What I read in January: Digest Version, part 3 of 3

b Oresama Teacher 3-5: Dumb and goofy adventures with reformed-delinquent-trying-to-live-a-normal-school-life girl and her mysteriously motivated childhood friend/tormentor/teacher.  Her former gang friends are just kind of wrong.  The plot thickens.

b Pandora Hearts 3-6:  I knew I shouldn't get into this series until it ends.  I adore it.  I eat it up.  I love it.  I hope it ends brilliantly and lives up to all the tragic expectations and potential it has set up.  I need to lower my expectations, or it won't be able to . . .

o Pita-Ten 1:  Er, no thanks.  I think I'll just accept Kamichama Karin as the work by this author that I like.  This one's too much of a hassle to track down.  Thanks.

b Punch! 1-3: Silly romance in the Happy Hustle High vein more than the Wild Act vein. 

b Ratman 1: This is great.  I love it, and I want to read it all now.  Thank you Tokyopop, for making it likely that will never happen.

b Sakurahime 1: Fun, frilly Tanemura goodness.  I am not, er, pleased with the character who betrays because he isn't set up very well, but maybe that gets better as the series goes on?

b The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko 2: One away from completion.  Acid black observational humor.  Thanks for 66% of the fun and snarky ride, Tokyopop.

b Switch 11-13: That was sad.  Never really grew to like the artwork, but it was a somewhat decent ending.  (That was a happy ending, right?)  Way to go, public library!  I'm not sure why you chose this one, but I appreciate the fact that you collected it all!

b Yotsuba&! 10: Enjoy everything, indeed.  Awwww.  This series is like happiness.

What I read in January: Digest Version, part 2 of 3

b HunterXHunter 15-19: It's easy to get on a roll reading the earlier volumes, but things get super gross in the next arc (the creepy bug arc), and I can't read it at night before I go to bed, which is really the only time I have these days to graze on manga.  But when things aren't gross, I still get a huge kick out of the continued adventures of Gon and Killua.  An amoral hero and a sociopath best friend.  Fun times.

b K-ON! 1:: Um, I think I want to go watch Linda, Linda, Linda now.

b Kamisama Kiss 1-3: I am not really happy that this ended up on the YALSA graphic novels list.  It's amusing, but the willfully ignorant lovestruck heroine just strikes me as dumb more than anything.  I can't really take it seriously, which is why I'm not sure about why it beat out the other graphic novels on the short list . . .

b King of RPGs 2: Dumb, hilarious, and bombastic ending.  Way to go, Jason and Victor.  I hope that computer never takes over the world.  It's evil.

b Masion Ikkoku 14: How can two people who want the same thing and like each other so much manage to mis-communicate so frequently and make each other so miserable?!  I'm talking about the manga, not the numerous real-life people this applies to.

b Me & My Brothers 5-10: So this latter half of the series is more of a romance than the sitcom the first half was.  It is less creepy than it could have been, and I got a kick out of it in small doses.  I think no laws were broken, and I would like to believe that the chosen brother will wait until things are legal.  Like I said, the potential for way more creepiness was there, but it was dodged.

b Mistress Fortune: Frilly Tanemura fun with psychics and a cute cameo by  the American editor who worked on most of her books. :)

b My Heavenly Hockey Club 5-8: More stupid fun with the hockey club.  The addition of an adviser made me want to kill people, but the absolutely unbelievable "I cannot unsee this ever again Ai Morinaga Moment" made things all better . . .  Every time.

What I read in January: Digest Version, part 1 of 3

b Ai Ore! 1: Well, I can certainly see why this series gets some folks' panties in a bunch! Even if I could find the second volume in stores, I'm not actually sure I'd read it, but I was told it gets better after the third volume.

b Animal Academy 7: I cannot believe I had the final volume of this adorable series on my shelf for five months without realizing it was the final volume. I thought this was yet another series that died incomplete when Tokyopop went under.  I am so glad to be wrong. I picked it up when I had read all the other quick reads and had only massive tomes left on the to read shelf.  This series apparently wrapped at volume 7, and it somehow managed to do so in a mostly satisfying way. Now I want to read the whole thing over again.

b CrossxGame 3: More slow-paced, realistic action off the field and fierce baseball battling on the field. Great reveals about existing characters and some new characters who grate at first and then grow on you.  I love this series much. (I hope it does well enough that someone licenses Touch, but that was so popular in Japan that I suspect the license-holders want more than anyone in the US would be willing to pay for it. Kickstarter?)  Anyway, this was the first time I realized the meaning of the name of the four leaf clover place.  Yeah, I can be a little slow.

