reading: manga stuffs
Scrapped Princess: Song of the Forgiven by Ichiro Sakaki
The second Scrapped Princess novel covers the events in Taurus from the anime, where the Casull siblings take what should be a breather and befriend Winia, the young woman who runs the inn they stay at and strike a truce of sorts with Chris, one of the people hunting them. And there's a giant tentacle monster. Winia and Chris, both good characters in the anime, are more developed her, as is rather expected. We learn here that kidnapping Winia to draw Shannon out is likely one of the milder things he's done to draw out an opponent, and we learn that he, and most other operatives, is a foundling who was raised to be a soldier since childhood. When fighting the tentacle monster, TM sends forth a decoy in the form of a child, and when Shannon hesitates, Chris impales it and chides Shannon for getting distracted. Winia is a rather passive character in the anime, but she's less so here (though, of course, not as proactive as Pacifica or Raquel) and the first chapter, and a fair bit of the novel, is from Winia's perspective, and our first look at the Casulls in this book is from her perspective.
One interesting thing is that it appears that Shannon can also work some degree of magic in the novels, at least enough to help Raquel when she has to cast a spell that requires two people. It makes sense, in a way. In the first novel, we learn that Raquel is completely self-trained and became one of the most powerful mages in the world just from what she could glean from her mother's journals, so it makes sense that her twin brother would also have some affinity for it. Quick question for those who have seen the anime: am I remembering correctly that in the anime, they said that Raquel was a couple years older than Shannon? It's a very minor point, really, but it's been bugging me since they were referred to as twins here. I can't decide yet whether I like the novels or the anime better (though I much prefer both to the manga) but I like both. And I can't believe I forgot the giant tentacle monster. At least I didn't forget it with it doing hentai stuff.
Black Cat Vol 9 by Kentaro Yabuki
I became rather depressed about ½ way through this, as CRUMPETEER filled me in on some of the ways the anime butchers character relationships. Changing the story I have no problems with, but I HATE it when animes completely change the character relationships. This volume wraps up Jenos, Rinslet and the other Chronos agents attack on Creed. I'm not sure what Sephira hoped to accomplish by manipulating Train into going there, but I doubt it was the have Train literally just grab Rinslet and take off. BTW, Random-Agent-of-Creed's? considering he literally popped up said hi, grabbed Rinslet and left, I'd say why he even bothered to come is fairly obvious. I love Rinslet's Eve-vision...kid could do with some hugs(she already has a daddy and a big brother, a good sister is also a good thing for her to have.) Creed's fixation on Train is slightly disturbing, though. It seems to be of the obsessive-stalkery "I know you better than you know you" type. X seems interesting, though I can't figure out what "side" he's on yet.
Hayate the Combat Butler Vol 3 by Kenjiro Hata
For having the word "butler" in the title, there was surprisingly little butler-ing in this volume. This series consistently reminds me more and more of an all ages version of Ken Akamatsu's stuff, which is a good thing. How do you not love a book where the hero attacks the heroine's pet tiger with a dozen swords to keep him from spreading the heroine's fiance's crush on her best friend on the internet? Or where the bath in the house is literally a hot springs? Or where there's an entire amusement park in the back yard? Or where all but one character is convince the subway is a vortex into another world (or something like that) Oh heck...just read it to boggle at Hayate's amazing survival skills.