Diary Entry 26 Jul 2020: 30 things to do before i turn 30

1. Get a hair dye Done 26 Jul 2020
2. Get a tattoo
3. Go to see my idol(s) in person (current: KSB and/or Hosoya-san)
4. Go bungee jumping at Cape of Hope
5. Go to space
6. Learn to speak/write 6 languages(tentative: Vietnamese, English, Japanese, Arabic, Spanish, German? Or Korean? Chinese?)
7. Learn to write with my left hand
8. Learn sign language in any human language (tentatively Japanese)
9. Release a full length album (10 songs at least) on Spotify
10. Conquer Everest
11. Finish a novel
12. Complete a full marathon
13. Monthly income? Shall i aim for 30k? Earn 30k in one month at least once then
14. Learn MMA
15. Learn pole dancing
16. Still Make my own vocaloid??
17. Learn breakdance
18. Learn to sing (properly)
19. Learn to read music?
20. Publish a game/app on Android and iOS
21. Get trained in Suicide prevention and volunteer for an organisation
22. Have a habit of writing a diary
23. Maintain a max weight of 54kg
24. Take part in a musical play
25. Solve a level 5 climbing problem
26. Go to Sweden
27. See the aurora
28. Travel to a diff country alone for once
29. Make an online business like, idk selling notebook designs? Or from a blog or smt
30. See snow

50 books (+) I want to read by 10 June 2019 – EDIT: 100(+) books i want to read

1. The Oxford Book of Japanese short stories – edited by Theodore W. Goossen
2. The Great Old Ones – H.P. Lovecraft
3. Kokoro – Natsume Souseki
4. I am a Cat – Natsume Souseki
5. River Mist and other Stories – Doppo Kunikida
6. Decay of Angel – Yukio Mishima DONE 11 August
7. Flawless – Oda Sakunosuke
8. Rashoumon – Akutagawa Ryuunosuke
9. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
10. Six White Venus – Oda Sakunosuke (Actually Osaka Life)
11. East Of Eden – John Steinbeck
12. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
13. Naomi – Tanizaki Jun’ichiro DONE 14 AUgust 2018
14. The Moon Over the Mountain: Stories – Nakajima Atsushi
15. 20000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne [REREAD] Done 15 June 2018
16. And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie
17. Cain – Jose’ Saramago
18. Alan Turing, The Enigma – Andrew Hodges
19. The Dancing Girl – Ougai Mori Done 17 July 2018
20. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Conan Doyle (read another one of the series)
21. Macbeth – William Shakespear
22. Do Androids dream of electronic sheep? – Philip K. Dick
23. The Quilt – Katai Tayama
24. Midnight Plus One – Gavin Lyall
25. In Search of Lost Time – Marcel Proust
26. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison – Michel Foucault
27. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
28. Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
29. Pensées (“Thoughts”) – Blaise Pascal
30. Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh – Thomas Carlyle
31. The Truth about Markets – John Kay [REREAD]
32. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson Finished 1 July 2018
33. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
34. Strait is the Gate – André Paul Guillaume Gide
35. Autumn Leaves – André Paul Guillaume Gide
36. A History of God – Karen Armstrong
37. Selected Poems – William Wordsworth
38. Profiling Hackers: The Science of Criminal Profiling as Applied to the World of Hacking – Raoul Chiesa, Stefania Ducci, Silvio Ciappi
39. 1Q48 – Haruki Murakami
40. Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami Finished 20 June 2018
41. Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka
42. Runaway Horses – Yukio Mishima
43. War and Peace – Lev Tolstoy
44. The Decameron – Giovanni Boccaccio
45. The Metropolis – Sinclair, Upton  DONE 11 August
46. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
47. The Makioka sisters (Sasame Yuki) –  Tanizaki Jun’ichirou
48. The Republic – Plato
49. Anne of Green Gables – Lucy Maud Montgomery
50. The Scarlet Letter – Hawthorne Nathaniel

Honorable mentions (or the next list of 50, actually i ended up reading outside of the “original” list and then add on to the honorable mention list *facepalm* oh wells since my goal is reach 50 it is still okay i guess-ish)

1. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
2. The Great Gatsby – Francis Scott Fitzgerald Done 30 July 2018
3. To kill a mockingbird – Harper Lee
4. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
5. Never let me go – Kazuo Ishiguro
6. Spring Snow – Yukio Mishima DONE 24 July 2018
7. The Temple of Dawn – Yukio Mishima
8. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
9. The Recently Deflowered Girl – Edward Gorey Done 10 July 2018. WAIT WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST READ….
10. Tales of Mystery and Imagination – Edgar Allen Poe
11. Superfreakonomics – Steven D. Levitt && Stephen J. Dubner
12. The woman in the dunes – Kobo Abe
13. An Outcast of the islands – Joseph Conrad
14. Hamlet – William Shakespear
15. Thirty Years in Tokyo – Katai Tayama
16. Freakonomics – Steven D. Levitt && Stephen J. Dubner
17. Julius Caesar – William Shakespear
18. Midaregami – Yosano Akiko
19. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
20. The Pearl – John Steinbeck DONE 13 August 2018
21. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
22. Frankeinstein
23. Animal Farm – George Orwell
24. A Revolution Sabotaged Before it Began (あらかじめ裏切られた革命) – Iwakami Yasumi
25. Kafka On The Shore
26. No bad Kids – Discipline without Shame
27. Infrastructure as Code
28. The Men who stared at goats
29. The Psychopath Test
30. CSS Grids
31. Infrastructure as Code
32. Vita Sexualis
33. Confession of a mask – Yukio Mishima
34. Anne Frank’s Diary
35. Lost Connections (Johann Hari) – DONE 12 May 2019
36. CSS3 for dummies
37. To have and have not: Hemingway
38. Carrie – Stephen King
39. Classic Japanese Fairy Tales Volume 1 – Mimei Ogawa
40. First Japanese Reader
41. Sadako’s a thousand cranes and the Children Peace Statue
42. Attached – Amit Levine
43. Codependent relationships
44. The Alchemist
45. The secret lives of colors
46. The Bluest Eye- Toni Morrison
47. Moonwalking with Einstein – Joshua Foer
48. Faking It, The Lies Women Tell about Sex, and the Truth They Reveal – Lux Alptraum
49. No place to hide – Glenn Greenwald
50. The tale of Genji – Murasaki Shikibu
51. Hunger – Roxanne Gay
52. The Invisible Orientation
53. The courage to be disliked
54. Love Sex and everything in between
55. The Invisible Man
56. The subtle art of not giving a fuck
57. The Denial of Death
58. Ikigai
59. The Rules of Love
60. Loveless
61. Wabisabi
62. The 4 agreements
63. Good sugar bad sugar

Update: 28 feb 2019: 26 read. D.A.N.M

Updated 9 May 2019: 38 read.

Updates 25 May 2019: 40 read.

Update 10 June 2019: 43 read.

Update 11 July 2019: 46 read.

Update 14 Aug 2019: 47 read.

Update 1 Sep 2019: 48 read

Update 10 Sept 2019: 49 read

Update 13 Sept 2019: 50 READ!!!

Next milestone: the next 50

Update 1 Nov: 2 read — shit i am behind schedule

Update 25 Nov: 3 read — NOOOOO

Update 18 Jan 2020: 5 read PPPSSSS

Update 7 February 2020: 6 read ZZZ

Update 9 Sept: 10??

Summary of key 2017 memories

Hello World,

Here comes the clinche’ end of year summary (a few days overdue).

