Meteor Garden

So I've let myself get hooked with another drama. I've fallen into the trap set for the female population yet again. This time, it was the drama I've mentioned in my last post.

Can you match all the characters in each version?

I watched the Taiwanese version just less than a decade ago, back when I didn't even know how deep love was in comparison to a crush.

Although I knew that the manga had to come first in order for all the other adaptions to take place, I have to admit that I did not know there was an anime for Meteor Garden until recently, after all the versions were out.

The Korean version was the best. It portrayed many of the other characters more and not just focusing on the main characters.

The last one is the mainland China version. With a different plot for their second season and the different way that F4 met, I think that this drama strayed away from the original manga the most. But since I haven't watched the japanese one yet...

Shugo Chara

The only anime I can think of that relates to Easter whatsoever is this one.

Summary:
The heroine of the story, Amu Hinamori, is a student at Seiyo Elementary.^[3] At first glance, her classmates refer to her as "cool and spicy" and rumors speculate about her personal life. However, her real personality is that of a very shy girl who has trouble showing her true personality. One night, Amu wishes for the courage to show her "would-be" self, and the next morning finds three brightly colored eggs—red, blue, and green—in her bed. At first, she is alarmed, but realizes she must have really wished to change. These eggs hatch into three Guardian Characters: Ran, Miki, and Su. The Guardian Characters aid Amu in discovering who she truly is and help fulfill Amu's dreams. Amu's life becomes much more complex as she struggles to deal with her "would-be" selves and the Seiyo Elementary's Guardians, who each have a Guardian Character of their own. Later on,they recruit Amu as the "Joker" to search for X Eggs and X Characters, the corrupted forms of people's dreams, so the Guardians can purify their dreams.
Meanwhile, the Easter Company is extracting people's eggs in search of a special egg called the Embryo. The Embryo is believed to grant any wish to the one who possesses it. However, the process creates X Eggs and X Characters. It is described as an all white egg while normal heart's eggs have a yellow heart and yellow wings on it.
Later on in the series, a fourth (yellow) egg named Diamond is born. Unlike Amu's other Guardian Characters, she is only seen a few times in the series. Due to Amu's mixed feelings before Diamond was born, she becomes an X character and is "stolen" by Utau Hoshina, who uses Diamond for her concerts planned by Easter. Later on, Diamond is purified and becomes a regular Guardian Character. She would then would appear in times of heavy crisis.
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Yes, the bad guys are called Easter, trying to take people's eggs. Ironic much?
As for me, I'm a Tadamu fan. As much as I love Ikuto, the age gap sort of weirded me out.


Happy Easter!

Itazura Na Kiss

This first started out as a Manga, than it was adapted into a Japanese drama, Taiwanese drama, when that got popular, it was turned into an anime, then a korean drama,(I think thats the order).
Right now, besides reading Skip Beat fan fiction on my free time, I'm also watching the korean version (already watched the taiwanese one)

This isn't the only manga who was was adapted into so many versions. Another one, meteor Garden, was also a manga that had an anime and 4 live drama adaptions.  Don't think I'm going to watch the anime or the japanese version.
Once or twice of the same storyline is ok, but more than that is too much for me (personal experience from Meteor Garden).
If you'll notice, many of the asian dramas, especially taiwanese dramas, are adapted from manga or anime.

Skip Beat

Here it is, my current obsession:

Summary:
Skip Beat! follows the story of Kyoko Mogami, a sixteen year-old girl who loves her childhood friend, Sho Fuwa (Shotaro), but is betrayed by him. Having spent a large part of her childhood at Shotaro's parents' inn, she learned a great deal about hostelry and other such jobs. Shotaro, not wishing to take over his parents' business, moves to Tokyo to pursue a career in music. Sho, as he is called by his fans, asks Kyoko to leave high school and her life in Kyoto Prefecture behind to help him. Upon arrival in Tokyo, Kyoko lives an unreasonably frugal life, spending nothing on herself and doing whatever she can for Sho, who eventually becomes ranked seventh of the top twenty most popular entertainers of Japan. One day, she overhears Shotaro complaining about her to his manager, saying that she is a boring and plain girl. He proceeds to sweet-talk and flirt with his manager, in stark contrast to the cold and demanding attitude he usually exhibits towards Kyoko. Kyoko doesn't shed many tears when she learns that Sho thinks she's only good for housekeeping. Instead, her "Pandora's box" opens and she vows vengeance on Sho. As she is carried away by security, Sho mockingly tells her that if she wants revenge, she had better become a bigger star than he is. And so, Kyoko changes her appearance and enters the entertainment industry, facing many challenges along the way. Skip Beat! follows Kyoko's journey to climb the showbiz ladder as she meets interesting people, troublemakers and friends alike, with hopes of getting revenge on Shotaro, as well as regaining the sense of compassion that she had lost when her heart was broken by him. As Kyoko cultivates her acting and friendships, she soon discovers a sense of self separate from her initial plans for revenge.
(Wikipedia)
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It took a while for me to get hooked on this anime.
First, it was recommended to me by a friend, I did finish watching the anime, but didn't feel the urge to go on to the manga, so I left it at that. Then, the rumor of a real drama adaption came out, and I decided to go back to read a few chapters of the manga.
But now that everything had died down, and I am really running out of dramas, I decided to go back to this.
The animation for this anime is a bit weird. Although Sho and Kyoko is the same age, Sho looks way older to me.
I love Kyoko's personality, but Ren sort of creeps me out with his smile at times. No offense to anyone since I love Ren too.
Favourite episode? Definitely the one where Kyoko hurt her angles, but still continued to act in a painful position. (Episode 7)

Preferences anyone?

