Manga & Anime in Zürich

Since I went to Japan (and already before) I really got interested in manga and anime. I always liked the anime movies from Hayao Miyazaki – way better than some of that crap Disney made lately -, particularly Princess Mononoke, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds, Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. Once in Japan you understand, where Miyazaki and others get their inspiration from…This strange mixture of high-tech, tradition, strange humour and beautiful landscapes (at least, when your outside the big never-ending cities) you can experience here totally live (inclusive the school uniforms, which are just as in some of the mangas). Personally I discovered a lot of stuff (manga/anime) through U.[lik], an entertainment suggestions website.

Basic cyberpunk stuff like Akira or Ghost in the Shell I already new for a long time, but series like Serial Experiments Lain or Texhnolyze are nice additions to the genre. Texhnolyze is a rather dark and violent series that makes use of very experimental cinematic and dramatic techniques. The first nine episodes lack any dialogue. The story of Texhnolyze takes place in the crumbling underground city of Lux with artificial sunlight, water, and even day/night cycles. Texhnolyze stands for a method of creating prostethic body parts. Serial Experiments Lain revolves around around a withdrawn girl named Lain, which becomes obsessed with interconnected virtual realm of "The Wired"...

Berserk, a very popular manga in Japan, become my personal favourite. It centers around the life of Guts, an orphaned mercenary warrior with a sword as big as himself, and his relationship to Griffith, the leader of a mercenary band called the Band of the Hawk. Especially the anime Berserk, which is based upon the manga from Kentaro Miura , is very fascinating. It might seem macho at first with this big sword and everything, but the characters have more depth then you would expect and the storyline is well worked out. The animation itself is not always superquality, but the fitting music and story makes well up for this. The manga is known for it’s heavy violence, which is partly filtered out of the anime.

Of course, there is always more to check-out. You could also follow the bountyhunters of the spaceship Bebop in Cowboy Bebop, an assassin regaining his humanity in Samurai X: trust and betrayal, two alchemist brothers trying to regain parts of their body in Fullmetal Alchemist or Dr. Kenzo Tenma as he pursues a young psychopath/sociopath named Johan, whose life he once saved, in Monster. Vampire lovers could maybe checkout the movie Blood – the last vampire (although a bit short), manga/anime Hellsing or Vampire Hunter D.

I now a finally come to the point of the title of this entry. There always the possibility to order anime/manga by the internet, but there are also more direct way to discover or buy anima/manga in Zürich. There is a nice manga/anime shop with German and English translations, called "Jeeg", in Zürich near Schmiede Wiedikon. More known mangas can of course also be bought in Orell Füssli and probably other big book shops. A lot of Anime DVD's can also be bought in Laserzone near Stauffacher. A nice collection of anime to rent (among a lot of others movies) can be found in Les Videos near Central.

Swiss Chocolate (part 1)

Well, it has been 9 months since i moved from Zelzate in Belgium to Zürich in Switzerland. People often ask me, if Swiss chocolate is better than Belgian chocolate. They are both good, but different in my own personal opinion... About Belgian "French Fries" - which i still like a lot - i will be talking another time... First of all i must say, that i am really into dark fondant chocolate, i don't really like milk chocolate and don't consider white chocolate a real chocolate . I make it a habit of trying a new Swiss chocolate every weekend and i stumbled on a really good chocolate bar a few weeks back in Coop. It's called "Chocolat Noir à l'absinthe" in French, "Zartbitterschokolade gefüllt mit Absinth" in German or even more exotic "Cioccolato fondente con ripieno d'assenzio" in Italian. It's a black chocolate with the alcoholic drink absinthe as most of you probably already guessed...

Although Absinthe was very popular in the late ate 19th and early 20th century France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers whose romantic associations with the drink still linger in popular culture, it most definitely originated in Val-de-Travers, Switzerland as an elixir/tincture. It has allegedly inspired artists and writers such as Pablo Picasso, Edgar Allen Poe and Ernest Hemingway. Vincent Van Gogh is said to have cut off his ear after drinking it. Absinthe is made by steeping wormwood, along with other herbs, in pure alcohol. The resultant green liquid contains an intoxicating compound called thujone - a substance often and perhaps misleadingly likened to the drug cannabis. It was banned in Switzerland in 1908, after a factory worker killed his wife and two children in a frenzy, which was thought to have been brought on by the drink..

Absinthe has been legal in much of Western Europe for more than 20 years, but the high-proof form of the drink has remained outlawed for domestic use in Switzerland until 2003. The drink has gained massive popularity during the ban and is still gaining popularity now. Even Marilyn Manson (which has lost his touch after his guitarist left him...tainted love oh my god…or was it maybe an overdosis of his own Mansinthe ?) and HR Giger (Swiss creator of original “Alien” creature and lot more or less sensual and frightening beings)…By the way, I will be talking about HR Giger later, once I visited his museum in Gruyères, which is also famous for it's cheese.