List of my favourite TV series

Below is a list of my fave series, ranked from my most favourite title in No.1.

Anime

1. School Rumble. The funniest anime, ever.
2. Full Metal Panic Fumoffu! This spin-off of the first season is simply better than its original.
3. Kamichu! A relaxing watch.
4. Ginban Kaleidoscope. Quite inspirational series about ice-skating.
5. Yakitate! Japan. Makes me wanna cook, I love it! (the mangaka seems to have some kind of bread fetish...)
6. Midori no Hibi. With its light-hearted theme, it has the best OST of all the anime series I have watched.
7. Jigoku Shoujo. It's best to watch this in the evening.
8. Tsubasa Chronicles. Reminds me of Singapore, when I watched this series till late in the morning with Boon's Acer.
9. Shaman King. I never finished watching this series, simply because those dumbs at ANTV/Global TV always repeat the same episodes over and over again.
10. Hamtaro. A very light-hearted anime.
11. Air TV. The anime's story plot actually gets a bit confusing in the middle, with all its flashbacks. But it has great graphic details, you shouldn't miss watching this series.
12. Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. The saddest anime I had watched... Don't watch this if you hate mellow-themed series.
13. Green Green. Quite sickening in its heavy H-theme, funny notwithstanding.
14. Blood+. Best to watch this in the evening.

K-Drama

1. Goong (aka. Princess Hours). Best Korean drama ever... I have deliberately chosen to skip the ending.
2. Sassy Girl Chunhyang. Great OST, good storyline.
3. Royal Prince's First Love. Brings us Indonesians to Bali! A bit mellow, though.
4. Full House. With its light-hearted theme, this is simply the funniest Korean series.
5. My name is Kim Sam Soon. Quite light-hearted too. Though the main actress turned chubby for this series, you'd love watching it notwithstanding.
6. Jewel in the Palace (aka. Jang Geum). Of course, who doesn't like this series?
7. Sad Love Story. Be prepared to cry from the beginning till the end. The saddest ever.

J-Drama

1. Nodame Cantabile. Hmmm Musical, attractive casts, what else? It's just too bad that Uehara Misa (the most beautiful Japanese actress, IMHO) played a bit of antagonistic role in this series.
2. Hanazakari no Kimitachi e. This drama used to hold the top spot until I watched Nodame.
3. Attention Please!. Aya Ueto plays a naive role in this series, LOL. I first spotted Uehara Misa from this series.
4. Great Teacher Onizuka. Very inspirational indeed... Teaches us a lot of Japanese familial and education values. Just take caution not to watch the anime version though... you'll simply waste your time and money
5. One Litre of Tears. Quite touching, it was based on a real-life story.
6. Hana Yori Dango. A much better version than the Taiwanese "Meteor Garden".
7. Love Generation. The oldest Japanese drama I have watched. Brings us an insight into what a typical salaryman romance life looks like a decade ago in Tokyo.

US-Drama

1. Desperate Housewives. I recalled getting very addicted with the series that I finished the entire Season One in just one night. Could you believe that? It was the longest streak of movie marathon I had been in, LOLZ.
2. Heroes. Despite its title, we don't see the typical Marvel comicbooks-type of heroes... Which is why I love this series.
3. Ugly Betty. I never watched the original in telenovela, but suffice to say that this NYC version has a better cut.
4. Ghost Whisperer. Oh come on, who doesn't love this series with Jennifer Love Hewitt as the main cast (and apparently, producer too)?
5. CSI: Miami. Season 1-3 is OK, but from season 4 afterwards it gets kinda repetitive in the story plot.

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Update on the Indonesian kid’s Naruto suicide

Picture courtesy of Dark Diamond

My previous post, which was paraphrased by ANN, had apparently incited a thread discussion. A related news in The Jakarta Post (which is now expired) had created a somehow false and misguided assumption about the Indonesian government, which I’ve commented upon.

Another interesting thing to note is that the Indonesian channel that airs Naruto, Global TV, has recently changed the Naruto rating from PG to T, presumably because of that particular incident. It still airs Naruto at the same time slot though, which is 6.30 pm to 7.30 pm, an ironically prime-time hour in Indonesia.

Seeming want to catch up with the incident's latest news too, another TV station in Indonesia, Indosiar, has recently decided to air exactly the same Naruto on Sunday mornings. (Remember that Indonesia isn't a Christian country, thus every shows that air on Sundays indeed have high ratings amongst children).

This Indonesian anime forum, which is also hotly discussing the Naruto kiddie's death, has one person nicknamed fadillah46 who wrote:

"The kid is well known to amongst his neighbours to love acting as Naruto"

Anyway, in the forum discussion there are several interesting titbits by people in that thread which are worth reading:

Mr Vince wrote: These articles [referring to this blog and the JakPost link] are written poorly, and as a result most of the people here seem to think the kid was intentionally stangling [sic] himself.

