Highly Manga-fied Mothers Day

[chomiji]

Mothers Day weekend started badly, with me glooming over my own mother, who died in 1995 and with whom I'd had a difficult relationship, and the fact that I hadn't been able to line up my sweet stepmother for anything either (she had things to do with her other family ... my late father was her 3rd husband). My mother-in-law, normally a delightfully dotty person, didn't help by attempting to monopolize the entire weekend. Thank God the Mr. came to the rescue with jewelry and a diplomatic chat with his mother last night and a manga shopping spree today ...

Chomiji's Mother's Day

Things had deteriorated badly by 9:00pm last night: the Mr. and I were both working late, the Young Lady was feeling neglected, and my mother-in-law, with whom we are spending most of Sunday, had left a message saying that she wanted to take her granddaughter out for the day on Saturday. At 15, the Young Lady has no interest in spending 2 days in a row with Grandma. I don't have a problem with that, but we were both irritated enough in general that we started fuming at each other anyway.

My best beloved appeared in the middle of this with a very attractive-looking jewelry store bag containing two boxes, and then called up his mother and squared everything away with her. The boxes contained a silver bracelet and matching earrings, with a dolphin theme. > happy sigh <

Then today we went first to the comic book store, where I got my SDK 22, Death Note 6, and Vagabond 7 and 8 (and new copies of 1-4 for my bro-in-law, whose birthday we just missed). Plus, in support of my Cho Shoujo Manga Education Project, I got Fruits Basket 1-3 and Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden 1-4. Then we had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant (one of my favorite cuisines) and went to Borders where I furthered the Project by scoring Ouran High School Host Club 1-3, xxxHolic, and Nana 1 (they didn't have vol. 2 for either of those, darnit!!) The pedestrian area in downtown Silver Spring (blocked off to motor traffic on weekends) is really looking good these days: the splash fountain was on, with little kids darting in and out of it, people were eating outside at a lot of the restaurants, and a Peruvian panpipes-and-guitar band was playing. And you can walk to all the places I just mentioned after parking in one of the municipal lots of garages.

So I am feeling much more fortified, mood-wise, at the prospect of having to make a big pile of pasta salad tomorrow and attend a Mothers Day BBQ with a whole bunch of people we don't know, for the most part (although various of my in-laws will be there, along with an old colleague of my husband's).

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Ok, even though I own or have owned most of those, I'm envious. Curious to see what you think of Tsubasa...it's largely a nod to all their other works.

[chomiji]

That's one of the few reasons that I'm glad to have come to this hobby so late ... I can't do something like that every month, but I can do it once in a while.

I wasn't going to get all of these, but when the pickin's were so slim at the comic book store, I thought I was done for the day. And then we passed the Borders on the way back to the car, so we decided to drop in, and they had a few more. In fact, I had missed xxxHolic because they only had 3 volumes, and the shelf they were on was a little disorderly. But the Mr. spotted it and was like "Didn't you want this one?" There I am with a stack already, and he's holding it out to me anyway ... he can be very sweet for a bossy lone wolf engineer ... .

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean...when I started reading manga, most of the series I fell in love with were 3-6 books in, and since I was a lot less discriminating at the time, I got a lot of series...there was a time I was reading 2-3 manga a day and always had 15-20 waiting.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

FYI, Nana # 1 focuses almost entirely on Nana K, if I recall correctly, who is much more conventionally feminine than the other protagonist, Nana O. I love them both, but not everyone does, so if you think Nana K. is the reason feminism was invented, it's worth persisting through at least one more volume.

By the way, it's not shoujo, but Monster is blowing me away. A Japanese surgeon in Germany saves the life of a young boy; years later, that boy becomes a sociopathic killer, and the doctor feels responsible. Launch a bite-your-nails thriller with accurate medicine, a kick-ass female lead, and serious moral issues. (Volume one has much more black-and-white characterization than the rest of the series, by the way.)

[chomiji]

Thanks for the warning about Nana! I probably should have left the single volume there and tried again later, but the thrill of actually finding even one was upon me ... .

Monster sounds intriguing, but I'll have to ask frankly: how bleak does it seem? Will the good guy(s) survive and come to some sort of resolution in the end, do you think? Things certainly don't have to be sweetness and light for me, but real life seems serious and grim enough a lot of the time that I don't care to read very dark stories with no possibility of a final satisfying catharsis of some sort (there's enough of that in the Washington Post and Newsweek ...).

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

You never can tell with manga, but I don't find the series grim at all. A lot of the action involves the doctor meeting people and improving their lives.

[chomiji]

OK then, sorry! ... I jumped to the wrong conclusions from the description. ( I think I'm still a little squirmy from the VaTech thing, and when you said "sociopathic killer" ... it was pretty local to here, I went to their "traditional rival" school, and one of my oldest friends is unfortunately obsessing about it.)

I'll have to take a look. Unfortunately the bookstore nearest my office removed their entire manga section a few months back - just as I was getting into them!

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

I've never read Fushigi Yugi...I'm interested to see how you like it. And hooboy, Ouran...that is some crazy stuff. Basically completely plotless, but somehow so entertaining.

I think I may be the only person on the planet who doesn't really like Nana (even though I subscribe to Shojo Beat, heh)--it just leaves me feeling opressed and sort of lost every time I read it (though I read a chapter every month, thanks to the abovementioned subscription; I'm one of those people who has to read every page of a magazine to feel satisfied.)

[chomiji]

Well, of course that's what this is partially about, to see if I like any of this (the rest of it is to learn some more about how the types of manga differ from each other).

My daughter ran off with first Fruits Basket and then Ouran while I was reading (and re-reading) my Samurai Deeper Kyo and then doing boring household stuff. She's become a major Ouran fan in a day ... she's already re-read the three I bought twice! I haven't yet had a crack at them, or any of the others except FB. Later this week ... .

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

Ouran is appealing, but has nothing on the cracktastic amazingness of stuff like Ranma 1/2, which is, as well all know, just plain classic.

[chomiji]

Heh, there's a limit to how much manga I'm going to be able to purchase and consume at this time!

But yes, I had even heard of Ranma 1/2 before I knew the things were called "manga."

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

Oh my lord, if you haven't read Ranma, you are in big trouble lady!

(You don't have to read all of them, of course...there are 32 or something ridiculous like that.)

[chomiji]

>> you are in big trouble lady! <<

Semper et ubique!

(= "always and everywhere")

[theloomofmoira.livejournal.com]

nothing like a literature spree to set all to rights ;)

[chomiji]

Snap! I was posting on your Mothers Day post while you were posting on mine!

:-D