For the reason of my birthday I was searching in some cosplay webs for a present for myself. Then I ended in a place that was not related at all with the prince-like atmosphere of the school uniform of Kuran Kaname I was looking for, this is, a site of maid costumes (laugh). I cannot have a straight opinion of this so-called maid culture. The only maid cafe I went was a normal place where the prices of food where expensive and the maids wore cute long black dresses with white aprons that did not call so much attention. The place I went of course was, a cafe where male and female costumers attend, enhancing more the cuteness and elegance (if I can call it like that) that the image of the maid has. If the thing that you are searching is another thing, of course there are a lot of options in Tokyo, but I cannot find the sense of all that, even in the most exotic fantasy I can imagine.

The costumes shown in the site I visited varied depending on the purpose, some of them were very nice and kawaii and others where sexier and leaving few things to the imagination. The store indicated that they sell costumes that real maids wear (laugh), and yes, we can say the girls of the maid cafes follow that fashion. Then I had a moment of eloquence and did a five-minute-research about the topic, finding that here in Japan there is a thing called the Nihon Maid Association, an place that, among other things, offers official recognition of a variety of skills and techniques that a real maid is supposed to have (that is, manners, knowlegde of cleaning, keeping a house, take care of their masters and so). If I did not read wrong, they have three ranks (first, second and third kyu), being the third the lowest and proof of the adquisicion of the most basic skills, and the second and first the more advanced levels. As far as I know one can begin being a maid on one of this famous cafes or places alike, but there are another kind of services, beyond all the dark limits of this culture, and it is simply being a housekeeper that works for a normal person or family, with the only different detail that there is no old and loud woman doing your laundry, but a cute young girl in her 20's, dressed like a french maid that treats you as her master (ご主人様= goshujin-sama). Since I am more interested in butlers that maids (woman or men, but butlers at the end), this fact surprised me completely. I knew this by a link that was in the site of the maid costumes before- it is the same company. So they sell costumes but also offers you the service of contract a maid to take care of your children or clean your office or house. From the costumer's reviews it is pretty obvious that many of them are men, and seeing the pose of the models of the costumes of their sister site, everything has a very questionable taste. But all that those maids do is cleaning your house in a more kawaii way (they have butlers too it seems, but there are no photos of them). For me, I think I cannot contract anyone to cleaning my house, I don't care if they are cute or not. The sole idea of someone that I don't know is touching my personal belongings or clothing makes me feel sick. But the worst thing are the prices! Who is willing to pay more than 300 dolars for two hours of kawaii cleaning? This is crazy. And sad. Knowing how the average japanese-male-otaku looks, because they are not precisely graceful bishounen, I feel very sorry for this nice girls that have to work for them. But the weird fact is that a lot of them choose this path and enjoy it.

Labels: butlers, cosplay, maids, moe

And 2009 began silently. Twelve days after, I feel that twelve weeks had passed, but no, we are still in this freezing January. Cold makes me want to sleep before anything else. I wanted to write so badly but the lazyness won the most part of the time. The only thing I do happily is being in front of the tv or pc screen. Now, I woke up at two in the morning and watched Skip Beat (this vampiric schedule happened thanks to a long weekend). In the commercials that ran after the series, there was one promoting the dvds of the second part of Neo Angelique, I believe. In the very moment that the voice of the protagonist girl sounded, I turned my head away from the television. Then I laughed. I realized that I really hated that show.

I began watching it since it was aired in april, among with Nabari no Ou, that ran in the same day. When I heard the title I found it funny, but I was interested too, only because that stylish name sounded kind of gothic or visual kei-ish in my strange associations. The first episode was weird; the girl was pretty and the guys, well, very normal for a boy-harem anime, with different colors representing every character that, after I while watching, I thought that I was near an epileptic attack, pokemon-like. Anyway I decided to give it a try, because I had nothing that I really considered fun in the japanese tv, excepting for a few dramas and La Corda d' Oro in 2006. But I couldn't. How can you mix a somewhat romantic aesthetic with those monsters (the thanatos thingie) that gave the impression to be designed by a high school boy? And if well, anime characters have this thing of look alike among them the most part of the time (excepting from some well-designed anime like Utena or Oniisama e, and even that) , why they have to made it so obvious? Even the eye color of the guys does not change that much. They are made to appear cute and/or sexy and make the fangirls to spend money on goods of them, but they seem to have died triying. And I will not dare to talk about the music, especially the endings and openings. That's why Neo Angelique piss me off so much. And it lasted two seasons!

