Rozen Maiden 1 & 2 with Traumend

There are two strings to this story: That of an exquisite doll that wants to meet her maker and that of a young boyand his exquisite doll as they strive toward helping each other.

Sakurada Jun is suffering from depression and is out of school. His life revolves around the internet an ordering stuff thast he returns just in time to avoid payments. Through this he meets Shinku a living doll of the Rozen Maiden series and becomes indebted to her. She was made by a mysterious but very talented doll maker.

I'm currently enjoying this part two of the first series of Rozen Maiden released this month in the UK.

This sees Jun repair the damaged Shinku, Suiseiseki and her twin sister Souseiseki as they deal with Souseiseki's Master plus the manipulative Suigintou.

In the final three episodes centre around Shinku and Suigintou's final confrontation.

This the region 1 US issue of the second series of Rozen Maiden on Geneon that arrived here recently.
If I'd of know the UK distributor, MVM were going to issue it soon which they are I'd of held off getting this import as the US edition uses three discs with four episodes per disc compared to 6 over here. If you enjoyed series one you'll need this.








*Updated May 16 2010 by Jo 

Kashimashi!

I'm slowly reading through this five part manga.

The concept is simple but with a twist!!!

In essence it's a story about a girl who is caught in a love triangle between her childhood friend, Tomari and the girl who rejected him, Yasuna.

But this is no ordinary girl for Hazuma lost himself in the mountains and was squashed by an alien spaceship!!!

The aliens felt really bad about it and so remade Hazuma's body but in a life changing error this time around as a girl!

Hazuma has to get on with being the girl her parents always really wanted and getting to grips with all the social conventions that are now expected of her and to top it all has a limited life expectancy. It's funny and at the same time a sad thought provoking storyline.
Having had friends become seriously ill and die at around Hazuma's age, I can say it is one of the hardest things in the world to cope with as both you and them have feelings that need to respected to enable one to depart in peace and you as the survivor to feel you still have that connection to the person and in some way carry on their work.

New Mouse Mat

We all know the infatuation I have with a certain cat not least HK appeals directly to my inner chold side loudly, well I got the Mouse Mat a few weeks ago.

Somehow it just feels appropriate you hover your mouse over it although HK is a very well behaved Kitty so she won't kill it!

Aww................

Tartan time!

I have this mania for short tartan skirts which no dooubt is yet another part of my  inner girl's loves having something of a crush on tartan back then.
The finish is really lovely and having an elasticated waist band is a perfect fit working well with black tights and shoes.

Coraline

Typically the Baftas gave the award to Mr Fox rather than this for the best animated movie category for 2009. Grrr!
My copy of the DVD is 2D cos I have a visual impairment affecting my left eye that makes 3D movies and Magic Eye books a pain to view.
Although a bit scary in parts for younger children it is a tale of courage in defeating the deceptive other version of her life on the surface 'better' life on the other side as they try to trap her.

Kanon

This was a four disc region 1 dvd set I got for Christmas and have been watching recently.

The story is narrated through Yuichi who hasn't seen his cousin Nayuki in years. Upon his return seemingly all his knowledge of ever visiting has vanished. He senses something vaguely familiar around his surroundings trying his best to adjust but his memory gaps haunt him as time grows ever short.

He sees in time the pieces of this puzzle, the mysterious girl with the winged backpack, a sword wielding dragon slayer and an eerie silent beauty with blazing tresses but it's up to Yuichi to discover how all these pieces of the puzzle fit together.

Beanbag target

Now this was one of my favourite games that we did in PE and also for schools sports days. The idea is to throw the beanbag to set of targets each having a seperate points value. The one with the most points wins!
We also used beanbags lifting and lowering them in our hands as a form of exercise.