my-love-story-ep-10
Rinko and Takeo. Source: Anime Show

Synopsis

With his muscular build and tall stature, Takeo Gouda is not exactly your average high school freshman. However, behind his intimidating appearance hides a heart of gold, and he is considered a hero by the boys for his courage and chivalry. Unfortunately, these traits do not help much with his love life. As if his looks are not enough to scare the opposite sex away, Takeo’s cool and handsome best friend and constant companion Makoto Sunakawa easily steals the hearts of the female students—including every girl Takeo has ever liked.

Source: MyAnimeList

Basically, Ore Monogatari!! (My Love Story!!) is the story of how Takeo found a love connection, despite his own personal challenges to that endeavor. This is also while he’s learning how to deal with some basic situations of romance, such as dating and showing affection to his special someone.

Characters

Takeo Gouda – The main character. It’s his love story being told here. He’s a rather tall and muscular teenager at Shuei High School. He’s very good at sports, but also somewhat intimidating. He often is very selfless and kind, even to strangers. Sometimes, he’s unaware that his friendly actions sometimes contribute to that intimidation factor.

Takeo and Suna cosplay (even more at this article based on this tweet.)

Makoto Sunakawa (Suna) – Suna lives next door to Takeo, is one of his classmates, and has been his friend since childhood. He’s considered good-looking and friendly, and, as a result, the girls Takeo had crushes on often fall for him. Take leans on Suna for advice and Suna sincerely helps Takeo in any way he can, to the point where he’s willing to put his own happiness second to Takeo’s.

Rinko Yamato – A student at Koizumi Girls’ Academy, whom Takeo encounters during a fateful subway trip they both were on at the beginning of the story. She is talented at baking sweet foods, which Takeo happens to enjoy. She quickly becomes Takeo’s love interest.

Ai Sunakawa – Older sister to Suna and a student at Ousaki University in Nagoya. Takeo is also friends with her and admires how kindly she treats others, just like her brother. Takeo sees her much like an older sister…

Plot

It all starts with a rescue. Take comes to the rescue of Rinko when she was being groped on a subway. It is then that he falls for her. Most of the remaining episodes deal with Takeo’s efforts and struggles to overcome his own perceived inadequacies, such as lack of romantic skill.

The story takes place from a bit of a mix of perspectives, floating through the thoughts of mostly Takeo, but also from his girlfriend’s when those shifts might make sense. Misunderstandings are often sorted out after those involved tell each other how and why they acted as they did. I’m thinking that this is likely a core takeaway of this series since it’s clearly applicable to reality.

It’s also clear that once those around him who are not his friends are able to understand that Takeo has a good heart, that he quickly begins to have better relations with classmates, gaining friends in the process. His large (for a high-school student) size and good fitness level are also, as he discovers, things that make him uniquely attractive as a person. This likely stemmed from a time where Takeo took further heroic action. After that, there was almost an immediate shift in perception of him. No longer was he seen as an intimidating loner, but as a very admirable member of the community, or even a hero.

It was shown to the viewer, early on, that Takeo was never a loner since he has, throughout this story, had a very good friendship with Suna, who had been his friend for several years. Takeo is, at first, very envious of Suna’s charm and approachability. Many girls are drawn to him and usually ignored or were afraid of Takeo, even after he tried to confess his feelings towards them. Rinko, after the rescue, sees that Takeo is a good person and becomes his best cheerleader throughout.

Rinko likes to see Takeo enjoy sweets
Yay! Prize! (Source)

It’s Takeo and Rinko’s courtship and dealing with the bumps of the early parts of that that are the main focus of nearly every episode, with a brief aside for being good friends to Suna through an emotional struggle he also had relating to his own family.

Speaking of family, it’s also clear that Takeo’s personality is greatly influenced by his parents, with his mom being the strong parent, and his father being sensitive and supportive. Both parents were very supportive of Takeo’s and Rinko’s relationship, and this is while a new member of the family was on the way. Learning about Takeo’s parents was also a heartwarming part of the show. Take would probably not have been who he was if he wasn’t trying to model himself around what he saw as the best qualities of his parents as well as of Suna.

Thoughts

This story is complete and does have an ending that could very well lead to further adventures, but considering that what’s been told so far is very solid, it might (might!) be OK to have a break from this story, to let it settle in.

I wasn’t sure I’d like this upon first glance at the online synopsis (quoted above), and I was not even sure I could relate to Takeo, not being particularly athletic or tall myself. It was the honest romance that hooked me. This is a sometimes light-hearted, optimistic love story. It’s also a story of friendship and family. I think that’s really what makes it worth a watch, even if you aren’t a hopeless romantic like me.

Super Mario Brothers. It was, I think, the first video game I remember staying up really late while playing.

Even though I knew shortcuts to skip levels, warp zones, I was determined to play through every one of its 8 levels.

We (my brothers and I) had received that, as part of the deluxe Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) as a Christmas present, nearly 28 years ago. Before receiving this version, I’d only ever played this game for short periods of time at video game arcades, which I didn’t spend a lot of time in, before receiving the home version. Our parents were definitely more focused on our academic endeavors.

