Soon this will all be behind me.

So I got the news from my university Dean’s office about a week ago, I’ll get my degree early…but the catch is that I will be getting a B.A. in Microbiology with a minor in East Asian Studies and English, instead of the B.S. in Microbiology with a minor in East Asian Studies. Perhaps there is not much of a difference in a B.A. from a BS, but the fact that my degree is going to have Art instead of Science really eats at me. Whether or not that is going to affect my chances for employment remains to be seen but I attach more prestige to the B.S. than the B.A. even if the difference is only going to be two classes. I know that ultimately though I have no one to blame for this other than myself, I transferred with too many credits and took about a quarter’s worth of classes I did not really need that I only took to keep my options open. I had gambled on the idea that the student population would not mushroom the way it did. I already went over the unit cap so it was pretty much a forgone conclusion that they would boot me out with a degree as the Dean’s Office held all the cards and had no incentive to let me petition for excess units once they figured out that went around them the first time and will be 2.5 units over the 225 cap. Certainly if I had been more focused on getting a B.S. I could have gotten it, and the fact that I did better in my minor classes than my major classes did little to help my lost cause. Most of the anger and bitterness has subsided, but in the end I find it mildly irritating all the same.

The Yuri I never saw,

The Muto that I never held,

The bath I never had,

and this University’s lack of Hasegawa speaks for itself. (adapted from an insult to the 1st Cavalry)

I’ll try to keep the bitterness to a minimum but as most of you boys and girls are in college or going to college, don’t make the same mistake I did, plan your course work out like your life depended on it, and try to avoid classes you don’t really need. Also if you are going to transfer do not bet an over achiever in community college and transfer with as many units close to the minimum as you can. I went in with 114 when I only needed 80 right off the bat which they pruned down to 90.5 units. The other issue was that I took a major in which the only interest I had in it was disease causing organisms, the rest did not interest me terribly much and I took it because it seemed more useful and could help me find a job that made decent money. If only it were like Moyashimon in that there was a lab course with instructors like Haruka and Muto, if only… Still it was also around this time when I had my fate handed to me by an enemy that I could not defeat in a civilized non-violent manner that I also finished Fancy Lala. The military teaches you how to roll with punches, but sadly they don’t really teach you how to deal with the bitterness and the anger of defeat.

Remember when you considered your crayon art to be good?

Okay so maybe getting old has some perks.

I am Quattro Bajeena I am looking for a man named Char…Have you seen him?

So before I compare my miserable existence to that of the protagonist of Fancy Lala, the anime was an oldie from 1998 about a girl named Miho who gets the power to magically conjure up clothes she draws and turn into a 15 year old Miho. She starts out as a model and eventually gets to release a single before the magical creatures that granted her mastery over space, time, and matter went on into the next temporal plain. It wasn’t a commercial success but I liked it very much since I like genki never say die characters like Miho, it also helps that she has fantasies that are very similar to Hosaka’s though since Miho predates Hosaka by ten years I think that perhaps Hosaka took a page from Miho-nee when it came to letting his imagination run riot. It’s a good old school anime to watch if you haven’t strangled the child within. Overall it was an experience for Miho that came to an end at which point she was powerless to fully reclaim what she had, though the lesson is probably that she still has time to grow up to be Lala and she needn’t such into it. Funny how kids wish that they could be adults and when they become adults all they want is to be a kid again. I liked it a lot because of the bitter sweet end, Miho, might not see Lala for another six years, but life went on, after her adventure was over life went on there was no need to despair because she still a had a number of years to enjoy being a kid.

Things were so much simpler when I was nine…

Say does that magical pen work backwards?

Whatever happened to see through clothes anyways?

