Tell Me What to Review Next!

[chomiji]

I shall soon be finished with the massive thing wot I have been writing, and it's been far too long since I've reviewed anything. Please help me decide what I should review!

[Poll #1280553]

Thanks!

Comments

[badtzphoto.livejournal.com]

I'd like to read your reviews about all the series, actually.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think I've seen you mention Dokebu Bride, Bride of the Water God, and Antique Gift Shop...

[avierra.livejournal.com]

I just got The Lies of Locke Lamora but haven't started it yet, would love to know what you think.

[sovay]

I'd like to change my vote to Sayers, actually.

[chomiji]

Well, I imagine I'll get to most of them eventually! Thanks ... .

[chomiji]

Oh, yes, all the other manhwa!

I could do Dokebi Bride and Gift Shop some time soon, but I don't really consider that I've read enough of the other one yet. Continuing series take a while to get up full steam.

[chomiji]

It looks like I'll be doing the Sayers first, but I'll do LLL eventually, simply because I feel opinionated about it. If you want a really quick take on it sooner than that, it was our "Babbling Books" selection for October on Shejidan, here, and I offered a quick opinion about halfway down the page.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

BTW, Ithink you're kinda lucky, coming into manga only recently. Maybe it's just what was available locally at the time (I had not yet discovered the glories of online shopping) but when I started, there were a few good ones (BTW, if you can find demon diary, you'd probably like it) but most of them seemed pretty bad. There seems to be a mch better selection out the last few years. I only started reading it again last year with Land of Silver Rain and Dokebi Bride.

Bride of the Water God, is rather light on the plot, isn't it?

[chomiji]

Understood, and noted! It looks like I will indeed be doing that first ... now I need to wrap my big fic.

[chomiji]

> no option for "all of the above"<

Ah ha ha ha! Sorry, but that was deliberate - I'm trying to make a decision!

I will write up Sookie eventually - you know there's a TV series based on the books now? And you saw the earlier writeup for Mushishi 1 and 2? I also mean to write up Hikaru no Go seomtime because it's not a series I thought I'd like, but I do.

That's interesting, about Harris' other characters.

[chomiji]

I wonder, though, whether it's like the SF&F thing - when you're looking back over years of a genre, you have the entire body of work to consider, and the ones that are still available (other than through used book vendors) are the ones that have stood the text of time. When you're reading what's coming out now, it's a smaller number of items, and so it seems that very few are any good. Even though the percentage of decent work is the same from year to year, it will seem that SF&F was much better in times past.

And, with manga, there's the added factor of which series are being picked up for translation.

Bride of the Water God is pretty and fluffy, and I wish they'd hurry up and tell us more about the ethically ambiguous trickster types.

[chomiji]

I haven't seen the show either ... I rarely watch the tube. But I'm so used to the idea that everyone else does ... !

Yes, from what I understand, Mushishi is one of those rare series where the anime and the manga are both at the tops of their respective classes. And there's a live-action movie version as well.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I've thought about that, actually (partly because, anything I encountered and bounced off of in college, I've tried to give a second chance now, as stress levels and such are obviously very different) but most of them still rub me wrong or bore me. Many even more now that I have more of my brain available to look at them. (Manga and some SF&F has fared better.) Most of the ones I'm enjoying now, or that have been recced to me, weren't licensed until after I gave up on it.

ETA: Another thing that I think we tend to forget sometimes with anime and manga is that, unlike SF&F, mystery, romance, etc, we get an extremely limited amount of what's actually put out, and most publishers tend to stick to a few specific types. Most of the diversity we get is from the smaller publishers.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Del Rey started out sticking to slightly-more-diverse stuff, with Clamp and Ken Akamatsu to line their pockets. They're still being fairly diverse with their acquisitions, at least as compared to Viz and Tokyopop, but it's new stuff. Dark Horse is an old hand at it, though with a darker bent, but still only new stuff. Net Comics seems to be getting at least 80s and 90s stuff a bit, but that's manhwa. Go!Comi and Yen both seem to be trying for more diverse lineups (though Go!Comi seems to be focusing on a few specific mangaka) but are also mostly sticking to the late-90s and onward. So, yeah, mostly CMX, which I rarely see here, either.

And you know, I've been reading and enjoying a lot of shoujo this year, but aside from Clamp and Kaori Yuki stuff, most of the best ones aren't from Viz and Tokyopop. (In fact, one of Viz's "It" titles may have killed the buzz for giving new titles a try last week...)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

(Oh, Les Bijoux...would you believe the first volume of that is the first manga/manhwa I ever bought, before I even knew there was any interest at all? Though, if it weren't for Blade of the Immortal, I might have just read that series and never looked at the genre again. I'm actually surprised it's still around.)

