The most depressing....

Assalammualaikum,

I wanted to do a book review...


A book themed about psychology


But it's not a medical book...


It's entitled...

- BOKURANO -
english translation: - OURS -

In japan... yeahh... I think now you know its a manga...


I actually accidentally came across this manga on onemanga while searching something about mecha manga... came across Bokurano... didn't know what that means back then... went on reading the first chapter..

The drawing... not too bad... nothing special really... at least its not shoujo type... hey, what genre is this actually... owh, it's seinen... (info; shounen = for boys, shoujo = for girls , seinen = for adult)

I love good seinen manga... the other seinen manga I read is The Ravages of Time (Amazing historical manga about China), Bokko (great historical manga too) and Shekeisyu 042 (Sad + Inspiring story about an inmate)

Seinen manga are good because the storyline is deep as well as the message portrayed, really fits adult's mind who wants a reading that challenge their intelectual and perspective of life.

Ok.. back to Bokurano.. its a seinen manga... but, on chapter one... its just a bunch of kids... 15 kids given the power to control a robot to fight another robot invading earth...

duhh, typical fighting manga... robot vs robot... fighting for the earth bla bla bla...

Somehow I stick on reading it until after the first battle...

Yeah... they won...

oppss..

[Spoiler warning; those who want to read the manga should read it first before continuing]


i warned you...


ok.. so the first kid won... and then he accidentaly fell from the robot (very high) and died... because one of the 15 kids accidentaly pushed him...

ok... what's that about? Why does the main character just die like that?

wait... a 13 year old kid (all 14 of them are 13 y.old with one 9 y old) just killed another 13 year old kid.. accidentaly of course...

Not just that... in the battle between the two huge robot... the innocent normal people actually died... (not like ultraman.. where buildings were destroyed.. but you dont see any civilians died)

Ok, so this is a realistic battle manga...

Then, after the second battle (the second kid became the pilot)


He died as well... not killed... but just died...


That's went the truth was revealed...


Whoever controls the robot will be forced to use his life force and ended up dead after the battle...

Well, all 15 of them has been contracted to ride the robot, so that means... all of them will eventually die...

Can they quit??

If they lose a battle, or run away... then the other robot wins, and the whole earth will be destroyed....

So the choice is up to them, this 15 (13 now... 2 died) 13 y.old, they hold the power to save the earth...

What's so bad? They get to be a hero.. cool!!

No no no... this is what so great about this manga... its captures people's emotion... in a realistic point of view... DO THEY WANT TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVE TO SAVE THE EARTH?

Throughout the manga the question will be asked...
IS IT WORTH IT FOR ME TO DIE AND LET OTHER PEOPLE LIVE....
i) when my life ****** !!!
ii) when no one has ever treated me nicely
iii) when this world has caused my mother to commit suicide... why should this world live then?
iv) when i dont really care what happen to this world
v) when my parents dont even see that I exists
vii) When I'm just a kid... I deserve to live longer and follow my dreams...
viii) When... WHY ME????
ix) and many other reason....

All this 15 kids portray the different aspect of society nowadays.. each with their own story to tell.. some are very surprising and extreme... but definitely true...

And you got to remember these are just kids... their not adult who can think rationally or adult who can say it is our duty to protect the earth or our loved ones... just kids who know little about the world, and the fate of the whole earth depends on them... and they no longer have a future... they will die one by one... imagine the psychological impact on these small little childrens...

What about adults? How will everyone else reacts when their planet's fate depend on this kids? Also during the battles, thousands people died being stromped over and all... will the adults allow this?

For me, the most sad is that..

How will their parents act? If they say do not die.. then everyone will still die if they dont fight, so its a question of wether everyone die, or only their son/daughter die... like it or not, they'll have to lost their son... imagine how would the parents feel...

The family values showed in the manga... will definitely touch your hearts... from the ugliest of parents to the most caring of families...


You will visit the two extremes of human's emotion when faced with death...


And so the lyrics of the ending of the anime of this series: "We clung to our life with all our strength...
we never stop to see how DISGUSTING it was"

Throughout the whole manga... the story show no comprimise and keeps on hitting you with depression and more depression of what happen to the kids... I warn you, do not wish for part to smile...:)

The story also has some extremely sad part... I was nearly (nearly??) moved to tears during Daichi's (the 3rd pilot) death... it was so... so... cruel... its not fair (you'll say this a lot)... this is just at chapter 8 of the manga, not long.. if you can read until at least chapter 8, I'm sure you'll be stuck because of the intensity of emotions in the manga...

I finished reading the manga quite long ago, but just finished the anime yesterday.. (why I'm writing this now..)

Anime vs Manga...

