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Addicted and tormented

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I am officially addicted to Danielle Leigh’s Best Manga of 2008 thread over at Manga Before Flowers. I made my picks for best continuing series back when she first posted it, and now I just can’t help checking every day or so to see what other people are saying!

I’ve had a few small twinges of regret, most notably over Hikaru no Go, which Erin Finnegan voted in, and I did not. How could I not vote for Hikaru no Go? I wouldn’t have gotten into manga without it! My lack of support seems like a huge betrayal. Trouble is, I really dislike the excessive (in my opinion) Americanization of the Viz releases. Yet I voted for NANA which has that issue somewhat as well! Oh, the torment! Oh, the angst! Oh, the embarrassment of not having read enough new manga this year to even vote in that category! I do take heart in the fact that thanks to my commitment at Manga Recon, this will not be a problem next year. Still, I feel a sense of shame.

What I’m really getting around to here is, GO VOTE. Increase my torment. Feed my addiction. Please. :D

News!

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So after insisting over and over that I don’t really write reviews, I’m… writing reviews. :)

Just recently, senior manga editor Katherine Dacey invited me to join the staff of reviewers over at PopCultureShock’s Manga Recon. I accepted her invitation with much glee, and as a result, you can find my first review (of Claymore volume 13) in today’s Manga Minis !

Perhaps the greatest advantage to the fact that I really don’t write reviews here, is that very little at this blog can be expected to change. I’ll still be rambling on about manga as I have for the past year or so, and in addition, I’ll be linking to reviews of mine that are published over at Manga Recon.

A million thanks to Kate for this wonderful opportunity!

Manga and anime briefs

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Since everything else here requires spoiler warnings, I’ll start with the one item I can place before the jump and go from there!

I just wanted to make brief mention of an anime series we’ve been enjoying, not just for its terrific story and animation, but also for its method of delivery! Eve no Jikan (Time of Eve) from writer/director Yasuhiro Yoshiura (whose Pale Cocoon we also enjoyed), is being provided with English subtitles as free streaming video at Crunchyroll, shortly after each episode’s release in Japan. Episodes can also be downloaded for a small fee.

Eve no Jikan‘s premise is nothing extremely new. We’ve seen plenty of fiction involving the ethics and complications of a world in which human-like androids are employed to serve humans, and what it really means to be human, etc. What I’m enjoying about this series especially, is that the story revolves around an underground cafe where discrimination between human and android is prohibited. The cafe setting, with its set of fixed characters, helps make the story feel more intimate than what I’m used to in fiction with these themes, assisted also by the youthful POV of its protagonist. I’m impressed, too, with its effectiveness, considering that it is being fed to us only in 15-minute increments.

This is probably old news to most people who read here, but just in case I’m not the last person to talk about this, I wanted to pass it along! :) Watch the first episode here!

Now on to the rest. SPOILERS for new chapters of Bakuman, xxxHolic, and NANA, as well as recent episodes of Ef: A Tale of Melodies after the jump! …

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Giving Thanks

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Thanks to the gift of leftovers, we’re on our third day of my mother-in-law’s turkey and stuffing, which is a wonderful thing but seems to have settled me into a permanent turkey coma. I must free myself somehow by Monday. But, hey, that’s far, far in the future! For now, I’ll enjoy perpetual sleepiness and let all of you who just met me find out how sappy I get around this time of year. It’s a thing.

I said earlier this week that I’d leave “major items” for thanking later in the week, and later in the week has more than arrived! Actually, most of my “major items” are personal (family, friends, etc.) and this isn’t really the place for that. What remains though is still pretty major, at least to me.

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How I read Dororo volume one. Finally.

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Most of you know that I’m relatively new to the crazy world of manga. Now, when I get into something, I really get into it, so I’ve read a lot of manga in the short time I’ve been involved with it, but even at my pace, I’ve barely made a dent in the massive amount of material that’s out there and it will be a long time before I’ll feel like I can contribute anything truly meaningful to the discussion of the medium.

One of the things that’s weighed most heavily on me all this time is the fact that I hadn’t read any Osamu Tezuka. The truth is, I was actually kind of scared to do it. I felt really strongly that I needed to read some if I ever hoped to achieve any kind of deep understanding of manga, but I’d seen a few panels of it here and there and I was really concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get into it, which would leave me feeling forever like a hopeless newbie in the manga-reading world, deserving of whatever eye-rolling came my way.

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Five things I’m thankful for today

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It’s a little early for Thanksgiving, but having finished my workweek after only two days, I can’t help but feel a bit thankful for some of the people and things around me. I’ll leave major items for later in the week, but for the moment, I’d like to link to a few things that have made me feel happy (and thankful) today: …

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Raspberry Heaven, I’m coming back to you

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Arrived home late last night, and it’s very nice to be here. I’m still on Mountain time, so my body feels a bit off, but I had a nice, lazy day at home, which was the perfect thing.

Pop music geek moment: My husband started watching Azumanga Daioh while I was gone, so we watched the first six episodes together last night (I said I was still on Mountain time) and today. At one point while the opening theme was playing, I said, “This sounds like something Andy Partridge would write.” Later I looked it up, and found out the opening and closing themes are both written and performed by a Japanese duo who call themselves “Oranges & Lemons.” Geekiness for the win! :D For the non-pop music geeks, Oranges and Lemons is the name of an album by XTC, Andy Partridge’s band.

