"Welcome to Quindecim."

I need to tell someone about this anime. I need to shout about it from the rooftops. I need you all to understand how I feel about this show. Death Parade is nothing short of a masterpiece as you can see by the awesome dancing.

Death Parade was a show that I started watching with no real understanding of the story. I had seen Funimation promoting it on their website and on their YouTube channel so I added it to MyAnimeList under 'Plan to Watch' and started it up after finishing Amagi Brilliant Park (which I rated a 6/10 btdubs).

Let me start by saying that Death Parade walks the line of being a slow starter. You have to watch at least 5 episodes to truly get a feel for whether or not you're going to be interested in the over-arching story and characters since it's borderline episodic in the beginning. Don't be fooled by it's initial repetitious format; it gets way better. The story itself is one that isn't totally new but it is a fresh new take on some tropes and principles that have been around not only in anime but in mainstream media too. The synopsis is as follows:

After death, humans are either sent to the void or reincarnated. But for some, at the instant of their death, they arrive at Quindecim, a bar attended by the mysterious white-haired Decim. He challenges them to the Death Game, wherein they wager their lives and reveal their true natures. Decim himself is the ultimate arbitrator of who wins and who loses, who will go to the void, and who will be reincarnated. (source)

The characters have super interesting design and the kind of personalities that you start to like right away, Decim being the exception. Something about his apathetic tone of voice and cold demeanor put me off at first but fear not: he became my favorite character as the story progressed.

I never felt bored watching this series and I finished it in the span of two days. You can be as involved in the story as you want to be, judging for yourself whether certain characters deserve the void or not. Death Parade also poses some very poignant questions about human nature which I found to be incredibly thought provoking. There is a little dry humor thrown in every now and then as well to balance the dark subject matter (the OP may be the most upbeat part of the show). 

In conclusion, Death Parade is one of my new favorites. It was a series that made me feel every emotion. I laughed, cried, got angry. That's the kind of experience I want to have when I invest my time into an anime. I want to be entertained but not mindlessly (well, sometimes). I'm literally waiting with bated breath for the blu-ray and I think I've suggested this show to everyone I know.

W A T C H  I T ! ! ! !

1/11/15

Eyelashes feather-light against your cheek

Frame the eyes that make me weak

The gaze that shows there might be more

Something we’ll have to answer for

My Top 3: Shops

Time for another Top 3. This time we're taking a look at some of my favorite places to shop for clothes.

Now, I live in the middle of nowhere so most of the time I do my shopping online. The stores I'm about to mention have always had excellent online outlets and have always shipped everything carefully (so far anyway which means that I've probably just jinxed myself).

1. Urban Outfitters

So Urban Outfitters has some of my favorite stuff in the whole world. Despite some controversy surrounding some of their items, they manage to put out a wide range and variety of awesome clothes and, more importantly, apartment decor that makes me feel all warm inside. While not being high end by any means, Urban Outfitters is a little pricey in my opinion (I'm a broke university student). I'd say that 9 times out of 10 that the purchase is worth the price. The sizing has always been accurate too which is always nice when buying online.



2. H&M

Probably the best place to get contemporary pieces for cheap. Some of my favorite purchases have come from H&M including my favorite pair of overalls. The sizing here is spot on every single time and while there are no special shipping deals the cost of shipping is stable, meaning it doesn't go up even if your cart is super full. H&M probably have the quickest delivery time as well which is amazing and always important when you're doing online shopping. H&M also covers most of the cost of returns.

3. Forever 21

By far the cheapest store on the list, Forever 21 is a great place to find fun, trendy items for almost nothing. It's the cheapest of the cheap and while sometimes this is reflected in the quality of the clothes, I find that even buying a replacement top or dress after a couple of months is cheaper than buying something that looks similar for twice the price and quality. However, the sizes in Forever 21 typically run pretty small especially in the bottoms so you really need to keep that in mind. Forever 21 ships from California so it does have the longest shipping time for me out of all the aforementioned stores. I will always buy online from Forever 21 because the experience of shopping in-store is often chaotic.


Alright! So there are my Top 3 for shops. I hope that I explained everything in a way that made sense. One day I'll get a full length mirror or someone to take photos of me and I'll post some outfit inspirations using pieces from these stores. That sound fun? Yeah!

Dreams Are Weird

Right so 9 times out of 10 I can't remember anything that I've dreamed about, like ever. But every now and then I have a dream that is so ridiculous and nonsensical that it manages to brand itself in my mind. Those dreams I remember have the tendency to be dreamt about again but after a couple of months have gone by. I find that to be super interesting.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I had this weird dream where a (really cute) friend of mine could only say one word: "Kotaro". Now this seems like a really random word for him to continually repeat but I'd hung out with him earlier and he said the name "Kotaro" about 1,256 times. So in the dream he could only say this word but I was hearing it as actual language. I was the only person who could decipher what he was trying to say and everyone else in the dream thought I was crazy and he was broken.

It escalated to some kind of weird on-the-run style situation where we were trying to get away from these people who wanted to institutionalize him and teach him how to speak, I would never be able to see him again, my car caught fire and I was trapped inside, 911 put me on hold, etc. It was a mess of a dream.

So now I'm wondering what exactly is going on in my mind. Like, what is going on in my subconscious that generated that kind of scenario?According to science, there's no concrete reason as to why we dream. Some studies have shown that the process of dreaming helps us create solutions to problems in our lives or deal with emotions. Sigmund Freud actually believed that dreams were a picture of our desires, motivations, and thoughts. He figured that dreaming was a way to satisfy our wants in an acceptable, non-permanent way.

Whatever the case, I'm not entirely sure what my dream was trying to tell me. I'll update you when I figure it out. Ha.