After having read the Fullmetal Alchemist, Deathnote, and Fruits Basket series I looked for another series that I thought would be deep and intriguing. I learned from Fruits Basket that just because a series looks like it might be mostly fluff, that looks can be deceiving. I saw Boys Over Flowers, remembered that I had heard it had been made into a Korean television show, and thought that it might be interesting to read. So, I picked up Boys Over Flowers and I read the entire series—All 36 volumes. It had a few good moments, but mostly it was about a girl who fights with a boy and then she’s saved by him when some bizarre catastrophe occurs… this happens again and again and again in the series. Also, they always manage to make one or both of the characters have wet hair or with otherwise altered/cut hair when anything romantic happens. It’s a fun manga to read and to, you know, argue about the inherent sexism within (and by ‘argue about the inherent sexism within’ I mean argue with the invisible author who’s only there in my mind) , but not terribly deep or interesting.

EXCEPT… there is one side story towards the end that I thought presented an idea for the reader to mull over—it asked the reader to think. The side story was about a concept called “Ichigo Ichie.” Ichigo Ichie means “One encounter, one opportunity” or “a once in a life time chance.” The main character says that each and every encounter is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Each encounter is unique and can never be replicated. We only have one chance to make a choice regarding each encounter. Anyway, this short story, I thought, was quite beautiful and so in the last volume of Boys Over Flowers, I wrote a note about that concept.

I noticed that someone had reserved Doctor Who, so I quickly wrote a note that complimented the person’s taste and stuck it inside the DVD case. I wasn’t going to do it because I had to dig for a pen and a scrap of paper, but One encounter, one chance. :)

Oh! And I watched Young Frankenstein with my brother!