One Piece

Call me crazy, but I just LOVE One Piece.  I could never get enough of the gang and their pirate adventures.  Each one helping the other find their individual dreams, they make up the perfect group of unlikely comrades and the best of friends.   They go against practically insurmountable obstacles and invincible adversaries, and yet they prevail by honing their own special abilities and never failing to lend each other a hand.  How I wish I were a part of such a motley and endearing pirate crew!  

Patience - Guns N' Roses

(One of the best songs ever!  I love GN'R!)

One, two, one, two, three, four

Shed a tear 'cause I'm missin' you

I'm still alright to smile

Girl, I think bout you every day now

Was a time when I wasn't sure

But you set my mind at ease

There is no doubt you're in my heart now

Said woman take it slow, and it'll work itself out fine

All we need is just a little patience

Said sugar make it slow and we'll come together fine

All we need is just a little patience

Mmmm, yeah

I sit here on the stairs 

'Cause I'd rather be alone

If I can't have you right now I'll wait dear

Sometimes I get so tense but I can't speed up the time

But you know love there's one more thing to consider

Said woman take it slow and things will be just fine

You and I'll just use a little patience

Said sugar take the time cause the lights are shining bright

You and I've got what it takes to make it

We won't fake it, I'll never break it

'Cause I can't take it

Little patience, mmm yeah, mm yeah

Need a little patience, yeah

Just a little patience, yeah

Some more patience, yeah

Could use some patience, yeah

Gotta have some patience, yeah

All it takes is patience

Just a little patience

Is all you need (background vocals)

I've been walking the streets at night

Just trying to get it right

It’s hard to see with so many around

You know I don't like being stuck in the crowd

And the streets don't change

But maybe the names

I ain't got time for the game cause I need you

Yeah, yeah, yeah, 'cause I need you

Ooo I need you, whoa I need you

Ooooh, all this time 

Watch the video

Looper (2012)

This film was released in 2012 and starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt.  I have to say it’s one of the best sci-fi/action stories I’ve ever seen.   I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a sci-fi flick this much since Equilibrium (2002).  The main pull for me was the plot itself, because for a sci-fi flick, this one didn’t really have too many mind-blowing visual effects.  The story and the characters drove the motion of the movie, and it swept me along on its urgent and rather emotional race toward the finish.  Excellent, excellent!

The story is set in a rather dystopian world, still quite similar to our own present.  Time travel has not yet been invented.  But thirty years into the future it will be.  Immediately it is outlawed, but criminal organizations in the future still use it to get rid of their enemies by dumping them, bound and with their head in a sack, into the past, where a waiting “looper” will shoot them dead as soon as they get there.  A looper is paid in silver, bars of which are strapped on to the person sent to him for killing.  Eventually though, having a looper running around is too risky, so the bosses from the future would find the looper’s future self, and in a stroke of bitter irony, send him back to the past for his younger version to kill.  In this case, gold bars are given as an incentive, and thus the “loop” is closed.  Our Joe (Gordon-Levitt) is one such looper.  The events of the film begin to escalate when his best friend fails to close his “loop” and ends up getting killed.  Joe believes he himself was entirely at fault for not being able to save his friend.  And then things get really bad when he himself fails to kill his future self.  So then Future Joe (Willis) must now try to set things in motion so that his present self will not have to live a life in which he would eventually watch his beloved wife get murdered.   For that particular offence, Future Joe blames the “Rainmaker,” the evil overlord of the future.  He sets out to kill the Rainmaker in the present so that the child will never grow up to be the evil overlord that he will be.  I’ll stop here to avoid giving away too much of the movie.  Really, it must be seen to be truly appreciated.

The movie touched on a varied number of themes, but I think the central one is that of taking responsibility for one’s actions, facing the consequences, and being honourable and noble enough to accept them.  By the end of the film, Joe finally finds the perfect solution to break the cycle of pain and bloodshed that binds his life with that of the Rainmaker.  He takes the future into his own hands and saves everyone even at the cost of the only thing he has left.  Other themes the flick touched on were loyalty, parenthood, a child’s innocence, revenge, and the redemptive power of love.  It’s a glorious mishmash of all that and more. Fast-paced, thought-provoking, and emotionally intense, I highly recommend this film to one and all.  

