It’s hard to believe, but it’s a year ago yesterday that Gregory left us.

Gregory, I still think of you often. Many of us do. I know you would’ve liked some of the recent anime shows, like Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, and Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge. I remember how we used to yell “AAAAA” at each other online when Noir or Gunslinger Girls took a particularly nasty twist; I think we could’ve done the same with Ergo Proxy. And considering your penchant for cuteness, I think you’d have liked Otogijuushi Akazukin.

Peace, Gregory.

Today would have been Gregory Blake’s 38th birthday. Even now, nearly five months after his passing, I often think “Boy, I can’t wait to talk to Greg about this,” as I watch an anime episode.

I recently watched a series that I think Gregory would’ve enjoyed. Kashimashi ~ Girl Meets Girl ~ is a high school romance with a twist; two girls are in love with the same guy, but the guy gets hit by an alien spacecraft (it is anime, after all) and the aliens rebuild him as a girl.

Although there are elements of the show I could have done without, namely the Annoying Teacher and Lecherous Father, they didn’t distract from the real essence of the show, which is the interactions among the three girls as they learn more about each other and themselves. It was a tender little story, and I would have loved talking with Gregory about it.

So here’s to you, Gregory, on your birthday!

Here is the memorial that was given by Rebecca Blake.

Gregory was always an easygoing baby and marched to
his own drummer his entire life. As his sister, I
usually just followed along. I can remember giggling
when he and his school friend Brendan Fitzgerald put
dog food in cookies they were baking for school. They
had marked the “dog food” cookies with foil. However,
their plan was doomed when Mom took the cookies out of
the oven, saw the foil and took it off. When they got
to school and opened the package of cookies, they
could not find the foil and realized they had to fess
up. Greg and his friend had to throw out the entire
batch of cookies. Although, I think Mom would have
rather made them EAT the cookies.

I also remember Greg and I got locked out of the house
and he said “not to worry” and had me follow him to
the back of the house. He showed me a way to break
into the basement through the window and pop it back
in…backwards. Well, we got busted hours later when
Mom noticed the window was put in backwards and
thought someone had broken into the house.

Over the years, I think he tried Mom and Dad’s
patience. He fell of his bike once and the neighbor
brought him back home, dressed head to toe in
Band-Aids. Years later, he was eating a piece of bacon
while riding his bike, fell off and actually hurt his
ear pretty badly. I can clearly remember a neighbor
kid running in the house with the bloody piece of
bacon worried that it was Greg’s ear. Fortunately, it
wasn’t.

I can remember falling off my bike and Greg coming to
my rescue. I had some pretty bad scrapes and he
cleaned me up, picking every piece of gravel out of my
arms because I refused to go to the doctor.

He made the best chocolate chip cookie pie, the best
chocolate crackles and the best cosmopolitan I’ve ever
had. He would also respond to my emails anytime I had
a computer question.

I know my parents rolled their eyes whenever his hair
changed color, or when he had his ear pierced. I just
remember that he continued to march to his own beat.

Greg touched more lives than anyone else I know. This
has been eveident to us this past week reading the
endless comments from friends of Greg’s all over the
world. I think for every person in this room, there
are at least 10 more we don’t even know about.

As Greg’s family, we want to thank our friends and
family as well as Greg’s family for their support over
the past several years and we invite you all back to
our home to help us to continue to remember Greg.

so, the digital world is feeling greg’s absence. his personal computer has been accidentally shut down and his parents need information on it. of course, there is a password. rumor has it that the password has something to do with a monkey. really. 🙂 if anyone has a suggestion as to what that password might be (likely anime related), please write to zygoticbucky[at]gmail [dot] com. thank you!

or, if you know how to get past a password on a MAC, that would also be helpful. could a tech at the MAC store do this?

Greg’s family is hoping to put together a slide show for the memorial. to that end, they are calling for any photos people may have of Greg doing the things he loved to do (DJing, dancing, eating, and the like). please send medium resolution pictures to his family at: eblake[at]ezoons[dot]com.

It is with very deep sorrow that I announce the passing today of Gregory Blake, owner of this blog. He underwent surgery in Boston a couple of weeks ago, and the recovery was just too rough for him.

He was a great friend, and he will be truly missed.

I do not yet know what the future of this blog will be, but will post updates as appropriate.