What I think about it: I don’t recall having said that the kid was intentionally strangling himself. It was unintentional. This guy should’ve read properly before making comment like that.

Shadowrun20XX wrote: As for anyone in Naruto,causing harm to themselves would be spoiler[Hidan of the Akatsuki,and his,self sacrifice style jutsu.] He is the only one that came to mind.But that's still far from being animated.

What I think about it: Good point. I only watched around the first 40 episodes of Naruto at most, thus I’m not knowledgeable enough to pinpoint exactly which scene had encouraged that suicide. It might have not been Uzumaki Naruto whom he was imitating after all, it could also be other characters in that anime.

Ojamajo LimePie wrote: What it sounds like to me is that the poor kid commited suicide and the adults are looking for an easy scapegoat. Rather than investigate what was going on in the kid's life, perhaps family trouble or schoolyard bullying, they say "Hey, he watched that Naruto show. Let's blame it on the cartoon!" Of course, the kid isn't around anymore to tell them Naruto isn't the cause of his suicide.

What I think about it: The suicide took place in a poor community of Semarang. The case wouldn’t have had hit the news if it was purely a scapegoat.

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Ending of Doraemon

There are three current and often quoted urban legends that started spreading in late 1980s of an ending to the Doraemon series.

1. The first and the more optimistic ending was made public by Nobuo Sato several years ago. Doraemon's battery power ran out, and Nobita was given a choice between replacing the battery inside a frozen Doraemon, which would cause it to reset and lose all memory, or await a competent robotics technician who would be able to resurrect the cat-robot one day. Nobita swore that very day to work hard in school, graduate with honours, and become that robotics technician. He successfully resurrected Doraemon in the future as a robotics professor, became successful as an AI developer, and thus lived happily ever after, thus relieving his progeny of the financial burdens that caused Doraemon to be sent to his space-time in the first place. A dōjin manga for this ending exists.

2. The second, more pessimistic ending suggests that Nobita Nobi is suffering from autism and that all the characters (including Doraemon) are simply his delusion. The idea that Nobita was a sick and dying little boy who imagined the entire series on his sickbed to help him ease his pain and depression no doubt angered quite a lot of fans. Many Japanese fans staged a protest outside the headquarters of the publisher of the series after learning about this suggestion. The publisher had to issue a public statement that this is not true.

3. The third ending suggests that Nobita fell and hit his head on a rock. He fell into a deep coma, and eventually into a semi-vegetative state. To raise money for an operation to save Nobita, Doraemon sold all the tools and devices in his four-dimensional pocket. However, the operation failed. Doraemon sold all his tools except for one used as a last resort. He used it to enable Nobita to go wherever he wanted, whichever time era he wished to go. In the end, the very place Nobita wanted to go was heaven.

The plausibility of these issues was discussed here and it was concluded that there is no ending to Doraemon.

There are three official endings to Doraemon that were made. Doraemon was discontinued in two media because readers were advancing in grades and an ending was believed to be needed. These two are not reprinted.

1. In the March 1971 issue of the magazine Shogaku 4-nensei: Due to the fact that visitors from the future were causing too much trouble, the government in the 22nd Century passed a bill to ban time-travelling altogether, meaning Doraemon would have to return to his time era. He leaves Nobita.

2. In the March 1972 issue of the magazine Shogaku 4-nensei: Doraemon, for some reason, had to go back to the future but fakes a mechanical problem so that Nobita would let him go. Nobita believes him and promises to wait until Doraemon gets well. Realizing that Nobita can handle his departure, Doraemon tells the truth and Nobita accepts. Doraemon returns to the future.

The third ending was actually meant to be the official ending due to low TV ratings and the Fujiko Fujio duo was busy with other works. But Doraemon did not leave their minds and restarted from next month's issue. In 1981, this episode was made into anime (called "Doraemon Comes Back"), and in 1998, this was released as an anime movie.

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“When one person is cursed, two graves are dug…..”

Lately I’ve been following the anime series of Jigoku Shōjo routinely on Animax channel. In Jigoku Shōjo, each episode has separate unrelated stories that follow the same pattern: they describe the suffering of a different individual caused by one or more antagonists. A website known as Jigoku Tsūshin (Hell Correspondence) may only be accessed at midnight by one who harbours a desire for revenge against their tormentor. Should someone submit the name of one they hate, the Jigoku Shōjo (Hell Girl) will offer them a black straw doll with a red string wound encircled on its neck. If the string is pulled, she will ferry the recipient of the revenge with the help of her three assistants straightaway to Hell

Seems like a generous offer from Hell, huh? Not really.

