CB Anime Review: Fruits Basket

Sometimes you just find a show that doesn't seem all that great, but ends up being a flawless jewel of an anime.  That is how I feel about Fruits Basket; it's a simple, happy anime that is pure awesomeness.

However, why it is so awesome, I cannot tell you.

Maybe it's the great voice acting, or the simple animation, or maybe it's lovable personality of the show's main character.

OR maybe it's a combination of everything in this show that makes it so spectacular (Ya, that probably it).  Well, you can decide yourself when you decide to watch it, but for now, let me tell you about one of the most beloved animes of all time, Fruits Basket.

At the beginning of this series, we meet our main character Tohru Honda, who after the death of her mother, is living in a tent in the woods.  While walking to school one day, she discovers that the land she has been camping on belongs to "Prince" Yuki Sohma.  Yuki and his cousin Shigure invite Tohru to live with them and the trio is later joined by Kyo, Yuki and Shigure's cousin.

Now, I know this doesn't sound super exciting, but in anime, random plot devices are essential, and Fruits Basket's is a doozy.

Tohru discovers that the Sohma family is cursed.  When one of 13 members is hugged  by someone of the opposite gender, they turn into one of the 12 Zodiac animes, plus the cat.

Though this plot devices is used mostly for humor in the anime, its significance in the manga is much larger.  Still, it keeps things interesting and often leads to funny situations for Tohru and the Sohma family.

However, this plot device isn't the main reason people love this show.  It's the characters, and mainly Tohru.  Tohru is a sweet, young girl, who despite having gone through hardships in her life, is always cheerful.  Not cheerful like she is trying to hide her true emotion, but sincerely cheerful.  She's also a hard work, friendly, and cares for other people, even complete strangers.  Her character is really refreshing, because there's such a sincerity in everything that she does, that you never really get annoyed or embarrassed for her.  Really, I could stop this review right now, and tell you to just watch it for Tohru, but there are some other great reasons to watch.

Our other 3 main characters are not on the same level as Tohru, but still fun to watch.  First, we have Yuki, who is the "Prince" of his school and has plenty of admirers.  Despite his popularity, he's a very kind and friendly guy, except when it comes to Kyo.  Kyo is the opposite of Yuki.  He's loud, violent and pretends not to like anything or anybody.  He and Yuki don't get along very well, and Kyo continually tries to beat Yuki in fistfights.  Tohru believes that this is because Yuki's animal is the mouse, while Kyo's is the cat.  Finally, there's Shigure, who technically isn't a main character, but I think he's so cool that he deserves a main character spot.  Professionally, he's a writer and loves nothing more than tormenting his editor by slacking off.  Though he's can be a little creepy at times, I enjoyed his funny, laid back character.

Fruits Basket also has a fantastic cast of supporting characters.  First and foremost is the Sohma family, cursed and uncursed.  We get to meet most of the cursed family, as they decide to visit Shigure for various reasons.  They range in personality, from sweet, childish Momiji to the over dramatic Ritsu.  Each member usually gets their own episode where they meet Tohru and she tries to help them with whatever issue or problem they have.  They're great characters and their family curse is a great plot point in these episodes, especially since we get to watch people turn into different animals.

The other supporting characters include Tohru's two friends Arisa and Saki, and members of the Prince Yuki Fan Club.  These characters actually get their own episodes, or at least a large amount of screen time.  They might not be super memorable, but it's cool they get their chance in the spotlight.

Now, lets talk about art.  Fruits Basket's animation isn't flashy or greatly detailed, but it totally fits the feel of this show.  It has kind of a calming effect, actually.  I don't know that it is, but whenever I watch an episode of Fruits Basket, I feel really peaceful.

The music also has great calming effect.  Most of the tracks are upbeat, but even the more intense or dramatic pieces are really soothing.  The music is also very simple, and really is the epitome of "background music."  It's just playing in the background, and not overtaking a scene with huge orchestras.  Sure, some of the tracks get repeated at certain times, but again, they're so simple and sweet, you don't really notice.

