shippuuden whining + pimpage
So the Shippuuden episodes are FINALLY reaching the part where the action MIGHT begin -- who wants to bet they'll be so fillerized that the resulf of Sakura's punch will be the cliffhanger of the episode? =__=;;;
And to make things worse, there's no episode next week, the next one airs on the 21th. ;_;
Bah. u.u
I've been starting two new series in the meantime; the anime Seirei no Moribito and the manga Katekyo Hitman Reborn.
Seirei no Moribito is based in an alternate medieval China/Japan, with an emperor and stuff. The main character is Balsa (yeah, like the wood. XD) She's a thirty-year-old spearwoman and she kicks unholy amounts of ass. She's honorable, calm, collected, mature, and slightly *cough* abrasive.
Also her childhood friend/the guy who's in love with her complains that he feels like she's the husband and he's the wife, because he's a peaceful medicine-making guy and she's a warrior who would kill or die to protect her people. And you know, he's totally right. She orders him around so naturally, it's beautiful. XD
The art is amazing. High-quality prettiness. It's got quite a few kickass fight scenes with some prettypretty choreography *__* and it also has cuteness, emotional moments, and ohhh, the court intrigues. *__* I love all of the characters so far.
Basically, the story starts when Balsa saves the life of a young prince, and his mother, the emperor's second wife, decides to have Balsa take him in because the child was said to be possessed by a demon and his own father is trying to have him killed for the good of the country. (the father isn't depicted as evil either -- he's said to have cried when he gave the order, and he mourns his son, but demon-possessed princes + prophecies/legends = bad news. ;_;)
Also Balsa's voice actress makes me purr. Her voice is deep and mature, yet very feminine -- a little like Tsunade's, but calmer.
In short, if you like mature, plotful series and feudal Asia stuff, download it. I get it with bittorrent from here -- just search for part of the title, it should pull it up, there are eight eps so far -- but the community moribito has the first five eps up for direct download.
edit: whee, sarolynne did a pimping post too. Hers has pictures! ^o^
As for Katekyo Hitman Reborn, it's a shounen manga.
It's also pure, distilled crack. When I started reading it, I was all "okay no I hate that plot-devicy kid, it's ridiculous"... and then the secondary characters snatched me up and wouldn't let me go, and then the main character grew on me, and, well. It's hilarious often and very shounen-y the rest of the time. Lots of the characters are COOL. (even the main character, eventually, evolves to omghot -- even though he starts as no-good Tsuna, the kind of small, scrawny, talentless, ridiculous loser that's so prevalent in shounen manga.)
So there's Tsuna, the kid who can't do anything right. He's clumsy, last in class, and he skips as often as possible. And of course the girl he likes doesn't even know he exists.
Apparently he's also in line to be the tenth Mafia leader of the most influential mafia family ever, or something. Then a baby hitman (urk I couldn't stand the concept at first) drops in from nowhere and starts training him... Via a magic bullet that gives him five minutes of "dying will" -- as in, after being shot in the head, for five minutes he'll do whatever he regretted the most while "dying" with the kind of passion that you get when dying with regrets. ("ah, if I'd known I would die, I would have done X first" kind of deal.) Sounds pretty stupid like that, but it's fun at least.
And then he starts amassing followers/friends, and AHHH I love them all. T.T
The scanlation group did something weird; they scanlated up until one chapter, and then jumped ahead to the start of an arc, but that's alright because most chapters besides this point were standalones or two, three chapters long arcs, mostly centered on crew antics with some character development. But then the long arc starts and OMG *flails* there's still some crack, but then there's PLOT too and it's a little darker (and omg Gokudera, Hibari, I want your babies -- um. yeah.)
They started a second long arc after that but it's not complete yet. Still... niiice. *_*
And since it's all muffytaj's fault for pimping it and asking for people to fangirl with, I direct you to her post to read her pimping (which is much better than mine) and steal it from her. XD
So... It's very shounen, very funny, some nice action, and very loveable characters. Also I like the art quite a lot. ^^
I should catch up on Berserk, which is utterly awesome in the OHNOES DDDDD: levels it manages to reach, but I am dreading the fallout of the end of this arc so badly. They were so almost happy. T_T
And to make things worse, there's no episode next week, the next one airs on the 21th. ;_;
Bah. u.u
I've been starting two new series in the meantime; the anime Seirei no Moribito and the manga Katekyo Hitman Reborn.
