dear my love, haven't you wanted
Okay, this shall now be claimed as a history of my anime/manga love! This page will include my favourites, my dislikes, my wierd obsessions, and how I got introduced into the world I currently live in.
back to the start
I was just a normal, nine year old girl, and one day, at the beginning of September 2001, I was watching tv, and suddenly a show came on which changed my life. Cardcaptors. Yes, I despise how it was ruined from the original, but it still began this whole thing. Anyway. I was on the verge of turning it off since I had declared 'I would not like anything other than Pokemon' but Sakura's cuteness, which remained even through the *awful awful* dub, inspired me to keep watching. So I watched the first episode with awe. 'More stuff like Pokemon!' ran through my head. A few weeks later I began to watch it again, record the episodes. I'd fallen in love with the series, I admit. But alas, CITV took it away from me there was a time when I saw some of the second serie, but nothing more.So now you're wondering how this fits? Well, it all begins properly in June 2004. Yup, 3 years later...
a few years ago
So, in 2004 I was still wanting to see the Final Judgement. Yes, it was only recently (2005 beginning) I saw the whole undubbed serie (I was surprised how many episodes I missed.. only about 10). Anyway, me and my mother were browsing through amazon.co.uk, and we saw Card Captor Sakura manga. We knew who it was, because by that time I'd been 'web building' for about three weeks and discovered the real ccs. So, we bought the first book and a boxed set of 3 to 6. Ah, we didn't get much further though. Later on in the year we bought the rest of the first series. I was then exstatic to find the second serie, master of the clow, and this was how my manga obsession began. I remember the first few series I bought; Fruits Basket, Chobits, Pitaten and Tokyo Mew Mew. Tokyo Mew Mew mostly. Since, there is a tiny store in the market at town, the only store at the time with anything manga at all (very very limited then), and he had a preview book of manga stuff, and I liked the Tokyo Mew Mew stuff. So there you are.
in the present
Obviously, I know have many many books, bought from multiple places. Over the past few years England has become more 'manga-efficient' and more stores at selling it. Admittedly, we still have a long way to go to making all-manga/anime stores, but it's improving. The influence is spreading! That's good though. Though I always find amazon the best place; they'll mostly have the books in stock, wearas the bookshops only like have.. limited number or limited number of books, eg. up to volume 5. But England still has the dubbed-anime-but-we-want-the-subbed issue. We have no anime on the shelves. None online, mostly (though there are a few; popular stuff like dnangel and angelic layer, but not subbed).
cherished treasures
Well, if you know me you'll know my favourites are not hard to be strayed into discussion. I love Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and Card Captor Sakura with all my heart. I love these series so much, and I guess as I get older the Tsubasa loveness in me will increase. Another series that I have recently fallen for is another mahou-shoujo, which is Shugo Chara!. It's not that well known, but it's growing! People may think it's just another magical girl thing, but it's not. It deals with real issues, important issues that everybody goes through. Doubting yourself, wanting to be different or something else than what you are, hiding your true self away - hence the guardian characters. It's amazing.
the stunning artists
CLAMP is amazing. Seriously. CLAMP has a large number of series, and I've read most of them and loved each and everyone of them to a point, and my two favourite ones are by them too.. so yes, generally, I love CLAMP's work a lot. Other manga-ka that'll I'll give anything a chance to are Arina Tanemura and Watase Yuu, because out of the series I've managed to get a hold off from most of them, I've liked it - at least to some degree. As always, there are a few series that I don't really fall head over heels for. Arina's artwork is gorgeous; everything is so alluring and magical, and sometimes that's what draws me in more than anything else, because it's so pretty.