insaneneko: (Default)
Kusare-en no housoku 2: Koi no balance by Yoshihara Rieko and illustrated by Shinba Rize is (obviously) the continuation of Triangle Love Battle: Kusare-en no housoku 1, which I'd reviewed a long time ago here. I adore this series so much, but stand by my opinion that the CD dramas are in many ways better. I listen to the dramas of the later books A LOT and gnashed my teeth doing the summary of this volume. Yoshihara-sensei just writes like crap. *sighs*

One thing that came through very clearly is how equal and sweet Tsubasa and Tetsushi are with each other. Yes, Tsubasa is pushy and very ore-sama but he is still considerate of Tetsushi's wishes. Tetsushi isn't a push-over and is very capable of saying what's on his mind. He just has more tact than Tsubasa. XD;


summary and pics )

If anyone wants volumes 1 and 3 of this series please let me know! I'll mail them to you. I love this series, but really don't need doubles. XD;

peanuts!

Jul. 13th, 2008 06:29 pm
insaneneko: (Default)
Huh, so far I have 15 responses to my peanut question: 2 for boiled, 13 for dry roasted. I had been listening to a fascinating interview on allergies and how they develop. The doctor being interviewed mentioned that though peanuts are consumed in about the same amount per capita in the English speaking countries and in China, there are very low numbers of peanut allergy sufferers in China. He notes that in China people tend to eat their peanuts boiled and in the English speaking countries they eat them dry-roasted...My completely non-scientific poll matches his characterization...If everyone taking the poll aren't from China, that is. XD;

Personally, boiled peanuts are one of the food of the gods. I love how juicy they are...I want some right now...

Tonight I will open a bottle of wine for the first time! I hope it doesn't go terribly wrong (I've seen other people have problems with opening a bottle for the first time)...It's a tempranillo that I've been told is absolutely delicious by a wine shop that hasn't steered me wrong yet. XD

It is unfortunate that "bukkake" is used both for an udon dish and for a sexual practice. I was at an udon place that had "natto bukkake" on its menu, and my dirty mind was immediately grossed out. ^^; The dish had natto, daikon oroshi, okra, and nori as toppings and was absolutely delicious.

I went on a mini-Shinba Rize manga marathon and sadly concluded that her manga suck. I like her art a lot, but her characters and story just irritate me. Some of the ones I read:

--Binan no Dendou--An apartment full of gorgeous guys, all of them paired up. Just the premise is a turn-off, but the fact that the couples other than the main one bored me to death didn't help. Even the main couple--their non-relationship got on my nerves.

--Dakishimetemo okorimasenka?-A collection of one-shots, none of them particularly remarkable

--Kousoku shigan!?-A really awful collection of one-shots, a lot of them with pretty crappy art. looks like they were her earlier works? the only one I found even remotely interesting was the weird "war games" journal one with the excessive smexing. it was repulsive but at least it did a good job of parodying the genre. the 5 guy sandwich made me laugh.

--Tabun bara iro no jinsei-I've read better versions of the best friends who are actually in love with each other but don't say anything for decades because they're afraid to lose the friendship story, but this one wasn't bad. I liked that one of the guys is addicted to pointless gambling. The subordinate x boss cosplay one was pretty fun, as well. I liked seeing the boss in all those uniforms and costumes.

I think I'll stick with looking for novels Shinba-sensei illustrates. Her taste in story and characterization aren't to my taste at all. -_-
insaneneko: (Default)
Triangle Love Battle: Kusare-en no housoku 1 by Yoshihara Rieko and illustrated by Shinba Rize is (obviously) book 1 of an ongoing series called Kusare-en no housoku. Despite some major problems I have with it (thanks to Yoshihara Rieko's major deficiencies as a writer), I really like this series and look forward to reading each new book.

Renjou Tsubasa, Ichimura Ryuuhei, and Sugimoto Tetsushi are childhood friends in the second year of high school. They are all very different yet very close. Tsubasa is drop-dead gorgeous but is rather aloof and can really scary and violent, Ryuhei is the ace of the basketball team and sweet like honey, and Tetsushi is the (seemingly) most ordinary guy ever. No one can puzzle out what makes the three click. Tsubasa and Ryuuhei are popular (for their own special reasons), which often causes Tetsushi problems because their fans gets jealous that such an ordinary nobody can walk amongst the stars. Because of some incidents that occurred in their first year, the current second and third years know full well not to mess with Tetsushi else they incur the wrath of Tsubasa (and possibly Ryuuhei). But the first years don't know the history and can't understand the dynamic. So...they mess with Tetsushi...And all hell breaks loose.

Okay, not quite "all hell." But I wanted to use the phrase. XD

The biggest problem with it is, sadly, the writing. Yoshihara-sensei shoots herself in the foot by conceiving of appealing (or at least compelling) characters and interesting storylines, but then bogs down the narrative with her crappy writing style. She has an *unholy* love of sentence fragments that makes everything irritatingly choppy. She also has pet themes she loves to talk about *a lot*, going on and on and on (and on) about them (often using her beloved sentence fragments). It's rather maddening. Typically, the novel is better than the CD drama because there's so much more in the novel. But in her case the CD drama just might be better than the novel because they only have dialogue (the good part, despite its slightly forced nature at times) and cut out Yoshihara-sensei's often annoying narrative. This book isn't nearly as bad as, say, Ai no kusabi in terms of unreadability, though.

the summary )

ETA: Oops, I stuck the pics in the wrong places and forgot two of them. Corrected now!

ETA 2: The title's been corrected now as well...

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