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

b Naruto 33: Y'know, dude, Naruto, it really does you credit how much you care for your friend who has fallen into the darkness, but it's kind of hard on the people around you.  Part of me just wants you to leave him alone.  You're right; he loves you like the brother he never had (as in the one that didn't kill everyone else in the clan).  He's not making trouble for your village. Leave him alone to finish what he started and find his own damnation.  Everyone would be better off, I think.  But if you did that, you wouldn't be you.  What a dilemma.

b Skip Beat 27:  Ren and Kyoko are still undercover perfecting their roles for Ren's upcoming movie.  This sounds lame and boring, but since this is a Skip Beat volume, it is so, so not.  There are misunderstandings, shower scenes, missed opportunities, and every time Ren has a moment, Kyoko stomps all over it obliviously and with sincere, good-natured cheer.  My abs hurt often for a couple of days after a volume of this off-beat shojo awesome-fest. 

b Tsubasa: Those with Wings 1-2: My subtitle: Travels with a sociopath who loved me.  This is the story of an orphaned former-thief trying to be good enough to be with the man who loves her enough that he left his job to stalk her and proposition her at every opportunity.  This is not Fruits Basket, though it's by the same author, and the covers make you think the interior will look similar.  (It does not.  At all.  They were drawn years later after FB made it big.)

A favorite exchange:
"After all is said and done, idealism is nothing more than a different  name for hypocrisy.  Pompous fools wrap meaningless rhetoric in a paper-thin veil of altruism and do nothing but congratulate themselves on being great humanitarians.  Such incredible stupidity makes me shudder in disgust.  I can barely stand the thought of breathing the same air as they.  Among those fools who preach so-called 'world peace' are particularly detestable to me."
"But that doesn't mean you have to shoot them."

Indeed.  This is a dark, sci-fi romantic comedy.  Somehow.  It earns its T+ rating with gusto and innuendo and more, and it can feel a bit like a slog at times, but it's worth a read, especially if you dig those early 90s sci-fi bits like Jihai and Flat Earth Exchange.

b Vampire Knight 11: There are vampires and boatloads of angst and really no plot movement.  All wrapped in Gothic pretty.

b Yozakura Quartet 1-2: I remember liking this quirky, off-beat series and wanting to read the rest.  Or see the anime.  But bookstores and Netflix have so far let me down.  Good stuff about people who live in a town where demons go to die and often end up living instead.  Great mythic-y bits in the background and lots of mystic mystery all swirled in with something like a superhero team.  It's very hard to describe.

b Yurara 5: Right then.  And some people live happily ever after (you can check in on them in Rasetsu) while others have a few miserable years before things get "better."  The end.  I think I'm glad for the guy who got to be in Rasetsu because he got to really develop as a character there.