Manga, drama, and Bollywood. Just your typical Wednesday in Mousie-land
Ok, this is going to be sort of a mishmash of things.
I am reading Mr. Mousie’s awesome present, the Ayashi No Ceres manga. I adore the anime, but I love the manga more. The anime followed the first few volumes faithfully, but it seems to have skipped a lot of the middle volumes (for length reasons. Fushigi Yuugi was 51 episodes for 14 volumes. AnC is 24 eps for the same amount of volumes.) I don’t mind skipping the secondary character stuff, like more on Shuro or other C-Genomes, because I am all about the mains, but I do wish they had some of the awesome Toya/Aya stuff in the anime that they did in the manga. I am especially thinking of the scenes in volumes 6-7, where she comes to visit him in his hotel room before she leaves for Tokyo and they almost make love but then Chidori interrupts and as they are about to head out, Toya hears the assassins sent by the Progenitor (who is incredibly sexually jealous, duh), and he tells the girls to stay inside and goes completely efficiently berserk psycho on the squad, killing a whole bunch of them.
And Aya comes out to see the end of this and is horrified by the fact that Toya (who is basically covered in blood) is so unflinching and unhesitant about all the killing, that it gives him no pause. And she tells him that and slaps him and Chidori drags her away, and then I love the bit where Chidori tells Aya that, in love or not, she should forget about Toya however sexy he might be, because it is wrong that he seems to feel no emotion on all this death, that he has the knife out of his arm thing, as if he is some sort of a UFO subject, and that Yuhi is so much better for her. And then she actively proceeds to try to set the two of them up even though she sorta likes Yuhi herself. You know, the whole thing is very Buffy/Angel/Willow/Xander, you know?
GUUUUH. Toya is SO my manga boyfriend. He is all cold and messed-up and reserved but so all-consumingly in love with Aya, but he isn’t even sure what emotions mean because he can’t remember any. GUUUUH.
In other fictional boyfriend news, I am on ep 4 of Smiling Pasta and OHHHH, He Qun!!!! Seriously. He is awesome. SP is one of those rare doramas which is about nice guys finishing first. Because the heroine initially likes He Qun’s younger badboy brother, but she is really beginning to develop a thing for He Qun because he is just plain good. And the same is true for him. His ex, Rita, is a total bitch.
I just love how well-adjusted and grown-up he is. Unlike his silly younger brother who seems to be all about meaningless competitions with He Qun as if to prove his superiority, but he can’t compete with someone who doesn’t see the competition as there. Because he isn’t on Ah Zhe’s level, because he is that dorama rarity, an emotionally matured hero. Heh. I love the bit where Ah Zhe tries to do everything to drag He Qun into a race with him and He Qun is so uninterested. But he finally joins because he finds out XS would be bullied if he doesn’t. And he is running neck and neck with his brother but then he sees XS has fallen, and he knows she should not finish last or she would be mocked for another year and forced to wear a turtle costume, so he turns back and gives up the race and helps her get up and basically helps her across the finish line. And she is all ‘but why? You are going to be the slowest and have to wear the outfit’ and he just grins that then they can be turtle fiancés and ‘it’s cute.’
But the thing I love the most about it, is the fact that he isn’t doing it because he’s in love with her. (Just as he didn’t fish her shoe out for her because he was in love with her, or leave the movie screening because he thought his earlier behavior was thoughtless because he is in love with her). He likes her, true. And he is amused by her, and he loves her wacky affectionate family, so different from his own. He might even be slowly falling for her. (I love the bit where she is all ‘why did you do this and that for me’ and he comes up with random answers and then she momentarily stumps him and he comes up with something outrageous and then laughs). But he does all these things not for mad pash or anything, but because he is, ultimately, a very nice guy.
The same is true with his family issues. They aren’t OTT angst or anything. He doesn’t have a good relationship with his father, but it’s one of those ‘I want my son to have a better image’ things, and his younger brother is having a years-long tantrum, but it’s not some really weird thing.
Basically? He Qun for the win.
In final, and unrelated comment, I was watching the KwK interview with Preity and Saif yesterday, on my Saif kick, and they spent a decent chunk of it denying any affair between them, but hey, I have no idea if they did or not, but ironically, I could totally buy that they did, after that interview. It’s the chemistry. It’s not the long-term friends chemistry Kajol and SRK had on KwK (in movies it’s entirely something else, but not in interviews). It was all teasing flirtatious sexy thing. Hmmmmm.
