Time for some quick mid-week linkblogging!

First of all, Rob at Panel Patter has been reading/reviewing Yumi Tamura’s classic shojo series Basara, a favorite series of mine (and quite possibly Michelle Smith’s most-loved manga series of all time). Since Michelle is always right, I feel compelled to share Rob’s reviews with the world. He’s just finished volume two. Click here to check out what he has to say so far.

Over at The Manga Curmudgeon, David Welsh presses on with his Shojo-Sunjeong Alphabet, now on letter “T“. I went over to express support for CLAMP’s Tokyo Babylon (probably my second-favorite of all their work) and Moto Hagio’s They Were Eleven, both on which I’ve reviewed for my Tokidoki Daylight column at CBR’s Comics Should Be Good. These two series probably couldn’t be more different, but I love them both very much.
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St. Dragon Girl, Vol. 2
By Natsumi Matsumoto
Published by Viz Media

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Thanks to Brigid Alverson’s recent interview with Matt Thorn, I got inspired to read some Moto Hagio, beginning with her short science fiction manga from 1975, They Were Eleven. Last night I wrote up a review, which you can find today at Tokidoki Daylight! I’m afraid my lack of background in manga shows terribly in this review, despite my ongoing quest to become more knowledgeable, so for further reading, I’d recommend going through Matt Thorn’s website, where he has many articles and resources chronicling the history of shojo manga, all of which are much smarter than anything I could write. My review, however, does include some nice images I scanned in from my copies of the manga so it’s worth checking out if you’ve never read it! They Were Eleven is unfortunately out of print here, but the Viz pamphlets can be picked up very reasonably on ebay, which is how I got them. Don’t even think about trying to get Four Shojo Stories, though, unless you’re a lot richer than I!

Over the next couple of days, I’ll be pretty much occupied at the New England Web Comics Weekend, which is conveniently located just a couple small towns over! My husband is a huge fan of webcomics, and I keep up on a number of them myself, so it should be an enjoyable event all around. There are quite a few interesting panels being presented, and you know I’ll be at the print vs. web discussion, right? :D I’ll try to report in at some point with any interesting news.

A million thanks to those who have chimed in with recommendations over at my Let’s Talk About Manhwa post! I’m so excited to find new things to read! Please stop by if you have anything further to add!

With my review schedule finally under control, I actually have some time to read some things to talk about here, but I’m having a hard time deciding what to start with. I have volume 1 of Two Flowers for the Dragon sitting here looking at me, as well as a number of other things. It’s been so long since I had time to read something just for pleasure, I hardly know what to do! :)

In the meantime, I’ve been looking around online, and I have a couple of links to share. First of all, Ed Sizemore posted a review today of the most recent Mechadamia journal, and I though it sounded really interesting. His review is good reading on its own, so I recommend checking it out.

Also, Gia reported at Anime Vice about Crunchyroll’s participation in the upcoming Global Shinkai Day, including the fact that they’ll be streaming (among several of his films) 5 Centimeters Per Second which is a film I love very, very much. It is the kind of fiction that makes me long to create something that could affect other people the way it affects me. If you’ve never had a chance to see it, do yourself a favor and go watch for free at Crunchyroll on February 28th!

Lastly, I think I mentioned somewhere around the New Year that I decided to let my Shonen Jump subscription expire and pick up Shojo Beat instead. I got my first issue a little while back and… I’m so glad! Not only am I enjoying more of the comics, but I also really appreciated some of the other features in the magazine. So, Bakuman aside, it seems my early shonen manga obsession really is over! I guess I really am a girl after all! ;D

Watch for a review from me in the upcoming Otaku Bookshelf column at Manga Recon. Until then, goodnight!

I’m enjoying a much-needed idle evening here at home. I have reviews I probably should be working on, and maybe I will as the evening goes on, but for now I’m feeling the need for random surfing and maybe a blog commenting spree.

Speaking of blog commenting, I drove by Danielle Leigh’s reading diary today, but didn’t actually read it, because she has a review there for the first volume of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: The Power of Negative Thinking just released by Del Ray, and though I’m eagerly anticipating reading it myself, I already know I’ll be reviewing it for Manga Recon, so for now, other reviews are off-limits. I have found that I am easily intimidated by someone else’s fantastic review, so after one such experience, I decided to force myself to keep away until I’ve completed my own review. Now I’m wondering, you who review manga (or anything else for that matter), do you do the same?

In other news, I really enjoyed Brigid Alverson’s interview with Matt Thorn, whose translation of est em’s Red Blinds the Foolish (reviewed by me here) I found pretty spectacular. After I read the interview, I did some searching around, and discovered this essay on shojo manga that Matt Thorn published back in 2001. It was a pretty great read, so I thought I’d share that here.

Lastly, Lianne Sentar asked me for further elaboration on my accusations of misogyny in Let Dai, and I’m embarrassed to be unable to respond with any kind of credibility, because I don’t have print copies of the series. Can anyone help me out? I think some specific examples of the language used by Dai would help me, but unfortunately, I’m not good at remembering exact words, especially when I’ve consumed a series as rapidly as I did Let Dai. If you’ve got some handy, let me know! ETA: I think these are no longer necessary! Conversation progressing without them. :)

It’s a sleepy Saturday morning here in western Massachusetts, at least at our house. I’ve had a slow start, and the most productive thing I’ve managed so far is updating my manga needs spreadsheet. Yes, that’s right, I keep a spreadsheet of the manga I want to buy online so I can access it anywhere (for instance, from my phone while standing in a comic shop). I truly am a dork. Anyway, included on the list are series I am currently buying, as well as series I would like to start buying, including a few I’ve already read but wish to own. The reason I’m mentioning that here, is that I’m always looking for recommendations, and I find it helps for people to know what I already read and enjoy. I do spend quite a bit of time poring over Jason Thompson’s Manga, The Complete Guide, but even with his wonderful write-ups to go on, I’m not always certain if I’ll like a series or not. If anyone has recommendations, particularly of shojo manga (which I always want to read more of, but find so little to my taste), I’d be very grateful!

Segue into a ramble about shojo manga:
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