I almost never see anything I actually read on the shelves here, except for right after some come out, but thatwill be 1-2 copies that sell quickly and don't get restocked. I'm just happy I discovered rightstuf.com last year. While it does require relatively careful planning and tracking the sales and deciding whether to preorder everything or fall behind in purchases and wait between sales, it provides a relatively cheap way to get the titles I'm interested in, most of which don't show up here.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

LB is...interesting. In many ways, it probably isn't very good, objectively (I've actually had a yen to reread it recently, since learning the artist's Tarot Cafe had been completed, but it's one of several series that were in a box that went missing when I moved.) It isn't a genderbender so much as a gender-*word omitted*, and honestly goes well beyond my comfort zone on many levels(rather like Elizabeth Bear's books, in a way, though at least with Bear, I know that it's the how of it that keeps me from edging away). The main character in both a man and a woman, though not in the hermaphrodite sense. More accurately, it's two people living in one body, with the body changing depending on who's in charge. The male is the "dominant" personality, and essentially grows up hidden away and sheltered because of his nature, while the female is a secret, and never allowed to have any life prior to the main story because of it, and the characters are essentially what the same person would be, were their experiences different. When things happen, he goes the "angry vengeance" route, whereas she, as is rather fitting with her extremely sheltered and limited life, gets caught up in the romantic aspect (while still aware that it's wrong, and tries to act accordingly) and they both suffer for it. They're aware of each other and their actions, but unable to do anything about it. It's...err...obviously fairly hard to explain, but pretty interesting. And pretty.

I only really have 2 bookstores here, Waldenbooks and Hastings (Hastings is actually general entertainment, but their book section is bigger than the Waldenbooks store.) Hastings's manga section is larger, but Waldenbooks's is a little more diverse. Hastings, though, also buys and sells used books, and that's helped me to get into a few things I might not have checked out otherwise. Though they recently moved stores, and are reopening this week, so who knows what it'll be like now.

If I can't look at it in the store, I tend to hunt down scanslations or positive f-list reviews of something before getting it. Reading a few chapters in scans helps weed out the clunkers, though it isn't completely successful.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Well, it's only 5 volumes, so even if it isn't quite great for you, it's no huge investment. I remember there also being a lot of consequences for actions, which I liked the handling of (though they were dark and violent in certain respects.) I hear you on the art, though. In general, I rate visual storytelling ability well above prettiness, but Sang-Sun Park's art is amazing. Storytelling ability isn't bad, either. (It's...err...all that's really worthwhile about the first volume of Tarot Cafe, though the second is an improvement. From what I've read so far, you might like that one, too.

The two used bookstores here are pretty decent, but mostly I have to be extremely aggressive in hunting down online deals, or stalking local places for used things and sales.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the deceptive covers. A few of the anthologies I have on hand look/sound like shounen-ai, but (on the whole) aren't. For that matter, both Seimaden and Cantarella (and I'm sure other Higuri You works I haven't read yet, though she does have straight yaoi too) look it at a glance. Cantarella...well...the lead is canonically bisexual, in love with both a man and a woman, and carrying on with a few people. it goes every which way, there. The main plot of Seimaden is the het romance (though it isn't actually a straight romance..."relationship/his love/goals for her" is probably more accurate) but there's a m/m secondary pairing, and the hero has spent a millenia or so experimenting in all sorts of deviant behavior. I count that along the lines of what Joss Whedon supposedly once said when asked about Angel and Spike in Buffy, which was along the lines of "those two spent over a century experimenting in every deviant behavior they could. And people wonder if they ever tried that out?" (As in, it's so tame compared to everything else they've probably been up to, it was probably a warmup.)

*looks at second pic*

Well, that's pretty much 5 stages/versions of Kambei there...

[chomiji]

See, but Isshin is in no way bishie, and despite their little scruffy beards, these guys are. It has a lot to do with the jawline:

He looks male and mature, even without considering the beard stubble ... under the beards, those guys are androgynous. They're very pretty, but they don't do for me what Kurosaki Papa does!

[chomiji]

:-D

I used to do my homework while watching TV. And we all know I don't like to watch stuff without friends!

I like music with which I can sing along when I'm doing mindless stuff.

Re: Scanned!

[chomiji]

XD

Yes! (Except of course he smokes ... I suspend reality on that subject for manga, though - also, what a dorky sword! I know, I know, always with the logical in the midst of the fantasy ... .)

[chomiji]

Interesting. I mostly haven't been using music when I write fic, because it's often late at night and people are going to bed, or the Young Lady is already playing something right behind me, but the instrumental or non-English stuff is mostly what I want when I'm at work, as well. Except that, for non-fiction work, I can definitely put my brain onto another track and sing along with the lyrics while I'm working - as long as it's something I know really well!

>> a very, very visceral image of a pensive Hakkai watching a blissed-out, naked Gojyo dozing on his lap...<<

Hmmm ... have I read this?

Re: Scanned!

[chomiji]

Except that between Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, I preferred the Mouser ... (although that was probably identification rather than lust).

