Another 年, Another 物語
Happy New Year or 正月, even--here are the New Year's decorations I put up at Chess Garden. I assembled the kadomatsu myself from different things--some pine branches I took off an outfit by Vita's Boudoir, some bamboo from Arctic Green House, and some freebie fans from Bare Rose.
I wanted some mochibana really bad--willow branches with white and pink balls of rice stuck on them to look like blossoms--but couldn't find any good ones for sale or make any myself to my satisfaction.
I guess we all have our weaknesses when it comes to art and entertainment media. For me, it's nekomimi. If your movie or television show or comic (like my own) has female nekomimi in it, it doesn't have to work very hard otherwise for me to enjoy it. That's why I was excited by news of the new Monogatari series, Nekomonogatari (Kuro) (猫物語[黒], "Cat Story (Black)") which premiered yesterday. This is a prequel to Bakemonogatari which is to recount the Golden Week adventure alluded to often in the series when Hanegawa first took cat form.
The first episode is already better than Nisomonogatari, though not as cerebral as Bakemonogatari. At this point it's just a nice young person's story, dealing with confusing sexual attraction with affection, and how much the two are related. The episode disappointingly features a lot of Araragi's sisters, including some sibling breast fondling, something I'd hoped would be left behind with Nisemonogatari, but apparently, according to Tim, who watches a lot more anime than I do, sibling romance is a big thing in anime right now. It is nice to see GAINAX is involved with this series, though I've kind of forgotten about watching new episodes of Medaka Box out of disinterest in the Fight of the Week format the show adopted in the new season.
The opening for Nekomonogatari is pretty good. They seem to be building up to the cat stuff slowly;
Click to viewI know I said I'd write a review for A Letter to Momo, but I felt like it was a good time to take a break from movie reviews for a few minutes, if only I can stop my brain spewing opinions for that long.