I am yet to watch an anime series that is just as sweet (Or sweeter) as Cardcaptor Sakura, especially through the way the series ended. The 3rd season is amazingly emotional in this cute, innocent and special way. I never thought I’d ever give a chance to romantic series, but this one is special, there’s something different about it that I can’t grasp, but it’s there and anybody can notice it.

The series switches focus from Clow Reed (Powerful magician) to Sakura. We follow the story of Sakura trying to discover her own powers, and discovering the power within her, the power of her star, and that’s basically what she uses to defeat the evil forces this time. But there’s a twist. This time, the key to the book of the Clow has changed its form, and therefore, Sakura has to change the cards as well. Transforming the cards from Clow cards to Sakura cards is really exhausting, and can create lots of trouble for her in her life because she needs to rest a lot after each transformation. This season, it’s all about discovering your own powers and learning from your mistakes. Along with the warm feeling of love that only Cardcaptor Sakura can bring to us. Through this new adventure in her life, Sakura and her friends meet many new characters and a few go through transformations into completely different ones:

•  Kerberos: Kero transformed into his true form after Sakura collected each one of the Clow cards and before she turned them into Sakura cards. His personality changes a little, though. He seems a lot more affectionate and kind, less selfish and angry. Kerberos looks like a tiger with angel wings.
• Yue: Yue is Yukito’s true form. Yukito is a fake identity to the protector of the Clow cards, Yue. They also have completely different personalities. Yukito is kind and friendly, while Yue can be cold, but he will do anything to protect the current owner of the cards, Sakura. Yue also looks like an angel.
• Eriol: He seems to have Clow’s presence around him. He is the causer of all the chaos that Sakura has to avoid this season. Later on, he confesses that he is the reincarnation of Clow and that he needed Sakura to turn every card into Sakura cards, or else they would become average, powerless cards, so that’s why he challenged her so many times.
• Spinarel: Just like Kero, he is a little plushie-like creature, but looks more like a cat with little wings. He is kero’s counterpart and while Kero likes playing videogames, he likes to read. He can become a really powerful panther-like creature with big, butterfly-like wings.
• Naruku/Ruby moon: Yue’s counterpart. As a human, (Nakuru) she seems to have a crush on Touya (Sakura’s brother) and is really affectionate towards him. She’s really cute and is always friendly. As Ruby moon, she seems more serious and powerful, she takes the form of a lady with large, pink butterfly wings.

This season, there were moments where you felt the feelings of the characters and I really loved that. These were the most marking moments for me: [Spoilers]

• Heartbreak: When Shaoran told Meilin (His cousin and ex-girlfriend [Even if only she thought it]) that he loved Sakura, she walked away from their house in Japan and ran to Tomoyo’s house and cried on her lap and let it all out. It was really sad, but I loved that scene.
• Sacrifice: In the last battle, (Against Eriol) Sakura had to convert two last cards that would win the battle for her, but she wasn’t strong enough. When Eriol told her that she needed to sacrifice Yue and Kerberos to convert the cards, (They would return if she had enough power and succeeded) she ran to Kerberos and hugged him and cried saying she didn’t want to take the risk.
• Distance: When Sakura listens from Tomoyo that Shaoran is leaving for Hong Kong and he never told either of them. She becomes silent and hangs up the phone. Then she tries to figure out what she really feels for him after he told her he loved her.
• The Bear Factor: Some time before Meilin left for Hong Kong, many girls were interested in making stuffed animals and giving them to whom they had a crush on. Sakura went with Tomoyo and Shaoran to the store and bought herself a kit. But she didn’t know that Shaoran had bought one as well. While she gave hers to Yukito, Shaoran saved his to give it to Sakura, but he never did, until when he was leaving Japan.

The ending of the series was really beautiful and full of emotions. It’s an ending that leaves you thinking, and yet, satisfies your craving to discover what happens between Shaoran and Sakura. Here is the complete last episode! I hope you enjoy!

