There are lots of people that I need to thank for this, but I would dedicate this primarily to my late grandparents.

PS: When people say time seems to slow down/stop when you experience a defining moment in life, they’re lying.

PPS: I should never show my teeth when smiling.

Meanwhile, here’s a picture of the place where I work.

Looking back, it has been some 18.5 years of my life so what I’ll be doing next is going to be different than my usual lifestyle. At least I went through all those years without any need for repeating a grade. Back then it’s attributed to some recessive gene, and it might be true to some extent.

Oh well, I’ll march on forward for the next step.

What I do not use:

• Drama CDs (despite Tanaka Rie’s sexy moans, I don’t want infantilism to be a part of my life)
• Oniichan soundtrack (LOLI LOEV PEDO…NOT)
• Oshikari soundtrack (abused by tsundere girls…)
• Game WAVs (of course)

I skipped if a song is a karaoke/instrumental version…that’s the only thing that I’ll do to skip. One pass only
Here are the rules:

1. Put your music player on shuffle
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question.
4. NO CHEATING!!!

Here they are: (comments in italics)

1. How am I feeling today?
   house – Ishikawa Chiaki – Utsukushi Kereba Sore de ii (Simoun OP single)
   Staying at home all day…close
   
2. Where will I get married?
   sansaku (strolling) – Kawai Kenji (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni OST 1)
   Strolling?
3. What is my best friend’s theme song?
   friendly like in a childhood – ALI PROJECT (.hack//Roots OST 1)
   Childhood? What childhood?
4. What is/was highschool like?
   Eightmoon (from a 120-yen spring) – Narcissu OST
   Cheap school?
5. What is the best thing about me?
   Dare mo inai Houkago – Kajiura Yuki (Mai HiME OST 2)
   Nobody after school? So people likes it when I’m not there?
   
6. How is today going to be?
   Dreamwatch of Time (Chrono Cross OST)
   Watching time?
7. What is in store for this weekend?
   Kinchou (nervousness) – Kawai Kenji (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni OST 1)
   Heh, I wonder what would happen…
8. What song describes my parents?
   Jigoku no Shigotonin (Hell’s worker) – Takanashi Yasuharu (Jigoku Shoujo OST 2)
   Oh how I wish…
9. How is my life going?
   jugyouchuu (while in class) – Kawai Kenji (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni OST 1)
   Damn boring life…
10. What song will they play at my funeral?
    Life Stream – Nobuo Uematsu (FFVII OST)
    So fitting!
11. How does the world see me?
    Dream Wing – Kuribayashi Minami (Mai Otome OP 1)
12. What do my friends really think of me?
    Yume no Owari ni – Sahashi Toshihiko (Simoun OST 2)
    Dream of the world, ending friends’ dreams? Paradox!
13. Do people secretly lust after me?
    O-to-me Kourin (Maiden’s descent) – Kajiura Yuki (Mai Otome OST 1)
    Is it because of my maidenly status? LOL
14. How can I make myself happy?
    Eien – Tamura Yukari (Little Wish – Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ED Single)
    Searching for eternity?
    
15. What should I do with my life?
    Mukai (Sea of Mist) – Kanon OST
    As deep as the sea and as elusive as the mist…cool
16. Will I ever have children?
    Peaceful – Isoe Toshimichi (Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru OST)
    Either I won’t have any or my child will be an introvert
17. What is some good advice?
    Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – Shimamiya Eiko (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni OP)
    Damn freaky…”I can’t run away anymore”
    
18. What do I think my current theme song is?
    Kinchou – Maria-sama ga Miteru ~Haru~ OST
    Nervousness…again?
19. What does everyone else think my current life?
    Himitsu no Tantei Gokko – Kajiura Yuki (Mai Otome OST 2)
    Whoa, secret detective O_o
    
20. What type of men/women do you like?
    Akai Tobira – Yousei Teikoku (Venus Versus Virus ED Single)
    What does this mean…
21. Will you get married?
    Seishun ii janai ka? – Matsuoka Yuki (Suzumiya Haruhi Character CD 4 – Tsuruya-san)
    Isn’t youth wonderful? Unmarried forever or young marriage?
    
22. What should I do with my love life?
    Kokuyou no Kimi ~ Amai Yuuwaku – Kajiura Yuki (Mai HiME OST 2)
    Sweet temptation…
23. Where will you live?
    Omoi, Hakanaku – Kajiura Yuki (Mai HiME OST 2)
    Oh…the place of my dreams, fleeting!
24. What will your dying words be?
    Hashire! (Run!) – Sahashi Toshihiko (Simoun OST 2)
    I have a feeling the last moments of my life will be interesting.

So how do you think?

