The media blogging continues. I’ve been watching 「１リットルの涙」/1 Litre of Tears over the last few days and finished it last night.
This TV drama is based on the best-selling diaries and notes written by a young girl, who suffered from an incurable disease called Spinocerebellar Degeneration, and her mother; the 11-episode TV series was broadcast from October till December 2005. You can find a synopsis here.

Through the series the viewer accompanies Aya, the girl with the terrible illness that will inevitably lead to her death, from her mid-teens until her early twenties. Aya is a typical teenager, she has loving parents and three younger siblings who each admire their older sister for her intelligence in school and her talent on the basketball court. We see her enjoy her daily life until small incidents occur during which Aya seems to lose control over her body. And after Aya has to be sent to the hospital, first her mother and then she herself is told she’s suffering from SCD. Due to her sickness, Aya will lose her first love (but gain a much stronger one), her friendships will be put to the test and much sooner than later, Aya’s life will change completely as she will be no longer able to walk, talk and eat properly. Through all of this, her family will become Aya’s greatest source of support and will enable her to keep her strong will to live.

The producers should have given a warning somewhere that the title, 1 Litre of Tears, refers to the approximate volume of tears cried by the viewer during each episode. I haven’t seen something so painful in quite some time. Its portrayal of the Ikeuchi family, that gave Aya strength even though not only Aya herself but each member of her family suffered because of her illness, and of the relationship between Asou and Aya that was characterised by the fear of an impending loss, shame and helplessness but also by an understanding beyong words, are extraordinarily touching and beautiful. The series manages to keep a good balance between pure, human drama and a (healthy) dose of kitsch.

Everything about that series is perfect to me. The music, the atmosphere. The actors’ performances are all convincing and really the backbone of the difficult story. The plot develops evenly at a good pace and throughout the course of the series there isn’t a single episode that seems weaker than the others, each leaves a strong impression on you that’ll stay with you for a long long time.

Just wasting time here till I get sleepy and can go to bed. Everyone else except me is free to ignore the following entry.
I finished my pro translation yesterday, have already sent it in and got some nice comments on it which makes me feel accomplished and glad that all the effort that went into it payed off. It was a difficult text but definitely worth translating seeing that it gave me a lot of practice with a sort of text we usually don’t work with in university.

My – admittedly massive – spring break’s almost over (only one and a half week left) but there are still so many films I want to watch, games I want to play (btw, I finally finished Another Code the other day), manga and novels I want to read ;_; There’s a part of me that wants to stay here forever and not go back to university.

Being home for all these weeks has made me quite domestic… The kitchen is were all my creativity goes into these days. Much to my family’s enjoyment, I made white&milk chocolate chip cookies and chicken teriyaki on Friday ^^V (And I even cleaned the mess afterwards!)
I spent most of Saturday with my sister and it felt great to talk to her again for hours. We’re both so excited because she might get into that art school she’s always dreamed of going to.

Late last night I saw the video for Coldplay’s Talk. I suppose I don’t have to stress the fact that Coldplay are a terrible band, we all know that, but the video is absolutely brilliant! (That dreadful band doesn’t even deserve such a wonderful video being made for one of their songs… -_-;) Anyway, it has this fantastic old-fashioned robot in it that reminds me of the robot in Miyazaki’s Laputa; it chases the band across the planet and eats the UFO with them in it in the end which shows the advanced intelligence and incomparable abilities of robots because no human being has yet managed to eat that band or make them disappear in a similar fashion. We must worship robots more!

The new anime season started off for me with NANA, which was also my personal most anticipated new series for spring ‘06. This being the adaptation of one of my favourite shoujo manga, my expectations were extremely high.

The animation is being done be Studio MADHOUSE, who did a great job at Paradise Kiss, another adaptation of a Yazawa Ai manga, in the second half of last year.

And they did not disappoint me with NANA. Luckily, the first episode proved that the TV anime is not a pannel to frame adaptation but takes a bit of artistic freedom here and there by leaving things out, adding short scenes and showing scenes from a different angle than in the manga, so it doesn’t give the avid NANA manga reader the feeling they’ve “seen” it all before.
(Which is what happened to me with the NANA movie last year where some scenes seemed all too familiar, especially the scene on the train, the two Nanas’ first meeting, because it used the same angles as the manga and seemed to follow it pannel by pannel.)