Definitely choose the manga for this story, the anime cuts too many part and the ending is not the same... the manga definitely dive deeper into human emotions, makes it more worthwhile...


So if you want to read something to stir up your emotions...

BOKURANO is the story for you.. find it at www.onemanga.com



Oh yeah... the chapter where they reveal why it is called BOKURANO (ours)... is so... so... meaningful, find it for yourself~ :) Why this sad, depressing manga has such a inspirational name... Bokurano... Ours...

The Holiday that was at UNSW...

Assalammualaikum wbt..

Tomorrow's gonna be class... arghhh... holiday's ended...

Didn't really move away from my house this holiday... just stuck at UNSW the whole week...

Why??

Bcoz of...

Islamic Awareness Week 2009!!


My first ever experience working with international muslims!! What an eye-opener!!


The aim of this week is to spread the message of Islam, especially in removing myths and falsehood about Islam. We set up stalls everyday from Monday to Friday in front of the library lawn, we OWNED that walkway for the whole week, yeah!! (*some even say we owned the Christ Week that was coincidentally on the same week as ours)

I came on Monday carrying my 24" lcd monitor that they want to use, arrived at Library Lawn... and... wow!! What a beautiful stall~ with the banners all around~ MasyaAllah...

Basically, the main thing is to entertain any questions people will have about Islam at our stall either from muslims, non-muslims or atheist. Different kind of people dropped by our stall, some really interested to learn... some just came to say Assalammualaikum... some came just to slam us and satisfy their ego (but we manage to defend ourselves..)

Not just people coming to our stall, some of the brothers (and sisters) even go to the Christ Week stalls and attacked them!! Not physically, but using words and evidences from Quran and rational thinking to compare Islam and Christianity~ and they did it well!!

In addition, some of the sisters actually went to the people hanging around the library lawn and giving them da'wah materials without even feeling shy about it (tak malu-malu kucing pon bak kate org melayu), MasyaAllah... they really have no fear in spreading the truth, despite having to do it places where the majority are non-muslims.

Me? Even in Malaysia where the majority are muslims, still am kinda of shy + afraid to spread the truth bravely to non-muslims (or muslims).

I didn't really get much "customer" the whole week, maybe 3 that I really have a chance to talk to.. most of the time, when I greet someone, another brother step in and snatch them away.. haha.. not that I mind though, I totally agree that the other brother are way more experienced and knowledgeable then me~ but I'm hoping to get some experience this year, Alhamdulillah I still get some.. especially on Friday~

All the lectures during the week were awesome!! The number of non-muslim attending the lectures slowly but steadily increases from Monday to Friday, especially during Sharia' Law and the debate.

We also had BBQ on Tuesday handled by brothers, and the atmosphere at that time was MasyaAllah very beautiful, I suddenly see a lot of muslims and non-muslims getting together eating happily around the BBQ area... wonderful~ Thanks to TJ for sponsoring us!!

On Wednesday we had Falafel Lunch handled by sisters, which is also a great success~ Food is always a major attraction for people~


The final Day:

On friday, the final event was the Great Debate: Does God Exist? by Brother Uthman Badar(muslims) versus Alan Zaino (atheist), the turnout by both muslims and non-muslims was Alhamdulillah very good!! We filled the whole lecture theater... The debate however...

On the Muslims side it was marvellous, brother did a very good job presenting his points especially since he used a rational thinking side to deal with atheist, not focusing much on the Quran (since they dont believe in the Quran)

The atheist side was however pretty dissapointing, he didn't really prepared well for his topic, and decided not to have a rebuttal session with brother Uthman... which really... sort of makes the debate strange...

However, during the Q&A session, questions were raining down on both side, and Alhamdulillah brother Uthman managed handled it well~ Ending it with something for the atheist to think about (if they are really open-minded as they claim they are)


The rainy night:

As I leave the lecture hall that night, it was raining... not really a depressing rain, but it gives off a really nice atmosphere to end our Islamic Awareness Week...

It got me thinking...

One of the most wonderful thing I witnessed this week (and during Ramadhan) is that how just because we are muslims... you can see another muslims came and helped out with all using 100% their capabilities even though we have never met each other before and they are not in the IAW committee... some of them are not even from UNSW, some came from McQuarie Uni, we never met them, but they are MasyaAllah such a great helper...

I saw... how the brotherhood in Islam is not restricted to any boundaries... strangers became best of friends in an instant~

Then, I reflected back on how...

I met a lot of new brothers from different backgrounds throughout this week...

I learned a lot from them on how to give Da'wah...

I now know more on how other people see religion and life...

I now am more confident to spread the truth of this beautiful way of life~

What's left is to improve myself to increase my iman and knowledge~!!!



The preparation for this week took months... its pointless to ask the question:

"was it all worth it?"


Alhamdulillah~