Hello everyone,
this is just an announcement to say that I have decided to go on hiatus until...who knows?
I've been lucky enough to have been given a lot of opportunity's in my real-world life, which is incredible but it also means that I don't have enough time to commit to this blog as much as I would like to.
Once a few of the projects have ended or when I finally have some time to dedicate to making this blog the best it can be, I shall return.
Thank you all so much for following my blog over the past 5 ish months!
See you in the future
-Amello
16/02/2020
10/02/2020
My mysterious book phase
Hello everyone, Amello here! its been a while and life stuff meant I couldn't post last week. To make up for that, this week you get a triple post so let's get straight into it.
Strong language alert!
In my post about graphic novels, I mentioned a really long and mysterious book phase that I entered, so I'm going to start where I left off in that post. In year 7 I ventured into the playground and honestly it was a minefield. Luckily I managed to revive an old, dead friendship and the result changed a lot of aspects of my life. So this girl who I was friends with in my primary school, then wasn't, then reconnected with, happened to be obsessed with "manga". I had never heard of it before (for those of you who don't know what it is, basically it's Japanese graphic novels) so she introduced me into this new world. We spent many a lunchtime talking about which manga's would be good to start off with and what the difference is between manga and anime. Yes, if you were wondering, she's the girl who was responsible for my love of anime.
Having talked about reading manga for a solid month, I decided it was finally time to actually read some. I found myself back in the library because they had a whole shelf full of random manga. The first one I read was called "Yotsuba&!", it was the weirdest thing I had ever read not just because of the actual story-line but because the book seemed to be back to front. Manga takes a while to learn how to read but once the skill has been mastered, you can pretty much read anything.
Anyway when I ran out of books (again!) I made a beeline for Waterstones and bought my first book. This was a major deal because it was the first time I bought a book without parental permission. Yay independence!! I made my way over to the manga section and...I had no idea where to start. Suddenly this woman came up to me and asked me if I needed help picking out a book, which I really did. Damn she knew a lot. She helped me find age appropriate manga because I was 12 years old at the time, the books I ended up buying were "the legend of Sakura Hime" and "Sailor moon". These books ended up being my all time favourite manga's and I still love them, even though I don't read manga as much as I used to.
My manga phase pissed off a lot of teachers. I had the same English teacher in year 7 and 8, she saw me enter this new, exciting world and told me that I was wasting my time. Is it me or is it a theme amongst English teachers to say that manga "aren't proper books"? and a theme amongst art teachers to say that the manga art-style "isn't real art"? It's ridiculous how many times my English teacher would ask me to talk to her after class about what I chose to read. It's even more ridiculous how she said that my grades would continue to suck if I kept reading them. Naturally I did what any tween/teen would do, ignore her completely. I thought I could prove a point. I didn't. All I really achieved was proving both of us wrong, my grades stayed the same.
Jump forward to year 9. I began my new high-school reading manga's and it was honestly such a big mistake. Let me put it this way, don't read manga during reading time in high-school unless you want to get your books confiscated. After a month of refusing to read anything else, my new teacher essentially banned me from reading manga because he claimed that they didn't count as "actual books". He did his best to stop me from reading them all-together by recommending alternatives but I ended up reading them in secret. At the time I was beyond annoyed by this but looking back, I am grateful that he did it. I pushed myself to read "normal books" whilst reading graphic novels and manga on the side, this eventually helped me excel in English.
The switch also seriously broadened my vocabulary and generally made my creative writing a lot better. It led me to essentially becoming a serious book nerd and I began to become known for never being seen without a book in my hand. The library was once again my habitat for 3 years. Sidetracked again, back to the manga...
I gradually began to switch back and fourth between manga and anime. I bought a few independent manga's from MCM comic con, which I went to 2 years in a row.
Fast forward to last year and I ended up becoming what I like to call an "Otaku guide", this basically means that I was helping other people get into manga and anime rather than reading/watching it myself. I made friends with a girl from a Waterstones book club and we ended up being friends for 6 months before an event, which ended our friendship. That's beside the point, the point is that we did a book exchange. I returned the book that I borrowed on the date we set but she didn't because she said that she accidentally left them at home. I lent her 5 books and I never got a single one back (I'm not bitter about it, I just feel like I'm missing 5 small parts of myself, which makes me kind of sad. More about my sentimentality towards books in a later post)
In part that's the reason why I am not to keen to return to reading those books. The other part is that I am too in love with every other type of book and I've grown a lot since the beginnings of the phase (which was 5 years long). Don't get me wrong on occasions I pick up a manga, more recently I read "Our dreams at dusk" volumes 1-4, but it wouldn't be my first choice of book
With all that said, what manga do I like? Fantasy, drama, slice of life and romance. Basically I have the same taste across the board when it comes to books with the exception of sci-fi, which I much prefer as a manga, graphic novel or comic.
Unlike with graphic novels, I tended to read series manga. "The legend of Sakura Hime" was the longest series I read. I honestly don't know how long the series is but I ended up reading 6 books from it, which for me is a milestone.
So am I an Otaku? Not really, I can still geek out about manga and anime but that's because I was in the fandom for a long time and acquired a lot of knowledge. That being said, I don't dismiss the phase because it consumed my imagination during those 5 years and made me feel less alone in the world. Also I don't hate manga/anime and I am still willing and happy to help those of you who are looking to enter these worlds.
