Konbanwa minnasan!! Here in Italy it's late evening...the sky is so dark, but the light of stars is so warm...while I watch them I feel my soul sing...^^

School in these day doesn't pursue very well...I got a bad mark in Math...and an (I'm very sad to admit that) unmerited good mark in Business Economy...if a schoolmate of mine didn't help me, I think that my mark could be worst...thank you very much D. I'll don't forget it!^^

I'm here now, in this shining night, listening a favourite song of mine, "Smell of Desire" by Enigma (one of my last background music here...I really love this band...thanks to Marina I found out it!^^) because I would like to speak about a new manga I discovered recently. It's name is "Gakuen Alice" (in English: "Alice Accademy"). There are some information (from Wikipendia) about it...(sorry if I haven't written them by myself, I'm not very good in making summaries...^^'')

Gakure Alice is a manga by Tachibana Higuchi, currently being serialized in the Hana to Yume shoujo manga magazine. It was adapted into an anime series, produced by  Aniplex and Group Tac which spanned 26 episodes, originally premiered on NHK BS 2, between October 30, 2004– May 14, 2005.

Story

Gakuen Alice or Alice Academy is the story of a 10-year old girl, Mikan Sakura, who is devastated when her best friend, Hotaru Imai, transfers to a special school for "genius" kids in Tokyo. Mikan runs away from home to seek out her dear friend, and finds that the school Hotaru transferred to, Alice Academy, is specifically for children who each have a special power called an "Alice". After a teacher at Alice Academy, Narumi, discovers that Mikan has a unique Alice, she is admitted into the school. The story is primarily about Mikan and her experiences at the academy.

Characters

Mikan Sakura (佐倉蜜柑, Sakura Mikan)

Mikan is the protagonist of the story. She is an energetic, good-natured girl, but is clumsy. She is an orphan who used to live with her grandfather in the country. She has been friends with Hotaru since second grade. Mikan left her grandfather and her home to go after Hotaru when she transferred to Alice Academy. She was then accepted to Alice Academy by Narumi-sensei and could attend Alice Academy with Hotaru and other children with extraordinary powers. Her "Alice", is the power to nullify the Alice of others, which is the reason why the Academy administration keeps an eye on her. She has feelings for Natsume . When Natsume called her by her first name, she blushed and, as shown in the manga and anime, her heart was beating really fast. In the manga they kiss. Hotaru happened to know about it but she still keeps quiet.

Hotaru Imai (今井 蛍, Imai Hotaru)

Hotaru Imai is Mikan's best friend. She is extremely intelligent and rational. During the story, though she may appear to be rather cold and indifferent on the surface, it is apparent that she genuinely cares for Mikan. Her Alice is that of Invention, and during her time at the country with Mikan and her grandfather, she created many strange but useful inventions, often made to look like animals. She knows that Natsume and Ruka have a crush on Mikan. She also knows who Mikan likes. Hotaru breaks the fourth wall by teaching the audience about her inventions. The other characters see her explaining her inventions to apparently no one.

Natsume Hyuuga (日向 棗, Hyūga Natsume)

Natsume is a genius and ditches class frequently throughout the story. He is thoroughly unhappy with the school, and is suspicious of the intentions of adults. He is paired up as Mikan's "partner" by their mostly-absent class teacher, Narumi. He possesses the Alice of Fire, and is classified into the Dangerous ability type. He is generally moody and silent, but seems to have softened to Mikan and listens only to her problems. During the anime, there are hints that his family perished in a fire that burned down the village, which may have been due to Natsume's fire Alice. He has a lot of girl fans but it is hinted that he has feelings for Mikan, since Mikan, according to Ruka, was the first ever girl that Natsume called by her name. In the manga, he kisses Mikan.

