Sabbatical

Right now, I'm in Wisconsin doing some research, and I'm off manga/anime for the period I'm on my REU...cold turkey. >_<

Expect a binge when I get home, second week of August. ^_^ Until that time arises, go here and look up /Eternal Sabbath/, /Please Save My Earth/, and anything by Midorikawa Yuki. Especially that collection of shorts she did...'cause it's good. ^_^

New avatar!

I was reading a personal favorite of mine, Yankee-kun to Megane-chan, (I loooove the gangsta gangsta manga to me--it just seems so ironic. Plus, there is no badass like a manga badass) when I saw the most awesome picture of our favorite meganekko, Adachi Hana! 

(Click on pic for larger)

You've gotta love a girl who can rock her shades like that. 

Pax
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Hehehehe...

Just found this on my hard drive while going through some pictures to stick up on facebook (remember, read right to left, top to bottom): Click to see larger version

Sonan Jyanaiyo

As you can see, there might be a touch of prejudice in this character's personality...hehehe

Pax
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Maybe, someday, I can aspire to be...

A PIMP LEADER!!!

*puts on purple silk pimp suit, and carefully adjusts babes on her arms*

What do you think?

Note: for those that read the page and may not know what a "goukon" is, it's an arranged meeting for groups of girls and guys to hook up / find bfs/gfs. You want a hottie of the same sex to attend, so that you can get plenty of dudes/babes to attend.

Pax
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Read This First!

This is going to be an introductory post for the new readers, with all the things they should know before beginning to read this blog. Experienced readers of manga can jump right in (Know what Fruits Basket is? Know the difference between shoujo and shonen? You're good), but newer readers might be a bit confused. Obviously the site is not completely up yet (no links, ect), but check back every once in a while to see how the site's been updated, and if you have any questions whatsoever, please please comment and I'll get back with you as soon as possible!

1.) Dictionary is here. Take a look over it to see how I'm defining everything; the link to it is in the sidebar in case you ever need to check back.

2.) WARNING: I use mangafox.com for almost all my links to manga, however it's prone to massive amounts of popups, so be careful/go over to onemanga.com if possible for your regular reading unless you have a good popup protector (I do, so it only really bothers me when I'm on a computer that doesn't, and it has multiple times the amount of manga that onemanga.com does). However, with that being said, onemanga.com does have most of the best manga (though it is sadly lacking in oneshots, in my opinion), and it's very stable. If you have any concerns about your firewall/popup protector/ect., head over there. While I use mangafox because it generally gets the new chapters in more quickly and has a lot more series, I would reccommend onemanga.com to all new readers, as it is a more stable site (and quicker, from my personal experience).

3.) I'm going to scan in a "how to read manga" page pretty soon...look for that later.

Pax
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Apparently, all Americans think that you can see Mt. Fuji from anywhere in Japan...

I really need to start reading more shonen manga; when I first started poking around the manga world online, I dabbled in shonen (you know, the basics--Full Metal Alchemist, Bleach, ect.)--but then I found shoujo, and haven't left it since. Anyways, I was making one of my very rare forays into the world of boy's manga (though plenty of girls read it too), and came across this assumption about Americans:

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/doushirou_de_gozaru/v01/c001/17.html

Now this is definitely not the wierdest idea about Americans that I've come across in manga (I will never, ever forget the day I saw the line "Didn't you know? Everyone in America's done it by the time they're 10!"--apparantly, I'm quite the slacker...), but it did make me laugh. The manga, on its own, is pretty cool; it's about a Japanese boy raised in the middle of Nevada (where, apparently, the bison have somehow managed to still run free) as a samurai from the Edo period. Now he's come back to modern-day Japan to live with his mom and younger brother and...well...he's got issues. But they're funny issues, so it's all good. ^_^

Pax
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Picture

I wouldn't mind something like this when I get married...

...though hopefully less locking myself into the bedroom. ^_^

"Guys After Marriage"

Everyone's favorite toy...

This page is priceless.

