Masato-sama is playing a psychiatrist this spring season...
...but it was so bad I barely survived Ep 1... T_T
stereotypical stuff: meek and mild genius shrink + modern day saviour + martyr who does all kinds of psychotherapy in a sticky touchy feely way (incl. CBT DBT psychoanalysis EMDR just to name a few lol) in a department that otherwise only prescribes happy pills. There was this one imaginary scene in which he acted Jesus-like, happily shepherding different colours of sheep fluff balls on green pastures... -_-|||| *vomit bag*
brainless regressed characterisation aside i must say I always found something quite perverse about Masato-sama's meek and mild smile when it is only meant to be meek and mild. XD he's prob one of my fav jap actors, who has this amazing ability to do really explosive long monologues... eg. narcissistic verbose Komikado-sensei~ XD
but i always thought there is something even more...
that there is a certain mad streak in him...
his Okita Souji from When the Last Sword is Drawn has been my favourite in years out of all the various okita depictions. the scene where okita realised his days were numbered i've watched at least 10 times... even before this fan video was made... *faint* (btw Sato Koichi was not perfect as Saitou-san here but he did get Saitou's murderous streak right XD)
my other favourite was eccentric misunderstood ED physician Hayami-sensei from The Triumphant Return of Shogun Rouge... the bit where he gave this anti-psychiatry rant in front of some professional conduct board... loved it~ and the bit where he put lipstick on as a way to prepare himself for war with a severely under-resourced ED packed with patients... *faint some more*
never mind... i guess these days people much more prefer to watch him just being meek and mild then... :(
my viral prodrome turned out not to be psychosomatic after all. I spent the week having intermittent sick leaves, eating jelly, abusing cold and flu tablets, watching Gintama and thinking about life...
....
....-_-|||||
The fact that in recent years I often get a dysthymia post trip back from my hometown is probably no news to anyone. apart from apparent factors such as the lack of facebook and blogspot and gmail and all sorts of other good stuff... there were probably much deeper and scarier issues...
...that after some time spent at where i came from i often felt like i was psychologically and spiritually back to square one...
that what was relevant to life was all karma and not at all God and grace and love...
despite more deliberate vigorous devotion time when I was there...
I think i used to be much better at insightlessly and conveniently merging all my beliefs into one hence never really seeing much of a problem.
but it's getting harder to fool myself these days, or maybe I am just becoming more compulsive.
Crying wolf
Alice has been trying to set up her own business for a while and recently told me she had an unpleasant business exchange with my old GP in an attempt to rent his clinic after he retired.
apparently he was really difficult to deal with and not happy for his clinic to be modified in any way including aircon and disabled toilets. (...i suspect a bit racist too probably thinking asians know nothing about architecture and will end up wrecking his beautiful clinic LOL)
but I was joyous and almost in tears. (sorry alice)
He's not dead!
anyways last year GP first left a phone message that he's gone for a knee surgery but planned to return to work but after a while the phone message was gone and after another little while a notice was put up at the clinic that he's now retired.
I think in my mind when I first heard the message I already interpreted "knee surgery" as a euphemism for terminal Ca or terminal organ failure or terminal late onset motor neuron disease or terminal whatever else...
and then interpreted "retirement" as a euphemism of him being dead... or if not dead, dying.
to be fair GP was getting on in years and he used to always forget what speciality I've chosen, ask me every time and scrunch up his already very scrunched up face every time in an exaggerated grimace when i told him i was doing psychiatry.
and i sniffled a little for quite some time last year, every time remembering his psychiatry-related grimace--
thinking he's already dead. T_T
and those friends whom i've misinformed about my GP of 15 years dying or dead or "retired in a bad way" and pressured into offering sympathy...
sorry guys I've cried wolf. (and this is clearly not the first time i was delusional like this about death and dying related issues -_-|||)
its comforting though, that now my last memory or imagination of my GP could be that he's indeed well and happily retired with many more years of longevity ahead of him--
along with the space and energy and mental capacity being difficult doing business with asians so that his beautiful clinic doesn't get wrecked with aircon and disabled toilets.
i thank God for every such moment, when my morbid delusions can get reality challenged like this.