The Tanabata Matsuri is a festival that celebrates the love between a princess and a peasant of her kingdom. The father of the princess did not respect the relationship, for it was all about love and they forgot to work. He got really mad and separated both of them, he put each of them in each side of the sky, separated by the milky way, and in Japanese beliefs, they encounter once a year, and that’s on the 7th day of the 7th month.

I got really excited last year when I saw one of my favorite television program hosts (Daniele Suzuki) go to the festival and show us a little about it. She went around looking at the various presentations, we saw what kinds of food they had there and a lot of the beauty in the traditional decorations set around the area of Liberdade.

This year I really wanted to go there, for it’s the neighborhood with the most concentration of Japanese citizens in Brazil, and that’s what Liberdade is known the most for. My mother and I really planned this trip, it’s too bad that I wasn’t able to contact a few of my friends and that the rest of them were traveling, since it would have been fantastic to share this experience with them. At first, it was planned that way, we were bringing some friends, but then we decided to go by ourselves, just as a family.

I woke up at 6:00 a.m. to get there in time (10:00 a.m.), since São Paulo is 1-2 hours away from Campinas

The exotic, yet urban view of Liberdade

(Where I live). Everyone was very cooperative, and the first thing we saw that indicated we were getting close to our destination was the exotic, and yet urban style of the area. It was really cute to look at the contrast between Liberdade and the surrounding areas.

We knew we were getting somewhere, then we saw the beautiful fair, with colorful

Entrance of the festival

traditional decorations, flags, tents everything all set up and waiting for the noisy crowd to arrive. We were lucky we got there just when it began, since later on, it’d be impossible to move around with so many people in one place.

We got there and we looked at all the scented foods and feasted on the beautiful decorations, for we knew people worked hard to create all these colorful hand-made balloons that so beautifully completed the Japanese atmosphere of the fair,

Beautiful hand-crafted balloons

A bamboo with a few wishes hanging from it

and even though we were really busy eating delicious foods, we all knew that my mother was looking for the tent where we purchase little strips of paper to write a wish on and then hang on a bamboo tree. This happens because each piece of paper has a color representing a theme (Yellow: money, Blue: holy protection, Pink: love, and so on), and you write your wish on the appropriate piece of paper and hang on a bamboo tree so later it’ll be burned and brought to the princess and the peasant to make it come true. They will only be able to meet again next year if they make every wish come true. My mom decided to pick the red (Passion) and blue (Holy protection) wish-paper and I picked the yellow one (money), my sister picked up a green one for peace. very happily, we wrote what we wanted on the little scrolls

Our wishes and a few others

and hung them on a bamboo tree next to a tent.

We went on, looking at the fair and my mom was having a blast. She bought lots of things for her and she loved the friendly Japanese ladies at the tents (Brazil is the second most Japanese-populated area other than Japan [Which is number 1]) and she was having a really good time. I was too, of course. The stores all had really adorable things, and I bought myself a pair of wood sandals to walk around at home. They’re really comfy. We passed by a manga shop and later on, met up with my dad that was at a meeting. We had lunch in a Chinese restaurant and we left.

It’s too bad I didn’t get to see the wonderful Japanese presentations of fan-dancing or popular culture presentations. We got to see a Cosplayer, though, and it was an amazing trip. My mom can’t stop telling me how much she loved it! I’m so happy everyone loved it so much! We’re surely returning next year!

I also found out where to order an original Portuguese Cardcaptor Sakura manga. Even though it’s from somebody else, it’s in excellent conditions and I hope I win the auction since it’s really rare.

For a while now I have been downloading and watching the Portuguese version of the Cardcaptor Sakura series, and I have already gone through the first 46 episodes of the anime, this means I have watched every episode of the first 2 seasons.

• Touya: Touya is Sakura’s older brother and is always teasing her and making fun of her, but deep

  

  The Characters of Cardcaptor Sakura

  inside, he loves her really much and really cares for her. He can see spirits and feel supernatural things, and that’s what caused Sakura to be so scared of ghosts.