The character design of the anime is good, but by no means as cute or beautiful as in the manga. Especially the profiles tend towards the ugly side of things, and a lot of times the full body proportions seem too stretched, even for a shoujo series.

The animation itself is quite decent, including the CG sequences which blend in rather well with the traditionally created scenes.

The music fits pretty well; the opening theme by Tsuchiya Anna and the ending theme by Olivia set the mood for the respective bands and these two vocalists symbolize the fact that NANA (like the original manga itself) is not about authentic (indie) rock or punk but just their mainstream versions (or how the mainstream perceives these genres).

What I’ve noticed after the first 5 minutes already, is that the TV adaptation relies heavily on comedy scenes, more than the manga. The background music (which sometimes reminded me of BGM to be heard during a circus show) emphasized that effect. There were more melancholic and quieter scenes but they definitely were fewer (and shorter) than those slapstick comedy scenes.

I am satisfied with the way they condensed the story, though Hachi/Nana doesn’t quite come off as the bad girl she really is as they left out a lot of her past (her affair with the married man etc.) but this was only the first episode and they might fit in bits of the background story at some later point.

The first episode aired late this past Wednesday so naturally, there aren’t any fansubs out yet. However, if your knowledge of (modern, everyday) Japanese is at a medium degree, you’ll be able to follow the dialogue pretty well. And if you’ve read the manga in Japanese (like me), you won’t face any difficulties at all because all the lines have been used in the manga and you won’t hear anything new.

Ah, I almost forgot: the voice acting! I love Oosaki Nana’s voice *_* Last year, I took really long to get used to Nakashima Mika’s voice who played Nana in the movie adaptation. Her voice sometimes seemed a bit too weak. Not with Paku Romi, the voice actress of the animated Nana :) She has this ultra deep, manly voice which is how I imagine it when reading the manga. And it’s when she speaks softlier that she sounds irresistibly sexy! So far, I really really like her. Hachi’s voice is alright and there’s nothing to be said about the rest of the cast because besides Shouji and Junko, no other main characters have appeared yet. Can’t wait for next week’s episode~

Here are some screencaps:

I got my first job as a professional translator for Japanese o_O It’s challenging (considering it’s a nice change to translate scientific texts instead of the usual literary stuff) and fun, but so hard too. To balance that out, I started a little private project which will probably never really be shared online (like so much I’ve planned, ha) but I’ll keep at it and maybe it’ll see the light of day?

It’s good my birthday is in June, I’m going to need a lot of money around that date:

レミオロメン
3rd Album
HORIZON
2006.5.17（wed）Release

Including 3Hit Singles!!
「蒼の世界」（ハドソン着うた（R）サイト「着信★うた♪」CMソング）
「粉雪」（フジテレビ系ドラマ「1リットルの涙」挿入歌）
「太陽の下」（映画「子ぎつねヘレン」主題歌）
他 全12曲収録予定

VICL-62100 ￥3,045-（tax-in）

Reading the title put a smile on my face because 地平線 is my favourite Japanese word at the moment :)

And there’s yet one more album I’m definitely going to spend my money on!
The following information was posted just a few hours ago on Utada Hikaru’s website:

4th ALBUM
Ultra Blue
2006.6.14 release
TOCT-26067
3,059yen(tax in)

シングル「COLORS」「誰かの願いが叶うころ」「Be My Last」
「Passion」「Keep Tryin’」を含む全13曲収録予定

So that’s generally good news concerning new Japanese mainstream releases, bad news for my bank account. I should really try and save a bit… Well, I haven’t spent too much money since I came back home (haven’t even bought the Massive Attack Best Of collection yet! and, btw, the new Vines album is out later this week!) but once I’m in Berlin again I know I won’t be able to keep my money locked up in my account – simply too many great shops with pretty clothes and shoes and things there -_- Ah, the dilemma.