1. Jan -May: I was on a roller coaster ride with CS3217, an iOS development module. There was so much I wish I could have achieved without sabotaging my own mental, psychological and physical health. I drank more energy drinks than I remember to have ever drunk in my whole life (I only started drinking red bull for energy boost in maybe year 2 of uni). Ended up with bouts of nausea once in a while. I have never taken another can of energy drink since then. I don’t know if it was because of the stress induced by CS3217, but I started to miss a lot of appointments due to oversleeping – i missed one of my midterms and the appointed re-midterm, luckily i was still allowed to re-take it on another day ;_; i was worried like hell. Started to seek help from UHC Counselling for what i suspected to be a combination of anxiety and clinical depression. They never gave me any diagnosis, but nevertheless i was glad i could let out lots of negative feelings bottled up inside.
2. May-August: Even though surviving CS3217 was so tough, i was lucky enough to have been accepted for an internship with SEA Ltd. Learnt so much in 14 weeks, and got to know my funny and damn good mentor Minh. He turned out to be the boyfriend of my friend’s friend in NTU o_O. We met once before but apparently none of us recognized each other when we met in SEA. I kept a list of what technical stuffs i learnt almost everyday there, and shall compile the list *some* day.
3. June – August: volunteering with Upstars became unintentionally one of the most important decisions i have made in uni. I learnt about other programming stuffs besides just my mainstream software developing, got to make new friends and i came to be more certain that maybe one of my passions really lay in sharing knowledge. I also became a TA again eventually in August, for the first time conducting CS1020 lab sessions while doubling up as a lab TA and tutor for CS3241. I enjoyed teaching the “kids” and some of them did express appreciation to me, which filled me up with joy. I realized that after all these activities were halted to give ways to my exam preparation, my motivation plunged. I also started volunteering with Project X, and got to know some ladies frequenting the bars. They lead lives so different from mine. I learnt a lot during my interactions with them. Eventually when we forget all the judgement and social stigma, people from various backgrounds can become so comfortable talking about their different lives as friends. There is suddenly a feeling of being liberated when we let go of the discrimination and assumption, and open our minds to receive new people, new knowledge, to learn and unlearn, to look at every piece of information with open minds.
4. August-December: i seem to hit the jackpot as SEA decided to offer me a full time position on my last day of the internship. I am so grateful for my mentors for their guidance and feedback. With the offer, i could afford to spend more time on other things like teaching, volunteering, instead of preparing for technical interviews. My CAP did go up despite the packed schedule. I have by now (not fully but significantly) recovered from the constant fatigue i experienced while struggling for CS3217 – i felt like a ghost in the beginning of the year as there was an urge to sleep anywhere every single second i was awake. I still experience a kind of tiredness once in a while but i did not always take a nap whenever there was a break anymore. I signed up for a few other volunteer groups – Homeless Hearts of Singapore, Transient Workers Count Too, The T Project, and presented a proposal to SDI Academy on Programming lessons for Migrant workers from Bangladesh in Singapore. Also took my vocal lessons during this period. Hope to be able to perform in some events next year!
5. December: said goodbye to 2017 at a gay bar in Chinatown, with my first tequila shot and a beautiful drag queen touring in and out, spreading glamour everywhere she went. I had never before been in a room with so many topless muscular males with glitter spread on their bare shoulders. What wonders it could give to break down all walls, just treat people different from us like any other person in our lives – because in the end how can i feel they are different from me when they look, speak, breath, eat, drink, smile, behave just like any other “straight” human beings? I find it funny when a friend whom i met that morning and invited to the countdown party curiously asked if gay people do “weird” stuff when they are together, and that if it was a “normal” bar she would gladly come with me. I brushed it off with a laugh and said i didn’t take it personally (i made it known to her i was straight) because people just did not have interactions with these “different” groups of men and women. I told her of a gay friend of mine who was in Malaysia and thus unable to come with me, and who told me that when he kept long hair and entered a male toilet, he would be prepared to get stared at, and even told he went to wrong toilet 😦 i think we could manage to be a bit more kind, don’t you think?

Now it is already January 2018. I hope to be able to travel more, complete my list of things to do by 25, and learn more things in my own time. It has not been an easy year but nevertheless a memorable one, one when i could see myself grow as a person, have more self-confidence, better communication with people of other genders. My list of things to do in 2018 includes travelling alone to Sweden to see the Northern Lights, and complete a full marathon. I hope i find my own little piece of happiness soon too. But there is no need to rush 🙂 Good luck to me…

Until then, Goodbye World.

[Prince of Tennis]Character Analysis: Everything you need to know about Seigaku’s Golden Pair

TL,DR: I wrote a 7k word essay on one of my favorite duos in the Prince of Tennis series.

If you just wanna know what exactly is my main point, feel free to skip to the Conclusion 😉

Dear Reader,

I am sure you have at least heard of the popular Japanese series Prince of Tennis, or Tenipuri as called by fans. It originated as a manga series by Japanese author Konomi Takeshi. The original manga ran from 1999-2008, an animation series based on it started in 2001, and a musical project, called Tenimyu by fans, started in 2003. Shortly after the first manga series was completed, Konomi started a sequel, New Prince of Tennis, in 2009, with the story set a few months after the end of the first manga. The Prince of Tennis series also enjoyed various animation movies projects, as well as a live action by the second generation of the Musicals cast for the main team. There is also a Chinese live action series in 2019. The anime alone has produced hundreds of music CDs. And don’t get me started on the games. In short, it is a huge thing in Japan and around the world.

The story centers around young tennis player Echizen’s entrance into Seigaku, and his journey to win the Nationals Tournament with his teammates.
The focus of my 7k thousand words essay today is only 2 people: Seigaku’s so-called “Golden Pair”, consisting of Oishi Shuichiro and Kikumaru Eiji. I will be rambling about the individuality of each of these two, their individual developments throughout the series, and their development as one unit aka a Doubles pair in the series. I will also lightly touch on the New Prince of Tennis series and what the developments so far mean for our Golden Pair (GP).

I would like to add that some of the insights I am sharing here is inspired by this GP fortnight project  https://tenipuri.livejournal.com/1334438.html which I hope GP fans will read because it provides so much info on the different reincarnations of the portrayals of GP in various types of media, including the manga, anime, character songs, musicals and radio shows!

Lastly, before diving into the main course, I shall explain first that I will be using the manga as the main reference (God, if i could, i would rant about Tenimyu for another 10 pages of text, but i am aware it is not actually considered canon, though Tenimyu’s GP is truly a blessing for GP fans). This is because of a few things the anime had changed. First, Eiji is much more more childish in the anime, it might be the way he is drawn or voiced, but there are also more events that draw from his child-likeness, and also the fact that they establish him as an attention lover (sometimes almost to an immature degree, cues the match against Rokkaku. Note that this is after they commended him for maturing in Oishi’s absence in the match against Hyotei), that shifts his personality to a more childish side compared to the mature manga counterpart. I have seen fans saying anime!Eiji annoys them, and I have to admit I initially felt so in the beginning, albeit having just decided he is my favorite in the manga. Don’t get me wrong though, I still love Takahashi-san’s depiction of him, not to mention the gorgeous character songs!!! Second, alterations in the first Rikkai match and the insertion of the matches with the anime-only school Josei Shonan kinda shift the situation and their balance a little. I will go into the significance of the Rikkai match in the manga in the later part. For the match against Josei Shonan, i don’t know man… in the manga they establish that the cautious Oishi isn’t someone who would do something like going for a match before his wrist is healed, so this event kinda shift the scenario just a little, but i didn’t mind it as much as the altered Rikkai match.

That is why, in this 7k word essay, I am going to convince you that, the manga planned the GP very deliberately and nicely from start to finish, with a timeline full of ups and downs, lots of parallels and contrasts! It is a pairing of give and take, of joys and tears, of bonding and parting, of respect and conflicts!

Now let’s move on to the main dish!

I will be dividing my meta into 4 sections: 1) A look into Eiji as a character, 2) Oishi as a character, some interlude, then 3) The GP timeline and development in the manga, 4) Conclusion and the current state of GP in the New Prince of Tennis

Kikumaru Eiji (菊丸英二)

Zannen munen mata raishuu!!

Energetic, quirky and affectionate, Eiji is one of those characters that are designed to be liked (by most, anyway). Big cat eyes (which is very telling of his sharp vision), an agile body, a dictionary out of this world (nanjara hoi hoi!, nyani?, hehe no kappa!!), perfect hairstyle, and best yet? a plaster on his face. Oh, before I forget, a catchphrase: Zannen munen mata raishuu!! (actually, all of Seigaku regulars, maybe only except Fuji, has one: Mada mada dane, BURNINGGG, tarinee yoo, shhhhhhhh, de-ta ga toreta, korya taihen, yudan sezu ni ikou) And, who doesn’t like a nickname! Ochibi, Momo-chin, Chonmage, you name it! Just like Momo, he gives out an immediate vibe that he’s gonna be your good natured neighbour and ally, with a touch of simple-mindedness.

As a rule of thumb any character that is designed like a cat is set out to be liked. Cuz they are, well, cats. The good thing is Eiji is not a cat for the sake of just being cute. He is agile, has good reflex, and he takes pride in his acrobatics which he incorporates into his tennis. His competency is widely praised in and out of his club and even noted by his teammates as quite an opponent – even Ryoma acknowledges him as one of the “annoying senpai” he has had to go against, albeit only in a 5-shots practice. In the anime, interestingly, Inui also thought to himself that Eiji’s unpredictable play is something he both fears, and is envious of (this has never been written in the original manga, although, i do find it logical). Oishi, Eiji’s closest tennis partner, did not only scout Eiji into doubles after seeing his interesting style once, but over halfway through the series he also noticed that Eiji had surpassed him in skills.

