insaneneko

I got my limited edition Junjou Romantica volume 16 today! My god, I love this manga. It's like a warm and fuzzy blanket. Godzilla versus Mothra Usami versus Ijuuin was hilarious, and…( spoilers )

I was sad to see no Terrorist and two Egoist chapters, but oh well. Can't have everything.

The three shorts on the DVD were so cute! I even enjoyed the Egoist one! Hiro being grumpy and so not honest with his feelings, and Nowaki being so…nice. He has to take pictures of the train for his patient! The Terrorist one just made me laugh. The reaction Miyagi had to Shinobu showing up dressed so ridiculously…There are no words. And how he's filled with love seeing this smart and snarky teen acting ridiculous because of him. &hearts: ♥ And the Romantica short was great. Not sure if how Misaki's brother and Usami became friends was ever addressed in the manga--I don't remember reading it. Glad to see it here, though. So…so….shoujo manga! XDXD

I forgot that Yokozawa's story will be animated next year. I'm disappointed that Sekaiichi Hatsukoi or Junjou Romantica proper aren't getting new seasons, but I'll watch it. I bought the first volume of the novel but haven't gotten around to reading it. Maybe seeing the anime will prompt me to crack open the book, finally. :P

How did I not remember that Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi volume 7 has a limited edition version? It looks like the usual suspects have sold out!!

It's sad how distressed I am about this. ^^;

More distressing is that my right arm is in a brace thanks to a "golfer's elbow" type condition. It's made using a mouse and typing rather unpleasant, especially at home where I have no ergonomic set-up and really no way to get one. So....not much intensive typing going on right now, and thus no posts. I'm currently typing this at work where the set-up is slightly better (and I'm waiting for someone to check something so that it can be sent out...). A couple of things I've been wanting to talk about:

First, anime. Finished both Tsuritama and Sakamichi no Apollon and enjoyed them both. I had issues with both (some things were just lame), but in the end I'd become quite fond of the characters and thus was happy with how things turned out. I thought Sakamichi was going to be A LOT more depressing, which was a pleasant surprise. And the soundtrack piece that played when Kaoru was leaving on the train? I liked it out of context as it's super pretty, but LOVED it in the scene. I'm behind on Kuroko no Basket, but have heard and am a bit disappointed in the second opening. It's just not as good a song as the first.

Bought a whole crapload of manga and books and really liked a bunch. The ones I remember off the top of my head:

Saiyaku wa Boku wo Suki Sugiru 1 and 2 by Kannagi Satoru (writer) and Ninomiya Etsumi (artist), story about two high school kids who are the lucky ducks from their respective families tied together for a year of misfortunes. The art is beautiful and the characters are fun (well, except the "older brother" dude whom I find a bit tiresome), and I love how one guy explains why he sticks like glue to the other one by openly confessing his "love." I assume it'll be somewhat BL-ish since it's a Chara title, but I'm fine if it remains suggestive if the story actually goes somewhere good.

Shizuku Hanabira Ringo no Kaori 3 by Kawai Toko keeps the awesomeness of this series going. Sadly, this is the final volume but the end was wonderful. I love how sex-positive the uke is in this, and how the seme is the silent brusque type but not so much so that he won't do his best to respond to his much more open and direct boyfriend.

Honto Yajuu 5 by Yamamoto Kotetsuko feels a bit like she's coasting, but as I love the characters I don't have much to complain about. Plus, we get "yakuza" Ueda!!!

Mad Cinderella 2 by Yamamoto Kotetsuko is the second volume (duh) of a series about a poor boy and his rich neighbor who is at first his best friend but becomes his boyfriend. It's *really* adorable, IMHO. There's a distressing trend of not letting them consumate their (openly accepted!) love, but otherwise I am enjoying this one.

Junjou Romantica 15 by Nakamura Shungiku...Is it sad that the thing I remember the most is Ijuuin coming onto Misaki and Misaki sensing it and running away but trying to make Ijuuin seem less skeevy because he is such a fanboy. So adorable! I was rereading an earlier volume where Misaki meets his "Za Kan" soul mate at university the
other day... XDXDXD

Ha, all manga for now. Will someday talk about the novels.

Can I say I love this episode? A lot? Ritsu gets to make lots of great faces, like the one above. There's humor, there's romance, there's sweetness, there's Ritsu being indenial and dorky.

