tgif!

Today I've been rereading a wonderful Hikago novel doujinshi that I hadn't touched in a while. It's actually written in a style that takes me a (comparatively) long time and a lot more concentration to read, so I don't pick it up all that often. But I do love how the author has this ability to clothe utterly hilarious, almost gag, humor in a completely serious and straightforward tone. Also, she is amazingly good at run-on sentences. One does see rather long sentences in Japanese a lot more than in English, but rarely have I seen so many super duper long sentences used so well. She has the flow and rhythm down perfectly, so that I am delighted in her ability to maintain the momentum in the rather convoluted structure of some of her sentences.

It's interesting that all the authors of the really kick-ass novel doujinshi that I've met have all been in their upper twenties or thirties, including the one I mention above.

( flesh & blood )

I don't feel like editing my previous stuff, but I actually finished reading volume 9 and went back and finished volume 4. All I have is volume 5 left!

( more flesh & blood )

The local Daiei supermarkets were bought by Don Quixote, a chain I've heard of but never visisted in Japan. I always find it odd that they shorten the name Donki instead of Donkiho, because it feels really awkward for me. The pause I have to put between the "n" and the "ki," as well as the tendency for me, an English speaker, to think of "donkey." In any case, I found it highly amusing that one of the changes they've made was blasting music at certain displays. Today they were playing EUROBEAT. I like Eurobeat, but I'd think that kind of music might actually be annoying for a lot of people...

clearing browser tabs again...

Fanservice omake cosplay? Kick ass scary killer females dressed up for a doujinshi convention? Oh yeah. Especially love Balalaika's expression. XD (Also, it reminds me a bit of all that cosplaying from Genshiken for some reason...)

Some direct downloads of the scanlated Black Lagoon manga here. I just downloaded the omake because I heard they were funny. Unfortunately there's only one volume's worth up yet.

Best review of a manga EVAR (And the second part which, alas, isn't quite as shiny as the first...). I did manage to find the raw and read it. I'm not sure what to say, but putting aside the gay vampire fanservice, it's interesting. I'm not familiar the artist so I have no idea if the manga will actually develop into something good or kind of dribble away into obscurity. I hope not, the art is pretty and...well...vampires...

An FST for Alec of Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner? Oh yeah, I'm there, I'll download it! I hope it's good...

Raws of Yamada Taro Monogatari were being shared here on free_manga and the summary sounded interesting so I decided to give it a try. Hm...It's pretty funny, but really doesn't do anything for me. I read the first two volumes and wondered how it was going to end, so I downloaded the last volume. It seemed to be side stories, so I downloaded the one before that, and the one before that...I suppose this manga doesn't have a strong narrative running through the entire thing to bring it together? Also, the supposed main character, Taro, doesn't seem to have much depth. In any case, the summary:

A smart, athletic, kind bishonen attending rich kids' high school, Taro Yamada seems perfect... except that he's actually dirt poor, living in a shack with 6 younger siblings and a mother with no sense of money and a perpetually absent artist of a father. Taro's main worry is putting bread on the table. He relies on bento (lunch boxes) that girls in love give him, works multiple jobs, and even has a "pet" dog for desperate times... Every day is a lesson in survival for the Yamadas.

The mother is so damn irritating. He should just have killed her years ago, and they wouldn't have lived so awfully. -_- The funniest single chapter I did read was probably the side story from Mimura's POV about entering high school and meeting Taro for the first time. Everyone keeps getting distracted by Taro's glittering aura and thinks he's the scion of some amazingly rich family, and only Mimura notices all the details that point to Taro being dirt poor.