Oh the relaxation

My first semester of college is over (uh... on the 15th... heh heh) and I am enjoying my time off very, very, very, very much. Here're a few things that went on since I last posted, uh, whenever.

• I officially passed my Online Service Learning course with a 74%, which is higher than I was expecting. Seriously, that course was just... balls. It was my first time doing an online course, which wasn't the hard part since I am a computer whiz. The hardest part was dealing with the teacher, who is permantly labelled 'doorknob' in my mind. She would barely answer emails to anyone, and when she did I'd had to read them more than once because I was barely able to understand what she was saying. And then I had to have my assignments modified because I was in a different part of the course and that was just a nightmare. But I passed, and I don't have to deal with this anymore.
• I also had an Applied Learning course which was completely self-directed, I just had to check in with faculty to prove to her that I was actually doing something. I did a PowerPoint presentation on autism using the With the Light series as a case study. And as stupid an idea that it might sound to most people to use a manga for a college project, my teachers and class thoroughly enjoyed it and said that it was very interesting. I also got a 92%. I am happy. And now I am wondering why I wasn't allowed to do book reports on manga when I was in high school.
• Christmas was awesome this year. Christmas Eve at Nanny's house was a little slow because nothing much was going on. The adults mostly stayed in the kitchen and the kids (just me and my brothers this year) just stayed in the living room. That's the problem I've found about Nanny's house, the adults don't really interact with the kids much at all. At Mémé's house on the other hand, everyone is mixed together in the living room. It's much more lively there too, everyone is joking around with everyone, even the kids.
• Then Santa came! He was my younger cousin this year, and he played a funny Santa. He was funny because it was my cousin and he's a funny guy, and it was funny because he spent a lot of time joking around with our older cousin. Oh was it ever funny. I laughed like a maniac.
• I got Jodi Picoult's book House Rules as a gift from my brothers Christmas morning and finished reading it that night. Awesome book. For a while there, I thought the ending was gonna piss me off, but it turned out alright in the end. And now I have no one to discuss the book with. *grumble*

With the Light Drama

(This is something I wrote up about the With the Light drama and how it differs from the manga. I wrote this during the summer, before I read volume 7 or heard about volume 8. It's a bit long and probably doesn't make too much sense, but here y'are anyway.)

Since I posted something about the With the Light manga series, I might as well talk about the TV show.

A few years ago (I'm thinking 2004, but I could be wrong about that), the With the Light manga series was adapted into an 11 episode live-action drama of the same name.

And it is a good show. It's one of three anime live-action adaptations that I think did well (the other two being the Detective Conan live-action specials). It follows the story pretty closely and stays fairly true to the source material, unlike other adaptations I've seen (*coughDragonballEvolutioncough*). I grew attached to the characters in the show, same as with the manga, and when something good or bad happens to them it's hard not to react along with the characters. So, in my opinion, it was all very well done.

Having said that, there are still some things I don't like about it, and other things I've noticed. There are a lot of things that are different from the manga, which is the original story and what I read first, so I feel that the manga is the superior version, but that's more of a 'book-before-the-movie' argument.

First of all, the length. The manga goes from when Hikaru is born to about junior high or high school (or wherever volume 7 ends). The drama takes place over the course of one year (or one school year, not entirely sure) with a bit of background of Hikaru as a toddler, but aside from Hikaru at about 4 or 5 years old climbing a building to get at an aluminum balloon (which didn't happen in the manga), it's told in flashback.

So the manga covers a longer period of time. And it happens in real time so none of it is really told in flashbacks because we'd already read it when it happened. In the manga, flashbacks were used to show things from before Hikaru was born, and to remind us of things that happened in past volumes. In the drama, flashbacks are used to remind us of what happened in past episodes, but they're also used to explain what happened before Sachiko met Rio-sensei.

In my opinion, I like the way the manga handled that better. Reading about it as it happened gets you more emotionally invested, I find. Then if there's a flashback about it, you can look back too and be all like 'I remember that, that was great/gunny/creepy/whatever'. But the drama is only 11 episodes long, where the manga had no set length (as far as I know), so the manga had the time and space to move as slowly or as quickly as it wanted to.

Second is the place difference. In the manga, the Azuma's live in an apartment a 5 minute walk from Hikaru's elementary school. I also got the idea that their apartment building was in or nearby some kind of shopping district. Or maybe it's like that in the drama too, I never really got that. Wither was, Shichigatsu-cho Elementary is, in the manga, in some kind of suburb, or something. It's definitely not as isolated as the drama portrays it. I mean, the school in the drama seems to be on a back country road, or something.

But the biggest difference between the manga and drama is the difference between the characters. And this is a pet peeve of mine. The characters are all there in the manga, it shouldn't be that hard to write them into the drama, or at least make the ones you do write in who they're supposed to be.

Sachiko and Masato, Hikaru's parents, are written in. And their characters are pretty accurate. Sachiko in the manga is more preachy, and Sachiko in the drama is more... spineless? I dunno. She's more sensitive and apologizes way more than Manga!Sachiko, I find. And Masato is more of a workaholic asshat in the beginning of the manga, than he makes a complete 180 and is Best Father in Teh World. As great as that is, it's kinda extreme. Drama!Masato strikes me as more realistic. He doesn't really come off as a workaholic either, just a hard worker. He's a good father to Hikaru both before and after the diagnosis, and he was never really unlikable to begin with. He doesn't change personalities overnight, and it takes him a bit to accept that Hikaru will never truly be like other children, but he does come to grips with it on his own time and he then decides to be more involved.

