The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Recently I purchased this anime DVD issued over here by Manga and was really impressed with it not normally being taken to time travel stories as much as I enjoy sci-fi and anime. 

The initial story goes back to the 1970's and has been tackled before but in the opinion of many never in quite the emotional depth of this adaptation and runs like this: Makoto Konno, a high school girl in Tokyo's shitamachi, realizes she has the power to go back in time and re-do things (what is called a "time-leap") when she impossibly avoids a fatal accident at a train crossing one day. Bewildered, she consults with her aunt throughout the film, who then implies that she is the protagonist from the original novel. 

At first, Makoto uses her power extravagantly to avoid being tardy and to get perfect grades on tests, and even relive a single karaoke session for about ten hours. It isn't long however that things begin to turn bad as she discovers how her actions can adversely affect others.

 

 Makoto soon ends up using more of her leaps to recklessly prevent undesirable situations from happening, including an awkward confession of love from her best friend Chiaki Mamiya. Eventually she discovers a numbered tattoo on her arm that counts down with each leap.

From this tattoo she realizes it indicates that she can only leap through time a limited number of times. 

With only a few time leaps left, she attempts to make things right for everyone, but impulsively she uses her final leap to prevent a phone call from Chiaki asking if she knows about time-leaping. 

As a result, she is unable to prevent her friend Kōsuke Tsuda and his girlfriend from being killed in the accident at the train crossing that Makoto was originally involved in. As Makoto watches the accident in horror, time suddenly stops. 

Chiaki reveals that he is a traveller from the future and leapt through time in order to see a painting being restored by Makoto's aunt, as it has been destroyed in the future. 

While walking in the frozen city, Chiaki hints that his original era occurs after a world wide catastrophe decimates mankind. 

He then reveals that he has used his final leap to prevent Kōsuke's accident and has stopped time only to explain to Makoto what the consequences will be. 

Having revealed his origins and the source of the item that allowed Makoto to leap through time, and being unable to return to his time period, Chiaki must disappear. 

Makoto realizes too late that she loves him as well. 

True to his words, Chiaki disappears when time begins again and Makoto is upset. 

As she tries to come to terms with losing him, she discovers that Chiaki's time-leap had inadvertently restored one time-leap to her: Chiaki had leapt back to before Makoto used her last leap. Makoto now leaps to the moment when she gained her powers, at which point Chiaki still has one remaining time-leap. 

She reveals everything that he told her in the future concerning his indentity, the ability to leap through time, and his reasons for extending his stay in her time frame. 

Shortly before returning to his time period, Chiaki says he will wait for her in the future and Makoto replies that she will run toward it. 

What makes the film so enjoyable is the portrayal of each character having many layers which adds to the sense of being able to empathize with them throughout the story which is very much bitter sweet because Makoto learns that this power has to be handled with responsibility- changing the past is not so straightforward - and that actions beget reactions as she uses it to make a new world for her friends.

I found it very moving.

Christmas 2008

 

One ritual that goes right back to childhood is the process of taking what you done and drawing them together from end of terms to concluding one form and moving up into the other.

As we go out of the year, two reminders of why this blog is different from Christmas following that box set review.

Although Dandy Xtreme isn't my thing, preferring the 'classic' Dandy, this years annual is more like was when I was younger.

The Beano is pretty much bar a bit of toning down of the Menacing of Dennis as it was in the 70's and like the regular weekly comic today.

They were up in my Christmas pile because the year for me is as an adult but child so things are more child-like and Christmas is like it was in 1974 even if the tv is bigger and has different programs on.

Those programs would be similar to what I watch and as with Blue Peter, actually like the Beano, a little different but basically the same as it was back when John, Lesley and Peter were on.

Thus we look at books most of which go back to that time, look at things from the past that stick in my mind such as school and scouts and anime.

In with this years Christmas presents is this 4 cd long cd box set.

Entitled "Love Train: The Sound of Philadelphia" it is a comprehensive set of hits and notable cuts of PhillySoul that for once isn't tied to a specific record label so does a better than average job of surveying the scene so we get acts like the (Detroit) Spinners and the Stylistics in with the mainstays of Philadelphia Records whose selection doesn't cut off 1976 unlike the 1997 3 cd set but goes to it's last glory days in 1983 with Patti LaBelle's If Only You Knew.
it includes a comprehensive booklet with interviews connected with the music one of which does tackle the UK's fascination of the music of Black America.