• Yukito: Sakura has a huge crush on Yukito, and so does Shaoran. Yukito is really unpredictable and is Sakura’s brother’s best friend. He is really sweet to everyone, and maybe that’s why he has such a big fan list. Later on, it’s discovered that he isn’t real, he is Yue, another guardian of the book that Sakura had opened.
• Tomoyo: Sakura has been friends with Tomoyo long before when the story begins. Tomoyo is Sakura’s #1 fan and loves to videotape anything that happens to Sakura, especially when Sakura is collecting the Clow Cards. Tomoyo is also Sakura’s cousin, and is always loyal to her and never loses her faith in Sakura. She also loves to design and make clothes for Sakura to wear during her adventures!
• Kero: The guardian of the cards. He looks like a little stuffed animal and loves to eat and play video games. He and Sakura are a great team to stop the Clow Cards! He loves to show off and believes that he can do anything and that he is the best.
• Shaoran: In the beginning, he was Sakura’s rival. Shaoran came from Hong Kong just to retrieve the Clow Cards that Sakura released. In the beginning, he was pretty much an enemy to Sakura, questioning her powers and bringing her down. But later on, they become really good friends and collect the cards as a team. Shaoran also has a hard time expressing what he feels and can seem really cold most of the time.
• Meilin: Meilin came from Hong Kong some time after Shaoran and is his cousin. She loves Shaoran and always introduces herself as his girlfriend. She also feels like Shaoran doesn’t feel for her the same thing she feel for him. She’s really loud and extreme, but always fun and egocentric, which makes her one of the most fun characters.

Cardcaptor Sakura is one of these series that can be changed around in one episode, and then you have to fit all the puzzle pieces together and think “Right! How haven’t I noticed this before?!” Which is one of the reasons for the show having such a big number of fans. The soundtrack is irresistible and all the characters are really bubbly and cute, the anime is perfect for all genders and ages.

The show can also be really mysterious at times as well, for not much is explained. Many people suspect that Touya and Yukito share more than friendship towards each other and that Shaoran’s crush on Yukito might also hint something else. It’s really fun seeing how these hints are all put together and to notice how you were completely oblivious to that when you were a kid, so, with these subtle hints of more grown-up themes (That shouldn’t be labeled as such), it makes it appropriate for all ages.

It’s too bad that the Brazilian versions of the manga are in really limited stock, and the first manga might even be over, for I would love to have the collection in Portuguese as well.

As you watch, you feel like you are watching the characters grow and you watch them experience new things and it’s really fun to see what happens to them during these situations!

All the elements that make Cardcaptor Sakura so original are meant for everyone to watch and I hope if you get the chance to check out the Anime, you do! For it’s a completely different Anime full of wonderful characters and settings and an involving story-line!

Time. Life. Death. These are things I cannot understand at all. Religion doesn’t help, science is incomplete everything else is useless… I don’t have a philosophy of how death is, be it if we’re going to live in never-ending darkness, feel our decomposing bodies be eaten by vermin, go to heaven or re-incarnated, I don’t know, and it freaks me out, since I don’t know if I should live my life like I want to, or if I should worry about my sins, since I don’t want to go to the bad side of the other side (If there is one, of course).

It’s really odd how time can be so slow and yet so quick… I feel like it was yesterday that I was being dragged out of the 1st grade A class because I was actually from 1st grade B and my teacher seem like she was mad, and here I am today, moving on to high school. I miss the days that I so eagerly wanted to pass and the days that I wished that I’d graduate and just move on, out of school turned into days I wish I would never leave, since I don’t know what awaits me.

This summer vacation, I spent a lot of time in the past. I took out old video games and downloaded old television series from when I was younger and I’m having a blast watching playing the games that I loved so much through elementary. I’m watching Cardcaptor Sakura all over again in Portuguese to better captivate the essence of time (Since I used to watch it in Portuguese before), and I forgot how much I loved it! I had some of the manga, even though I never read it, and it’s so good to return to the time when I was in elementary through the series.