I didn't mention this before, but the English voice cast is really high on the "Reasons Why Fruits Basket is Awesome!" list.  I would put it in the same category as Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Toradora in terms of awesome voice casts.  Everyone's voices matched their characters, even the more absurd members of the Sohma family.  Laura Bailey, who did the voice for Tohru (and who funny enough did the voice for Lust in FMA:B) was fantastic.  It's Tohru's voice the really sets the tone for this anime, and loved listening to every line Tohru, thanks to Laura's great voice work.

My ideal setting for watching Fruits Basket is on a chilly fall evening where you just want to turn on the TV and relax.  If you ever find yourself in such a situation, I suggest that you watch Fruits Basket, because you are guaranteed to have a wonderful evening.  Of course, you could watch Fruits Basket whenever you want to, because it is just that amazing!

Final thought: If I were to describe this anime in just one word, it would be innocent.  When I watch Fruits Basket, there this innocence that radiates from it.  I don't know what it is, but this anime is something very sweet and fun to watch.  Please pick it up sometime. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Peace and Love

My First HowToCatholic Podcast: IronManandIronThrone

This is my first attempt at a Podcast, and I hope you enjoy it!  My hope is to have more people in the podcast so that we can talk about Catholicism and whatever else we feel like discussing.  Stay tuned for that!

On this podcast, I talk about why Robert Downey Jr. was the best choice to play Iron Man, and I also talk about why I love Game of Thrones.  Plus, random joke!

Also, HowToCatholic is the second name I chose for this podcast, after my original name was already taken.  If you have any suggestions for podcast names, leave a comment!

Peace and Love

Advice I Gave to a Bunch of Teenagers

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to chaperon a Lifeteen camping trip.  I was also asked to give the final witness talk for the trip. I've done a couple of these talks while at the Newman Center, but this would be the first time I would be talking to people who are younger than me.  Needless to say, I was nervous, but excited!  I thought I would share my talk with you, as I believe that others might get something out of this talk.  The teens seemed to like it, so I hope that you find some sliver of inspiration from this speech, but if you don't that's OK.

Here we go.

For those who don’t know me, my name is Tony and I am the Disciple in Service at Sacred Heart. For the next year, I will be living a life of prayer and simplicity so that I can grow closer to God and discover where He wants me to go in the future.

It’s really great to see you all here, because if I was your age, I would not be at this type of event. When I was in high school, my faith wasn't something very important to me. Even though I went to a Catholic high school, my faith life was at a minimum. Most of my friends were Catholic as well, but we didn't really talk about our faith. At times I would resent being Catholic. When my friends would hold LAN parties, I would always have to leave early because my family went to 9am Mass every Sunday. Luckily, I didn't see a reason not to be Catholic, so I continued to live my lazy Catholic life. True story, the inspiration for my confirmation name, Rachael, wasn't the Archangel, but the ninja turtle.

Things changed when I went to college in 2010. I went to school at Western and became involved with the WWU Newman Center. There, I met great friends, including April, and learned a lot about my faith. During those 4 years, I went on a lot of retreats, just as all of you will, I hope. The great thing about going on retreats is that you are completely away from everything but God. There’s no Facebook, no Youtube, no Tumblr, if you guys do that. It’s just you, a bunch of awesome Christian friends, and God. Most of the retreats I attended were only 3 days long, but at the end of every retreat, I was on a Jesus high. I felt so connected to God and my faith and I just wanted to keep the feeling forever. If we could have stayed in Sedro-Wooley or Anacortes or wherever those retreats were being held, I would have been totally happy. A little background, I’m a pretty introverted person, so me wanting to be away from home for an extended period of time is a rare occurrence. I think that Peter was feeling the same way when they were up on that mountain. He was so happy and just wanted to stay at that place forever. But Jesus said no, we have to go back down the mountain and meet the people.

At the end of those three day retreats, I felt so in tuned with God, but after leaving and getting back to real life, that spiritual high would slowly fade away. Honestly, for me, it’s hard to feel a connection to anything when you have to wake up at 7:30am. So, I would hold onto that high until it eventually would go away and my regular routines would set in. After retreats, I would promise myself that I would pray a Rosary every night. A couple days later, it would be a decade of a rosary each night. And a couple days more and I wouldn't be able to find my rosary. Than my prayer life would be pretty dismal, at least until the next retreat happened and I was on another spiritual high. Hope is not lost however, because I my prayer life has gotten better in the past year. Still, it’s not at the place I wish it would be, and that is where you have an advantage over me.

