~scytheiel

Just arrived from a day of roaming around Greenhills. While I go to that area a lot, today is just different. I guess it brings back old memories when you 'shop' around with your anime friends. And now, looking back...

I remember when my brother used to bring home different anime titles from a little shop along Tandang Sora that sold betamax tapes. Yup, betamax. Each tape would only have 2 episodes and would cost around 400 bucks. I really don't know how he'd know which titles to get but he almost always brought home something interesting, to say the least. Then, my brother discovered Greenhills...

I remember when the only area you can buy anime was Greenhills. Viramall was quite old back then, years before the fire burned most of it down. People would have to buy their stuff from Cats and the other surrounding areas. Comic Alley didn't exist and if you think they overprice now, you wouldn't believe how much they sold VHS tapes of anime back then! Even then, you'd have to work hard to complete a series. You wait and wait for new episodes to arrive and only depend on the ones selling it for the release dates.

Back then, collecting anime and manga was quite tedious mainly because everything was expensive, you'd have to wait years before you finish a series (and since the internet was still new, there were no such things as spoilers), and it was hard to find manga and anime vanity items (cds, plushies, figurines...) since everything was in Japan. It was fun though. Those years I spent watching and waiting with my friends were probably what led to the strong bonds that we have now. Since we were young (grade school young) and our parents didn't let us commute, going to Greenhills was a luxury. Once we were there, we would grab any new thing we could, whether it be never-heard-of titles, a VHS of 2 episodes, a wooden figure of P-chan, a few pages of manga... Things which are so common now were our precious treasures back then.

The kids today are lucky. Anime and manga are everywhere. They can find most of the titles in pirated (and even original) DVDs, and when those rare titles are not available, they can just download them from the internet. People don't have to wait years to know what the next episodes hold when they don't have money to buy since they can just check on reviews. Everything is so fast-paced and somehow, everything that we had waited for years to collect can now just be bought in a day. I'm partially grateful because it makes collecting a lot easier. The things that we only dreamed of having back then are already in the shops now. Sometimes though, there are days when I look back and remember how it was 14 years ago... And it is only now then I realize that I wouldn't have this much love and respect for the classics, their writers, their creators if things were this easy back then. And how lucky I am to have lived in both eras of anime and manga.

And to end, I am one of those who collected the manga of X/1999 when it was first released locally way back 1994-ish. Every year I waited for a new manga to arrive... Imagine how it felt when CLAMP decided not to continue making the manga because they already made an anime of it. I know that I’m not the only one who had such experiences… so congratulations on those who had lived through all the frustrations!

To those who have waited for this day to come; To those who thought that having this much anime and manga locally would just be a farfetched dream; To those who have started years before me and have gone through so much more frustrations; To those little nameless shops that rented out anime titles and have closed down because anime wasn't that common back then... Cheers and thank you. Without you guys, we wouldn't have enjoyed and dreamt and believed and created and lived this much.

^{Charles: Thank you for manning the first Comic Alley known to us / Kathy: Thanks for sharing our insanity at one point of your life / Roman: Thanks for taking time to talk to back-then-neophytes / Kamui: Before The Gang, before the SNES, before Paw and Bright, before the Chwibis, there was you, me and izumi, and the whole Trailblazer}

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<sub>okay... seems to have tagged me... here goes... (man, this is long...)

1. Are you ready for 50 questions?
Ahahahaha... we'll see!

2. Which state/country do you live in?
Philippines!

3. What is your favourite thing you got for Christmas?
A copy of Animerica. Back then, those were rare and that was one of the very few anime magazines. Now that everything is just everywhere, rare things like those meant a lot back then. (Crap, now I want to give my brother a big hug for giving me that!)

4. What was the last thing you did in 2007?
Watch fireworks. Preeeetty.

5. How tall are you?
157 cm... or something like that. Rough estimate. Haha!

6. Are you new on dA? How long have you been a member?
Not really. I've been using DA for some time now but I only joined last 2006 and only started posting months after then.

