Konnichiwa minna-san ! o/

I'm Kaf, a 19-year-old otaku girl, and I live in southern Belgium (my native language is French). I decided to subscribe to this forum in order to improve my English by discussing with other anime lovers and, especially, make friends !

My favorite anime are Gintama, Mononoke (the TV serie, not the Ghibli movie), Durarara, Baccano, Paprika, Planetes, The Tatami Galaxy... and so many others ! On the paper manga side, I like Mushishi, Welcome to the NHK, Library Wars and Katekyo Hitman Reborn (the 16 first volumes, afterwards it's boring).
I usually prefer seinen anime/manga or comedy, and I can't cope with traditional shojo (actually, I don't like clichés).

I do cosplay and I really like that. I cosplayed Charizard and Nidorino from Pokémon (no joking, I swear), San from Mononoke Hime, Lambo 20YL from KHR, Gintoki from Gintama and some other characters.

Thank you very much for reading, I'm looking forward to meeting you (on the forum or IRL, who knows) ! \^o^/

Your English is already excellent.

I am intrigued by the use of the phrase "paper manga", though. Did the term "terebi/television manga" come over to French speaking countries from Japan when anime was first introduced there?

Welcome to the forum!

Thank you very much ! ^^

Well, many French-talking people confuse anime and manga (saying "manga" while talking about anime, it's a frequent bad habit), so sometimes we add "paper" to precise we're really talking about manga !

I don't think it helps matters when you have a company that release anime that has Manga in it's name.

Welcome to the forum btw. Hope your stay helps your English (it's already better than certain people - looks at AF17)

Welcome.

::collapses::

Is it just me or have we had an influx of activity from European members recently? I mean it's good, I've certainly nothing against foreigners joining (hell, we're run by a Brazilian and spend much of our time talking about Japanese stuff) but for AUKN it's a bit unusual...

Howdy hi hi and welcome to the forums. ilmae kind of got it bang on, your english is already pretty awesome.

Mr Raindrop Elizabeth is great, i did love than ending from Gintama actually. Reminds me i need to continue with it as well since I'm falling behind. I'm actually working through Planetes myself at present, got two disks left to watch, which hopefully i will get in sometime this week.

Also, what Seinen do you read? Stuff like Pluto and Berserk?

Belgium, land of chocolate... which is your favourite chocolatier?





It's a planned invasion, start to worry.



Teo

First of all, thank you everyone for the welcome ! ^^

@Ayase : Perhaps you're getting more and more European people because they don't find any otaku communities in their own country ? In Belgium, for example, there is only 1 big otaku community (in French) and very few local clubs (I only know 2).
... Oh wait ! Teonzo just uncovered our conspiracy, which consist in taking over Britain and convert it into a country-sized anime convention ! xD

@Teonzo : I don't like any chocolatier, I prefer traditional/small industries chocolate ! The taste is really different, it tastes more like... real chocolate, instead of milk or nut or some honeyed chocolate !

@Arbalest : I really like Berserk (event if I'm only at the 23th volume, I must admit it's one of the best manga I've ever read, from the drawings to the scenario and characters), and I have Blame and Dogs : Bullets & Carnage, which I'm always pleased to read again too. Actually I'm more anime than manga, so if I can add some anime titles, here they are : Gantz, Black Lagoon and Ghost in the Shell (I prefer the Mamoru Oshii movies).
I haven't read Pluto yet, I should try, it seems interestingly serious ! ^^

No worries, we'll just get a load of Americans to join and drive you out.

Thing is, we won't be able to get rid of them afterwards and will have to help them invade various Arabic anime websites later.

Pluto is worth a read. It's a darker, more serious look at a story from Astroboy, but told by Naoki Urasawa in a fantastic way. He also wrote 20th Century Boys and Monster if you don't know him by name. Well worth the read.

Gantz i've never really looked into, i read a few chapters here and there, but couldn't find myself wanting to watch the series. Black Lagoon i adore, i just wish the author would continue writing it again. As for Ghost in the Shell, i've seen Season 1 of Stand Alone and the first movie, so i still have a lot to watch.

unless it's an anime about oil, there's no chance of that happening

welcome to the madhouse Kaf

I'm curious (I know a lot of the Belgian chocolate factories and many Belgian artisan chocolatiers), can you make some names?





I can deduce that at least one between you and me have seen "Bart the Mother".



Teo

Well, Cyril Chocolat is my favorite ; it's a familial artisan (actually, it's held but my uncle, so I'm not very neutral XD), and at least it really tastes like chocolate. (You might have guessed I prefer super dark chocolate. 8D)
Galler is a big enterprise and their chocolate is ok ; but as counterexample, Darcis chocolate, which is as famous as Galler here, is totally awful. Leonidas is quite big now too, and seems more world-spread than the 2 others, and their chocolate is ok but way too expansive.
But I don't like as some chocolate enterprises put all their efforts on design instead of taste, now you've got pretty pralines that tastes like plastic. >__<
What are you favorite chocolatiers ? ^^ (Maybe you could paradoxically make me discover some !)

(Anticipated PS : I don't drink beer and I don't like mussels. I would however recommend french fries and waffles. lol)

Aha, that makes sense, it is a common thing here, too (I was, however, very proud the day I overheard my Mom explaining the difference to someone!). Anime, as you may well know, was originally called "television manga" in Japan, so I wondered if that had heldover into French.

Nice to know, bookmarked.





Well, that's the real chocolate...





Leonidas opened various stores even here in Italy. I tried the one in Treviso, but for what I recall from my last visit in Belgium (more than 10 years ago) the quality is quite worse than the ones I tasted in Charleroi (but probably I'm wrong). I think their only praline worth trying is the signature one coffee-hazelnut-whitechocolate, mainly for historical reasons.





This is the general problem of modern pastry, people care more about design and marketing than taste. Unfortunately.





As I wrote above, my last visit in Belgium was many years ago, so my memory can fail and things can have changed quite a lot. So I can't give much opinions about taste of what I tried in Charleroi, Namur and Bruxelles, it would not be wise since I don't have recent experiences. I have some knowledge from professional books and magazines.
First names that come to mind are the famous ones (I should surf through my bookmarks to look for other names):
Raphaël Giot
François Galtier
Dominique Persoone
Pierre Marcolini
As I said I'm talking mainly from what I read on books and magazines, I really like their recipes and their flavour combinations. But as you pointed out, things can vary a lot from the written recipe to the real stuff you buy in the shops.



Teo