That Trouble Child

Summer is on its last legs. I find all this all too depressing; where did my August/September go? Where are my summertime memories for 2011? Looking back I think I kind of want to redo this year. There were a lot of opportunities that I could have capitalized on better, but all in all it wasn’t so bad that it leaves me with a sour taste in the mouth.

The strange cloud in my mind this morning is punctuated by this picture showing up on my feed.

I mean, it’s only meaningful because I miss watching the, er, bodacious little kid and her rag-tag gang of think-alikes. There’s a lot of stuff going on in my life right now but when that brisk weather hits the northeast it feels like some biological switch gets flipped a certain way, I go automatic into nostalgia mode regardless of what’s happening. So seeing that loli-face banner was almost timely.

I think this is why I envy not the gorgeous west coast weather at all. I want my four seasons.

It’s times like this that I thank the heavens and what’s on earth that enable my anime habit. I always kind of pride myself on at least being able to watch a good chunk of what is out there every season. To do that takes a lot of time, which basically means giving up my reading and gaming time, in the past 3 seasons. There were a glut of anime that just appealed to me. And when that spare time decreases (for whatever reason), there’s just not much left to give but to watch less. I have always resigned to the fact that the circumstances change, like the seasons, and invariably there would be bumps and mismatches in the rotating schedules of “how many shows I can follow at every given week” versus “how many shows I want to watch at every given week.” And so when I “drop” a show, it is often no fault of the show; it’s all on me.

Looking back at my old blog posts, I too find that often times it is because I really don’t want to write about something that doesn’t leave me with stuff to think about–I literally have nothing to write home about for the majority of anime that I end up watching. Plus a couple shows that are just challenging to write about, so I dare not. And that is not a fair litmus test of these shows and more of my inability and lack of will to write about them. It’s pretty clear that I prize anime first, blogging and analysis second. Or rather, they’re just natural extension of someone who is thinking about them and is extroverted enough to publish his soiled laundry.

It’s in tough or uncertain times that, like Manabi, you hold on to some precious concept that found a home and developed roots within your soul, that you rely on to get through those times. Manabi Straight’s story, to me, is still the standing example, in its gradient-hair glory, of the best stuff on earth. I just want to get that off my chest.