Consists of the honey dumpling itself (prolly honey, flour, with something else I don’t know, fried), ice cream, sesame, cinnamon, and chocolate. A$6 is a good price, considering that I had to wait for about 10 minutes in line. What I wonder though, have I seen something similar to this?

Indeed I have, right Osaka?

• Usability Engineering: 80 – High Distinction
• Software Testing: 62 – Credit
• Internet and Intranet Document Engineering: 66 – Credit
• Multimedia Information Retrieval: 50 – Pass

I thought I was going to fail considering my atrocious result for the second assignment. Miracles do happen sometimes, which is most surprising considering this happens  in December of all months.

“If I ate 3/4th of the curry, would you eat the rest?” was my point.

Then someone asked me:

Him: ano ne

Him: what curry is that?

Him: “curry”

Me: Japanese curry

Me: I use curry blocks

Him: Japanese curry lol

Him: I’m Indian

Him: I know what curry is meant to be

Been a long while since I last ate curry…hopefully I can find a nonexpensive and delicious Indian curry. Most of them here are expensive based on average food cost and quantity of food.

After Onikakushi, I’m actually surprised of the appearance of Shion. It somehow gave a hint on how Mion knew that Keiichi ate lunch with Ooishi in Onikakushi-hen.

The first time we are introduced to her, she is working at Angel Mort, the restaurant where Keiichi and Ooishi discussed about Keiichi’s friends in Onikakushi. With a beautiful outfit and cute appearance, she knows how to captivate people. Me included.

This scene shows the true Shion. Apparently Mion disguised as Shion and gave Keiichi a lunch box and he didn’t know (since he thought that Shion didn’t exist). Shion (either unknowingly or deliberately) takes Keiichi to a walk and they met Mion in front of a toy store. The look in her face is priceless. Was Mion right about Shion being the intimidating one? Just wait and see.

Unfortunately those are the few interesting pictures of Shion in Watanagashi, since I can’t post more without going spoilerish, so here goes Meakashi.

Meakashi is told through Shion’s perspective and it is my current favourite animated arc. It answers Watanagashi since it almost mirrors the events that occurred in the arc. Shion is the twin that is considered inferior by the Sonozakis since she is the younger sister and Mion is the one that is considered as the heir. At first, she fled her boarding school and stayed in Okinomiya. One time when she swapped identity with Mion, she was saved from a bunch of punks by Houjou Satoshi. Love grows. Then she realized that Satoshi is stressed because his uncle and aunt hurts his sister, Satoko, a lot and he is unable to stop it. Satoko being a dependent child doesn’t help the matter. One time when Shion is impersonating as Mion in the class, Satoko cried because her lunch box fell.

This scene is my guilty pleasure and what makes me love Shion more. I am absolutely irritated when kids cry, and Shion kind of reflects the same opinion, different reasoning and action though. I won’t do that unless I can handle angry parents complaining to me. At least the Houjous won’t complain much.

I wholeheartedly agreed with her. Crying won’t solve anything other than irritating the people around you. Might be on how annoyed I feel about children crying. If only I can tell my cousin who is two year younger than me when he throws a fit after losing a video game match.

Satoshi didn’t agree though, breaking her heart. All her support to him is not even heard, and he accused her as being just like all the Sonozakis, bullying. Hearing that from your first love would hurt a lot.

Second episode of Meakashi has Shion apologising as Mion to Satoshi regarding her violent assault on Satoko, and Satoshi asks for “Mion” to take care of Satoko. Watanagashi festival of Showa 57 (1982 AD) ends with Satoshi’s aunt being killed. Ooishi suspected that Satoshi is the culprit, prompting Shion to reveal her true identity and starting the downward spiral. Sonozaki Oryou, the Head of Sonozaki House is not pleased with this turn of event and lashes out at Shion. She, however, fights back and even proclaiming her love to Satoshi, one of the accursed Houjous in front of the Gosanke (three great houses of Hinamizawa) and the guests. Mion interrupts and tells Shion that her bodyguard, Kasai, and her uncle may be punished because they helped Shion. To prevent that, she has to perform the “Kejime”, distinction of right and wrong by pulling out her fingernails using a device. She has to remove three of her fingernails, because she needs to save Kasai, Yoshiro (her uncle), and Satoshi. And so, she performed the distinction.

Warning, the pictures might not be suitable for everyone.

After the painful performance (although with one missed attempt which made it look more painful), Shion was told to forget about Satoshi. Afterwards, she is allowed to be in Hinamizawa since the identity of the twins has already been known, but Ooishi brings a surprising news. Houjou Satoshi is missing.

