Work silliness, and manga
Heh...my dad's on his cellphone troubleshooting a phone line that a colleague is trying to use to broadcast a basketball game. Regarding a phone jack, he just said "Let me know when it's in," and it took all my self-control not to yell "That's what she said!" *snerk*
Also in the "things that really aren't dirty but sound like it" department...the other day at work I was checking in a stack of books and came across a book called "She Comes First." This book actually was a sex manual, so that's not the funny part. The thing that made me giggle insanely was another book in the same stack, a volume containing two rags-to-riches stories from the Industrial Revolution. The titles? "Rugged Dick / Struggling Upward." Next to the other book, it totally cracked me up.
Speaking of goofy work stories, I recently found a coffee table book about WWII that wasn't lying flat for some reason. Upon further inspection, it turned out that someone had been using a cork coaster as a bookmark. Bizarre! I chucked it in the garbage.
Not five minutes later, I found some photographs stuck in another book. With things like that we do try to track down who checked out the book last so they can claim their lost item. Sometimes it's mail, or bill receipts, or a fancy bookmark. Photos are not uncommon. In this particular book, the three photos were, in order:
1. A closeup picture of an elk, obviously taken in some kind of zoo or park.
2. A bunch of deer hunters in blaze orange, posing around a very dead deer, with a foreground of heavily-blood-splattered snow. Eeeew!
3. Adorable little black kittens.
WTF? What a weird combination of photos!
On a completely unrelated note, I just finished reading an awesome series of manga called Red River by Chie Shinohara. The libraries in our consortium had volumes 1-14 and 16-28, so only one volume was missing.
It reminded me of a cross between Basara, Fushigi Yugi and The Queen's Knight. It starts out with your typical "Japanese school girl gets sucked through a time warp" plot, but by the end of the first volume that kind of cliche, been-there, done-that kind of schtick was over and shit got real. ;) The time travel aspect was just a minor background detail for the rest of the series, and although the heroine does of course try to figure out how to get back to 20th century Japan, she eventually realizes that she belongs in 1400 B.C. in the Hittite Empire.
This is an especially interesting choice of setting, since pretty much every historical drama set in that era is from the P.O.V. of the Egyptians. Indeed, most of the well-known names from ancient Egypt are from this general time period: Tutankhamen, Anckesenamon, Nefertiti, Ramses, and pals. Egypt and the Hittite Empire (modern day Turkey and environs) were often at war, so to see a tale from the other side of the conflict was a fresh perspective.
I knew very little about the Hittites, but this author obviously did a lot of research. Not only is the jewelry and costuming absolutely gorgeous, but there are plenty of authentic details about their government, mythology, religious belief system, military tactics, medicine, food and society.
Yes, there's a romance at the heart of the plot (our heroine, Yuri, immediately catches the eye of Prince Kail--whose name reminded me of Warcraft's Prince Kael'thas!) but there's so much more than that going on! There's plenty of political intrigue in the royal court, and just the right amount of secondary and tertiary characters to flesh things out. One of my main complaints with Fushigi Yugi was the sheer number of characters to keep track of, but this series seems to strike a good balance. Like Basara, however, those characters are not immune to getting killed, maimed and otherwise traumatized. Some very likable (and enjoyably detestable) characters are cruelly killed, adding to the drama and the feel of the time period. Nobody's safe, so during battle scenes you really don't know who's going to bite the dust.
The heroine, Yuri, starts out as a scared and confused 15-year-old girl, but over the course of the series, which covers several years, she grows into a strong woman. She proves herself as a politician, military commander, friend and mate. (On a much shallower note, I also really liked her hair! So fluffy!)
The latter volumes in this series carry a "parental advisory: explicit content" warning on the cover, which I admit made me curious about how graphic the bedroom scenes would be. Part of the reason for the warning was definitely due to topless women, because true to the custom of the period the Egyptian women let it all hang out, so to speak. There's plenty of bathing and dressing scenes, too, but most of the time these are done for historical accuracy, not puerile fanservice. That's not to say that there aren't some multi-page sex scenes, because there are. It's not porn by any means, and true to Japanese obscenity laws there are no visible male organs, but plenty of intertwined naked limbs, and closeups of character expressions, leave little doubt as to what's going on. Definitely more graphic than many of the other manga I've read, but not sleazy or perverted.
