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bookblogging
Kate Bush has been awesome since the 1980s, but I only just realized this. I'm sometimes slow. Yes, this is all I've read (cover to cover) since last time. But I've done a hell of a lot of crossword puzzles.
Novels/prose books:
Snicket, Lemony: A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning.
Graphic novels:
Kibuishi, Kazu, editor: Flight, vol. 5.
Manga:
Tsukaba Sakura: Penguin Revolution vol. 6
(The cross-dressing is still implausibly successful, and there is something weird and awesome about all of these actor characters playing their parents and managers and whatnot in their silly movie).
Tanaka Meca: Omukae Desu. vol. 5
(I dig the anti-climactic finale. I think this is maybe one of the more consistently low-key enjoyable things I've read this year).
Takaya Natsuki: Fruits Basket vol. 21
(why is everybody getting along so freakishly well? What happened to the death threats and people getting beaten up and traumatized? And why is it, that when everybody is getting along so freakishly well, everybody is still so miserable?).
Urushibara Yuki: Mushishi vol. 5.
Tezuka Osamu: Dororo vol. 1
(As always, it's cool to be able to recognize in Tezuka the precursors to all kinds of shit I've read in manga over the years).
Shiratori Chikao, editor: Secret Comics Japan
(Jason Thompson, Carl Gustav, et al, had great taste in comics eight years ago, too. Big surprise.
This is cool. Had I not come into the translated manga scene late enough to have already been able to read--from the commercial American manga scene--translations of Junko Mizuno, Kiriko Nananaan, and Usumaru Furuya (all already on my shelf), not to mention other amazing creators like Kan Takahama, Erica Sakurazawa, Mari Okazaki, and Moyoco Anno--this would've rocked my world, as it must have rocked a few people's worlds when it was published in 2000. But it's still cool now.
Side note: can I put out a call for translations of more Benkyo Tamaoki porn comics? XXXenophile aside, there's not enough porn out there that doubles as a good read).
Nakamura Yoshiki: Skip*Beat vol. 15
(Boo! Where has my unfazeable Kyoko gone? Okay, maybe Kyoko wasn't ever quite unfazeable, per se, especially not regarding Ren, but as the back cover text clearly states, "Kyoko's not the type of girl that needs rescuing." I disapprove of plot directions that result in Kyoko being lame and needing rescuing. This is not what I signed up for, Nakamura!
Also, needs more Ren. If Kyoko is going to get rescued by anybody, can't it at least be Ren? Or Moko? Moko would be cool. We haven't seen Moko around nearly enough, lately. But if Kyoko must needs be rescued by somebody, and it's not going to be Moko, Ren would be best. Kyoko could then at least be hesitant and conflicted about being rescued in a constructive direction. As much as I am able to appreciate Kyoko's negative feelings towards Sho being laced, all cognatively dissonant, with a desire to see him thrash his detractors, I totally do not want to see a Kyoko/Ren/Sho triangle, nor follow any plot that artificially promotes that. Boo, Nakamura!).
Yazawa Ai: Nana vol. 13
(Uh. It's weird how this ought to be the death blow of Hachi and Takumi, and yet, by the end of the volume, I feel even more invested in them, and more at a loss as to what could reasonably come after an end to them as a couple. It's, I dunno, in a world in which Nana and Hachi are presently not devoting their first attentions towards being in each other's lives, boo!, this seems like a plausible alternative course of action for Hachi. I hate Takumi, who's a total dick, but Yazawa clarifies his thought processes and motivations, shows his vulnerabilities just often enough that I always find myself coming round, resenting him for being a dick and yet still wanting him to shape up and start treating Hachi right, so I can forgive him, the way I know she will, because Hachi wants to raise her child in a stable home. Which is important, and should not be dismissed. Dammit, Yazawa!
Kind of not caring about Nobu+anybody not Hachi. Not precisely because I ship Nobu+Hachi, just...with the notable exception of Jun and her amazingly cool boyfriend whose name I have shockingly forgotten, I mostly only care about the Nana characters' romantic relationships as they pertain to the Nanas. And all romantic relationships are secondary to Nana and Nana. I mean, this is why it's called Nana, not Nana and Ren or Nana and Takumi or Nana and Yasu, or even Shin and Reira, who I admit to being a little bit into).
