nana

NANA 15, Wild Ones 6, Ache of Head

March 18, 2009 by M.J. Beasi 37 Comments

Still feel like I’m kind of running on empty over here, and it looks like my website is feeling the same way, considering how slow it’s loading this morning.

I have two reviews out in the world today, both at Manga Recon’s On the Shojo Beat column. The first is for volume fifteen of NANA, and the second for volume six of Wild Ones. The difference in quality between these two series is so great, it would be unfair to compare them, so for the moment let’s just say I really love NANA. Reading volume fifteen gave me the urge to do a re-read of the series so far. I haven’t started yet, but I think I probably will do this. Volume fifteen also provids one of those sporadic moments in which I identify strongly with Nana Osaki. Most of the time I identify really heavily with Nana Komatsu, but when it comes to career drive, it’s all Nana O. I suppose I’m three parts Hachi, and one part Nana, if you think of it like that. This particular instance was very rare, because it actually had nothing at all to do with career. I have (more than once) had the experience of watching everyone around me drifting away, or worse, the sudden realization that everyone is already gone (hello NYC in the couple of years before I left), and I was feeling that hard while reading this volume.

In other news, I have had a headache since Saturday evening, and it won’t really go away. Ugh. Oh, and the guy who draws xkcd has obviously been visiting my dreams. I’m almost forty and I still have these, including just last night. I also still have theater dreams. You know, where it’s time for your entrance, and you realize you never learned the lines/song/dance/etc., and in fact are not sure what the play is. Oh, and you’re going to miss the entrance anyway, because you aren’t in the right costume/shoes/wig, etc. Even after all these years. Wow, my head hurts.

NANA volume 14

January 10, 2009 by M.J. Beasi 3 Comments

There is little that fills my heart with such joy as a new volume of NANA, though the story itself has gotten pretty troubling. From the back cover:

As Blast gears up for their major label debut, their fan club starts mobilizing. Led by the chic Shion, these ladies are serious fans who won’t let anyone mess with their band. But the fan club has it out for Misato, a maverick fan who has gotten too close to Nana. What will they say when they find out Misato is applying for a job with Blast?!

I find it hilarious that this is what they’ve chosen to talk about on the back cover of this volume, for though this certainly something that happens (sort of) in volume 14, it is so far from being the real drama, it’s almost funny. Real spoilers after the jump. …

Best of 2008! In a way.

December 23, 2008 by M.J. Beasi 1 Comment

For the past couple of days, Comcast has been having one of its too-frequent periods in which its DNS do not know that our domains exist. It’s been difficult to develop the motivation to post, when I know that anyone using Comcast is unable to reach my blog (this includes my mother, how cruel is that?) but I hate to just ignore everyone else. So, those of you who are not Comcast subscribers (or are Comcast subscribers who use Open DNS, like we’re doing right now), this post is for you. ETA: DNS problem solved! Thanks, Comcast!

Lots of people have been posting “Best of” lists for 2008, and I’ve felt too embarrassed to participate much. Since I’m so new to everything, I spent much of 2008 playing catch-up on many great series that the rest of you have been reading all this time, and haven’t really made my way to much that was newly released in 2008. So what I thought I’d do here, is make a list of manga I loved that was new to me in 2008.

This list was interesting to assemble, as I realized that much of the manga I raved over this year, I’d actually begun reading last year (xxxHolic, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Banana Fish, for example), so with those eliminated, here are my Top Five “New to Me” Manga in 2008:

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Manga and anime briefs

December 3, 2008 by M.J. Beasi Leave a Comment

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! …

New chapter round-up

November 8, 2008 by M.J. Beasi Leave a Comment

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! …

Birthday wishes and quick links

November 6, 2008 by M.J. Beasi 2 Comments

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 “Melinda spent 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!

Why you should read NANA

October 18, 2008 by M.J. Beasi 42 Comments

It’s difficult for me to imagine that anyone really needs me to sell NANA to them but the truth is I will enjoy writing this, and if it encourages one or two more people to jump on the NANA bandwagon, that will thrill me.

NANA is the story of two young women, both named Nana, who meet on the train to Tokyo and, through a series of coincidences, end up becoming roommates in an old seventh-floor walkup. In many ways that apartment, number 707 (“Nana” in Japanese means “seven” by the way), is nearly as important a character as the two Nanas themselves.