One thing I always appreciate about any work of fiction is the portrayal of the antagonists as three-dimensional people. Cardboard cutout villains who are evil just because they're evil are boring. The Queen Dowager started out that way, as did her right-hand man, but as the series built to the final clash more of their background was revealed and you found yourself understanding their actions a bit more. You still hate them for the awful things they've done, and the characters they've murdered, but you can understand their motivations and see how they arrived at the dark places they did.
Neither are the protagonists flawless paragons of sweetness, either. They make mistakes, take foolish risks, mess things up, and do selfish things. Yuri might come across as a tiny bit Mary Sueish at times, as she has charisma that makes most people quickly grow to like her, but her strong leadership qualities are actually a plot point and a major reason why she's able to marry (and basically co-rule with) a future king. She draws the eye of no less than five major male characters, but is devoted to one only. Plus, there are genre conventions to consider, and this is a shojo manga, with all the screentone flowers and heartbeat sound effects that implies.
Visually gorgeous, with memorable characters, plot twists, historical lushness, steamy romance, and an epic scale, Red River has easily earned a spot among my top ten manga series of all time.
[Edited to add: Here's a review of volume 21 that also covers a lot of general points about the series. It's less complimentary than mine, but makes some good points and is pretty entertaining. Favorite quote:
The character list reads like a best hits collection of nineteenth dynasty Egypt, although how Ramses I or Mursili II would feel about his manga doppelganger is questionable. Perhaps the series’ strongest point is its lead character, Yuri, who manages to avoid the weak-willed typecasting that befalls far too many shoujo heroines. (Bonus points for being a brilliant tactician and using the phrase “a brutal portent of economic and social disaster.”) The twenty-first volume’s intent focus upon the political scene pushes character drama to the backseat, perhaps a welcome choice in a series that seems like it could get easily carried away if it ever forgot to ground itself via the mangled remains of a few Near Eastern studies textbooks.
Also in the "things that really aren't dirty but sound like it" department...the other day at work I was checking in a stack of books and came across a book called "She Comes First." This book actually was a sex manual, so that's not the funny part. The thing that made me giggle insanely was another book in the same stack, a volume containing two rags-to-riches stories from the Industrial Revolution. The titles? "Rugged Dick / Struggling Upward." Next to the other book, it totally cracked me up.
Speaking of goofy work stories, I recently found a coffee table book about WWII that wasn't lying flat for some reason. Upon further inspection, it turned out that someone had been using a cork coaster as a bookmark. Bizarre! I chucked it in the garbage.
Not five minutes later, I found some photographs stuck in another book. With things like that we do try to track down who checked out the book last so they can claim their lost item. Sometimes it's mail, or bill receipts, or a fancy bookmark. Photos are not uncommon. In this particular book, the three photos were, in order:
1. A closeup picture of an elk, obviously taken in some kind of zoo or park.
2. A bunch of deer hunters in blaze orange, posing around a very dead deer, with a foreground of heavily-blood-splattered snow. Eeeew!
3. Adorable little black kittens.
WTF? What a weird combination of photos!
On a completely unrelated note, I just finished reading an awesome series of manga called Red River by Chie Shinohara. The libraries in our consortium had volumes 1-14 and 16-28, so only one volume was missing.
It reminded me of a cross between Basara, Fushigi Yugi and The Queen's Knight. It starts out with your typical "Japanese school girl gets sucked through a time warp" plot, but by the end of the first volume that kind of cliche, been-there, done-that kind of schtick was over and shit got real. ;) The time travel aspect was just a minor background detail for the rest of the series, and although the heroine does of course try to figure out how to get back to 20th century Japan, she eventually realizes that she belongs in 1400 B.C. in the Hittite Empire.