Hikaru's little sister Kanon does not make an appearance in the drama. And that sucks because Kanon brings her own brand of humour to the series. She doesn't treat Hikaru like he has a disability at all. To her he's just 'Onii-chan'. If he bothers her, she'll bother him right back. They learn from each other and they're there for each other. They behave like a real brother and sister would. Since the drama really only consists of Hikaru's first-grade year at school, Kanon wouldn't really be in there much, since she's born near the end of the school year (I think).

Sachiko and Masato's mothers make it into the drama. Sachiko's father is absent for some reason. Sachiko's mother is pretty much the same in both mediums. She's there more often in the drama, so she has more of a personality there. We don't see her much in the manga. Sachiko talks to her when she has problems, which took place in a time before the drama covers, and Sachiko moves back in with her parents when she temporarily separates from Masato, which never happened in the drama. Masato's mother is portrayed pretty accurately in the beginning of the drama, then she becomes less unlikable. In the manga, Masato's mother is a proud woman who cared a lot about image. When Hikaru was still a baby, before he was diagnosed, Masato's mother would often show up, while Masato was at work, and berate Sachiko for 'cutting corners' by using store-bought baby food and disposable diapers. She often compared Sachiko and Hikaru to Masato's sister and her daughter Noa (who don't appear in the drama). When she learns that Hikaru is autistic, Masato's mother blames it on Sachiko and the way she raised Hikaru. This creates much tension and intense emotions between everyone. Eventually, Masato's mother learns a bit about autism and is less of an ass in general. Then Kanon is born. Throughout the series, Masato's mother flops between accepting Hikaru and pushing him away. She does love him, but its obvious that she prefers her granddaughters Noa and Kanon, who are well-behaved and aren't disabled. In the drama, Masato's mother is still critical of Sachiko, and she does blame Hikaru's autism on her. But unlike the manga, Masato's mother seems to finally accept that Hikaru will never be cured of his autism, but he is not a burden or a lost cause. Masato's mother in the manga gives off the impression that Hikaru is a bother more than anything else.

Hikaru's friends seem to be missing from the drama, or they have been re-named. Hiroaki and Oyamada are absent from the drama. Since Hikaru's life before Shichigatsu was barely glanced over, that's to be expected. Sachiko met Oyamada at the welfare centre, since that wasn't in the drama, neither is she. In the place of all that, we get Megumi and Hotomi at some kind of hospital. Sachiko goes there to get a diagnosis for Hikaru and that is where she first meets Megumi, whose daughter Hotomi is also autistic. To me, Hotomi is a combination of Hiroaki and Miyu (another autistic girl who went to school with Hikaru). Hotomi has a different kind of autism than Hikaru, like both Hiroaki and Miyu. She's the same age as Hikaru (I think, or she might be a year younger, although she has an elementary student backpack). Like Hiroaki, Hotomi goes to a different school that Hikaru, but like Miyu she is in Hikaru's class (for a bit). Hotomi is mild mannered and smiles all the time, like Hiroaki, but her family situation is like Miyu's. So I'm convinced she's cross between the two of them.

Nobuaki, Kanata, Ooki, or that fat kid with the glasses whose name I can never remember, are also missing. We don't get replacements for them, not direct ones anyway. Hikaru's classmates at school could fill in for them, but they aren't specifically named. Speaking of classmates, Hikaru's classmates from Special Ed, Nat-chan and Isao (or something) are also missing from the drama.

In the place of Moe and Eri, we get another combination, Moe. In the drama, Moe lives in Hikaru's building, but it's basically Eri with a different name. You've got Eri's overbearing, perfectionist, useless, asshat mother and her abusive, distant, asshole father (thought I don't thing he's abusive in the drama). Also, when Hikaru gets locked in the storage locker (this happens in both the manga and the drama), it's Moe who watches it all happen. In the manga, it's Eri who sees it, but she's not in the drama. Drama!Moe and Manga!Moe are alike in the way that they both want to look out for Hikaru and help him, although Manga!Moe does it more often.

Ishida, a boy who is older than Hikaru, has been replaced by Wataru, who is one of Hikaru's classmates in the drama. In the manga, Ishida was Hikaru's buddy (from the buddy class) and it was his job to help Hikaru water the tomatoes in the garden and take a picture of them every day at recess. This happens after Hikaru's first grade year, so it really shouldn't be in the drama anyway, but it is. In the drama, the tomato growing is used to get Hikaru to interact more with his classmates, and most of the episode is devoted to teaching Hikaru how to water the plants and the steps leading up to it. In the manga, Hikaru already knows how to water the plants since he'd been gardening at school for a while (read: years).

Oki, an older boy who once made fun of Hikaru, was replaced by Kenta, who is another of Hikaru's classmates and one of Wataru's friends. In the manga, Oki's mother has abandoned him and he lives with his father, who is an alcoholic. as a result, Oki is severely mistreated and he is jealous of Hikaru, who has two loving parents. Oki makes fun of Hikaru and seems to be an all around mean child. But one day after school, Hikaru follows Oki home and then he gets on a bus by himself. Worried, Oki follows him and they have a small adventure around town while Hikaru's parents are worried sick. It all ends well though. In the drama, we have Kenta, whose mother is dead and who lives with his father, who is not an alcoholic but works a lot. Kenta doesn't make fun of Hikaru, exactly, but he's not the nicest boy in the world. Like the manga, Hikaru follows Kenta home and then gets on a bus. Kenta follows, but we don't see what they get up to, instead we are with Sachiko and Masato and Hikaru and Kenta's teachers as they try to find the boys. Personally, I like the manga better because it showed what everyone was up to. Also, in the manga, this takes place after the tomato project, so it wasn't during Hikaru's first grade year either.

