (Tsuki ga Kirei) Mini Review

"To decide I’m hopeless before I even begin is nothing but laziness"– Dazai

I am starting to find out the specific genres of shows I love to watch. They have to have these two key elements: 

1. A ever growing relationship (Love or not)

2. The plot involves the family, or family growth.

This can be very clear as the show CLANNAD, which basically means family, as my favorite show. I gave a little review in my previous blog which can be found here: https://parooka.blogspot.com/2017/02/tomoyo-after-its-wonderful-life-mini.html

I came across this show as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and the Crunchy Roll ad suggested I start watching this. I saved it to my bookmark tab like I do with all other anime I intend to watch and kept going on through my Facebook. I didn't really start to watch it till about 2 weeks later while I was donating plasma. 

The basic plot of this show is, "Kotaro Azumi and Akane Mizuno became third year students at junior high school and are classmates for the first time. They’re put in charge of the equipment for the sports festival, and slowly grow closer via LINE (Phone Messages). These two, along with fellow students, relate to their peers through mutual understandings and feelings. As their final year at junior high school progresses, the group overcome their challenges to mature and become aware of changes in themselves."

At first glance this seems like a typical school relationship/drama show with all its cliches. And, you would be right. However, in my opinion, this show had something that caught me. The animation and the two main characters. The animation, when hand drawn, looks simply breath taking and amazing in detail. I forgot at times that I was watching a TV show instead of a movie. There are times where it randomly switches to CG 3D models and the models just look lifeless. It is a great thing that none of the main characters are victim to this. These 3D models are mainly just for people filler in certain place in which the scene takes place. 

JUST LOOK HOW OUT OF PLACE THEY LOOK?!?!?

Maybe a third key element can be added to the list as mentioned before:

3. Very relateable characters

Most every show has a character you can somewhat relate to, but there are very few that have some kind of character that defines you right on the nose. I felt it as I watch the movie A Silent Voice. The same I can say here. The two main characters, Kotarō Azumi and Akane Mizuno, were amazing together. It reminded me the feeling of having a school relationship and discovering the different feelings of love. Back when we were more innocent and open minded. They grow together, they get to know each other, the find the definition of love together.

What really has turned me off lately with movies or shows with romantic elements in them is that they just end when one declares the love for the other and then magically they live happily ever after. I would like to know what happens after. How does their relationship strengthen further? What other obstacles do they overcome? This happens frequently in main romantic genres in anime. However, although this show doesn't execute it as well as other shows I admire, it still ends with a warm feeling in your heart. 

**SPOILERS**

They show the other adventures this couple goes through as they grow up and later show the whole extended family together celebrating Azumi and Akane's first born child. 

In conclusion, this show has a special place in my heart. It reminded me of the hard times of separation, what exactly to say to a special someone, and just learning how to handle relationship issues. The animation, although not super realistic, still looks very pretty and captures each scene's atmosphere. Every time I saw Azumi and Akane together finding ways to overcome certain challenges and proving time and time again that they love each other and something we can continually learn as well.

“I want to spend my time with people who don't look to be respected. But such good people won't want to spend their time with me.” 

― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

My Bullied History / Koe no Katachi (A Silent Voice) Mini Review

"Everyone goes through difficulties in life. But we're all in the same boat, aren't we? You have to learn to love even the things you hate about yourself and move forward." 

-A Silent Voice

As far as I can remember, I have been always a super sensitive kid. Whether I had it since birth or it was developed over time, I do not know. Even the silliest little insult at times that can be easily identified as a minor joke or to make me laugh at myself can possibly hurt me dearly as well. I don't know whether this is a good or bad attribute to have in my life, but it has taken me since elementary school to understand it a little bit better. Why do you ask since elementary? This was my earliest memory of getting bullied.

I believe we all get bullied throughout our life. Whether it be by someone at school or even at home meaning a brother, sister, or even parents, we have had some kind of bullied experience. This has probably happen the other way as well where we have bullied someone when we were young. What comes as a huge factor however to when we are bullied is how sensitive we are to the words being said to us or actions that are being included in by someone. As mentioned before, I was a very sensitive kid and still really sensitive now. I did, and still do at times, let myself hurt too easily by some little thing people say at times. We all hear that saying where, "Stick and Stones will break my bones, but words will never break me." To some extent, this is true. We shouldn't let word easily defeat us. We shouldn't let others definitions of ourselves destroy our own definition of ourselves. However, words still hurt. They can hurt very badly. 