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/chizumi_and_fujiomi/v01/c003/28.html

From Chizumi and Fujiomi.

Dictionary

I'm going to try to keep track of manga-related terms that the average American wouldn't know here. If you have any questions, comments, or extra money burning a hole in your pocket, comment and let me know.
.....

Anime: The TV version of manga, in that it shares its visual style, though it isn't limited to just adaptations, or to just TV series. The perfect example is the award-winning Miyazaki (Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke), who's basically Japan's version of Walt Disney (even better, in my humble opinion). You know a manga's really made it when they're making it into an anime.

Baka: I had the worst time figuring out a good definition for this word--the translator's notes were usually "stupid", "dumb", or "fool", and those just didn't fit all the ways the word is used. It's the perfect multiuse insult--it's a noun! It's an adjective! And "You stupid!" just didn't sound that smooth. Eventually, I met "dumbass", and we've been good friends ever since (as "you dumbass!" and "that was a dumbassed thing to do" each make perfect sense). (Though, technically, I believe that "baka" would really translate to stupid or foolish, and "bakayarou" or "bakayaroo" to dumbass, but in manga it's pretty much always kept as "baka", so my definition works all the time. Nyeh.)

Manga: Can this possibly be defined in a single sentence? I usually explain it to my friends by saying that it's a visual form of crack developed by the Japanese to control the world; to my mom, it's the Japanese version of Spiderman or Calvin and Hobbes.

Mangaka: The artist/author of manga. Usually, one person does both the script and the art, but it is occasionally split up between two people; Safe Again Today is a favorite manghwa of mine that was coproduced (or whatever you would call that).

Manghwa: Korean version of manga; the art is almost always unbeatable, and it positively drips tragedy and high drama. Interpret that as you will.

Meganekko: Girls with glasses, especially in Japan, and the preference thereof. Lit. "spectacle-child" Ex: That substitute teacher was one hot meganekko! (from urbandictionary.net)

Otaku: We all know them--the rabid fans that live to write the TamakixKyouya fanfics and for whom hygiene is a dirty word. *shakes head* While generally used to describe anime fanboys, it really means anyone who is obsessive about something to point where it's just not cool anymore. There could be dog otaku, model otaku, book otaku, even paperclip otaku, if you could find someone out there so obsessed with paperclips that it would be appropriate to bestow the infamous and slightly grimy title of "otaku" on him (or her).

Shoujo: Basically, "girly" manga--manga targeted towards girls in the 12-18 age group; usually centers around middle-aged and high school heroines (with an emphasis on the high schoolers), though there are occasional forays into elementary school (which are usually very sweet ^_^...or pervy >_>). While it is a bit of a "girl with the curl in the middle of her forhead" manga (it's either really bad or really really good), it's a favorite of The Meganekko, as I'm willing to wade through the slush to get the diamonds--and the art is unparallelled (except, perhaps, in josei, and we don't really get enough of that to compare). Heavy on the drama and romance.

Stuff you're not really going to get here (as I don't read it), but it's still a good idea to know what it is...

Shonen: The male version of shoujo with more action, male heroes, and girls in bikinis. As a general rule, much more popular--Naruto and Bleach are examples of this genre.

Ecchi/Hentai: Manga porn. Easily identified by the presence of girls with boobs the size of their heads on the cover.

Yaoi/Shonen ai: Boylove of all shapes and sorts--a great favorite of fangirls everywhere. Yaoi is generally includes more...mature...content.
Yeah.
Let's put it that way.

Yuri/Shoujo ai: Girly version of Yaoi/shounen ai.

Picture

Kind of like the Grim Reaper, only in a bunny suit

I just finished the search on shoujo oneshots; whenever I do something like this, if I like the manga, I click on the mangaka's name and check out the other manga they've done. As often as not, if I really like a piece, it'll turn out that their other stuff is really good, and sometimes it'll turn out that they wrote some favorites of mine. (Of course, sometimes it really sucks, but it's still interesting to read their previous work and see how they've changed over time.) Anyways, I saw a oneshot that I remembered reading before, and while I was more interested in reading new manga (and thus didn't reread it), I went ahead and checked out some of his other works. Now, while most of it isn't that extraordinary (besides his sensei/student fetish), I liked the art (not spectacular, I guess, but it's my type), so I kept clicking and came upon...this.

