Procrastination defeated? (plus less Wednesday annoyance)

I have this bad habit. Well truthfully I have several bad habits, but the one I'm thinking of is I tend to borrow anime and manga from my friend Dan, and then ignore it. This is a pretty silly thing to do, because I only borrow the things I'm interested in either watching or reading, yet I still do it. I don't believe it has anything specific to do with Dan, quite honestly I behaved in much the same way when I last had Netflix. My latest movie would arrive in the mail, and I wouldn't watch it. I think what happens is I start thinking of the borrowed item as something I need to watch (or read) and then return ASAP, so I subconsciously equate the borrowed media with a chore, and not as something fun I'd like to do. Procrastinating chores is as natural as breathing to me (perhaps a small bit of hyperbole there).

I bring this up because seemingly out of the blue the other day I started reading Monster again. When I first borrowed Monster from Dan (probably almost a year ago at this point) I read and really liked the first volume right away. Over the next month I very slowly read volumes two and three. Then I stalled out on four. Two nights ago, I picked volume four up again, and finished it off. Volumes five and six quickly followed, and last night I devoured seven. I have every intention of reading eight tonight, and keeping up with my pace of one or two volumes a day until I finish this off, and return it to Dan. It is among the best manga I've ever read, so beyond my little theory outlined above, I have no clue why I haven't finished this off months ago.

I have a few general observations about Monster. Finding redemption for past mistakes and/or wrongs seems to be a poor survival tactic in the universe of Monster. I'm quickly losing count of the number of characters who while trying to make up for their past sins are killed either by Johan or somebody connected to him. Only slightly less deadly would be choosing to either directly or indirectly help Tenma on his quest to stop Johan. Of course the absolutely most deadly job in the world of Monster is being Johan's foster parents, chances are quite high that any character introduced as being such, was already dead when introduced to the story.

As per my usual Wednesday ritual I watched the newest Kimi ni Todoke this morning before work. Since this was the end of a story-arc I did go to work much happier today then I did the last two Wednesdays. Granted I'm still impatient for more episodes, and I strongly suspect that future Wednesdays will leave me in much the same state as I described last week, for now I'm satisfied (well mostly, did I mention I'm impatiently waiting for more episodes).

One of the nice things about living in the cities as opposed to being back in Morris, is I'm once again able to watch anime with my friend Dan. This last weekend we finished off Ghost Hunt (third time through that series for me, first time for Dan). I've mentioned Ghost Hunt here in this very blog after I'd finished watching it the first time. I like it, I wouldn't have suggested Dan watch it if I didn't think it was quite fun. It is however not perfect. I have a few minor quibbles here and there, and one fairly large complaint with one story-arc right in the middle of the series. That arc features both a really bad case of plot induced stupidity (well technically I guess TV Tropes would call it Contrived Stupidity, but I've always liked the sound of the former better), and a troubling blow to ones suspension of disbelief (we are supposed to believe a body left basically in the open at a church remained unnoticed for 30 some odd years). That little two-episode arc aside, it remains an enjoyable series that is well worth watching.

Returning to an old blog tradition I return to the Monster theme and leave you with the following amusing picture.