This is an especially interesting choice of setting, since pretty much every historical drama set in that era is from the P.O.V. of the Egyptians. Indeed, most of the well-known names from ancient Egypt are from this general time period: Tutankhamen, Anckesenamon, Nefertiti, Ramses, and pals. Egypt and the Hittite Empire (modern day Turkey and environs) were often at war, so to see a tale from the other side of the conflict was a fresh perspective.
I knew very little about the Hittites, but this author obviously did a lot of research. Not only is the jewelry and costuming absolutely gorgeous, but there are plenty of authentic details about their government, mythology, religious belief system, military tactics, medicine, food and society.
Yes, there's a romance at the heart of the plot (our heroine, Yuri, immediately catches the eye of Prince Kail--whose name reminded me of Warcraft's Prince Kael'thas!) but there's so much more than that going on! There's plenty of political intrigue in the royal court, and just the right amount of secondary and tertiary characters to flesh things out. One of my main complaints with Fushigi Yugi was the sheer number of characters to keep track of, but this series seems to strike a good balance. Like Basara, however, those characters are not immune to getting killed, maimed and otherwise traumatized. Some very likable (and enjoyably detestable) characters are cruelly killed, adding to the drama and the feel of the time period. Nobody's safe, so during battle scenes you really don't know who's going to bite the dust.
The heroine, Yuri, starts out as a scared and confused 15-year-old girl, but over the course of the series, which covers several years, she grows into a strong woman. She proves herself as a politician, military commander, friend and mate. (On a much shallower note, I also really liked her hair! So fluffy!)
The latter volumes in this series carry a "parental advisory: explicit content" warning on the cover, which I admit made me curious about how graphic the bedroom scenes would be. Part of the reason for the warning was definitely due to topless women, because true to the custom of the period the Egyptian women let it all hang out, so to speak. There's plenty of bathing and dressing scenes, too, but most of the time these are done for historical accuracy, not puerile fanservice. That's not to say that there aren't some multi-page sex scenes, because there are. It's not porn by any means, and true to Japanese obscenity laws there are no visible male organs, but plenty of intertwined naked limbs, and closeups of character expressions, leave little doubt as to what's going on. Definitely more graphic than many of the other manga I've read, but not sleazy or perverted.
One thing I always appreciate about any work of fiction is the portrayal of the antagonists as three-dimensional people. Cardboard cutout villains who are evil just because they're evil are boring. The Queen Dowager started out that way, as did her right-hand man, but as the series built to the final clash more of their background was revealed and you found yourself understanding their actions a bit more. You still hate them for the awful things they've done, and the characters they've murdered, but you can understand their motivations and see how they arrived at the dark places they did.
Neither are the protagonists flawless paragons of sweetness, either. They make mistakes, take foolish risks, mess things up, and do selfish things. Yuri might come across as a tiny bit Mary Sueish at times, as she has charisma that makes most people quickly grow to like her, but her strong leadership qualities are actually a plot point and a major reason why she's able to marry (and basically co-rule with) a future king. She draws the eye of no less than five major male characters, but is devoted to one only. Plus, there are genre conventions to consider, and this is a shojo manga, with all the screentone flowers and heartbeat sound effects that implies.
Visually gorgeous, with memorable characters, plot twists, historical lushness, steamy romance, and an epic scale, Red River has easily earned a spot among my top ten manga series of all time.
[Edited to add: Here's a review of volume 21 that also covers a lot of general points about the series. It's less complimentary than mine, but makes some good points and is pretty entertaining. Favorite quote:
The character list reads like a best hits collection of nineteenth dynasty Egypt, although how Ramses I or Mursili II would feel about his manga doppelganger is questionable. Perhaps the series’ strongest point is its lead character, Yuri, who manages to avoid the weak-willed typecasting that befalls far too many shoujo heroines. (Bonus points for being a brilliant tactician and using the phrase “a brutal portent of economic and social disaster.”) The twenty-first volume’s intent focus upon the political scene pushes character drama to the backseat, perhaps a welcome choice in a series that seems like it could get easily carried away if it ever forgot to ground itself via the mangled remains of a few Near Eastern studies textbooks.