In elementary school, I was bullied very heavily. It is very funny though because I was a big kid and could have easily stood up to the bullies that were bullying me. However, I was getting hurt very easily and it was pretty much hurting my way of life and school. My mother could see this and decided to transfer me to a different school. This was a private church school and so surely this would not have the trouble of bullying here, right? 

Actually, in my opinion, the bullying was even worse. Where as the bullying at my previous school was mostly done by boys, this time is was mainly girls. They didn't even want to touch me, look at me, or even interact with me. It was just terrible. I remember thinking, "If this is how all girls are, then I don't want any part of them." 

Don't get me wrong, I now realize I am a super weird person. But to have this thrown at you day after day in school, saying that you don't fit in, can very be heartbreaking. Now this never escalated to the point where I wanted to end my life or hurt myself physically in any way. However, there were other ways where I did hurt myself emotionally. With being bullied, comes a huge amount of stress. And being the young kid that I was, I was dealing with stress poorly in terrible ways. I started to want to separate myself and be alone. This even included my family. Maybe this was some kind of phase every teenager goes through whether it be a rebel part or another, but I firmly believe that the main trigger was bullying and self-definition. 

It came to a part where...I did start hating myself for a bit. Why was I like this? Why did I like the certain things that was I was getting made fun of? What was the true definition of normal? And was I as far away from that definition as possible as a person? I felt as if everyone had some wrong thing to point out at me. To quote one of my favorite shows named "Say 'I Love You', "No one likes others pointing out their weakness."

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I recently saw a movie called 聲の形 (pronounced Koe No Katachi) or in English, A Silent Voice. I was introduced to it through a church mission friend on Facebook. I read the manga/comic and really liked it and later found out a movie was coming out for it. It is my favorite slice-of-life movie to date. To put in short summary from Wikipedia, "The story revolves around Shoya Ishida, a former delinquent who bullied Shoko Nishimiya, his deaf girl classmate, alongside his friends back when he was in elementary school. When Nishimiya transferred, all of his friends and teachers turned against him, making him isolated well into high school to the point that he decides that there is no point in having friends. Having no plans for the future, Ishida even contemplates on committing suicide until he suddenly reunites with Nishimiya, who is still lonely due to her shyness. Realizing that both are suffering due to his past sins, Ishida sets out on a path of redemption by trying to reconnect Nishimiya with their old classmates that Nishimiya never had the chance to befriend back then.

To me, I was a combination between the two main characters in this story, Shoko Nishimiya and Shoya Ishida. Both go through such a hard time of people telling them that they are worthless, that they did things wrong. It even comes to the point where Shoya Ishida blocks out everyone and in his eyes, doesn't see peoples faces. Shoko Nishimiya even apologizes to people constantly for even being alive or in the peoples lives and hates herself for it. This was the sort of thing I found myself relating to. How did they fix these feelings? Well, a lot of factors came into play, but one main one stood out to me: They relied on each other plus friends and family to continue finding a reason to continue and live! 

This is how I remember getting out of the situation I was in. I did change schools, though I did have some good friends in that school as well. But the main thing was perhaps the group of friends I had in my church group where we gave constant support to each other. I also realized my family's love for me and very much appreciated it. I had great leaders in my Scouts program and church that help gather up my self-love again. Instead of blocking people out or just listening to the negative explanations of people pointing our flaws in my life, I started to listen to people more and see if there was any way I could correct the current flaws they pointed out. Instead of completely relying on myself for comfort. I found others, and I constantly found God again and again to help me improve myself. This does not mean I liked who I was. It means I loved who I was, current am, and who I can become.

Let me explain my last sentence in the last paragraph: I loved who I was meaning the great things I was that I didn't realize back then. Did I make mistakes? Ya, of course. But because of those mistakes and overcoming them or constantly becoming better to resist those bad things, I can be who I am today and become even better tomorrow.

As I look through people online who have been bullied and shared their story, one constant question that pretty much sticks out to me is, "Would've you like to change your life back then so that you would've handled things better?" To that I would answer: 

No.

I love who I am because of the actions and trials I went through. I love who I am now because I know how to overcome those obstacles if and when they come up again. Could there have been a better way to deal with them? Sure, but thinking on that constantly will not change a thing. Thinking about the now and to improve is the way I live my life now.  

