slr2moons: a self-portrait, of me in my usual habitat: in front of my computer monitors! (I trust you...)
slr2moons ([personal profile] slr2moons) wrote2007-07-28 01:26 am
Entry tags:

A random memory from the mind of s2m...

Just now, as I placed the final touches on a manga page (Naruto v29 p139), I was singing along with the mp3 playing on Utena. It's been my favorite song for 10 years straight, and its throne has never been challenged. The song?? X Japan's "Forever". As I sang along, I realized it has been my fave song for a decade, and I recalled the various reasons why.

First, purely for the song itself. It's beautiful, sad yet hopeful, lovely, slow, and sung by a man with an incredible voice. I can't remember if it was subtitled the first time I heard it, and my Japanese skills at the time were limited to basic fangirl vocabulary, so my fanatic love was based purely on the song's sound alone.

Second, we have the emotions I associate with the song.

I first heard this song as it played during the ending credits of the X movie. (X, as in the long-running manga by CLAMP.) This was back in 1997. I had only been an anime fan for a year, and that's if you count the 6 months I only watched the DIC dub of Sailor Moon that played every morning on broadcast tv. Things were much different back then, manga and anime were faaaaar from mainstream. Manga was limited to a piddly half-shelf in the bookstores, and consisted of shounen titles like Gunsmith Cats and Akira. On tv, there was no Inu Yasha, no Yugioh or Pokemon, no Toonami, and definitely no Adult Swim. In the mind of Americans, "Japanimation" was only pornographic cartoons. Those of use who knew better were very very few and far between. Particularly the girls and women. But thanks to my finding fansubs (VHS only at the time, SVHS if you were lucky) and the joys of IRC (which I haven't experienced in years b/c of lack of time) I had made a friend I've mentioned before, Nuriko.

Nuriko was my anime sempai, who ushered me into the world of anime fandom. She introduced me to Escaflowne, import CDs and artbooks, and the idea of fanart. And that summer, she had invited me to my first-ever anime convention, A-kon. Thanks to a forgetful boss at my crappy job who scheduled me to work anyway, I was only able to attend one day of the con. Nuriko went for all three. And while she was there, she obtained a copy of the X movie, fansubbed. (Back in the 90's, it wasn't who you knew, it was who would let you borrow their anime.) B/c of Nuriko's kind and generous nature, she copied the movie for me. I had never seen any animation so dark and fascinating, and the song was incredible! And it was given to me by my beloved friend, Nuriko-chan!!

Not too long after that, I spent the night with Nuriko, and we did something I've never done before. No, nothing hentai. (Get your mind out of the gutter! Nuriko-chan was (and still is, I'm sure) bi, but I was definitely not her type. Just friends!) So what was it we did, if it wasn't the hot lesbian lovin'?? We drew artwork together. Aside from art class, I'd never drawn with anyone before. None of my IRL friends drew, or if they did, they kept it secret from me. Nuriko was (and still is, I'm also quite sure) an amazing artist, and I felt myself shine in her light!! She had a fun anime CD collection, and I was completely overjoyed to find out that the song was on one of her CDs. So she obliged me by playing it over and over several times, and I loved every minute!! I was drawing with my friend, we were enjoying ourselves, I finally knew someone IRL that understood my love for "Japanese cartoons", she was amazing in every way imaginable, and we were listening to my favorite song!!

So in my mind, "Forever" became our song. But I found out three or four years later that Nuriko actually hated the singer's voice, so I had unknowingly subjected her to about 45 minutes worth of torment. (The song is over 10 minutes long.) Oops. Nuriko, gomen. >< But I still associate that song with Nuriko and the extreme happiness I felt then. And I always will. *tries not to cry* Nuriko-chan...atashi wa...anata no hou ga aishiteru aishiteru yo...itsumo.

Music is amazing. Ne?