The Hell Girl will only deliver the vengeance under the condition that those who request her intervention fall into Hell as well at the end of their natural lives.

Now that is a bad deal!

Even the Hell Girl herself always warn her client-to-be about the consequence of having their vengeance delivered. By going to hell for eternity, they would never know what paradise is like. Furthermore, their soul would be tormented for the rest of their lives on earth everytime they remind themselves that they will surely go to hell after they die.

Sometimes I couldn’t help but sympathise for the Hell Girl’s clients as they were forced into pulling the red string when they were stuck. In most cases, such help from the Hell Girl could’ve simply been prevented by putting behind what the tormentor had done to him/her and “Forgive and Forget”…

Let’s take one case.

In an episode, a schoolgirl is stalked by a police officer. It firstly seemed innocuous enough, as the girl’s parents simply gave the girl more protection in order to prevent bad things happen to her.

However, things turned for the worse when the stalker police murdered the girl’s father and tried to rape and murder as the girl was then unguarded. Being stuck without any help, she then pull the string that she obtained from the Hell Girl earlier...

Now if I were that girl, I would’ve defended myself against that stalker. Even if in the end I got raped and killed, at least I would die peacefully knowing that I could go straightly to Heaven, you know, being young and had done no grave sins before..

But if the luck was on my side, then the stalker could die in vain and I’d report his death to the authorities as a result of my self-defence…

That’s a much more logical thinking.

At least the possibility of me going to hell wouldn't be 100%, then.

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Kamichu! finished, Jigoku Shoujo commences

The printer just arrived two days ago and I’ve realised how a pain in the neck it was during the days before it came. Gone are the days when I have to spend hours in front of my computer reading e-books and stuff to study, as now I can easily print all the study materials: free Word of The Day, free Esperanto lessons, free Wikipedia articles, free Hiragana Times Easy articles, and thousands of other freebie readings… HOHOHOO!!!

Now that the Kamichu! series has finished on TV, I regret not watching it since the early episodes… It’s just so lovely you know, with all the relaxing and leisurely pace the series goes, such a life I’ve been dreaming for… And it’s targetted for Seinen some more (male young adults), which is why I don’t regard watching this series as being sissy.

Despite the storyline pace that sometimes go too slow that the audience may feel that it goes w/o heading any clear direction, I still like Kamichu! for its very easy-listening and relaxing soundtrack and its unlaxing animation. It is by far, one of my most fave anime in terms of the animation, how the computer graphics comfort the eyes… And no wonder it has got that anime award in Japan for having achieved the best graphic of the year!

It’s just like watching animes such as Pokemon or Shaman King or Midori no Hibi that makes me love animes even more. My most fave is still the comedic ones of course, like School Rumble and Full Metal Panic Fumoffu!... But comedic animes are rare to be found, and even if I do find such an anime, they usually span over short season. Too bad, huh…

Anyway, I’m following a new Anime now, Jigoku Shoujo. It’s abt some hell ppl who deliver vengeance to those bullied or constantly haunted by malicious ppl on earth so that they can get rid of the bad guy.

It’s kinda like the exact opposite of the story Kamichu! huh? Yeah, it really is! One is about a Shinto God who helps those in need, whilst the other is abt Hell ppl who helps those in distress.

Lolz. Not really the kind of anime I like, but it’s not too bad for a substitute anyway.

The anime Colourcloud Palace that has been advertised on Animax for more than a month has not been aired yet, and even now I’ve already memorised the details of the anime w/o ever watching it, dammit! What took them so long to air it??!!! The premiere of the anime is on 26 September and yet they’ve advertised it since 26 August w/ the “Coming up in September…” thingy!

Just so happy that now 26 August is nearing, I’ve made sure I book the programme when the time comes!

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gratitude

I juz finished watching anime Blood+ episode 3 by now, and by the way though I don’t really like mystery stories, I think the anime is quite good rite…

Just 2 days ago I finished watching the whole series of 15 episodes Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, and now I regret watching them for too fast.. This anime was damn good!!! Quite funny (only a little bit less funny than School Rumble), and the storyline, though filled in with slapsticks, is quite romantic. I like weird ‘chemistry’ between Sagara Soosuke and Chidori Kaname, esp. the one shown in episode 14, where there’s the flirting competition stuff… And then the Bonta-kun is damn cute! ^ ^

If you guys out there haven’t watch this Fumoffu anime, you better check it out! In the official website is said that there is a total of 17 episodes, and 2 of them, regretfully, are withdrawn from mass production due to the fact that the story is connected with current criminal cases in Japan.. How I regret such a decision… If only both the prequel and sequel of this movie (which are mecha-genre, in comparison with this romantic-comedy-genre Fumoffu) are that good also… Huhh…

Anyway, talking abt romantic comedy, I might wanna refer to the movie “She’s The Man” I watched last weekend… Based on 12^th Nite (which I’ve been studying in my Lit class), all the light humour in the movie had lightened me up, esp. during this pre-preliminary-exam “Era of Great Depression”. Check it out!

