My sweet goddess -don't be angry with me for not reading it, please ~.~
Fullmetal Alchemist...rings a bell...somewhere but I don't even know what the characters of it look like, much less what it is about (and Saiyuki will STAY MY ONE AND ONLY ANIME!! XD) so...it wouldn't make much sense?^^'

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Become the one you are.

AAHHH!!! You have never seen Fullmetal Alchemist??? My dear you must!! If you only watch one other anime series, it should be FMA... It has much in common with Saiyuki - quest theme, archtypal characters with tragic backgrounds, roots in classic literature (FMA is full of allusions to Dante Alleghieri's Divine Comedy, including a wonderful set of villains named after the seven deadly sins!) It really is well worth watching, and the manga are incredibly good. The fansite fullmetal-alchemist.com has a link to an excellent free online manga reader with all the FMA manga and several others. That site is the one that welcomed me into the world of internet anime fandom, boards, research, friendship, fanfiction, etc. They are spectacularly nice folks -- FMA fans tend to be special people, just as Saiyuki fans do - different but equally special.

FMA is not as gritty as Saiyuki - it has more of a sweetness to it at times, but it is no fairy tale. It can be brutal at times with the intensity of the story lines, especially given that the two main characters experiencing it all are in their early- to mid-teens as they are on their quest and going through their experiences. But the characters are vivid and believable, and you really come to take them into your heart just as you do with Saiyuki. Trust me, babe, I would not recommend it so highly if I wasn't sure. I know I haven't watched nearly as much anime as some of my peers on these boards, but I think I have sampled enough at this point to have a good idea of what is out there. And while there is in fact a helluva lot of well-done anime out there - well-written and beautifully-drawn, the number of series that measure up to Saiyuki all in all are relatively few. But Fullmetal Alchemist is one. The only other one I have found so far is Samurai 7... but that's a whole other post!

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One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel
And the next day it's rolling over me
I can get back on, I can get back on....
Neil Peart/Rush/"Far Cry"

...^^' two weeks ago someone tried to convince me of reading Death Note and...not really succeeded.
I will watch and read it as soon as the ones I'm married to are beginning to cheat on me. I really don't have many Manga in my shelves, only 3 other series, the rest consists of Yaoi and none was added since about 3 years. I'm really open-minded. But entirely obstinate and narrow-minded when it comes to other series than Saiyuki.
I know that this behaviour is everything but mature but I can say without fearing to lie that I'm still living beause of that series.

I stopped reading after the 15th canto after hell was over, did you happen to read the Divine Comedy?

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Become the one you are.

So hot and sweet and tender and HAWT!!!!

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☆彡☆彡☆彡Gojyo Hotbot: [link]

_{|3 {- {= /\ /\/ | /\/ |}

Death Note is good - I haven't read it but I am watching it currently on TV. But to compare it to FMA would be like comparing a good well-written murder mystery to Lord of the Rings... apples and oranges, or more like apples and a gigantic wonderful fruit salad. Believe me, I am pretty hard to persuade, too. There have not been too many other series I have liked enough to stick with all the way through - I have bailed on more than I have finished. I may have told you before I want to get some anime t-shirts made up, and one of them will say "Life is too short to watch bad anime." And there is a lot of bad and mediocre anime out there. And I do have a very hard time believing ANY series could ever supplant Saiyuki's place in my heart as absolutely the best... it just means too much to me. Something you and I have in common. But FMA is right up there, which should tell you something.

As far as The Divine Comedy, I read it in it's entirety - in translation of course, in a World Literature class I took in my second year of college - at Virginia Tech, the one where the massacre was last year (which was one of the things that factored greatly into my depression. I love that place and that senseless butchering of innocents broke my heart. I lived in the dorm that first young lady that was killed lived in.) I don't remember a whole lot about it other than the main facts, and that I really liked it. I have always enjoyed seeing it in reflected in other works - like the movie What Dreams will Come -- and Fullmetal Alchemist. I think it is most definitely a seminal work of the European consciousness and culture. I would like to go back and re-read it sometime soon. Especially in light of what I have studied since about Jung and archetypes, etc., which is also something I would like to study some more.... life is too short to pursue all the things I would like to explore, at least with my largely undisciplined mind.

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One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel
And the next day it's rolling over me
I can get back on, I can get back on....
Neil Peart/Rush/"Far Cry"

Thank you darlin'... I can't think of anyone I would rather receive praise from than your sweet self!!!! Happy New Year!!

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One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel
And the next day it's rolling over me
I can get back on, I can get back on....
Neil Peart/Rush/"Far Cry"