Ladies and gentlemen, TM Network.
I chose the above video for the opening of this post because "Beyond the Time" has been stuck in my head ever for the last couple of weeks ever since it was used as the closing theme for Episode 11 of Gundam GQuuuuuuX. I even downloaded the song on iTunes for a couple of bucks. Of course I have no idea what sort of playlist I'd include the song in.
Well, this month has been way less stressful for me compared to the last two months. I have been a tiny bit depressed, but that sort of thing usually happens to me whenever this time of year rolls around for some reason. The thing that's bothered me most lately though is the fact that I've had really, really bad writer's block since about mid-April. It started when I had been working on this Digimon fanfic I had started earlier that month. The first few chapters just came to me very clearly, but then when it came time to start planning the fifth chapter, everything just sort of fell apart.
At the time I had decided that maybe it would be best if I just took a break and wait until after my dad had his heart surgery before I tried to continue writing. The surgery came and went however, and I found I just couldn't get back on that horse. Of course that car accident I was in a couple of weeks later didn't help matters. A little while after the accident though, I decided I'd at least try to outline a future arc of my Revenge of the Old Ones story, and I did manage to get two or three chapters of the arc planned out. A little while later though, I sat down to try and plan out another chapter for the outline in question, and nothing would come to me. It was sort of like when you try starting a car and the engine won't turn over.
Aside from my slight depression and my writer's block though, this has been a fairly okay month. This week I saw the finales to both of the anime shows I've been following pretty closely this spring, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX and Kowloon Generic Romance (or KGR for short). I already did a review of GQuuuuuuX on this site a few days ago, but the summary is GQuuuuuuX was an okay series but not a great one. They just tried cramming too much story into twelve episodes. Given how off the rails the finale of GQuuuuuuX was, I don't think it'll get a second season, but I'm honestly okay with that.
As for Kowloon Generic Romance, that series is definitely the best new anime I've seen this spring. I'm not going to try and do my own review of it though, at least not now, because the manga version of KGR is still ongoing. For all we know, the manga version might just have a very different ending. Of course comparing what I've read of the manga version so far with what we saw in the final episodes of the KGR anime, I think it's fairly likely that the manga's ending will turn out to be similar. We probably won't know until next year at the earliest though, because the manga version is being released at a snail's pace.
Looking at just the ending of the KGR anime though, I'm still trying to decide whether or not it was a satisfying conclusion. I often need a little time to ponder this sort of thing before I make any final conclusion. The thing is I also suffer from the form of brain rot that can happen after years of watching Kamen Rider shows and consuming magical girl anime and manga. As a result, there's the large part of me that thinks the best conclusion to almost any fantasy or sci-fi series should involve a climactic final battle that preferably ends with a finishing move in the form of a flying kick or an energy blast from a magic wand/scepter. The final episode of KGR didn't have anything like that, and I kind of wish that it did.
I think that about wraps it up for this month's post. I hope that anyone who's read this post has had a better month than I've had.