Seirei no Moribito is based in an alternate medieval China/Japan, with an emperor and stuff. The main character is Balsa (yeah, like the wood. XD) She's a thirty-year-old spearwoman and she kicks unholy amounts of ass. She's honorable, calm, collected, mature, and slightly *cough* abrasive.
Also her childhood friend/the guy who's in love with her complains that he feels like she's the husband and he's the wife, because he's a peaceful medicine-making guy and she's a warrior who would kill or die to protect her people. And you know, he's totally right. She orders him around so naturally, it's beautiful. XD
The art is amazing. High-quality prettiness. It's got quite a few kickass fight scenes with some prettypretty choreography *__* and it also has cuteness, emotional moments, and ohhh, the court intrigues. *__* I love all of the characters so far.
Basically, the story starts when Balsa saves the life of a young prince, and his mother, the emperor's second wife, decides to have Balsa take him in because the child was said to be possessed by a demon and his own father is trying to have him killed for the good of the country. (the father isn't depicted as evil either -- he's said to have cried when he gave the order, and he mourns his son, but demon-possessed princes + prophecies/legends = bad news. ;_;)
Also Balsa's voice actress makes me purr. Her voice is deep and mature, yet very feminine -- a little like Tsunade's, but calmer.
In short, if you like mature, plotful series and feudal Asia stuff, download it. I get it with bittorrent from here -- just search for part of the title, it should pull it up, there are eight eps so far -- but the community moribito has the first five eps up for direct download.
edit: whee, sarolynne did a pimping post too. Hers has pictures! ^o^
As for Katekyo Hitman Reborn, it's a shounen manga.
It's also pure, distilled crack. When I started reading it, I was all "okay no I hate that plot-devicy kid, it's ridiculous"... and then the secondary characters snatched me up and wouldn't let me go, and then the main character grew on me, and, well. It's hilarious often and very shounen-y the rest of the time. Lots of the characters are COOL. (even the main character, eventually, evolves to omghot -- even though he starts as no-good Tsuna, the kind of small, scrawny, talentless, ridiculous loser that's so prevalent in shounen manga.)
So there's Tsuna, the kid who can't do anything right. He's clumsy, last in class, and he skips as often as possible. And of course the girl he likes doesn't even know he exists.
Apparently he's also in line to be the tenth Mafia leader of the most influential mafia family ever, or something. Then a baby hitman (urk I couldn't stand the concept at first) drops in from nowhere and starts training him... Via a magic bullet that gives him five minutes of "dying will" -- as in, after being shot in the head, for five minutes he'll do whatever he regretted the most while "dying" with the kind of passion that you get when dying with regrets. ("ah, if I'd known I would die, I would have done X first" kind of deal.) Sounds pretty stupid like that, but it's fun at least.
And then he starts amassing followers/friends, and AHHH I love them all. T.T
The scanlation group did something weird; they scanlated up until one chapter, and then jumped ahead to the start of an arc, but that's alright because most chapters besides this point were standalones or two, three chapters long arcs, mostly centered on crew antics with some character development. But then the long arc starts and OMG *flails* there's still some crack, but then there's PLOT too and it's a little darker (and omg Gokudera, Hibari, I want your babies -- um. yeah.)
They started a second long arc after that but it's not complete yet. Still... niiice. *_*
And since it's all muffytaj's fault for pimping it and asking for people to fangirl with, I direct you to her post to read her pimping (which is much better than mine) and steal it from her. XD
So... It's very shounen, very funny, some nice action, and very loveable characters. Also I like the art quite a lot. ^^
I should catch up on Berserk, which is utterly awesome in the OHNOES DDDDD: levels it manages to reach, but I am dreading the fallout of the end of this arc so badly. They were so almost happy. T_T