Reviews have been appearing here in short bursts lately, but I should be back to a more rigorous schedule soon. Shouldn’t the summer be relaxing? :) A few short items:

- For those curious about my non-manga-related activities, I have joined the staff at Act Too Studio, coaching young singers and actors alongside two incredible teachers who also happen to be my parents. I’m pretty excited. Here is some information about us, and here is a page full of people saying we (and by “we” I mean mostly my folks) are great. We are also developing our website as we go, so if that’s your kind of thing, keep an eye out for new content!

- Just yesterday, I got myself on the list to review 801 Media titles, so look for a little more yaoi content here from time-to-time! They also introduced me as a new reviewer in their blog!

- As a testament to my deep love for Yen Press’ One Thousand and One Nights, my review copy of volume eight arrived on my doorstep just yesterday and was immediately pushed to the front of the line (and believe me, it’s become quite a long line). Don’t miss my review!

- On a very different note, I reviewed a new volume in another of my favorite series this week–volume seven of Mushishi. I suppose the contrasting nature of these two series should put aside any lingering worry I might have about this blog not representing me (or my tastes) fully. :) ETA: Also, translator William Flanagan has linked to my review on his Facebook page, filling my fangirlish heart with glee!

- The ever-fabulous Danielle Leigh posted a shojo round-up a day or two ago, and we ended up rambling on together in comments about NANA. Look for more of this to come. /cryptic

I wonder how much of this actually constitutes “news”? Ah, well. More reviews tomorrow!

Mushishi, Vol. 7
By Yuki Urushibara
Published by Del Rey Manga

Buy This Book

The seventh volume Yuki Urushibara’s quiet, supernatural series strikes a particularly sinister tone as nearly all its stories expose the ugliest aspects of humanity. First, “Lost in Blossoms” involves a family who has been keeping one woman alive for hundreds of years by feeding her on a sap-like mushi and grafting her head onto younger bodies whenever hers is about to die. “At the Foot of Lightning” studies a mother who is utterly unable to love her own child or even care that he exists. “The Ragged Road,” told in two parts, delves into the darkest secrets of the Minai family–the most ancient line of mushishi–and what they are willing to do to themselves (and each other) in order to maintain their calling. Only the second story, “The Mirror in the Muck,” displays any kind of real hope for humanity, as its heartbroken heroine makes the choice to live on, even in pain, instead of allowing a mushi to steal her existence. Though these tales are almost uniformly bleak, the series remains no less beautiful or mysterious than it has from the beginning.

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It gives me pain to see those two titles listed together. Heh. So, I have two reviews out today. First, at Manga Recon I have a review in this week’s Manga Minis for DMP yaoi title Tricky Prince. You know, DMP has such pretty books–nice large size with a dust jacket and everything–but man… as I lamented to Michelle right after I read it, I think there was actually more character development in Hanky Panky. And that’s just sad.

Now I have a cool announcement. About a month ago, Brian Cronin at Comics Should Be Good (home of Danielle Leigh and sometimes host to Michelle Smith) asked me if I’d like to be an occasional contributor to the site, like Michelle. I jumped up and down in an undignified manner and said I would like to very much. Today my first contribution has been posted! Behold my review for Mushishi, volume 6 which will be a part of my new, occasional series, “Tokidoki Daylight” (meaning “sporadic daylight,” TokiDay for short). Many thanks to Michelle and Grace for helping me decide on the name. I’m pretty thrilled to have been offered this opportunity, as I’m sure you can imagine. So go on over and see! :D

For a number of reasons, money is very tight these days in the Beasi household, allowing for very little (if any) to be spent on things like manga, so when folks came around asking about what to get me for Christmas, I asked only for manga. As a result, I now have quite a nice chunk of books to add to my collection! Some of these are bits of series I’ve already read (like Black Cat) but have been slowly collecting to own, and some are volumes I’ve been dying to read, either in series I’ve been reading already, or new ones I’ve hoped to begin. Complete rundown after the jump!

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Wow, it’s been a while, I realize. The holidays took over my life for a bit, but now I’m back into the daily grind. I worked a lot on the graphic novel over the past week, and things are really starting to take shape. I won’t have as much time, now that I’m back to work, but I’m trying to set some realistic goals over the next few months to keep myself motivated. I truly have never had an original project of my own that excited me as much as this one does, which helps too. I’m hoping to have a final script for the entire series completed by the end of the year, and possibly even well before then, depending on how demanding the rest of my life is. I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions, because I think they tend to set a person up to fail, so I’m not going to make one. But my desire to complete this project is strong, as is my resolve to do so.

I also did some reading over the holidays!
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It’s been a while since I’ve written here, primarily due to stress and illness, both of which are still with me. Tonight I am snuggled under and electric blanket with my pup at my feet, and as usual, these things make me want to talk about manga. Actually anime, tonight, I guess. Heavy cold and flu medicine have made reading difficult, though I am still working my way through the Bleach manga, and have re-read Fullmetal Alchemist 13 & 14 in anticipation of the English release of volume 15, which should be sometime this month, I think.

Speaking of Fullmetal Alchemist, I must take this opportunity to tell you all that my workplace Secret Santa (who today was revealed to be our creative director’s assistant, Chelsey) has outdone every Secret Santa in the history of time by making me an Elric Brothers shrinky-dink keychain. I repeat, an Elric Brothers shrinky-dink keychain. That’s right, she drew Edward and Alphonse Elric on a shrinky-dink, baked it, ran a key ring through it, and gave it to me for Christmas. I spent much of this afternoon admiring it, and now my coworkers may believe I am insane. I will attempt to blame this on the illness.

Anyway. Continuing. Not even illness can stop the consumption of anime, so that’s what I’ll talk about tonight.
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The past few days have been a mix of wonder and difficulty. On one hand, I came from the long weekend having accomplished more on my graphic novel than I had in weeks, which felt really good. On the other, I’ve been thrown back into the daily grind, and it is not sitting well at all. I’ve never been good at balancing my creative life with my gainful employment, at least not since they stopped being the same thing, and I suppose that problem is simply more pronounced coming out of a long, creative weekend. Someday perhaps I’ll be able to manage this balance (or perhaps the two things will be one again), but that day is probably pretty far off.

To distract myself, I will talk about anime. Surprised? As predicted, we did finish the entire series of the Mushishi anime, and I have also now read the first volume of the manga.

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