Eiji acts more child-like than the rest of the regulars, especially the third-years – in fact he feels closest to Ryoma’s age among all of the regulars – and it makes sense when you know he is the youngest in a large family. No wonder he acts more spoiled, erratic, and happy-go-lucky than his batchmates. Although, no one in the team seems to hate him for that. Eiji’s somewhat airheadedness (getting actually tricked by Ryoma and Momo once after he forgot about promising to buy them dinner if he lost a match, ending up treating them to burgers) can easily get one to thinking he is a lightweight opponent, but he is totally capable even on his own. He takes advantage of his flexibility to trick his opponents on court and catch them off guard (example: against Fudomine’s Mori/Uchiyama and Yamabuki’s Jimmies) while thinking they got him good by hitting the ball out of his reach. Also, another instance that shows how perceptive Eiji actually is, is the fact that in the match against Hyotei which Oishi was out of action, he pulled a surprise by using Oishi’s signature move Moon Volley, which we have never seen him do before. Whether he knew the basics of it but didn’t use much, or he had observed Oishi so much that he knew just when and how to pull it off, it shows that Eiji is more capable than what he has shown people. He even earned Oshitari’s recognition as someone to be feared, on top of Gakuto seeing him as an acrobatics rival.

Da-nya! _Eiji imitating Yanagisawa’s habit

At first sight, Eiji might not come off as much – he feels a bit aloof, and in Oishi’s words, he slacks off and is erratic. But under that cheerful exterior of someone who hardly takes anything seriously is a boy who is very serious about his own flaws, his responsibility in the team as the Golden Pair, his duty as a partner to Oishi. If you are like me who skimmed through his matches at first, Eiji’s growth and more insight into his character later on would come as a pleasant surprise, but the more attentive of us might not be so taken aback: Eiji’s blood type is A. Japanese people are big on blood types as an indicator of personality. Now you don’t have to agree, but if they create a character and let you know their blood type, chances are there are hints to their true personality there. Blood type A’s good points are: responsible, diligent, attentive,earnest, neat (cue perfect hair waxing). Their flaws? Stubborn. Anxious. Sounds familiar? So, Eiji was actually set up to be a very serious player, no matter how much he fools you with his quirky tactics. It didn’t show very early on, but certainly we can see that the serious side of him gets more and more visible starting from the match with St. Rudolph. After they lost, he kept smiling and just 3 minutes later came back up to cheer for his juniors, which led to people thinking that he had recovered mentally. In fact, Eiji took the loss to heart so much that he not only went to reflect on it alone, but also secretly started his own training regime to overcome his lack of stamina, all the while thinking he was dragging Oishi down. Not only that, the night before his match as a temporary pair with Fuji against Rokkaku, Eiji was found by Fuji to be training till late at night at the GP’s special hiding spot (Genius 178).

Eiji’s biggest weakness (beside the lack of stamina in the good first half of the manga) though, lies in the fact that he is slow when reading the room. He is sharp when reading the movement of the ball, but lacking the ability to read the games a few steps ahead, leading him to fall into his opponent’s trap easily. And this is where Oishi covers for him.

Oishi Shuichiro (大石秀一郎)

The vice captain and Doubles expert that you can always count on

Oishi, who at first glance seems plain and good-natured (he is a kind young man though!), is more dangerous than he looks. He might be Tezuka’s right hand man and only carried out Tezuka’s instructions in the beginning of the manga, but as the series goes on Oishi’s authority starts to show.

Even before Tezuka had to take a break to heal his injury, in his match against Atobe where he almost got his shoulder ruined, just by exchanging one look with Oishi, we see that he was at least asking for Oishi’s understanding of his decision to continue playing – and Oishi did understand. He told Tezuka to do his best to protect the promise to captain Yamato. The transfer of authority happened there. And the rest is history – how Oishi designed his own regime, and from there led the team to actually win the Kantou tournament without Tezuka. The team’s acceptance of Oishi as their vice-captain from the beginning transitioned to seeing him as a true captain when he declared Seigaku as the Kantou champion even before the finals match began.

In the beginning of the manga, Konomi-sensei focused on showing us much more about Eiji than Oishi. In the match with Fudomine, we know how Oishi works to support Eiji’s acrobatics, the basis of their teamwork. Then against St. Rudolph, we are informed that Eiji’s eyesight is the best of the Seigaku team, and that his stamina is his weakness. Only then are we shown Oishi’s favourite move, Moon Volley. By this point, the author has already set up roughly Eiji’s basic profile as a tennis player- we know both his strengths and weaknesses. But, Oishi still was more of a mystery, the true strength of Seigaku’s only Doubles master was just scratched on the surface. And then the next time they got a chance to work, Oishi was unfortunately out of action.

But, here is the part where it gets interesting: Oishi’s value in the team is more often seen out of the court than inside. Because he is out of action, we see just how much the team- especially Eiji and Momo- trusted and relied on Oishi’s brain full of Doubles wisdom. After all, one of the things that stands out about Oishi is that in a team full of individuals who are strong and sometimes self-absorbed, he is the only one who is a Doubles specialist. This shows how much Oishi actually loves working with people (no wonder he is the vice captain). When Oishi is in the court working with Eiji, we rarely see how they actually work internally, especially at the beginning because the one in front is always Eiji, and Oishi subtly supports him from behind. When Oishi is out of action however, the readers have the chance to get into Oishi’s mind, through the lens of Eiji’s eyes, to appreciate just how hard being the support really is. Oishi’s value is felt and validated by his teammates who understand his expertise.

We’ll go on to see how Oishi’s ability gets recognised more in the later part of the manga in a minute (or ten).

The two pillars of Seigaku, who mutually respect one another

I’ve got to admit, it took me some time to warm up to Oishi. Since we get more insight into Eiji’s mind than Oishi’s, and with Oishi intentionally withdrawing himself, it feels that the one who tries harder to keep the Golden Pair together was Eiji. It doesn’t help that not only was Eiji the one to start a partnership with Oishi first, he was also the one who tied them back together after Oishi himself broke them up. It also doesn’t help that Eiji just happens to be the one improving faster, making it look as if he is more invested in the partnership than Oishi. However I realised that that judgement is quite unfair for Oishi. There is no doubt he cared about his partner and the GP just as he cared for the team as their leader. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t know exactly where to find his partner after the bitter loss against St. Rudolph, and sat there reflecting on it together with Eiji (after all, it was Eiji’s lack of stamina that first prevented them from winning. But Oishi nevertheless chose to reflect together with him because they lost together as a team). In fact, his kindness towards Eiji is a big part of Oishi’s gentle nature in the manga, since he spends a lot of time with Eiji. Apart from the St. Rudolph incident, another instance of Oishi’s kindness is when Eiji got mad at him for sacrificing his own wrist, as well as his own spot in the Nationals. We didn’t see Eiji’s lines in the manga (the lines in the anime were mild enough) but looking at how angry Eiji is and knowing Eiji’s habit of talking before thinking when he is angry, he probably said a few hurtful things to Oishi (whose face looks like he totally gave in to Eiji’s rage). But the next few days when Eiji stepped on court to face Kai, Oishi was right there watching over his partner, worrying about him and being proud of him, not giving mind to the fight between both of them.

The young man has his own struggles with multiple responsibilities, which the slightly spoiled Eiji doesn’t always empathise with. Oishi, though had little chance to improve on the court compared to Eiji, grows more as a vice captain outside the court.

Interlude: trivia on the kanji used in their names

It’s interesting how the author coins Eiji and Oishi’s names. Their surnames seem natural enough: one is a flower, one a rock. But their first names are much more suspicious interesting. Both the kanji 英 (ei) in Eiji’s name and 秀 (shuu) in Oishi’s can mean “excellent”. Eiji’s name contains 二, meaning “two”, and Oishi’s first name, Shuichiro, contains the kanji  一 meaning “one”. Basically they are the Excellent First and Excellent Second. Oishi’s name makes sense since he is the first child, but Eiji is the youngest of 5 kids! I wonder why he is named “Excellent Second”? Hmm. Meanwhile, the anime franchise gave Eiji a solo song named “ONE” and Oishi another song named “TWO”. Is this some kind of conspiracy?

The developments of The Golden Pair

No matter who went down first, they lose as a team, and win as a team

I think Konomi-sensei did give Seigaku’s GP quite a special treatment in the original manga – i mean, after all, Seigaku is the main team, and the GP is the main team’s best doubles pair. They are your classic serious guy/erratic guy pair. They are the familiar flashy vs plain combi you see so often. While I can’t say that GP is the strongest doubles pair in the series in terms of technique (they lost to Otori/Shishido and Niou/Yagyu and rightly so), and I do agree sometimes Konomi-sensei kinda give Seigaku too much special treatment by giving them basically the most credit in powerups (That Momo’s smash is better than before!! Oi, hasn’t his reflexes improved??) – I mean, how does that make sense that only Seigaku’s players keep evolving and evolving right??? But anyway, I digress – I really like how sensei wrote the ups and downs of the Golden Pair as a character relationship. In fact, they remain my favorite pair – Doubles or not – in the series because of the way the author wrote how they keep orbiting around each other, their thoughts about one another take turns to blossom, with a proper history to boost, to eventually merge into one.

