Konnichiwa, and Aloha from Hawaii!

I've been a Harry Potter fan for over ten years, but I'm loving it more than most people I know. My thanks to J.K. Rowling for fueling my obsession to the series and for my love of reading!

Anyway, a little bit of useless info about myself:

1. My favorite Harry Potter characters are Remus Lupin, Albus Dumbledore, and Severus Snape, followed closely by Minerva McGonagall, Sirius Black, and Regulus Black in a three-way tie for second. Recently, I've grown rather fond of Filius Flitwick, too. It's safe to assume I love them all...at least Rowling left me two by the end of the series...

2. My favorite fan fictions are as follows:

Albus Dumbledore: Here Be Monsters I by Dzeytoun

Minerva McGonagall: Heiress of the Raven by Lev

Remus Lupin: It Could Never Be Remus by RavenNat

Severus Snape: A Promise to Be Better by Raven Dancer and Sticks and Stones by PhantomTF

Sirius Black: The Summer of the Phoenix by JolieBlack

Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall: The Tears of Those Left Behind by Saint Potter and Out of Her Hands by Quill of Minerva

Remus Lupin and Severus Snape: The Wounded by ReeratheRed and Closets and Confessions by Bamfwriter

Sirius Black and Remus Lupin: Lying Low at Lupin's by chrmisha and It Wasn't Usual

Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall: Old Wounds by Xiao Gui

3. I'm a twenty year-old American. I live in America. I eat American food. I do some American things. But also...I like British people and their accents. Scottish people have cool accents, too. I like anything Japanese (samurai, sushi, candy, everything!). I like to eat Filipino, Italian, and Korean food. I like many different kinds of food...

4. I've been dancing for 16 years. I do ballet, jazz, contemporary, and hip hop. I used to do hula, tap, and gymnastics (but I would not say that I have much training in any of these fields).

5. I love Japanese manga and anime. As some of you can probably tell by the "saiyan" in saiyanwizardgurl, I like Dragonball Z. I also like Tenchi Muyo!, Rurouni Kenshin, InuYasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, Fushigi Yugi, Kodocha, Naruto, Gundam Wing, G Gundam, Sailor Moon, Usagi Yojimbo, Fullmetal Alchemist (and I am watching Brotherhood on Funimation.com), One Piece, Bleach, Death Note, Love Hina, Boys Over Flowers, Black Cat, Fruits Basket, Nana, Skip-Beat, Godchild, The Cain Saga, Tail of the Moon, Kaze Hikaru, Aishiteruze Baby, Prince of Tennis, Red River, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Negima!, Love.Com, and Vagabond. I guess you can say I'm an otaku! Washu and Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV are my ultimate favorites, but it's safe to say that I have many!

6. I am also a huge fan of Arashi. Originally, my favorite member was Matsumoto Jun. Deep down, he's probably still my favorite, but I love all of them in their own way (needless to say, they're all kawaii and kakkoii). MatsuJun was the first one I heard about (through Hana Yori Dango). He is very uniqe in his singing style as I have yet to find someone that sings like him. Sakurai Sho is a very well-rounded individual: he's intelligent, he sings and raps, he acts, he does the news...he just needs to work on his back handspring (Ganbatte, Sho-kun!). Aiba Masaki is another one with a uniqe singing voice. He's very funny, but he's also a very hard worker. His letter on 24hr TV was so sweet. Ninomiya Kazunari is subtly clever...I think our personalities are similar in this way (perhaps this is because our birthdays are so close?). He's also very athletic. It took a while for me to learn to like Ohno Satoshi, but I really like him, too! He has a beautiful voice, and he's very brave (he never has any "Gyaa~!" moments when Arashi goes through the haunted houses). As dancers, I think the most well-rounded would have to be Nino because his movement are very clean but he still has a style to him. However, my favorites to watch are Aiba and MatsuJun. They are the most expressive dancers (sometimes they give you what I like to call "extras") and have a lot of energy (they could afford to work on their control a little, though). When he's dancing with the group, Ohno-kun dances a little on the safe side for me, but as a soloist, he has excellent musicality! I think that Sho-kun is the best at isolations (moving parts of the body while keeping the rest of the body still; I watched their performance of "Believe" on Music Lovers, and Sho-kun is the only one that fully isolates when they do the choreography to "Nakushita yume mo torimodosu kara" in the first verse...I know, I know, too much detail, but I am a dancer...).

