Kieli light novel sucks away my evening again

Curse you, Kieli: The Sunlit Garden Where It All Began, Part II.  Your last volume left off on a cliffhanger, and I had to know how all those threads aligned in the end.  Your continuous narrative and my lack of self control combined to turn an hour of exercise into something over two, and it will be hard to walk or sit for a few days, but I don't care because I love you.

This brings to mind a question I keep having: why isn't Kieli a movie?  The first novel is basically totally self-contained.  This format of novel is short enough to be a single, solid movie (instead of an edited Cliff's Notes version as so many adaptations end up).  I would think this would be an amazing role for some serious young actor to take on.  I mean, Harvey is this cold, harsh guy who looks nineteen (and has looked nineteen every day for the last 90+ years since the first time he died).  He doesn't get a lot of dialogue, but he has to communicate a ton of history and emotion with body language alone or he'll be a totally unlikeable character.  Movies mean you have to show instead of stay inside the inner telling monologue of a character, and I think the relationship between the characters could really be outstanding if done well.  Also, I don't think any of the stuff in the first volume would require cringe-worthy CGI.  I might not be able to watch it because some of those scenes are pretty intensely gory, but most other people don't have that hangup.

This novel did a good job of tying up things started in the last novel (they were really one continuous story broken into two parts) and maybe even pointed toward the redemption of a character I pretty much didn't want to be redeemed.  I guess there's something to be said about extended flashbacks and how they can humanize a character.  It's difficult to hate as cleanly when you see who someone used to be.  I like how the author handles things in a way that makes it possible to interpret as hints that a character may not be totally irredeemable or else just one of those times when a bad character's self-interest intersects with the protagonist's goals.  The translation was enjoyable, but there were a couple of obvious word transposition errors that surprised me since Yen is usually pretty good at catching those.

The next novel comes out in September, which should still contain the sort of sunny, warm days I tend to require when reading horror novels (thank you, Robin McKinley), so I will have to be patient until then since this book ended solidly and didn't give strong hints about where the next one will go.  Patience is a virtue.  I should cultivate it.  Also self-control.

Is it September yet?

Yukikaze

So I just finished the first Yukikaze novel, and there are three things I want to do

• destroy all machines
• read the sequel
• watch the anime

I have thus far managed to stave off the anime craving because I can't marathon it right now since the class I'm teaching still isn't done, and I'm going home to visit my parents over the holidays, and they have a basement theater with surround sound, which has proven itself an awesome place to watch things in surround sound with lots of dog-fight action.  Self control.  Self control.

The novel was really more of a collection of short stories, loosely swirling around Yukikaze, a plane in the future that fights on a planet called Fairy, the front of the war between humanity and the JAM. Yukikaze's pilot is Lt. Rei Fukai, a socially maladjusted person if there ever was one.  To say he is bad with people is to lie like a dog.  His job, being an observer who never helps, actually calls for people like him who don't really mind being avoided and even hated by other soldiers.  He doesn't care about other people, really.  He trusts his plane and sort-of trusts Major Jack Booker, his direct supervisor, the only person who even tries to connect with him.

The stories often use other points of view, which is good because being inside Rei's head for very long would be profoundly disturbing.  Not that the other POVs are all sunshine and puppies.  That maintenance guy's story was so chillingly horrifying I just had to stop reading for a couple of days when I finished it.  This quickly became a book I couldn't read at night for fear of nightmares (and I don't even really have nightmares) even though there is very little gore.

Frankly, it was amazing how much dread and menace the author built using such a dry style.  Just the facts, ma'am.  So why did the facts scare the bejeebers out of me?  Because they were so plausible.  So very, very plausible.  And that ending!  Poor Rei!  Sequel!  Soon!  Well, as soon as I defrost from the icy, creeping fear this collection caused . . .

Full Metal Panic Novel 4: Ending Day by Day - Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Thank you, stranger who pre-ordered this print on demand book from my local Barnes&Noble and didn't buy it!

Once again I will ask the question: why don't companies license the novels in the series that come after the part of the property that has already been released here?  They would sell more; this seems like an excellent reason to do so.  Because Tokyopop didn't do this, I will never get to find out what happens after what was made into Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid.  Raaaarg!

This turn of events is especially irksome because I liked this one.  You know why? 

1. Everything from the anime that I really liked is here.  The haircut, that amazing sequence when Chidori tracks down Wraith, Melissa's ham-handed but heartfelt attempts at having a serious talk with Sosuke, the new Urzu leader's introduction, Sosuke's horrific confrontation with Gauron who will, I think, not be coming back this time, and much more.
2. Everything that annoyed me lots in the anime is NOT here! 

• Pointlessly fanservice-y, incestuous spinny killbot girls?   Nowhere to be found.
• Random Russian prostitute who impossibly looks like Chidori?  Nope, just whiskey and a trash can and manly sulking, I mean, solitude.  
• Naked dude and kitten-related trauma?  That's the sound of crickets chirping.  (Extremely happy crickets.  Chirping in extreme joy.)