This is hilarious in that perfect, unintended way--just think about it: when you die, the pink bunny is going to come for your soooooooul.
On a bike.

*dies*

Now, this isn't even that weird, comparatively, but still...only in Japan.

Picture

This will be said to Tim soon, very, very soon...

"Kill all the roosters you want, the sun will still rise in the morning!"

Bring It On

Drop-Dead Gorgeous

A cliché of manga (especially, especially shoujo, God bless their little bleeding hearts, though I believe I have seen it in shonen and at least once in a JDrama (Nakatsu in Hana Kimi, to be specific)), is that when someone (usually a guy) sees a cute chick (or dude), their nose will start bleeding. Usually, this is limited to the "cute" types, as opposed to a "hottie" (ie, it wouldn't happen for Angelina Jolie, but Kate Hudson or Hannah Montana would leave a trail of blood in their wakes), and the guys this happens to are portrayed as being a touch...perverted. Anyways, occasionally it happens to girls as a gender-reversal plot trick, and today, I found a oneshot all about a girl that just couldn't hold it in...

"The Love's Red Signals"

I want to be Nanami-san's disciple...

"Sugar Family"

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/sugar_family/

It's your basic "Brother and and sister are left alone in the house--but wait! They're not related! What will they doooooo...*insert suspense music here*" storyline (no, not the smutty version--if you want any of that, you'll have to find your own), so not particularly original (though the characters are hilarious). I wasn't even really going to write it up, until I came across this scene in chapter five:

*Yuka picks up the phone*
Yuka: Hello?
Nanami: Ah, it's me.
Yuka: ...The phone number is not in use at this moment. Please confirm the number one more time and... 
Nanami: If you'd like, I could call again? Over and over again...

Bwahahahaha.
If I were the type to do a lot of prank-calling, I'd want to do it with Yuka and Nanami.

Remon no Himegoto

This particular blog seems to have become more of a review site for the manga I read than anything else--a way to keep tabs on funny lines and manga that particularly, whether positively or otherwise. Interesting.

Anyways, today's manga, "Remon no Himegoto" isn't particularly good in that it is unusual or anything; rather, it's special in that it's a collection of loverly oneshots that present a great example of shoujo at its very best--full of restrained love, quiet formalities, and just a hint of S&M. Hehehehe...

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/remon_no_himegoto/

Quote (punctuation edited for clarity):

"...Among all of Kierkgaard's works, there is one that I really like reading: 'The Sickness Unto Death'. I don't remember how many times I've actually reread it...

'Despair is a type of mental illness, a type of illness one gives unto themselves. There are three stages for it.'

First, one is not being conscious of having despair in oneself. Second is not being willing to make oneself be in despair. And finally...is willing to put oneself in despair....

Also...
Also...

Actually, me, too--I've always wanted to talk to you."

The Leaves of the Deep Blue Tree

*sobs* 

So lovely--a short about loving and yearning and eternally waiting for the beautiful autumn to come...

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/kon_no_ki_konoha/

Reminds me of LadyHawke. I'm running through a bunch of oneshots under the "shoujo", "romance", and "school life" keywords, so expect more of those...

Crazy Manga Name #1

An Inquiry Concerning a Mechanistic Worldview of the Pituitary Gland

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/an_inquiry_concerning_a_mechanistic_worldview_of_the_pituitary_gland/

Seung-hu and Mi-ha from Bring It On:

M: Do  you know where everything is?
S: Yes! TV!
*TV drops down from ceiling*
M: Wow!
S: Bed!
*bed drops down from wall*
M: Wow!
S:...
M:...
M: Don't you know anything else?
S:...TV!