[chomiji]

Hmmm ... I assumed that was it, but I couldn't make an ID between a particular part of the story text and your description. Actually, you passed that song on in that world music mix you sent me! The insect ones (The Moth and The Cicada) are perfect for my breathing exercises.

[chomiji]

The clip was fun!

Re: Scanned!

[chomiji]

I think I just liked Mouser because he was closest to the person I secretly wanted to be. Like the gaminesque girl characters I idolized - Goth in Witches of Karres, Dido Twite in Joan Aiken's books, Petrova Fossil in Ballet Shoes, and Marian the Girl with the Dogs in The Horse Without a Head - he was small, slender, nimble, dark (well, Marian is blonde), and clever. Just in case you wonder why I'm fixated on Sanada Yukimura in SDK ... it goes back a long way.

You're right about Fafhrd, except in Swords and Ice Magic. That's the one where Lieber jumped the shark: the Grey Mouser became a caricature of himself, sadistic without any cute at all and more interested in that than in secrets and arcane knowledge, and Fafhrd became an icon, too noble to be believed.

You see a lot of what I consider their real personalities in "Adept's Gambit," the slightly AU novella where they end up in the ancient Middle East of our own world.

[chomiji]

Ah, OK, I found the place in the story! So, do I have to beg for the Haere Ra lyrics?   ;-)

Re: Scanned!

[chomiji]

Yes - I knew about the originas of Fafhrd and the Mouser! And I thought I'd heard a rumor that they'd had a falling out, or something. Yes, I did indeed skip the last things there. I was very disappointed by SAIM and didn't want any more of the same.

I'm also very fond of "Lean Times in Lankhmar" - in fact, I used it as an example in a paper I wrote on "The Celtic Saint as Hero," because what Fafhrd did to the legend of Issek was very similar to what the Celts - especially the Irish - did with saints' tales - they grafted on bits of their own legends and nourished the stories into something more suitable to their own sense of what great people should be.

Yes, I don't feel like slashing them either! I also don't feel like slashing Flavius and Justin in The Silver Branch - my favorite Sutcliff - either. I've been becoming conscious of whether I want to do that with buddy pairs, recently, ever since someone commented that she felt that slashing them diminished the significance of friendship, as though it weren't sufficient.

Re: Scanned!

[chomiji]

But of course I've read T.H. White ... yes, I loved the saint. The Once and Future King is unbearably sad in spots, even though it's broadly comic in others.

Actually, I can see the Banri/Gojyo thing in a train-wreck way - if Banri wanted him, he'd've had him, at least casually, because Gojyo was so damn needy. But I don't like it.

Yes, friends-as-lovers is something that plays for me, too, and you're right, it's hard to pin down why. I'm wondering if the element of dependency might be part of it. For example, Marcus/Esca in Eagle of the Ninth has a vague element of slashiness to it, whereas Flavius/Justin in The Silver Branch doesn't. Esca is Marcus' slave, and Marcus needs his help physically at first because of his crippling injury, and to some extent emotionally as well, because he feels trapped and because his image was so bound up with being a soldier. Justin and Flavius like each other very much and trust each other, but except in a comrade-in-arms way, they don't depend on each other.

Re: Scanned!

[chomiji]

I tend to think that those folks just don't have very good gaydar! Especially with Minekura, who comes from a background of doing BL doujinshi, it's really silly to pretend that there isn't flirting and stuff going on. And they often seem oblivious to the concepts of (just for two) bisexuality and situational gay sex, which to me easily explain, respectively, the situation with Gojyo (plainly into women but also likely into Hakkai and fascinated by Sanzo) and why it's entirely possible that Kyo in SDK might have had gay liaisons in his past.

Yeah, the thing that's so icky with Banri is the way he still thinks he owns a piece of Gojyo ... and he was so predatory, in his charming, easygoing way, right when Gojyo was feeling completely isolated. Just what Gojyo thought he was craving - a cool older brother. The very fact that he instantly denied any sexual angle in his "how much for you?" inquiry ... you notice he doesn't deny that he's interested in guys. That's part of why he's damn rude about Hakkai, too: Hakkai is getting too close to something he still thinks of as his. I'm sure he was expecting to come back to a needy Gojyo who would give him not only a place to crash and a hand with his latest job, but a free blowjob or more ... .

(That's part of why I love Eleanor's "Clean" - in a way, Banri gets totally pwned by 18-year-old Sanzo ... .)

Re: Scanned!

[chomiji]

It would not surprise me at all if Gojyo had been offered the devil's bargain of a "protector" who would keep other guys off of him (because he'd own Gojyo's ass himself, of course ... I'm fairly sure Gojyo never bought into it, either), and that at the point when Banri runs into him, he's relatively recently felt old enough and big enough that he shouldn't have to put up with that crap anymore - hence his reaction.

Yes, it's pretty hard to be a blue-collar gay guy. In some ways I think Gojyo is fortunate to have had little upbringing except for what Jien could do for him - at least he has neither religious background nor parental expectation to go along with the worries about seeming weak.