Gatoh Shoji, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you writing anime scripts instead of finishing Full Metal Panic? Why do you hate your fans so much? The last book was published more than a year and a half ago, and ended on a unsettling, climatic twist. You already had your fun with GONZO’s Tower of Druaga, and unless you’re writing scripts for the next Full Metal Panic anime, you need to get the fuck back to writing novels.

(Because Orion asked so nicely, here’s a spoiler warning: The following paragraph contains a spoiler that everybody who actually cares about Haruhi probably knows already anyway. Have a nice day.)

Kadokawa, fuck you, I know what you’re pulling with this episode. Some time in the future we’ll get another episode where Kyon finds out about the endlessly repeating day, probably after you show us this exact same episode again. The ending will be slightly different, and you’ll save however much it costs to make 1 episode of anime. Yes, I have so little esteem in Kadokawa and KyoAni now, I can honestly believe that they would do this. The new and deproved OP/ED/animation in general makes me RAEG hard.

Tanigawa Nagaru is still sitting on his ass not writing the next Haruhi novel. No one likes your fucking manga. It’s a piece of shit, your mangaka sucks, and WHY WON’T YOU WRITE MOAR HARUHI. At least if they got the original character designer, Takeda Hinata, to draw it, it would be worth reading for the art alone. Actually I don’t know what I expect out of him anymore, since Haruhi is his only original and good series.

Eden of the East has movies. I would rage except I haven’t been following this show, and won’t bother until the movies come out on DVD and gets subbed (sometime in 20-FUCK-IT-ALL). At least March Comes in Like a Lion is still going steadily on. In terms of other manga, even Skip Beat is going into a bit of a lull, with the current arc boring the shit out of me. xxxHolic is being affected by Tsubasa’s “I’m-a-giant-crock-of-shit” syndrome and has long since became unbearable. It’s also pulling the Bleach card with an average of 3 frames a page.

I would rage about Bleach and Naruto, but what’s the point? The only Jump manga I get any real joy out of now-a-days is Gintama. Even One Piece is boring me a bit with its current arc. While I’m on the topic of Jump, Shaman King’s new ending is no better than the old one, and HxH is still on endless hiatus.

That’s more than enough pointless rage for today. Time to go play some TF2 and get owned so I can have a reason to rage some more.

No idea what the fuck is going on? In celebration of its 10th anniversary and a new reprint, there is a new serialisation of Azumanga Daioh in Gessan (Monthly Shounen Sunday) [ゲッサン(月刊少年サンデー)], which is a newly launched monthly magazine. The serialisation is going to last for only 3 months, but more Azumanga is more Azumanga, right? In the same magazine is Adachi Mitsuru’s new serialisation, Q and A, but I couldn’t really give two shits about that.

Incidentally, I’ve already read the first chapter, and I’m satisfied with the copious amount of Osaka and what little of Sakaki I got. Tomo’s just as much of an asshole as always, and Yomi continues to act as her straight man, and Chiyo continues to be adorable. So in short, more of the same awesome that we got 10 years ago. I miss this series so much.

Sources: あずまきよひこ.com　and アキバ総研
Chinese scanlation: http://www.lightnovel.cn/viewthread.php?tid=122191&extra=page%3D1

Random things I thought worth noting.

2:15. The android in the background is a student. She’s wearing a uniform, sitting at a desk, and USING A COMPUTER. Lulwut.

6:22. The look on Masaki’s face when Rikuo talked about fixing Katalam. Pretty much every cut to Masaki (including the ones to the back of his head after Katalam dies) in this episode shows that he has some kind of attachment to androids, but we don’t know why, or why he denies them now. There’s so much to this series and so little time to resolve it all in… at least next episode we should find out why Rikuo stopped playing the piano. I’m guessing it has something to do with what Masaki said towards the end of this episode – you cannot understand music if you have no heart.

7:15. Talk about an extended joke based on the defiance of expectations. Because the characters – and the viewers – are so used to the more advanced androids drinking and eating, we also expect Katalam to drink with his mouth. It should be fairly obvious that an android of his make and age would be unable to eat or drink like a normal person, but we don’t see it because the show crafted that expectation both through the other androids and Rikuo’s expectations.

10:55. LOGIC CIRCUIT IS ERROR. I want to watch this on Bluray and a 60 inch LCD so I can have a chuckle at all the Engrish details.

12:28. What did they mean? Nagi: “Everyone who comes in here are the same.” Katalam: “You were… calling me, weren’t you?” Rikuo: *above face* I can’t help thinking those two lines have some special meaning, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what.