Overall I think Konomi-sensei did give a lot of thought into how to write the timeline of the GP’s development. For me personally, their story is crafted very deliberately and each event built up on the next (which is why I prefer to refer to the manga, because the anime’s alteration of certain events kinda takes away some of the deliberation in my opinion). We start off with the pretext: They are the Golden Pair! Why? See Fudomine’s match! Oh no, Oishi is injured! But that only makes them even stronger! And yay he’s back! What now? It’s now Eiji who is hurt! But no he’s not out yet, just you wait! New move, GP is stronger than before even though they just made a comeback together! Then what the hell is this, Oishi!? Why did you leave me!? How could you do this when I worked so hard for me, for you, for the team, for us! But as I thought, it’s still better with you beside me after all, so come back soon, partner! Yes, I will! And what’s next? We are one! Yay!!

GP in a nutshell, so to speak. Just kidding.

GP as a unit: From beginning to Oishi’s injury

First we are presented with the premise that they are the GP- ya know, just believe it!- and a firm, though short, explanation that they work very well together. Just after we are convinced (or not) of their perfect partnership, we suddenly see them in a childish fight- oh no! what will Seigaku do with their doubles if the GP breaks up? (Although, in this fight, we are shown both Oishi’s and Eiji’s small little “flaws”. The fraction did not occur because of just one of them, but because both of their individual values clashed. I have to say Konomi-sensei made good use of a small event to give insight into both characters at the same time) But then it turns out Eiji can’t stop talking to Oishi for more than 10 hours (and Oishi, looking at his partner with a look that says “Eiji, I should have known that part of you”) and with a mutual apology, they made up just like how two mature adults would.

Even their apologies are synchronised

Just when they made up sweetly and geared up for the important Kantou tournament, Oishi is out of action for his sprained wrist. We see Eiji, left to adjust suddenly with not only a new partner who is much less experienced in doubles than Oishi, but also an opponent who can perform acrobatics even better than he does. He is paralysed, and understandably so. He feels overpowered – Eiji has always been confident in his own ability, but he is not in denial, this time he understands that the opponent is higher in skills. However, in doubles, skill is not the only factor, but the partner’s cooperation is everything. Even if they are lower in skills, if the partner’s combined power can help propel each player’s individual power to a higher level, then they can topple opponents who are individually stronger.

But a miracle happened: in a flash, Eiji came back to life: how? With his partner’s words as emotional support, of course! We see in this instance not only the importance of Oishi in the partnership, but also Eiji’s growth and the deeper side of his character: in an instant he was able to not only prop himself up but also mature to the extent of realising that he had to abandon his preferred style in order to support Momo if he wants to win the match.

Being the support is harder than Eiji expected… Oishi really is amazing!

Eiji realises that he has been spoiled by Oishi, and that being the support is harder than he imagined. But even so he performed the role smoothly: by imitating Oishi! 😀 I think this is quite swift thinking in such a tight spot against a strong opponent. This sudden “switch” in Eiji shows that he is more than just a flashy thoughtless front man: he can adapt, and fast! The beauty of this match is that it shows that the Golden Pair when separated, actually shines even brighter: the mutual trust and respect between them is what makes GP the GP. Eiji shows his respect and appreciation toward his partner in both his inner thoughts and action – using his partner’s moves as if it was a tribute. Oishi in turn shows how much he is proud of Eiji. Also, in their usual play, Eiji is the front man and usually does whatever he pleases while Oishi takes care of adapting strategies to support him, which means Oishi totally trusts Eiji enough to let him decide his own play, and he has full faith in Eiji’s acrobatic play being one of the assets of their partnership. I know a lot of fan sites attribute Oishi to being the real leader in the GP play- which is not wrong, but at the beginning of the manga, i think the hierarchy wasn’t that clear yet. Though it is true that Oishi is the driver of the strategies, he decides the next plan based on Eiji’s play. Therefore, both of them adapt to each other.

GP revived! Part 1: The true strength of their bond: What makes GP the GP?

If that is not enough to convince us of the GP’s bond, we see even more intense GP bonding in their first comeback match since Oishi’s injury. When Eiji gets hit in the face directly with a high speed ball, we learn the story of the making of GP and Eiji’s resolve to get to the Nationals with his closest partner. We also get an interesting sight when for once the calmer one on the court is Eiji instead of Oishi. Oishi, angered by the fact that the opponent hurt Eiji with no remorse, got his screw loose (he actually called Niou by “kisama”, which is possibly the most loathful word you can use to call somebody in a fictional work, though no one uses in real life anymore) and Eiji calmly got him to cool down (in fact, Eiji did that twice in that same match). Here we get more insight into both sides of the partnership’s balance: Oishi is the one to support Eiji’s play by balancing out his acrobatics, and Eiji serves as the one to keep Oishi’s mind in place (this is a bit more obvious in the manga than the anime). The difference in their personality here actually serve them well: the usually hyperactive and happy Eiji is the perfect cooler for Oishi’s too busy mind, especially at this point he had to perform a dual role of being the Captain and the Golden Pair.

Eiji has grown into a reliable partner that Oishi feels he can count on

This match though, is when the hierarchy gets more obvious through the revelation of their new formation: Oishi territory. In this formation, Oishi goes up to the front and drives the play directly, leaving signals for Eiji. Here is when the GP divides their roles more definitely: Oishi the brain, and Eiji the brawl. Note though, they usually only do this in very tight situations, such as when Yagyu’s laser beam was too dangerous an obstacle to victory. However, one important thing to note is that the Golden Pair wouldn’t be able to make this formation without Eiji learning his Signature Step in the first place (and also, his stamina must be enough). What it means is that, for the GP to evolve, both of them must evolve, and while every time the GP uses Oishi territory, onlookers tend to credit it to Oishi’s cunningness and acute mind, he performs best when he has someone to control- aka his partner- so he can focus on his game making. This is Oishi’s real (and most terrifying) strength – he knows how to make people do just what he wants them to do. But! What it says about GP is that their partnership doesn’t just require compatibility in their technique (Eiji’s speed in body and Oishi’s in mind) but also personalities. Had any of them been less accommodating, they wouldn’t be able to work together: Oishi wouldn’t be able to support Eiji if he didn’t trust Eiji enough, and Eiji wouldn’t be able to adapt to Oishi’s instructions if he was someone who had a higher ego, or had less trust in Oishi.

(This is why I do not prefer to use the anime version of this match. It took away lots of GP’s development. In the manga, this is one of the most intense displays of GP’s bond, and it also leads to the next development where the GP faces the biggest crisis ever in their partnership. The anime version took away all of that! Instead, it creates a loosely phrased “flaw” of Eiji and totally wrecks their teamwork =.=’)

GP breakup- again! Oishi’s conflict, Eiji’s growth

And just when we thought that the level of trust in GP had grown even stronger, something interesting happens: Oishi realises that Eiji has now grown stronger than him. And here it links to the story of how they became a doubles pair: 1st year Eiji, frustrated that he couldn’t win against Oishi albeit being the more unpredictable one, decides to play doubles with Oishi, but he told Oishi that it is to find Oishi’s weaknesses and eventually surpass him. Oishi seems to take this statement seriously (but he accepted Eiji’s invitation anyway). However, reading the backstory of the GP, I think Eiji was only using that as an excuse to get to know Oishi. Why? 1) Just look at Eiji’s eyes when he sees Oishi practicing! Those are not eyes of hate i tell you, it’s admiration!!! And 2) Did he say Oishi came to the practice spot everyday? And that he never makes a mistake?! How did he know? Of course, he had to have come there everyday also! And and what does that mean? Eiji was there before, and he knew Oishi was there, and yet on that particular day he came back there again. It doesn’t seem that Eiji really wanted to team up with Oishi to surpass him in the first place! He just got interested in the boy and wanted to play with him! Of course, I am not the author, so these are all my own thoughts, agree or disagree, your choice 😉

Looking at his future one and only golden partner

But Oishi did take that seriously, and what did we see next? He sacrificed his spot for the returning Tezuka to compete in the Nationals Tournament. Why!? Eiji didn’t get it. Why did he suddenly leave Eiji alone without a partner? What happens to the GP now without Oishi? Doesn’t he care about the GP anymore? Eiji didn’t know, but Oishi’s wrist was still not fully healed. And now Oishi is torn between two sides of his responsibilities: If he joins the tournament, he fulfills his role as Eiji’s partner and as the GP, but he might fail his promise with Tezuka of bringing the team to the Nationals. In short, in his opinion, he’d be a hindrance to the team, and actually, to the GP too. So he chose Tezuka and the team over Eiji, the GP, and himself. Very typical of Oishi. But is that all?