1. thick, dirty blond hair + blue eyes
2. neat blond hair + green eyes
3. dark red hair + blue eyes
   
4. orange hair + red eyes
   

Tsubasa Chronicles

Like I mentioned before, there are a lot of characters in the anime world who are very similar. But the ones in this anime were downright copied.

Personally, I don't find anything wrong with that. In Card Captor, Sakura and Syaoran were too young to have their "forever". But this one seemed more mature. Also, the plot is very unique.

If you ask me, I prefer this anime over Card Captors (although I loved that one too).

Bleach vs Naruto vs One Piece

We all know that all three animes are extremely popular worldwide. In some parts, fans of these animes has even started a war, slashing the others.
But wouldn't it be easier to just each support their own animes? What is the point of putting down the others? Would that help raise the popularity?
(Personally, I've only watched Naruto, so I can't say.)
So this just goes to show that the fictional anime world can have just as much impact on us as Justin Bieber and the Jonas Brothers.

"The melody of logic will always play out the truth."

- Ayumu Narumi, Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning 

Vampire Knight

Some may call this anime weak, but it was still quite popular.

Summary: 
Yuki Cross's earliest memory is of being attacked by a vampire and saved by Kaname Kuran, also a vampire. Ten years later, Yuki and the vampire hunter, Zero Kiryu are at Cross Academy as school guardians protecting the "Day Class" human students from the "Night Class" vampire students. The story follows Yuki's discovery that her childhood friend, Zero has spent the last four years trying to fight his transformation into a vampire and he has finally succumbed. Yuki struggles to help Zero fight his bloodlust and to recover her own lost memories, while suspecting that Kaname knows more than he is saying.
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I just finished re-watching this anime before I moved on to Zombie Loan. As much as I love all the characters in here, I am definitely a Yuki-Kaname fan.
Like I said before, few animes tempt me enough to go online and read the manga page by page. (I'm just not that patient of a person), so I have resorted to Fan Fiction for this anime.

Zombie Loan

This is my current obsession. It was actually one of the few who gave me enough interest to move on to the manga after the anime was finished.

Summary:
Michiru Kita is a special girl who possesses Shinigami Eyes, a power which allows her to see a person's nearness to their destined death by seeing a ring, invisible to normal people, around the person's neck. When a person is marked to die, a gray ring appears, which darkens over time. Once the ring turns completely black, the person dies. Chika Akatsuki and Shito Tachibana, two boys in her class, both have black rings around their necks, but to her surprise, they are not yet dead. It is revealed that after a tragic accident that was supposed to kill them both, the two boys made a deal with a secret loan office called the Zombie-Loan. In return for keeping them alive, the two have to hunt zombies for the loan office. When Michiru gets involved with them, she finds that her life has just become more complicated.
(credits to Wikipedia)

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In a weird way, this anime made me realize how quick you can die, and that you should value the time that you are living.

Ever since I saw a video on the voice actors of Yumeiro Patissiere, I got more interested in the voice actors of the animes as well as the animes themselves.
Here is something interesting I found out;

I'm sure many of us who watched both Fruits Basket and Ouran High School Host Club have realized the immense similarities between Honey-Senpai and Momiji Sohma.
So is anyone really shocked that both characters were voice by the same person? A female by the name of Ayaka Saito none-the-less?

Sometimes, when I really want to escape reality, I imagine myself to be living in an anime. Most of those I choose are supernatural, settings where going to school is fun and parents aren’t breathing down your neck for 100%.
So while my friends were starring at me eating large amounts of chocolate to de-stress myself from upcoming report card (even the clerk was staring at me weird when I bought THAT much), my mind traveled back to the anime that I think about most often when I’m in these situations.
Gakuen Alice. (AKA: Alice Academy).
Wouldn’t it be great to have some sort of powers that make you stand out from the rest? Each one unique, yet not termed as weird. Sure you would still have to do tests and face problems, but wouldn’t it be cool to have a small flame in your hand in the winter and a block of ice in the summer whenever you wish?
I know I sure can use that right now.

The Gâteau Affairs

This is as close as to Yumeiro Patissiere as a reality show is going to get.
Although this focuses more on romance, this drama has similar aspects from the anime. Like the cakes they make. Especially the first one in the top left corner, doesn’t that remind you of the anime one I posted before?
The plot is also similar: A girl who can’t find her place decides to go into baking. At first, she is really bad, then she gets really good.
(But I am sure they did not base it on the anime since this came out around 2006.)

Tempting

Can these pictures tempt you to watch an anime?

Good enough for me.

Amano Ichigo & Kashino Makoto

Caption: I only just realized that you are the only one who is always by my side.
DC: I did not ps this picture.
There is rarely any photoshop pictures of the two. I found this one on Baidu.
—-
In my opinion, they are one of the minor flaws in the Yumeiro Patissiere. They are very cute together, but there should be more of them.
There wasn’t enough romantic scenes between them in both seasons.Throughout the anime, there were very few scenes where it gives hints that they like each other (blushing excluded).
Therefore, I’ve resorted to fan fiction. lol.