So what am I trying to say? Even though I am not currently an Otaku, there will always be a part of me that is.
That's all for today . Thank you so much for reading. Stay tuned because in a day or two I'll be discussing "& Juliet the musical"...
Strong language alert!
In my post about graphic novels, I mentioned a really long and mysterious book phase that I entered, so I'm going to start where I left off in that post. In year 7 I ventured into the playground and honestly it was a minefield. Luckily I managed to revive an old, dead friendship and the result changed a lot of aspects of my life. So this girl who I was friends with in my primary school, then wasn't, then reconnected with, happened to be obsessed with "manga". I had never heard of it before (for those of you who don't know what it is, basically it's Japanese graphic novels) so she introduced me into this new world. We spent many a lunchtime talking about which manga's would be good to start off with and what the difference is between manga and anime. Yes, if you were wondering, she's the girl who was responsible for my love of anime.
Having talked about reading manga for a solid month, I decided it was finally time to actually read some. I found myself back in the library because they had a whole shelf full of random manga. The first one I read was called "Yotsuba&!", it was the weirdest thing I had ever read not just because of the actual story-line but because the book seemed to be back to front. Manga takes a while to learn how to read but once the skill has been mastered, you can pretty much read anything.
Anyway when I ran out of books (again!) I made a beeline for Waterstones and bought my first book. This was a major deal because it was the first time I bought a book without parental permission. Yay independence!! I made my way over to the manga section and...I had no idea where to start. Suddenly this woman came up to me and asked me if I needed help picking out a book, which I really did. Damn she knew a lot. She helped me find age appropriate manga because I was 12 years old at the time, the books I ended up buying were "the legend of Sakura Hime" and "Sailor moon". These books ended up being my all time favourite manga's and I still love them, even though I don't read manga as much as I used to.
My manga phase pissed off a lot of teachers. I had the same English teacher in year 7 and 8, she saw me enter this new, exciting world and told me that I was wasting my time. Is it me or is it a theme amongst English teachers to say that manga "aren't proper books"? and a theme amongst art teachers to say that the manga art-style "isn't real art"? It's ridiculous how many times my English teacher would ask me to talk to her after class about what I chose to read. It's even more ridiculous how she said that my grades would continue to suck if I kept reading them. Naturally I did what any tween/teen would do, ignore her completely. I thought I could prove a point. I didn't. All I really achieved was proving both of us wrong, my grades stayed the same.
Jump forward to year 9. I began my new high-school reading manga's and it was honestly such a big mistake. Let me put it this way, don't read manga during reading time in high-school unless you want to get your books confiscated. After a month of refusing to read anything else, my new teacher essentially banned me from reading manga because he claimed that they didn't count as "actual books". He did his best to stop me from reading them all-together by recommending alternatives but I ended up reading them in secret. At the time I was beyond annoyed by this but looking back, I am grateful that he did it. I pushed myself to read "normal books" whilst reading graphic novels and manga on the side, this eventually helped me excel in English.
The switch also seriously broadened my vocabulary and generally made my creative writing a lot better. It led me to essentially becoming a serious book nerd and I began to become known for never being seen without a book in my hand. The library was once again my habitat for 3 years. Sidetracked again, back to the manga...
I gradually began to switch back and fourth between manga and anime. I bought a few independent manga's from MCM comic con, which I went to 2 years in a row.
Fast forward to last year and I ended up becoming what I like to call an "Otaku guide", this basically means that I was helping other people get into manga and anime rather than reading/watching it myself. I made friends with a girl from a Waterstones book club and we ended up being friends for 6 months before an event, which ended our friendship. That's beside the point, the point is that we did a book exchange. I returned the book that I borrowed on the date we set but she didn't because she said that she accidentally left them at home. I lent her 5 books and I never got a single one back (I'm not bitter about it, I just feel like I'm missing 5 small parts of myself, which makes me kind of sad. More about my sentimentality towards books in a later post)
In part that's the reason why I am not to keen to return to reading those books. The other part is that I am too in love with every other type of book and I've grown a lot since the beginnings of the phase (which was 5 years long). Don't get me wrong on occasions I pick up a manga, more recently I read "Our dreams at dusk" volumes 1-4, but it wouldn't be my first choice of book
With all that said, what manga do I like? Fantasy, drama, slice of life and romance. Basically I have the same taste across the board when it comes to books with the exception of sci-fi, which I much prefer as a manga, graphic novel or comic.
Unlike with graphic novels, I tended to read series manga. "The legend of Sakura Hime" was the longest series I read. I honestly don't know how long the series is but I ended up reading 6 books from it, which for me is a milestone.
So am I an Otaku? Not really, I can still geek out about manga and anime but that's because I was in the fandom for a long time and acquired a lot of knowledge. That being said, I don't dismiss the phase because it consumed my imagination during those 5 years and made me feel less alone in the world. Also I don't hate manga/anime and I am still willing and happy to help those of you who are looking to enter these worlds.
So what am I trying to say? Even though I am not currently an Otaku, there will always be a part of me that is.
That's all for today . Thank you so much for reading. Stay tuned because in a day or two I'll be discussing "& Juliet the musical"...
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