• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Comment Policy
    • Disclosures & Disclaimers
  • Resources
    • Links, Essays & Articles
    • Fandomology!
    • CLAMP Directory
    • BlogRoll
  • Features & Columns
    • 3 Things Thursday
    • Adventures in the Key of Shoujo
    • Bit & Blips (game reviews)
    • BL BOOKRACK
    • Bookshelf Briefs
    • Bringing the Drama
    • Comic Conversion
    • Fanservice Friday
    • Going Digital
    • It Came From the Sinosphere
    • License This!
    • Magazine no Mori
    • My Week in Manga
    • OFF THE SHELF
    • Not By Manga Alone
    • PICK OF THE WEEK
    • Subtitles & Sensibility
    • Weekly Shonen Jump Recaps
  • Manga Moveable Feast
    • MMF Full Archive
    • Yun Kouga
    • CLAMP
    • Shojo Beat
    • Osamu Tezuka
    • Sailor Moon
    • Fruits Basket
    • Takehiko Inoue
    • Wild Adapter
    • One Piece
    • After School Nightmare
    • Karakuri Odette
    • Paradise Kiss
    • The Color Trilogy
    • To Terra…
    • Sexy Voice & Robo
  • Browse by Author
    • Sean Gaffney
    • Anna Neatrour
    • Michelle Smith
    • Katherine Dacey
    • MJ
    • Brigid Alverson
    • Travis Anderson
    • Phillip Anthony
    • Derek Bown
    • Jaci Dahlvang
    • Angela Eastman
    • Erica Friedman
    • Sara K.
    • Megan Purdy
    • Emily Snodgrass
    • Nancy Thistlethwaite
    • Eva Volin
    • David Welsh
  • MB Blogs
    • A Case Suitable For Treatment
    • Experiments in Manga
    • MangaBlog
    • The Manga Critic
    • Manga Report
    • Soliloquy in Blue
    • Manga Curmudgeon (archive)

Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

christmas

Christmas manga!

December 26, 2008 by MJ Leave a Comment

For a number of reasons, money is very tight these days in the 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!

…

Read More

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: azumanga diaoh, black cat, christmas, legal drug, manga, mushishi, paradise kiss, song of the hanging sky, suppli, tokyo babylon

Happy Holidays to all!

December 25, 2008 by MJ Leave a Comment

snow3

Thank you all for letting me into your world.

Filed Under: DAILY CHATTER, REVIEWS Tagged With: Bloggish, christmas

And the snow just keeps coming…

December 20, 2008 by MJ Leave a Comment

I thought the storm would be over by the time I got up this morning, but it’s snowing still! Not as hard as it was yesterday, but enough so that we’re going to have to shovel for a third time.

I’ll get back to talking about manga soon, but for the moment, check out snow photos after the jump!

…

Read More

Filed Under: DAILY CHATTER, REVIEWS Tagged With: christmas, photos

Hitohira, and a little holiday joy!

December 17, 2008 by MJ Leave a Comment

Before I forget to say anything about it, I have a new full-length review up at Manga Recon, for volume 1 of Idumi Kirihara’s Hitohira. I had mixed feelings about this manga, though I admit I’m considering buying the second volume, just to see if it gets any stronger. I’m hoping it does. Also, I think my reviews are getting more solid as I go, which makes me happy.

Life is a little crazy leading into the holidays, especially at work, so I’m trying to take time to enjoy the nice things as they come. This morning on my way to work, our local NPR station played Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Greensleeves, which my college orchestra played at our holiday concert my senior year. It really brought me back to that time, and I spent much of the day feeling nostalgic about that concert.

It also made me feel like sharing, so here’s a piece from the beginning of that concert, an arrangement (I’m embarrassed to say I don’t remember whose) of the Christmas Hymn, performed by the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic and Choirs, conducted by Dr. Robert Page, December 1990. It’s a bit chaotic, I suppose. The holiday concert is traditionally performed in the foyer of the College of Fine Arts, which is a big, echo-y, marble place, and for this, the choirs were split up and placed on all sides (including up on the mezzanines), with the conductor in the middle. In a place like that, we really couldn’t trust our ears, so we had to go just by sight. I chose this song, because I figure it’s the one people are most likely to know out of all the pieces we sang on that program. Hope you’ll enjoy. :)

Now I must tackle the work I brought home with me. Goodnight!