I also have a list of songs that marked a part of my life that whenever I listen to that song, I remember how sad or how happy I was at the moment. I wish this will never go away. Some of these songs are:

As Horas (Marjorie Estiano) : Happy times when my sister bought Marjorie’s album and we’d listen to this song in recommendation of the lady that worked at our house and we’d bring the radio to the kitchen to listen to the song with her and she’d talk about the soap opera that the song was from.

BLUE (Utada Hikaru) : Last summer vacation, When my family and I were returning to Miami, I was roaming through a few song of Hikki’s and getting to become more familiarized with her music, and I came across BLUE. The whole trip was by car, and I fell asleep listening to it. When we got to Miami, I woke up and loved the song. It became kind of an anthem of Miami for me!

RAINBOW (Ayumi Hamasaki) : I was sleeping in the car listening to this song when my neighbor came crying to my sister and I and she told us about our dead cat. This song still has the depressing essence of death to me.

Nichiyou No Asa (Utada Hikaru) : This song reminds me of the beginning of my friendship with Cary and Sofy together and I used to listen to this song all the time with Sofy while we shared my iPod’s earphone. It was during the beginning of 7th grade and I remember that time with so much joy!

These are only 4 of the infinite songs that I have in my head reminding of moments that I was so emotional about. I love it when this happens, for I can keep the memory alive whenever I listen to the songs. This may not always be so positive, but through a certain moments, I can remember more moments. That’s why time is so strange to me. I don’t understand it, and yet, sometimes I do.

I’d like to add a video to this post that reminds me of the beginning of this year, back in August, when I wasn’t expecting so many changes in only one year. I love the song, and I love the moments it reminds me of. The name of the song is Sangurasu and it’s by Utada Hikaru. Enjoy!

These days I have been really into Ayuu’s work. It’s not my style, to be honest, sometimes it might be a little too much rock for me, but if I listen to the same song twice, I completely become addicted. This is what happened to Mirrorcle World, a song that served as an interlude (Or introduction) to Ayuu’s latest album, GUILTY. What usually happens to these interludes that are as good as average-sized songs is that they’re turned into average-sized songs. We see this happen with Utada Hikaru (言葉にならない気持ち), Koda Kumi (Get It On, Black Cherry) and Ayumi Hamasaki.

I decided to listen to Mirrorcle World a few days ago, but I wasn’t a great fan of the song at first, but the PV was beautiful. Today, I woke up with the beginning of the song stuck in my head, and I was surprised that I liked the song that was ringing in my head for so long. I decided to download the album and get a better listen. The song suddenly became one of the best I’ve ever heard. The whole single, actually, with remixed tracks celebrating her 10th anniversary. I love how the tracks (Except for Life (Original Mix) may not be the kind of music I usually listen to, but I still loved the single and can’t stop listening to it. It’s a great release by Ayuu!

As a glimpse of her masterpiece, here is the beautiful video of Mirrorcle World. Shot in Paris. Enjoy!

Now it’s 0:15 a.m. here in Brazil and I have just returned from my graduation celebration at school, followed by my own celebration (Dinner at “Outback,” even though I was completely unaware of dinner). The people in my class all were beautiful and everyone was radiant. My family and I were talking about how I was one of the only boys that actually looked as charming as the radiant girls in our class because I actually dressed up properly for the occasion. The girls in my class had fabulous gowns and dress on, there was not one single girl that looked less than perfect. It’s true that our class looked really beautiful as a whole, but the performance could’ve been considered funny!

Because my name is Alvaro, I was first in line in alphabetical order. I was the one that had to memorize everything without anyone showing it to me before, and that put a lot of pressure over me, but I managed, I planned on using my charisma to get out of awkward situations and that’s what I did a few times through the night. The strut to the stage was funny because while some people were radiant, others were hunchback and a girl even lost her shoe while she walked. But these were all cute mistakes. Some of us forgot words to the Brazilian national anthem and there was always a stanza that we never knew of, so the people would just mumble and I laughed at the lack of attention.

