Getting back with the boyfriend whose proposal I rejected

Translated from Japanese for fun.
Original story here: http://komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/t/2013/0331/583265.htm?g=04

A year ago, I turned down a proposal from my boyfriend of three years.

At first I said yes when he proposed, but right after that his company suddenly went bankrupt. He desperately tried to find work but couldn’t land anything. Eventually he got a job as a temp worker on a contract.Unfortunately he was making only 8000 yen ($85) a day with no bonuses, so honestly I had second thoughts about marrying him. Even if I continued working we wouldn’t be able to live a leisurely life. I want to be able to give my children lots of love, and they’ll only be lonely if their parents are both consumed with work.
I couldn’t help feeling that way, so I broke up with him. Since then I’ve been looking for a suitable marriage partner, but no one that meets my criteria has shown up in the past year.

That’s when I heard a rumor about my ex-boyfriend. It seems the company he temped for hired him as a full-time employee and they’ve already promoted him to a senior position. His income is fairly stable as well.

Upon hearing that, I realized that I still had feelings for him, and I want to get back together. He did everything he could to try and stop me when I wanted to break up, so I’m sure I’ve still got a chance. From what I hear he doesn’t have a girlfriend either.

I’m a little nervous, so I’m here to ask everyone for moral support. Thanks a lot!

[do not reply]

Accidentally rejected a reverse proposal

Agony aunt story, translated for fun from Japanese. There are idiots in every country, huh?

Original story here: …ooops, forgot the link and now it’s lost forever. Oh well.

I’m a 32 year old man with a 29 year old girlfriend. We’ve been dating for the past 5 years. She proposed to me last Sunday. Without thinking I immediately turned her down, saying “I’m sorry, now’s not a good time.” But it’s not because I didn’t want to marry her.

The thing is, it’s her birthday next month so I was planning to propose to her then. I’ve already got an engagement ring and I was just about to reserve a restaurant when she proposed instead.

I never expected to be the one receiving the proposal, and for a moment I thought about returning the proposal there and there, but I didn’t have the engagement ring with me at the time. I didn’t see the point of proposing without a ring, so I ended up turning her down.

The minute I said the words, I thought, “Crap!” but she just laughed and said, “I’m sorry, I guess it was too sudden. It’s only natural.” She didn’t seem upset, but since then she hasn’t responded to my emails or answered my calls. What can I do to make her feel better?

[do not reply]

Last Inning manga review (spoilers)

Last Inning is a baseball manga about a con bailed out of prison with the condition that he help lead his former high school baseball team to the National Baseball Championships (Koshien). I read from vol 1 up to vol 15 and didn’t like it for several reasons.

1. No likeable characters. Or rather no likeable ones on the protagonist’s team. There were a few interesting chaps on rival teams, but the main team was made up of either slavish do-gooders or whiny crybabies. This includes the management as well.

2. Main character Hatogaya is a self-confessed crook that gets away with massive fraud and scamming innocent people. And is not even sorry for it. I can’t support someone like that. He should be in jail or at least working his butt off to pay people back.

3. Too repetitive. Train, complain, train, play practice game, win, train, complain, train. The kind of training changes, the specific complaints change, but it’s the same old cycle in the end.

4. They try to paint the main team as the underdogs, but they haven’t been an underdog team since they almost went toe-to-toe with Virgin Mary Academy in volume 5-ish. Makes it hard to root for them when they’re so good they can’t find opponents on their level.

5. Apart from the pitcher, the catcher, the cleanup and the captain, everyone else is completely forgettable. This is usually the case in baseball manga, but it’s extra bad here because it makes the matches completely forgettable. Speaking of which,

6. Apart from the Virgin Mary game, all the other games they’ve played have been routine and boring with 0 (zero) suspense.

7. I am disillusioned by the fact that conditions mean nothing in the series – things work out anyway. The VMA game was based on a bet: beat VMA or you don’t go to Okinawa. But they lost. Yet they went to Okinawa anyway. That means the main condition of the series – go to Koshien or the team is disbanded – means nothing. The team won’t be disbanded anyway.