Novels/prose books:
Snicket, Lemony: A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning.
Graphic novels:
Kibuishi, Kazu, editor: Flight, vol. 5.
Manga:
Tsukaba Sakura: Penguin Revolution vol. 6
(The cross-dressing is still implausibly successful, and there is something weird and awesome about all of these actor characters playing their parents and managers and whatnot in their silly movie).
Tanaka Meca: Omukae Desu. vol. 5
(I dig the anti-climactic finale. I think this is maybe one of the more consistently low-key enjoyable things I've read this year).
Takaya Natsuki: Fruits Basket vol. 21
(why is everybody getting along so freakishly well? What happened to the death threats and people getting beaten up and traumatized? And why is it, that when everybody is getting along so freakishly well, everybody is still so miserable?).
Urushibara Yuki: Mushishi vol. 5.
Tezuka Osamu: Dororo vol. 1
(As always, it's cool to be able to recognize in Tezuka the precursors to all kinds of shit I've read in manga over the years).
Shiratori Chikao, editor: Secret Comics Japan
(Jason Thompson, Carl Gustav, et al, had great taste in comics eight years ago, too. Big surprise.
This is cool. Had I not come into the translated manga scene late enough to have already been able to read--from the commercial American manga scene--translations of Junko Mizuno, Kiriko Nananaan, and Usumaru Furuya (all already on my shelf), not to mention other amazing creators like Kan Takahama, Erica Sakurazawa, Mari Okazaki, and Moyoco Anno--this would've rocked my world, as it must have rocked a few people's worlds when it was published in 2000. But it's still cool now.
Side note: can I put out a call for translations of more Benkyo Tamaoki porn comics? XXXenophile aside, there's not enough porn out there that doubles as a good read).
Nakamura Yoshiki: Skip*Beat vol. 15
(Boo! Where has my unfazeable Kyoko gone? Okay, maybe Kyoko wasn't ever quite unfazeable, per se, especially not regarding Ren, but as the back cover text clearly states, "Kyoko's not the type of girl that needs rescuing." I disapprove of plot directions that result in Kyoko being lame and needing rescuing. This is not what I signed up for, Nakamura!
Also, needs more Ren. If Kyoko is going to get rescued by anybody, can't it at least be Ren? Or Moko? Moko would be cool. We haven't seen Moko around nearly enough, lately. But if Kyoko must needs be rescued by somebody, and it's not going to be Moko, Ren would be best. Kyoko could then at least be hesitant and conflicted about being rescued in a constructive direction. As much as I am able to appreciate Kyoko's negative feelings towards Sho being laced, all cognatively dissonant, with a desire to see him thrash his detractors, I totally do not want to see a Kyoko/Ren/Sho triangle, nor follow any plot that artificially promotes that. Boo, Nakamura!).
Yazawa Ai: Nana vol. 13
(Uh. It's weird how this ought to be the death blow of Hachi and Takumi, and yet, by the end of the volume, I feel even more invested in them, and more at a loss as to what could reasonably come after an end to them as a couple. It's, I dunno, in a world in which Nana and Hachi are presently not devoting their first attentions towards being in each other's lives, boo!, this seems like a plausible alternative course of action for Hachi. I hate Takumi, who's a total dick, but Yazawa clarifies his thought processes and motivations, shows his vulnerabilities just often enough that I always find myself coming round, resenting him for being a dick and yet still wanting him to shape up and start treating Hachi right, so I can forgive him, the way I know she will, because Hachi wants to raise her child in a stable home. Which is important, and should not be dismissed. Dammit, Yazawa!
Kind of not caring about Nobu+anybody not Hachi. Not precisely because I ship Nobu+Hachi, just...with the notable exception of Jun and her amazingly cool boyfriend whose name I have shockingly forgotten, I mostly only care about the Nana characters' romantic relationships as they pertain to the Nanas. And all romantic relationships are secondary to Nana and Nana. I mean, this is why it's called Nana, not Nana and Ren or Nana and Takumi or Nana and Yasu, or even Shin and Reira, who I admit to being a little bit into).