12:49. Just before he dies, Katalam could clearly see the child he was taking care of one last time. Is this an indication of a heart, where important memories, memories that cannot be erased, are stored separately from the ROM? Is it the same in people? Do people suffering from dementia keep in their hearts somewhere the memories most important to them?

14:50. Love the little smile on Akiko’s face. The androids make the ‘ding’ noise when they react to something, so the noise Akiko made was probably her seeing Masaki sitting there, or maybe she even deliberately made the noise to catch their attention.

15:05. Where is her halo? Is this an error or on purpose? Masaki’s still looking at her, so I’m tending towards error.

15:14. Fuck yeah wireless electricity transfer. Can’t wait till we get those too.

15:27. Does Sammy have the same OS as Katalam, who’s an 8 year old model? I doubt anyone still runs Windows ME on their box, unless they’re a retard. She even has the same ‘Rest Fuel’, temperature and ‘ATM’. The way the shot changes with the static could be showing that she’s accessing an image file in her memory, though how could she have received anything from Katalam is beyond me.

15:28. 1138. No fucking idea what the numbers mean. None of the shots not seen through a robot’s eyes show them. The mysteries keep coming and none gets solved, and it’s another two months before the next episode. ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!

On a completely unrelated note: Funnily enough, as of 2 days ago I’ve been blogging on and off for 3 years. If I managed to watch this episode on the day I started downloading it, this post would’ve come out on the day.

Is it wrong that I look forward to making these images the most when I’m scanlating?

Chapter 1 of one of the manga series (the other being “Bungaku Shoujo to Oishii Recipe” in Beans Ace) based on the light novel I reviewed here. The manga is drawn by Kousaka Rito, and serialised in the bi-monthly magazine Gan Gan Powered since August 2008. There are currently 3 chapters available. Work on the second chapter will start whenever it starts.

Download mirrors after the jump.

MediaFire
MegaUpload
Rapidshare

Special thanks to NovaJinx and RunningKid for their proof-reading. Ruki, you’re fired!

Let’s talk a little about translations.

I translate from Chinese, because that is the non-English language that I’m most proficient in. You can even see in these scans the watermark of the Chinese scanlation on which this English scanlation is based. There a few problems with making English scanlations this way, mainly that I have no way of ascertaining whether the Chinese translation is correct, short of getting the Japanese raw and painstakingly translating THAT with a dictionary. Most of the time it’s not worth the effort, because Chinese scans are, in my experience, fairly reliable.

Secondly, sometimes sentences that fit happily in a given bubble in Chinese might not do so in English. Other times a sentence might be split up between multiple bubbles, but because of the difference in sentence structure between the two language, doing the same would result in a very clunky English sentence. It’s more of an issue in wordy manga, and Bungaku Shoujo is nothing if not wordy. I encounterd both of these in this chapter, and they gave me quite a bit of trouble.

Thirdly, Japanese words (and their Chinese equivalent) that have no obvious English equivalents give me trouble. Whenever possible, I’d like to do a complete English translation, without having to resort to using any Japanese words at all. Leaving aside honorifics like “-sempai”, the one issue in this chapter is “youkai“. I initially wanted to use the word monster, but that has a negative connotation, while (I don’t think) youkai does, as it encompasses benevolent and neutral creatures as well. I will leave it to you to decide if that was the right choice.

Finally, does anyone still remember that mascot deal? I sure hope not, I don’t want anyone having strange expectations. Either way, I promise I will have it done before the end of the year. THE YEAR 2009 HAHA!

Bungaku Shoujo is a not-particularly-light novel series, written by Nomura Mizuki about a once-a-trap and his book-eating Youkai-sempai. The series is complete, with 8 books having been published in Japanese, and 5 having been published in Chinese. You’d expect an English review to be about something in English, BUT YOU’D BE WRONG.

Synopsis

On entering high school, Inoue Konoha was dragged into the literature club by Amano Tooko, the mysterious, beautiful “Literature Girl” who loves books so much that she eats them. Tooko recruits Konoha to be her “pâtissier”, to write short stories for her to snack on each day after school; however, after suffering the consequences of having his book published at the age of 14, Konoha had vowed to never write again. Slowly, through Tooko’s insistence, Konoha once again picks up the pen and begins to write short stories for Tooko.

One day, in Konoha’s junior year, a strange letter appears in the “Love Consultation Box” set up by Tooko in the school yard. The sender, Takeda Chia, asks the Literature Club to help her write love letters to a Kataoka Shuuji-sempai, but neither Konoha nor Tooko have ever met or heard of this person. As Konoha continues to write letters on behalf of Chia, he is dragged further and further into the mysteries surrounding Shuuji, Chia, and the Archery Club to which Shuuji belonged.