I am still fully against bullying. I think it has a severe self-destructing effect on others than people realize. It can even lead to the cause of confused identification. People can sometimes lose the confidence in their-selves. But even if we get bullied, or even when we do bully others and feel completely bad about it, it is not the end of the world! We can overcome anything with help others. We may not stop bullying altogether, but we can sure stop and reverse the effects of it. 

Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~ Mini Review

There are only a few things in this world that make me cry. "Tomoyo: It's A Wonderful Life" is now added to this list.

Let me take you back to when I was first introduced to this universe: I was an average freshman in my first semester in college after returning from my church mission. During my mission, I had gotten into this idea that I wanted to watch different anime shows. The problem was, I didn't know where exactly I should start. I finished one anime called "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" and liked it very much. I didn't know quite the genre I was particularly interested in. Then one of my roommates who was trying to connect with me so I didn't seem like an outsider in this apartment complex, suggested of an anime called, "CLANNAD".  I went into this blind trusting his suggestion. What I didn't expect was that this particular anime was going to be my favorite shows of all time. It wasn't some show where it was like, "Wow! That was truly amazing! I need to watch it again as soon as possible". It was more of a calm and heartwarming. But the number one reason why this show is talked about is defined in this image:

Have you ever watched a movie or a show where you swear you are so close to the characters or can directly relate to them that you care so much about them? This was the instance of CLANNAD. The characters are introduced to you and one particular character, named Tomoya (TO-MO-YA), tries his best to fix each character that he comes in contact with issues. This is the case with the first part of the show which is just named, "CLANNAD". This impact becomes even harder in "CLANNAD: After Story" which is the second part of the CLANNAD show. It has been said that if you don't shed a tear during this entire show, then you are a monster.

Sorry, I got a little to ahead of myself. I won't give any spoilers  Here is the plot summary that introduces the show: Tomoya Okazaki is a third year high school student resentful of his life. His mother passed away from a car accident when he was younger, causing his father to resort to alcohol and gambling. This results in fights between the two until Tomoya's shoulder is injured in a fight. Since then, Tomoya has had distant relationships with his father, causing him to become a delinquent over time. While on a walk to school, he meets a strange girl named Nagisa Furukawa who is a year older, but is repeating due to illness. Due to this, she is often alone as most of her friends have moved on. The two begin hanging out and slowly, as time goes by, Tomoya finds his life shifting in a new direction.

Now to introduce one of the characters that Tomoya meets in this show. This person, as mentioned in the title of the game I am reviewing, is Tomoyo Sakagami. Her summary from giantbomb.com says, "Tomoyo is a recently transferred second year student at Tomoya's school and is one of the top students of the school. Although she is a year younger than Tomoya, she does not show him respect as her senior. Tomoyo's goal is to become the student council president. " 

Now this show is based on a visual novel game that share the same name as the show. In this visual novel, you have the choice to choose different paths that lead to a different story and also a relationship with the different characters you encounter. Tomoyo After is following the story of your decisions to follow the Tomoyo route in the original novel where Tomoyo is now your girlfriend that you are steady dating. To put it short, Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~ follows the same format as the CLANNAD visual novel. You have certain choices that you can make to choose different paths in the story. Some can really alternate the story and make some incredible emotional moments. Although these moments are everywhere, I never really cried or felt depressed here, UNTIL THE VERY END. I will not spoil it for anyone, but never had I felt so close to one character in a long time.

I was in the plasma center donating when I reach the ending of this long and heart wrenching story. When that particular part it, I started to tear up a bit and people started looking at me weird. I would probably have the same reaction if someone did the same thing I did. Although I was embarrassed, I was still glad I was able to read this story. I came home to my apartment where the roommate I had previously that introduced me to CLANNAD was and told him I hate him for introducing me into this show/universe. Of course I meant it jokingly. 

In the end, if you are looking for a heartwarming and tearful story, I would say that this visual novel/story is a good choice. I understand if you do not like anime or don't want to come even close to it. But for all those who can look past that, this is something I would highly recommend. 

*Note: The one on steam is the clean version so all the bad scenes so I rather get this one than the other.

