On the Verge of Lunacy

This 26-episode series follows the life of Haruhi Fujioka with the Host Club and its six members. Most of Ouran Academy's students come from wealthy families but Haruhi managed to get in the school as a scholar. She accidentally stumbled upon the Host Club in the first episode and broke a vase. The Host then asked her to pay for the broken item but since she could not afford it, she had to take on the job as a host.  Because of Haruhi's appearance, the members thought that she was a guy. Eventually, they found out that she is a girl through subtle clues when they interacted with her. The last one to notice this was Tamaki Suou, the leader of the Host Club. They all agreed to keep it a secret to maintain her image but there are noticeable differences in the way they are treating her since then.  The rest of the Host Club members are as follows: 1. Suou Tamaki - referred to as the "King" of the Host Club. He is cheerful, a bit narcissistic and sometimes ...

This is another tale of the possibilites that one's heart is willing to take. Spencer Grant is haunted by his past. He despises it yet he stubbornly clings to it, waiting for an opportunity to understand a part of himself that he's afraid to explore. When he met valerie Keene, everything changed for him. He could not explain why he was drawn to that woman but he just knew that if he could just talk to her, he'll know the answers. But Valerie's gone and now he's being pursued by an unknown group of people. People with power and influence. And they won't stop. Dark Rivers of the Heart is divided into two parts: On a Strange Sea and To the Source of the Flow. Like most of Dean Koontz's books, the characters have dark pasts that they somehow had to accept and overcome. But unlike the usual Koontz protagonists, Roy Miro isn't well-educated, smart and wealthy. But he's overly confident and merciless. Although he himself was not blessed with good l...

The Prince of Tennis live-action film is a shorter version of the anime, which combines some of Ryoma Echizen's rivals into one character, Egate Mcleod Higaki. He also replaced a member of Hyotei, Hiyoshi Wakashi. The first part of the film shows his introduction to the Seigaku tennis club regulars. Ryoma here is undecisive and he doesn't seem happy to be playing tennis with his seniors. If there was a hint of this in the anime, it's more obvious here. He seems to have little motivation in playing against other schools. His match with Tezuka Kunimitsu however somewhat changed his perception of the junior high school players. But that alone wasn't enough to convince him to stay and help Seigaku get to the Nationals. From left: Kaidoh, Momo, Eiji, Tezuka, Ryoma, Oishi, Fuji, Taka-san and Inui But when Higaki visited the tennis club to taunt Tezuka and the other members, Ryoma changed his mind. The match against Hyotei followed the same events in the ser...

Most anime feature a prodigy destined for greatness. The series would then follow the exploits of that character to his or her final quest. Yet most of those characters start off weak and in desperate need of a mentor, friends (who at first were enemies) and perhaps even a love interest who will inspire him or her to do great things. Ryoma Echizen is a tennis prodigy, but he certainly does not start off as a weakling who needs practice and experience badly. Unlike most characters of his type too, he is not loud, obnoxious and someone you could easily make fun of. For those qualities alone, I consider Prince of Tennis the best anime I have seen to date. The 42-volume manga was created by Takeshi Konomi. His work inspired a 178-episode TV series, animated and live-action movies, musicals (Tenimyu), more than a hundred songs, radio drama (Rajipuri) and video games. Whoever thought that a sport such a tennis that involves almost no physical contact with opponents and fast matches can...

This 1972 science-fiction novel was one of Dean Koontz's earliest works. This book explores the facets of the human mind, its desires, hopes and and its quest for meaning and purpose. The book is divided into four parts: Divinity Destroyed, Humanity Restored, The Incomplete Creation and Man As God. The protagonist Simeon Kelly is one of the two successful products of Artificial Creation. He has the ability to probe the minds of other people. One day he was asked by AC to explore Child's mind, another creation of AC, to unlock the missing information needed to create the shields that will be used for the pending world crisis. Child, the first supergenius ever created, has been withholding important information from Morsfagen and the rest of AC. Simeon's tour of Child's mind takes him into strange worlds and forced him to think and reshape his view of things. Different though they were, he realized that they were both looking for meaning and purpose in their lives b...

Once again Dean Koontz has shown that even a life full of despair does not necessarily create a broken, hopeless soul. Micky Bellsong's life was forever changed by one girl she met one day at her Aunt Geneva's house. Like Micky, Leilani Klonk lived with terror all her life but she was able to cope better than Micky did. What sounded at first as some sort of joke turned out to be the grim story of Leilani's life. Leilani is trapped in a strange family. A stepfather who allegedly killed several people and a mother who calls herself Sinsemilla and who's always high on drugs and self-delusion. He also told Micky about Preston's, her stepfather, belief on aliens and their power to heal deformities. Her brother Lukipela was taken by Preston to the said aliens and was never seen since. As Leilani's 10th birthday approaches, her fated meeting with aliens draws near. She fears that Preston killed her brother and that he would do the same to her. Meanwhile, a boy t...

"Within every chaos, is an eerie order waiting to be revealed. " ~ Lamar Woolsey, chapter 44 This tale of hope amidst the challenge of the unknown and the threats of humanity's capability for cruelty and destruction can be considered as one of Dean Koontz's masterpieces. The plot is no different from most of Koontz's books involving science fiction and suspense and yet he still doesn't fail to surprise me. The book is divided into three parts. The first is called Life and Death in which he introduces the main characters of the story: Grady Adams, Merlin the dog, Camillia Rivers, Lamar Woolsey, Tom Bigger and Henry Rouvroy. How these characters will affect each other was not clear until the final few chapters of the book. Henry was more like a distraction from the main story although it seemed like he will have a huge impact on the lives of the other characters. Tom Bigger also did not have anything to do with the characters I mentioned but his experience,...