Hikaru's teachers are also different. In the drama there are four teachers we always see: Rio-sensei, Hikaru's special ed. teacher, Sakura-sensei, who teaches Hikaru's first grade class, Kawami-sensei, the music teacher, and the principal, who is probably on something but we love him anyway. These four teachers are not in the manga. Hikaru's special ed. teacher is Aoki-sensei, who is a man (unlike Rio-sensei) and whose hobby is making learning tools for disabled students. Hikaru's first grade class is taught by Wakabayashi-sensei in the manga, who is female, instead of Sakura-sensei, who is male. The romance between Rio/Aoki-sensei and Sakura/Wakabayashi-sensei is present in both mediums, but the manga just sort of springs it on us while in the drama, it's always there. There is no music teacher in the manga, that I know of. The principal in the manga is also a different gender than in the drama. But thehy are basically the same person, they are both very kind, understanding and accommodating. But Drama!Principal is more nuts and hyper than Manga!Principal.

And finally, we have the main character, Azuma Hikaru himself. There is a difference between the manga version and drama version. I don't know which version most accurately portrays an autistic child, so I'm not basing anything on that. Anyway, Manga!Hikaru is more animated than Drama!Hikaru, in my opinion. In the drama, Hikaru's facial expression doesn't change. Every once in a while he smiles, and people can make him laugh, but other than that he just stares. That is probably consistant with autistic children, but not really with the manga version of Hikaru. Manga!Hikaru has more facial expressions. They run from happy to surprised to angry. That could be because it's easier to draw expressions than it is to act them. The abilities also differ between mediums. In the manga, Hikaru has a photographic memory and can draw anything from memory, when he's interested, and then there's the Mouse March, to name a few things. Hikaru from the drama doesn't seem to have any artistic skills, aside from that one tomato picture he drew, and he never managed to learn the Mouse March. Also, Manga!Hikaru seems to interact with others more. They are still both very similar though, both love bullet trains and shiny things.

Obviously, the story and pacing of each medium is different from the other, but that's to be expected. I am so glad that a show was made instead of a movie. A movie summation of everything would have been a mess. Of course, an even better TV show idea would've been to have a longer show, like with seasons, and follow the manga exactly. But that would probably be more trouble than it's worth.

Dinnernet

Because I can't pronounce my words... yeah.

So, new news. I managed to find the first two seasons of Digimon with Japanese audio and English subtitles for download. This is great news! Digimon is a series I've loved since childhood, but it hasn't aged well. I keep saying that my biggest problem with the series is that the dialogue sucks. It's corny, full of puns, and obviously made for very young children. It hurts to listen to. In my opinion, the Japanese dialogue is far superior (I realized this after I discovered fansubs to the three first movies and compared them to the American release).

In other news, I have to do a project for school. It's a totally self-directed affair and the project can be anything I want on the topic of my choice. I wanted to do something with the With the Light series (since they cover autism and I'm in that kind of field). I got the go ahead this morning so I'm starting on that now. First thing I'm doing is scanning the entire series (not only for the project, but to have a digital copy of it). After I finish that I can gather information and pick out the images I want to include in my project. Should be interesting.

Last bit, I just got the first Chobits omnibus edition in the mail that covers the first four volumes. And oh my God, it's even thicker than my With the Lights, which were the biggest volumes I own. This thing's a monster! And it's shorter than the others so it's a weird shape. It's nice to look at though, and it's got coloured pages inside so it's got that going for it.

Manga Roundup #2

Time for another manga roundup. I did my first one in January and my collection has grown muchly since then. Onward, ahoy! (this is gonna be so long...)