Besides, I skipped and read the blurb of the latest Last Inning volume out in Japan and they not only made it to Koshien but are in the third round against a Tokyo school (don’t blame me, I did say “spoilers” in the topic title). So, yeah. I’m done here.

Update: I hear the Last Inning series is now over at 44 volumes. I wonder how it ended? Time to find out!

I don’t want to invite her any more

Agony aunt story. Translated from Japanese for fun.

Original story: http://komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/t/2013/0324/581892.htm?g=06

Every one or two years, my friends and I from school get together for a small trip. Some of them live far away so the ones that usually do the planning are I and a few other members who still live in the area. Recently one person, I’ll call her A, contacted me saying “Isn’t it time we went on another trip?”

But the truth is… I don’t want to invite A any more.

My reasons are:

・Since she lives far away she never wants to do the planning.

・She finds fault with the plans we come up with. She’s even forced us to do them over before.

・Ideally we’d like to travel by train or bus, but she always says those are too much trouble for her. “Somebody bring a car!” (She never brings her own car either.)

・She makes selfish demands when we reach our destination (e.g. wants to go or tries to go somewhere other than planned. Once she tried to go off somewhere just when our train was due. My friend and I physically grabbed her and forced her onto the train, where she went crazy with anger…)

・She moves slowly. When everyone’s ready to go to the public baths, for example, she’s still not ready and makes us wait several more minutes.

・She’s a mean drunk. (Her excuse is “It’s my stress reliever!” Well she’s not the only one stressed out…)

・She snores.

・She hogs the bathroom and dresser in the morning. She also takes forever to change her clothes.

And many other complaints besides. The other members don’t like this either. One of them suggested that we stop inviting her this year, but someone else said they’d feel bad if we didn’t.

This year B is doing the planning because there’s a place she wants to go. I don’t think it’s a place A would like, so she’ll probably reject the plan. I think we’re going to end up keeping things a secret from A this time, but should we invite her after all?

[do not reply]

Mr. Fullswing manga review

I stopped reading manga and watching anime for a while back there, but I’m slowly picking up one or two series here and there.

I like baseball and I’d heard Mr. Fullswing was really funny so I thought “Why not?”

Story: Saruno, our main character, falls in love with a girl who happens to be the manager of the school baseball team. To impress her, he joins the team and pretends to be a good player, but he’s actually a complete beginner. He does however have a legendarily powerful swing that just might bring luck to the down-and-out Juunishi baseball team…

My verdict: It’s not that funny, and it’s not really about baseball either. Firstly the team has yet to play a real baseball game. They’ve been doing bullshit shonen-style training like catching three balls at once and throwing balls at moving targets. Their “baseball” games have also come with ridiculous conditions like stripping and adding weights. On top of that are all the bogus magical moves like razor balls and super speed, stuff that the series can do without because when it gets serious and normal it’s actually pretty good.

I read up to chapter 54 and it was hard going. There’s a gag on every page, usually a forced and unfunny one. It slows down the progression of the story, and it’s hard to laugh at jokes you know are coming. You know every time you turn a page that Saruno is going to do something “wacky and unexpected” so very quickly you stop finding him amusing and just want him to get on with it. It’s especially bad when it breaks the mood when something important is happening… which is all the time, come to think of it.

As I said, Mr. Fullswing is pretty good when it tones down the LOL RANDUM stuff and sticks to the story it’s trying to tell. That makes the occasional gags more amusing and easier to take. I think the author has realized it, which is why the more recent chapters are slightly more bearable. I don’t I care enough about the outcome of the Year 2-3 vs. Year 1 game to read the rest though.

I dread what will happen when they get to the Summer Tournament and Koshien anyway. If the older team members of the Juunishi team with their Time-stopping Fielding and Razor Curveballs couldn’t crack Koshien then the opposing teams must have some unimaginably (stupid and) powerful techniques that will only make Mr. Fullswing more of a slog than it already it. Maybe it’s best if I quit while I’m ahead.