Watch the trailer.

Black Sheep - Gin Wigmore

(One of the most bad-ass songs I've ever heard.  This song became a great favorite from the moment I first heard it.) 

I got lots of jealous lovers that all wish they had me back
Got a pistol for a mouth, my own mama gave me that
Making my own road out of gravel and some wine
And if I have to fall then it won't be in your line

Everybody's doing it so why the hell should I?
Everybody's doing it so why the hell should I?

I'm a bad woman to keep
Make me mad, I'm not here to please
Paint me in a corner, but my colour comes back
Once you go black you never go back
I'm a black sheep
I'm a black sheep

I wasn't born a beauty queen but I'm okay with that
Maybe radio won't mind if I sing a little flat
I wear my boots to bed, hang a cross up on the wall
To save me from a shallow break who wants to take us all

Everybody's doing it so why the hell should I?
Everybody's doing it so why the hell should I?

I'm a bad woman to keep
Make me mad, I'm not here to please
Paint me in a corner, but my colour comes back
Once you go black you never go back
I'm a black sheep
I'm a black sheep

I got lots of jealous lovers that all wish they had me back
Got a pistol for a mouth, my own mama gave me that
Making my own road out of gravel and some wine
And if I have to fall then it won't be in your line

I'm a bad woman to keep
Make me mad, I'm not here to please
Paint me in a corner, but my colour comes back
Once you go black you never go back
Once you go black you never go back

Black Sheep music video

Maou (2008)

This has to be one of the best series I have ever seen.  The story was just so absorbing and suspenseful.  The central characters were all interesting and magnetic.  A wonderfully delivered plot, plus great performances, plus a smorgasbord of themes, made this an intensely gripping and emotional story. 

The title is literally translated as “devil king”.  That’s because the central character is a lawyer who’s being dubbed as “angelic” for his reputation for clearing accused people who were really innocent of their purported crime.  In truth, though, this lawyer is very carefully manipulating his clients and his entire career in order to stage a vengeance that took him eleven years to plan and execute.  When he was seventeen years old, Manaka Tomoo’s brother was accidentally stabbed by a classmate named Serizawa.  

It all began there.  Slowly but surely with each episode all the events that led up to Manaka’s bitter search for vengeance unfolds.  Death comes one by one to people who were related to the case.  Serizawa, who now has become a police detective, tries to unravel the mysteries surrounding the deaths caused by a mysterious figure called Amano Makoto.  Eventually Serizawa finds out the truth about the deaths that seem to be hounding his friends and family and their connection to the painful past that he has been trying to overcome since the unfortunate incident eleven years ago.  Unfortunately, the tides cannot be turned anymore.  Manaka and Serizawa must confront each other and face the consequences of their actions, and the series comes to an appropriately tragic conclusion.

The series dealt with some very serious themes, including guilt and atonement, closeness to one’s family, loyalty to one’s friends, betrayal, justice, sacrifice, and the redemptive power of forgiveness.  It also had a supernatural element, represented as a psychic ability possessed by Manaka’s love interest.  That particular aspect of the story gave the entire series even more depth because although Manaka finds love and the hope of happiness, he ultimately sees himself unworthy of anything good – love, forgiveness, or joy.  I was truly enthralled by the story, its twists and turns, and the unexpected ways Manaka delivered his vengeance.  He was so dead set on it that he gave up his entire life for the fulfilment of his crusade.  The pacing was excellent, and the characters were all flawlessly portrayed.  I highly recommend this series to all who are looking for something of a detective thriller/mystery, because you will definitely get much more than you expect.  Maou has quickly become one of my most favourite series of all time.  

More information on Maou.

A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness

Deep in the heart of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, Diana Bishop – a young scholar and the descendant of witches – unearths an enchanted alchemical manuscript.  Wanting nothing to do with sorcery, she banishes the book to the stacks.  But her discovery has set a fantastical underworld stirring, and soon a horde of daemons, witches, and other creatures descends upon the library.  Among them is the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, a vampire with a keen interest in the book.  Equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense, A Discovery of Witches is a mesmerizing and addictive tale of passion and obsession that reveals the closely guarded secrets of an enchanted world.  (Back cover)

I’m on a short vacation right now, so I chose to read something very light and escapist.  I don’t want to think about anything too deeply, and this book fit.  I’m a big fan of magic in fantasy literature, so I found this interesting enough.  Another thing that I liked about it was that it dealt a lot with books and libraries.  Magic, books, and libraries – a winning combination. 