7. Are you male or female?
Ahahaha. Female, of course. Sometimes people kinda mistake me for a guy (and yes, sometimes I do find it flattering for several reasons) but I'm not that arrogant to keep pretending I am one just so other people would like me. I enjoy being a girl who can do things that guys can and even more.

8. Which program do you use to chat?
Uh... I don't chat...

9. What was the first thing you did this morning?
Feed my cat.

10. Do you own a website or forum?
Nope.

11. Is the computer you're using your own computer?
Yup. This one's name is Nameless. He is a guy computer. Don't ask.

12. What is your favourite type of food?
Hmm... I'm happy with anything fried. I guess American food. (Ew... greasy!)

13. How many brothers and sisters do you have?
I have an elder brother and an elder sister! Me am the youngest. Hihi.

14. Do you have an account on myspace?
Again, no.

15. What is your favourite video game or anime character?
Just one? Seriously? JUST ONE???? Since I'm more of an RPG gamer... Mog from Squaresoft. Haha! It'll give me a headache to choose among the more human ones.

16. What is your favourite colour?
Believe it or not, yellow... although it doesn't match my personality. I hate happy looking things.

17. Everyone loves candy, right?
Too sweet... Don't like things that are too sweet... Especially caramel! (Sorry, Wingy! That would mean me hate your caramel-ish blood!)

18. Have you ever gotten a gift art from a friend or someone?
Mmhmm... Someone made a sketch for me. Me treasure it.

19. Do you have the Wii?
Yep... Well, theoretically. It's my brother's but it's in my condo unit.

20. (IF YES TO QUESTION 19.) What Wii games do you have?
Those that I can remember at the moment: Wii sports, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Bleach, One Piece, Mario Party, Cooking Mama (Go, Izumi!), Samurai Warriors...

21. If you could have one wish, what would it be?
Ahahaha... That I do become WuddyBunny.

22. How long do you sleep?
Mmm... need at least 8 hours of sleep so I won't wake up grumpy.

23. What is your favourite part of day?
Night. I'm nocturnal.

24. What kind of creature/person is your character?
Meow >^_^<

25. What is the first letter of your name?
M

26. Do you cuss/swear/curse?
Ahahaha... CURSES!!!

27. Are you happy, excited, angry, or sad at the moment?
I'm... generally sad. Just finished writing my journal and it made me rather sentimental.

28. What is your favourite video game?
I *heart* Final Fantasy VI.

29. Do you think Nintendo is an amazing company?
Er... Sorry Nintendo people! As my brother told me, some games lack good soundtracks and graphics. So, no.

30. What is your favourite video game company?
Can't choose among SquareEnix, Koei and Konami.

31. Do you like doing quizzes?
NO!

32. Do you have a lot of good friends?
Mmm... Some are good, some are evil, some are just insane. Haha. Chwibis and my huney-- my rocks and my pillows.

33. What colour eyes do you have?
Dark brown. Wish I had evwil red eyes though.

34. What is your favourite Pokémon?
Bulbasaur. I can relate! Hihi.

35. Have you ever seen a house on fire?
Nope... only our chem lab... well... the other chem lab. Ooops. Stupid sodium.

36. What is your favourite book?
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

37. Have you ever read a 100 paged book?
Uhuh. I have to. Stupid med books. Can't they just settle with MRS books?

38. Are you a Christian?
Yep.

39. Who do you like better: Mario or Sonic the hedgehog?
Yoshi!

40. Do you like to do smilies?


41. Do you like to be funny?
Not really... I just do a lot of things that people think are either weird or funny.

42. What time is it right now in your time zone?
Midnight.

43. Do you like to draw with a pencil or computer mouse?
Both. ^_^

44. What kind of desktop do you use?
MS Windows XP

45. Have you ever beaten a video game?
Mmhmm... Go gamers!

46. Do you have an action replay for some system/game?
Nope. Where's the fun in playing if you had that?

47. What is your favourite holiday?
New Year

48. What is your favourite letter?
G. Hihi. You know, G.

49. What is your favourite number?
27. Everything seems to happen around that number.

50. Who will you tag this to?
Still haven't decided Do I have to, Wingy?</sub>