• Absolute Boyfriend (Watase Yuu) 1-4 (My friend recommended this one to me. She told me to read it because she thought it was funny. I read it and agreed, so I started buying it. The main point of the story is that a girl buys accidentally buys an android off the Internet to act as her boyfriend. This manga is awesome, most of the humour comes from the interactions between the characters and the characters themselves, mostly Night and the salesman.)
• Aishiteruze Baby (Maki Youko) 6 (This is the story of a high school playboy named Kippei, who suddenly finds himself caring for his 5-year-old cousin Yuzu, who was abandoned to Kippei's family by her mother. This is sweet and funny story and I read it online before putting it on my buy list. I found volume 6 for sale at Animinitime and it was cheap so I bought it.
• Baby and Me (Ragawa Marimo) 1&2 (11-year-old Takuya's mother has died so he is put in charge of taking care of his baby brother Minoru. The online scanlations are only available up to volume 5, so I don't know the whole story, but what I have read so far is Takuya's adventures as he takes care of Minoru and interacts with the people around him. This manga gives me a fuzzy feeling every time I read it.)
• Beyond My Touch (Maeda Tomo) (This is a shounen-ai oneshot volumes containing one multi-chapter main story and two shorter oneshot chapters. The main story is about a boy who visits a classmates funeral and brings his classmates ghost back home with him. It seems that the dead boy had a crush on the live boy and regrets never kissing him in life so he follows him as a ghost. It's a really sweet story and made me laugh. The other two stories are both shounen-ai and one is about a boy's first kiss and the other is about baking, I think.)
• Confidential Confessions (Momochi Reiko) 2, 5, 6 (I think this is the first serious manga that I read. And by serious I mean containing adult themes. There's six volume in all and there's no main plot. Instead, we have a bunch of oneshot stories about different girls each talking about a different serious topic. Such topics include suicide, prostitution, sexual harassment, and drug abuse, to name a few. I have volumes 2, 5 and 6, so I got sexual harassment, stalking, rape, AIDS and bullying. I have a weird love/hate relationship with volume 2. It's about sexual harassment and the story takes up the whole volume. I want to kick every single character in that story in the face, with the exception of the main characters parents and that one girl who kicked the gym teacher in the face.)
• Croquis (Takanaga Hinako) (This is a yaoi oneshot, the story of which I forget about after I read it. Every time. I know the main story is about a... I think he's a transgender, who works in a bar and an artist and they fall in love... and stuff. There's three oneshots after that. One of them is about two boys and astronomy, and the other two are about the loss of a first love. I didn't like the one about the stars, the ones about the lost first love were bittersweet and made me sad, and the main story just made me laugh. I think I just bought it because it's only one volume long and by Takanaga-sensei. I love her art.)
• Deadman Wonderland (Kataoka Jinsei) 1 (This is a relatively new manga and I found volume 1 at Animinitime cheap so I just bought it. The series starts off with a massacre of a class of high school students by some weird monster thing. Everyone in class is dead except for Ganta Igarashi, who is then charged with the murders. He is sent to Deadman Wonderland, the prison/circus that houses criminals in post-major-fucking-earthquake Tokyo. And stuff happens. Ganta gets new powers that allows him to shoot 'bullets' made up of his blood, and he finds others who can manipulate their blood into weapons. They are called the Deadman. This manga is like a horror/action/sci-fi thing, which I'm not usually into, but I like it quite a bit.)
• Detective Conan (Aoyama Gosho) 1, 25, 26, 30, 31 (I love Conan. Growing up I always watched shows about murder mysteries and detectives and all that. Detective Conan is like a Sherlock Holmes story, with a twist... and it's in Japan. Kudou Shinichi is a famous high school detective who gets in over his head when he spies on two men in black doing a shady business deal. He gets fed a poison that's supposed to kill him but instead makes him age down about ten years. So he has to go around solving crimes as a child while trying to find the men in black who shrunk him and keep his identity a secret from those around him. Along the way he solves a butt-ton of cases and meets a few colourful characters that make each case interesting to read over and over.)
• Dining Bar Akira (Yamashita Tomoko) (I discovered this yaoi oneshot volume on a manga review site and read it online before deciding that I liked it and buying it. The main multi-chapter story is about two older guys, in their 20s and 30s, who work in a bar and enter into a relationship with each other. I read it for the humour, any deeper meaning is pretty much lost on me. There's also two unrelated stories after that. One about a gay high school student who can't find the courage to confess to his straight friend, and another one that made absolutely no sense about a man who had a wet dream about a coworker of his, or something, and tries to pick him up the next day, or something. I never got it.)
• Dragonball (Akira Toriyama) 1-16 (I grew up watching Dragonball Z, starting when I was 3 or 4 years old. I discovered the manga in Shonen Jump magazine when I was a kid. I discovered the Dragonball manga a few years ago. I never knew much about the story and events of Dragonball, but I had a great time learning about it and reading it. It's mainly about fighting, which is fine but it's not really my thing, but it contains many humorous elements. Also, a lot of the characters I know and love from Dragonball Z are in there and they're always fun to watch.)
• Eerie Queerie! (Shiozu Shuri) 3 (I discovered this title while looking at a picture of someone else's manga collection. The title is what caught my eye, it's just something that requires an explanation. So I read it online. Giggle fit. It's a story about one high school boy who is sensitive to spirits, and another who manages to make all other guys fall in love with him, or something. Can't really remember, it's been a while since I read it. I don't remember there being a set storyline, I just like watching the characters interact with each other, makes me laugh. I found volume 3 for 4$ at Animinitime.)
• Fruits Basket (Takaya Natsuki) 1, 4-7, 11, 18-23 (Fruits Basket 18 was the first manga volume that I bought for myself, it was the official start of my collection, though I didn't know it at the time. The series is 23 volumes long and I've read through it about 3 or 4 times already and love it every time. It's the story of a family with a cursed and tortured existence and a young woman who hopes to free them. I keep saying that this series could be material for someone's college paper, with all the themes and tragic pasts and moral and ethical dilemmas. I love the story and I love the characters. We get to learn a lot about every character in the series and we learn about what made them who they are. It's really a great series.)
• Fullmetal Alchemist (Arakawa Hiromu) 1-3 (Me and my two friends were way into this show when it first came on TV in our area. We thought it was one of the best things ever. We watched the anime first and halfway through I discovered the manga. For the record, I've never seen the Brotherhood anime, just the crappy first version where Ed dies at the end. The manga is waaaaaaaay better than the anime. It goes on longer for one thing. I tell ya, I got so attached to these characters. And bad shit keeps happening and you just keep hoping that something good will finally happen. It's great, the final battle at the end completely blew me away.)
• Godchild (Yuki Kaori) 1&2 (This is the sequel to The Cain Saga. I kept telling myself that I wasn't going to buy this series. It's full of religious junk and all that and I just hated the ending. But then I found it for sale in the store, and I just loved the art, and I couldn't find anything else by Kaori Yuki anywhere, so I bought it. The story follows Cain, his little sister Merryweather, and his manservant Riff, as they go around London, or whatever, and get involved in crazy cases. There's a main plot under everything that gradually comes to a head as the story goes on. It gets crazy near the end.)
• Hana Kimi (Nakajo Hisaya) 1-3, 5-7, 14, 16, 19, 20 (I found this series in a SIMS2 forum thread, funnily enough. Someone had made SIMS of the characters and had mentioned the manga. I was bored so I decided to check it out. Holy shit I was not disapointed. The main plot is Ashiya Mizuki travels from California to Tokyo and disguises herself as a boy to attend an all-boys high school with her high-jump star idol, Sano Izumi. I realize that this plot is completely ridiculous, but don't let that stop you from enjoying it. Enter for the novelty, stay for the characters. I love the characters, they're what really make the story work. Like Fruits Basket, I've read this series many times over and I never get tired of it.)
• Hands Off! (Katsumoto Kasane) 5&6 (Found for cheap at Animinitme. This series is about three boys with psychic-type powers. I've only read the whole series once, so I don't really remember the whole plot. I do remember that there is no shounen-ai in there and I was waiting for there to be shounen-ai. I was disapointed that there wasn't, but the awesome story made up for it.)
• Hikaru no Go (Hotta Yumi) 1, 2, 14 (I discovered Hikaru in Shonen Jump magazine when I was a kid. The manga is just about a bunch of people playing go, but the characters make it very interesting to read. The main character, Hikaru Shindo, is a beginner at go at the beginning of the manga, but we get to see him grow as the story goes on. You'd think reading a manga about a bunch of people playing go would be boring, but it's very interesting and suspenseful.)
• InuYasha (Takahashi Rumiko) 1, 2, 6 (InuYasha 6 was the first manga I ever owned, bought for me by my mother somewhere around the 7th or 8th grade. I watched the show a lot, and eventually moved over to reading the manga online. When the manga ended, I decided to start buying it. It's a fantasy/romance/adventure manga with a suspenseful storyline and very colourful characters... and one of the most annoying enemies ever.)
• Kingdom Hearts II (Nomura Tetsuya) 2 (As far as I know, this is a manga version of the Kingdom Hearts II game. I've never actually read the whole thing, or played the game, so all I know about it is that Sora goes around with Donald and Goofy to different Disney movie locations and beat evil bosses. And there's Roxas and all that. Which is great. I only started buying this because I found it in the bookstore and the online scanlations were dropped and it was cheaper than buying the game.)
• Koukou Debut (Kawahara Kazune) 1 (I don't know much about this one because I only read it once a while ago. But I know it's a fun story to read. The main character was a real sporty girl in middle school and is now in high school and wants a boyfriend. So she gets a guy from school to coach her on how to fall in love with a guy. It's a sweet story and the characters are pretty fun to watch.)
• Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Otsuka Eiji) 1, 2, 5-7 (This manga entertains me to no end. It's about a group of college students with supernatural powers who deliver corpses to their final resting place, for a fee. As far as I've read, it's mostly episodic events with a jumbled plot somewhere underneath everything. It's still entertaining though. Each member of the delivery service has their own unique personalities and special power, which makes for interesting story development.)
• Liberty Liberty (Takanaga Hinako) (This is a shounen-ai oneshot volume about a independant TV station person worker thing and a young runaway. It's a light and cute romance story. It was the first of Takanaga Hinako's works that I bought, mostly because it was her only lisenced work with no sex in it.)
• Little Butterfly (Takanaga Hinako) 3-in-1 omnibus (If no one's caught on by now, I'm a big fan of Takanaga-sensei's work. Little Butterfly is about the romance between Kojima and Nakahara and all their troubles. And of course, it's cute and funny. It's three volumes long and they released all three volumes in an omnibus edition in February, so I bought that. Cheaper than buying all three books separate.)
• Love Round (Takanaga Hinako) (Heeeeey, Takanaga-sensei :D. This is another yaoi romance. I love this one, I laugh out loud every single time I read it. It's hysterical. Most of the book is just Komatsuna beating up his pro-boxer crush over stupid comments. Eventually, they get their act together and finally come together as a couple. But until that point, hilarious knock-outs!)
• Mail (Yamazaki Housui) 1-3 (Even though I have them listed under different mangaka, I'm pretty sure that Mail and Kurosagi were both done by the same people. The art is the same, and Akiba Reiji, the main character from Mail, shows up for a cameo in Kurosagi at one point. Mail is just a series of mostly unrelated ghost stories in which Akiba goes around and finds restless spirits and shoots them with his spirit gun to send them to their final resting place. And it manages to scare me every time I read it.)
• Only the Ring Finger Knows (Kannagi Satoru) (This is a shounen-ai oneshot volume about two boys who slowly realize that they are in love with each other. This was the first really realistic shounen-ai manga I read, and I like it for that. Plus the art is nice and the extra chapter at the end makes me giggle every time.)
• Ouran High School Host Club (Hatori Bisco) 1-3 (Omigod this series is made of crack. It's about the shenanigans of a group of rich boys, and one cross-dressing normal girl, as they entertain their female schoolmates. There really isn't a set storyline. Time doesn't even move properly, I'm pretty sure it's always spring or summer, unless it's Christmas or Halloween or something. Every time there's a lull between the volumes, I keep asking myself why I'm even buying this series, then I read the next installment and laugh so much I wonder why I even asked in the first place.)
• Pokémon Adventures (Kusaka Hidenori) 1-7 (This manga is based off of the Pokémon Gameboy games. Volumes 1-7 cover the Red, Blue, Green and Yellow games, which is all I was really interested in so I didn't even bother going past volume 7. I was mostly interested in this manga for the nostalgic value, that and it's much better than the anime that was butchered by 4kids.)
• Ranma 1/2 (Takahashi Rumiko) 5&6 (From the creator of InuYasha comes another fantasy tale with fighting and awkward relationships, among other things. Ranma is just plain fun to read because there's really nothing that serious about it. Every character is some degree of crazy and when they interact with each other there's just a whole load of crazy going on.)
• The Tyrant Falls in Love (Takanaga Hinako) 1 ('Eeey Takanaga-sensei! A yaoi romance about Morinaga and his at-the-moment unrequited love for his sempai, Souichi, who is straight-for now-, and homophobic, and tyrannical. The best part of this series, so far, is the interaction between Morinaga and Sempai, it just makes me laugh soooo much. I wasn't going to buy this series at first because there're a lot of graphic and rape-ish sex scenes in it. But it's really funny, and it's by Takanaga-sensei, so it has two things going for it.)
• Totally Captivated (Yoo Ha Jin) 1-3 (This one's from Korea and is a yaoi story about a mob boss type thing name Mookyul Eun... I think I spelled that wrong... and Ewon, his maid/slave thing. Once again, this is a funny story with nice art and zany characters. Mookyul and Ewon are in a very weird relationship, and I'm pretty sure that they're both aware of it. I just fell in love with this one after the first time I read it, it's just so different from what I usually read.)
• Wallflower (Hayakawa Tomoko) 3 (The main point of this one is that it's kinda like My Fair Lady. Four boys get to stay for free in a big house if they can turn the owner of the house's niece into a proper young lady. The young lady of the house happens to be a horror-obsessed loner who is determined to avoid being turned into a proper young lady at all costs. This one is pretty funny, and it entertains me enough, but the only real reason that I bought it was that it was 75% percent off.)
• With the Light (Keiko Tobe) 1-7 (OMYGOD I LOVE THIS SERIES!!! This series was recommended to a forum community so I decided to check it out. I couldn't find it anywhere to read on the Internet, but it's the only manga that I know of that deals with autism, so I decided to go ahead and buy it. And I've never looked back. Seriously, I love this series. I love the story, I love -most of- the characters, I love the information, I just love the whole thing. It's a very inspiring and touching story about one family's dealings with autism, and how they try to connect with a lovely little boy who loves sparkly objects and trains.)
• Yotsuba&! (Azuma Kiyohiko) 1&4 (This series is mainly comprised of episodic chapters about the daily lives of 5-year-old Yotsuba and her father and friends. They're very simple little stories, but they make me laugh every time and they leave the reader with a warm and happy feeling after reading.)
• Your and My Secret (Morinaga Ai) 1, 3-5 (This one just makes me laugh. Two classmates, a boy and a girl, accidentally switch bodies and must now cope with living life as the opposite gender. Roles they are actually well suited for. This one's just made of crack, probably more than Ouran. But the art is really nice and the story is very humorous... and totally made of crack.)

...well, that turned out a lot longer than I thought it would. Just think of it as a replacement for not posting in August or September.

yeah... so

Okay, I know I said I was gonna do reviews/recaps/whateverthefuck, and I will, eventually. I'm just really slow.

A few things to report, uhh... one of my classmates from elementary school was killed in a car accident in August. I was never really close to her so this doesn't really affect me in any way. So I have nothing else to say about that.

Also, my summer job ended without any major mishaps, and thanks to that I got a ton of new books this summer. But now the paychecks have stopped, so I can't get more books every other week. I got my last books in the mail on Tuesday, and I probably won't be able to buy any new ones until December (when Wandering Son 1 and Tyrant 2 come out).

I was at Wal-Mart the other day and I found Roxio Easy VHS to DVD program, which can record VHS tapes to DVD or to the computer. Awesomest thing ever, now I can finally record my family's home movies to DVD/computer. I've been wanting to do that for years, and now I can. :D It's really easy too, which helps.

I finally got the last volume of With the Light (volume 7) and I finished reading it in about an hour. I am sad. It's over! I can't believe it's already over! Hikaru's only in his second year of junior high! It can't be over! But, it is. The author died so there's really not much else to do on that front. Hopefully, she left behind notes or something so that someday maybe someone else can finish Hikaru's story. I wanted to see him as a happy working adult, now we don't even get to see him in high school.

And the end of the last volume doesn't help either. The last chapter ever is about Hikaru's grandmother-who-I-hate and how she goes to visit a friend and meets someone with ADHD and Asperger's syndrome. Really, the end of the volume doesn't give off a 'and Hikaru's future is looking bright' feeling. In fact, it doesn't even give off a feeling of a completed series. It feels like something else is supposed to happen when the grandmother gets back home (Hikaru and his family are living with her now, bleck). She felt bad about the way she treats Hikaru so you're set up for some kind of resolution, or something. Instead we get the end.

On a lighter With the Light note, Hikaru is going through puberty. This is only really addressed in the beginning of the volume, and it was funny because there was a panel of Hikaru and Sachiko on the snail bus where it explained that Hikaru didn't want to sit next to his mother. I must've giggled for about five minutes. I mean, most of the series is about dealing with Hikaru's autism and how it makes him different than the other kids his age. And then he goes and does something like this, which is something that most normal teenagers do. I had to laugh, gave me a happy feeling.

And then the ending came and the happy feeling fucked off somewhere. I seriously hate that grandmother. She even insinuated that Hikaru should be put in an institution, instead of living at home. All I can do at this point is shake my head sadly. What the hell, Azuma-obaasan, what the hell? But Hikaru did hit her in the face at one point (by accident), so that was cool. Frankly I was hoping that she'd have an accident on her trip and die, which I suppose is harsh. But I just reeeeeeeeeeally don't like her.

I mean, if she feels that way about her own grandson, then how is she going to treat other disabled people that she knows. She was kinda awkward around the person she met with ADHD and Asperger's (which is understandable), but I wonder how she would've acted if she had known beforehand that he was autistic. Would she have treated him the same way she treats Hikaru (like he's a nuisance)?

Jeez, Sachiko's parents are much better people for Hikaru to be around, why aren't they in there more?

On the upside, Hikaru is now in his second year at junior high, and he's starting to take more notice of the people around him and what they are doing. That does cause some problems, but it means that he's growing. Too bad we don't get to know how well he does in future *gloom*.

New plan ladies and gentlemen

So, there isn't much going on in my life right now, or much ever really. So there's really nothing to blog about.

Therefore... I plan to do more 'reviews', or summations, or whatever they are. Like the one I did about The Princess and the Frog. I've got novels, manga and movies so I've got a lot to work with. And it gives me an excuse to reread/re-watch stuff.

Bear with me people. And look out for posts on the Dragonball manga, since that's what I'm reading now. They'll be up whenever I get around to posting them.

This probably means I'm desensitized

Some background:

A few years ago I discovered online manga and got really into it. I'd been watching various anime series for years before that, but then I found out that most anime series are based off of manga, so I switched over. Because I'm a reader before anything else. In the beginning, I would only stick to series that I knew like shows I watched and the manga I read in Shonen Jump. Dragonball/Z, Fruits Basket, Hana Kimi, InuYasha, Yu Yu Hakusho and all that stuff.

Eventually, I ran out of series to read. I had read all the series I knew about, or I was waiting for updates on the series I was still reading. So, one weekend, I started downloading random series from mangatraders.com. I picked titles at random from the selection and went crazy in the oneshot section.

At this time, I was still fairly new to manga and didn't see the warning signs on the manga I was downloading. I didn't look at the rating or the genre, and even if I did I had never before heard of yaoi or yuri. Or ecchi, but I could pretty much figure that one out on my own.

So while on there, I ran into my first yaoi with sex in it. I came across Memories of the Future (or Future Lovers, which is the American title). I thought the summary sounded all right so I downloaded it. It was only one volume long anyway.

I did not make it past the first sex scene. I didn't even make it past the beginning of the first sex scene. The clothes started coming off and away I went. This was probably also the first graphic sex scene I ever read in a manga. So that kinda ruined manga for me for a bit. Then I didn't learn my warning lesson and read Jisatsu Circle, because I'm an idiot, but more on that some other time.

Back to the present:

I was recently reading some manga reviews, trying out a smarter way to find new manga to read, when what should I stumble on but a review of Future Lovers. I didn't know that it was actually Memories of the Future, but some tiny part of my brain suspected it because the review sounded familiar. I looked it up on mangatraders and lo and behold, there it was. The yaoi manga that had scared the crap out of me the first time I read it.

Of course, since my first reading of Memories of the Future/Future Lovers, I have read many yaoi titles of varying sexy scenes, some tamer or wilder than Memories of the Future.

So I reread Memories of the Future and am now trying to figure out why the hell it bothered me so much the first time. I mean, it's not even that graphic. The Tyrant Who Falls in Love, Love Round, and My Paranoid Next-Door Neighbour, which I am all very fond of, and to name a few examples, contain much more graphic scenes than Memories of the Future.

Of course I built up to them, but still. I figure I'm just used to it now. Wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Even weirder is that Memories of the Future is on my 'manga to buy' list. Weird.

Did you get my text?

Saw A Very Potter Sequel and I just loved it!

It's hilarious, very well planned and very well executed. They even brought in jokes from Starkid Potter's other plays A Very Potter Musical and Me and My Dick, and I caught on and that all on it's own made me happy. I usually miss the jokes... oh well.

Anyway, it was totally awesome! And I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Harry Potter and/or comedies in general.

And after rising from the dead...

Hey, I'm not dead, believe or not. I've just been... Well, I haven't really been doing anything so I have no real excuse for the shitty posting schedule I have not been maintaining.

Soooo... point form! (everyone saw that one coming)

-The job I mentioned a few posts back turned out to be in the purchasing department at the company where my dad has worked for the past 20-odd years. It's pretty fun, I guess, it's work. And I'm getting paid 14$ an hour, 22$ while I'm taking over for my boss while she's on vacation. My job mostly consists of filing things, recording things and asking for invoices. It's pretty laid-back, so I don't have too much to complain about.

-What I do have to complain about, however, is that almost everyone is asking me when I'm getting a car. They think that, since I have a well-paying job, I'm going to go right out and buy myself a car. Well, no. First of all, I don't need a car, I don't go anywhere. I get a carpool to work and I take a bus to school, so I have no real need of a car. Besides, my parents let me borrow the van when I want (which isn't often anyway). Second of all, I only have a summer job, so when I go back to school the job is over and my income is gone. If I get a car, I'll have to pay for payments and gas and insurance, and that will drain my account pretty damn fast. Especially since I still have to pay for all my college junk and whatnot. And I'm sure that the people who keep asking me about buying a car aren't going to help me pay for it. 'Tis very frustrating.

