LivingTodayInThePresent

Shakespeare could not have said it any better through Puck, his tongue in cheek character from "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", "Lord, what fools we mortals be!" And indeed, only love can turn sane, logical and intelligent people into weepy, devastated blithering idiots. You can’t learn love but you live it and you can’t talk your way out of being in love no matter how good you are in public speaking or writing.

They say that intelligent people are the ones who are dumbest (and unluckiest) in love. After all, who needs a brain when a person falls in love? There is after all, "love at first sight" so logic rarely if ever plays a part in the phenomenon of falling in love. So in a way, simple people are lucky because they just "feel" it– smart and complicated people on the other hand spend too much time nitpicking, analyzing, worrying and trying to comprehend whether or not they have indeed fallen in love (or had a mental breakdown).

My bestfriend, Gus and I describe ourselves as simple people with complicated thoughts so while we fall in love like the rest of the mortal race– we also tend to overanalyze. We overcomplicate cut and dried matters because we don’t want to be "fools in love". And more often then not, we end up being each other’s movie date. *sobs*

So last Sunday, after a movie of non-stop action and booty shots (which was endless!)– Gus and I discussed our views on love and how it changed since our college days. Back then, we were both hopeless romantics out to find the "ONE". The process was fairly easy but finding the prince among frogs was another story.

For Gus, he said that falling in love was much like a fish getting hooked. That no matter how much you wriggle, you can’t escape it. So there you are, hanging on because of a bait and a hook that’s cutting your mouth. You’re bleeding badly but who cares? Because you have literally fallen for it hook, line and sinker. And then you get eaten or, you get coshed on the brain, disemboweled, marinated, fried and then eaten. Yum!

A friend of mine, Michiko went as far back as to describe what loving someone is. She described people’s hearts as boxes of different sizes and because of the disparity in sizes, people get hurt expecting to get a box as big as the ones they have or give. Say for example, I have a box as big as 100% but unfortunately, the other person has a box as big as only 50%. In the end, no matter if he gives his all, a person with a smaller box can only give so much and not enough–not enough to even fill half of what the other person gave.

Right now, I see falling in love as abandoning your brain. Because whoever says he loves wisely is a fool twice over–because love can’t be this perfect emotion where everything falls into place and love isn’t something you can ration out or put on the shelf whenever you find it convenient. So I admit it, I am a fool in love no matter how much my head tries to deny, defy and obliterate every shard of this emotion. What makes me even more foolish and pathetic is that even though I try hard to erase this emotion, I still feel it and in the end, I’m fighting for something that was already given up. Tragic indeed but unfortunately, love isn’t something I can’t rewrite like my stories. I’m a fool in love with little hope of a recovery. Medic!!!!

“Until one morning, I’ll wake up and find I’m thinking about something else, and then I’ll know the worst is over. My heart might be bruised but it will recover and become capable of seeing the beauty of life once more. It happened before, it will happen again, I’m sure. When someone leaves, its because someone is about to arrive.” -Paulo Coelho, The Zahir

I first heard about Honey and Clover from Animax, I wasn’t really intruigued by it until I found myself watching its first episodes on Youtube. I’m currently watching Honey and Clover right now and it’s actually got me hooked–I wasn’t expecting it to be that good.

Hachimitsu to Clover (translated as Honey and Clover) centers around college life for a group of friends. It was advertised to be a love story yet the journey was a sentimental and realistic place where the characters become something more than mere animation.

I actually found it both complex and poetic, and I fell in love with it when I saw the line from one of the songs used in its soundtrack:

"Send the lost promises to the stars, my memories won’t fade away."

And in episode 9, another line I found memorable was one said during the narration:

"The October breeze was cold and the rays of the low afternoon sun were bright white. The world, as if stopped, was stained with a silver hue."

The anime is ridden with background music, soundtracks and oddly enough, it works, because the mood for it was perfect since most characters seem to fumble around with words. I was a little confused in the beginning since the anime basically seemed to drop me in the middle of Takemoto’s life and perspective and I found myself asking, "Where did the title, Honey & Clover come from?" And Animax did say it was a love story so I was kind of expecting swoon worthy moments and mushy dialogue and the tingly cliche plot where girl meets boy, *blush blush*, falls in love, friend gets in the way, confession, happy love, the end.

But Honey & Clover is very different from all romance anime–there are so many things left unsaid and it feels somewhat restrained that the viewer is all but bouncing off the walls to even just see one lousy romantic scene… but it’s not there. There are "moments" beautiful and painful but it’s so contained it leaves you wanting more, though it also leaves you oddly satisfied because of the beautiful dialogue and the gut-wrenching songs. Episode 8-10 were some of my favorites and the lines go straight to your gut,

"The sunset I see as I stand next to you is so beautiful that it aches my heart."

