i need to sleep and yet am too excited to sleep...

I just devoured the newest Ryuu and Dr book, and am so electrified I can't sleep. Thus I post. I've always liked this series because it had a great balance of comedy and drama, but these last two or three books have just been one big roller coaster ride. This latest book was the conclusion of a story arc covering several books (I think three), and what a conclusion! I can't believe how well Kifu-sensei used Hikawa's unique personality to bring things to a close. She also did a fabulous job of developing a whole slew of unique and fun characters through the first five books or so, so just having them move about is fun to read as well. I've bitched quite a bit about some of her other books, but damn. When she gets it right she gets it right. The coda was perfect as well. *_*

I hope she writes more in this series, though I'm not sure she can keep up the high standard she set in these last set of books.

TGIF!

Saw What's Your Poo Telling You? and the Poo Log while waiting in line at the bookstore. I'm amused yet kind of horrified, especially about the Poo Log.

In a similar vein...poo restaurant?

Pop culture widens gap between generations made me feel old...Though I didn't recognize some things the article referred to. Cultural knowledge really depends on where you live and what you're interested in, doesn't it? The actual Mindset List only goes back to 2002, unfortunately. Would've loved to have seen my year's list if such a thing existed, just to see how in- or out-of-touch I was. XD

Speaking of culture, I had a good time the other day checking out the How to tell you're American and the responses by people from other countries. It's obviously very subjective (at least, judging from the American list), but still fun to read.

bl novels in english

nokiirat asked me if I recommended any of the translated BL novels and linked me to this list. I was surprised at how few there were. Is this list actually complete?

In any case, I looked over the list. Sadly, the ones I immediately recognized were UN-recs. XD I looked over the other titles to see if they looked familiar--and came up blank. If I did read them and forgot them...well, that tells you that they were forgettable to me. ^^; For the heck of it here's my un-rec list:

Ai no Kusabi: My god this series sucked. All the worst traits of Yoshihara Reiko times a million. The OVA was so much better (more coherent, more interesting, less repetitive, I could go on and on). Plus, the translation apparently really sucks...Though I pity the poor translator that had to work with the crap that is the original text.

S: This is one of those books that tries to be gritty but ends up being total fantasy. I'm not adverse to such stories, but my opinion hinges on the characters. In this case, the characters were yawn-inducing to the extreme. The English publishers should pick up the Deadlock series. Also utter fantasy that tries to be gritty, but the characters were much better and thus the series was a lot more fun to read. I also liked the art better. XD

Only the Ring Finger Knows: I like this series in Japanese, but damn did the translation suck. I tried reading the first book in English at the bookstore and couldn't get very far into it.

All of the Konohara Narise books on the list: Of all the books they could chose, why these?? Cold Sleep and the second book were all right, but that last book was a great showcase of Konohara-sensei plunging her characters into a crazy, angsty, tense, and violent situation for no good reason (other than for kicks?) when they were perfectly fine before things go horribly wrong. Don't Worrry Mama wasn't bad but I have a hard time saying it's good. The Man Who Doesn't Take Off His Clothes just pissed me off. That seme really pissed me off. What a childish jerk. Ugh.

Out of curiosity, has anyone read the other books on the list? Opinions, please! I'd like to know.

I tried to check Amazon, but unfortunately it doesn't have a good system for tagging/categorizing BL novels. I did see that the novel Desire (Yabai Kimochi) by Maki Kazumi and illustrated by Honami Yukine is coming out next year. I liked that book a lot and the art is just so pretty. I didn't like the first half of the book (which was the part that was made into the manga) as much as the second half because Ryoji just came off as a jerk in that part. He's much better further into the book. Hopefully the translation doesn't suck.

God, I hope it's not true that Flesh & Blood has been dropped. I was so happy that a really good (and fairly long!) series was finally going to be available to English readers.

Maybe I'll make a list of books I think should be translated. Though I'm probably completely out of touch with the English BL market...^^;