Dunno why, juz before the prelims itself, I dun reali feel like studying. Instead of focusing onto what I’m having rite now, I’m much more concerned abt my future: where I am going to continue my higher education. Is it in Singapore? Is it in America? Or is it in…..(though I dun want it at all)…….Jakarta?

Thinking of the first possibility, I’d be very happy to be able to continue my 2-yrs-scholarship term here. If only I could do well academically… With my current ability, it’s very unlikely for me to enter any JC, let alone the possibility of going on with scholarship. Frankly though, I’m actually desperate to enter this new ACS(IB) which is adjacent to the sec school building now. I ruled out any possibility of entering any other JCs, bcos you’ll need to move to a new hostel, which furthermore means that I have to adapt to a new environment and also later have to take all the troubles to move my belongings to tat new hostel.

Then, there is also another obstacle: money matters. Well, people outside there who have never been bonded by any scholarship might say how I have gotten this 100% paid scholarship thing and I dun need to pay a single cent and stuff…… What a hogwash… It’s simply half the truth, man… The other half is that though your school fees and hostel fees are fully paid by MoE, they never cover up the expenses for overseas trips such as OEP, LDP which may oblige you to dig deep to your pockets until S$1000 or more!! Then, in the ACS(IB) frens around me say that you’ll have to pay yourself for the IB subjects book fee which has the figure until four-digits…. Ugh, even thinking of it makes me sick!!! If only I’m well-off financially….

Until last week, I have got only 2 choices in mind: If I were given a chance to continue scholarship, I’d choose to enter IB. But if I couldn’t enter IB, then I’ll definitely take off to America, where I’m supposed to be… I tell you, at that time my heart has a tendency of 60% opting for American school, and the other 40% for ACS(IB). However, the probability figure tells another story. I have 95% chance of going to America and 5% of entering IB (This is due to a secret which I won’t reveal in this blog due to confidentiality matters).

Wahh, if only I can enter IB….. Realistically, I can’t.

Then, last Friday, I heard this so-called ‘voice’ of my guardian angel:

You don’t belong here, Toshi. Your future is not to be pursued in Singapore. You better go back to America.

I did not reply to that voice, and he also stopped talking to me. Really, I tell you, I dunno how to reply. I think again afterwards, and then come up with an answer: it maybe right after all. I think my future doesn’t really belong here. If I look back in my 1.5 yrs of stay in Singapore now, I’ve both suffered and learned lessons of life at the same time. Singapore has become the training ground that prepares me for maturity, for me to get out of the comforts of childhood (or childish?) cocoon, so that I can be a butterfly in my adult years… Honestly, and frankly, I actually disliked (I dun wanna use the word “hate”) Singapore for quite a number of times for the past 1.5 yrs. But the past 1 mth, seeing that my stay in Singapore might end in a short while, I have reflected back and realized that…

Hey, why should you dislike Singapore? Is it bcoz of all the agony you’ve gotten here? Haven’t most of those agonies actually forged you into a better person? Look at yourself now. Look at how different you are from the “you” 18 mths ago, when you left Jakarta for Singapore. You should have expressed gratitude for Singapore, Thomas.

Correct.

I should’ve done so.

Thank you, Singapore.

You know what, I think I actually might have developed love for this country after all. Hahahaha…… Love-hate relationship, huh? No lar, I’ve lost all the feelings of enmity for Singapore. I think now I love this country after all. The greenery, the transport, the airport, the blend-in of Asian cultures, the cleanliness of air pollution, the church ministry life…. If only I were a Singapore national.

But I’m not.

And I dun think I should be one. Though I love this country, I dun think I want to become a PR, or even a national of Singapore… I feel that I belong to another society that welcomes me more: Indonesia. And my true love will always be for America and Japan…

Still, Singapore is, I tell you, a wonderful country. Really. I dun fall into the traps of Singapore Tourism Board slogan, neither am I promoting Singapore to you ppl who are reading this blog. But somehow, though I dun feel really at home here, I’ve treated Singapore as my home for 18 mths till now… I dun actually know why now I feel this sudden change of feeling towards Singapore. I’ve told my frens Buana and Stanford abt my sudden change of heart towards Singapore, and they are left wondering why I have this feeling now.

Anyway, let me say it again…

Thank you, Singapore.

PS: There is actually another special reason why now I love Singapore, but I dun wanna mention it here ^_^. You guess by yourself, judging from my psychological condition (duuhh!!!!!!) lately…

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