Ruka Nogi (乃木流架, Nogi Ruka)

Ruka is Natsume's childhood friend and often referred by Mikan throughout the story as "Ruka-pyon". He is a gentle and generous person, characteristics that balance out Natsume's personality. His animal pheromone Alice allows him to get cozy with animals, a fact that he is embarrassed and often blackmailed over. Despite this, he often carries a rabbit with him. He knows Natsume (his best friend) has a crush on Mikan, and he also has a crush on her, which makes him and Natsume rivals.

Narumi (鳴海, Narumi)

Narumi is the homeroom teacher of Mikan's class (class B). He teaches Japanese and often deals with Natsume when he gets in trouble or tries to break out. He has the human pheromone Alice; he can make older people do what he wants by attracting them, but children pass out. Mikan calls Narumi "father" because she misses her grandfather so much. Narumi is too young to be called "grandfather" so he asked Mikan to call him "father." Later in the manga, it is found that he harbored unrequited feelings for Mikan's mother. It is proven that he is not Mikan's father, but he made a promise to Mikan's mother that he will take care of Mikan during her stay in the Academy. He is of course, concerned about Mikan and Natsume.

Alices

In the story there are many types of Alices. The five main types of Alices are:

1. Latent Ability- Alices that are super powers (flying, mind reader, illusion, etc)
2. Technical - Alices that are based on technology and research fields (drawings, stuffed animals, invention)
3. Somatic type- Alices based on the body of humans, animals, and other living things (animal pheromone, voice pheromone, dog ears);
4. Special Ability Types - Alices that don't exactly fit in the three types of Alices above (nullification, shadow manipulation, doppelganging, time travel); and
5. Dangerous Ability Types - Alices that may be one of the above but are considered dangerous.

Every Alice is categorized as one of four shapes, that specify how much of it can be used and how often.

1. Childhood Alice: The Alice slowly disappears as the child with it grows into an adult.
2. Diffuse: The Alice is always available, but at a relatively low power level.
3. Intermittent: The Alice can only be used for a short period at any time, but at a relatively high power level.
4. Limitless: The Alice can be used as often and as much as desired, but each use impacts against the user's own life and can kill them if overused.

I really love this manga...and the anime too!! It's so kawaii...^____^ Mikan is a very cute kid, while Natusme is really a mysterious person...I wanna know more about him!!! And about some of the many mysteries which happen in the school, and its secrets...

Here there are some images:

About the manga...there are 80 chapters available, and 12 volumes...instead, the anime has only 26 episodes...too short I think. I hope that a new serie of it will come out soon!!!

That's now for the moment! I'll post an album dedicated to this anime/manga another time...I'm starting to be tired...

Good nite my friends!!! See you soon!!

--- Kay Aleki ---

Konnichiwa minnasan! In Italy it's afternoon and it's starting to rain...I can hear the sound of thunder...it's a dark sound and make me feel cold, but I like it a little, even if I don't know why...

I'm really waiting for the summer holidays (I'll finish school on the 9th of June, even if after that I have three weeks of apprendiceship in a firm), I'm very very tired... I think I have felt so since I understand that the business high school I attend, it's not the best school for me. Maybe, I could choose a linguistic high school, where I could improve my skills to use English, and I could learn German, Spanish and, why not, Japanese. I study Japanese on my own, with lesson found surfing Internet. I know, and I can use, only a little number of Kanji (more and less 32-35), and I can use Hiragana and Katakana too. I bought a dictionary with Italian-Japanese and Japanese-Italian, but it's very small, not professional. I can't find all the words I would like and unfortunately this is a great obstacle for me, during my studies. I regret that I couldn't choose a linguistic school, but it's too late to change school and restart in a new one. The only thing I can do now is to go on, finish the business high school and recover the time I have lost until now at the University. I hope I'll have the strenght to do that.

For now, I can say in Japanese:

"Ohayo gozaimasu!" - (Good morning!),

"Konnichiwa minnasan!" (Good afternoon everybody!),

"Konbanwa minnasan!" (Good evening everybody!),

"Oyasumi nasai!" (Good Night!),

"Arigatou gozaimasu" - "Domo arigatou" (many thanks),

"Watashi wa (written "ha") Kay Aleki desu!" (I am Kay Aleki!) and it's negative and interrogative form,

"Watashi wa Nihongo no Gakusei desu!" (I am a student of Japanese) and it's negative and interrogative form.

