Day 2: JoJo's Bizarre Adventures (After I am caught, touch turns into fisticuffs)

Half the name sake of this blog comes from my favorite manga since my teenage years.  The story goes from stopping an undead vampire (with the ability to stop time for roughly 8 seconds) in Egypt to uncovering the identity of a mass murderer (with the ability to automatically reset time whenever he's found) in a sleepy suburban town of Japan to taking over the Italian mafia and becoming a gangster superstar so drugs are kept off the streets and justice is served.  Then of course the story goes to a prison break in Florida where a priest needs to complete a ritual involving the absorption of vampire bones and gain the ability to control the gravitational forces of the earth, moon, and possibly the universe so that time is sped up to a vanishing point where everything repeats itself anew albeit with replacements chosen to the priest's liking.  Lately, the manga is centered on a cross continent race across the United States, circa 1890, where runners and horse riders uncover a conspiracy to reassemble the body of Christ so that a new world leader can be found.

Um.

Yeah.

I'll take whatever Araki-san is smoking, thanks.  And may he never stop creating.

"Don't need...ecstatic 「joy」..."
"Or abyssal 「despair」..."
"A life like a 「plant」..."
"That type of 「calm lifestyle」 was exactly my goal..."
- Yoshikage Kira, Part IV: Diamond is Unbreakable



"Underneath the corset of your mystery
Piece by piece undress you from your history
I'm sleeping with seclusion in sweet disarray"

- Heavy, Holly Brook

Day 1: Vagabond (Free Translation)

"If you're mesmerized by a leaf, you can't see the tree.  If you're mesmerized by the tree, you can't see the forest.  Don't leave your heart anywhere and suddenly, you will see everything."

"When there is conflict, a demon holds its breath and gazes soundlessly.  Attaches to the heart, devours, consumes.  It doesn't make a move, but stubbornly, continuously, gazes from the darkness.  Until the weak surrenders into the dark."

"Our paths have already been completely laid out.  So, we're absolutely free."

-Vagabond, Takehiko Inoue

Seen it all before, a self dedication

Whether you're a square or a circle, learn to coexist smoothly.  Conflicts that aren't resolved lead to a mask of rage parasitically growing on you.  Before you know it, the mask becomes much too easy to put on and you start to wear it as naturally as your face.  All the good intentions in the world can't be seen or felt behind this mask.  Words come out differently.  Barbed, and sharper each time.  So sharp that it even hurts yourself before it leaves your mouth.  But the mask spews the words out anyway.

Until something has to give.

And you go your separate ways, but these holes never heal properly.  And the mask, it lurks and waits.