Review

Although set in a high school setting, the structure of the Bungaku Shoujo series is like that of a tradition mystery thriller. Each volume Konoha and Tooko meets new people, each plagued by their own mysteries, problems and ghosts of the past. Something mysterious happens, and Konoha is dragged into their problems by chance or through deliberate machinations. However, instead of finding out who the murderer is, Konoha and Tooko spend each book unearthing the relationships between the major players of each story, their often dark personal histories, their feelings and their motivations. Although it is classified as a light novel, the books are populated by dark, vengeful, and often tragic characters, and the secrets they hide are usually depressing, even horrifying ones.

Despite each character’s fault, the majority of them are good by nature, and often they are led down the wrong path only because they are blinded by misfortune and misunderstanding. Sometimes they are led to do things that are irrevocable, and become surrounded by despair; in spite of this, the characters find hope in Tooko’s “imaginings” of the hidden truth, the goodness underlying the actions that drove them into darkness in the first place. In realising the truth, they seek redemption for the wrong that they themselves committed. These recurring themes in the series – goodness, hope and redemption – are beautiful, positive messages that make the series a heart-warming read. Even though some of the books end in tragedy, and may dampen the hope and redemption aspect, there is always an unerring belief in the goodness and beauty of humanity, the books deal with this in a very convincing way that doesn’t feel trite or patronising.

Bound by these three themes and mystery-thriller convention, the structure of each book becomes set and predictable. Like most light novels, each book start out humorously in the everyday, status quo setting. Then new characters are introduced, and things are shaken up as Konoha discover their secrets. As the mystery unfolds and the negative emotions build up to a climax, Tooko steps forward, uttering her catchphrase “As you can see, I’m a ‘Literature Girl’.”, and reveals the truth behind everything, bringing hope to the ones in despair. While reading the last few books in the series I found it hard to believe that any of the characters currently being demonised are as evil as they appear, so I can’t build up some genuine fear or hatred for them. Characters who are initially hinted at as evil are always revealed to have hidden and good intentions, or are simply misled. This takes away from the impact of the stories somewhat, because I know that they are not truly evil, and kept trying to second guess what are the true intention behind their actions. Yet, the books remain a riveting read because of Nomura’s ability to create convincing and suitable moods for each situation, and her ability to maintain tension by keeping up an amazing, almost relentless pace, as Konoha discovers more and more about the protagonists of each book.

Here are some other things that I would like to note about the series:

- The reference to various classical literature seems gimmicky and unnecessary, as is comparing them to food, and, to a lesser extent, using them as the basis for each plot. This is only a very, very minor complaint, because I admire Nomura’s desire to make people interested in classical literature in an easy to access way, even though I didn’t care for it and skimmed over most of the literary critique passages.
- The characters are sometimes hard to empathise with. A lot of them have experienced extraordinary circumstances that I can’t find parallels with in my own life, but I have been extremely fortunate up to now and I believe there are people out there who are experiencing some of these problems everyday. For them Bungaku Shoujo can be a really uplifting read with its hope-filled message.
- The short, first person blurbs littered through-out each book intensifies the mysteries greatly, and I love them. It’s fun guessing who’s writing the passages for each book and what they’re referring to, and re-reading them after the end of each book reveals a lot more about the characters writing them.

Overall, great series with excellent pacing and mood, filled with melancholic tales and uplifting messages.

4 out of 5 literature girls would love eating this light novel series.

Odds of getting an anime adaptation: Small, seeing as it’s extremely reliant on dialogues and monologues, as well as hiding the identity of the person making the first person blurbs through-out each book. I would love to see it animated – both the manga and the novels’ illustrations look fantastic, and hearing Tooko’s lively speeches about literature and food would be a lot of fun – but it just doesn’t seem like it would work.

EDIT: THIS JUST IN

From Neechin.net: a new Bungaku Shoujo: Project Memoire… thing, was just announced. Unfortunately the singular flash video on the official website is completely and utterly unhelpful, giving us only lines from the original novels and a new line saying “The story of these two is not yet over.” Talk about a teaser… I’m banking on sequel novels, seeing as the the flash seems to suggest new stories for Konoha and Tooko.

I thought more note-worthy was how much parts of this episode looked like Lucky Star.

The fifth cap in particular – Tomoya looks like he’s been possessed by Konata.

Quick search in Wikipedia revealed that this episode’s animation director, Horiguchi Yukiko (堀口悠紀子), also acted in the roles of chief animation director and character designer for Lucky Star. It’s pretty interesting to note how the episode animation director can influence the looks of a show in such small ways. Now I know some of the things that an animation director can bring to the table.