My presents this compact disc of Cello Music by the French composer Camille Saint-Saens who wrote rather more music than is given credit for.

Most people know his Organ Symphony which I bought in the mid 80's a cd of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim recording from 1976 which I loved on record and of his Samson et Delila.

He wrote a number of pieces for the Cello such as a concerto for cello and this disc adds some marvellous performances recorded ten years ago by the master Cellist Mischa Maisky with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra extremely well recorded to my collection of French music. 

Sometimes I go into what really made me the sissy gurl I am and why this LSG thing is the present rooted in the past.

Going forward, I see more of the same that might take a new like in as it did back then but the one thing that can't be ignored is I remain a a little sissy gurl, forever.

Blue Peter

One television show I always loved was the BBC's Blue Peter which I started viewing around 1969/70 where this group of presenters, John Noakes (R.I.P 2018), Peter Purves and at the back Valerie Singleton with Shep, Petra and Jason, the Siamese cat respectively.

It just had the right balance of interesting features, adventures and challenges not just to entertain you but to inspire you to make more of a life for yourself as you grew up 

Shep with John Noakes was a legend and in truth the magic of the presenter line up I grew up with Lesley Judd replacing Valerie from 1972/3 was such that out of what can be rose tinted nostalgia many presenters have struggled to match.

This is Blue Peter book seven, one of a good number I own  published in nineteen seventy for the next year which ended up in many a christmas stocking with features about things on the show, facts and figures plus stories.

It is telling that in 2008 that I watch the show still having viewed this years Christmas special on CBBC.

Comics in the classroom

Timed for Christmas but under wraps is this compilation in the 70th Years  "Classic" series of classic cartoon strips from the Beano and Dandy based around the school adventures of such strips as Dennis The Menace, Bash Street Kids and of course Winker Watson who I loved in the dandy growing up.

Comics were a staple of my life back then as a schoolboy, something we shared and talked about and as a LSG remain apart of this life I am living.

Chalet school

Reading is something that is very much linked to my actual childhood  and as an adult little girl remains a preoccupation of mine, loving to read story about schooldays and one series I am currently reading is the Chalet School series number sixty in total by Elinor Brent-Dyer from 1925 through 1960.

Here's a three in one omnibus edition from 1987 from my meagre collection of this series.

While it is a series aimed more at girls it was one I borrowed of girls and liked the stories of even if Jenning's was more what you read in boys company.

The onset of Winter

Today's has been like the last week over here cold and somewhat icy.

This would be fine except for the fact I'm not to good on my feet so it doesn't take much for me to lose my balance and fall over.

I had three attempts at falling over yesterday as even at 14:00 hours the ice had not melted in places.

I hurt my arm which had been damaged over twenty years ago from a playground accident so had to rest it for several hours.

It's okay now .

Going down a peg and xmas preparations

When we talk about LSG life, we need to remember it is based upon actual girls life as much as may like and have some boys elements from your past in it and your social position within it not least the hierarchy and so like him we are below the Grown Ups who are in control nurturing, guiding and protecting us.

It's no more for us to manipulate or get one over our caregivers or others as it is for him because we've decided to hand in any adult privileges and responsibilities  within our relationships as LSG's.

Is that all you found in the mailbox then, My Melody?

Around this time of the year I'm busy writing out Christmas Cards for family and friends some of which do have to be mailed out and really this is last week one can rely upon them getting through with second class stamps as first is just way too expensive otherwise.

I'm also busy with wrapping up presents as the way that works with us is each house is a mini distribution depot for one or more others so that person takes all the presents for one with them rather than lots of individual journeys.

Howl's Moving Castle

Today I'm going to talk about an anime I've always liked from 2004 and recently bought

Howl's Moving Castle is based upon the book by Briton Diana Wynne and is set in a magical world of wizardry and spells we follow the adventures of Sophie and her incredibly Odyssey to lift  a witch's curse all while being swept off her feet Howl a handsome and mysterious wizard who kindly offers her refuge in his most magical moving castle.

Howl as a character while being quite enchanting can at times by very childish, self-centred and tormented even while Sophie, is a beautiful but very reserved young woman who is rather mousy and soft-spoken.

She has a sister called Lettie but in the story she only has a small part to play as worker in the bakery and so only shows up in just one scene.