The third episode has Shion investigating about Oyashiro-sama and the Onikakushi when Takano Miyo (also one of my favourite characters) sneaks up from behind and scares her. She shared her information regarding her own investigation about Watanagashi to Shion. Afterwards, Mion comes to visit her and apologises to her for the kejime ritual. Unfortunately Mion mentioned Satoshi’s disappearance, which triggered Shion’s “Demon”.

She strangles Mion but after seeing that Mion also has her nails torn off, she stopped and realised that Mion is not lying, her fingers torn trying to stop Oryou from interfering with Shion and Satoshi. She decides to believe Mion and suppress her feelings for Satoshi.

A year passed, and again she experiences another incident with the same punks from before (“Deja vu?”). This time though, it’s Keiichi who comes to her rescue. After knowing about his identity from Mion (and that Mion has feelings for him), she decides to tease Mion by hitting on Keiichi (although I feel that here, Shion is clearly unhappy because Mion whines about her love life when she has none to love). She then meets Keiichi again, teasing Mion while doing tug-of-war with Keiichi as the “rope”. Keiichi then pats her head just like Satoshi but it shakes her. She then realises that she cannot forget about Satoshi, that her life is meaningless without him, and cries.

Afterwards, she walks away but she realises that there is one extra footstep sound after hers and she thinks that it’s Satoshi.

During the Watanagashi festival, she bumps into Tomitake and Takano who wants to intrude the village storehouse. She hesitated at first, but she thinks that if she drags Keiichi, Mion won’t take action against them. In the storehouse, she saw Oyashiro-sama’s statue and becomes angry of the deity for Satoshi’s disappearance. However, she heard the mysterious sounds again, thinking that it’s Satoshi at first, but realises that it’s not. After the intrusion, she went back to the Sonozaki house and gets drunk.

She wakes up in the middle of the night, and overhears Oryou and Mion talking about Tomitake and Takano who have apparently incurred Oyashiro-sama’s wrath. She’s surprised by the phone call though and is unable to hide from Mion, who comes out. After Mion receives the phone call, she then tells Shion that Tomitake and Takano is already dead, because of Oyashiro-sama’s curse. Shion gets an opportunity though, and tasers Mion and Oryou to save herself. After locking Mion in the dungeon, she confronts Oryou. The shock from the taser has already killed Oryou and it infuriates Shion because she can get away by dying without suffering and without apologising. She unleashes her wrath by whipping the dead body repeatedly. The mysterious sounds then is heard again, but Shion is not afraid of it, confronting “Oyashiro-sama”. She then asks Mion on whether there is an escape path or not, and gets the information. She then wants to dispose of Oryou, prompting Mion to say that it’s too cruel and asks whether Satoshi’s disappearance is the cause of all this. Shion retorts by saying that there are numerous reasons for her to kill Onibaba, but the main thing is that she lied. Shion has torn off her fingernails but Satoshi still went missing. She stomps on the dead body again, screaming to have Satoshi returned. This frightens Mion, who is then assured by Shion that she is safe…unless she lied.

She is then contacted by Kimiyoshi Kiichirou, head of Kimiyoshi house and one of the Gosanke regarding an emergency meeting that will take place the next day. She is then called by Kasai, telling that she intrused to the storehouse and is actually surprised by Kasai’s response (“even there are things that I cannot cover for you”). She quickly ends the conversation, and then devises a plan to lure the enemy by using Keiichi as a bait. She does so, already takes role as Sonozaki Mion and saying that Shion and Keiichi also snuck into the storehouse alongside the now dead Tomitake and Takano. What surprises her though, is the reaction from the villagers and the always kind Kimiyoshi who turned very angry upon the news.

She then invites Kimiyoshi to the Sonozaki house, and then begs for “Shion” to be pardoned. Kimiyoshi assured her that it will be done, securing her since she knows that Kimiyoshi is her ally. However, Kimiyoshi’s remarks on “that Houjou brat” surprised Shion. She then asks about the three fingernails that were torn out, and the response was not what she wanted to hear. The third nail is actually to save herself, counting Satoshi out of the equation. She then breaks at this point, speaking venom about Satoshi’s disappearance and the Gosanke’s marking towards the Houjous as filthy. Kimiyoshi, shocked at the sudden change in “Mion”, cannot respond and ended up getting tasered.

Shion then called Keiichi, instilling fear in him because of their intrusion. When Keiichi goes angry at Shion, she hangs up the phone, complaining that he’s stupid and annoying. Afterwards, at the end for the search of Kimiyoshi, she tortures the old man and asks for information regarding the Onikakushi. She comes into conclusion that Satoshi is thrown into the escape path (also used as a place to throw corpses away) and goes there. “Talking” to him, she pours her heart out and wants to follow him. “Satoshi” refuses, saying that she has to live. She then went to Mion and said that she has found Satoshi. She asks Mion whether she was there when Satoshi was killed, and Mion said that she wasn’t and if she was there then she would prevent it from happening. Shion, however, remembers the kejime incident and screams at Mion, further terrifying her.