During the many speeches through the night, I felt really entertained by the thoughtfulness of parents, students and teachers. I then looked at the audience and found the cute little sister of one of my closest friends. She was being really cute and I looked at her for so long and smiling at her cuteness and mischief that I forgot the case of the diploma that I was holding and dropped it on the stage, it made a really loud noise and everyone looked at me, but I picked it up and smiled up to everyone, so it was wasn’t that bad!

At the end, I felt I was going to cry as I apologized to the teachers that I love so much. Tooms was being so sweet, she brought this bag full of little bookmarks all printed professionally and laminated with a cute little message by her for us. She was freezing cold and shaking so very much, but she kept on with her plan and looked for every single student and handed out their little gift! It was really thoughtful and sweet of her! Baby C showed herself to be really excited for us and in the middle of the principal’s speech, he talked about how the teachers seated at the back were really proud of us, and we all look up, naturally, to find a cute little Baby C hand waving at us all glowing with happiness. Everyone giggled and laughed. When I gave them that last little goodbye hug, I felt like the world was going to break apart and I thought about how many lasts that hug represented. While Baby C gave us each an idividual hug, Tooms ended the night with a group hug!

To complete the mood of heartbreak, I was saying goodbye to Sofy because she’s leaving our school and moving to a Brazilian one. She began crying and told me “I’m going to get your suit wet.” I felt really bad, since we’ll never have any group projects together anymore and nothing else of that genre. I’m going to miss Boby a lot for this year that we’ll be apart, and every second in class will mean a second imagining if she was there with us. The most special people are leaving this year and I’m going to miss everyone so much! I just hope that our relationship remains the same and that we see each other frequently!

The rest of the night was a pleasant dinner at “Outback” with my brother, my two sisters, my father and my mother. We had a great time together and it was a fun graduation day filled with great moments!

I like how Ayumi Hamasaki celebrates important dates of her career and not only her anniversary. She celebrates her debut album’s release date (January 1st) with many releases and even concerts, these concerts, that last from December 30th to January 1st are her countdown concerts! She also releases her Best albums on January the 1st as a celebration of her debut album. I think this is really interesting, for it proves that she’s making a career that she wants to make perfect and that she really enjoys working for what she works for! Her latest countdown tour DVD was aired on national television (In Japan) and it’s already available for pre-order on YesAsia. I downloaded the torrent of the concert and it’s pretty amazing! I thought the countdown would happen at the end of the concert, but it was in the middle of my favorite song by her (RAINBOW) just when it was about to change the rhythm. When the countdown was over, the song continued with an explosion of confetti and the concert continued for one more hour. I think the concept is really original and it mixes the emotions of listening to one of your favorite singer with the feeling of a new year, of new challenges and seeing the excitement of others in the audience, living this with you must make things even better!

I really liked the song choice. Even though Ayu sticks a lot to her older songs and adds in a couple of her latest ones, it’s still a great show. I liked performances of songs such as talkin’ 2 myself, STEP you, RAINBOW, Boys & Girls, and glitter. There is even the beautiful performance of one of these dancers that dance with long strands of cloth hanging from the roof as an interlude.

Since the day I began listen to Ayu, I kept asking myself “How does she sound live? Does she sound the same way? But her voice is so different and hard to imagine” and her voice is even better live! At the beginning of the concert, her voice is really smooth, and I don’t understand why, since she was dancing and spinning and it was still unbelievable. Throughout the concert, her emotions get the best of her, and even though she might have gotten off tune sometimes, it was because she was unleashing her energy to the audience, and I love singers who do that! (Koda Kumi and Utada Hikaru do that as well) At the end, she begins to cry and it’s so sad! I felt like hugging her. She was singing while she cried, so it made it clearer, especially when she wiped off her tears. It’s really an amazing concert, and I hope that you get to watch it! It’s beautiful, it’s exciting and just awesome!

Download (Torrent)

When I was growing up (Before I was around 6) I was exposed to a lot of Brazilian culture, and I believe that if I wasn’t placed in an American school here in Brazil, I would grow to become one of the most Brazilian people in the world. Now, unlike everyone else, I don’t listen much to Brazilian music because I dislike it. Although, there are some exceptions.

