manga reading journal, issue three!
I got manga todayyyyyyy~! Yay!! (sidenote: I always go with the free shipping option when I order things online, and usually it ships through USPS (the mail) but the last few things I've ordered have all come through UPS! wierd.)
The first thing I thought when I opened the box was "Yikes, the books are so thin!!! What happened?" and then I went to check amazon and figure out what the page counts were sposta be. It turns out the first book I picked up, Love Attack 6, was legitimately thin at 176 pages... probably because of the somewhat irregular chapter lengths for that series (I think? I'm still not sure exactly how the chapters/story-arcs are broken up in that series). But all three books (Love Attack 6, Shinobi Life 2, and Me & My Brothers 7) were thinner than usual, and the pages themselves felt really flimsy (I was afraid I'd tear them if I wasn't really careful!). More signs of Tokyopop having to cut back, I guess... Oh, there also weren't the extra pages of random pictures in the back, like I mentioned before. I guess they decided to use whatever spare pages they had for advertising (Shinobi Life actually didn't have any ad pages-and umadoshi, I wrote in the corrections on the credits-page! :D)
Anyway! Let's talk about the actual manga! Because even if the paper was thinner, the stories themselves were excellent! (and as long as TP doesn't cut quality on the story-content, I'm a happy customer)
Oh, Love Attack. Those crazy delinquent kids again. This volume wasn't quite as outrageous in terms of the characters being entirely insane (and kinda... really violent, for a comedy shoujo manga), but it was still pretty dramatic, and ridiculous, and hilarious. And even sweet at times! Chiemi's friend had some cute story time, and I like her crush/Hirata's friend quite well (compared to EVERYONE else in the cast, he is just so... sane. it's so refreshing). I don't remember specifics, but I enjoyed the script a lot too. It conveyed both the ridiculousness and sweetness perfectly.
The last chapter (which looks like it'll carry over into next volume) is a little worrying though. We just got through the girl-rival! Now we have to deal with the boy-rival! Aaack!! (but I think (hope) Hirata can handle it more sanely than Chiemi handled girl-rival...)
Oh, at the beginning of the volume, there's the story about Chiemi trying to pair her friend Yukari with Hirata's friend and kinda messing things up for them. The story started in the previous volume and I was pretty fed up with Chiemi's antics... but in this volume she was being all over-dramatically apologetic ("I'm the worst friend ever!!!") and notes that she thought her friend wouldn't mind, because Yukari was always doing that sort of thing to her... and I realized this was totally true and stopped feeling mad at Chiemi or sorry for Yukari. Haha. Er, does any of that even make sense to those of you who haven't read this series??? Well anyway, this series always makes me laugh, and this volume was no exception... even though it was short!
Shinobi Life! YAAAAAAAY ninja shoujo manga~! When I read this series, I spend a lot of time thinking, "Kagetora really is nice to look at......." Eheheh. Seriously, Conami-sensei is an awesome artist. I love Kagetora's expressions. Ok, to try and sound a liiiittle less like a raving fangirl, I also really love Beni (the female protagonist). Maybe it's weird to say this, but I don't entirely care for the "tomboy" type girls who are supposed to be all "GRRRL power" and whatever, in a lot of Western media I see. Not that there's anything wrong with them, I just... I guess I don't really relate to that. Of course, I don't exactly relate to the wimpy/klutzy staple of most Japanese shoujo manga either. Anyway, Beni seems like she's a nice compromise of both those extremes. She's pretty independent and confident and ready to do what she needs to get what she wants, but she's somehow not as annoying as the "tomboy" girls I usually dislike. I don't think I'm describing this very well at all. And also I may have written about this before, so sorry if this is all repeat. In any case, Beni is awesome. Even if she can't cook (at least she's got the excuse of being rich and having maids to do that!) I also enjoy her sense of fashion (though I would never EVER wear the things she wears! but it's a pretty funny contrast to Kagetora, who is always dressed in full ninja-stealth costume)
Rihito is scary, though. (hee, Rihito-characters are always scary! (of the two I know)) The later story developments are pretty dramatic-ish and exciting. I mean, I've read stories with arranged marriages plenty of times before, but they usually don't involve quite as much shuriken or kidnappings or time travel (hee). I read like... one or two chapters past this volume in scanlations (though it was a while ago so I don't really remember what happened), so I am pretty excited for next volume since it will finally be getting to story content I haven't read yet! YAYYYY! But, Amazon is saying it won't be published till November. BOOOO! So I may be in for a loooooong wait (just don't die before then, Tokyopop!!)