I believe there is more. I believe there is something to do with what Oishi realised in the match just before this: Eiji is now stronger than him. See, this is the thing: Oishi’s inner thoughts were almost never shown to the readers, like Eiji’s were. Eiji’s thoughts were very clear: when he regained his spirit as he thought of Oishi who was not on the court with him but always had been encouraging him on, when Oishi assured him that his shot and speed are both good and he just needed to calm down Eiji thanked Oishi in his mind. But Oishi’s thoughts of Eiji were minimal in comparison. When Eiji was the one to start talking first when they were fighting, or when he knew just how to cheer Oishi up in the Yamabuki’s match, each time all we heard from him was “Eiji…” – although we get the rest of the sentence without him finishing it. And yet in the Rikkai match, we hear his thoughts, we hear how much he sees Eiji has grown, and that he sees Eiji as a reliable partner. There is also another detail in his thought: I know the fansubs for the scanlations as well as the anime only translated his line as “You have already become a much stronger player than me, Eiji”, but his original line actually is 「俺よりもう強くなったクセに」the クセに part is a strong phrase that means “even though”, so the whole phrase is like “Even though you have already become stronger than me (and yet you are still here)”. To me this is a foreshadowing of Oishi deciding to sacrifice the GP for the sake of the team, because he knows now that Eiji is able to perform well even without him. He probably decided that the team no longer needs GP to win.

Even though you are already stronger than me, Eiji

Eiji’s response was different – actually in the beginning he no longer cared about which one is stronger between him and Oishi. All he cared about was GP, and going to Nationals, with Oishi. He was surprised, and angry. He wailed, he cried. His next response was the most telling of all: I’ll never play Doubles again unless it is with Oishi. Eiji, unlike what Oishi did, prioritised Oishi over the team. Even when Oishi was out of action, the team tried to pair Eiji up with other players, because of Eiji’s experience as a doubles player. He was an asset to the team as a doubles player. But refusing to play doubles again means that Eiji put his own values and Oishi first above the team, which is the reverse of what Oishi did. See, Oishi had other relationships and responsibility to take care of, but Eiji had nothing – his identity was wrapped around the Golden Pair, he only dedicated himself to his duty as part of the Golden Pair, but Oishi didn’t have that luxury, because of the other promise with Tezuka, because he is their leader.

Here, again, the GP’s values have clashed, only much more heavily than the previous childish quarrel. But even so none of them are wrong. They just have different sets of responsibilities, and hence their values differ, that’s all. When there is a clash of values like what Oishi is facing, there has got to be a compromise. Eiji eventually understood this. He knew that Oishi had more things to worry about than he did – in fact at that point, Oishi was the one with more pressure on his shoulders than anyone else in the team – so, he was angry and he snapped, Eiji being Eiji, but he understood why Oishi did what he did, and it is because he understood that he was hurt and angry. I mean, he knew Oishi picked the team over him, and that hurts, doesn’t it? But because he understood Oishi’s reason, he eventually extended his hand to Oishi again, because he knew Oishi wanted to play.

Weren’t we going to be Japan  #1 Doubles Team together?

Harboring all these complicated thoughts, Eiji stood against Kai of Higa-chuu. The OVA did a very nice job of this thanks to the help of beautiful background music especially when it was revealed that Eiji put himself through gruelling training to improve his stamina and stop being deadweight for Oishi. The manga also had a different way to make the impact of the match. In the manga, the disclosure of Eiji’s reaction to Oishi’s decision was delayed all the way until the start of the match against Kai, while in the anime his shocked expression was shown right after Oishi lost to Echizen. The manga’s way of handling it makes the revelation on Eiji more bitter to the reader (I actually went “Oh right, damn, there is still Eiji” when I first read this), since Eiji didn’t show any sign of agonizing over it before his match.

Eiji in his singles match against Kai, as portrayed in the OVA and manga 

For Eiji fans, this match and the OVA is really a godsend. Eiji is fun-loving, affectionate, full of life and happy, and watching him being that goofy ball has always made me smile, but something about his serious side just made me so proud of him even before I decided to become a GP fan. Eiji stepped on the court fully prepared to never play Doubles again, and everybody could tell that he wasn’t his normal self when he did that. And yet even with that cloud over his head he played a top notched match. Everybody seemed to have forgotten that this boy right there was originally a Singles player until Oishi came into his life and planted the idea of Doubles in his head. His techniques were still his, but his heart was different, and Oishi knew that, clutching the fence in worry even though the onlookers were cheering over how magnificent Eiji’s singles play is. And just when the tables turned against him and Eiji looked as if he was giving up, he made a comeback again: with Doubles! Here is when Eiji’s strength as a mood changer shines: he was the mood balancer for Oishi before, and now he is doing it for himself! (The anime even went as far as labelling Eiji as a mood-maker, Eiji also has a track called Feeling Maker in his album). Switching to Doubles play did not just put Eiji back into his comfort zone and helped him return to his normal self, it also served another purpose: to confuse the opponent. In fact it actually does not much more than that: it obviously drains Eiji’s strength more than necessary (but then again it allows him to flex his new stamina reserves :3). So the only significant change there was the fact that Eiji went back to the happy goofy ball we love (as well as mesmerised his partner who was beaming behind the fence and made a gesture of victory watching his partner mature) and this is what made Eiji such a good character to watch: every time he makes a comeback, he always makes it so fun and refreshing.

A sweet victory :’)

And the best part? He won. With Doubles. Here we see a continuation of the Rikkai match’s theme: There are infinite possibilities in Doubles. When I first heard that, i was thinking it was Oishi who said it first, but watching Eiji carrying on all by himself and chasing the infinite possibilities of doubles, it hit me: unlike some other significant characters whom are usually motivated by rivalry (Eiji used to be too), the Eiji now plays for the art of tennis, something that so many players in the series seemed to have forgotten about. In this aspect he is a bit like Fuji, the genius who lacked a strong motivation for victory but enjoys drawing out his opponent’s strength (which to me is a cool thing about Fuji!) and closer to Oishi – the Double Genius- than he ever was. Here we have someone who was thought to be the least serious of all, and yet he is chasing after the very infinity of the art of the sport. And ironically in the original manga, though Oishi was the one who was said to be able to adapt to different scenarios, Eiji ended up being the one who had to play with multiple makeshift partners, and is also the only one who did not only play Doubles for Three, but also Doubles for One! Could he be the next Doubles Specialist in the making? Only the author knows. This is exactly why I prefer to use the manga as the reference: Eiji’s growth throughout the original manga series, is exponential. He always goes up even when the GP as a pair is broken up multiple times. And ever since the match against St. Rudolph, that was the last time we ever saw Eiji’s stamina being the bottleneck: after that match he either managed to end the match before tie break, or later improved his stamina to the point of surviving up to tie break (Meanwhile, we can’t say the same thing about his development in the anime)

This is amazing, Eiji!_ A proud Oishi watching over his partner

Just when Ryuuzaki-sensei thought that Eiji had finally found a place for himself, Eiji answered otherwise: Doubles is still better for him after all! And then he told Oishi the one thing he really wanted to say: it’s not the blame, it’s not the anger and the hurt that he really wanted Oishi to know, all he ever wanted Oishi to understand is “Buddy, I need you”. Eiji is showing, not just to Oishi but the whole stadium, the vulnerable side of him. No more guilt tripping, no more self pity, just purely his honest feeling: I want you to come back, partner. This honesty at this moment is very important, considering how lack of clear communication (at best, and betrayal at worst in Eiji’s point of view) affected their dynamic just a few chapters ago. Note also, that even the first incident that hurt Oishi’s wrist, Oishi didn’t tell Eiji directly, instead he told Momo to apologise to Eiji for him (i mean, maybe Eiji didn’t have a phone, but it is also possible Oishi didn’t want to tell Eiji first because Eiji will be angry). If anything, we know that the GP wasn’t completely transparent to each other from the start. But now Eiji extends his hand out to Oishi yet one more time. He was the one to take that hand 2 years ago, and he’s pulled it back no matter how many times it gets taken away from him. To make it even better, this scene is basically the same as what happened 2 years ago at the container, just that their positions are switched: Eiji was on top of the container at that time, but he is now on the ground. But he is, again, asking Oishi to be his partner. This is as if we are seeing Golden Pair reborn!