The next day, Shion confronts the last Gosanke leader, Furude Rika, stating that there are survivors from the storehouse intrusion, one being Keiichi. Rika said that if they truly repent, then Oyashiro-sama will pardon them. Shion went angry and slaps Rika. Later at night, Shion contemplates that Satoshi shouldn’t be the one disappearing, but it should’ve been Satoko. She knows that Satoshi would be sad, but she can be there to soothe his pain and bring him happiness. Her thoughts are interrupted by the arriving Rika, who wants to have soy sauce. She then leads Rika to the kitchen, but she’s surprised because Rika apparently follows her footsteps, making her suspicious. In the kitchen, Rika suddenly attacks her with bug spray and attempts to inject her with something. Shion fights back, though, and gains the upper hand with a surprise attack, and proceeds to inject the content of the syringe into Rika. She then threatens Rika to continue it in the “fun fun underground torture chamber”, but Rika thinks otherwise. She took a knife and proceeds to stab her own neck, killing herself.

Shion laughs, feeling triumphant that she has already defeated all her enemies. After concealing Rika’s corpse, she received a phone call from Satoko asking about the whereabouts of Rika. Knowing that this is a great chance, she invites Satoko….

After getting Satoko, she then contacted Keiichi about the disappearance of Kimiyoshi, and that makes him worried about Rika’s whereabouts (in Watanagashi, he metaphorically told Rika about the intrusion), and this fact caused Keiichi to be suspected more by the villagers. She then returned after the search, to torture Satoko before killing her, much to Mion’s protest and pleas of apology.

Satoko’s commitment to stop crying turns out to be her undoing as Shion gets pissed off and stabs her all over until she can’t take it anymore and plunges the knife to Satoko’s head. Shion however remembers Satoshi’s last wish to her to take care of Satoko and breaks down, knowing that she can’t even keep his wish. She laughs it off anyway, considering that she can never return anymore.

Finally she confessed all her sins to Keiichi and Rena, and after asking to have a private time together with Keiichi, she took him to meet a now broken “Shion” and struck him from behind, threatening to torture him. Surprisingly, she hesitated and then Keiichi asked for Shion’s release and Mion’s return (from the Demon), and the late third wish for his release. She finally said that she would grant the third wish and tasers him. Afterwards, she released Mion to swap identities once again and after Mion gives her final plea that she is innocent regarding Satoshi, Shion can’t take it anymore and tasers Mion, letting her fall to her death in the escape tunnel. She then returned as Shion and led to safety by the police. After the incident, however, she is haunted by voices of Mion, telling that she should die, that it is unfair that Mion’s the only one dead. She can’t take it anymore and then runs away from her apartment to Hinamizawa to confront Keiichi. Upon meeting him, she tries to hold her demon but in the end she can’t withstand her anger and stabbed Keiichi. Unfortunately this scene falls short on the emotion level because an important thing is omitted in the anime *coughdollcough*

She then returns to her apartment, but on her way back she got her shirt caught in a nail and losing her balance, she fell to her death, remembering Satoshi and apologising to everyone before she hit the ground. I hated the ending, since it’s a lousy ending for a great arc. Her death looked like just another movie where the death seemed accidental. The true epilogue has a great way of showing how she actually died (she did not hit the ground on the first fall). I’ll give the link to the TIPS from the Animesuki board regarding the full epilogue from the sound novel, translated by LostBlue, Sushi-Y, and kj1980 of Animesuki board.

After Shion is saved from the dungeon to her confronting Keiichi

After the fall

“I am sorry for ever been born”

What caused me to like Shion is that although she goes on a killing spree (her kill count is one of the largest in Higurashi, the three heads of Gosanke, Mion, Rika, and being one of the causes of Keiichi’s death), she can be justified for doing that. Living an unfair life because of her “non-heir” status and exiled from the inner family and Hinamizawa, being unable to see the one she loves and when she sees him, he seemed to have deteriorated, ended up having the one she loves hating her, have to lower herself to her hated Onibaba because of her love, suffering physical torture, knowing that it was in vain since her love disappeared, having to listen to her sister complaining about love life when she has nobody to love, threatened by her sister for overhearing, realising that her kejime has nothing to do with saving her love, and attacked by Rika. It’s a cruel fate to befall anyone, and even though she goes way off the scale and finally failing to get what she wanted, I can say that she has the right to retaliate against her “enemies”. She is imperfect, but that may be the reason for me liking her.