But it's really hard! Many people says that Japanese has some feelings with Italian, but if is it so, I think I can't see them...ç___ç

Even if is Japanese so hard, I won't give up, definitely. I'll do my best and I'll be successfull to learn and undestand it! For sure! My passion of Japanese is not a conseguence of my passion of anime and manga, but it's previous that. I love Japanese for more long time than I love them! That's the reason for me, to never abandon the studies of this beautiful language.Just now, I'm listening a japanese song, "Chance" by UVERWorld, a japanese band I like very much. It's a lovely song...it's make me remember Naruto...

In these days, in every free moment I had, I also tryed to understand how to use a software for animation, ImageReady (I'll got it with Photoshop Cs2), reading a tutorial made by a net friend of mine, June (the admin of a forum dedicated of everything from Japan, with a section called "Web graphic", where she teach how to use some graphic software with many tutorials). My first work was really bad, too horrible to show...(when I showed it her, I was quite embarassed...^^''), but the second, the third and the fouth time was very better. So, I would like to show you two work of mine, that I made with great patience, one is the "Welcome" Wallpaper in the top of this blog, the another one is this:

As you can see, I made it using the same image in the background. And these are other works of mine, I made them with Photoshop:

I think these works are more better than the other I posted sometime ago...I downloaded many fonts and brushes and started to use them with Photoshop. I made them in many time (maybe an hour for every one or them), but I am a bit satisfied. I'm proud of my improvement!

So, that's all for now. I'm truly sorry if I couldn't be here so much I wanted, and I know that it isn't a true friendship, to stay too much far away from you. I hope that you'll be able to forgive me...

See you soon, my dear friends!

--- Kay Aleki ---

Konnichiwa minnasan!^^

Here in Italy is afternoon, a sunny warm afternoon of Spring! Finally the winter is gone, and a new season is begun! I like Spring with its flowers, its vitality, its colours...

I would really like to see the Sakura trees blossomed in Japan...I think it should be the most beautiful view in the world!

This morning I haven't gone to school, because my classmates have left for a 4-days school trip in Toscana (one of the 20 regions in Italy) and I decided to not join them. You know, in my class there isn't unity betwenn people, there are many small groups, and every groups is separated from others. The people in my group decided to not go to the trip, and I didn't want to remain alone, because for me join another group during the trip, wouldn't be possible, I think. In my class, where there are 23 people, I get on well only with 4-5 of them, only these have same opinions and same ways of think than me; with the rest of the class, I'm very embarassed when I speak and I'm afraid that they deride me... Another reason is that the last year, when with the class I went to Rome for four days, I saw many conflicts between my classmates. There was so many hatred and incomprehensions that I don't want to repeat that experience. I don't like to see hatred, but even if I do anything to reconcile them, I doubt that it works...

So, for these 4 days, I relaxed myself a bit, at home. Even if I have many works to do the same, I'll enjoy myself more than I could do at school. I'll work on the file I'll show at the competition and I'll try to improve my skill with Photoshop.

Now, I'm current listening "Rose" by Anna Tsuchiya, the opening of the anime called "Nana". It started only a few weeks ago, but I can say that I really like it. My favourite charater of "Nana" is "Nana Osaki", I love her voice...she sing very good!

Others anime I watch in these days are "Bleach" (in English, because it hasn't arrived in Italy yet), "Naruto Shippunden" (in English too) and "HunterxHunter" (in Italian). I like them very much, especially "Naruto Shippunden". The first time I saw it, it fashinated me. I love the older Naruto, and the older Gaara too...and I'm curious to see the episode when finally Naruto and Sakura will meet Sasuke again...

Well, that's all for the moment. I made some days ago an album with some pics from "Naruto", I hope you'll like them...

See you soon people!^^

--- Kay Aleki ---