And that line was never said, as Takemoto Yuuta simply gazes at Hanamoto Hagumi who is tenderly touching a brooch given by Morita Shinobu.

The characters in this anime are all so human, riddled with flaws, unaware of feelings, and searching for things they don’t even understand. All of them are art students trying to come to terms with new feelings and what is is to grow up and fall in love. And what’s so good and enchanting about the anime is that they focus on what’s not being said and the visuals seem to get more stunning as time goes by.

Honey and Clover won the 2003 Kodansha Manga Award and I’m not surprised because it’s really that good. The dialogue/narration and the songs are simply wonderful and the characters are completely believable. It’s far from a perfect love story or a giggly anime romance, there is unrequited love looming in every nook and cranny of the story. From Mayama’s futile love for the badly hurt and scarred Rika to Takemoto’s unspoken feelings for the artistic genius Hagu-chan who treats him like a friend, this anime is sure to not just gently tug but wrench your heart strings. There are 26 episodes and I heard that season 2 has 12–I will have to confirm on that later on since I’m just making my way through the anime.

Episode synopsis with character focus coming soon!

Honey & Clover is highly recommended for all poets, lovers, friends and dreamers out there! So excuse me while I watch the rest of it– ja ne!

Before I go off on my "It’s Complicated" post, I would also like to invite everyone to check out this anime blog, here’s the link: http://otakushrine.wordpress.com.  As you all know, I an extremely addicted to anime, more so now that I have so much free time on weekends that I get to go on straight anime marathons. I have also found a partner for this "otaku shrine"– Michiko and we would just like to post that our blog is up and running, it’s fairly new, not even 10 posts but we already have 500+ views! Pinoy otakus welcome! Ja matta ne!

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I can’t think of a good way to describe last weekend except as the infamous and very showbiz line, "It’s complicated." And certainly it is.

I’m probably stressing over nothing, I’m probably also stressing over nothing to not think about anything, I’m probably stressing on what seems to be nothing but could be something, I’m probably stressing over something that I think is nothing but may turn out to be a completely new thing! See my train of thought? Totally whacked out!

I’m not even sure I can articulate the events happening and unfolding in my life– every day is a surprise, a discovery, I really think I’m much stronger now in the aftermath of what could have been a 9/11 disaster only thing is, it happened on a much earlier date. I guess it’s just disorienting that my life has taken several unpredictable turns, I’m not exactly happy about it, but what else can I do? I guess the neatly arranged years I’ve planned would have to fly out the window but as my friends say, "Be your own priority." And now I am. Of course, I still get occasionally choked up when I think about the past but I’m trying to put it where it should be– in the past. After all, I did get kicked to the curb over work.

Right now–I’m pretty much okay, I did tell my parents about it, I had time to grieve over choices made and yes, I finally did accept the fact that there are just some things I can’t change. Whatever power I have is the fact that I can just change myself.

So this "it’s complicated" line, I gladly welcome it. It’s a nice distraction while I pick up the pieces and hopefully, move on. So hooray for friends, anime and DC graphic novels!

Blogbite 1: I woke up this morning, feeling much like death warmed over. My puson hurt terribly, I can barely stand, my eyes insisted on remaining shut–and it struck me, DANG! It’s another cycle of unbearable torture for seven days! Is there a pill I can take somewhere that would turn me into a man?

Blogbite 2: Had a horrible class in Persons and Family Relations yesterday, everybody seemed to be unprepared and that of course included me. I could really sense the professor’s disappointment and the whole class was as silent like death.

Blogbite 3: It turned out that one of professors last Tuesday had planned the administer an exam that day– only to find that only 3 students were present in her class– excluding me.  Also, I have a graded recitation this afternoon in Criminal Law, Articles 15-20 none of which I’ve even read. OMG! I’m a dead woman walking!

Blogbite 4: The anime pic above is my current desktop screensaver– it’s from CLAMP’s Tokyo Babylon, it was the scene where Seishirou killed Hokuto–the twin sister of the man he loves in order to fulfill a promise made under the Sakura tree. The whole story is quite tragic, in fact, Hokuto merely acted as the double in order to save her twin brother from death at the hands of his lover and in her death see placed a mirror spell wherein whatever harm Seishirou does to Subaru will reflect back at him. This picture is entitled, "Death and Destiny".