What I love about this is goes beyond the story but to director Hayao Miyzazki brilliant animation and inspirational story telling in  this art form.

Pix edit August 2017 for blu ray edition

Motown Twofer mania

Just when you all thought I'd got it all done I surprised a few with an outbreak of twofer mania this month. I blame that Diana thread!!! They didn't realize not only did it have me searching the world for a decent copy of her 1980 project with the guys from Chic, I ended up chasing an early series of discs Motown issued in the 1980's. 

The scene was the purchase of the 1986 CD release, Diana coupled with her 1979 Ashford and Simpson project "The Boss" with hits such as "No One Gets The Prize". There is a basic and I insist real problem with the 1998 Kevin Reeves version of Diana namely distortion and dynamic squashing. I know some have said he didn't do this and he mastered it from the originals which were hard to reproduce on on Lp with a lot of bass and so required some filtering for LP pressings but it isn't unknown for stuff to happen to a mastering engineers work after he's done it. Anyway I bought this old disc and it, as much as it might well of been a generation down from the master, sounds much freer and expands beautifully. "

Spurred on this find, I after nearly twenty years waiting got the Commodores Natural High/Midnight Magic twofer CD from 1986 pressed in Japan for Europe. It is very hard to find. It use the single edits of Flying High and Three Times A Lady to fit both albums within the then 74 minute time restriction of a CD but sounds amazing!
I also got the Marvin Gaye What's Going On & Let's Get It On twofer cheaply which sounds more natural than the 1994/8 issues

I got Mary Wells Two Lovers coupled with My Guy from the States which is a great stereo disc and actually quite rare

In January 2010 I picked up very cheaply The Supremes Let The Sunshine In c/w Cream Of The Crop from 1986 which was pressed in Japan

Adult little gurl presentation

This blog has always been a broad blog in terms of its coverage being more about me and my interests so it's entirely fitting to talk a little about adult little gurl presentation cos we see so much of more adult sissy presentations.

Generally given as an adult little gurl, I am a sissy who feels and acts more like a child that means my clues about who to dress are more like an actual child's even if somethings may need to be made specifically for me or involving finding suitable near equivalents in bigger sizes so I may wear something more like this.

For as long as I have lived though I have always loved pretty dresses that emphasize my shoulders, nice rounded collars and bows.

Spending a day playing with the girls was always what as a sissy I always wanted to do even to the point of playing dress up with them.

It's just so me.

Paddington Bear & The school at the turrets

Today's theme is reading and today I will write about two books.

One thing I have always liked is Paddington Bear who came from deepest darkest Peru to London.

Aunt Lucy is Paddington's aunt and Uncle Pastuzo's wife. She adopted her nephew after his parents died. When Pastuzo died in an earthquake she later sent him off to London while she resided in the Home for Retired Bears in Darkest Peru. 

Paddington often writes to her about his new family in London.

Paddington Bear was both a series of printed stories we read and at the time a cartoon series on BBC 1, part of a batch that run before the main 5:40 or 5:45 evening news slot that marked the transition from children's programming to more adult or  at least whole family material.

I have a dvd with all the original cartoon episodes on.

Connected with Michael Bond being working in the BBC, for a good many years in the 1960's and early 1970's a new Paddington Bear short story would appear in the Blue Peter book we had that Christmas.

This publication, mine is a the original boyhood edition, issued in 1975 brought a group of them together 

.

As the nights start to draw in, it's a enjoyable idea to read a book about an hour before bed time several chapters per night and this is one I read recently.

 I've had this actual childhood being published in nineteen seventy-one by Armada in Great Britain and my copy is a little worn around the spine although the pages haven't started to fall out.

It's a ghost story with a twist being set at a girls boarding school where Ida sees something that almost causes her heart to stop beating for her eyes are transfixed upon a tall figure in white with an outstretched hand and a stony stare in her eyes.

This, Ida thinks must be the the 'White Lady' who legend has it haunts the old part of the school turrets.

It's a gripping story.

A sissy gurl's bedroom

To be quite honest most of the designs and pictures I see for bedrooms really do nor interest me at all.

You see in my regressed world since what happened in 2006/7 this is really the sort of bedroom I want a twenty-first century feminine gurls one, less austere than the one I was brought up with but completely free from anything adult so I can just sleep and play in it which is helping me recover right now.

Ultimately of course the only way to be you is to just go out there and do it but you may start of by trying out looks in your bedroom much like any girl experiments with things like hair styles and make up so making it really feminine couldn't be any better for you, could it?

