Manga Bookshelf

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Doctor Who, Bakuman ch. 1, xxxHolic vol. 12 (again)

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I had a busy weekend, spending some with an old family friend and her teenaged daughter (a toddler the last I’d seen her!) who arrived in town Friday, and then attending last night’s installment of “Hooked on Who” at the Brattle theater in Cambridge (quite a hike from here, but so much fun). We watched Douglas Adams’ Pirate Planet arc along with a theater full of like-minded fans, well worth the drive. Before the event began, there was a rousing introduction that included a rundown of some of the theater’s upcoming events (including a screening of “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” which is such a lovely film). The whole thing made us wish that our local independent theaters (in Northampton and Amherst) would host these kinds of things.

In manga news, the first chapter of the new manga, Bakuman, by Death Note‘s Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata is out, and it’s definitely got me interested. …

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My thoughts on yaoi (no, really)

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As I was toodling around in Lissa Pattillo’s post-birthday/station-identification post this morning, I found myself mulling (once I’d finished groaning about my own old age) over my many issues with boys’ love manga. I have a fairly long history in slash fanfiction, and while a lot of it is really not to my taste (I prefer thoughtful, characterization-rich stories that reveal something new about the characters, as opposed to gratuitous smut-fests or sugary wish-fulfillment romances, and I’ll admit that the last two of these make up at least 75% of all relationship-focused fanfiction), it is easy to find the stuff I do like, now that I know how. So when I started really getting into manga, I thought boys’ love was going to be a no-brainer for me. Delving into the genre, though, I’ve been disappointed again and again, to the point where I’ve pretty much given up on it. I’m hoping Lissa’s blog will help me discover some series I enjoy, but I’m not as optimistic as I’d like. After all, even Jason Thompson let me down here. But I’m hoping that, as with fanfiction, it might be easy for me to find what I’m looking for, once I know how.

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Apologies, thanks, and a little bit of manga

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First of all, I should apologize to whoever was trying to leave a comment yesterday using Open ID. I have now discovered that the WordPress plugin for Open ID I installed is extremely broken. For now, I’ve just deactivated it, but I do hope to get it working eventually, so people can use that here. I am so sorry for the trouble. I know how irritating it can be to take the time to write up a comment, only to have it disappear into the ether.

To others who may be stopping by due to hits on their site meters: Um, hi. I’ve been adding some folks to my blogroll as I find things that interest me enough to be daily reads. Just trying to clear up the mystery, if there is any. :)

So, I’m know I’m late to the party (as always), but I finally started reading Tokyo Babylon recently, …

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Maud Hart Lovelace still owns my soul.

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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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SOS. Really.

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This post is strange for me to write. It’s about the comic I’m writing a script for, which I’ve talked about here before, even recently, but what’s scary about this for me is that I’m going to have to let my ignorance and inexperience show in a very obvious way. So here goes. I don’t know who is reading this blog these days, if anyone, but I’d very much appreciate any advice offered.

I’m writing the script for a comic, as I’ve said. An OEL manga, really, but that’s not the important bit right now. What’s important is that I need to find an artist who is the right fit for the comic and for me, which I’m pretty terrified about, much of that terror being related to fear of presenting myself as an idiot. A few important facts:

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Fullmetal Alchemist Read-a-Long, Volumes 3 & 4

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This is a continuation of the Fullmetal Alchemist re-read I started last weekend. It’s been such a pleasure so far to re-read this series. Hiromu Arakawa’s storytelling, rich characterization, and humor make for an incredibly compelling reading experience. I have said before that if I could ever create something that made another reader feel the way I do when I’m reading Fullmetal Alchemist, I would consider that the greatest accomplishment of my life. That statement holds up on the second read.

Discussion of Volumes 1 & 2 here. Now on to volumes 3 & 4!

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Ultimo. A rant?

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September’s issue of Shonen Jump arrived in my mailbox today, nicely timed, as it contains “Chapter 0″ of Stan Lee and Hiroyuki Takei’s Ultimo, which I’d just been reading about in yesterday’s comic-con reports. Sadly, my reaction to it has been distressing.

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Manga. Sort of. Which I am able to make all about me.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about what draws me to manga over western comics, partly because I’ve started reading Captain America, which I’m enjoying, but wow it is hard for me to get used to reading comics in color. I feel like I should like it *more*, but I mostly find it overwhelming (which is, I think, the main reason I haven’t made it through all of Sandman, despite my deep love for Neil Gaiman). For some reason it is a lot easier for me to follow comics that are in black and white, and there’s no getting around it. I’m also really accustomed to the number of panels found on a page of manga, rather than on a page of a western comic book, and I find manga easier to look at because of that as well. What I’m really getting around to here, though, is why I tend to consider my graphic novel in-progress to be an OEL manga rather than an American comic book, and these things (as well as others) influence that. In the next couple of months I’m going to be searching for an artist to collaborate with me on the project, and I think I need to be clear with myself about what I’m looking for, before I get all tangled up in that.