With this, all my hopes related to that year's anime dissapeared and I turned back to our old Hagio Moto and Keiko Takemiya again, as always. But after a while I discovered that not all things where going bad. The first hit for me was Vampire Knight, that began the same season that Neo Angelique, but it take me time to realize it was good. Indeed, from the commercials that spoke about a world with beautiful vampires inmediatly caught my eye (laugh), however the character design and the animation itself was not so good as I spected for such an interesting idea. The rythm of the story also had a very slow pace for an anime. But in spite of all that, I recorded the episodes in my old vhs when I could. I stopped viewing it for reasons of time, because it was aired SO LATE in the night that I fell asleep while waiting many times. Then, I bought the manga and I realized how wonderful that story was, and that the anime was not able to translate all that beauty successfully. However, Kishio Daisuke doing Kaname was one of the good points. Nobody but him can impersonate that prince-like attitude. But if I continue speaking about this it will became very, very long (tears).

The another flower of 2008 was Kuroshitsuji, that began in October. I had the oportunity of reading the two first volumes of the manga when it aired, and I had very high expectations. First to say, the opening impressed me, and Sebastian in the part when the lyrics say "yasashikute, atsukute" is so nice made that my mood changes everytime I see it. Of course, achieving the Sebastian drawn by Yana Toboso is imposible to reproduce in an animation, but at least it seems that they care about his appearance and the most part of the time he moves and speaks beautifully. Also we can be aware of his red eyes all the time ^_^. Maaya Sakamoto doing Ciel is so cool knowing that she have such a girlish and soft voice when singing. And for me the most lucky character in terms of having a voice is Grell. Now I can understand his euphoria completely. The music also is nice and fits perfectly some parts with that creepy choirs and whispers. The ending is CUTE, so CUTE!! It had been a long time since an anime trapped me that way. But with all that it still has a weak point, and it is in the story, mainly when they go away from the manga line for a while, and they find that human-dog that is so disgusting, staining all the splendour with that cheap resources. Luckily, this break does not take so long but, why they have to refill with poor stories?

I wonder if we will have more brilliant things this year. Do I have to look at the past again now, scaping from that overused formulas of stupid school girls and short skirts? Now that this victorian-like trend is becoming stronger, I demand elegance and beauty! And more butlers! =P

Labels: 2008 anime, kuroshitsuji, neo angelique, vampire knight

Welcome to Rain of Black Roses. I made a lot of blogs resembling this before, but always everything ended in the first post-and I hope this will not happen again. Well, I`m using my last remains of strength indeed, and triying to catch that thing called inspiration before it`s too late.

What is this about? Mainly about manga. Old manga, rare manga, not-so-famous manga (and sometimes anime). If look back now, time has passed since I became a proper fan of this japanese comics, and after all the works I read until now, there is a list of titles that of course I can call my favorites, but great part of them are not well known, mainstream manga. Coming to Japan helped me to turning my head more to that titles that rested silently in the second-hand libraries, manga with stories and awesome drawings with a great lack of technology in them (blurring the lines between traditional art and comic). Most of them are shoujo manga. Angsty and deep stories, drama filling every space. Even when some of the style of today`s manga is becoming more realistic and clear sometimes, it does not produce the same impression, it does not give the same description of human mind and feelings as before (in my opinion, of course). It is sad that in this times there are few manga that have that taste, and I get so excited when I am blessed with the oportunity of encountering with them. So this blog will be filled with a lot of 妄想 (obssesions), abandoned and sometimes rotten flowers of a wild and old garden. The entrance is always open, if you can find it.

Labels: june roses 妄想 uselessthings