I really liked the art and animation in Lucky Star (particularly the OVA), and I like what Horiguchi did with this episode. Whether it is some kind of signature style for her or not I’m not sure, I never noticed it in any of her previous works (she is also the animation director for Haruhi episode 5 and Kanon 2006 episode 6 and 12, amongst others). Either way, I will be keeping an eye out for any involvement by her in the future!

Ok, the two aren’t substitutable or even comparable, by the standard of any anime fan who’s not fluent in Japanese. My Japanese is only at a level where I can understand 83% of any written passage even with a dictionary, and my listening is so bad that watching raw is pointless for me. Yet none-the-less, I’ve been doing it lately. The thing is, I watch the raw after the sub.

I started watching raws because I realised that I often get distracted by the subtitles.

I only noticed it very recently, when watching Eve no Jikan. I watched the first two episodes with subs, then went browsing for other people’s opinions on each episode because it is really fucking awesome. Reading through them made me realise that I didn’t notice a lot of the intricacies in the animation and direction. A truly excellent film or anime has a lot of the details placed through-out that the average person would never take note of without having it pointed out for them, but are nonetheless important things that elevate the show above all its contemporaries. A film example would be The Sixth Sense, where there are clues scattered through-out the entire movie pointing to the twist ending, yet most people never notice them on their first watch.

After reading about them, I went back to watch the first two episodes of Eve no Jikan with the subtitles turned off (I really want to thank whoever popularised soft-subs), and I managed to pick up on a lot of the things that were noted in other posts. Of course, I have the benefit of hindsight now, but I also have the benefit of being able to focus my eyes on things that are not words.

Thing is, I suck at multi-tasking. Being a man, my brain is at a natural disadvantage when it comes to processing multiple streams of information, and I’ve never managed to learn to handle multi-tasking. Once I even missed a turn while driving because I was talking to my friend (don’t distract the driver kids!). When I played The World Ends With You on the NDS, I never mastered the skill of managing both front of the battle – generally I spam block on the top screen and have Neku deal all the damage. Similarly, when I have to focus on and process the subtitles, my eyes don’t have time to wander around the rest of the screen picking up the details. I get the big picture, but details tend to go unnoticed. And so, I missed out on a lot of important things.

Ever since I started watching a show twice – once with subtitles and once without – I realised just how much the subtitles get in the way of focusing on the visuals. Little details in animation or background or direction, things that I never really picked up on before, started to become apparent to me. It’s like a whole new world just opened up to me. It’s all really frustrating, because now I feel like I’ve been missing out all these years. Which of the older shows that I didn’t like could’ve benefited from the extra attention that is taken away by the subtitles?

Conclusion of this post: I’d rather watch anime without subtitles, but considering the options available to me are “Watch it twice” or “Dubs”, it’s clear which is the lesser of the two evils.

I tried to find an Australian-themed anime drawing, but failed. Have a “Once Upon a Time in a China Girl” instead.

NewGeekPhilosopher wrote a little piece about a new sub-breed of anime fans he called the “Oztaku”. I can understand the desire to move away from using the word otaku, but the terms “anime fan” or “anime enthusiast” perfectly describe any of the individuals he raised as examples in his post, and it didn’t really matter at all where they were from. I trolled him in the comments, but he raised a point I thought worth wasting my time and yours with in his reply:

[...]the reason why I highlighted “Anglo Saxons” is because many white Anime and Manga fans are not the same as Japanese ones, and have a different cultural construction of their identity. Hence an Oztaku would be brought from a different cultural society entirely from a Japanese society.

I always thought the point of a “fandom” is that people are brought together through their passion for a hobby, regardless of race, creed, age or geographical location. Regardless of your culture or how you were raised, our passion for (in our case) anime brings us together as a group of fans. Our common hobby breaks down the cultural barrier, and we can chat simply as fellow anime fans, regardless of from where we hail.

However, I’m sure cultural identity affects our opinions on what we all watch. How big is that impact? Is the difference big enough that we would require sub-dividing of the fandom? For example, if a group of Americans and a group of Chinese watched the same show, does the difference in culture cause the two groups to arrive at vastly different conclusions or have vastly different opinions?

I think the difference could be quite karge. I’ve visited enough Chinese and English fansites to notice that there are palpable differences in what the English speaking audience perceives as classics and what the Chinese speaking audience perceives as classics. For example, Cowboy Bebop, which I deem to be a very Westernised show, is often called a favourite by English fans, but it’s rarely given the same amount of praise and adorations in Chinese circles. Other shows that spot more anime-ish characteristics (or maybe simply a more universal charm), such as Kino no Tabi or Naruto, tend to be more equally well-received by fans on both side of the language divide. However, from my limited experience, Australia fans’ tastes don’t seem to differ much from the fans born in America or Britain, probably because these three cultures are still closely related.