This has been a crazy season for new anime. There are so many new shows out there (as I mentioned in an earlier post). Now, after a few weeks, the real winners are starting to make themselves clear. Two in particular that stand out to me are Suzumiya Haruhi no Yutsu and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. I’ll post more about Haruhi later, since I just got done watching and episode of Higurashi and it is more fresh in my head.

I’m only three episodes in (and about to watch a fourth) and this show has completely sucked me in. Keiichi has recently moved to a small town and started school. At this point the show was seeming a little silly, lots of typical school hi-jinx. After school Keiichi goes off with one of his school friends, Rena, and she shows him a junkyard where she goes to collect things. She runs off to explore and he waits for her. While waiting he runs into a photographer who tells him about a murder that took place right around there a few years ago.

The most striking thing about the show is how it shifts gears. One moment things seem all happy and cute, only to turn around and become quite dark and ominous. Keiichi begins to think someone is out to get him, and I’ve started to wonder who to trust in all this. Currently Keiichi looks like he’s about to snap. I hope he gets some answers soon.

This show also ended up surprising me a lot. For the first fifteen minutes or so I wasn’t that impressed. It felt kind of mindless and cutesy. Something which changed just enough by the end of the episode to pull me back to watch the second. And it is going to be a 26 episode series, which means we’re still only barely scratching the surface of the story. Here’s hoping the rest of the ride is as interesting as the first bit.

I’m making an effort to catch up on a number of shows that have finished airing but I haven’t finished watching. On today’s agenda was Rozen Maiden – Traumend, the sequel to Rozen Maiden. I enjoyed the first series quite a bit. It was fun, a bit serious, a bit silly, and overall a decent show. When I saw there was going to be a sequel I was hoping it would continue being good. I wasn’t disappointed. The second season had a darker feel from the start, introducing a two new dolls. One of them another younger doll, and another doll who was all up for the Alice Game to start.

I wasn’t in any great hurry for the game to start myself because I like watching the interaction between the characters. But time marches on and brings us closer and closer to the final confrontation. In the end it was handled fairly well, with a few twists and turns on the way. And somewhere in there we get just enough ammo for another season (hopefully?). Recommended if you liked the first season. If you haven’t, go and watch that first.

It’s that time of year where there are lots of new shows starting up in Japan. Here’s a quick rundown of my thoughts on a few of them.

• Aria – The Natural – I know this isn’t technically a new show, but the second season has started out quite nicely and by the second episode they’ve already done one of my favorite stories from the manga.

• Simoun – After one episode I rate this interesting w/potential. So far we’ve just got the slightest introduction to the story. But the animation is quite nice. The music is wonderful (includes some Bach I’ve heard). Yuri content. I can’t wait to see more story.

• xxxHolic – One of my favorite CLAMP mangas finally gets its own series. So far I dig it, but will still wait to see how other characters are portrayed and stories are presented. Hopefully will be better than Reservoir Chronicle was

• Disgaea – Based on a PS2 game of the same name. This looks to be a fairly kid-centric telling of the story. Art and Voices seem to match the game. I’ll have to look and see if the voices are the same. Not sure if I’ll keep watching for long, but seems decent enough

• Strawberry Panic – Imagine Marimite, now suck out everything that was good about it. I always got a warm happy feeling when I watched it (well, except when it made me cry like a baby). This feels like an attempt to cash in on the popularity of it. There are high school girls, there is a yuri vibe, there is no heart. Next!

• Air Gear – Feels like a typical shounen series. Though I found myself drawn into it quite a bit as I watched. Kids with motorized inline skates who compete against each other for status. A fun looking series. I’ll keep checking it out for an episode or two more.

That’s it for now. Next time up I’ll talk about Ouran High School Host Club, NANA, KIBA, Zegapain, Soul Link, and Utawarerumono.

Yesterday, the New York Times had an article about some of the anime that is currently showing in the US. It’s pretty good, though a little bit simplistic. The one thing I liked about it was that it was explaining a little of how these shows are different than the stereotype of what many people think anime is (Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh). The point where I feel the article falls a little flat is in its examples. While I enjoy Naruto, I think Fullmetal Alchemst might have been a better one to go into detail with. My guess is they were went with a show that was on at a watchable time.

It is nice to see some mainstream media coverage of anime that helps to show a bit of why I enjoy the method of storytelling so much.