So besides the welcome post, this is my first official entry on my blog! Huzzah! I was originally going to talk about the things below in the welcome post, but then I decided to keep things separate. The first thing I'm going to talk about is something that I'm really excited about:
That's right! I got early entry into Pottermore! For those of you who don't know what Pottermore is, you can watch the announcement by Jo herself over at youtube. Although, even though I've watched this video a lot, I still don't fully understand how one will exactly interact with the site. We are told we'll be able to shape the story, but how exactly will that work? I really don't have a clue, and I don't think anyone really does save Jo and the developers of the site. Yet I think that's part of why I'm so excited. There's so much mystery and buzz about what Pottermore has to offer, and that's why people are so interested. Right now all I can say is that I can't wait for my welcome letter (email) to arrive. Once I get access I'll post some stuff here so you can see the basic gist of what the site is like, but only a little, so that the excitement of discovering it for yourself still remains.
And I guess I'll tell you what my story is dealing with the whole early entry. I had first heard about Pottermore when Yahoo! had it on one of their news boxes on their homepage. Since then I checked out the site occasionally so that I wouldn't forget about it, and on the only page it contained it told people to come back on July 31st to discover a way to enter the site early. That date came around and I visited the site to find out that early entry registration for that day was already closed (and it was still early in the morning). I looked at the FAQ and saw exactly how one got a chance to register early. If you got to Pottermore at the right time (they changed the time everyday so the time was fair to people all over the world) you would see a clue instead of the "Sorry" message I was seeing. That clue would be a number, which you would then multiply by another number, and then you would take that number and add it onto the end of the url they gave you.
I eventually got the clue on the fourth day which had a question about the fourth book. It was: "How many students take part in the Triwizard Tournament during Harry's fourth year? Multiply this number by 28." The answer is, of course, 112. I put that on the end of the url and was taken to Sony's Harry Potter page. I then started to freak out a little because the page was very simple and straightforward, but I couldn't find that quill anywhere. To find an answer for why there was no quill I quickly checked around online to find that I had to refresh the page. Apparently there was some kind of glitch with the site that didn't show the quill, so you got to the registration page instead by reloading the page. I did, and lo, there was the page for registration! It asked for the basics: name, age, birthdate, email, and so on. It was a pretty quick registration. And in the youtube video when Jo mentions that it will be a safe environment, she meant it. For example, you don't even get to choose your own username. Once all your basic info gets the site's okay, you get a list of five Harry Potter-ish usernames to choose from. Don't like any of them? Too bad, that's all you get to choose from. I went with LightPhoenix84, which I like so it's all good.
And now today I got the welcome letter you saw above. Mid-August is only a couple days away, so I hope it's not too much longer before I can experience the site that is Pottermore.
Now I guess this is going to end up being a long post, because now I'm going to talk about something I just stumbled upon. A live drama based off the manga and anime, Ouran High School Host Club (or more simply OHSHC). I enjoyed both the manga and anime, although I much prefer the manga, so when I saw this I had to take a look. So let's take a little journey as to what this drama is like shall we?
The first episode starts off with an explanation of how Ouran Gakuen (academy/school) is a super duper rich school for super duper rich people. When then get a look at our heroine, Haruhi Fujioka, who is running a little late to school:
This is where I had to complain a little. While they did a very good job of making her look boy-ish, you can still tell very easily that she is a girl. I mean with shots from afar she does look like a guy, but once you get up close there's really no mistaking it. However, a lot of characters in this show are pretty much complete idiots, so I can't be too surprised that no one recognizes it. Anyway, Haruhi goes about her day at school, being annoyed at how none of the other students seem to study or care about their education, and how they are completely spoiled, like getting cake served to them in the freaking library for crying out loud:
Unable to find silence, Haruhi searches the school to find a place to study. Along the way she meets Nekozawa-senpai, the leader of the Occult Club at Ouran.
He comes with the complete package: a hunched walked, a creepy face and voice, his cat doll, and let's not forget that whispy darkness that surrounds his entire body. He gives Haruhi a warning and proceeds to walk away with one of the creepiest laughs I've ever heard. Haruhi goes on her way as if nothing has happened and comes upon Music Room #3, and thinks she'll be able to study quietly there. We all know that's not going to happen.
What's behind door number three?
The Ouran Host Club of course! For anyone who knows the manga or anime, you know how this goes. This drama pretty much follows the storyline with a few little exceptions here and there. For those of you who don't know, the Host Club assumes Haruhi is a guy and the leader, Tamaki Suoh (the one with his hand outstretched), freaks her out and she ends up backing into a really expensive vase and breaking it. The HC was going to sell said vase at a school auction, and now that they can't, Haruhi becomes the HC's errand boy in order to pay off the large debt she has now acquired. Like I said before, this drama closely follows the originally story.
The episode goes along to after the end of the Host Club activities. Tamaki gets Haruhi talking about her home life, which leads to Haruhi telling him that her mother passed away. This was where I was expecting to see one of those more serious moments that makes the drama more emotional, but instead Tamaki does this:
Oh well. It's the first episode, so I was really getting my hopes up. If this drama is going to be following the manga plotline, it'll be a couple more episodes before we start getting into the deeper stuff, and a lot later until we get to really good stuff. But for now we follow the plotline for the first episode. The Host Club discovers Haruhi looks pretty good once she's cleaned up, and so they give her a makeover.
I have to say that somehow, this makeover makes Haruhi look more like a guy, although in some shots it becomes obvious once more that she's a girl. But now instead of being the HC's dog, she becomes a host, in which getting 100 hundred customers will clear her debt. As it turns out, she is a natural and has no problem winning her clients' affection, and Tamaki's attention.
To make a long post shorter, I'll say again that the drama closely follows the original story, and if you don't already know how this episode will end I'd recommend to you to check out the free manga and anime versions found online. Although it is a little strange to see this story acted out live, it is very faithful to the characters and the acting is good. I enjoyed watching the first episode and will watch the second one soon as well (only the first two are out at the moment).
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