In short, how great, if it exists at all, do you think the impact of cultural upbringing is on our opinions of anime?

Synopsis

Tomiie Kouta is just about the most unfortunate person around. Let’s start at his birth, shortly after which he was dropped by his incompetent fuckwad of a doctor because his mother needed taking care of. Just before the entrance exam from middle school, Kouta was hit by a bike and fell 10 feet into a river. On the day of his high school entrance exam, he was hit by a car and hospitalised. He managed to attend the second round of exams and got into a good school, but on the day before the opening ceremonies he got food poisoning and was hospitalised for a month. As a result, he failed to make any friends in a class where cliques were already forming and turned to extra-curricular activities – unfortunately, recruitment time for clubs have gone and passed, too.

Then a ray of hope – a position in the student council opens up. He joins the student council in the hope of making some friends in the same grade, but all he found were eccentric sempai’s who entertained themselves at his expense – such as sending him on a quest to find the “Palm-sized Tiger of Happiness”. Anyone who’s read this far can probably imagine how THAT ends, so let’s skip over it and move on to the really important bit – his meeting with Sakura.

Kanou Sakura, a naturally coquettish girl, the younger of the Sakura sisters. The younger sister of the perfect, indomitable, manly Kanou Sumire, the student council president who has never gotten anything less than 500 in her exams (that’s out of 500, folks). Well, unfortunately for Sakura, the genes weren’t fair when handing out intelligence – she failed all 5 of her mid-semester exams, and must pass all 5 re-takes or be forced to change school. In one of the oldest anime story-telling tropes ever, Kouta is recruited by Sumire to be Sakura’s tutor, and the two’s fate began to intertwine.

Thoughts
Phew, was that as boring for you as it was for me? If it was, I failed, because I’m trying to convince you that this book is worth reading. If you’re still here, thank you, and read on.

Unlike the main story of ToraDora, Cherry-coloured Tornado of Happiness is a very typical high school romance story. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl falls in love with boy, happily ever after. There is barely even any tension, because simply by reading the title you KNOW the boy gets the girl. What sets it apart then is its simplicity and straight-forwardness, and the clarity and intensity of each character’s emotion.

The majority of the relationships in manga and anime feel forced and contrived, probably largely because writers are expected to drag on their series indefinitely as long as it remains popular. The greatest offender here is probably School Rumble: what made it great for many others killed it for me. The relationships are unnecessarily complicated, the ensemble cast diluted the focus of the story, and in the end the story didn’t end up anywhere. With just a cast of two main characters, two side characters and a handful of red shirts, CCToH was able to keep the story intensely focused and give its characters and relationships the development they deserve.

The second strength of CCToH is also the strength of ToraDora as a whole and the strength of its writer Yuyuko Takemiya. She can bring out vivid and powerful emotions with her words, and she can make your emphasis with them. Whether it is in dialogue or a paragraph of descriptive thoughts, she can convey emotions with astounding clarity and intensity. There are numerous moments that stand out through-out this volume, but in particular the scene where Sakura explains why she insists on staying at the school when its way above her standard and Kouta running through the school after he finally makes up his mind about Sakura takes the cake.

In the end, the main appeal of Cherry-coloured Tornado of Happiness lies in how well it identifies and presents the feelings of being in love for the first time in your life. Whether it is the uncertainty surrounding a yet-to-blossom relationship or the joy of finally finding mutual love, CCToH fills your heart with warmth and, as its name promises, happiness.

I was planning on writing a semi-big rant here about how hard translating and type-setting is, about how much my Japanese improved through scanlating this etc. etc., but now I don’t feel like it anymore. Just have the doujin.

Media Fire
Rapidshare

95% translated from Chinese (Chinese translation courtesy of these guys), 4% translated from Japanese, 1% guesslated, and liberal amount of re-writing when I just couldn’t squeeze the damn Chinese into an understandable English sentence.

Special thanks to Nekosasu, who solved the biggest problem I had in translating this doujin and so allowed me to sleep soundly, and Astrobunny, who was just generally helpful in translation. Can’t forget RunningKid (a.k.a. ScapeKid), who helped me QC and proof-read. If you find any mistakes, blame him! Sorry I didn’t credit you guys in the scanlation itself…
Oh, and of course, Eretto himself, artist of the Utsura Uraraka circle. He’s probably best known in the English community as the guy who drew the Churuya comics, but I’m a huge fan of his work in general. Check him out, and if you can, buy his stuff!

Finally, have my tsundere credit page.

P.S. Since I don’t have any other channel for distribution, I hereby implore that anyone who liked this doujin to spread the word on their own website. The more people that know about it the better! Basically, a license to freely re-post this where-ever you like, even without credit. Link directly to RS and MF! Edit the images and take out my credit! Take credit for the work yourself! Ok, don’t do that last one, but if you were going to do it, me telling you to stop wouldn’t have changed anything.

