Awesomeness

I have a confession to make: I love puzzles. Crosswords are my favorite, but plain old jigsaws are a close second. And the tackier the artwork, the better. If it has a rainbow and a unicorn, I want it. If it's a Thomas Kinkade paint-by-numbers cottage with God rays, I'll take it. If it looks like it came out of a Wal-Mart reduced price bin, all the better. It's not so much that I find them fun, but something about completing a big jigsaw puzzle is very satisfying to me, like scratching an itch. I also enjoy untangling things. I'm not entirely sure what this says about me as a person, but it probably has something to do with deep-seated neuroses.

So, yes, I am a puzzle junky. And given my predilection for the eye sore variety, you'll understand how excited I was to find the puzzle pictured above. Mike and I found it on sale for $2.90 at the mall. It's an orange-haired, robe-wearing character from Bleach, a Japanese manga. According to Wikipedia, "Bleach follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki after he accidentally obtains the power of a Soul Reaper—a death personification similar to the Grim Reaper—from Rukia Kuchiki. Gaining these abilities forces him to take on the duties of defending humans from evil spirits and guiding departed souls to the afterlife."

That all sounds great, but this has to be the LAZIEST drawing I've ever seen. First of all, there's no background, just the color blue. And it's pretty obvious the artist didn't feel like putting any effort into the bigger version of Mr. Kurosaki. He doesn't even have any arms! It's just a big torso! I used to do that in middle school when I didn't feel like putting hands on my sketches, and I never got to have my work turned into a puzzle. I mean, for the love of God, it's a cartoon, not photo-realism. Would it have been too hard to give him limbs?

The finished product:

How awesome does that look?! I want to hang this on the wall so people can come and admire it. What an excellent way to spend my day.