You’re all still in high school. How old are you? (Get answers). I’m 22 years old, and I wish I could tell my 15/16 year old self to work on being a better Catholic. I hope that you will use the time to build a solid foundation for your faith, because that foundation will help you to continue to build your relationship with God for the rest of our lives. Just like my retreats, there will be times where you will be on top of the mountain and feel completely in sync with God, but you will have to come down. Though you may not feel that spiritual high you had on the mountain, how you pray and connect with God now will continue to sustain you, like how a runner who practices for a marathon will do better than someone who decided to do it on a whim and downs three Red Bulls beforehand.

The best way for you to do this is to live your faith in your everyday life. Whether you are at school or sports practices, you can bring God with you. It can be simple things like remembering to pray before eating lunch or ask St. Sebastian to watch over you during a sports game. As you gain in confidence, try talking to your friends about what you believe. Don’t force it on them, because that doesn’t work, but just let them know that your faith in important to you. My old roommates had bad habit of using the Lord’s name in vain, so one night I decided to talk to them about this issue. It led to some interesting conversations and even though they would occasionally slip up, I knew that they were trying and I was happy with that. So, you don’t have to go and make big sweeping changes to your life in just 24 hours. It’s going to be a slow, gradual process, but that will help you to stay connected with God over time. It may be quicker to try and build something in just one sitting, but most likely it will end up falling apart pretty quickly. So, take your time, slow and steady does win the race.

Besides praying and trying to live your life in a more Christian way, there’s one more thing that I hope you will do, especially when times get rough. I hope you will trust in God. The world is a scary place and as you grow older, you will see just how scary a place it can be. But God is the light in the darkness. There have been many times where I felt lost or alone and didn’t know where to go, but God was always there for me. He always came through for me, and not always in the way I expected. During my senior year of high school, I was finishing up my college applications. I had applied to a couple Catholic Universities, WWU and UW. My dad is a huge UW fan and he had always been pushing me to become a Huskie. So one day I was looking over my apps when I made a terrible discovery. My UW app was late. I hadn't looked at it in a couple days, and had accidentally missed the deadline. I went into shock. I felt like I had let my parents down, which is something I never wanted to do. I panicked. I considered just running away, because I didn't know what to do. My dad would be disappointed in me, my mom would be disappointed in me and as an overly self-conscious person, I despise letting people down when they are counting on me. So, I did the only logical thing and ran outside into the rain, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I cried as I walked away from my house, I didn’t have a direction, but I just needed to get away. All these negative thoughts swirled through my head. What if I don’t get into any other colleges and UW would have been my only shot? What if I missed out on the chance to go to a really good school that wouldn’t bankrupt my parents? Should I just forget about going to school this year? As I walked, I cried out to God to help me. That was probably the first time I called to God for help, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Eventually, I made my way back home and told my sister what happened. She told me to go take a nap, so that’s what I did. Before I fell asleep, I prayed to God one more time. I asked for his help and his forgiveness, but I didn’t know if he would listen to me.

The next morning, my sister told my mom, who told my dad. I woke up for breakfast and the two of us ate together. He told me that he would always love me and be proud of me. After hearing him say that, I thanked God, because my worst fear, of my dad thinking I was a failure as a son had not come true. I had further reason to thank God when I got accepted into every other school I’d applied to. If I had been accepted to UW, who knows if I would have gone there or WWU, but in the end, He had a plan for me, and my time at Western was 4 greatest years of my life. God watches out for us. Please never forget that, because He wants to help you whenever you need Him.

So, I hope that my talk has given you some ideas for the future. Your experiences are going to be different from mine and you will experience God in your own unique way. Just remember that you never have to go at it alone. There are people like April and Father Joseph who can help you when you feel lost or just need someone to talk to. As the body of Christ, we are all want to be like Peter on top of that mountain, but life doesn’t work like that. We have to come down from the mountain, but we can still take what we saw or heard or felt on that mountain and bring it down with us. And with that, let’s bow our heads in prayer, here at this camp, and ask God to guide us and let His love shine through use for all to see.