Basically, I just really want more people to know about Eretto and the work he does, other than the Churuya-san comics. So please help me spread the word!

Note: You can get a higher resolution version of all the images in this post by clicking on them. Hope all you animal ear fans and Kure-nai fans enjoy this.

Ginko is squandering all her tsundere potentials. She could be so moe, but instead she insists on keeping up her cold façade. To convince you that she would make an awesome tsundere, I made this bonus image that doubles as a credit page should you decide to upload this somewhere else:

STOP CALLING CHOCOLATE CORNETS CHOCOLATE CORONETS.
(A lot of those are promoting KKNM’s Chocolate Cornet vs Melon Pan competition, but if one person could fix the mistake, the rest of you don’t have any excuse.)

This is a chocolate cornet. You can eat this one.

This is a coronet. You can’t eat this one.

This is a cornet with no chocolate content. You can’t eat this one either, you just blow it.

I irritates me to see so many people who otherwise have a perfectly competent grasp on the English language make this mistake. It’s doubly irritating because they are using Engrish without even once thinking that it might be wrong. Hell, Japanese people probably know how to spell the damn word, they just can’t pronounce it right. Fix your mistake and never look back.

P.S. Now here is a chocolate coronet.

The poster is linked below. Click on it to get the full-size image (1.88MB) and check out the details.

I’ll transcribe some of the more important detail here:

NUS Comics Animation Society invites you to depict a festival, imaginary or real, in the following category:

-Character Design
-Secondary (Digital or Traditional)
-Open (Traditional)
-Open (Digital)

-Short Story Manga
-Individual
-Team (of up to 2 people)

Registration of the competition is totally FREE!

Deadline for submission is on 28 September 2008.

Deadline is a just 3 weeks away, so if you intend on entering, you better start now!

Sure, the episode has made me like Tomoyo more (a lot more, in fact), as she gets more screentime and we well and truly see what she’s like. The art is still as beautiful as ever, and though I’ve seen people complain about the animation I didn’t notice anything peculiar. There is no Fuuko, which is a blessing. None of the rest of the cast, apart from Sunohara, got to make an appearance either, but with this sort of time constraint I can’t complain. But in the end I still thought mostly about Tomoya. OMG DID I CATCH TEH GHEY?!

Ahem. Of course not, I was more interested in how Tomoyo and Nagisa respectively affected Tomoya. Totally not gay.

So, even though I liked the Tomoya in the main body of the series, I could not bring myself to like this Tomoya. This Tomoya is a weakling. He doesn’t display the strength or the activeness of the Tomoya during the rest of the show, and this makes him infinitely less likeable. I got to wondering… is this who Tomoya really is? Or rather, is this who Tomoya was, before he met Nagisa?

The Nagisa-Tomoya was a strong person who would act and get things done. He would strive to achieve much, and did achieve much, for the sake of Nagisa. This pathetic and apathetic Tomoyo-Tomoya(-Tomoye-Tomoyi-Tomoyu…) is an eyesore. There is nothing left of the man after Tomoyo was taken away, just as he was when he left himself with nothing after his shoulder was injured.

In my mind, Nagisa’s effect on Tomoya is much more positive. Nagisa lacked strength, so he became her strength, and in the end they made each other stronger. Whereas with T-Tomoya, because Tomoyo herself is such a strong person, Tomoya remained stationary and did not grow as a person, and as a result he did not have the strength to stand up to the pressure against their relationship.

I hate this kind of relationship, and more so I hate this kind of break-up. The same thing happened in I”s (the manga – there IS no I”s anime), where Ichitaka was forced to break up with Iori because it would affect her image as an idol. Though it made for spectacularly touching finale, as it did here, I don’t like relationships where the couple has to make pointless sacrifices.

I know some people think that this kind of relationship is more beautiful, but they are only beautiful if they succeed (some people like them even if they fail – I can’t share that sentiment). I feel that if Tomoya was simply a stronger person, he could’ve put up more resistance and showed that the relationship could work. It’s not like his being a delinquent was something that couldn’t be changed. He showed that he could become a better person after he broke up with Tomoyo, but as he said himself, it’s a little late. It caused them both months of misery, and if Tomoyo is not as strong as she is, their relationship could very well have ended in complete failure.

If it was N-Tomoya, he might’ve told the teacher that he would study hard and become a better person so that their relationship would not become a problem for Tomoyo. Similarly, he would not have been made speechless by that student council member, because N-Tomoya is much more confident of himself.

