A number of us at Anime Diet are also creative writers of some sort. I’ve been doing it all my life, practically, and the recent National Novel Writing Month has rekindled my love of telling fantasy stories.

With that in mind, I’m pleased to unveil a semi-official side blog: The Fiction Kitchen, at http://fiction.animediet.net!

The Fiction Kitchen will eventually contain the writings of several Anime Diet staff. For now, however, it’s me and my Nanowrimo novel, The Sanctuary, which was partly inspired by various anime comedies like Zero no Tsukaima. (See a fuller introduction here.) It may even have illustrations one day. Since it’s a Nanowrimo novel, I make no guarantees of quality, consistency, or other hallmarks of polished writing–but I do intend on revising it thoroughly after the draft is done and possibly even getting light-novel style illustrations for it!

And don’t worry–I have a week’s worth of installments already scheduled, which will be posted once a day. I’m working steadily toward the end of the book this week as well.

So if you ever wanted to see some original work from us, here’s your chance. Visit us, and feel free to leave constructive feedback too! It’ll help in the revision process.

Beans? In MY Pepsi? It’s more likely than you think.

I waited awhile to review this because I was curious as to how the blogsphere would take to it. I tried it the first day it came out and it tasted exactly how I thought it would, which I will explain in a bit.

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It was a few years ago when I first saw him and I didn’t think much of it at the time.  He was just a “thing” that sort of looked like fuzzy brown box with big sharp pointy teeth and little black eyes.  I laughed when I saw it.  What a quirky looking thing, I thought.  But then I started noticing him more, showing up in unexpected places, watching me.  I would see him on websites or as an AIM or forum avatar peering out at me from the cold mathematical digital space of the interweb. Eventually, he was hiding in places like my local comic shop as a cleverly disguised “doll” seemingly harmless, trapped behind clear plastic packaging.  To the average consumer he was just another toy, but I knew what was happening.  It was invading our culture.  It was only a matter of time.  Soon he became the “mascot” of Halloween for Target and then not long after that started selling slurpees at 7-11.  Billboards of him holding “Domo-sized” drink cups started going up everywhere, putting us all under the gaze of those dark beady eyes.   He’s watching us all now.   We must be careful what we say, because we don’t know where he will pop up next, but it is important you know the history of this… Domo-kun

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Greetings, my friends! We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friends; future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable; that is why you are here…

Hmm… No, that won’t do…

Friends!  Romans! Countrymen!   Lend me your… (Wait a minute, this is an anime website)… Ahem…  Friends! Geeks!  Otaku!  Lend me your Easy Japanese Translation Books!

No, no, no…

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… of a very small company.

… that doesn’t exist anymore.

Hi! I’m one of the new writers here! You may already know me as Cirno is a Genius, but you can call me CIAG. If you’ve seen my videos or follow me on Twitter, you already know I’m a bit of an oddball. Hopefully you’ll soon discover that I’m the good kind. And hopefully the good kind is the kind that makes you think. And hopefully thinking makes you happy.

I have been a full on anime fan since the early 90’s, back in a day when you received an unmarked VHS tape and a typed out script that you read along while watching. I remember VCDs and the first fansubs on VHS with burned in subtitles. I drifted in and out of the fandom part of everything over the years but kept up with a lot of the shows. Lately I average 500-1000 episodes of anime a year, depending on what kind of shows are airing. About 4 years ago I started getting into and playing Touhou and eventually rolled into a massive fan with a dedicated fan site, parody videos, and music.

I currently live in Japan, but my Japanese is very poor. My jobs here keep me busy. I  live in northern Japan, just south of Hokkaido in the Tohoku region. I do a bit of part time teaching at a Japanese High School, but may go full time next year. All in all, being in Japan has been a great experience and I may stay for more than a few years.

I hope to do reviews, commentaries, and columns on many of the current happenings in the fandom, but I also plan to re-watch and re-review a lot of anime that we have long forgotten. Not just stuff from the 80’s and 90’s, but when going through and updating my MAL I found stuff that I watched just 2 years ago and had already forgotten about. Did I forget them because they weren’t good? Or because I watch too much anime? Well, I aim to find out.

My goal is to not only do your basic reviews, updates, and stuff-in-Japan posts, but bring up some interesting conversation. I’m not your average anime fan, but it’s so hard to say that and mean it when everybody else says it too.