Peace and Love

CB Anime Review: Toradora

There are some animes that may not seem to interesting after just one epsiode, but if you keep watching, you may come to like or even love it.  That was my experience with probably one of the best romance animes of all time, Toradora.

After finishing Clannad: After Story, I wanted to find another anime in the romance genre to enjoy.  Thanks to Reddit and MyAnimeList, I discovered Toradora.  Actually, I watched the first episode of Toradora a couple months before watching Clannad, but wasn't too impressed so I didn't continue.  I decided to give Toradora a second chance after finishing Clannad and it was probably one of the best decisions in my anime watching life. 

Toradora is about Ryuji, a nice guy who has a bad reputation and a secret crush on his classmate Minori.  On the first day of school, he meets Minori's best friend, Taiga Aisaka, a short and fierce girl who has a secret crush of her own.  That crush just happens to be on Ryuji's best friend Kitamura.  After discovering that they have a crush on the other's best friend, Ryuji and Taiga form an unlikely partnership and begin this sweet and funny adventure of love and high school.

Now, as I mentioned in my Clannad review, romance animes are fairly predictable in terms of endings.  So, when I watch a romance anime, I watch it for the character's journey rather than the ending.   That doesn't mean that romance animes have bad endings, because Toradora’s ending, while predictable, is fantastic!  You would think that it might be difficult to get a full 26 episodes out of this show, but the creators did it with flying colors.  Each episode is funny, heartwarming and makes you want to drop everything you have to do for the rest of the day and just marathon the rest of the series (Which I kind of did)!  I mean, Toradora’s episode 2 had some moments that other shows would have been saving for the series finale, but the show was still funny and original and able to continue for another 2 seasons.  

In the beginning of the story, there are 4 interesting main characters, and halfway through we get an equally interesting 5^th.  Toradora’s main cast is small, but extremely well developed, especially Ryuji and Taiga.  Since they are the main characters, most screen time is devoted to them and you get to see them grow and develop greatly as the series progresses.  The other three characters have their moments to shine as well, and though we don’t get to see what happens to them at the end of the show, we still hope for the best.  There was also a great group of side characters in Toradora who were also very well developed and acted as comic relief.

Now, while the characters were great, the art was pretty average.  It did shine at some of the major plot points in the series, but on the whole, there was nothing spectacular about it.  The character designs on the other hand looked great, and except for one of the main characters, Toradora's cast had fun and original personalities.  If you watch the series, you can see that one particular character looks and sounds like another very well-known female anime character.  Honestly, it isn't too hard to figure out, but she was still a great character in the show.  

One reason that I wasn't initially intrigued by Toradora was the subtitles.  There wasn't anything wrong with them, but I was tired of reading my animes instead of watching them.  Luckily, I found the dubbed version when I began to watch the series again and they are pretty freaking amazing.  As I've mentioned previously, there are some animes where the English voice doesn't match up with their character, and this is another rare occurrence where the English voices and dialogue were absolutely perfect.  Way to go NIS America!

I'm going to warn you right now, that if you watch this series, most likely it will be a "void anime".Void Animes are, to me, shows that you watch and after you finish, you feel like there is a void in your life.  You look around and ask yourself "What do I do now?"  It's not necessarily a bad thing; it just means that you really enjoyed that show and now that the story is over, you don't know what to do.  This has happened a couple times for me.  Some of the animes were really good series like Spice and Wolf and others were pretty terrible animes like Aquarion Evol.  The next step is usually for you to just go and find another show to watch.  Just be careful while you are searching, because you won't another series exactly like the one that left the void, so don't expect to find an immediate replacement.  If Toradora had elements that you liked about it, use those elements as a starting point to find your next series.  Or, you could go a completely opposite direction and watch something completely different.  It's up to you!  The power is in your hands!

If you haven't yet realized it, I'll make it simple for you; I LOVED TORADORA!  It was one of the best combinations of romance and comedy that I've ever seen.  Clannad was really good, but Toradora now reigns supreme as my favorite romance anime.  If you want to watch something light and sweet, I hope you will take the time to enjoy this show, because it really is a fantastic anime and a great lesson about friendship and love.

Peace and Love