Kiki's Delivery Service

At the instigation of a online friend from a forum I recently bought this title in the acclaimed Studio Ghibi collection.

Adapted by Hayao Miyazaki from the Japanese childrens book by Eiko Kadono, it is about Kiki - a thirteen-year-old witch, and daughter of a witch - who is eager to leave home and spend a year working away from home. Her only talent is flying on her broomstick, but she sets off with her black cat JiJi) and finds a big city by the sea that she decides to live in.

She makes a deal with the bread store owner to work for her board in store that soon transforms into a courier service delivering anything from pies to pets. In this activity she -a polite, cheerful if naive child - encounters the rudeness and spoilt behaviour of others especially of a girl of her own age.

She encounters a boy on a bicycle who becomes her friend but undergoes a crisis of confidence losing her ability to fly. Only by looking into herself can she regains her abilities saving the boy from a Zeppelin flight that goes disastrously wrong.

What I liked about was the attention to detail in the drawings coupled with the message of triumph over adversity it presents.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Well this was going to happen sooner but I got waylaid so here goes...

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

I wanted this so much when it came out around November time last year but if ya hadn't noticed there's a recession on and one consequence of this was threat Beez's UK distributor went into receivership but I managed to get this reissue.

The story revolves around Haruhi Suzumiya, a high school girl obsessed with finding all forms of the extraordinary and supernatural, and Kyon, a cynical classmate who proclaims his non-belief in such matters and narrates the series. After being displeased with the mundane happenings at school and the lack of interesting after-school clubs, she forms her own, the SOS Brigade, to investigate any mysterious happenings, with Kyon forcibly drafted as its second member.

She drafts in additional members into the SOS club and in time they are revealed to be the extraordinary characters she is seeking (Yuki, an artificial human created by the extraterrestrial Integrated Data Entity; Mikuru, Time Traveller; and Itsuki, esper), sent by their various organizations to observe Haruhi. All see Haruhi as possessing a superhuman control over the universe, capable even of recreating the entire universe in a state of dissatisfaction and attempt to prevent this by keeping her entertained, holding her powers in check, and maintaining the illusion of a normal life.

The series became an Internet phenomenon and in the absence had to make do with a subbed import with so-so quality but have now gotten the UK R2 Re-issue 4 dvd set

Ms Jo V

 

One year, might of been 1973, at our school a girl I loved kept not arriving for weeks on end and amongst our year group it was said the girl had been going through a rough patch with her folks as they were having difficulties.
It was the era when separation and divorced were just coming into their own having gone through a long period were people said they'd stayed together "for the sake of the children" so to some us this was a whole other world.
But anyway, each Assembly during this period we were instructed to look out for this girl during school time and report anything to our teacher or Headteacher as we'd been informed her parents had dropped her off but she wasn't making it into school.
For a long while nothing had happened and I felt genuinely worried something bad was happening with her (at the time next to no child knew about abductions, never mind adults using kids sexually as we didn't even know what sex was).
One day out of the blue she turned up having been walked into our classroom but within ten minutes, the Headmaster walked in and told her she was coming with him, returning later, appearing to struggle to sit comfortable in her grey skirt and obviously tearful.
When she came around to talking with me, it transpired she'd received one of most severest spankings across her knickers any girl there ever had.
At the time my thoughts around this were confused because to me at least it seemed we should of grateful she'd returned, was in one piece and was in need of love.
With the passing years however I understood though that in a sense she had to be spanked because she'd done something very silly putting herself at risk (not that she'd of know exactly what it was), she shown great disrespect to her parents, trying to keep her safe and that she'd broken the agreement to attend school, all of which had clear cut consequences.
I'm sure it was a lesson she learnt well.

Sports day

One essential ritual of my school life was the annual Summer school Sports day where like it or not you were entered into the various sporting competitions for your school year group and house (cos we had operated a 'House' system).
There were  a number of them that stick in my mind and this is one of them.

That's the Egg and Spoon race that every junior school I went to always had  with the point being to fast walk with the egg balanced on a spoon not dropping or breaking, a feat that require much co-ordination the likes of which I never had!

Often there would be running races along a predetermined distance  with the first to reach the winning post getting a prize. Okay I could kinda run but staying in lane was hard going!
The other  common race was the Sack Race where you'd stand up wearing a sack over your PE kit holding the edges and have to run with the itchy material not tripping up over yourself which usually happened.
Usually some teacher or helper had the first aid kit at hand!
Although I was rubbish at it, I enjoyed taking part although we'd have to walk to the local park where it was held and was the 'Mascot' for our House.

Age play and study

Studying requires discipline not just as in say corporal punishment but the mental and attitudinal where you have to focus on one specific  thing without being distracted, day dreaming, working at your very best putting in real effort even if you find it hard going sometimes in groups and also on your own in your time as in homework you are set.
That's what I think I'm lacking and would benefit from in a age play setting.

Debbie

My 'Little Girl' side has always had a mania for dolls, initially as objects of play or as a means of experimenting with images of how I could look and later on into the field of collecting as objects.

This side of my Little Girl nature has never gone away.

This is a picture of a porcelain doll I've had since my teens called Debbie who has long pantaloons.

She was bought for me from a doll fair near Macclesfield and she's been with me no matter where I've been living ever since. I like the blouse and dress she's wearing.

Moon Phase and Anime Round up

This anime about the relationship between Kouhei Morioka a freelace photgrapher and Hazuki, a teenager who descends from a royal vampire lineage.

We learn at the start of the story that Kouhei travels to a castle in Germany to take photographs of all sorted Paranormal phenomenon for his friend Hiromi, the editor of an occult magazine. At the castle, Kouhei meets Hazuki, who feeds on Kouhei's blood and claims him as her unwilling servant. She is a 14 years old vampire - selfish but adorable - who was separated from her mother and restrained in a castle in Germany.

Although this "blood pact" is supposed to bind Kouhei to Hazuki as her obedient slave, her act has no effect on Kouhei. Following an action packed sorcerers battle, in which Kouhei and his cousin manage to free Hazuki from her captivity in the dreary castle, Hazuki travels to Tokyo, and takes up residence with Kouhei in his grandfather's house in Japan. Hazuki reveals this is what her mother wanted her to do when she disappeared.

Hazuki claims that, because she fed on his blood, Kouhei is now her servant, but Kouhei continually refuses to obey her, especially when he thinks her requests are unreasonable. Despite their fighting, the relationship between the duo progresses over time - even in the face of repeated attacks by opposing vampires - until Kouhei becomes determined to protect Hazuki from the vampire servants of her family, who themselves are determined to retrieve her by whatever means necessary.We learn later on in the anime he possesses great spiritual powers which were sealed by his family in order to allow him to live a normal life, as they were too strong for him to control. In the anime, he once again seals away his Jyougan so that it doesn't affect his relationship with Hazuki.

Other characters include Ryuuhei is Kouhei's grandfather who took in Hazuki and is a powerful spiritualist and exorcist.

A word about Revelation's DVD packaging. It is beautiful with pop up disc holders and a set of guide notes to further explain things as well as points to look for in later viewings.

Below is a picture of it in exploded form: