Selections from What I Read in September: Digest Version, Part 1 of 2

Ah, September.  When suddenly I remember why I hate the short warm time we call summer up here that starts in June and ends in August.  Well, that's not true.  It reminds me why I hate the cold time that runs from September through May.  This is a temperate zone, right?  I've got my manga and exercise to keep me warm.

• b Chi's Sweet Home 1-2:  Totally adorable.  Seriously.  Warm fuzzies and short laughs as you follow a cute kitten and the family that takes her into their pet free apartment and has to hide her.  Also found out where her cute name came from and nearly had a spasm.
• b Jihai 1: I have read people tearing this one to shreds as boring and lame.  I like it.  I really do.  Those end-of-book cliffhangers were great the first time through, and I didn't think knowing how they resolved hurt the reread value for me (since I sort of forgot most everything).  I liked all the various characters with their tortured pasts, too, and I liked the somewhat nonstandard ways they dealt with redemption and atonement. 
• b Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service 9-10: I talked about these already.  Same acid dark humor.  Same fantastic notes at the end.  How to know if you'll be able to handle the horror within: Can you look closely at the cover and not throw up?
• b Maison Ikkoku 12: Just like with the real people bumbling around in romantic relationships in your life, you just want to shake these people sometimes, too.
• b Saturn Apartments 1: Totally great.  Seriously unusual.  Earnest, sweet, and sad.  The story of a future when Earth is uninhabitable, and everybody lives on a big ring around the earth.  Mainly follows the story of a young orphaned boy who chooses to be a window washer, a dangerous and sometimes thankless job (the job his father died doing).  Slice of life sci-fi.
• b Silver Diamond 3: Can the power of nice save the world?  Find out here.
• b A Tale of an Unknown Country 1-2: I'm pretty bummed there won't be more of this one.  It irked me a bit because it got my hopes up when it laid out a really serious, realistic sort of scenario in a broken relationship between brothers.  Then it shojo-powered through all the careful setup and tried to bulldoze on with the power of genki.  I shouldn't have let it get my hopes up, but situations like this particular one that break relationships between siblings are of interest to me, and I wanted to see how they dealt with it.  Now I'll never know if they redeem themselves by treating it seriously again.  Alas.
• b Tsubasa 27: I'll admit that I have no idea what that was all about.  I think some day when I marathon this series, it will make (more) sense.
• b Tuxedo Gin 1:  So he dies, but he gets to come back as a penguin, live out a penguin's natural lifespan, and then be returned to his body.  He picked a penguin for sentimental reasons.  I wouldn't picked the shortest living critter I knew about.  But that's because I'm not in love with someone who adores penguins.  Well, and there are other reasons such as reality . . .

 A lot of variety here this month.  Good month.