Written and drawn by Ai Yazawa (author of Paradise Kiss, among others), NANA contains some of the most authentic human beings I have so far encountered in manga. Yazawa’s characters are rich and complex, each just a little bit (or more than a little bit) broken as most of us humans are, and because of this, their relationships with each other and their choices, both good and bad, feel so real, they could come straight out of the reader’s own life. It would be so easy for a story like this, which focuses mainly on relationships, to fall into soap opera-like melodrama but the intensely real characters save it from doing so, time and time again. This is especially surprising in a manga where a good portion of the characters are rock stars.

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I’ve got a theory, it could be bunnies.

October 13, 2008 by M.J. Beasi 2 Comments

I’ve been a bit stressed and over-taxed lately, and I keep sitting down to try to write something vaguely intelligent about manga for this blog, but as I’ve been pretty wrapped up in Nana lately, everything seems to come out as, “Ode to Nobu.” Heh. This is why I don’t write reviews. I can write passionately about certain aspects of a manga, but I fail at well-rounded, critical writing.

In lieu of brilliant reviews or scintillating commentary, I instead offer up a photo of my husband’s (early) birthday present. It will slay you all with its cuteness and make you forget what this entry sorely lacks.

Her name is Kino.

This also does not amount to “scintillating commentary,” but I guess I will talk a moment about Tsubasa chapter 201 and xxxHolic chapter 167 since they are receiving a sound thrashing in most corners of the internet I frequent, and I’m a bit perplexed about that.

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Post-NYAF manga binge

October 7, 2008 by M.J. Beasi 1 Comment

I’ve been plugging away at a post about global manga, but it’s just not coming together quickly, so I’ll take a brief rest to talk about some of the manga I bought at NYAF!

Some volumes are yet unread (Dororo v.1, Galaxy Girl, Panda Boy, Seduce Me After the Show), but here’s a quick rundown on what I’ve plowed through so far.

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Homecoming, Nana volumes 1-3

September 10, 2008 by M.J. Beasi 5 Comments

I’ve returned home from a very productive trip to North Carolina. The auditions were exhausting, but i’ve got a day to recover at home before returning to work, which is nice. I downloaded the new iTunes last night, and now I’m listening to a “genius”-made playlist, which is surprisingly pretty good!

I never did find a local shop for manga in Charlotte, but as it turns out, there really wasn’t much time for anything like that, anyway. I did take a restaurant recommendation from a reader on the LiveJournal-mirror, who sent us to Macado’s in Concord for the macaroni and cheese, and I have to say it was delicious!

So, as I mentioned, I picked up the first three volumes of Nana for the trip. I’d like to talk a bit more about them now.

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Greetings from Charlotte!

September 7, 2008 by M.J. Beasi 2 Comments

It’s a beautiful, sunny morning in Charlotte, though I’m still enjoying it through the window of my hotel room, as I lazily prepare for our first day of auditions here. I’ll just be watching our callbacks all day, so I don’t have to rush around to get to the general auditions when they start this morning. I suppose I’ve achieved something when I get to hire other people to do all the rushing around.

Charlotte is really a lovely city, though I admit I’ve only seen about three blocks worth of it so far. After arriving yesterday, our assistant production manager and I walked over to the theater where they were doing registrations, and there was an Indian cultural festival of some kind going on in the street. Multiple booths with delicious, spicy-smelling food, and lots of women walking around in colorful saris, it was really a nice welcome to the city.

For anyone who might be wondering, I ended up not taking any of the advice I was given on what manga to bring on the plane, though I did try. Our local bookstores and the comic shop were unhelpful in my search for volume 1 of Dororo (though I could get volumes 2 & 3 at one Barnes & Noble), which was what I’d most strongly considered. I’m happy with my choice, though. I ended up getting the first three volumes of Nana (which I’ve meant to read for a long time, finally cemented by Johanna Draper Carlson’s recent review of volume 9), and wow, what a charming series! Now of course I’m wishing I’d bought more of it, but the volumes I had effectively dulled the horror of my two flights yesterday, so I’m very grateful to them.

Time to start rallying myself to the day’s cause. More later, perhaps. In conclusion: Banana Fish. :D