a normal case of obsession

a few days before new year, i happened to chance upon an interesting cover of a new manga, tsubasa reservoir chronicles. it said clamp on it and featured syaoran and sakura (of card captor sakura fame) in an alternate universe. but despite the clamp mark, i was still skeptical. could this be really clamp? or some other fan fiction using clamp characters? the art was impressive though. so with that alone as a factor, i figured to myself, what the heck, i'll buy it.

i was hooked. and if this wasn't clamp, i'd still be hooked. and as with all the first editions, there came that tiny spark of obsession that persistently told me, you have to see how the story goes, the WHOLE story. to the very end! so it was in the case of inuyasha (by rumiko takahashi). i was given the first chapter as a gift, and 370 something chapters after, i'm still reading it. another would be mulawin (but this is a show, and as such, is episode-based).

in case you were wondering, no, i didn't buy each chapter nor the volume. i just happened to search for it at the website and tried to locate that which offered the most comprehensive translations (i'm that obsessed). if i'm lucky enough, the site owner would add some scans. other than that, i just read the pages like a script and use my imagination to come up how the art would look like.

a little too extreme, no? masochistic, perhaps? but that's how it is with me. it does get frustrating sometimes. because i really prefer the hard copy to look at, and those chapters, they can't seem to be updated fast enough (or in some cases, not all). tiring as well, because the sequences can be so slow or veering away from the main plot. ultimately though, it is gratifying. because a good story is always something to look forward to.