netflix

[cerusee]

That Netflix insta-play thing is now working for Macs (totally free if you have an account already, which I do). And I have a brand-new, much faster computer, and a couple of dozen insta-play titles in my queue.

So basically? I will never be productive again.


I've been cooking all day. Goddammit, I need a job.

Comments

[octopedingenue]

You! I have a mangaka for you: Est Em. Who is made of the gorgeous and who has cover blurbs from Matt freakin' Thorn.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I finally had a chance to read a sample of her work a few weeks ago--through Netcomics' online reader, maybe? I forget. And yes, oh my god, her work is gorgeous, and really emotionally, you know, intelligent. I didn't think Matt Thorn could possibly let me down, but her books are always shrinkwrapped, and I don't buy shrinkwrapped books by people whose page layouts I haven't ever been able to look over... Anyway, I am not buying books until I have a summer job, but she's now on my List.

[octopedingenue]

Sometimes I un-shrinkwrap books in Borders. I also kick puppies and taunt small children. But Borders here has no Est Em, so I bought the two linked above sight-unseen from the bigass $5 Aurora/Deux/Luv Luv sale last month, at which I may have gone a little (totally justified by quality!) crazy. And holy God so worth it for the Est Em alone! (Apparently she's a student of Thorn's as well! OH MAN WANNNA KNOW JAPANESE AND GO STUDY MANGA.) I'm bumping her already up there with Fumi Yoshinaga and Moto Hagio et al. as BL To Stalk. Really elegant and intelligent, and the laaaaaaaayouts, and very moving even for short stories; I can't wait to see what she'll do with longer stories.

I am surprised though not unhappy at Netcomics' new online distribution of Aurora titles! I don't think that's typical for competing(?) publishers, but maybe they're related on the Japanese publishing side...? It's at least a suggestion that Netcomics is doing okay, and I need them for my (weirdly translated) obscure manhwa fix. I've read chatter that Aurora is in danger of going under; of the two publishers I'd rather keep Aurora, but if Netcomics makes the world safe to finally give me volume 4 of Walkin' Butterfly, I'll take it.


.....p.s. if possibly a Ptutu reference I am gonna have to offer her my organs.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Holy shit I think it is! Badass!

Oh, it's not that I think it's EVIL to remove the shrinkwrap--it's not that expensive for the bookstore to rewrap it, and people have a right to know what they're buying--it's just sort of a curb-high barrier. Given a choice between spending ten bucks on something I know I want versus making even a small effort to find out if I want something new, I do tend towards the known. A typical consumer is me.

Oh hey, has Luv Luv published anything that doesn't suck? I bought one of their porny books--Love for Dessert, I think?--and it was just such a fuckin' waste of time, in like every sense. I was bitter. I expect better things from my erotica.

Oh Walkin' Butterfly, I miss you so. Paradise Kiss made me love the fashion manga and then you were there! And then you weren't. ;_;

[octopedingenue]

Is it Mytho? I think I need to hang it on my wall now.

I always go for the new! (Unless I hear the new sucks.) I tell myself I'm investigating new fiction opportunities for Business Purposes but really it's all about the New Shiny.

Everything from Luv Luv has been worthless except for the short story collection Object of Desire, which I really liked, largely for the women who actively seek out and enjoy sex and don't roll around moaning about feeling dirty and weeping. I liked most of the shorts, but the standouts are the title story (quoted in the blurb), about a girl who likes sex (and wants to be a professional shogi player!) but is sick of guys pretending they want a relationship to get laid; and the two-part "Oil & Water"/"With Lemon," about the relationship back-and-forth between the asskicking braniac high school tomboy and the insecure class goofball. I loved them and wish they'd've gotten an entire volume to themselves.

Re: fashion manga, I was pleasantly surprised by a twist that direction in the newest volume of Love*Com, if you are not already all over that series like syrup on pancakes as you totally should be. Anyway, Aurora is not allowed to publish anything else and/or vanish from the earth until they have fulfilled their spiritual Walkin' Butterfly 4 obligations to me, demmit! Or I will haunt their (disbanded?) presses from beyond the graaaave.

In related news: please die in a fire, OneDramaQueen.com, and let your Hinako Takanaga licenses go to their peaceful final rest and resurrection elsewhere. D: D: D:

[octopedingenue]

Here, since it's short, my entire "RUN DO NOT WALK" picks list for Aurora: the Est Em titles above, Future Lovers, Lovers & Souls and Two of Hearts and anything by Kano Miyamoto ever, Object of Desire, and Walkin' Butterfly.

And Love Round!!, Oh my god!, Hitohira, and The Manzai Comics are cute enough to de-plasticwrap.

Tengujin and Queen of Ragtonia have lovely art and okay stories, and I'm sad they didn't wow me because I love Chika Shiomi and Sumomo Yumeka. And Nephilim somehow makes magical genderbending ninja boring and stupid.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I heard that about Nephilim. Sad! Manga still brings the crack like nothing, absolutely nothing else in this world, even Alan Moore, but the evil darkside of the crackiness of manga is that sometimes, the crack is boring and stupid. Poorly executed weirdness doesn't have much of an impact on people who spend all their time reading brilliant weirdness.

Thank you for the recs! I have not read Love*Com, but I've heard mainly good things.

You know, I think a couple of the reasons I've come to like fashion manga are that A) it's mostly been josei, and I like josei, and B) perhaps related to the josei thing--the fashion manga I've read is also career manga, that is, it's female characters pursuing actual careers, and caring about them. You see bits of that from time to time in more fantasy-oriented titles, but I at least haven't gotten to read or see all that many titles where a woman is on an actual real career track, and that career is among her primary life goals. I dig Nana for the same reason--Hachi's all flighty and seems to be turning out to be seriously domestic (and I respect the seriousness she brings to it!), but you also have Nana O. and Reira, whose careers are as or more important to them than their romantic entanglements. I love it like fire.

I'm going to have to go examine my bookcase and inventory the women's career options outlined therein, now...dammit, what a segue.