Small Steps by Louis Sachar

                                             Small Steps

After reading Holes by Louis Sachar, I went to look for another book by Sachar, and I found this book. At first impressions when I read this during summer school, I loved it, it was like a continued story and it had intense parts like Armpit getting arrested again. So it starts with Armpit working by digging holes in Austin, Texas and where he lived in. Then he meets Ginny, who becomes his neighbor and where he takes special care of her because of her illness. Later X-Ray comes in the story, originally from "Holes" where they (X-RAY and Armpit) were buddies from Camp Green Lake Correctional Facility who convinces Armpit into the selling ticket business. Armpit agrees to doing the business after X-Ray finally convinced him and this made him good money but one day he wanted to actually see Kaira Deleon, but Armpit had already sold the tickets. So X-Ray decides to "copy" one of those tickets and tell Armpit that he got the tickets, and this was the mistake because Armpit thought these were real tickets and soon he knew that he was sold out by his friend. When he was about to get arrested inside the concert, Kaira Deleon allowed them to stay at the best seats along with Ginny and they had a lot of fun.

I thought this book was funny how they got the names like Armpit and X-Ray but as if you read book One, you would learn that Armpit was named because he was stung by a scorpion in the armpit. His real name is Theodore Johnson which was shown early in the book but they continued to use Armpit.

I would highly recommend this book if you do not have a book currently to read because this book is simply well-written and you could tell because you can almost visually see what's happening in your mind with the imagery used in the text. This book is also good for English class because it has enough literary terms and devices for you to examine.

Angel Beats

                                          Angel Beats

   This anime is the one I found after watching Elfen Lied(a horror anime), it takes place in the after life world and you could only join if you have regrets. When I started to watch this anime, I thought it was really weird because you suddenly see a guy just join the scene and meet up with someone with a gun. But as it goes along, Yuzuru Otonashi (The red hair male) also one of the main characters joins the rebels of god and starts to understand why each one of the people in the image are in the world of regrets. Otanashi's regret was that he brought out his sister to see the city's lights which made her grow sicker and when he went on the train and that broke down, that's where he died. In my opinion, this anime is really depressing especially if you hear out everyone's story of how they were 'sent' to this world of regrets. But, Yuri Nakamura, the leader of the rebels of god (SSS), believes that if you defy the normal things you do, you can stay in this world where you can find happiness and recover the memories that you've lost during your death. My favourite story was told by Yuri Nakamura because her story was the worst, where she was given time to find the most valued items in her house otherwise her siblings would get shot down every 10 minutes because she was getting robbed. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to find the 'valuables' because her family never told her where they were and when she attempted to bring the vase, it broke and it was already too late. Also, not only that when it was "graduation day" where people accomplished what they wanted, they would exit the world f regrets and live happily but as everyone started to leave, Kanade Tachibana (the girl on the far right) and Otanashi were in love but in this scenario if you showed emotion, you would disappear. So, Kanade's last request was to ask Otanashi to say 'I love you' and so she disappeared leaving only Otanashi behind at the world of regrets. This was so depressing because I actually felt bad for him considering that he was in love but she wanted to hear him say it and none was there to accompany him after everything.
   I would recommend you this anime if you aren't completely emotional because if you understand what the characters are facing and you can relate it, you will definitely be sad. Also, before you watch the anime, you should listen to Girls Dead Monster (The group that was formed from rebels of god)and the OSTs. Anyways you should give it a try, I definitely like it asides from it being a sad ending but things never go the way you expect it to be.

Hyouka

Hyouka

This is another anime! But this time, it's a change up for me at least, I decided to look under mystery-related animes and I found this one as my top research. When I began to watch this, it wasn't that great at all unlike Sword Art Online or Guilty Crown, it just began with school life and friendship talk. But I always like to watch the whole thing, so as I waited for the episodes to be released, I figured that the main character Hōtarō Oreki was anti-social until he met a girl named Eru Chitanda who changed his life because she always had something for him to solve. These mysteries that she requests for Oreki to solve aren't that interesting but seeing how he solves it, interests me because he would gather the clues and solve like Sherlock Holmes. Also, I can say my favourite quote from this anime is "I'm curious" by Chitanda, whenever she wants Oreki to solve the mystery of school and things, she would say a line then "I'm curious" and Oreki would refuse but decides to solve the mystery as he thinks more about Chitanda. Even though this anime was only under "Mystery" anime, I thought that this contained romance because of how Oreki changed because of Chitanda and how he thinks of her. So in my opinion, this is a romantic-mystery anime and I believe some of us will like this mix. If you are looking for something different related to anime, this is definitely for you. I would highly recommend this anime to anyone who lives life as a delinquent or doesn't know much about their future because this anime will tell you the story of Oreki who didn't have a future and was anti-social and how he changed. Ultimately, I thought that you can relate to this anime easily because there are many people who don't know what they're going to be including myself and understanding that making friends is one step to guide yourself.

Shinsekai Yori

                                       Shinsekai Yori

   This anime is also known as From the New World because of how it relates humans who possessed god's power of telekinesis and monster cats who were enslaved by humans because of human's superiority (connections to god's power). The main characters are 5 people: Saki Watanabe, Satoru Asahina, Maria Akizuki, Shun Aonuma and Mamoru Itō. Each of them were paired up in group but decided to explore out of the region where they were suppose to and encountered the spiritual being that would answer all questions (known as the holographic library) even the banned knowledge. After that, they saw a monster rat who belonged in various colonies and that's when humans had a conflict with the monster rat colonies. This is when Saki met Squealer, one who can understand human language and translate between the rat's and human's language. When they finally consider themselves to be "friends/allies," the plot twists, Squealer had been thinking about taking over the human era because the humans had ruled them for too long with their telekinesis powers. Surprisingly, the monster rats won majority of the battles against humans, killing thousands of people because you weren't allowed to use the power of god to kill and so the rats killed them. Ultimately, Kiroumaru helped the humans to defeat Squealer costing his own life and the humans learned to respect every being as equal.