( beware there are many pictures under here )

I can't believe how long it's been since I've engaged with anything much online. The last bit of 2011 was spent doing stuff with friends (good) and playing games on my ipad (bad bad bad). I seemed to have missed a bit of LJ drama? I guess I'll have to actually look at Dreamwidth since there actually seems to be even more migration now. My biggest hang-up is what to use instead of LJ for storing images. My problem with the usual suspects is that they don't like any kind of explicit images. *sighs*

I hadn't watched the last 7 episodes of Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi, so in the guise of testing my new Blu-ray player (finally got one! more on that later) I finally watched them all. Will write more about it in another post, but I gotta say the Isaka/Asahina one was a bit tiring. Isaka is so young! So cliched! It was only my fondness of his older self that kept me watching, sadly. Glad that the rest of the episodes were all Takano/Onodera and Yukina/Kisa. I have so much to say about the Takano/Onodera stuff, but will save it for later. The only thing I want to say is...Yokozawa animated as he berates Ritsu forever gets old really fast. It's not that I don't get where he's coming from, to a certain point, but who appointed him as Takano's minder?!? And he's so blinded by his own desires he can't see the actual dynamics of Takano and Ritsu's current relationship. GAH. Seeing Takano firmly put him in his place was that much more sweet after that. I did buy his novel...while I have little faith in the writer's (non?)talent, maybe he'll come off better when he's not harassing other people so much. Oh, and I was glad to see that we get some clues that these couples actually engage in SEX instead of just fully-clothed, not-very-passionate kissing on beds. Look, a morning after where there are naked people in bed! I can't believe they animated that!

I want the next volume of the manga, already. *sighs*

I got a copy of the new Sherlock BBC episode! I haven't watched it yet, but I'm excited! Sounds like it was quite good. XDXD

I nodded along while reading this at NPR's Monkey See blog: The Big Bad Swap: The Problem With Replaced Music

( techie stuff )

Of course I downloaded this week's episode, just to see if they were getting back to Takano/Ritsu next week. I assumed they would since I don't think they spend more than 2 consecutive episodes on the other couples. I skipped to the end and was happy to see that they were! I'm already excited for next week!

On kinda meh news, Junjou Mistake is being animated? I'm not against this, I just want more Junjou Romantica anime and this would push any third season further into the future. It's going to be episode 6 of SIH, which sucks SO HARD. More Takano/Ritsu please! I'll definitely check out JM to see if I'll like the dynamics of the relationship despite what I've heard. Also in anime news, apparently Hakkenden will be animated? I'll be happy only if the art isn't crappy and the animation doesn't totally suck. That is a series that needs pretty good special effects! If they use the same voice actors as the drama CD I'll be a little sad because I didn't think Paku Romi worked as Shino.

The newest VF chapter made me laugh. How does Asami overcome Takaba locking his door? Use a gun with a silencer! So much more efficient and less work than breaking the door down! This series has become so fluffy I laugh reading every new chapter.

I don't even know who Ryan Gosling is, but he's pretty awesome when he's Feminist Ryan Gosling.

I bought the November issue of Ciel as part of my mega order just to get the next chapter of Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi. ( It initially felt like a let down... )

Looked at the Hakkenden chapter in Ciel and was very WTF??? There's too much of a gap between the last Tosuisha volume and this chapter for me to follow. I also learned that there are some reissued volumes with added material in them? Now I have to buy a whole new set of the manga!! I have no idea what to do with the 13 volumes I already own as I really don't have the shelf space to store lots of extras. *sighs* Can the yen get a little cheaper to help a poor fangirl out. ;_;

I also flipped through volume 6 of the manga. The only new thing was the Takano's case 1.5, which was adorable but TOO SHORT. I loved Takano thinking how he had to play it cool as he walked to his house with Ritsu. I didn't quite love the reference to shoe sizes...A bit TOO much of a coinkidink for my taste. I want more Takano's case, though! Love the dichotomy between his poker face and his really cute "first love" thoughts.

People who don't care for the Hatori/whatshisname* pairing in Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi and are buying volume 6: Are you getting the special one with the DVD that I've heard contains an extra episode of that pairing? I dislike that pairing SO MUCH, yet am tempted to buy the one with the DVD just to be "complete." I need to be talked out of wasting money or have my need for completion validated. Please give me your input!

*I laugh that I genuinely can't remember the dude's name!! I'm soo not looking it up, either. I feel like I'm wasting precious seconds of my life being anxious over this already. XD;

I wanted to excuse the lateness of this post to computer problems (which I totally have--my laptop basically overheats in about half an hour to maybe an hour...it's hard to work in half-hour chunks), but mostly I didn't get around to it because it just wasn't as awesome as episode 11 and I didn't want to face that fact that the anime was over. ;_;

I ended up screen-capping way too many close ups of Ritsu like the one above (and somewhat to a lesser extent Takano), a bunch of which I just deleted. It didn't help that I looked back at the screen-caps and couldn't figure out where they occurred in the episode! But I liked the expressions in the close-ups...

( lots more pics )

I really loved this episode. Perhaps it was just the long wait to see Takano and Ritsu again, perhaps it was just that the episode was that awesome, I'm not sure why. XD; I particularly thought there were tons of great great Takano shots, like the one above.

( I went nuts with screencaps )

Best image from episode 9 of Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi. ♥♥

Also caught up with Ao no Exorcist. Still fun, loving main characters who can cook and doesn't fall into every shonen manga hero trap, the Kyoto monk gang make me laugh, am wanting the first major arc to start already. ( some scenes I particularly enjoyed (and one I didn't enjoy) )