Don Henley

The Eagles were a band who I followed in the nineteen-seventies until the ugly affairs of the Long Run tour of 1979/80 saw the the band effectively end and with remembers starting or in the case of Joe Walsh resuming solo careers.

In late 1984 Don Henley released Building The Perfect Beast on Geffen records which was the home to The Boys Of Summer, a top 5 hit, Sunset Grill and All She Wants To Do Is Dance.

In 1989, he released the Age Of Innocence album that didn't chart so  well but was acclaimed for tackling more mature themes than many in rock not least the disconnect between the governed and the governors.
Recently I was able to get these, the very best sounding versions of both titles on 24kt gold cd at an affordable price to replace my original cassette copies.

Jennings follows a clue

The second story in this series came out in 1951 where Jennings feels inspired to take up the career as a detective with Darbishire as his assistant, trouble needless to say is just around the corner.

The twosome first of all detect the lights being on in the sanitarium when nobody is supposed to be in there which is the catalyst for them investigating it and the laundry room before noticing the school sports cups, to which competitions are due have disappeared!

They see a main of whom they believe to be a piano tuner leave the building with them and follow him, breaking school rules into the village going into a silversmith and jewellers oblivious to this being his occupation and that he was to engrave them for the school by permission!

In the meantime all this detective stuff is becoming something of a distraction  not just to Jennings and Darbishire but within their form leading to a number of mishaps not least being caught having defaced a textbook and not paying proper attention in class which results as did for many of our generation in a lecture and a caning from the Head.

While exploring the sanatorium they get caught by a mysterious person who locks them in a room and after escaping, investigate laundry as they lose a clue to only end up being driven  away as the school sports is taking place. In the end they found out who really stole the cups in time for presenting them.

It's a hilarious account of schoolboy life that could only exist pre internet and cellphone that I loved as a boy at boarding school.

My edition my edition is the 1967 Collins hardback which keeps this dust jacket

Ankle socks

 The options when it comes to ankle socks are endless as it is easy to get really nice cute ones for us from the girls range, something that is helped by having small child size feet and are often a better choice in the summer months.

These were from a mainstream department store.

Sissy gurls like me belong in skirts such as this pleated skater skirt that help us make the most of our feminity.

As that sissy, you never wanted to wear anything other than pretty girlie panties and now dear sissy, that's all you will wear!

Being with the girls as a Gurl

Going back in the gender divided world I grew up in you had to be in one group or the other and if you chose "other" then who knew just what the terms might be.

Sometimes it was more like that.

You could play with girls but you were not going to be treated as if you are a girl because they saw you as a "sissy" and never a "girl in a boys body".

And just to remind you you'd be expected to do anything they said so an early age female dominance just became a part of your sissy life.

To be with them required you altered your presentation.

They didn't want anything "foreign" in view so at times it could get more like this.

Secretly Tammy loved it.

Playground games of the past

This was a game I sure remember playing as a kid and no doubt if were socially possible to today I would gladly. The game involves one or more of you chasing other players with the aim of touching them generally with your hands.

Two or more players decide who is going to be 'it' using a counting out game such as Enny Meany, miny, moe and the one designated 'it' then chases the others attempting to get close enough to tag them - a touch of their hand - that makes that person 'it' and so it continues usually to the end of recess at schools.

In some forms it's deemed if you are on or touching a safe are then you can't be tagged cos it's off limits.

There was a form of it I well remember well from primary school 'cos we played it all the time called Kiss Chase.
The main difference is the tag is done by kissing rather than a touch of the hand and typically all of us of one gender are 'it' at the same time and chase the others of the opposite gender until everyone is caught at which point the team that was caught becomes it.
I really loved playing kiss chase between 8 and 11 years of age.

Littlesness

As you may have gathered from reading this blog so far, I do like reading, indeed always loved reading as a child back then although I always struggled with books intended for teens and over cos I'm both dyslexic and have developmental disabilities.

I always been little and never more than middle from that whole period when my peers became adolescents and apart from the purely physical I didn't, being the younger child by a few forms of my form, being their younger sibling who needed to be looked out for and even to a point sheltered from what were the social norms of my class.

I may as far as the law of land goes be an adult but in all of respects i most certainly am not nor will be.

I don't role play a child, I am one mentally in adult body who just dresses like I actually am albeit in short trousers or dresses but always a little sissy gurl.