I have always liked Nagisa more (don’t ask me why, I like weird girls?), and if I factor in the effect of Nagisa and Tomoyo on Tomoya (the dynamics of a couple mean as much to me as each individual character), then it’s clear to me that Nagisa is the better choice, both for the anime and for Tomoya.

NAGISA BANSAI! \o/

P.S. SUCK ON THAT TOMOYO FANS. Watching your OVA only made me like Nagisa more! HAHA!

ToraDora manga. Don’t let that look fool you – she’s called the Palm-sized Tiger for a very, very good reason.

It’s holiday time, and I’m in Hong Kong, enjoying a well deserved break after a particularly stressing exam period. Within 3 days of my arrival, I’ve already purchased over $1000HKD worth of light novels and manga… someone stop me before my bank account becomes a dry, mummified husk.

Warning: All these ‘reviews’ are based on the Chinese translations of the novels.

Spice and Wolf V
As their journey to find Horo’s homeland continues, Horo and Lawrence find themselves in the trading town of Renos, where a meeting of the town’s leaders has left many merchants stranded outside the wall. The enigmatic merchant Ibu Holan offers Lawrence a chance to reap a tidy profit from the peculiar circumstances gripping the town, but Lawrence suspects a trap. At the same time, Horo makes clear her intention to part way with Lawrence…

I really love Spice and Wolf, and this volume reinforced those feelings. Three things make the series stand out for me – the immersive medieval setting, the thoughtful merchant ‘battles’, and Horo and Lawrence’s interactions. There’s more of all these in this newest volume, so even though it’s still occasionally awkwardly phrased (though I don’t know if this is the fault of the translator or the writer) and the ending made it feel like the book could use another 20 pages, Spice and Wolf continues to impress and remains – I’m sorry, Jinyamato – my favourite light novel series.

Horo and Lawrence’s conversations are so lively and clever that I find it a little hard to imagine anyone in reality carrying out something similar, but maybe I’m just too stupid. Especially in this volume, I find that I have to read over some lines twice or even thrice and rake my brains for the events in the past volumes to really understand the real meaning behind Horo’s words. Yet, it’s worth it, and the exercise just increases my love for the series. Even if I could never hope to participate in the blithe battles of wit between Lawrence and Horo, the banter between this cheery and sometimes melancholic couple has brought me far more joy and tears than a ‘light’ novel has any right to do.

Bravo, Isuna Hasekura. I don’t how you manage it, but Horo and Lawrence only become more memorable with each passing volume.

Full Metal Panic 14 and 15
My second favourite light novel series, close behind Spice and Wolf. Vol. 14 is the first Side Arms short stories collection focusing on members of Mithril, and 15 is the pivotal Tsuduku On My Own (Continuing On My Own). I’m going to skip over vol. 15’s review because it is spoilertastic, but suffice it to say, it’s a dramatic and tension filled volume.

The leading and titular short story in Vol. 14 is a piece about how an accidental meeting with his past teacher forces Kurtz Weber to re-examine his life. It’s one of the better shorts found in the Full Metal Panic series, and has a darker and heavier tone than the usual fare. Of more interest to me, though less entertaining, are two shorts that expand on the mechanical designs and operation of the Arm Slaves. Of the remaining two pieces, one is the already animated ‘Onsen’ short found in Fumoffu, and the other is a remarkably short, predictable yet still fun little piece about Weber and Sousuke’s first encounter.

Compared to Spice and Wolf, FMP’s strength lies in its large cast of characters each with their own quirky and likeable personality. Where Spice and Wolf has a very focused approach to character development, Shoji Gato’s series showcases a host of larger-than-life individuals. This particular volume introduces a number of Mithril members and how they cope with their various roles in the organisation. It’s a shame that MAJOR SPOILERMithril gets destroyed in vol.15 END MAJOR SPOILER and as such I have no idea if I’ll ever get to read about these characters again. Also worth mentioning is that the level of attention to detail given to the mechanical design should give any mecha-fan a boner, and any male who doesn’t enjoy the shorts about the ASs should have their manly man license revoked.

Since The Second Raid animated up to the end of the Ending Day by Day novels, with any luck we’ll get another 24 episodes season from KyoAni and we’ll get to see the events of Continuing On My Own come to life on screen, before a third season of Haruhi. Yeah, right *snort*.

Tora Dora 1 (a.k.a. Tiger x Dragon 1)
Imagine a cute, small girl with a shy personality and a big, tall and tough’n'rough gangster. Tora Dora is the story of two such people, except the personalities are in the wrong bodies – Ryuuji Takasu is a young man who is normal in every aspect, apart from the fact that he loves doing house work, cooking, and has a face that could make grown men cry. On the other hand, Aisaka Taiga is a 145cm tall, doll-like beauty who would bite your face off if even slightly provoked. Living next to each other and in love with each other’s best friends, Ryuuji must navigate carefully around Taiga’s vicious personality and help Taiga persue her love, while he himself comes to term with the fact that he is not a dragon, but just the pet of the vicious ‘Palm-sized Tiger’.

