I am currently in the middle of doing quite possibly the most dreadful thing any human has to do – going through a dead person’s stuff. You may remember that our dear friend Bruce P. passed away quite suddenly last autumn just before we were supposed to go to Japan with him. As a result, this last trip was bittersweet. We came back home and cannibalized his collection for anime-related items to find new homes for. Which is exactly why I’m working on another set of Lucky Boxes for the end of this month. We have tons of anime and manga, artbooks, Drama CDs, videos and paper goods of all kinds from Bruce, a metric ton of books and doujinshi (I spent three hours weeding my collection down to *only* 8 cartons) from mine AND I’ll be picking new things up in Japan again in a few weeks at the various Yuribu in Tokyo and at the Yuriten Yuri Fair for you. So expect more Lucky Boxes crammed full of massive amounts of stuff and expect a bunch of fun items from Japan in them.
In the meantime, I’m finding things in Bruce’s collection that I did not ever have a chance to see. In honor of my friend, I am reading and watching all these things, so I have a memory of him through the item. In today’s case it was the Maria-sama ga Miteru 4th Season Fandisk (マリア様がみてる 4thシーズン ファンディスク ), which he picked up, undoubtedly, in remembrance of his visit to the Maria-sama ga Miteru New Year’s Eve Event in 2009.
The fandisk consists of two disks, one a CD of “Kumori no Glass no Mukou,” the 4th season end theme, written by Oyuki Konno and performed by Kaori Hikita. The second disk includes a track or two of Kana Ueda and Kugamiya Rie,, the voice actresses for Yumi and Touko, respectively, talking to us from an uncomfortable-looking sofa. This is followed by an extended video clip/anime music video of “Kumori no Glass no Mukou,” with all of Yumi and Touko’s soeur arc covered from the beginning of the season to the end.
The final track is a series of extended previews of every single episode of the 4th season, many of which – to my horror – I did not remember. I remember individual episodes, and I remember having read the books, but there are whole episodes I cannot recall.
Ratings:
Overall – 8 I still love this series so much.
I’m appalled at my miso-brain and have instantly declared that I will rewatch the 4th season starting tonight.
Keep your eyes out for a whole new chance to get a ridiculous amount of stuff in Lucky Boxes! It all needs a good home.
My condolences for your loss.
As for Maria-sama ga Miteru’s fourth season (which might be my favorite), I finally got my hands on a copy of Dr. Rosette Willig’s translation of The Changelings (Torikaebaya Monogatari), the story that is turned into a play by the joint school councils in season four. It’s fascinating reading it (I’m only a third of the way through), and so far quite a heartbreaking story (despite what the Wikipedia entry will have you believe). I’ll be honest that reading it makes me feel more like a part of Yumi’s world (which is why I wanted to read it).
I’ll be eager to hear your report (if you write one) about rewatching season four.
I’ve been reading the Torikaebaya as manga, which is sufficiently tense and miserable.
Some versions of it have been played for comedy, but I think it would be hard for modern western readers of blog about gender and sexuality to find it anything other than tragic.
When you’re done, if you want to do a review, get in touch with me.