I was more excited to play this game than any other game I’d ever played up to this point, and I’d played a lot since our family also had an Atari 2600 system, with a healthy library. The NES really cemented my own lifelong love of video games.

I knew, even then, that this is something I’d be able to enjoy for a very long time, and even back then, I could not even consider that there would be a time I would not enjoy playing games. I still can’t imagine it.

There are, however, some games with the brothers Mario I have yet to experience. That’s mostly due to a few games being on my plate, as well as the hefty time investment it takes to finish current incarnations. Heck, I still have yet to complete Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii.

Mario Brothers games are also not the only franchise of games I lament being “behind” on. A franchise with another princess, whose name starts with Z, also challenge me to play, and I’m sad, being woefully behind. I would need a 3DS system to work on catching up there. Someday…someday…

Images: Wikipedia

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Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads. -Doc Brown

The first Back to The Future movie ended with that line, as Doc, Marty, and Jennifer launch, in a flying DeLorean, to the future. Part 2 picks up right after this, and the future definitely looked different. Somewhat outlandishly different.

Clothing that would have been at the edge of fashion in ’85 was the norm in the imagined 2015 world. Advertisements were much more pervasive and even holographic. Athletic shoes had self-tightening laces. Hoverboards, for gosh sakes, were the latest fun way to get around, replacing skateboards. There’s even more, but those are some of the most memorable examples.

So, what’s a tech-savvy person to make of this? Well, there’s some things there that are nearly self-fulfilling projections of the technology of the time. Self-tightening shoes, for example, were really a giant leap and Nike will be releasing matching shoes, inspired by those in the film.

Hoverboards, however, as envisioned in the movie, are ever-elusive, although tech is in the works on, and some practical hovering-based things exist, but they’re mostly more practical things, like cargo moving gadgets, to replace wheels.

Great Scott! The future is now. Meet our Hendo 2.0 #hoverboard #bttf

Posted by Hendo Hover on Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Not quite as versatile as the ones in the movie, but evolving.

The heavy commercialization and in-your-face advertisement isn’t quite as obnoxious as shown in the film version of 2015, but it does continue its slow crawl towards it, from increasing product placement almost being expected, not just in film, but, TV (which still exists) and even video games.

In a way, I’m a bit glad it’s not such an exact match of the predictions, which usually fall short, especially in more whimsical sci-fi such as this. Things are, in some ways, arguably better (and, not just because the Cubs didn’t even make it to the World Series.) For example, the very wide-spread use of, and even existence of, the Internet. There was not even an inkling that such a communication network would be so big. It’s good that was not imagined since any guess would have been very far off.

Those are just my quick thoughts on this since it was really a summer movie that didn’t get me to thinking too hard on serious issues of the development of society. I was more focused on getting ready for the fall school year since my family hadn’t been in our new place in the suburbs very long while the movie was still new.

[On October 21, 2015,] movie fans celebrated “Back to the Future Day” since it was the day that the characters went to in their time machine. The vision they cast about what 2015 would be like in 1989 is quite different. What do you think about that?

Let me know what your thoughts were, or if you’ve already grown weary of the saturation, that’s fine too. 🙂

Prompted by Daily Write – 10.22.2015

guitar and amp

Well, today’s a day long awaited. The concert. Foo Fighters, at The Honda Center(aka The Pond). I’ve been looking forward to this since last December, when I ordered my ticket.

I’ve actually wanted to see these guys perform live for many years now. They’ve been at it for a couple decades and I find that I like songs from nearly all their albums.

Even though I couldn’t afford to buy their albums or go to concerts when I was a bit younger, I’m glad to be able to now. I’m hopeful that this will be an awesome rock concert.

 

Let’s dance to Joy Division,
And celebrate the irony,
Everything is going wrong,
But we’re so happy

I blame T for putting that song by The Wombats in my head. Please forgive me for spreading the earworm.

Anyways, it’s another Friday, and an appropriately gloomy one for Fall. The Dodgers got themselves eliminated in postseason play yesterday against the Mets, of all teams.

Today, I plan to drop off my laptop at a FedEx location to ship for RMA since it seems to have a faulty video card. This is causing system shutdowns and can’t be tolerated. Thank goodness it’s still under warranty.

Been playing a good chunk of Ori and The Blind Forest. It’s a must-play for those who love Metroid-style games. Plenty of exploration and tricky jumping-while-fighting-off-enemies and pretty awesome graphics are featured.

"Ori Kuro" by lanfanarts - http://fav.me/d8w1j7w
Kuro. This owl does not like Ori. At all.
“Ori Kuro” by lanfanarts – http://fav.me/d8w1j7w

I kind of want to see some speed runs of this game after I finish it. This game made my thumbs sweat. I totally recommend a play-through. Anyone want to share their death count? I just want to know how high mine might be at the end and I’m not that good at staying alive.

Today’s an important day. The reconstruction of my mouth continues. Now that the teeth are in a better alignment, the cleanup of the gums, to help show off the teeth better, begins. I’ll also be fitting retainer gear to keep the teeth from moving back.

it’s time to eat a good breakfast. I’ll need something sustaining for the long day ahead.