b D. Gray-Man 19: Once again, Yu Kanda, I grant you permission to be as antisocial and curmudgeonly as you wish. Sometimes people suck.  Though this series is horror-related and thus dwells on the horror and doesn't necessarily delve deep into the ethics, I find myself doing so as a reader.  Where are the lines?  Is lying to the NAZIs about the Jews hiding in your attic wrong?  No.  In that case, lying saves lives, and so it's the right thing to do.  (Oversimplification, but still.)  When one is fighting evil, how far is too far?  How low is too low?

b Devil's Trill: Netcomics released a handful of collections of Korean shorts by famous creators, and this is one of them. It's very gothy and dramatic and depressing.

b @ Full Moon 2: Apparently the last volume? For now . . .

b Fullmetal Alchemist 23-27: I was smart and held off reading the last few until I had the complete series.  Then I had me a little marathon. !!! What a spectacular ending. (Bradley, sword, teeth, no #&%*ing way!!!!!!)  Not what I expected. Now I can finally watch Brotherhood. Someday.  And check out this boxed set and its crazy good price on Amazon!  I am drooling.  If anyone has the box and doesn't want it, let me know!

b Grand Guignol Orchestra 2-3: More weird, gothy, Kaori Yuki craziness, this time involving the usual dark revelations and zombies plus convents and crazy and depraved nobles.

Some quotes of awesome from last year

Brian Hanson in an Answerman column: "Bandai in Japan wanted Bandai in the West to turn Gundam into the Next Big Toy Phase, which meant attempting to sell expensive, intricate model kits and slow, densely plotted shows about death and betrayal to 5-year olds."

Connie at Slightly Biased Manga on Black Bird 9: "I was pretty disappointed, then, when Kyo and Misao spent a good portion of this volume apart because Kyo just loved Misao too much. That’s always a terrible reason for couples to split up, and one that only exists in shoujo manga. I don’t care if you are a demon that’s going to eat your girlfriend. Whatever."

Caleb Dunaway at Otaku USA:  "So when I say that the unnamed protagonist of Tatami Galaxy lives university life—with far more of the brutal bits and far less of the rewarding bits—ten times over, you know we're talking about some serious Ninth Circle of Hell material here. Except that I doubt that the Ninth Circle of Hell features a rock-climbing wall made out of breasts."

Carl Kimlinger at ANN on Antique Bakery: "It's a nice place to hang out, made nicer by the universally nice guys who run it, and human enough that you don't really mind that the whole thing is one giant snort-worthy fantasy."  "approaches a kind of mild-mannered brilliance"

Sara Kon on Evyione: "You want a plot? Well, as it happens, there is a story. The scenery, dresses, and nudity even help tell it."

Possibly the funniest review ever

No, I didn't write it.  A professional author did.  It is long, kept me up way later than I should have stayed up, and resulted in my nose still hurting a day later.  It's about a K-drama called You're Beautiful that I am pretty sure I will have to watch on Hulu probably alone because I will be laughing so hard no one else would be able to pay attention to the show.  I will have my inhaler handy, so don't worry.

What I watched in November: Digest Version

b Ceres: Celestial Legend:  Dear Matthew Erickson, Thank you for your Yuhi.  Hands down best voice in the dub.  I think it was a good thing that it had been so long since I read the manga because there was really no way for me to know what was original and what was from the manga.  Any time I guessed and went to check the manga, I was wrong.  : )  Romantic tragedy after romantic tragedy and the sins of one generation being visited on the next.  Mysterious, amnesiac, tall, dark, and handsome guys, mad scientists, diabolical plots, love, family, and lots of creepiness.  Did I mention the tragedy?  Good stuff.

b Shura no Toki (Age of Chaos):  "Legend has it that in the Heian period, there were men who fought without weapons.  They were known as the Men of Carnage, and they reigned undefeated."  Holy cow, this was awesome and hilarious and lame in often equal measures.  This is MANime.  It loosely follows men from a particular weaponless fighting style down through the ages to times when they intersected with certain historical conflicts and affected or didn't affect outcomes.  Also, there's girls, and they're usually fighter girls, so the men of carnage get to have their fill of bloodlust and get the girl in the end.  So there's a lot of manly dialogue about fighting, and there is some actual fighting; one major showdown per arc.  And the last story arc was really sadly touching and frequently sent me to Wikipedia for historical background research.  History can be a real bummer.

b Wedding Peach:  So I alternated this piece of fluffy shojo fantasy with Shura no Toki because I love giving myself mental whiplash.  An early response to a love letter:  "Right now, soccer is my girlfriend.  But thanks."  Wedding Peach is Sailor Moon's younger, dumber cousin, but some of the voice actors had way too much fun with their roles, especially Igneous's VA (Nicholas Keene) in volumes 5-6.  He basically made every single line he could (especially the innocent lines) sound super-suggestive.  I was kind of blown away to see that the territory it took 40+ episodes to cover took one up to about volume three in the manga.  There was a great little extra in the next to the last volume that involved some interviews with the staff and cast and a gag episode that was pretty funny.  I would tell you about the last volume, but apparently Netflix doesn't carry it.  Dear Netflix, you're losing me with your having all the discs in the series but one.  Especially if it's the last one, and I don't realize it.  Dorks.

