About Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto… I also fell asleep while watching it, but that’s because I was in a half-awake state, and I felt guilty because I know this series will be great. But pfft, Antique Bakery is not yaoi >:( It’s a slice of life drama comedy, so you can just laugh at the gay stuff (which only comprises like 5% of it), and appreciate the other good stuff about it. But if even a bit of gay stuff is enough to turn you off, then I won’t say anything anymore.

That said, I really like Yakushiji Ryouko and Natsume Yuujinchou too. Birdy the Mighty seemed to have a little shaky start, I’m a bit apprehensive as to how they’re going to handle the added Shion idol stuff, and I can only hope this will live up to its OAV predecessor.

I am an intern at Random House, Inc and we are looking for girls ages 13- 18 to form a focus group on manga, for our upcoming 2009 X-men manga book. The book is really cool, trust me I was flipping through the manuscript and I’m not even the target audience! Any girls interested please submit your e-mail address (which will be kept confidential) to xmenshojomanga@gmail.com, we will then send you an invite to our new social network where you will be able to view a few pages of the book, some products and accessories that my fellow interns have come up with to sell with the book, pre-order the book as well as chat with other girls around your age! Please contact us as soon as possible but before July 31,2008 since that is the date we have to present this online market to our advisors! THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH and please spread the word!

I suspect that, as you say, the translation is part of the problem, because while Takemiya Yuuko comes across as a yet-to-mature-fully writer, her writing is generally solid and there are some beautiful passages of prose that start to appear from about Bk 4 (when the direction and atmosphere of the series also takes a bit of a turn away from pure romantic comedy).

>George RR Martin
I hope A Dance With Dragons is going to be worth the wait, because A Feast For Crows was painful to read at times, such was the clunkiness compared to the first three excellent books.

and about the first pic of the post… how is ‘Taiga’ a girls name?