-A while ago, we had family visiting from Toronto, my mom's cousin and his two boys (aged 11 and 7). They stayed for about a week and a half and I was so happy when they left. Really. My mom's cousin is an annoying douche and his kids aren't much better. The oldest is a pain in the ass who's just generally annoying, like the usual annoying kid multiplied by 3. The youngest isn't too bad, he actually didn't annoy me much at all. Their father was the worst, holy fuck. I have this thing where I smile for anything, it's an involuntary reaction which I have no control over and I hate. Well, he seemed to think I was laughing and proceeded to call me Smiley and annoy the fuck out of me the whole time he was down. I don't like it when people annoy me just to get a rise out of me, and I especially don't like it when people stare at me for no reason. It's quite creepy.

-On a lighter note, I recently went to a yardsale and bought a case of pogs for 3$, because pogs. I haven't seen pogs since I had some when I was a kid. I have no reason to have them, and I have no idea how to play the game, but I own pogs now, just because. I mean pogs! In 2010! Nostalgia much?

-Recently I have been unofficially diagnosed with CAH (congenital adrenal hyperplasia) that I've apparently had since birth. From what I understand, my adrenal gland is producing too much male hormones. It actually doesn't bother me too much, but probably only because I don't have all the information, and I don't know what to think about it. If I've been like this for my whole life, then it must be fine because I didn't notice much out of the ordinary. I was never really like other girls, but nothing much noticeable. I dunno, I don't know enough to have a real opinion about this.

-And, last thing, my manga collection has grown to 82 books. I am very proud of myself and am enjoying being able to physically have the manga in my hands to read. It's better than reading it on the computer, more convenient. Ordering from the Chapters website has made it easier for me to collect manga because it's all right there and it's delivered to my house. This is great because the nearest bookstore is like an hour or so away from where I live.

I have a complaint

I bought two volumes of the Conan manga at the con last weekend and I couldn't help but notice that the names were switched out. Like the American names are used instead of the original Japanese names.

All I want to know is, why? I know the manga is called Case Closed, like the dub, but there is no need to change the names. There really wasn't a need to change the names for the dub either but, whatever.

And they didn't even change all the names either. So you get situations like, two childhood friends who were born and raised in Osaka, Japan, and their names are Harley Hartwell and Kazuha Tomoya. That kinda makes no sense...

And I don't even know why it's like this because the names are fine in the French publication.

They don't change the names of the random suspects/victims/people either. So you've got a story set in Japan, but most of the main characters have American names. Nice going, Viz.

I haven't facepalmed over this since these two security guards on the dub introduced themselves as 'Baka Security' (shouldn't it be Baker anyway?).

COOOOOOOOON!!!!!!!!1111

*Ahem*

So, this is a tad late, but here is the post where I tell about my trip to the anime convention.

So me, my mother, my friend, my friend's cousin, and her aunt went up to Halifax on Saturday, the day before the convention. After being dragged through shops and stores and a family restaurant, we made it to the hotel, which turned out to be the poshest hotel I have ever seen in my life. For srs.

The place had bellhops and chandeliers. I have never before seen that in a hotel in my life. My mind was blown. Anyway, our room was on the 11th floor and was small as all hell. Our room in the creepy hotel in Sorento was bigger, and that hotel sucked. We only had two beds for five people, and the beds weren't very big either. Oh well.

After a hockey game and a few anime episodes on my laptop, everyone turned in for the night and got up again at 7:30 the next morning, because we're masochists. Actually, it was probably good that we got up that early because we only made it down to the registration line-up by 9.

The line-up stretched from the registration counter all the way down two flights of stairs. Yeah, at least it moved fast. Me, Meghan and Hailey were floored at everything we saw, or I was anyway. I had never before seen cosplay in real life, and there it was standing all around me!

After registering, the first place we went was the vendors room and holy shit people! There were cosplayers everywhere, and I had a ball just pointing out all the ones I recognized to my mother. Then I saw the manga for sale and that held my attention for a while (at one table they were going for 4$ a book and at another they were going for half the US price, score!). By the time the con was over, I had 17 new books. If I had been allowed to use my card I would've gotten a lot more (really, you don't see those prices, like, ever). There was also a Ranma 1/2 DVD box set, but I wasn't about to shell out 50$ for it.

Other than the manga, I also got a Sanosuke key chain for my phone and a hat with bear ears. (I'm wearing the hat right now, actually, very comfy.)

After we spent some time in the vendors room, it was time for the opening ceremony and then the panels started. All the panels I went to were great, I had a so much fun just being around other fans like myself and I just loved the fact that we could all talk openly about anime, manga and cosplaying without getting dirty looks from non-fans.

Other than the panels, I also spent some time going around and asking various cosplayers if I could take their picture. I got some good ones too. I got Mario, Naruto, Riku, Link and Zelda, Jigen, Zuko, Colette, Light, Misa, Phoenix Wright, and a bunch of Kingdom Hearts people.

Also, there was a plushie making panel so I got to make my very own plushie. The only pattern available was for a riceball plushie, and I must say I did very well for a first-timer (although I stab myself twice with the needle... fucking needle).

We ended up leaving early (at like 5) because we live hours away from Halifax, so we left. And that was that. I will never forget this con and I hope that I'll be able to go to more. Maybe one of the big ones, I mean this one only had like 500 people, and I don't think there was even that many there. I'm hoping that one day I can go to Anime North in Toronto, but who knows.