What I Watched: The Secret World of Arrietty

I have already seen two anime movies on the big screen this year which breaks my previous record of one.  Fullmetal Alchemist and the Sacred Star of Milos was a fun, adrenaline rush of a movie full of characters, situations, and violence in a world I loved visiting again (though I'm sorry to say I just couldn't like the new voice for Al; sorry Ms. Whitehead).  The Secret World of Arrietty was a lovely, thoughtful, slow-burn of a movie with plenty of time taken to appreciate landscape, architecture, vegetation, weather, and the way old ladies and sick boys move.  Both were full of adventure and tinged with sadness, but the worlds and audiences were very different.

One thing that struck me as the very young children around me in Arrietty were getting restless (approximately the 30 second mark) is that I don't really see how this movie could capture their attention.  Three-year-olds just don't care about old ladies moving in real time.  They probably can't appreciate slow, loving pan shots across amazing gardens and houses with stained glass windows.  (At least not your average kids in the United states.)  I think the kids over five definitely did better.  Or at least they didn't keep wandering the aisles and falling into the back of my chair or asking questions or just chattering or sneezing enthusiastically or burping or farting regularly.  The place I sat was quite a bit more lively than most of the movie.  Sigh.

Miyazaki did the screenplay, so I think it had his usual 10-minute chunks, which seemed to help with the older young kids, but I'm pretty sure all the lovely garden and exterior house shots were aimed squarely at the grownups.  That sense of slightly melancholy longing and nostalgia present in a lot of Miyazaki's Ghibli movies was strong here.  I kind of love that about these films.  In America, the trend is to add "adult humor" that will go over the kids' heads to keep the adults conscious and not wishing for a long nap.  Ghibli uses sounds and silence, beauty and slowness.  I think some kids can appreciate the beauty and care, too, even if the nostalgia part doesn't connect with them.  That's why these films are called All Ages films, I suppose.

I'll be going to the theater to see this again once it's released for real because I want to vote with my dollars for more lovely, engaging movies like this one to hit the big screen.  I will, of course, be going to the matinee showing, which is cheaper, but I will enjoy it every bit as much as the folks who pay more.  And I will hopefully go at a time when I will not be treated to a bodily function symphony in addition to the beautiful soundtrack.  Maybe late afternoon?  See you there . . .

What I read in December: Digest Version, part 4 of 4

And so we end 2011's manga reading.  There's still some anime watching for me to write up and share, so don't mourn the year yet.  : )

b Skyblue Shore 1-2: Oh, Tokyopop, why did you have to bring me two volumes of this sweet and fun shojo and then fold.  Sigh.

b Spell Checkers 1: Why?!  Why, oh American comics, do you lie to me with your beautiful covers and interior art that is completely unrelated?!!?

b Story of Saiunkoku 5: Wow!  This adaptation is so good, I don't actually feel like I need the light novels, but once the manga ends, I'm going to want them badly.  I really love how romance is part of the plot but is not the guiding principle.  I mean, I can really get behind a manga that preaches the idea that true love is wanting what is best for the one you love even if that might make you miserable.

b Toradora 3: More tsundere funtimes.  For all the focus on the tsundere thing, I'm just a huge fan of the guys in this show.  The girls (mostly Ami but certainly Taiga in the beginning) do, for the most part, want to make me kill them, but I do like the guys.  They're fun and wacky and goofy and bizarre, and their drama is somehow very realistic.  Maybe they're totally two dimensional stereotypes to others, but I find them amusing, sympathetic, and relatable.  I think the reason I like this manga (and anime) is because these people bumping into each other make each other better people, even if I don't always agree with the choices they make.

b Until the Full Moon 2and @Full Moon 1: I was kind of surprised when this got license rescued from obscurity along with the sequel series.  It's kind of fun still.

b Wild Ones 1: I guess I'll read more if the library has it.  If I finish everything else I like.  It was a bit obnoxious and cliched, but not terrible.

b xxxHolic 18: Oh, sad, sad, sad.  The way they are all so careful with each other.  Strength and fragility. A melancholy wistfulness.  Lots of atmosphere and nuance.  And things unspoken.