7. I love Johnny Depp (as an actor...I'm not one of those psycos that wants to marry him or anything like that). I've watched the entire Pirates of the Caribbean series more times than I can remember (I can say the lines along with the actors, which is kinda sad). I've also watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Finding Neverland, The Secret Window, Sweenry Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (probably my second favorite Depp movie), and Public Enemies.

8. Also, I love Tom Cruise (as aforementioned, as an actor). I honestly don't know how many times I've watched The Last Samurai and Collateral (probably too many times for most normal people), but I've also seen Rain Man, A Few Good Men, Top Gun, War of the Worlds, The Outsiders, Cocktail, Minority Report, Jerry McGuire, and Mission: Impossibe II and III. I'm currently trying to find the time to watch some of his other works like Mission: Impossible, Born on the Fourth of July, and Valkyrie.

9. In addition, I love Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman, Orlando Bloom, Hugh Jackman, Viggo Mortensen, and Liam Neeson.

10. My favorite store is Borders. I love the Japanese manga section! I could stay there all day if I had the time.

11. I am a college junior this semester. I want to major in Business Management.

Just as a warning to all readers, I am not a slash writer. Sorry, it's just not how I write Harry Potter fan fiction. To all those that do write slash, you've got every right to do so, so I'm not gonna flame you (flames are mean!). I'll respect you as a person, and I hope that you will respect me in return. And hey, I am not a homophobic (I dance, remember?). Besides, I think that homophobia is probably the dumbest phobia you could have; gays and lesbians are still human beings, you know! We should share the love and pay it forward, people! Don't hate...you'll die early!

KAWAII-KON 2009

HAWAII'S FIFTH ANIME AND MANGA CONVENTION WAS THE MOST AWESOME YET! Kawaii-Kon was held at the Hawaii Convention Center on April 10-12, 2009. I was finally able to go to all three days this year...words cannot describe my elation. There was a bit of a line at the registration booth...not a 2 1/2 hour one, though, thank God...but it was okay because my friends were there to wait in line with me :). When it opened, we went to the dealer's room to check out all of the anime and manga merchandise. There weren't a lot of DVDs this time around, and most of the good ones were sold out by the middle of the first day (and they didn't restock), so I didn't get to buy the Cowboy Bebop series :(. Oh well, that's what the internet is for. There was guy selling manga for three for 10. As a result, I ended up buying a lot of The All New Tenchi Muyo! so I've got about seven or eight of them now :). I also found these cute cake-shaped erasers.

There were a lot of great panels this time around. Sadly, I didn't get to sit in on any of Stan Sakai's panels, but I did get his autograph again, and this time it was on his artwork. I also went to the panels for Laura Bailey (Shin-chan throwing up was hilarious), Caitlin Glass, Travis Willingham (finally, I missed him at Kawaii-Kon 2007), and, of course...Vic Mignogna! Vic had a concert on Friday night, where he sang his own translation of "Guilty Beauty Love" for the first time ever. We also got to watch Fullmetal Fantasy. I also got to go to the Easter Service on Sunday morning with him and Caitlin Glass. I am so thankful that Vic was able to come again for the fourth time. I still really admire the fact that Vic is very open about his faith; it is really nice to see a brother in Christ involved in anime! I hope he'll be able to make it back next year :).

The best panel of the whole convention was the Ouran High School Host Club panel with Vic, Travis, and Caitlin on Saturday. I had to leave right after for dance, but it was awesome to be at. If your interested, check out my YouTube videos of Kawaii-KON 2009. I'm under the same user name.

Kawaii-KON will be back April 16-18, 2010, at the Hawaii Convention Center!