Ah, refreshing.

Well, as refreshing as occasional brutal violence and lots of tension and ill-timed self-discovery and murder can allow.

And so it ends in America.  Does Sosuke ever come face-to-face with his soul?  Do he and Kaname ever admit they are attracted to each other?  Weber's backstory?  More with Tessa's creepy brother and his AS killbots?  More, please?

Sigh.  The sound of crickets chirping indeed . . .

Welcome to the NHK?

If you've never heard of it, Welcome to the NHK is an anime (based on a semi-autobiographical [?] novel) that centers on a young man who has withdrawn from society and lives with as little human contact as possible until a girl appears who says she can save him from his self-imposed exile.  Lots of adult content because adults can legally make their own stupid choices.  (NOTE: the first ending theme song may be one of the most disturbing I have ever seen.)

It's hard to watch Welcome to the NHK, especially after finishing Hurry Down Sunshine: A Father's Story of Love and Madness (Vintage), a memoir about mental illness as seen from the outside.  I recognize symptoms (paranoia, mania, depression), and the armchair sociologist in me starts flipping through scattered notes about hikikomori and increasing loneliness and social withdrawal as technology rises.

It's painful to watch Welcome to the NHK as a fan (who happens to be a somewhat shy, introverted person).  Sometimes, I feel the pull of being a hikkikomori.  I mean, seriously, if someone were paying your bills, and you didn't have to leave the comfort of your home, wouldn't you stay in? 


Especially if the alternative was working a crappy customer service job that puts you inescapably face-to-face with the decidedly less-fine aspects of humanity all the time?  Wouldn't you want to stay where you couldn't hurt and offend or be hurt and offended by others, where you wouldn't have to be angry or frustrated so frequently?  Where you wouldn't have to pick up after other people's inconsiderate leavings all the time?  Where you wouldn't have to smile while people are rude and dismissive and contemptuous to you, bully you, or hit on you (when they're not being infuriatingly slow, unhelpful, and forgetful, or assuming you have god-like powers)?  Where you wouldn't have to deal with an unqualified, incompetent boss immune to logic, reason, or any other method of discourse?  Where no one expected anything of you?  Where no one tried your patience?  Where the only person you could disappoint was you?  Where you were more in control of everything (everything having shrunk down to your apartment)?

Understanding that pull makes watching the show more difficult.

Tokyo Vice gave some good (and sad) examples of how mental illness is viewed and dealt with in Japan.  There's that whole wa concept (and fitting in and not standing out and the nail that sticks out getting hammered down and all that). 


Japan would be a painful place to withdraw from social contact, which makes me wonder how much more painful it is for those who do withdraw to maintain contact or try to reestablish it.  It gives me more sympathy for the seemingly hopeless, boneheaded protagonist of Welcome to the NHK.  He's still trying to re-connect even through that added pain.  He screws up so badly, but he's trying, so you can't help but pull for his eventual success.  You know his story is based on a real person's story (you think so, even if you might be wrong), and you want there to be a happy ending, to have been a happy ending.

I wonder if people in the U.S. who are writing all these books about the rise of loneliness and social withdrawal as technology makes living without people possible are looking to Japan to learn about what this kind of mass withdrawal can do to society.  I wonder if someone's written about it somewhere.  I wonder if all the anime fans who've seen the series or the manga fans who've read the manga adaptation or the original novel have thought about the sociological implications of this sort of thing in their lives in their countries in their fan communities.

I wonder if my sister would say I'm thinking too hard about this.  :)

Watching Welcome to the NHK is a struggle for many reasons.  I'll let you know if I think it was worth it in the end.

The great fun of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Some characters are entertaining to watch, but they would drive you bonkers if you had to spend any time with them.  Haruhi Suzumiya is one of them.  I got a kick out of the anime, but I really enjoyed The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (the original book).  It was a lot of fun, mostly because Kyon is an entertaining  narrator, and here he really gets center stage.  His irritation and general discombobulation as Haruhi jerks him (and everyone else) around is a hoot. 

"The uncontrollably sobbing girl, the unresponsive bookworm, and the bewildered, castrated bastard (me) spent the following period of time silently in the club room with a record-setting strained atmosphere. In the distance I could clearly hear the lousy horns of the brass band and indiscernible yelling of the baseball team."

He's self-aware enough to toss off these great mental one-liners, and he's frustrated and curious enough to let things happen.  All in all, he makes this book. There's just something glorious about the difference between what he thinks and observes and what he actually responds to and says about the Haruhi-induced madness going on around him.

"Don't call me pathetic.  I am just an ordinary male high school student."

Thank goodness that's not true.  (For a great longer review, be sure to check out Martin's.)  Kudos to Yen Press for bringing this over and translating it so well.


Have you seen and read Haruhi?  What are your thoughts?  Any characters you liked better in one medium than the other?