Secrets and Lies

So, okay, I have a confession to make. No no, it’s not about that time I slipped and fell down in the forum in front of everybody and scared the shit out of the girl standing behind me. Or the time I shouted really loudly past midnight outside M’s hostel only to find an acquaintance staring at me quizzically.

Thosethingsreallydidhappenbutthat’snotthepoint,okay?

Well, I have to confess that… I’m an animaniac.

Hmmm.

Somehow that didn’t quite come out right. Let me rephrase that. I’m an anime maniac. Yes, I know. Shoot me, somebody. I never ever thought that me, the greatest advocate against Hello Kitty and Pokemon since… well… ever, would succumb to the charms of Japan and its multi-million dollar industry. But I have.

And, oh! The shame! Once upon a time when I was much younger and more naïve, I actually knew what a bulbosaur was and what a pikachu sounded like, just because my brothers were into it. But I thought I’d changed! I thought I had reformed! I thought I was finally a free woman.

And then one day, I dragged M out to watch Death Note, the movie. And I crossed a line I never should have crossed. And now, I have been dragged down into the consuming spiral that is Anime Hell. I spent my time in between frantically studying watching cartoons of big-eyed, long-haired, sailor-uniformed girls exacting revenge on their greatest enemies and I enjoy it.

I mean, I could say that I wasn’t addicted. That I could give it up anytime! But that would be denial.

I started slow with Death Note the cartoon, just a couple of episodes of youtube once in a few days. And then I heard about Jigoku Shoujo (which is about a girl from hell who helps people take revenge on those they resent) and now I watch it almost everyday, sometimes a couple of episodes a day! This morning, I started on something called Blood +. I have yet to ascertain the plot, but it looks interesting already.

So far, plot wise, I like Death Note the best but Jigoku Shoujo is remarkably pretty, if a little feminine. When I first watched it, I was stunned by how poetic some of the scenes were - the Hell Girl bathing in a lovely, red-washed purgatory, the lush kimonos and the exquisite detail of the flowers. Even the boat ride to hell looked so magical I wouldn’t have minded lying at the prow for once.

But that’s not the worst of it, oh no.

It’s slow-moving, but the truth is that the more you watch the Hell Girl with her beautiful long, thick hair, her soft, sing-song voice and those eyes that turn red and mesmerise, the more she grows on you, as she did on me. And in one episode, when she went out into the human world to walk around, instead of wearing her traditional Japanese garb, she disguised herself in a baseball cap and woolen scarf.

And she was more than just pretty and intriguing.

At the risk of sounding like a brainwashed manga-loving geek who spends all night in front of his Macbook and hasn’t seen the right side of a shower since last Tuesday, she was actually… really really CUTE.

There, I’ve said it! Now excuse me, I think I have to go and kill myself.

Or maybe just, you know, watch episode 9.

TA!