Oh also. This month's Shinobi Life and Love Attack both had confessions-during-fireworks. Goodness gracious girls, if you are anywhere near fireworks, WAIT to say your big important statements or you will most certainly be drowned out by (in)convenient explosion noises!
Me & My Brothers: Goodness gracious!! I love this series!! This is probably the best series I ever almost-didn't-read and I'm so glad I finally picked it up from the library so I could properly fall in love with it! The first thing I want to know is who came up with Masashi calling his brothers/sister "Love-muffins" on page... 11? (where he's at the foot of the stairs calling them to breakfast). This cracked me up, and continues to me smile every time I think of it, and I love it :D :D :D
Umm, what else can I say... this was an incredibly "!!!!!" volume (what does that mean...?). A lot of stuff happened, and I'd been waiting for it to happen and there was all sorts of teasing in previous volumes and then this volume was full of explosions! (not literally) I think it had more "!!!" moments than a typical volume of VB Rose (which has a lot of moments). But, it wasn't all as happy as VBR moments usually are (lys is getting anxious for more Hidaka-manga, can you tell?). I guess that's as would be expected, with (step-)family members falling in love with each other and the ensuing drama... still, I'm kinda sad about happy-family-togetherness being disrupted. (Masashi and Sakura being nervous around each other is also sad. I really loved their playing-detective scenes at the beginning of last volume). Still, there were some happy-!!! things too. Takeshi was adorable. I love Takeshi. I want him for a (big) little brother! Anyway, I'm glad that things are pretty much out in the open so there can't be too much more misunderstanding/brushing off in the future. Hopefully. And! I think Tokeino-sensei should do a period drama manga next!! Sakura was the cutest little Shinsengumi-guard I ever did see!!! (but really, whatever project she starts next I'm sure will be just delightful!)
Also, even though they cut out the random-extra-pages, they kept the preview-page at the end of this volume (it's kinda irregular-it showed up in one volume of VBR, I think, and two? volumes of this series... and possibly in a couple volumes of Nosatsu Junkie... but I always love when they do include it, because it's always more dramatic and enticing than a straightforward next-volume-summary (plus those usually end up being wrong or misleading somehow, in my experience)) So anyway, this volume's preview page was full of even more "!!!!!!" and I can't wait for volume eight!!!
Oh, I also read a volume of Apothecarius Argentum and a couple volumes of Mermaid Forest (borrowed from a friend) recently, but I didn't really feel like writing about them. Maybe at some point though...
The first thing I thought when I opened the box was "Yikes, the books are so thin!!! What happened?" and then I went to check amazon and figure out what the page counts were sposta be. It turns out the first book I picked up, Love Attack 6, was legitimately thin at 176 pages... probably because of the somewhat irregular chapter lengths for that series (I think? I'm still not sure exactly how the chapters/story-arcs are broken up in that series). But all three books (Love Attack 6, Shinobi Life 2, and Me & My Brothers 7) were thinner than usual, and the pages themselves felt really flimsy (I was afraid I'd tear them if I wasn't really careful!). More signs of Tokyopop having to cut back, I guess... Oh, there also weren't the extra pages of random pictures in the back, like I mentioned before. I guess they decided to use whatever spare pages they had for advertising (Shinobi Life actually didn't have any ad pages-and umadoshi, I wrote in the corrections on the credits-page! :D)
Anyway! Let's talk about the actual manga! Because even if the paper was thinner, the stories themselves were excellent! (and as long as TP doesn't cut quality on the story-content, I'm a happy customer)
Oh, Love Attack. Those crazy delinquent kids again. This volume wasn't quite as outrageous in terms of the characters being entirely insane (and kinda... really violent, for a comedy shoujo manga), but it was still pretty dramatic, and ridiculous, and hilarious. And even sweet at times! Chiemi's friend had some cute story time, and I like her crush/Hirata's friend quite well (compared to EVERYONE else in the cast, he is just so... sane. it's so refreshing). I don't remember specifics, but I enjoyed the script a lot too. It conveyed both the ridiculousness and sweetness perfectly.
The last chapter (which looks like it'll carry over into next volume) is a little worrying though. We just got through the girl-rival! Now we have to deal with the boy-rival! Aaack!! (but I think (hope) Hirata can handle it more sanely than Chiemi handled girl-rival...)
Oh, at the beginning of the volume, there's the story about Chiemi trying to pair her friend Yukari with Hirata's friend and kinda messing things up for them. The story started in the previous volume and I was pretty fed up with Chiemi's antics... but in this volume she was being all over-dramatically apologetic ("I'm the worst friend ever!!!") and notes that she thought her friend wouldn't mind, because Yukari was always doing that sort of thing to her... and I realized this was totally true and stopped feeling mad at Chiemi or sorry for Yukari. Haha. Er, does any of that even make sense to those of you who haven't read this series??? Well anyway, this series always makes me laugh, and this volume was no exception... even though it was short!