In the ’90s, I was a great fan of a singer/actress named Angélica Ksyvickis (Or just Angélica, as she mostly known) and she was really famous at the time. I followed all her movies and as a matter of fact, 

the first album I ever bought in my whole album was hers! The name of the album is Angélica - 1997. It’s a really good album and I love listening to it and reminiscing on my childhood and the good times I had in the ’90s! (Even though I was too young to notice, it was the best decade!) Angélica - 1997 has a really strong ’90s vibe and that’s what I love the most about it. Too bad it’s hard to find it now, since my copy got lost, I really miss it!

Her latest album was released in 2002 because she left her singing career aside to take care of her family (She has two boys now!) and of her career as a television host. I sure miss her singing and she’s really beautiful as well. She’s definitely my favorite Brazilian singer even though some songs of hers can be just a little childish, (She used to host a children’s show) I’m always going to love her!

Another singer that I’m really beginning to like after some time is Marjorie Estiano. She started to get some success in 2004 when she became part of a really famous soap opera here in Brazil called Malhação, but since the soap opera was more teen-oriented, she recorded a more pop/rock style of music to add to the soundtrack, and it didn’t fit her. Now that she left that part of her career behind, she chose a more fun and light style that really pleased me when I heard it for the first time! Her sophomore album is really good. There are a few really good ones in her first album, but others that aren’t that much.

She’s winning a lot of popularity with soap operas now because of her cuteness and flexibility in roles and this only contributes for her record sales! For help with her sophomore album, she used Rita Lee’s (Legendary Brazilian singer) help with the lyrics and melody! It turned out really good!

Thursday and Friday were two great days, but they only reminded me of how near the end of the school year actually is and how sad this week will be because so many people are leaving and because of so many things that we’ll never have and that were so great from 7th through 8th grade.

Thursday was a great day because the awards ceremony at school prized the best students in your class and these were Cary, Sofy, Laura, Pam and Silvia! Congratulations to them for winning so many valuable awards! They work hard and they deserve it very much! Shakespeare Club’s last day was also Thursday and we’re never going to be able to have any other Shakespeare Club because Baby C will be leaving for New York and that’ll cause such an awful impact in my life. Even if we were to have Shakespeare, Sofy wouldn’t be there either and that’ll break my heart because Cary, Sofy and I are soulmates and breaking us three up will take a really miserably and depressing long time to adjust, but I’ll never accept it and whenever I have some free time, I’m surely going to schedule a get-together!

The party thrown for Shakespeare Club was really neat, it was like a banquet and most of the people decided to join some money to get a gift for Baby C and I was the one who bought the gifts, I felt like crying when I gave it to her, it was a pretty painful moment, our last Shakespeare Club… The last time we’ll be giving her anything and the last time we’ll have to hang out at Thursdays afternoon with such a special teacher! Great music, great food and great friends! Perfect party.

Other than all these wonderful things, I also discovered (Luckily, since there were no commercials about it) that America’s Next Top Model is back in Brazil and not the completely fake Brazilian version of it! It’s really behind (8th season) but at least we have it again! I really missed because Tyra is so much better and more original than Fernanda Motta (Prettier and more funny as well!). I’m never missing an episode (Even though I know who will win)

Friday was a really positive day and we were happy the whole time, it was really contagious and it was a great day to hang around with the people I love! It was also our last friday as an official school day, I sure hope this firday comes fast because I want to get the final exams over with!

These two days were a great ending of a week so full of ‘lasts.’

Today, when I was at school and looking at a few things in the internet, I noticed how it’s been so long since I heard about Kuu, so I went to her official website and I noticed that I actually missed on quite a lot! I was pleasently surprised when I came across a preview of her new PVs (Promotional Videos), and one that includes Fergie, even. Her music videos are really good, but I have to say that her song with Fergie was too centered on Fergie, and really, Koda Kumi is so much prettier and so much of a better singer than Fergie, but the song is still good, and the single is awesome. I especially like Lady Go! and Moon Crying  they’re my favorites and awesome tracks!