Yandere Kanojo: A review

Yandere Kanojo

Yan – de – re (yawn – dur – ray)
adj.

A person who is initially loving, but then becomes mentally unstable over unforeseen trauma, using violence and / or anger as an outlet for their emotions.  Stems from 'yan', which stands for mental illness and 'dere', which stands for affection.

Yandere Kanojo isn't quite accurate, if you're trying to describe the main lead.  She's more like a tsundere rather than a yandere…unless she's planning to lash out and kill the main guy at the end (which I hope she doesn't). 

Ryuuzaki Reina is your typical high school thug.  She's a leader of a gang of female delinquents, and touts an equally fearsome exterior.  One day she meets Tanaka Manabu, and the pair instantly fall in love with each other.  Unfortunately for Manabu, she can't fathom anyone finding out that she's a young maiden at heart, so they have to keep their relationship hidden.

This manga started back in 2009 and is currently on-going.  It's a 4koma gag manga in the style of Lucky Star, Azumanga Daioh, and K-ON!, and is probably my current favorite guilty pleasure.  There's so many quirky hijinx the two star-crossed lovers fall into, that I can foresee this manga running for a very long time — which I'm equally happy to admit!

By far the most interesting character of the bunch is Manabu's younger sister Mayami.  Never before have I seen a girl with such an extreme fetish!  Mayami's an 'm' or masochist, which means that she extremely enjoys being verbally or physically abused — which Reina has no problems obliging.  Anytime she pops up, there's only trouble (and lots of laughter) that ensues!

Kinda reminds me of Kanbaru in a more ecchi sort of way.

There's only a few chapters out there.  Hopefully someone will pick it up and continue the translations, as this is one story that'll keep you wanting more.  If you're in for a quick read for something light and extremely humorous, check out Yandere Kanojo!

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Epilogue

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I have a few thoughts on my mind, now that Iowa's behind me. 

The Melty Blood tournament never took off, sadly.  And if I were to point a finger as to who's fault it was, it would be to a man known as "Syxx" from Wisconsin.  In retrospect it wasn't entirely his fault; it possibly could've been due to the lack of interest to begin with (forum posts withstanding).  Maybe that's why he didn't show up.

I searched in vain for Syxx.  One person told me he was confident he was there, another said he was passed out in his hotel room with a hangover, and yet another said he didn't even come in the same car.  Naturally, I was confused.  His appearance was even more confusing.  Everyone told me he was a skinny, tall white guy with a double chin.  "If he looks like a pedophile, that's probably him," another person said. 

Who the hell is this guy?

Sigh.  I had prepared a lot of time in advance of this tournament, so the whole ordeal was a let down.  Tyson and Billy did a bang up job of trying to hunt Syxx down and informing me every step of the way, asking me if I still wanted to run a tournament despite having three entrants.  It was a hard decision, but embarassingly I stepped down and said it's best to just cancel it.  Three people aren't enough to run anything worthwhile.

Appreciation

I pinned my hopes on this tournament. 

"This will be the one that will get me ready for EVO," I thought to myself.  "This is the one that will finally give me the experience I need that will give me some kind of clue to the competition I will eventually face, three months from now." 

And it almost didn't happen.

Luckily there were a few people around who wanted to play.  NappyJin, for instance.  He was extremely talented.  If not for him, I would never have really known how well I would've done against high level players.  Needless to say, I learned a lot and am extremely grateful for the opportunity.

This was a guy who knew how to rush down.  He knew combos, air footsies, whiff cancels. He knew a lot about the game that most of the people I play with back home don't quite know about.  He knew how to play a variety of characters, opening my eyes to things I've only experienced through youtube (lol).  In short, he was the ideal test subject.

And the results were better than I had hoped.  Somehow, despite my nervousness and clumsiness, I managed to hold my own against him.  I was able to test a lot of things I've been saving up, and was rewarded with good results.  It gave me more hope in a future at EVO.

Reconciliation

At the moment I don't have any desire to play against the local players here — mostly for petty reasons.  Playing against someone of that calibur made me eager to play even more people that I've never met, influencing my decision to head to another major tournament: Midwest Championships.  To be honest, part of me wants to go up there and confront Syxx.  But I'm not going to get any satisfaction out of that.

I did promise NappyJin I'd be his partner up there if they did a team tournament.  I don't even know why I said that.  Hell I didn't even know if they are going to have a team tournament — it might just been the alcohol taking over my senses at that point.  But I want to go now, despite my current woeful financial situation potentially hindering me from another long distance trip.

But something's gotta give.  Chicago is a far-off destination, I know.  It's going to be a bit expensive — I might not even be able to afford going to EVO if I take on this endeavor.  But I want to go.

I want to win.

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Extravaganza 14 picture spam

The two people who started it all: Sushi (on the left) and Kingfan (on the right)

It's been over nine years since I've last seen these two.  Nine!  So long that, as a matter of fact on Saturday morning (a few hours before the tournament started) whilst walking around taking random pictures of the hotel lobby, I noticed a tall white dude in sweats zip past me.  I only caught a small glimpse of the guy before he started to turn the corner, and then without even thinking I yelled out, "Tyson!" 

The big tall guy immediately stopped midstride, turned around slowly, and gave me the most confused, puzzled look ever.  "Peter?!" he yelled. 

What a weird way to bump into someone after nine years, I chuckled later.

But Tyson was cool about it.  A little hungover, but extremely gracious.  We had a nice chat about random stuff until he had to run off again, but I'll never forget the look on his face that day (lol).  It certainly set the mood for the rest of the night!  (By the way when I met Steph again it was much more normal, heh heh.)

I took a lot of pictures of the whole event.  Click on the images for more info! Enjoy!

This is the hallway where I bumped into Tyson…

It looks like something out of Resident Evil or something!

The venue floor.

Slips (on the left) taught me a lot back in the day. He beat two perfects out of me later.

The Mandarin came ALL THE WAY FROM BOSTON.

Reggie Forty-Hands (lol)

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