Tag: japan

Attack On Titan – WOW!!!

Recently I was introduced to anime/manga and hasn’t it surprised me, I didn’t know what to expect and it literally shook me. Ordinarily I would have rubbished anime as for Japanese weibos and creeps but having now tried it, its the opposite. Since May I have slowly been watching the anime Attack On Titan and my goodness what a show! Everything I thought or expected has been turned upside down.

To expand on a point made above I always expected anime to be child orientated or aimed at the forever alone viewer who’s contact with females come in the form of pillows and Dead or Alive Volleyball video games. Some of the art work and covers of anime show me right in this thought, lots of thickness and titties but as they say you can’t judge a book by its cover and the same is true for anime.

As a child I was into Pokémon but I never classed that as an anime, I always looked at it as a cartoon, so I guess I had sort of got into it. But never progressed beyond that initial craze. There was only 151 of them and the last Pokémon game I played was Yellow on my Gameboy Colour.

Well Attack On Titan is no Pokémon or Spirited Away (have since seen this too). Initially for the first 10-15 minutes I was a bit blasé about it, I have a pet peeve of kids in media. The characters get on my nerves and their voices and being is just not my cup of tea (see Tim in Jurassic Park, Gavroche in Les Misérables). Early impression was meh with the child Eren, Mikasa and Armin and their nonsense.

THEN IT HAPPENED.

A Titan! Not just any Titan but a giant steaming hulk of bone and muscle. This grabbed my attention and all that followed. Since that point I haven’t looked back. Although it is animation, the images and gore lingers in your mind and it is very visceral. Starting with Eren’s mother getting eaten. That bit and the face of the Titan stuck in my mind, especially their mouth and teeth.

Needless to say I am well and truly hooked and I am loving the show so far. So many twists and turns and it is a very deep show. It often leaves me feeling completely confused and shocked. I like googling but I’m trying not to so I don’t spoil things for myself.

I’m already on the early episodes of Season 3 and I’m excited to see what is coming, I’m so enthralled, confused and excited. To me this is one of the best things I have ever watched. So much so that I have even started to read the manga on my kindle and noticing foreshadowing and bits I missed whilst watching, it certainly enriches the experience (though it did take me 20 minutes to realise manga is read opposite to a western book).

I have even subscribed to Crunchyroll and will explore other anime shows too, but right now my focus is on Attack on Titan. Make up for lots of media I have been missing out on.

As I say every time I post I do plan to blog quite often about Titan and my thoughts, maybe not episode by episode but I might do that. I started watching an English dub and whilst I enjoy it some voices annoy me. I would like to go back and watch it in Japanese with subtitles. Perhaps when I do I’ll blog Episode by Episode. Like with the manga going back will be an enriching experience.

We will see if I post or as usual forget ha!

First blog post

First blog post

Hello and welcome to my blog, as of the time of writing this I have no idea where I am going wih this.I plan to use this site as a place to post my thoughts about the books I read, in hindsight I should have done this seven months ago when I started my Goodreads Reading Challenge. Better late than never I suppose.

For this years Reading Challenge I decided to be modest and set an initial target of 12 books for 2017. Subsequently I have exceeded it so raised the target to 18, I am currently at 15 books read so will likely raise it yet again to either 24 or 30. Considering I slacked last year in my reading, I am pleased to see me making good progress and experiencing new genres.

Currently I am reading a lot of Japanese literature, Yasunari Kawabata in particular. I am not sure why I got into this genre but I certainly am glad that I did. I suppose that is a blog post in itself, so far I have read several books by both him and others and thoroughly enjoyed them, even found a novel that is in my all time favourite reads.

Enough waffling for now, I’m not sure when I will get around to it but soon I will start using this site