sket dance!
The sun was very sunny today! The ground was moist from all yesterday's rain, I found new rosebuds on my miniature roses (one of the plants looks to be dying, but the others are just thrilled to be alive! i'm hoping the one will make a miraculous comeback!) and we've worked out a stake-and-netting arrangement to keep the robins out of our strawberries, so we are enjoying the bounty of the season. Mum made a delicious goat-cheese-and-egg tart with lots of yummy herbs for dinner, using more of the yumminess to be found in our garden. Francis (our parakeet) was rather loud today, though. He gets into these moods sometimes...
Hmm. Last night I got caught up with reading Sket Dance. That's right, a shounen manga! Right out of Weekly Shounen Jump, even! I would like to take this moment to recommend it to you all. I... can't really remember when or why I started reading it, but I've loved it from the first chapter I read. I guess it's sort of a comedy/gag-manga... mostly episodic stories about a trio of students in a club (the Sket-dan) who help out their fellow students/teachers/etc with various tasks. It is incredibly hilarious, with lots of references to various popular manga and all sorts of other things. One of my favourite side characters is a would-be shoujo mangaka who is constantly destroying any fourth-wall she can get her hands on when she shows up (like sending off thought-narration-bubbles that everyone else can read, climbing out of her panel and turning the page for you the reader, etc... as well as just poking fun at all the silliness that is to be found in shoujo manga♥ I laugh my head off every time she shows up!). Beyond just her though, all of the characters are just so funny and sincere and altogether charming (and bizarre). I love how they interact with each other and get along and form friendships (that's really a big deal in shounen manga, huh? friendship and all) I really don't read shounen manga these days so I can't compare it to other series, but Sket Dance just has such a good heart, I think. I've cried more than a couple times reading it (proving again that the best stories use a good dose of humour mixed with bittersweet); there was a story-arc covered in the chapters I read last night that had me in tears. It was very therapeutic and refreshing, somehow. I would absolutely love to see this manga licensed one day, so I can buy the books and reread them to bits. But who knows... it seems like a rather obscure series even among manga readers. But it's so worth reading! Everyone, check it out if my description sounds interesting (or even if it doesn't!), and let me know what you think if you do read it :D
(I know I know, if you read manga you probably have a million other series you've been meaning to check out as well, and I do too! but one more recommendation can't hurt, right?)
Aw shucks, I didn't finish this in time to have an entry-every-day-for...howeverlongit'sbeen! Oh welllllll...
Hmm. Last night I got caught up with reading Sket Dance. That's right, a shounen manga! Right out of Weekly Shounen Jump, even! I would like to take this moment to recommend it to you all. I... can't really remember when or why I started reading it, but I've loved it from the first chapter I read. I guess it's sort of a comedy/gag-manga... mostly episodic stories about a trio of students in a club (the Sket-dan) who help out their fellow students/teachers/etc with various tasks. It is incredibly hilarious, with lots of references to various popular manga and all sorts of other things. One of my favourite side characters is a would-be shoujo mangaka who is constantly destroying any fourth-wall she can get her hands on when she shows up (like sending off thought-narration-bubbles that everyone else can read, climbing out of her panel and turning the page for you the reader, etc... as well as just poking fun at all the silliness that is to be found in shoujo manga♥ I laugh my head off every time she shows up!). Beyond just her though, all of the characters are just so funny and sincere and altogether charming (and bizarre). I love how they interact with each other and get along and form friendships (that's really a big deal in shounen manga, huh? friendship and all) I really don't read shounen manga these days so I can't compare it to other series, but Sket Dance just has such a good heart, I think. I've cried more than a couple times reading it (proving again that the best stories use a good dose of humour mixed with bittersweet); there was a story-arc covered in the chapters I read last night that had me in tears. It was very therapeutic and refreshing, somehow. I would absolutely love to see this manga licensed one day, so I can buy the books and reread them to bits. But who knows... it seems like a rather obscure series even among manga readers. But it's so worth reading! Everyone, check it out if my description sounds interesting (or even if it doesn't!), and let me know what you think if you do read it :D
(I know I know, if you read manga you probably have a million other series you've been meaning to check out as well, and I do too! but one more recommendation can't hurt, right?)
Aw shucks, I didn't finish this in time to have an entry-every-day-for...howeverlongit'sbeen! Oh welllllll...