I found it kind of hard to read this. There’s nothing special about this light novel at all; it’s a stereotypical romantic comedy, full of the usual misunderstandings, moe-moe characters, and the rest of that School Rumble stuff. The writing style doesn’t flow as well as it should, and having just re-read the Tyrion teaser chapter on George R.R. Martin’s website, the difference between a true master craftsman and your average writer becomes incredibly apparent. This might be the fault of the translator though, as I’ve also found lines that simply doesn’t make any sense. The only thing keeping me reading is the fact that I’m absolutely in love with the characters. I don’t know what I find so alluring about Taiga and Ryuuji, especially seeing how Taiga is such a nasty bitch, but they are fast securing their places in my heart.

Oh, and the illustrations by Yasu aren’t particularly outstanding either. Good thing the manga looks absolutely fantastic. I think that will become my medium of choice for this particular pair of star-crossed lovers.

Gosick 1
This is out in English, and has been reviewed better elsewhere, so go read that first. I can’t echo DiGiKerot’s sentiments entirely though, and I found much of the novel un-rewarding to read. It’s got its share of moments, and Victorique certainly shines throughout the book as the heroine, yet the mystery isn’t mysterious at all, and with the exception of one small, almost inconsequential twist I could predict the ending to the novel perfectly. I don’t like obtuse, deus-ex-machina mystery novels either, but there’s no tension when I can predict what is going to happen as if I’ve already seen the story. A good part of the first half is used in setting up Kazuya and Victorique’s circumstances, so maybe with more pages Sakuraba could craft a better mystery. And, as a nitpick, I found the whole “Spring of Wisdom” and “Pieces of Chaos” thing an unnecessary gimmick that detracted ever so slightly from my enjoyment of the story.

Gosick 1 is by no means a bad book, as I managed to read it to the end without effort. The prose is fluid, the conversations natural, and Victorique and Kazuya make a really cute couple. The illustrations are fantastic as well, and I found the author’s comments at the end of the volume an absolutely blast to read, even more entertaining than the novel itself… well, that may not sound like a vote of confidence on behalf of the book, but really, what it does is reinforce fact that the author can write very entertainingly. I just feel a little disappointed because it’s not as arresting as DiGiKerot’s post had led me to believe.

P.S. Victorica is the original name of the heroine, though anyone who speaks the romance languages will know immediately that this is a girl’s name. Changing it to Victorique in the English translation is a wise decision. If they ever animate this though, I’m going to laugh my ass off when fansubbers start writing lines like “What kind of boy is Victorica?”

Alright, time to break it off here, before this post itself becomes a light novel length affair.

I still have a number of other books in my possession unread, including Tora Dora 2 and Gosick 2. I’m also planning on getting a few other series, so those reviews may pop up here in the near future; or knowing my ability to keep promises about what I do and do not intend to do on the blog, never.

I hate you Stariray.

TS;DR SPECIAL ~Summer Season Episode 1’s One Sentence ‘Reviews’~

Sekirei – Minato isn’t going to catch them all, but he gets most of your typical moe stereotypes i.e. harems can fuck off. 1/5.

Tetsuwan Birdie: Decode – Surprisingly good, but I wish they could’ve used more frames in the action sequence. 3.5/5.

Strike Witches – In a world where pants were never invented, brave girls fight for the pride of their nations whogivesafuckingshititsfanservice. 2/5.

Hidamari Sketch x365 – Good ol’ Hidamari Sketch, but on a bigger budget, though I wish Shinbo would tone down the Shaft-ness a little bit. 5/5.

Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora – Sorry what, I fell asleep? 3/5.

Seiyou Kottou Yougaiten ~Antique~ – I almost downloaded this, good thing I checked the preview page before the torrent finished. Yaoi/5.

Yakushijiryoko No Kaikijikenbo – Even if I’ve only known them for 20 minutes, I really like the characters already, and I’m a sucker for mysteries, so I will most definitely be following this. 4/5.

Zero no Tsukaima: Princess no Rondo – I like ZnT when it’s got this balance of comedy, action, fanservice, tsun -tsun Louise and dere-dere Louise; much better than the middle episodes of FnK where it’s 90% fanservice. 4/5.

Natsume Yuujinchou – The first 5 minute was exactly like XXXholic’s, then it got kind of Mushishi-ish, and over all I got pretty good vibes from this episode. 4/5.