L: Change the WorLd

I was not expecting this one to turn out the way it did. The plot was very interesting, and even though it did not fit in with the manga or the anime, I still enjoyed taking a look into L's world. He definitely should not stand up straight. On a side note, the slightly psycho girl that hangs with the bad guys...kind of reminds me of Souma Mitsuko from Battle Royale.

TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD - DECEMBER 4th, 2008!

Well, I already love the Harry Potter series, so this was just a little nugget of gold for me. I went to Borders late on the 3rd, but they weren't doing a midnight release! So I went back early the next day to pick up my copy. I had a Statistics test and six hours of dance on the 4th, so I had to wait until after to read it, which was extremely painful. But once I did, it was very refreshing. I really enjoyed the stories, and I loved Dumbledore's commentary...because I love Dumbledore...but the book was an overall great :).

SPOILER ALERT!

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

My friend and I went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I had dance that night, so he waited in line for me until I got to the theater. I agree that the books are much better than the movies, but the movies are awesome in their own way. There was a lot of comedy in this one, which I appreciated a lot. There were also a lot of impressive magic scenes (Dumbledore's tidying up of Horace Slughorn's temporary house in the begining was fabulous). I didn't really care for Fenrir Greyback, but Bellatrix...she was full out and on crack (not literally)! Even though it's not in the book, the attack on the Burrow when Bellatrix is running through the grass screaming "Ha ha ha ha, I killed Sirius Black!" was very intense. The cave scene where Dumbledore has to drink the potion is chilling and very believeable. I recall myself reading this part of the book for the first time and feeling helpless at being unable to relieve the headmaster of his pain, so actually seeing it was quite powerful. I would have liked the whole Astronomy Tower part to have been a little more accurate (Harry's supposed to be under the Invisibility Cloak) and in depth, but "the fall" was heart-breakingly beautiful. The only downside to the movie (and I can also say this for all of the other films) is that everything moves so quickly. It wizzes by before you can soak everything in, but I guess that's why you have to go watch it again...

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

That's right, kids! I picked it up at the midnight opening and started reading it right away! I actually finished it in about 20 hours-ish, I think, not counting the breaks I had to take to go to dance, talk to my dad over dinner, go to the filming of a show, and answer phone calls about flight itinerary. I finished it at 4am on July 23rd, left for the airport and hour later, and started re-reading it on the flight to Japan. Despite all of the death, it's now my favorite book of the series. First of all, I knew that R.A.B. was Regulus Black as soon as I read the note in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Ever since I heard about the existence of Regulus Black in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I believed that Regulus Black, despite having been a Death Eater, was good. I guess I was right, but my respect grew for him tremendously when I discovered just how far he went in his "personal battle" against Voldemort. I absolutely loved getting to know more about Albus Dumbledore even if his childhood and young adult years were quite different and darker than his later life; I think I admire him even more, so all the Albus haters out there can just SHUT IT! The chapter entitled "King's Cross" gave me some closure to his death, which was very nice of J.K. Rowling :). I was also extremely happy with "The Prince's Tale." My faith in Severus Snape was rewarded well, even if he had to die (I will always wave my "Trust SNAPE" sticker with pride ;p). It made me so happy to see that Harry named his second child "Albus Severus Potter." Words cannot describe my elation. There is so much for me to praise about this book, I simply don't have enough writing space for it all! I was, of course, extremely sad about the deaths of Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody (he always seemed like a strong constant in the Order), Hedwig (she was always there for Harry!), Dobby (if I was the crying type of person, I would have cried on this part), Remus Lupin (He was my number one favorite character along with Dumbledore; I had a gut feeling that he would die, but that just makes me even more sad now that it happened), Nymphadora Tonks Lupin (she was always so much fun; and poor Teddy Lupin...growing up with no parents), Fred Weasley (the twins were supposed to be inseparable!), and all the other deaths that were smaller but still important. I was even sad when Rufus Scrimgeour died; I knew that he had to play dirty as Minister of Magic, but I always thought he wasn't such a bad guy (guess I was kinda right, seeing as his last deed was to protect Harry). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was a perfect end to the series, and I look forward to reading it over and over again!

Thanks for lookin' me up! Jaa, ne!