Little Sissy Gurls (LSG's) like real children have nothing to do with more groan up sexual stuff and are just more prissier feminine child-like sissies of a boy heritage, having the sense to see really they were never socially a boy.

The Wombles

This week I'm going back in time.

Well none of us of a certain age can forget the Wombles, ecological warriors and cute cuddly creatures from the 1970's and as a child I looked forward to watching every episode, never mind their music.

Here's a link to the online Museum:

Tidy Bag - The Online Wombles Museum

This also has links to various currently available merchandise.
There is a excellent two DVD box set in recycled cardboard featuring all 60 original episodes in order which I recently purchased.

School uniformed life

This kind of uniform with blazer over shirt, tie and shorts was very much a part of my own experience as a child because this was what boys generally wore to school. You cannot help but notice it just doesn't compliment their appearances but it looks very smart as well as defining you a school boy while in the way the girls look smart in their skirts..

Older boys tended to wear long trousers and ankle socks from the 1970's onwards and girls today who are older wear opaque tights rather than knee socks.

I would not deny for one moment I would of liked to of had the option of wearing a grey box cut pinafore dress, matching socks and a blazer as my feminine gurl self but it wasn't to be.

Of course any part of being a school child included shared interests of which a big one is comics and for me it was the British Comic, the Beano with it's adventures that we shared especially in my boarding school.

Recently it has been celebrating its 70th anniversary with a special soft back magazine edition that I bought back in July and this exhibition.

Magical girl make overs

It's a time in the year that triggers off my age dysphoria  cos on the inside I am and feel like a ten year old and I expect to be going back to school with replaced uniform and stationery.

It's always been like this to be honest.

I do love anime heaps not least magical girl ones.

Magical girl (Japanese: 魔法少女, Hepburn: mahō shōjo) is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy media (including anime, manga, light novels, and live-action media) centred around young girls who possess magical abilities, which they typically use through an ideal alter ego into which they can transform.

In the 1990s, Sailor Moon introduced the concept of a "transforming heroine" who fights against forces of evil, a synthesis of elements from tokusatsu hero shows that became a staple for magical girl series that followed. 

On the more serious side of things imagine one day you were strolling along  having had some serious doubts about your life and this conversation started.

The thing with me is you couldn't turn me into a magical girl because I am a biological boy who is happy with being one even though I do have feminine gender traits.

You could encourage me to express them by encouraging me to gender present in them by wearing skirted attire or when I'm feeling more like that schoolboy changing my short trousers for a pinafore dress or pleated skirt.

That's what sissy gurls like me need in a society that takes issue with gender fluidity.

Nancy at St. Brides

This month I am going to write a bit about a book which taps into part of me but was even when I was growing up was seen as part of a series that were more in the past more what we'd be handed down or bought second hand. This copy is the 2002 Girls Gone By paperback reprint.

 Nancy at St. Brides is the second in this series but in a lot of ways the first proper book in that this is where the main character Nancy makes here appearance as a relatively unschooled 14 year old dispatched to St.Brides  with instructions to be kept an eye on being very ahem spirited which soon shows in the dares she was only too willing to perform and caught out by the Sixth form prefects.

You could say she was impressionable which I was too at this age and this is the the story of her first unhappy term as she gets to grips with school structures, rules and consequences.

It's an enjoyable read not just for her spirit but also how working at channelling her interests starts to pay off.

Bach

Bach is a composer I'm slowly making my way through in building up a sizable selection  of his compositions and recently I bought this 96/24bit transfer of the 1980 recording of the Goldberg Variations and the 1976 Italian Concerto for Harpsichord performed by Trevor Pinnock who normally conducts.

I love this account of Bach's Cello Sonatas that originally came out in 1985

This account of the Brandenburg Concertos originally came out to great acclaim in 1992 on EMI Eminence but four years ago was reissued by Classics For Pleasure in a slim double cd form.

 This is the later 1991 re-issue of the recording by violinists Anne-Sophie Mutter and Salvatore Accardo with the English Chamber Orchestra made in 1983 I bought on phase on of replacing my records and tapes with cds.

Bach wrote rather a lot for the organ and so at some point you are wanting a recording of his Organ works such as the Toccata and Fugue and this a re-release of a two cd set originally issued in 1992/3 by Peter Hurford a distinguished organist fits the bill.