(which is why, again, you won’t see this parallel in the anime, since they completely rewrote the GP backstory. But enough of me bitching about the anime =.=)

Come back soon, partner 😉

To me, this moment was when the Golden Pair shone the brightest. Even though it was technically not a GP victory, it was what partnership is all about: they are together not because they have to work together, they are together because they want to be together. And it also again shows the other less visible side of the Golden Pair: we know Oishi has constantly been there to support Eiji, but we forgot that Eiji has been and will always be there for Oishi anytime he wants to return. And I think this is exactly what Oishi needs: someone who will always take his hand no matter how many times. Someone who fully trusts him and patiently waits for him. Someone who, even if they can do without him, chooses to be by his side. Furthermore, this victory is how Eiji, not with words, but with actions, proves to Oishi how much he loves playing Doubles, and proves to him just how beautiful Doubles can be. He only started playing Doubles because Oishi scouted him (and beat the shit out of him) but now Eiji has come to love Doubles himself!

GP revived! Part 2: The other promise of Oishi’s, and Synchro

And Oishi’s response to Eiji’s proposal? Not just with a firm “Yes”, but freakin’ holy Synchro!!! =D What is a better comeback than totally being as one with your partner? This is the GP’s answer to each other: we fought and we hurt each other, but we still share the same thoughts after all. Do I need to prove to you how much special treatment Konomi-sensei really gave these two? =D =D =D

In the previous scene after Eiji asked him to be his partner one more time, it was the resolution to Oishi’s insecurity about not being needed for victory. This resolution is important, because without that, Oishi will not be able to have resolve to fight and we wouldn’t have Synchro, because he wouldn’t be in the best state of mind to think as one with Eiji. However, that resolution alone wasn’t enough for Oishi to come back, he needed a bigger push: and that is when Tezuka’s match against Kabaji came into the picture. Oishi needed both external (Eiji assuring him that he is needed) and internal push (Tezuka reminding him that even when one is injured one should have the pride and responsibility to fight for the team) in order to make a comeback.

In the heavy rain, they shine even brighter! Again and again, the Golden Pair will rise!

And once he made up his mind, it’s like he is set free. In an absolute pinch, the Golden Pair, after all the ups and downs they have been through, after the laughter and the tears they had, abandoned all hierarchy and the division in the roles. And when they did, their breaths and hearts became one. (By the way, if you watch Tenimyu, the Synchro scene is really epic)

This is the author’s ultimate gift to both of them: congratulations, you too passed as one of the top doubles pairs. But here is the point: The GP is not the top when it comes to skills, but their beauty is that they both understand each other to a scary degree, and they have an equal, mutually respectful, mutually trusting relationship. The sight of the place where Eiji and Oishi accessed Synchro was too, carefully crafted: the container when Eiji took Oishi’s hand and said “You can call me Eiji” was the birthplace of the Golden Pair. In that place, they promised that they would never have to go back there to reflect on their loss again and that they would go to Nationals #1 together. After watching so many “container” scenes in Tenimyu, it really grew in my heart as the place of the Golden Pair’s precious memories. It is both their beginning and their destination.

“You can call me Eiji”- at the fated place, birth of Seigaku’s Golden Pair!

Although, it’s still not the end yet, they still hadn’t been able to control it at that point, but i think this is already the peak of Konomi-sensei’s plan for them – the finals match was significantly much less climatic, but still it did move me so much when the GP reminisced their last 3 years together. The fights they took on together, the fights they had. The wins, the losses.

As the GP Synchro their way to victory, two birds flew to freedom… Symbolic much? 😉

Conclusion+New Prince of Tennis: What about now?

After all the excitement in talking about GP in the original manga, unfortunately I can’t say the same about the New Prince of Tennis. From what I wrote so far, I think the GP balance is actually not so balanced: it kinda seems Eiji is more attached to GP and Oishi than Oishi is to Eiji. Is it true? No one knows. But even if it is, it’s not so bad. Eiji is Eiji, and he isn’t chasing after a phantom. He has a goal and he chases after it, it’s just harder when that goal involves another person…

We can see though, that their love language (not necessarily romantic) differ: Oishi is comfortable with distance, but Eiji needs an assurance that his partner is physically there. This is clear ever since the original manga up to the New PoT. The fact that Eiji tried to imitate Oishi in the Hyotei match against Oishitari and Gakuto in Oishi’s absence, and that he made a comeback in his Singles match by playing Australian Formation by himself (a move used only by the GP in the series so far) indicates his need to fill the empty space left by Oishi. In the New PoT, after winning against Oishi in the “Friend vs Friend” singles games, which got Oishi temporarily kicked out of the U17 camp, Eiji requested him to leave his racket behind, as if he needed it as Oishi’s replacement. Oishi, though, doesn’t need such physical assurance. He is comfortable with distance as “Whatever happens, we are still the Golden Pair, Eiji”, he says. With this difference in their needs, does the GP have a future as partners or will they soon drift apart? We all know all good things come to an end, but will something more come out of this partnership or are we bidding them adieu?

I swear this scene made me spill my coffee the first time I saw it in the manga. Will they stay gold, or will we never see this again?

As I said before, unlike Oishi, Eiji’s tennis life revolves around the Golden Pair. In fact, Eiji joining the U17 camp was for the sole purpose of playing with Oishi again- which, you could say, he joined for the wrong reason, since U17 is an individual-focused camp. In fact after 300+ chapters of the manga you won’t see any GP action at all. Oishi, though, got a chance to shine in a doubles match with a senior partner, on the World stage! And he actually did well, indicating that Oishi didn’t need to be in the GP to shine, in fact, he shouldn’t. If he wants to be a world class specialist, it would be important to him to be paired with much stronger partners than GP (At this point, I just would like to mention briefly that, in the original manga, all the tournament matches when Eji had to fight without Oishi – when he paired with Momo against Hyotei and next Midoriyama, when he paired with Fuji against Rokkaku and lastly by himself against Higa – ended up with a victory on Seigaku side, whereas both GP comeback matches after Oishi’s two times of withdrawing – against Rikkai and then Hyotei – ended up with their loss. Just some food for thought) And that is beside the fact that GP is no longer the only pair who can perform Synchro. Hence, I am afraid the GP is no longer relevant T_T

BUT! If Konomi-sensei had any plan on developing Eiji, or the GP, I’d think it would be a good arc (and I would cry). The decision though, is totally up to the author. I am painfully aware of the fact that the direction the new series is going is no longer the Seigaku regulars, who I am still the most attached to. And especially Eiji who although managed to remain in the camp throughout this time, has unfortunately not made any progress worthy of mentioning yet (at this point he is almost like Rei and Nagisa in Free!’a third season, a nice old cast to keep around but with no plan for character development) which is really sad for me but it is not in my control at all so well… I did really hope that they would make a comeback since, you know, the author kinda set the stage for them to be the “true” National number 1 pair in the original manga, and did give them the skill that was supposed to be seen only in the Pro stage, so, it would be quite a waste to not utilise it now that we are in the actual Pro stage, would it not?

Closing

Dear reader,

Are you still with me? =3 Are you a GP fan, or are you not? What do you think of them? Do you think they deserve the Golden title? Do you think they will stay Golden? What do you think of the New Prince of Tennis? Do you still read/watch PoT? It’s 2021 and I can’t believe I’m doing this, but it’s partly because of Tenimyu that now I am hopelessly finding myself in the fandom of this series and though all the things that need to be said are probably already said by others over the last decade… I just really enjoyed how the GP was written, especially in the manga, and would be so thrilled if we get to see them more in the new series… If you were a fan of the GP in the anime, I strongly recommend you to read the original manga, I think you will like them even better! I love Eiji in the manga as a strong boy who never stops evolving and making us smile, who has pride as a member of his team and works hard to keep that place. I also love Oishi as someone who supports his teammates quietly and gently, and is a strong driving force for Eiji to improve. But, enough of my rambles! Now I have a Happy Summer Valentine CD by certain someones to wait for and another Good Match Up CD also by a certain someones x 2 that are on the way now and I can’t wait to have them in my hands… and see the lyrics, oh GODS would I be so excited to translate them again.

With that, thank you to anyone who for some reason ended up here, and I wish you a pleasant day!

Diary Entry 2021.02.08

自分、いい加減にしろよ。海外からって何でも特別じゃないんだろう。海外から応援するってそれは十分わけじゃないんだろう。他の人からちゃんと習いな。他人のことちゃんと考えな。しないとファンに失格だろ。自分にできることは何のかちゃんと考えな。

Diary entry 19 Aug 2020

God i’m so tired

About time for some housekeeping negativity

i have said before that the current Covid-19 situation surfaced some of the ugly sides of humanity that i was new to being shown on such a regular basis. That sentiment hasn’t left me.

It is also not just this kind of ugliness

There are more forms of ugliness beside this.

You see, i am not writing this to bash out on any single person, any single country. These kinds of reactions happen anywhere.

