For the record, those Tennendo scents that I reviewed a few months back? That I said were nice and interesting, but weren't really my thing? Well, I LIED.

As I made my way through the samplers I decided that maybe I did like Renzan and the Frankincense enough to buy a roll, and since they were both cheap, I did. And for the past couple of months I've been burning them like a crack addict. I'm thinking I might end up having to get a roll of Tensei, too. It was odd, but once I burned enough of them, that musky note in the Renzan, Tensei, and Kuukai, while certainly not being any less noticeable to me, started seeming a lot less earthy/dirty than it had at first; I'm not sure what happened, but they really, really grew on me.

And as for the Frankincense, man, I'd recommend that to just about anyone. That stuff is just amazing. Dave really loves it too.

...

I got Essence's new Gyokushodo sampler recently (I'd link to it, but it appears they haven't put it on the menu yet for some reason), and my overall impression is that they really remind me a lot of Shoyeido, only the Gyokushodos are fairly subtle in terms of scent strength, and, er, well, "subtle" isn't really in Shoyeido's vocabulary, I think. In that light, I sort of wonder why they remind me so much of Shoyeido, but something about the scents are really reminiscent of them, especially of the way Shoyeido does aloeswoods. Sweet, delicate, with certain misty qualities that are nearly impossible to put into words.

I had trouble with not being able to smell a couple of them very well again (I think it was Jinko Hoen and Jinko Yozei). It's very weird how my nose does this. There are a great many scents that get described as "subtle" that I have absolutely no trouble with, but then there are some that I do, and there doesn't seem to be much consistency with the ingredients or anything like that. I can't figure what it is.

By the way, for those who like unique takes on sandalwood, Koujurin is definitely different. It has a peculiar (though pleasant) vanilla-touched musk to it. I think it's triggering some associations for me that I don't really like, but it's a great scent.

Canaan ep 2:

In this episode we are treated to:

- cheery photographer girl being a complete wackjob and having absolutely no fear of death;

- crazy lady in the Chinese dress and her disturbingly incestuous obsession with her sister, who ignores her;

- her sister being a total psycho badass;

- a cheerfully psychotic, homicidal old geezer with what I think is a submachine gun;

- old geezer's shota caretaker, voiced by everyone's favorite shota actress;

- a battle on top of a bus that ends in a human barbeque;

- and George motherfucking Nakata as a random maniacal taxi driver, singing along happily with vapid J-pop and driving off a fucking building.



(They are being chased by people who intend to murder them in this picture. You may notice that neither the girl nor the taxi driver seem to evidence much concern.)

In short, everyone in this series is out of their minds and OH MY GOD GEORGE NAKATA I HAVE MENTIONED LATELY THAT I LOVE YOU.

I uh, still have no idea what the hell is going on, but it has something to do with Bloody X some engineered virus called the Ua virus. I still haven't found it in myself to care that I have no idea what's going on, either. I was too busy having my eyes explode repeatedly due to too much awesome.



I rest my case.

...

As a side note, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya S2 episode 5: Considering the kind of hijinks the creators got up to with the first series, I expected shenanigans, but wow, KyoAni, you have got some balls.