…haven’t been in the mood for blogging, not even for going online. this is day 6 of watching cnn 24 hours a day. it’s so sad. i just don’t want to write about it. let me just say that I’m shocked, sad and scared.
on a much happier note: a few manga orders have arrived, so i have these piles of magazines (asuka, shoujo teikoku… comic eyes 10 hasn’t arrived yet, unfortunately) and mainly manga tankoubon spread across the floor of my room. here are some quick reviews on some of the things i’ve got:
kazumi yuana – sorayume no uta
aah, what can i say… i’ve been waiting for this eagerly as i’ve been very very fond of hyakumantsubu no namida, kazumi-sensei’s current series running in asuka. the tankoubon contains all chapters of sorayume no uta plus a yomikiri (forgot the title ^^; ). her character designs look pretty much like the ones in hykumantsubu (…), we have a male main character with blonde wild hair and a gaijin-looking female main character. you easily get the impression that kazumi-sensei uses the same characters ‘acting’ in different stories, just like actors would act in different movies.
so, yeah, even though the characters resemble those in hyakumantsubu (or rather just the other way round as sorayume is older than hyakumantsubu), the stories are actually quite different. sorayume is cyberpunk-ish science fiction, reminding me a little of yuki kaori’s neji, though the baby doll-like charcter designs in sorayume contrast with the rather dark story. in fact, with all that ‘robot boy acting human’ i felt that futuristic world was rather reminiscent of spielberg’s a.i, though, admittedly, sorayume has a much darker, sometimes even violent to gory feel, just without that gothic touch that yuki-sensei’s neji has.
sakamoto miku – nadeshiko club 1
just like w juliet this series was intended to be a yomikiri story in hakusensha’s bimonthly hana to yume. i was so hoping it would continue and so it did, due to its popularity among its japanese readers. the tankoubon contains the first chapters of nadeshiko club, a lovely typical shoujo story with a few bishounen. the first thing a noticed about the character design are the female character’s (whose name has just escaped me ^^; ) big eyes, that are not of that margaret comics style, but look rather empty. the male characters look very very stylish and fashionable though, with the mangaka basically focusing on their clothes and hair to make them look just like a jrock band.
i haven’t read the tankoubon yet so i can’t tell much about the plot. it’s basically quite a simple story. this small group of bishounen helps the female main character to maintain her little housework club. it’s really heart-warming, though not a too horribly cutesie way. oh yeah, tankoubon 2 is out next week, i’ll get that one as well, as soon as my financial situation has recovered ^^;
nanaji nagamu – parfait tic! 1
a series running in margaret. i was a bit hesitant whether or not to order it as i’m not too fond of margaret comics. i didn’t regret buying this one, though. the art is typical shoujo-style, yet probably aimed at a younger audience than nadeshiko club as the main characters are 15 of age and thus are looking a bit younger than those in nc. the story so far is sweet, entertaining, nothing too dramatic has happened though. i just need to read that kind of manga inbetween those more bizarre and fantasy-ish series i love so much. and i do enjoy parfait tic, though i could never be obsessive over a series like this one. i guess i’m just too old for it ^^;
shurei kouyu – alichino 3
i haven’t the slightest clue why it took them so long to get alichino 3 for me ;_; even the lithograph set which was released almost 2 months after the tankoubon came just two and a half weeks after its release in japan. aaahh, eyecandy. pretty costumes, gothic settings and plot, ryouko. what more does it take to make me happy…?
more to come later.