So i will not name an individual or a country. Although, some of you might infer the countries i am talking about, if you know where i am from and/or where i am staying in. But, this is not to attack any particular nation, or their government, or their people. i am only using these as a way to illustrate what i am about to say next.

Warning: contains negativity and some upsetting real posts by real (i hope, at least) people online.

PREMISE
Yes, the country i am from and the country i am living in are not the same.

Let us call the former X and the latter Y.

To be more precise, i have spent a good 40% of my years in Y rather than X.

Also, Y is a country with very open policy to foreign tourists and workers alike.

THE SITUATION
Y, recently, announced that they would like to prioritise their medical personnel for Covid-19 patients that are their local citizens, and would encourage non-local patients who are positive to it to find resources for treatment in their own countries. Non local refers to anyone who is not a citizen of Y, including tourists and long term pass holding working individuals.

This followed news of the first death that is a foreigner in Y to Covid-19. Let us call the country this first foreign death is from, Z. This patient who is from Z came to Y as a medical tourist, and was later found to be positive to Covid-19. This patient sadly passed away.

Now i am going to show you a few of the Y netizens’ comments with regards to this. But before i do so, please be reminded that these are real messages on the Internet.

Again, i would like to stress this: This is by no means a bashing on Y. i will go into more details in a bit.

WARNING: contains death threats and other offensive language.

First, this

Here, this person is talking about the fact that a lot of foreign people migrate to Y to find work. This is true. With all due respect and credit to this person.

Firstly, the policy of prioritising locals, was never about whether the foreigners are in Y for work, or sightseeing, or for love, or anything else. These sentiments come in response to the announcement of the policy, just proves that, in these situations you will find the buried hate in the people surface as if it was a button that was pushed. You don’t see these hate until something like this kind of crisis strikes. You see that people don’t need a good reason to hate, they just hate and when the prime moment strikes, they will release it.

Secondly, yes, a lot of them are in Y for money. This is totally correct. What does it have to do with this commenter? Nothing. Does it speak of jealousy? i think it does. But for the benefit of doubt, i assume people who this commenter is calling “stupid idiots” are those who come in illegally (knowingly or unknowingly), which is not uncommon. Even in that case, people go to desperate measures, all with reasons. Does this person think someone who has a perfect life would find ways to sneak their way into a foreign land to find work when they can actually do so with much more ease in their own hometown? There will be tons of things to say on these people’s lives but apparently this commenter cares nothing of it, which is their choice and i am perfectly fine with people not wanting to know about others’ background. Also, did they just call us “breed”? What are we to you, mutts?

Point noted.

The fuck?

i do agree that a lot of people would dream of being able to die in their homeland.

For the next few i will be commenting on a couple of photos together.

Now let’s move on to the next point

It might seem like a waste, but it really is not. Because once crisis strikes, you cannot just decide who needs treatment more. Anyone untreated will pass on to others, or worse, can die from it. Especially, while you have so many foreigners working closely with your locals, you really think it is as simple as a matter of nationality?

Yeah. Bravo, one death from Z and we are already doing the country blaming. China being a victim wasn’t enough.

A ha. Another one lying in wait for the moment to spread hate. “Paying” for it? Who is it do you think that has been doing a part to make it possible for you to be able to have a smart phone, to sit there and type a comment right now?

This would have been sensible had the country been some other country. But this is Y.

Y’s infrastructure, is ironically, built with mostly foreigner’s hands. No matter private or public.

Why? Because it’s a low class job that locals do not want to do. This is a brutal truth. There is class inferred in the seemingly perfect system that Y sits on. For their own citizens to punch their chest proud and look up and show off their first world class infrastructure, it is at the cost of hiring foreigners at cheap labor cost.

Therefore, instead of the government, i think it is you Sir, who needs to “wake up”.

Last but not least.

There is good reason to this. Just as some background, Y’s government policies have always been quite efficient and clever, and if you actually look at the details you will see immediately that it took considerable time for them to think of multiple factors and craft the final details. In this case, it is really just not straightforward to turn anyone away IF they really contract the virus in Y. Because, firstly, countries have starting to shut down their borders, and imposing compulsory stay home notice for anyone who is coming into their border. This and the fact that flights are literally all cancelled. The country itself is not saying “You can’t go back”, but no airline is providing flights to their hometown anymore. Secondly, even if physically they can go back, in the countries’ citizens’ mind they are equivalent to the virus. They are the black sheep. They are the spoiled brats who had money to go find Neverland leaving behind their “impoverished” homeland and then when crisis strikes they abandoned the “dream” land to go back and bring death to the “good” people who do not have the money and means to find “dreams” like them. This is why i asserted earlier this is not in anyway a bashing on Y. Because X doesn’t do any better. Any country can have this behaviour, As a national of X, i have seen people sharing about these sentiments happening inside X’s borders, and seen how X citizens bash on their own fellow citizen who just happened to contract the virus and had been travelling prior to testing positive.

You see, it is these kinds of events that one thing is clear: For people who spend long time abroad without switching their nationalities, they know, that there will be a day where they realise they might have no where to go.

That’s why, whoever you are and wherever you are, if you have even just once treated a migrant in a way that shows them they are not just an oxygen wasting breathing machine, then i want to say this.

Thank you.

Because we may never know, they have one nation in front and one behind, but they don’t have one to stand side by side.

Thank you for reading this far.

Diary Entry 10 March 2020

Some time ago i came across a DMMD confession where the OP says that for some reason they couldn’t care for Clear as much as the fandom does and that it made them kind of sad because they wished they loved him as much as the fandom did.

i didn’t find much relation to that at the time (because i am Clear trash, duh) and my immediate thought was “It is okay to not love him, though”, but slowly i find myself thinking about it too.

i don’t know how much Clear was loved in the fandom 5-7 years ago at the prime of its success, but of course if he was as loved as the confessions say then i would be very very happy to know because he is my son and i only know him for 5 months but if someone bullies him i will put on my mummy hat and wrap him up with a warm blanket and shield him from the rest of the world.

Within DMMD space, i also find myself from time to time wondering why is it that i can’t love some of the characters as much as the fandom does, for instance Noiz and Koujaku. i like them, but really not as much as the fandom in general. i won’t say i love them, but i like them at any rate.

In other fandom too, for instance BSD, i find myself falling hard for someone like Kunikida and not the ultra popular ones like Dazai and the 2 Soukoku/Shin Soukoku duos.

Of course it all boils down to taste and our own values, so no one is obliged to love any character.

Still i do sometimes think “Is it something wrong with me?”.

And then i realised that at the same time that i, a Clear lover, is wondering that, another, who is not a Clear lover, is thinking the same.

Which just doesn’t make sense.

Thinking along that line helps a little, i guess.

Though, i can’t deny that we humans have the tendency to want to be with people who have the same hobbies/love the same things as us (bonding over hating the same thing might probably a bit more, uhm, complicated, so i would not go there). As much as i do to tell myself “Don’t care what people think of you” i still have to admit i enjoy it when i find people to share the same love with.

We do get along with people with opposing views too of course, and our coping mechanism with conflict might differ.

Still it’s both frustrating and amusing when i see myself jump at the sight of someone who likes the same thing/people/concept as i do and my spoiled side of me would say “Just a little bit is fine, isn’t it?”, while the reason in me would say “Calm yourself a little you fool”.

Just a little more maybe, let me be this spoiled kid a bit longer =D

Diary Entry 8 March 2020

To me, the concept of “choice” is very important. Similarly is the idea of “free will”.

Which is why i got especially attached to Clear (DRAMAtical Murder). i watched the anime without getting attached to any other character, until Clear. He got me so drawn to him i even checked out his game route, with all the sexual stuff and all, and i never play otome games. It was an interesting chance encounter that got me checking out one of the most successful otome games in the past 10 years.

i somewhat relate to Clear in terms of the circumstances of being under the influence of someone in the family and every choice i make being closely monitored and judged and “graded”. i got tired of it.

So the fact that i got the opportunity to study overseas was a saving grace.

Needless to say i didn’t want to tell my family about what i was doing at all – of course i studied, but i so hungered for personal space that i didn’t call, i didn’t text them about my life unless it was a special occasion. My roommates talked to their parents every week – even everyday, but i couldn’t care enough.

i didn’t care that they got worried about me not getting married to a person of the same nationality.

i didn’t care that they had no idea i might not even want to get married at all.

Heck, i don’t even date anyone.

i got sick of having to mind about them whenever i do something – they commented on the CCA i wanted to take, the course i was going to take in university, my salary.

i got sick of having to think about them when making the decision that concern MY life.

Yes, i am selfish.

So i longed to do something that basically has no benefits to my “future”.

Like volunteering with a non-profit group taking care of sex workers. Mind you, i did this as someone having no sex – so naturally i knew close to nothing and had to learn everything from 0 including how to use a condom.

