Happy Birthday Sakura 2015!

Sakura's on her Birthday at Tokyo Tower by wishluv on DeviantArt

Happy Birthday Kinomoto Sakura (and a whole bunch of other CLAMP characters) 2015!

I always am tempted to pull some sort of prank on April 1, but I get this sinking feeling that Sakura-chan has done my share of trolling. 

Chapter 70, the chapter that came about because I wanted to draw stars in Sakura's hair. Actually, I initially wrote that Syaoran gave Sakura a sakura blossom shaped hair pin, but found that I wanted to draw stars instead, and also, I thought if fit the overall ambiance of the scene better since she was going to have to wear it for a whopping whole two chapters. I sketched the picture back in 2013. 

So, anyone getting psyched for the new official Card Captor Sakura artwork from CLAMP for the Nakayoshi 60th anniversary edition of the manga? Low and behold, the cover of Volume 2 revealed recently with Sakura and Tomoyo have the two girls coincidentally wearing a similar hair ornament. But CLAMP's been doing the star theme forever--though I don't recall Rodarte-style star clips being done before. So far, I've been loving the new covers more than the original ones (I love Sakura, but 12 pink volumes of Sakura with staff can get a bit monotonous unless you are Li Syaoran. Speaking of Syaoran, I can't wait to see the Sakura and Syaoran cover. Part of me wants it to be the last one, because that makes it more special, but part of me wants to see it quicker. Now, what would be awesome is a CCS-style color middle school Sakura and Syaoran official artwork.



There's a lot of things on my mind at the moment. But I wanted to throw out a question to you guys. If I were to get a domain name for New Trials, would you want me to stick with wishluv dot something, for familiarity and uniformity's sake. I wish I wasn't 13 years old when I decided on my Geocities webpage. But I inevitably was, and wishluv has stuck since and somehow it kind of grew on me. I haven't caught up on correspondence and a bunch of other things yet--I feel like a chapter is not really completed until I have it posted on my own website. 

I'm enjoying watching everyone's contributions for Sakura's b-day (and other character's b-day over the past month) on Facebook! It inspired me to finish this fanart.

Music Spotlight: Ayaka Hirahara - Jupiter



 I had a hard time choosing a song to fit this fanart. I'm sure I've raved about Ayaka Hirahara before, but I think she's one of the most powerful female Japanese vocalists. I first heard this song in 2003 in the airplane, on the J-Pop channel radio. Back in those days, we had limited inflight entertainment, but this was one of those songs that sent chills down my spine from the very first notes. Of course, the tune is based off of Gustav Holst's Jupiter movement from The Planets, which has always been a favorite of mine. But it has to be a powerful voice that could not be overpowered by such a grand tune and orchestra. Good songs bring you back to the moment your hear it, and I still remember listening to that radio chanel three times (some three hours) to figure out what song it was and who the singer was. I thought she would be a veteran singer but was shocked to find out how young she was, and that this was her debut single. 

Check out the lyrics or the English version of the song as well.