Be There

Saiyuki Manga Comm on LJ seems moribund.

T-T

Is Minekura getting into her crack character genealogies again?

I mean this thing. The only series she doesn't seem to have worked into whatever-it-is is Ibun.

So meicdon13 was raising money for the victims of the horrible flooding in the Philippines by offering fiction. Here's the story I requested:

The Honeymoon Phase (PG, Saiyuki, Hakkai/Gojyo, Genjo Sanzo, Son Goku)

I enjoyed it a lot!

theskywasblue was kind enough to give me the letter T, for which I now have to name five favorite characters whose names start with that.

I have here four manga characters and one lonely person from mainstream fiction. (Actually, it's amazing that I'd have anyone from mainstream fiction!)

Tracy (real name: Eustacia) Quinn is the shy, brainy modern-day heroine of Rumer Godden's China Court, a romance in which the most prominent character is really China Court, the Cornish house in which the Quinn family have lived for the better part of a century. Tracy's only happy memories from childhood were the few years that she lived at China Court with her grandmother. The very ending is problematic, but I have always sympathized very much with Tracy's shyness and her love of the house and the garden.

Tenpou Gensui (Field Marshall Tenpou) is an ancient Chinese god who ends up on the wrong side of a political struggle in Heaven, in Katsuya Minekura's manga Saiyuki Gaiden. He's a brilliant man but also a slob and a bit of a space cadet. He has a keen sense of justice and right. In Minekura's main series Saiyuki (with its continuations: Saiyuki Reload and Saiyuki Reload Blast), Tenpou is reborn as Cho Hakkai. His lover Kenren Taishou (General Kenren) is reborn as Sha Gojyo.

Tokine Yukimura is the female co-lead of Yellow Tanabe's manga series Kekkaishi. She is a teenaged 'barrier master," the current heir of one family of skilled magicians who can protect others from demons by creating magical barriers. Tokine is intense, loyal, studious, and skilled, but the series constantly contrasts her finesse with her male opposite number's magical strength.

Tokito Minoru is a troubled and brash young man with a strange clawed and furred right hand and hardly any memory of his past. In Kazuya Minekura's Wild Adapter, he becomes the friend - and likely more - of the nihilistic young criminal Kubota Makoto. Together, they are trying to find out the secret of the strange drug Wild Adapter, which may have something to do with Tokio's weird hand. Tokito is frank, almost fearless, down-to-earth, and fiercely loyal to the very few people he trusts.

Taki Tooru is a middle school girl in Yuki Midorikawa's manga series Natsume's Book of Friends (or Natsume Yuujinchō). She is able to draw a magic circle that will allow her and others to see youkai, spirits/monsters that are usually invisible to most. She becomes one of the closest friends of Natsume Takashi, a lonely boy who has been tormented by his ability to see youkai. Taki (usually referred to by her family name, as are all the school-age characters in the story) is remakably brave. At first she is quiet and withdrawn as a result of a curse that was placed upon her; later, she becomes lively and more talkative.

Let me know if you would like me to give you a letter too! (It may not be until tomorrow morning, though.)

Saiyuki Reload Blast

Saiyuki Reload Blast

Saiyuki Reload Blast

Saiyuki Reload Blast

is returning!!!!

(As of the March 28 ZeroSum! Thanks to veronicacode for the first heads-up I saw this morning! And I do hope this means that Minekura-sensei is feeling much, much better!)

(And yes, I know lots of people have already posted this, but I just had to say something!)

This is what I've seen thus far. Some people have more than one offer, which is why they're listed multiple times.

Last update or check: 3/30/2011 at US ET ... One offer that was missed first time through (Mac Firefox pays attention to case ... ); it's the first one below

List was produced by going to every single page and copying links.

Question: Should I cross-post this to Saiyuki comm? OK, I will cross-post.

Damn, it's been exactly three years since louiselux and emungere wrote that.

Three years. It seems unbelievable, somehow.

I've just finished the chapter that ends with Robin telling Angel to trust him and jump off the cliff, in Faerie.

But I'm tired and feel like crud - had my flu shot today, among other things - so I'll have to continue tomorrow.

If there are any Saiyuki fans reading this who haven't read this epic - you should remedy that.

1. I know your favorite pairing, but who is your favorite Saiyuki character (including Gaiden)?

Gojyo, hands down. He's a very comfortable fit for me as a point-of-view character - that desperate longing to belong and be loved, the fact that he's stuck always between two worlds. And his off-handed swearing and willingness to call people (even himself) on bullshit make me smile. Also, the fact that he doesn't have a special magical talent - except to always be the last man standing, and drag the others to safety.

2. How did you get into manga to begin with?

The Mr. was looking through the SF&F section of a bookstore near his office and getting increasingly disgusted with the selection. So he glanced at the manga section next over and asked the young store clerk what he'd recommend for someone who liked fantasy. He came home that night with the first volumes of Samurai Deeper Kyo. The rest is as blogged here on LJ!

3. If money and language barriers were no object, and you could live anywhere in the world, where would you want to live?

I'm living right where I want to live, pretty much! I grew up around here, and it fits me quite well. I love the varied population, the fact that we have so many great museums and restaurants from all cultures, the fact that I can buy Shabbat candles and sushi rice at the regular grocery, that no one blinks twice if I say that I'm leaving work early Friday because of Yom Kippur. The lush softness of the landscape, loud with birds and bright with flowers and butterflies, full of glens and dells with little streams flowing through, is a part of my heart. But if money were no object, I'd fix up the house. (I like to visit other places, but this is home.)

4. What was your first fandom, and how/when/why did you get into it?

Hee, what a question! It's a tie somewhere between Star Trek: the original series and LOTR. I found Star Trek on TV (to the disgust of my very girly best friend of the time, who preferred Lost in Space), and was given LOTR by my parents. By my early teens I had all of the meta-stuff that was available for both (David Gerrold's The Making of Star Trek, for example). I attended one of the last of the big NYC Star Trek conventions when I was 16. And in college, I had a card file of Elvish vocabulary and later reconstructed proto-Elvish for my historical linguistics teacher.

5. What's a favorite quote of yours? (I'm assuming there's no one favorite and what it might be might change over time.)

For a while now, it's been the Philip Pullman quote that I used as the title of my writing LJ: "'Thou shalt not' is soon forgotten, but 'Once upon a time' lasts forever."

The amount of Full Metal Alchemist fic has gone up, and Saiyuki is now in the #4 position under "Anime & Manga" instead of the #3!