I am reading Mr. Mousie’s awesome present, the Ayashi No Ceres manga. I adore the anime, but I love the manga more. The anime followed the first few volumes faithfully, but it seems to have skipped a lot of the middle volumes (for length reasons. Fushigi Yuugi was 51 episodes for 14 volumes. AnC is 24 eps for the same amount of volumes.) I don’t mind skipping the secondary character stuff, like more on Shuro or other C-Genomes, because I am all about the mains, but I do wish they had some of the awesome Toya/Aya stuff in the anime that they did in the manga. I am especially thinking of the scenes in volumes 6-7, where she comes to visit him in his hotel room before she leaves for Tokyo and they almost make love but then Chidori interrupts and as they are about to head out, Toya hears the assassins sent by the Progenitor (who is incredibly sexually jealous, duh), and he tells the girls to stay inside and goes completely efficiently berserk psycho on the squad, killing a whole bunch of them.
And Aya comes out to see the end of this and is horrified by the fact that Toya (who is basically covered in blood) is so unflinching and unhesitant about all the killing, that it gives him no pause. And she tells him that and slaps him and Chidori drags her away, and then I love the bit where Chidori tells Aya that, in love or not, she should forget about Toya however sexy he might be, because it is wrong that he seems to feel no emotion on all this death, that he has the knife out of his arm thing, as if he is some sort of a UFO subject, and that Yuhi is so much better for her. And then she actively proceeds to try to set the two of them up even though she sorta likes Yuhi herself. You know, the whole thing is very Buffy/Angel/Willow/Xander, you know?
GUUUUH. Toya is SO my manga boyfriend. He is all cold and messed-up and reserved but so all-consumingly in love with Aya, but he isn’t even sure what emotions mean because he can’t remember any. GUUUUH.
In other fictional boyfriend news, I am on ep 4 of Smiling Pasta and OHHHH, He Qun!!!! Seriously. He is awesome. SP is one of those rare doramas which is about nice guys finishing first. Because the heroine initially likes He Qun’s younger badboy brother, but she is really beginning to develop a thing for He Qun because he is just plain good. And the same is true for him. His ex, Rita, is a total bitch.
I just love how well-adjusted and grown-up he is. Unlike his silly younger brother who seems to be all about meaningless competitions with He Qun as if to prove his superiority, but he can’t compete with someone who doesn’t see the competition as there. Because he isn’t on Ah Zhe’s level, because he is that dorama rarity, an emotionally matured hero. Heh. I love the bit where Ah Zhe tries to do everything to drag He Qun into a race with him and He Qun is so uninterested. But he finally joins because he finds out XS would be bullied if he doesn’t. And he is running neck and neck with his brother but then he sees XS has fallen, and he knows she should not finish last or she would be mocked for another year and forced to wear a turtle costume, so he turns back and gives up the race and helps her get up and basically helps her across the finish line. And she is all ‘but why? You are going to be the slowest and have to wear the outfit’ and he just grins that then they can be turtle fiancés and ‘it’s cute.’
But the thing I love the most about it, is the fact that he isn’t doing it because he’s in love with her. (Just as he didn’t fish her shoe out for her because he was in love with her, or leave the movie screening because he thought his earlier behavior was thoughtless because he is in love with her). He likes her, true. And he is amused by her, and he loves her wacky affectionate family, so different from his own. He might even be slowly falling for her. (I love the bit where she is all ‘why did you do this and that for me’ and he comes up with random answers and then she momentarily stumps him and he comes up with something outrageous and then laughs). But he does all these things not for mad pash or anything, but because he is, ultimately, a very nice guy.
The same is true with his family issues. They aren’t OTT angst or anything. He doesn’t have a good relationship with his father, but it’s one of those ‘I want my son to have a better image’ things, and his younger brother is having a years-long tantrum, but it’s not some really weird thing.
Basically? He Qun for the win.
In final, and unrelated comment, I was watching the KwK interview with Preity and Saif yesterday, on my Saif kick, and they spent a decent chunk of it denying any affair between them, but hey, I have no idea if they did or not, but ironically, I could totally buy that they did, after that interview. It’s the chemistry. It’s not the long-term friends chemistry Kajol and SRK had on KwK (in movies it’s entirely something else, but not in interviews). It was all teasing flirtatious sexy thing. Hmmmmm.