It would be nice to eat jelly even when you are just psychosomatic
I've always been a bit self-conscious about watching anime over the years putting them almost in the same category as jelly/congee/soup--
things that are nice and slimy and effortless which I save for when i am sick and regressed.
but now i am slowly begin to think... these kinds of sustenance is actually still very important, not just when i am physically sick but for emotional unwellness management + prophylaxis too~
Hence time to follow Gintama season 4, coming soon on 8th of April.
Biblical nudity... and why the Easter story is very similar to a Gintama story (or vice versa)
(...am I running the risk of blaspheming?....hmmm...)
Mark 14:51-52A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him,he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.
celebrating Easter in the midst of Gintama marathon has probably made me flippant. I just couldn't stop laughing at gloomy solemn chapters of the gospel, especially above verses. I can almost picture it as a scene from Gintama, nameless young man fleeing naked played by regular offenders (eg. Madao, Isao Kondo etc). XD
in some ways the unfolding of events on the night before Jesus's crucification really had some brainless senseless Gintama flavour to it. -disciples who kept dozing off during some critical situation just like the Yorozuya trio who kept on falling asleep even when they were teleported to an alternate space -Peter's denial as silly as Kagura denying stealing food in the same breath as she munches away on her mouthful of mush/chocolate/whatever... -soldiers bashing Jesus up and telling him to prophesize who bashed him... I can just imagine Shinsengumi (esp Okita) doing it to Katsura if they ever get hold of him... (the last comparison is a bit disturbing... @.@ I think i will stop.)
end of the day, I want to understand why is Gintama so comforting, despite its lack of convincing heros and noble deeds, and instead, endless random simplistic plot, vulgar humour and toilet jokes? and why do I look forward to each new season with such positivity? -I KNOW that no character I got to know over the years really dies from this series. Main characters, villains, "others"--pet and robots included. No matter what misfortune befalls someone during one episode, i know without a second thought that the person will be well and alive in the next episode, without a physical or mental scar. -people can be frankly human and flawed and embarrassing - picking noses, forcefully picking other people's noses, getting lazy about housework, being rude, fighting for food, bashing each other up, not paying rent, running away in cowardice from danger(naked sometimes), and yet at the end of an episode, all is well and something would have worked out and something shined.
I am not sure how much of what's good about Gintama can be echoed in the Easter story... ...that Jesus suffered a very miserable ordeal and died in humiliation but was promptly resurrected and had a victorious comeback, and because of this nothing was really lost or hurt or damaged from very ridiculous embarassing human behaviours including young man fleeing naked from the scene... ...that what made this story work out and shine in the end had very little to do with the very embarrassing actual players and how chaotic and vulgar and dark everything got on the scene, but someone bigger and greater than all this happening, just managed to make everything all right. ...that none of the evil, toxicity, stupidity, sadness and despair on that terrible night, was final.
and we know everything's going to be all right. We know none of this terrible stuff was final.
I've been musing whether one day I can approach my faith with the same confidence as how I approach a Gintama story. ...feeling rest assured that everything's going to be all right at the end of the tunnel, not at some immense effort or terrible cost on my behalf. ...and just as I won't get anxious and sad about Gin-san or Toshi getting multiple stab wounds and looking like they were dying in battles (and write a complain letter to the author demanding to know why he let my favourite characters suffer unnecessarily), that I can also have the confidence that nothing bad in this life is final or have any lasting meaningful impact on the good ending in sight.
and because of above reasons I am less inclined to see Easter as a time to solemnly reflect on how sinful we are and what terrible impact we've had and how Jesus had to be crucified on the cross all because we are such bad people-- but instead, whether we are solemnly aware or not, we remain pathetic, embarrassing, senseless, not really right in the head-- and yet because of what happened during Easter, death, along with all our terrible behaviours, has lost its sting and that nothing, nothing from any of this fleeing-naked-from-the-scene ludicrosity, is final.
