Yes, I've titled this blog after the legendary Hare Hare Yukai. Why? well it's pretty simple really, Happy Holidays followed by a Happy Birthdayhas leftme feeling "Sunny Sunny Happy." In the time that passes between Christmas and Jan. 10th - My Birthday, many great things are unwrapped (literally) and so here's a list of the gifts I've received for both Christmas and My Birthday that have tempted me to attempt the dance in the above link.

Anime

-Fullmetal Alchemist Box Set - Season 1 Part 1
-Fullmetal Alchemist Box Set - Season 1 Part 2

Fullmetal Alchemist Box Set - Season 2 Part 1 will be coming out on Feb. 5th, '08, so it's great that I didn't have to buy these myself.

-Princess Mononoke
-Spirited Away

My collection of Hayao Miyazaki films is slowly increasing, and even though I did put some of my money towards the purchase of Spirited Away it was worth it. Porco Rosso and Kiki's Delivery Service are probably next to go along with these two and Howl's Moving Castle.

So, as you can see, I've got a lot of many in the last couple of weeks. I haven't checked out the Box Sets yet since I'm currently watching the repeat of the series on YTV but I certainly didn't want them to be a part of a collection where if someone even touches the plastic I'll go crazy. The only downside to this was the lack of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya DVDs. I knew they'd be hard to find but it really would've been awesome to experience Haruhi's craziness that Christmas morning.

Besides the gifts, it would seem both YTV and Teletoon (yeah, I was surprised too) decided to give me a little gift of their own. On New Year's Eve, YTV decided to air the Fullmetal Alchemist movie and the nine episodes of Death Note that had previously aired before that Friday's episode which was #10. Teletoon on the other hand decidied to air Akira. I was quite impressed by its technical merits considering its a film made in 1980 but as a whole it was pretty awesome. Additionally, Appleseed was aired this past weekend. The CG and animation were great and the story was neither good nor bad. I enjoyed it though and I am quite excited to see what Armitage III Polymatrix has to offer next weekend.

Alright, enough anime talk.

Gaming

-Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
-The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
-Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
-Spyro: A Hero's Tail (GC)
-Rave Master (GC)

Isn't it awesome? I got all three of Nintendo's big titles of '07 and they were all gifts. ^_^ I was quite glad when I got Super Mario Galaxy and Phantom Hourglass Christmas morning. I was expecting it but I couldn't wait to get my hands on them and in both cases they have proven ot be exactly what I expected. Super Mario Galazy is just so much fun and yet I've barely scratched the surface but even so, I can honestly say that Super Mario Galazy was the Game of the Year (this is my opinion of course).

Unfortunately, I haven't played Metroid Prime 3 yet, and have played only a bit of Phantom Hourglass but if that wasn't enough, along with the fullmetal Alchemist Box Set, Super Smash bros. Brawl is expected to be released and when I pick that up. Who knows when I'll play the other two but that's still a month away. So don't worry, I won't let them go to waste.

Now, the other two games, I obviously had no interest in but Rave Master ended up becoming quite the hit at my Birthday party. It's a really simple game and the mechanics are far from smooth yet it managed to replace Super Smash Bros. Melee (though, we did play it for some time and I had no other multi-player games). To be honest, I'm not sure how the Single Player game will work out but as a multi-player game, it's quite entertaining. Other than that, I finally got a GameCube Memory Card and in only two days of working on it, I've unlocked Dr. Mario, Young Link, Math, Roy, and Jigglypuff.

Music

-Cowboy Bebop OST 1
-Cowboy Bebop OST: Vitaminless

I'd like to thank queen_valentine (Celes) for these soundtracks. I'm a huge fan of Yoko Kanno, she's pretty much my favourite music composer tied with Michiru Oshima (can't help it, the Fullmetal Alchemist OSTs were just amazing) and closely followed by Joe Hisaishi. The fact that Kanno is able to venture into so many different genres (in this case jazz and blues)of music and continue to deliver each and every time is truly inspiring and the music within these two OSTs are some of he most notable. You just can't beat songs like "Tank!" or "Black Coffee" - which is quite amusing to say the least.

The other gifts I received are pretty insignificant but if the cake counts, then that was certainly deserves mentioning. Unfortunately, that's as far as it will go, there's only one piece left and I'm not sharing it with anyone. So, that's pretty much it. My Birthday party was great, my friends and I watched National Treasure 2, had tons of Pizza and Chicken Wings and devoured the birthday cake till there were only a few pieces left for me. And, right now, that last piece is calling me so, take care everyone!

I should add my attempt to do the Hare Hare Yukai dance was a great failure.

~Edward Elric