In other words, i volunteered with that selfish goal in mind.

i just want to be able to make my own CHOICE.

To know that i CHOSE to do it.

Doing things out of nowhere and with no expected return – feels so, so, so, liberating.

That is why i fell head over heels for Clear.

Not in the sense that he made me feel like my selfishness is justified.

i have long moved on from minding how society view my choices on my social life.

i love the fact that Clear traded his own life just so he can make HIS own choice, when it matters.

Now this is not a morbid talk. i am not saying we should all aim to die for a good cause or anything.

What i mean is that Clear knew he couldn’t choose who created him and who he really is and the fact that he can never become a human. And because it is not his choice that he was made a machine, he has no obligation to STAY a machine made by that human. He can choose to oppose it. He can choose to serve who he wants to serve. He can choose to question how he should live his own life.

He did and he never regretted it. He proudly owns up to his choice to protect his most beloved person.

That is why he is the ideal i wanted to aim towards.

And that, is another story about Clear and i.

Thank you for reading this far.

Diary Entry 5 March 2020

Writing about Clear 2 days ago got me crying a little a few times during the day just by going over and over the same words i rarely get the chance to tangiblise.

i hardly cry that much anymore but truth is, it reminded me of one of the times i cried the most in my whole life.

i was acting as a facilitator for a workshop aimed at Upper Primary school kids soon to be taking their exams.

i was around 20 at the time, and attending one of the top Universities in the city.

The exercise – one of the rituals by the organiser – asks all of the kids to hold a piece of paper with their goal(s) written on it and hold in front of their face for 30 minutes.

The facilitators could join them in the spirit if they wanted to. So i did.

Only i took it just as “fun” and wrote nothing onto the paper.

The moment the teacher came to me and saw an empty “goal” sheet, she asked me, something meant for the participants, “What is your goal?”

“Why is the paper empty?”

“What do you want to achieve?”

i kept quiet at the probing questions, stared in front of the white, pathetic sheet in front of my eyes.

“i don’t know.”

“You don’t know!”

“Where is your purpose in life?”

i swallowed the sobs in my throat. My arms hurt.

“If it is not on the paper, where is it?”

“… in… my head” was all i could think of.

“It’s not, it’s here.” she pointed at the left side of my chest.

i don’t remember crying harder anywhere else than that moment.

i cried while standing and holding that paper in front of my face. The people walking around me thought i was in pain.

i actually was, just not really on my arms.

i was in pain from the inside out.

i knew it even before then but i didn’t dare to face it.

i knew i was living someone else’ life instead of my own.

My whole life, i studied, sometimes because i liked it, other times because i am scared of being called a disgrace. i did what was expected of me. i chose what i wanted to do in university with the assurance that my parents thought it was a good idea.

That was all excuses.

i CHOSE that course. But if my parents were to oppose it, would i have followed whatever they told me? i didn’t know the answer.

i CHOSE this job.

But every time i take one step, i was always afraid of having to confront anyone about it.

i would cry if i had an argument with my elder sister.

i was afraid of conflict.

Every time i took a step, i looked all around me, wary of potential opposition.

i just wanted to run away already.

So i kind of did.

Whatever i did, i delayed, or avoided, informing my family members. Because i knew they might oppose. Because i didn’t care whether they do – i just want to do what i want to do.

Like taking a second major in university.

Like taking part time jobs on top of it.

Like going on overseas trip.

Like not getting into relationships.

Like not coming back home when they ask me to.

i didn’t care what they want me to do.

Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter.

It’s just about which hurts less. Not them. But me.

Because i don’t want to allow others to hurt myself anymore.

To be honest, i should have thanked the teacher who made me cry.

i cried so much that day that i thought it could have been a litre of tears. i cried when i stood there, i cried when the 30 minutes were over and i returned to my seat, i cried after that in the toilet and cried again when i returned to the hall after going to the toilet. It was extremely embarrassing because it was supposed to make the kids cry, and i was supposed to be an adult. i even had one kid 7 years younger than me standing beside to watch me and see how i was doing and worriedly asking whether i was alright. i wasn’t, but i didn’t know how to explain to her. Actually i never did explain to anyone. i didn’t see a situation for me to tell them that their experience “staff” just cried her eyeballs out of her sockets because she just realised after 20 years of her life that she had no fucking idea where she wanted her life to go.

But it is okay. It is okay to cry. It is okay for adults to cry. i am a female, but had i been a boy it would have been okay too.

i didn’t hate the teacher, not then, not now. We were never close friends, but i respected her for that time even if our interactions are extremely limited.

i wish for everyone to have at least one person like her in their life, at some point in time.

Thank you for reading this far.

Diary Entry 4 March 2020

A Nation does not love you.

A Nation is a collection of their people, their leaders, their ideologies.

A Nation can not love you. It is their People who decide whether to love or not love you.

A Nation does not love you. It can house you. It can chase you away. It can praise you. It can condemn you.

But a Nation will not love you.

It is okay to not feel proud of being born somewhere.

Because it has nothing to do with what you decide to do yourself.

A Nation is not a part of you.

A Nation is not you.

It shouldn’t.

Diary entry 3 March part 2: On Clear and i

i probably have said a thousand times before that i got to know DMMD from the anime and the only thing that made me actually interested enough to check out the game is Clear himself. The others are cool – maybe much cooler than Clear in certain aspects, but i specifically went to checkout the gameplay for Clear.

i have read quite a few posts by Clear lovers on their own personal connection with him and i was really happy to read all of them because though my own take is different, i can really see where they were coming from. It was really a warm feeling for me to read on how this precious little albino robot impacts different people in different ways.

All Clear lovers love him in their own ways and no love is identical, which is a very beautiful thing.

So seeing those beautiful personal sharing by those beautiful people, i wanted to, one day, get enough courage to share my own because i want to simply share how he impacted me, too, as a way to show appreciation because he deserves that.

i might have lightly touched on this subject before but Clear rings a familiar chord in me the moment i heard him being called a “defect”.

(Please feel free to skip this from here on because it is going to get very, very personal. In any case thank you for reading this far)

Now before this part i literally don’t relate to Clear in any way – i am always looking too serious and for a certain fact i am not as transparent when it comes to showing emotions the way Clear does, at least at the first part of the anime/game.

i am also quite privileged in any aspect of life – i am not of any minority race or highly discriminated sexuality groups, i have a very comfortable life with an intact family and all. So i am not similar with Clear in terms of the way he has to get by by himself and always has the impression that he looks different from every other person.

It’s when his brothers called him “defective from the day [you were] born” in the anime (i know that the way they said he is defective in the game is slightly different from the anime) that i started to be unable to get my eyes off of him.

It’s when his brothers mock him for being unable to recognise the same Master as they do.
It’s when his brothers belittle him for throwing away his superior life for a human being.

i glued myself to the screen from that instant and i couldn’t take my eyes way. i wouldn’t.

Now for obvious reasons i am not going to bore you with the little details of my life but basically i have been told both explicitly and implicitly that i have been a “failure” before.

With all the privilege that i have, being called a “failure” served like a mental dam. i don’t have a reason to lament about lacking anything in my life. But i also can’t bring myself to love what i have – after all, i felt whatever i have now is not mine. Because i didn’t earn it. Because i don’t deserve it.

Because after all i, am a failure.
(Typing this line straight out feels really refreshing, by the way （｡>‿‿<｡ ）. To be more precise, i was actually dripping tears after writing it 😀 )

That is why after literally living under the lid that i have placed on my own head for more than a decade now (or maybe even decades), when i saw Clear, belittled and tattered, breaking apart, and proudly choosing his own Master and saying “They said I was a defective, but that is fine with me. My Master can only be You and You alone”, i wanted to scream my guts out.

i wanted to dig my fingers through my chest and gouge out whatever i could touch, to make myself remember this for life.

How could i have been such a coward?

After all, who the fuck cares if i were a failure or not?

Maybe i was, so what?

Why did i decide that i can’t be a failure and still happy?

Why couldn’t i see that i can be a failure and still choose how to live my life?

And when he plunged that knife in… The walls in me started to slowly, crack. It was as if i, watching him, was stabbing my own head – at the lock to the mental cell i have put myself in.

Now, i have seen a lot of motivational quotes on “You have no control over what happened in your childhood but you have control over what you want to do with your present” – or something along that line, i can’t for the life of me remember the full quote – and i KNOW that is true. Bringing myself to act on that, is, another matter.

But damn, Clear.

He SHOWED me how he does it.

He reminds me that i, at least, am ALIVE. Whether i am LIVING or not, that is totally my choice, and mine alone.

He reminds me that just because i might have shit done to me in the past, it doesn’t mean i have to become an asshole.

And that, is the story of Clear and i.

Thank you for reading this far.