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Fullmetal Alchemist Read-a-Long

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I’ve started re-reading Fullmetal Alchemist from the beginning, mainly to pass the time until the next volume is released by Viz, and I’ve been posting my thoughts about it as kind of a read-a-long with others in a non-public place. I thought I’d try adding these posts here as well, to be publicly accessible. If anyone else wants to join me in re-reading, that’s great, or if you might start the series for the first time and read along, I’d be completely thrilled!

And so, on to discussion of Fullmetal Alchemist, Volumes 1 & 2!

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xxxHolic, Vol. 12

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I’ve been waiting anxiously for the official release of xxxHolic volume 12, and though it’s been quite an ordeal getting to finally read it (late shipments, car crashes, etc.) it was such a treat to finally really sit down with it. I read it once last night while I was still pretty screwed up in the head (that would be the car crash factor), and then again tonight, slightly less screwed up. Both reads were pretty intense. Volume 12 is very special to me, and I’ll talk a bit about why.

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Lunchtime ramble: there is no coincidence, only hitsuzen

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Work has been insane for me this week, as I prepare information for our company’s tax accountant, and it becomes impossible for me to leave work at work at these times of year, so I haven’t had a lot of time to think about anything, you know, fun. Fortunately, last night after visiting our own tax accountant (and by “our own tax accountant” of course I mean “the random accountant we were assigned to this year by H&R Block”), Paul and I had a nice, relaxing dinner, followed by a stroll to the local comic shop, and as a result, I came home with two shiny, new volumes of xxxHolic. I haven’t discussed xxxHolic much here, or anywhere else, leading some friends to believe that it is about porn (um, no), so since I did let myself read the first of my new volumes (volume seven) last night before bed, I thought I’d take a moment to talk about it.

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History of a daydreamer

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In my last post, I talked about how I tend to experience fiction by total immersion. Then for two days after, I proceeded to immerse myself once more by reading all 21 volumes of Please Save My Earth. It was like a nostalgic visit to my very own young teen brain, and that’s something pretty incredible. Four volumes in, I said to friends, “It’s like they removed my teenaged brain and stuck it on paper for all of Japan to read.” This only became more true as I continued through the series.

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Total immersion

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As you may have noticed, when it comes to fiction, I most often opt for total immersion. There’s really nothing I love more than completely losing myself in a fictional world (mine or otherwise). And, actually, I think “losing myself” is the wrong term to use, because this process is *such* a personal, intimate experience for me, and when I am immersed in a world this way, I feel entirely *present* in a way I often do not feel in “real life.” I think I am, in many ways, more myself in these moments, when I am able to interact with someone else’s inner life through my own.

All that is really just a complicated lead-up to the fact that I have spent the last few days pretty much immersed in the Black Cat universe, and what will probably turn out to be a long-winded description of just how much I enjoyed that. The weekend was spent with the Black Cat anime, followed by a day or two of rapturous flailing, followed by rapid consumption of the manga, which took another two days, and which pretty much blew my obsession with the anime right out of the water. Not all of it is blown, mind you. I’m still haunted by the music and glorious imagery of the anime, especially in the first six or seven episodes, and there are elements of the anime that I probably love more than the manga, though I love the manga much more overall.

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All you are is the game you play.

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The new year has already turned out to be even more challenging than the last, which is certainly not what I expected, but perhaps it all leads to a more meaningful path, both for me and those close to me. None of that is really appropriate to this blog, so I won’t go further, but it’s in my nature to be optimistic, so that’s what I’m running on right now.

Something I’ve done to distract myself from deep thoughts the past couple of days, is to reacquaint myself with Hikaru no Go, specifically the manga. I’d watched the anime somewhat recently, but I hadn’t gone back to the manga, especially the final arc which is not included in the anime, since my first whirlwind through it. This time, I started with the final arc, which actually disappointed me a bit the first time through, but worked much better for me on the second read. Something that I was struck with immediately was just how skillfully crafted this story is. What rich characters! What a compelling plot! What delightful artwork! Jason Thompson refers to Hikaru no Go, in his book, Manga: The Complete Guide, as “…one of the few all-ages manga that can truly be enjoyed by all ages,” and though I personally have not read enough all-ages manga to make such a statement, I can absolutely vouch for Hikaru no Go. …

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