Rubbish Part 3 :
Reminiscences and Retardedness

Readers, prepare yourself, as this is going to be a super long rambling.

When I was 12 years old, I despised any Japanese thingy and it was very uneven for me to watch anime, since I did believe that those are not more than rubbish in disguise of cutesy wutesy characters with giant eyes and Cinderella wannabe storyline. I was addicted by MTV and boybands (bunch of them), and assuming that missing any MTV program (mention MTV Most Wanted, or even MTV Salam Dangdut to be more extreme *lol*) was a super big sin.

Until one day, I met my-best-rival-yet-my-best-friend that I used to call her Loki (a mischievous god from Norse mythology), and she was a very talented manga artist! Everyday in school we talked much about manga that we made, and even shared our dream someday to be popular manga artists. I often modified the ending in her manga and she did the same thing in mine. I always wrote an angst and tragic ending while she hearted the sweet and happily ever-after kind of ending. I loved to portray the classical or medieval setting in my works whilst she fancied the contemporary and school-life. Somehow I always protested her ways in amending the plot within my manga, since she always draw the happy ending resolution, which I detest so much.

I had a camp on school afterwards. That night, during the bonfire, Loki told me about an anime series called ‘Heroic Legend of Arslan’ that aired by Indosiar every Sunday at 6 AM. This epic tells about the young prince called Arslan from Persian Empire, who lost his family as well as his beloved kingdom during the war, and goes for a long journey to claim back his own possessions. Interestingly, our miserable prince is only 14 at that time. Since the nuance of the fire-camp was quite provoking, and my imagination often goes uncompromisingly wild, I started to fantasize weird thing about this character and formed a perfect faithful being named Arslan in my mind. I was obsessed with the character that I even didn’t know how he look like =S. And the bad thing is, the series was over once I start to rise earlier in Sunday morning to watch it.

Arslan in Manga by Chisato Nakamura-san, bishie Rulez XD!!

So Loki started to manipulate me by showing the pictorial of Arslan that she draws. I was easily motivated in creating Arslan in my version, over and over again. Until someday we had a fight, which Arslan is more into the embodiment of the real one. It was stupid, I know, especially when I realized that I’ve never seen the real Arslan and although she managed to see it, I believe that she couldn’t create the pretty similar art.

Arslan in Novel, illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano (the famous designer of Final Fantasy series)

By the time I had an internet at home, I started to redeem my obsession, browsed about Arslan as much as I like. I called Indosiar almost 3 times a day to ask the series to be relayed. I befriend Arslan’s manga artist, Chisato Nakamura-san, by sending her email and told her how much I loved the characters (it’s true!), and she replied me by sending some of the manga-scans. I ordered the Japanese manga via Kinokuniya. I changed my email, my sign, and all traces of my identity into his name.

Arslan in Anime, characterized by Sachiko Kamimura =D

Nevertheless, it was still impossible for me to watch the anime, as I didn’t know where I should search for it. I still bury my curiosity deep down inside. Even when I was in NTU, I couldn’t stop search for it. Sadly, using Ares and Bittorent there were totally useless. So here I go again, all alone living with so many question marks about the series.

Then I came to Copenhagen Denmark, where I can use Bittorent and download ‘Heroic Legend of Arslan’ series. I was waiting impatiently for 3 days and by the time the downloading process is finished, I watched it, over and over again, even until now I’m just done with it (and planning to re-watch again tomorrow =p).

Yesterday, I called Loki, still my-best-rival-yet-my-best-friend, only to inform her that I finally watched the series. She was very surprised, since I was still as weird as before, calling from Copenhagen-Jakarta simply to notify her about this. Afterwards the conversation goes the same way as it was 9 years ago, though we never see each other for almost 5 years. We talked about our dreams, still, to be popular manga artists. I missed her so much. Thanks for telling me about this series, as I learnt a lot from it.

There’s a dialogue that I loved so much within the series :

Arslan : Who is the invader here, Pars or Lusitania ?
Etoile : Lusitania, but it was because you didn’t worship the true God!
Arslan : Then why did Lusitania invade Maryam ? Don’t you both worship the same God?
Etoile : But they were worshipping the wrong way!
Arslan : Who told you that ?
Etoile : It is the words of God!
Arslan : Did God say that? Did He say that to you?
Etoile : He didn’t say it to me, but it is still true.
Arslan : How do you know that ?
Etoile : You couldn’t understand! We are fighting to spread the words of God! We are willing to sacrifice our lives to Him.
Arslan : Your lives? Don’t act so righteous. Is that the true path? Is that what God wants?
Etoile : Shut up!
Arslan : The order to attack Pars didn’t come from God. Your leaders are just using God’s name.

Heroic Legend of Arslan is an epic, loosely based on the history of Iran during Islamic invasion. Previously, Persians were pagans and worshipped the god of Sun until the Arab armies came and forced them to convert into Muslims. Within this story, the Lusitanians invade Persians in order to convert them into monotheists. There are a lot of issues about slavery here, as Arslan is very concern about the abolishment of slavery practices.

Arslan and Hermes, his so-called cousin and the real heir of Persian throne *spoiler alert* =p

The story reminds me of Suikoden series by the way, the epic-colossal with no flavor of roman.