Filed Under: DAILY CHATTER, FEATURES Tagged With: christmas, hitohira, manga, music

December morning

December 7, 2008 by MJ 7 Comments

There is a light coating of snow on the ground this morning–the first real snow of the season here in Western Massachusetts, and the timing could not be more perfect. I spent the early part of the morning decorating the Christmas tree we brought home yesterday, and now I am curled up cozily on the couch with my doggie, gazing at lights and snow. The smell of a Christmas tree always takes me back to my childhood and teenaged Christmases, surrounded by beautiful music, good food, and the noisy cheerfulness of the many friends that filled my parents’ house all year ’round, but especially during the holidays. My holidays are a lot quieter now, but that has its nice points too. A morning like this is definitely one of them.

I’ve been absent from this blog for the past few days, and though some of that can be attributed to the time of year, there are also some manga-related things afoot which I can’t talk about quite yet. Look for news here at some point tomorrow!

I may have tree photos to share later on, if I can convince my husband to take some. Meanwhile, I will continue to enjoy my quietly festive morning. I hope you are all happy and warm. :)

Edited to add: As promised, tree! …

Read More

Filed Under: DAILY CHATTER Tagged With: Bloggish, christmas

Holiday ramble

December 26, 2007 by MJ 6 Comments

Happy holidays! I hope you’re all enjoying yours, however you choose to spend them. It’s been a bit of a strange holiday season for me, I admit. This is usually my favorite time of year, but everything has had a bit of a damper on it this time around. This year has been like that overall, I suppose, but I’m still surprised to find myself with anything even approaching the holiday blues. It is very unlike me. I hope this year remains an anomaly, as I don’t especially wish to repeat it. I did enjoy time with family, which was a true pleasure.

…

Read More

Filed Under: DAILY CHATTER, FEATURES, REVIEWS Tagged With: anime, christmas, fullmetal alchemist, hikaru no go, kino no tabi, kino's journey, manga, manga list, musical theater, sweeney todd, the girl who leapt through time

random items on a sleepy evening

November 29, 2007 by MJ 1 Comment

The weekend can’t possibly come too soon. I’m exhausted in every way, and my creativity is seriously waning.

In better news, my subscription to Shonen Jump has finally kicked in, though they started me with the January issue, so I need to fill in December on my own. (I hear that Paul has picked it up for me this very evening, yay!) Also, I have become mesmerized by Shaenon Garrity’s Overlooked Manga Festival, which includes many series I have been planning to look into anyway, like Please Save My Earth and Sugar Sugar Rune, as well as a delightful write-up of Banana Fish, which I have already started and *love*. The thing you really must look at, though, is her recent entry about Moon Child, which is one of the funniest things I have seen lately. Wow. There is something sublime about that special kind of crack.

Also, I got some really helpful feedback on the most recent summary of the beginning of my graphic novel from the friend whose name I stole for the main character. It was really great to hear what she had to say, and it also left me feeling very positive about the whole thing. I have less than a month to reach my December 23rd goal, and I need all the encouragement I can get right now.

This weekend, we’re hoping to get our Christmas tree, which is honestly one of my favorite moments of the year. For an atheist, I’m bizarrely attached to Christmas. I think the Christmas story is one of the first pieces of fiction that I fell in love with, which may be an offensive concept to some, but I’m fairly certain that my feelings about fiction are not terribly different from many people’s feelings about God, so please understand the gravity of that statement. I very truly, deeply love Christmas, and all the sights, smells, sounds, and feelings that go along with it. My fascination with Christmas trees has been much mocked by my loved ones, and for good reason. Once I’ve decorated one, I have difficulty taking my eyes off of it. Expect photographs in a few days.

Now I shall attempt some script work, and try not to fall asleep.

Filed Under: DAILY CHATTER, FEATURES, REVIEWS Tagged With: atheism, banana fish, christmas, family, fiction, graphic novel, manga, shaenon garrity

 | Log in
Copyright © 2010 Manga Bookshelf | Powered by WordPress & the Genesis Framework