Speaking of Azumanga Daioh, I am completely hooked. Now I need to track down the comics. I think I mentioned that I’d picked up the first volume of Yotsuba&! in Utah, so it looks like I’m going to be on a little Kiyohiko Azuma kick for a while. Random Azumanga Daioh question: Does anyone else think that Sakaki looks a lot like Hanajima from Fruits Basket, or is it just me?

Speaking of random questions, is anyone else cursed with getting the opening theme of Lucky Star stuck in their head? *sigh* Anyone else doubly-cursed with the closing theme of Mahoromatic as well? Oh, Japan, you will do me in.

I did read some manga on the plane, including some new releases like NANA volume 13 and Fruits Basket volume 21. On the flight back, I also read the first volume of an older series that I picked up used at a bookstore in Salt Lake City.

Spoilers for ES (Eternal Sabbath) after the jump.…

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Life on KK

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Greetings from Salt Lake City! We’ve finished our first day of auditions here, and I’m relaxing back at the hotel while my body fights the time change. Tomorrow I’m going to head over to Night Flight Comics, just a few blocks away, as recommended by Tangognat‘s Anna. In the meantime, Lissa Pattillo got me thinking about the recent “Hey, Answerfans!” question at ANN’s Hey, Answerman! and so I’m posting my own response here!

The question was, “If you could live in the world of any anime or manga series, which would it be, and why?” My answer to this is, frighteningly, Please Save My Earth.

When I first read Please Save My Earth, I think I mentioned that it was pretty much my ideal teen/pre-teen fantasy. Seriously. A group of teenagers who share collective memory through their dreams about their former lives as alien scientists observing earth from the moon?? You could not possibly come up with something more appealing to the twelve-year-old me. Have I mentioned that they all have special powers, like ESP or the ability to fly? I mean, come on. So, if you needed proof that I’m basically still a twelve-year-old deep down, look no further, because for me this concept still holds substantial appeal. …

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Fullmetal Alchemist, volume 17

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I’d waited so eagerly for this volume, and here I am almost a month late with it. I suppose I can’t complain, though, as it’s the perfect reading for a stormy Saturday morning.

Fullmetal Alchemist is one of those series where every volume brings amazing new revelations, yet it is so well-plotted, none of this ever feels melodramatic or forced. I am constantly impressed with depth and detail of Hiromu Arakawa’s planning for this story, compounded by her deft execution of it. I know that FMA is a popular manga, but I often feel that in spite of (because of?) that, or perhaps because it is a shonen manga, Arakawa does not get the recognition she deserves for being a seriously fantastic storyteller. The release schedule for FMA in the US leaves long gaps between volumes, and I tend to get caught up in other things in-between. But every time a new volume comes out, I’m reminded immediately of why I’ve often said this is my favorite manga series.

(Spoilers beyond this point) …

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New chapter round-up

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It’s a dim, cloudy kind of morning over here in western Massachusetts, and I can’t seem to shake the grogginess I woke up with today. It’s a perfect day for cozy blankets, grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, and manga.

Here are a few brief thoughts on new chapters of xxxHolic, NANA, Bakuman, and Bleach.

SPOILERS after the jump! …

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Seduce Me After the Show

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Brigid Alverson is giving away sets of Vertical’s new edition of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack to a few lucky winners who will be randomly chosen from her blog. To enter, leave a comment in this entry, telling her about your favorite new manga in 2008. I left my own comment there yesterday, and as I was trying to figure out just what my favorite new manga from 2008 was, I realized that the answer is probably one I haven’t posted about here yet at all.

It was actually a pretty difficult answer for me to come up with, mainly because all the manga I’ve become really obsessed with in 2008 have been either older series, or current series that are still being released, but which began publication in English well before this year. In fact, I realized sadly that I have read almost nothing genuinely new this year. Still, as I poked through the books on my shelf, one new manga jumped right out at me. That would be Est Em’s Seduce Me After the Show, published in Japan in 2006, and released by Deux Press in English in May of this year.

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Birthday wishes and quick links

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Hi there, all. Life is still pretty intense, but I expect I’ll be able to do some reading and/or writing tonight. Of course, “intense” may be a bit of an overstatement. Yesterday was my husband’s birthday, so we had a few friends over to celebrate, which was very nice. Paul’s activity of choice is games, so in this case, “intense” can be interpreted to mean “MJspent the evening losing at cards.” Hee. It really was a lot of fun. In any case, I extend additional birthday wishes to my husband, and to my dad whose birthday was also yesterday.

So now that I’ve made my excuses, a few quick links for the moment:

In my big NANA post, I recommended that people read Johanna Draper Carlson’s reviews of individual volumes. This is why. Perhaps it’s weird to fangirl reviews, but seriously, her review today of volume 11 brought back immediately everything I felt while reading that volume, and offered a great deal of insight into just why this story is so effective. If you love NANA, you should be reading Johanna’s reviews. It’s as simple as that.

Never have I wished quite so much that I loved games. Sadly, this will probably never be, but if you love games, and you love writing fanfiction, there could be a job waiting for you in Japan. Check it out.

This month at Comics Should Be Good, Brian Cronin (in conjunction with Prism Comics) is providing daily write-ups of comics with LGBT themes. Don’t miss out!

One last cool bit of news, my friend Deanna (who provided me with all those volumes of Fruits Basket), has set up an “Introduction to Manga” display at the library where she works! It is pretty awesome. Make sure to browse through the entire set!