Review of Gaokoa.Love.100 Days (Visual Novel)

I started to get into the visual novel genre of video games (if you count visual novels video games) when I came back from my two year church service mission. The first one getting me into this interest was "If My Heart Had Wings". This game was beautiful and it just got me into the story at a early start. The art is beautiful, the characters are very memorable, and there are moments that stick out to me. This game was pretty dang long too and there were multiple endings. Just 5 endings, most of them good.

However, that is for another story on my complete thoughts on that game. For now, I am going to be talking about the second visual novel game I played and I am currently playing as well. This game is called "Gaokao.Love.100 Days". What caught my interest in this game is from the hugely overwhelmingly positive reviews I read on steam or just the internet in general. It claims to have 52 endings. 52 ENDINGS!!! That is way more than 5! But is this just a normal visual novel where I just read and click every once in forever to change my path? Although that is sometimes the case for this one, there are more added features that make this game super intense!!

Here is the basic story: You are a high school student in China who is about to take this test called the Gaokao in three months. I really don't know how to say it, but the point is it is a very important test. However, at the very beginning of the game it shows you asking a extremely lovable character named Muxin to be your girlfriend. She is amazed by this and agrees to do so. Later on you get introduced to other characters with different quirks. They add to your story as you are to prepare for the Gaokao and/or build your relationship with Muxin.

Sounds like a good start out to a game? I thought so. Then they introduce another part of the game other than just choosing a certain choice in this game. The study times! Here is what it looks like:

The numbers on the left are your subjects and your scores. If you want to get good scores, you review a certain subject and it will increase. While you need to pay attention to your health and stress because if your health starts to get close to zero or stress gets too high, your performance may be effected and it can trigger some nasty effects in your story that you wish you can undo. This is where the fun and also the killer stress kicks in. The choice is up to you. Do you want to ignore, though sometimes improve your scores and increase your relationship with Muxin, your new girlfriend, or do you want to focus on just studying. It can be hard to choose at times, because trust me, your choices early on have HUGE impact. But I won't spoil much of the story.

I remember my first play through. I thought I was on the right track trying to balance out my relationship with Muxin and my scores. Then my first mock test, I got a terrible result. Then one thing led to another and I kept making hard decisions that I continuously kept regretting.  I got really frustrated and, I'll admit, took a break from the game because I couldn't take it. But later on, I kept going and my first ending wasn't....terrible, but wasn't good at all. I can say I have played through this multiple times and have grown more attached to this game. It may take over my #1 favorite visual novel, "If My Heart Had Wings".

Are there any faults in this game? Well, being a game that comes from China and being translated from Chinese, there are a couple weird translations. It isn't enough to ruin the game, but they can be a bit noticeable. You may have noticed up in the picture, there is an items button. When you go through this game for the first time, you don't have much items at all that really help you. You can find other items to help you as you go more throughout the game. But you may get a little frustrated seeing that your scores are not improving as much as you want. Especially when you see others play the game and they do tremendously well and you can't seem to do so. Other than those, I don't really find much fault in the game.

Although I consider this game to be more clean than other visual novels I have explored or played, there are quite a bit of swears. But unlike other visual novel games, this one does not have a big emphasis on sex with each other. This is a pretty clean high school relationship game. If you want to start easing your way into visual novels, then cleanliness wise, I would point you to this game.

I really like this game and there are still a couple times where I sneak in a play here and there. The replay ability is there especially if you don't like your ending. I will say that the ones where you do get in a relationship with Muxin or others is really satisfying. If you are interested, it is on Steam for $9.99.

P.S.: I forgot to talk about the music in this game. I love it! It really captures the atmosphere of what you are in. There are some serious songs, but when there is a goofy moment, the song does not disappoint. I do have quite a bit of the songs on my phone and I do listen to them. The theme is really relaxing as well. Although I don't know the lyrics seeing that they are sung in a different language, it doesn't take away the relaxation at the ending of the game where you can rest from all your decisions. Go have a listen if you want!

(From left to right: Xiaohan, Muxin)

A Mini Review of the Message of Nagi no Asukara

I just finished this show and there was a lot of talk about love and caring for one another. It also brings up a pretty interesting topic where a character says he hates love because it can hurt you so much if it all goes wrong. However, it is not hopeless to love someone because it helps you understand what really love is and this character figures that out. Over time, we can come to know what exactly love is and perhaps it can grow to charity which is the pure love of Christ. The show is called Nagi No Asukara if you are interested in looking at it. The soundtrack is amazing and it definitely worth listening to.