   I really enjoyed this anime because I personally love it when the writers or directors of the story change the plot and twist it around so the odds are always different. This anime was confusing but it had times where you can definitely enjoy it because of the betrayals and plot development.

  I would recommend this anime to anyone who enjoys a nice plot twist but must be able to understand the plot as the anime goes along, otherwise, you would definitely be confused before you can finish it.

Guilty Crown

                                       Guilty Crown

   Guilty Crown is a science-fiction and romantic anime that was directed by Tetsuro Araki. This anime is very well known for it's wonderful soundtracks and music which attracts more than just me to it because you can feel the depth of the lyrics and effort that the singer has put into it.
   This anime mainly revolves around the government and Funeral parlor (an undertaker group) where they study genomes where they allow one to obtain supernatural powers and voids that can solidify anyone. One of the main characters is Shu Ouma, a male student who enjoys listening to Inori Yuzuriha's song and one day, he saw her running from the government force. So Shu tried to protect Inori and he gained the power to reach into people's hearts to take their inner "weapons/abilities." This magnificence lead to him joining the undertakers where he meets Gai Tsutsugami who saved him from a gang that wanted the secret chip that Inori stole from the lab. Later in the story, the plot twists when the undertakers and people from Shu's school are confined into the "infected zone" because Gai Tsutsugami switches sides and steals the power of Shu Ouma because he believed that it was his to begin with but Inori never left Shu because she is in love with Shu and saves him from danger. After this intense plot twist, Gai declares a fight between Shu because Shu had regain the powers from taking another genome shot (usually will cause death after first one) and wishes to save Inori from Mana's body.

   I felt so heartbroken in the end because when I thought I saw the last episode where Shu can finally see Inori, she was almost going to die along with Shu. But, because Inori had special ability she saved Shu from dying! This lead to Shu becoming blind and disabled arm because I suppose Inori wanted him to be safe from these voids which were removed after sacrificing herself.

   I would highly recommend this anime over any because it is definitely tragic to see someone face that many hardships for someone that he loves and how the plot twists in the middle where you see Gai helping then suddenly opposing Shu. Also, the music is spectacular because a portion of the budget went to the band Egoist and Supercell for their songs and it was definitely great if you could understand!

Accel World

                                           Accel World

   After starting Sword Art Online series, Johnny recommended this anime to me because he thought that I would like it - and I do! These are one of the fewer animes that contain virtual-simulation (VR) and romance that are actually good. This anime is about "burst linkers" which allows someone from the real world to dive into a virtual reality and travel or fight with boundless limitations. The main character Kuroyukihime (who is a Lv9 [almost the highest level]) shares her program of "burst link" to Haruyuki when one day he is sick of getting bullied and dives into the world where he is good at. After receiving the burst link he learns concepts and begins to fight in matches. Later when Kuroyukihime is injured from saving Haruyuki, she is sent to the hospital and he figures that his best friend Takumu is going to hurt her. So he protects her even though he is nearly beaten to death which would uninstall the game if he "died." After that, Kuroyukihime forms a team called "Nega Nebulus" where Takumu and Haruyuki becomes allies and fights against those that want points from beating players.

   This anime was really twisted because when you think that the story is going downhill, the anime would bring up fights that would be like life or death. Kuroyukihime is really kind even though she was the "black king/black-lotus" who would slay people to level up to 10 giving special abilities that can alternate reality. So this gave me a shock because instead of achieving this, she gave up her points to save Haruyuki from getting injured and resulted her in having a chance to die.

    I would recommend this anime after you watch Sword Art Online because you can find close connections between them both and it tells you about life decisions. Overall, I really enjoyed this anime and I hope you will too!

Sword Art Online

                                                              Sword Art Online

   Sword Art Online is a Japanese fantasy-game anime that was directed by Tomohiko Ito. This anime was originally recommended to me by various friends so I decided to watch it. At first it was incredible to even see the first episode, where it all takes place in a virtually-simulated world (VR) and I thought it was worth waiting for each episode. Of course, I'm not the only one who would say that this anime is excellent because it has combinations of romance, action, adventure, and technology that we cannot experience until 2020. In my opinion, what attracted me and most other fans is the general idea of how you can die in this anime and how it had such high ratings.
  
   The main characters of this anime is Kirito and Asuna, they both experience fighting together on their first dungeon quest and start to find their paths. As Kirito explores further and further as a "Solo" player, he encounters Asuna again but higher level than expected after giving the advice of joining a guild. He later falls in love with Asuna after clearing many dungeons and experienced her cooking, but when the game had almost been cleared, he had to face the impossible, the game creator. Kirito barely managed to kill the game creator but he saved everyone except those that died in the game but then another plot twist occurs when Asuna gets pulled into Alfheim and Kirito plays a new adventure where things were almost boundless to try to save his love, Asuna.
Overall I would recommend this anime because it had heart-racing moments from the adventurous battles and it was very romantic to see someone who was lonely be together with someone else.

   Although it was good in general, the conclusion for the anime wasn't very well done because it just ended off with the main character creating another world with his friends.