Maybe it was a happy coincidence that I finished Fancy Lala around the same time my plans for the future were rendered moot with one swift stroke from the Dean’s pen in the NO box. Just like how Miho’s stint as Lala ended abruptly and just as she peaked, my college life will soon effectively come to an end and like Miho I will have to figure out what to do from now on. Where as Miho would someday see Lala again on her 15th birthday, I cannot afford to do this college thing over again nor do I have that much time to devote again. Soon I will fully enter the real world instead of residing in the dual existence of college drunkard and GI Joe. Graduating early is both a blessing and a curse it means that I won’t have any civilian employment when I get out, and judging by how dismally everyone else is doing I should be grateful that I have already enlisted and have rank over the new crop of recruits who are signing up now to make ends meet. At this juncture I don’t know what I want to do depending on how the job search thing goes, and as I have mentioned before I can still beg Uncle Sam for a job (which he will surely grant so long as he gets to decide where it is I shall work), just sooner than I had ever intended. One great thing about being shoved out is now the constant pressure of having classes seems to have abated. I hear they call it senioritis and it certainly feels good since I know I can’t alter the fate I was handed. The BA I supposedly get in March (I didn’t file for graduation on time because I did not know I was going to graduate or that IGETC fulfilled the foreign language requirement) represents in many respects a tactical victory in that I am no longer losing money paying tuition, but represents a strategic defeat in that I did not get the degree I wanted. Ah well more time for animu and mango I suppose, I just hope that a B.A. in a science is not totally useless because that would make this a very costly Pyrrhic victory.

Impz is that you?

You’ll see Lala again Miho…

Plus you won’t have to wait the full Ten Years After.

Well in the end I hope you kids learn from this old man’s academic equivalent of Lake Trasimene. Still like Miho I can look off into the setting sun, one chapter of our short existences has closed, we may have tasted bitter defeat, but so long as we have the capacity to endure this glorious struggle is not yet over. I’ll always have Moyashimon to remind me of the lab that never was, and Fancy Lala reminded me that I still have a future. Maybe God is trying to tell me something I have prayed for an end to college and now I got it. I just didn’t expect God to use Fed-ex overnight shipping. So far this year I have been promoted, robbed, and now I am graduating earlier than expected, there is something oddly amusing and mildly miraculous about what has occurred in my ho hum existence in the first part of 2009. Now to pray for Title 10 orders for a billet in Honolulu…I want certainly want Honolulu, but given how God seems to have an odd sense of humor IMHO, I suspect I will get Title 10 orders…to someplace just as sandy but with horrible beaches… I at least have a future being a more active Jolly Green Giant (though more like Disgruntled Tan Dwarf) that gets to stride to the farthest corners of the earth on Uncle Sam’s penny it’s almost like a dream come true.

Still I wonder if every college graduate who got their degree during hard times goes through this. Perhaps there are a few of you who are older than dirt that can attest to Next War-itis What Next-itis?

Skip Beat post later if Impz is still MIA on it.

From the moment the OP played, I knew Moyashimon was going to be something special.

In terms of plot and characters, it doesn’t stand out. Student arrives at new school, makes friends, hijinks ensue. It’s a formula that’s been worked to death, and Moyashimon follows a lot of the usual formula found in this genre. There’s the love interest(s), the wise but strange teacher, the eccentric friends, the coping with change, and so on and so forth. Sawaki’s special ability serves little to no plot purpose. If you’re looking for a unique and gripping story then you’re better off elsewhere.

Moyashimon never quite takes itself seriously; and this is why the show exudes fun from all its pores. From the OP animation to the Bacteria Theatre that ends each episode, the fun never lets off. There are so many moments of utter inappropriateness, from Itsuki’s action hero imitation at the first year lunch to the exploding surstromming at Hasegawa’s dinner, that I couldn’t help but laugh at the way the show is presented. It’s a hoot and laughter is always just right around the corner, and I find it incredibly difficult to stop watching it, because I’m just having so damn much fun.

What’s even more impressive is how it managed to mix in so much serious micro-bacteriology in the midst of it all, without ever seeming dull or uninteresting.

In some ways, Moyashimon feels a lot like Genshiken before Kio Shimoku decided that he’s sick and tired of making fun of otakus and started creating serious drama between his characters. It also feels like Honey and Clover when it’s not being dramatic (think the omakes, or the Twister game), except Moyashimon is always like that. Even when Misato and Kawahama are seriously discussing Kawaki’s problem and how Hasegawa and Itsuki may react to it, the show never forgets to have fun.

Moyashimon ranks right up there are one of my favourite shows of 2007, along with Baccano!, Oh! Edo Rocket and Potemayo. The thing that they all share in common? How much fun I have when I’m watching them. When it comes right down to it, isn’t that the most important thing?