Shinobi Life! YAAAAAAAY ninja shoujo manga~! When I read this series, I spend a lot of time thinking, "Kagetora really is nice to look at......." Eheheh. Seriously, Conami-sensei is an awesome artist. I love Kagetora's expressions. Ok, to try and sound a liiiittle less like a raving fangirl, I also really love Beni (the female protagonist). Maybe it's weird to say this, but I don't entirely care for the "tomboy" type girls who are supposed to be all "GRRRL power" and whatever, in a lot of Western media I see. Not that there's anything wrong with them, I just... I guess I don't really relate to that. Of course, I don't exactly relate to the wimpy/klutzy staple of most Japanese shoujo manga either. Anyway, Beni seems like she's a nice compromise of both those extremes. She's pretty independent and confident and ready to do what she needs to get what she wants, but she's somehow not as annoying as the "tomboy" girls I usually dislike. I don't think I'm describing this very well at all. And also I may have written about this before, so sorry if this is all repeat. In any case, Beni is awesome. Even if she can't cook (at least she's got the excuse of being rich and having maids to do that!) I also enjoy her sense of fashion (though I would never EVER wear the things she wears! but it's a pretty funny contrast to Kagetora, who is always dressed in full ninja-stealth costume)
Rihito is scary, though. (hee, Rihito-characters are always scary! (of the two I know)) The later story developments are pretty dramatic-ish and exciting. I mean, I've read stories with arranged marriages plenty of times before, but they usually don't involve quite as much shuriken or kidnappings or time travel (hee). I read like... one or two chapters past this volume in scanlations (though it was a while ago so I don't really remember what happened), so I am pretty excited for next volume since it will finally be getting to story content I haven't read yet! YAYYYY! But, Amazon is saying it won't be published till November. BOOOO! So I may be in for a loooooong wait (just don't die before then, Tokyopop!!)
Oh also. This month's Shinobi Life and Love Attack both had confessions-during-fireworks. Goodness gracious girls, if you are anywhere near fireworks, WAIT to say your big important statements or you will most certainly be drowned out by (in)convenient explosion noises!
Me & My Brothers: Goodness gracious!! I love this series!! This is probably the best series I ever almost-didn't-read and I'm so glad I finally picked it up from the library so I could properly fall in love with it! The first thing I want to know is who came up with Masashi calling his brothers/sister "Love-muffins" on page... 11? (where he's at the foot of the stairs calling them to breakfast). This cracked me up, and continues to me smile every time I think of it, and I love it :D :D :D
Umm, what else can I say... this was an incredibly "!!!!!" volume (what does that mean...?). A lot of stuff happened, and I'd been waiting for it to happen and there was all sorts of teasing in previous volumes and then this volume was full of explosions! (not literally) I think it had more "!!!" moments than a typical volume of VB Rose (which has a lot of moments). But, it wasn't all as happy as VBR moments usually are (lys is getting anxious for more Hidaka-manga, can you tell?). I guess that's as would be expected, with (step-)family members falling in love with each other and the ensuing drama... still, I'm kinda sad about happy-family-togetherness being disrupted. (Masashi and Sakura being nervous around each other is also sad. I really loved their playing-detective scenes at the beginning of last volume). Still, there were some happy-!!! things too. Takeshi was adorable. I love Takeshi. I want him for a (big) little brother! Anyway, I'm glad that things are pretty much out in the open so there can't be too much more misunderstanding/brushing off in the future. Hopefully. And! I think Tokeino-sensei should do a period drama manga next!! Sakura was the cutest little Shinsengumi-guard I ever did see!!! (but really, whatever project she starts next I'm sure will be just delightful!)
Also, even though they cut out the random-extra-pages, they kept the preview-page at the end of this volume (it's kinda irregular-it showed up in one volume of VBR, I think, and two? volumes of this series... and possibly in a couple volumes of Nosatsu Junkie... but I always love when they do include it, because it's always more dramatic and enticing than a straightforward next-volume-summary (plus those usually end up being wrong or misleading somehow, in my experience)) So anyway, this volume's preview page was full of even more "!!!!!!" and I can't wait for volume eight!!!
Oh, I also read a volume of Apothecarius Argentum and a couple volumes of Mermaid Forest (borrowed from a friend) recently, but I didn't really feel like writing about them. Maybe at some point though...