Anyway, I’ll shut up now and let my future articles do the talking! I’m really excited to be part of this team and hope that my contibutions become a valuable part of Anime Diet!

Believe it!

Kyon-kun, denwa (キョンくん, 電話)
[With apologies to Leonard Cohen]

I heard there was a secret chord
Nagato played that pleased the Lord
but you don’t really care for spoilers, do ya?
Well it goes like this: the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall and the major lift
the baffled queen composing Kyon-kun, denwa~

Kyon-kun, denwa…

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With a line like “there’s just something about a girl with a bass guitar,” how could I resist?

La La La Mio
based on “La La La Lisa,” by Math and Physics Club. I know, an obscure band, but with a song almost tailor-made for this…

It was 2009 at the K-ON club
She was drinking tea at the light rock show

I spent half the day trying not to be shy
Waiting at the door of the room

I lost my nerve and let them feed me too.

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O Pocky! My Pocky! our shopping trip is done;
The pack has weather’d every press, the space we sought is won;
The chair is near, the squeals I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the slender line, the package red and daring:
But O mouth! mouth! mouth!
O the tell-tale drops of phlegm,
Where on the bench my pocky lies,
Fallen prey to them.

O Pocky! My Pocky! Rise up and hear the crunch!
Rise up! For you the flag is flung; for you the panties bunch!
For you cold plates and milk in cups; for you the mouths a-gaping;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their joweled cheeks a-draping;
Here pocky! Dear snack!
This arm beneath your stem;
It is some dream that from the pack
You’ve fallen prey to them.

My Pocky does not answer, its base is pale and still;
My chocolate does not feel my arm, it has no pulse nor will;
The groceries are safe and sound, their voyage closed and done;
From fearful tack, the promised snack, comes in with Pocky won;
Exult, O fans, and ring, O cells!
But I, with morunful hymn,
Walk the ground my Pocky lies,
Fallen prey to them.

With apologies to Walt Whitman, who originally composed O Captain! My Captain! about the death of Abraham Lincoln.

Staring out of the window of the space passenger liner, “The Great Divide”, Psyrus Granger couldn’t help but let out a big yawn.

Many of the stars that he has seen in recent years during the construction of the new space colony UC87 have been the ones surrounding the colony.

The same stars and constellations circled UC87 as they had been performing some sort of waltz for eons. “Just the same old shit over and over again.” Psyrus muttered. He shifted a little in his chair and tugged the buttons of his shirt collar, and he attempted to loosen his tie. He stopped in mid-action, grunted, and then shifted his eye sight onto the attache sitting in his lap.

Growing up in the so-called “scrapyard” section of the Human Empire, he never cared much for suits and ties.

Sifting through his dirty blond, long and somewhat straw like hair roughly, he let out a sigh. Once again he changed his focus from trying to keep up with his appearance to the attache, and the item that’s kept inside. His blue eyes were filled with excitement; when the stewardess came and ask him about his choice for dinner (neither fish nor chicken sounded appetizing), he looked away for a quick second and asked for the fish.

He frowned as the same young woman walked by for probably the 20th time toward the back of the liner. Too much water? Too young to get a drink! Psyrus gave a sardonic smile, mostly to himself as he was sure the young lady, who couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16 years old, didn’t pay attention to him at all. Not that he desired attention from her.

An old man like myself isn’t supposed to start a show these days. The kids will get bored. He mused. Isn’t it about time for that to begin?

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Explanation of the Vault series. This is the final Vault entry before I return from my hiatus.

Originally written on July 25, 2002. Yes, folks: this is the one and only piece of fanfiction I’ve ever written. It’s an Evangelion-Serial Experiments Lain crossover fic, and it’s rather long (50 pages double spaced). So I’m only posting the first couple of sections of it here, but you can download the entire story below in three different formats!

• MS Word 2000
• RTF
• PDF

Honestly, I’ve written better stories since, and some of the sentences now make me wince. However, I’m thinking of writing a “light novel” soon, and if you like my storytelling–and would be interested in contributing some art to go with it–stay tuned. And maybe leave a comment or two. Things are starting to cook in my creative kitchen!

The story begins after the cutaway. Enjoy.

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