Rukia Bankai: fuckin' called it.

Drawn and published on this blog February 15, 2013

Bleach Chapter 570, page 8. Retrieved February 26, 2014

KUBO AND I HAVE THE SAME IDEA OF WHAT LOOKS BEAUTIFUL

Naturally, I love it.
When I saw this, I nearly had a freaking heart attack.

Only you will ever know about my clairvoyance, my blog.

Bleach Chapter 569

Absolutely nobody can tell me that Bleach isn't about Rukia as well as Ichigo.
Her bankai name is Hakka no Togame, which roughly translates to "White Haze" + "Judgement/Reproach"
So basically: Bleach.

Can we just have a fucking shonen style manga with a female as its main character already?
Actually, Kill la Kill may just fit the bill.  It only took until 2013, but it is also superior on many other fronts, such as equal opportunity fan service, wicked soundtrack, and constantly dialling it up to 11.  Kill or be killed, ladies! (and gentlemen.  I'm not sexist)

Hold on to your trapper hat

Have y'all seen my girl Rukia being a total badass in Bleach chapter 566?
There is some hardcore Sternritter retribution coming and I am fangirling so hard.  If Renji won his fight with brute strength, I want to see Rukia win her fight with a combination of strategy, attitude, possibly some magics and a touch of sweet, sweet vengeance.

I am feeling the winter gear, Rukia: it is snowing every other day over here.

New anime: Shingeki no Kyojin

Being terrificly old and all (28), it takes a lot of convincing nowadays to get me to start watching/reading/listening to something new.  Simply intrigued by the sheer number of Shingeki no Kyojin cosplays I saw at my local convention, I finally looked it up to see what all the hype was about.

Fandom works in weird ways.  Sometimes you end up becoming insanely attached to something everyone you know has already gotten over (Bleach).  Sometimes becoming a fan sneaks up on you until you find yourself immersed in the world of inside jokes, tropes and shipping weirdness and loving it before you know it (Hetalia) And sometimes you become totally indifferent to something you thought you would love. (Legend of Korra, Evangelion 2.0, FMA: Brotherhood)

I tried to start many of the recent big names (Fairy Tail, Code Geass, Black Butler) that were so highly recommended but all of them failed to hook me in the first few episodes.   Then came the indifference. Maybe I was out of touch with anime.  Maybe I was looking too hard or in the wrong places.

Shingeki no Kyojin deserves the hype.  It has action, character development, original concepts and an extra element of horror/gore that captures your attention and adds what other action anime lacks: an actual sense of danger and terrible consequence, making you especially invested in the plot and the characters.  It made me feel very lucky to be discovering it this late in the game because I could marathon the series without interruption, experiencing all the trauma, plot twists, shocking reveals and epic moments one after the other.

Myself as a Shingeki no Kyojin character, so fed up with you romanticizing this horrible nightmare world

As for the fandom, maybe I am too old but I found myself equal parts impressed and disturbed by how lighthearted the Shingeki no Kyojin fanbase seems to be.  It is a dark and violent anime!  And people are still concerned with character attractiveness and pairings?  Really?
I would daresay the stakes are even higher than they were in Evangelion.  The approach even seems more mature, as I can't recall SnK having to resort to fan service.

And finally, maybe it is just me, but of all the anime universes that I have become invested in, the universe of Shingeki no Kyojin is one that I would never want to be a part of.  Seeing cosplayers in the uniform and doing the salute gives me spooky chills, as the anime has iterated many times that wearing that gear and being a soldier means putting your life on the line constantly, always running the risk of becoming fodder for the titans and almost guaranteeing a low chance of survival.  (I know this is not how some cosplayers feel, but I do and can't seem to get around it)

In short, Shingeki no Kyojin is great.  It has incredible production values, a storyline that moves at a great clip and never crawls and a premise that will haunt you... or haunted me at least.
Like, walking home from work at night and having the horrible thought: what if a titan attacked right now...? kind of haunted.  Luckily after a fevered discussion with my husband, it was determined that titans would be no match for our current level of military technology and firepower, and humanity need not be driven to extinction.  
Yet.

memento mori: the conclusion

Yeah, remember how I designed a tattoo of Rukia with memento mori themes?
I got it done!  Yay!  Here is the album.

Biggest tattoo yet, 2 sittings for a total of 4 hrs 45 mins.
I think it turned out great.  The only thing about it was getting used to something so big covering my leg.  But it's pretty much solidified my resolve to become a tattoo covered freak, starting with my legs :) Calves/shins are next!

This will probably be my only 'anime' tattoo, and I don't think I could have chosen a better character.
In my case, my tattoos are about loving something so much and my enthusiasm and belief in them so great that they need to burst out and be manifested into pictures on my skin.  Every one of them gives me kind of a private happiness.
Fuck what anyone else thinks. (unless they think you're a total badass.  That's ok)

Still here, still alive. Still hopin, still shippin

Just a doodle, "The Ecstasy of Kurosaki Ichigo"
Based on Bernini's sculpture Ecstasy of Saint Teresa for all you art history nerds out there.

Anyone....?
Fine I will go back to comparing Bleach moments to religious art all by myself then (it is a lonely world)

It's my blog and I will ship IchiRuki if I want to

They are kissing in my sketchbook :O