Although the book is a hefty 718 pages (mass market paperback), the back cover says about all it actually is.  The heroine, Diana, has been living in denial and suppressing her powerful magical abilities since a very young age.  She turns to the world of academia where she feels that she can accomplish much without needing to use any magic.  But she can’t escape her true nature.  So one day, she finds her hands on an enchanted manuscript.  She didn’t know, however, that for centuries all sorts of creatures have been searching for this tome, having each their own desperate agenda relating to it.  So when she opens the book, other creatures felt its magic as well and soon Diana is being hounded by other witches, daemons, and vampires.  And of course, once a vampire enters the picture, we all know how everything will turn out.  Yep, they fall in love.  Surprise, surprise. 

Matthew Clairmont is your average fantasy vampire.  Around and about him the author uses words like enigmatic, magnetic, tall, dark, mysterious, princely, knight-in-shining-armour, and the like.  You get the drift.  This vampire turns out to be scientist, too.  He is very curious about the genetics behind the different creatures out there – humans, vampires, witches, daemons, etc.  Turns out that the book Diana found may hold the key to his search for the answers he wants.  But of course, there’s a whole lot more they have to deal with.  Suddenly Diana is in terrible danger and Matthew then plays the role of protector.  As their relationship progresses, they find that a lot of things stand in the way of their romance.  Matthew carries a whole lot of history with him – 1500 years of it, to be exact.  Diana has to deal with that.  Then a long-ago covenant made between vampires, daemons, and witches actually forbids inter-species fraternization.  Add to that Diana’s raw magical power spilling out of her uncontrollably, coupled with a troubled past that she has yet to resolve.   So our pair has quite a lot on their supernatural hands. 

What made the book as long as 718 pages?  It was something pretty likeable and interesting, actually.  History, literature, and science.  Since the two protagonists are both scholars, and one of them apparently lived through all 1500 years of history, you get a crash course in those three fields of interest as you follow their tale of “the two of us against the world.”   Although the plot is basic and predictable, I did enjoy going through the crash course.  After all, you’d never get your genetics, physics and chemistry, literature, and history classes spiced up by romance, adventure, and suspense in a university course.  There’s an idea.  Why not throw in a magnetic, brooding vampire and a captivating, intelligent witch into a microbiology lecture?  I’m sure fewer students would be falling asleep as the professor drones on. 

So did I enjoy the book?  Yes.  It fit what I was looking for at the time.  I finished it in two days – all 718 pages of it.  Like I said, it’s light and doesn’t really require much of deep thinking.  You just sit back, imagine yourself in the wonderful world of Oxford, or a medieval castle in France, or surrounded by spectacular books in a great old library.  And oh, don’t forget to imagine yourself surrounded by unnaturally gorgeous peoples.  There.  Plus, I enjoyed the scholarly parts of the story, too.  I tend to read very fast when I’m actually having fun with the book.  So if you think all that’s appealing, then try the book and I hope you enjoy.   

Unscene #12

Kaleidoscope

There was blood everywhere – on the walls, on the bed – the carpet had turned into a sick dark brown where it wasn’t creamy blue.  The boy lay down on his side, clutching a toy gun in his hand.  His mother slumped against the far wall, her bloody hair hanging limp down to her elbows.   The steely odour of all the blood filled Sarah’s head.

She took a step back towards the open window to get a breath of untainted air; her foot hit something that rolled away from her.  Sarah stooped to pick it up and saw that it was a kaleidoscope.  She put it to her eye and watched the patterns dance as she slowly spun the tube.  She had always wanted one when she was a child.  She put it down and walked towards the boy, squatting next to him to stare at the ashen six-year-old face.  Should she think him lucky for having had a kaleidoscope?

Sirens and flashing lights came from the window.  Soon enough Sarah heard footsteps running up the stairs.  She stood back and watched as the policemen rushed into the defiled room, checked the bodies for signs of life, and proceeded to start their investigation.  Of course, no one noticed Sarah as she calmly walked toward the window, threw herself out, and rose to glide away from the once-beautiful house.