I was surprised to see it and I have to say… I was very touched. ^_^ It really made my day to know that there are people out there who love Kasumi as much as Sugimoto-san and I do.

We’ve also been receiving a lot emails regarding when volume 3 is coming out. Unfortunately, due to the state of the manga market and other various circumstances, volume 3 will be delayed for some time. We’ll keep you inform when we have more news.

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking of starting up an official fan page and will be requesting for more submissions soon.

So, till then…adieu >_<

Just to back track a little, ever since I got back from Asia, I was struck with the worst case of throat infection EVER. It didn’t help that my docs diagnose me wrongly. TOTALLY! Seriously, I could consider suing but whatever. I don’t have the time for that.

Anyways, turns out after months of suffering, i had fungus in my throat. YUCK! you say. Tell me about it…Thank goodness it is over. I was reading online that one of the reasons why I kept falling sick again and again was because I was not resting enough…

So anyways, now that I am back, I’ll try to upload the rest of the fan art as soon as I can. Please be patient a little longer…*Surt bows deeply* Domo arigato!

But, yesterday, I finally told myself. I have to get those songs out of my head. *grin*. So, I went on iTunes and started searching and surprisingly, I managed to find those songs I’ve been wanting for SOOO long. Here’s a link to one of them:

The Way I am- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T88NfxVJdc

I thought it is very appropriate. I told Gabriel (and he stared blankly at me) that this is the song he should be singing to me, especially the part about – being called “baby” and “rogane”. hahaha. It’s a private joke. Ever since I had him, I dropped a lot of hair. It’s beginning to grow back but *sigh* the baby hair is all stick up now and I look like the Naru from Love Hina with her hair sticking up.

I went to the shop that handled the mid-century United States furniture and miscellaneous goods the other day. It is for research of culture at that time and atmosphere.

Instead of taking a picture of the store and leaving, I decided to take a turn deliberately to see the inside of the store.

Large-scale..building..huge..store..all..retro..import..miscellaneous goods..overflow..inside..miscellaneous goods..category..exceed..thing..provide.

For instance, there were things, such as a gas can, and gas station and a road traffic sign, a parking meter, and a streetlight. They seeming are all valuable things obtained with proper channels. The design is very beautiful. The things in that age provide only one function for one tool is more exciting when designed and used for another.

I was satisfied of the shop as it was guided by a well informed beautiful woman clerk about the history background of the design and the miscellaneous goods of the shop for about two hours.

I bought one plate there. I took a photograph below. My office has become a parking lot except (Sunday is excluded. )haha

I heard from my editor today. She said that Kasumi, vol.2 is going through reorders. We started at 8000 copies and now we’re at 10,000 copies! Yes!! It’s really exciting. Del Rey is real happy too and I hope that means that we can go for vol.3? At the moment, we’re in a wait and see stage which is sad but can’t be helped considering the bad economy that we’re having now. So, because of that, we have to say – THANK YOU KASUMI FANS for supporting us!! Arigatogozaimasu!! (bow) (bow) (bow)

Recently, whilst waiting for Kasumi, vol.2’s release, I’ve been working on writing a book. A little side project to pass time. We shall see how that goes. Sugimoto-san, on the other hand, has been working on Cate West 2 – The Velvet Keys. It’s a game that is created by Gamenauts, Inc (www.gamenauts.com) and Sugimoto-san is responsible for creating the story scenes. Here’s a picture of one of the scenes that Sugimoto-san had created. Ain’t it cool? You can try out the game for free at this link and click download: http://www.gamenauts.com/games/catewest2.html.

In our home, we are gadget crazy. I guess we need to be if we want to be ahead of times. Stanley, my husband, is a game designer and he needs to have the latest console, TV and whatnot. We just got ourselves an “Apple TV” last night. It is like an ipod for the TV. What I really liked about it is that it has all the latest TV shows. Even though we have a TiVo, we tend to miss the shows and it’s cool to have it at your fingertips as and when you want it. The only bad thing about it…is that darn it’s $1.99 per show?!!! That’s crazy. I could wait for Netflix but it’s too long…We have been hooked on 30Rock and I wanted to see the 3rd Season now rather than wait for the dvds. So, iTunes win – 1:0.

here’s the translation to Sugimoto-san’s blog post:

Spring Weather

Two volumes were put on the market the other day. I’m glad because everyone will have the chance to read about the many new characters in volume 2.

When the distance is short, I like to move around on my bicycle. I’ve used it for about 6 or 7 years. It’s a foldable bicycle named dibrasi. I like it very much. Especially, as the carrier is kawaii. I feel good [ku] on dibrasi. The sky cleared up well the other day and we went shopping together. I felt the bud of spring and felt good.

Dibrasi makes the sound [baki] [tto] when I ride and it felt good when my bicycle zoomed [ku] passed a group of junior high school students on their school trip. They were probably thinking that a drunken man was riding a bicycle.  The bicycle started to stutter and it starts and stops and starts again. At first I didn’t understand what was happening. The pedal broke and flew off. It broke as a result of overworking for a long time.  I was laughed by the group of junior high school students and when I tried to get on it but was impossible [yakotowari], a stranger said “Safe” and it was very embarrassing…

I treated to an interesting sense the other day though I jogged every day at night. There was a power failure that day or perhaps the streetlight by chance was not working. It was pitch-dark except for the moon above. The moonlight shone on the road brightly and seeing only moonlight with the view of the streetlight in the distance. In the almost pitch-dark situation and the smell of some flowers… my sense of equilibrium disappears…with the music of [yasushihiroshi] Kobayashi (COBA) that flows from my iPod. It was very mysterious though I ran into the light of the streetlight soon, when I reached it and I had returned to the usual jog. It was an indescribable feeling.

–私は自転車で行動するのが好きで，多少の距離なら自転車で移動します。dibrasiという折りたたみ自転車を愛用していて、整備をしながらかれこれ６、７年程度乗っています。私はこれをとても気に入っているのです。特に荷台がkawaiiです。
先日良く晴れたので、気分良くdibrasiに乗り買い物に出掛けました。春の芽吹きも感じられ、とても気分が良いです。

修学旅行の団体中学生の横を気分良く颯爽と走り抜けようとした時、バキッっと言う音がして同時に大きくよろめきました。まるで酔っぱらいが自転車に乗っているように！最初何が起っているのかわからなかったのですが、再び発進しようとしたときに全てがわかりました。なんとペダルが折れて飛んでいってしまっていたのです！！長い間酷使した結果、折れてしまったんですね。団体中学生には笑われるし、その後無理矢理に不安定な状態で乗っていると見知らぬ人から「大丈夫？」と声をかけられたりしてとても恥ずかしかったです…。

–私は夜に毎日ジョギングをするのですが、先日面白い感覚に遇いました。その道はいつもは明るく照らされているんですが、その日は停電なのか，街灯がたまたま故障していたのか、月明かりしか見えない様な真っ暗な状態でした。遠くの街灯の光しか見えない状態で視野が殆ど真っ暗な状況の中、何か花の香りがしてきたのです。平衡感覚が無くなった様な感覚。ipodから流れる小林靖宏(COBA)のアコーディオンの音…。まもなく街灯の明かりまで走り着き、いつものジョギングに戻ったのですが、それはなんともいえぬとても不思議でした。

ではmatane!