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.