Book Logging
Jun. 10th, 2008 02:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckAs usual, discussion is welcomed with glee.
Arm of Kannon 8 - So why am I reading this again? Right. Because it's there in the library and so easy to get.
I have got to find a better way to find out the story arc of this manga than reading it. I avoid looking at the art, but it's pretty grotesque. I'm not sure that vague curiosity will be enough to carry me through. The story has looped back in time. I'll have to read more if I want to see what comes of that loop. We'll see if I bother.
The Arrival - Very pretty and very surreal. Some bits didn't quite make sense to me, but I think they weren't meant to. After all, everything around him is alien to the immigrant main character. I like the digressions into the pasts of various people that the immigrant meets. They're powerful, scary, sad, and sometimes hopeful. This whole book manages without words.
If it worked for me, it's likely to work well for those who're more visually inclined than I am. I'm sure I missed a lot as my eyes just skimmed over the details.
Highly recommended.
Black Sun, Silver Moon 1-2 - This is awfully fluffy. I'll probably read more if I find it, but I won't look very hard. A young man, Taki, needs to work to pay off his debts to a priest, Shikimi. If I'm recalling correctly, Shikimi's a former demon hunter who's been infected with vampirism and is slowly (he thinks) turning evil. I'm not sure how sexual Taki and Shikimi's relationship is supposed to seem. There's a demon hunter who turns up later who's definitely chasing Shikimi in a sexual/romantic way, and there's a vampire who turns up who has a relationship with Shikimi that might have sex in it somewhere (or might once have had). There're a lot of bits and pieces dropped in about Shikimi's angsty, tragic past. I'm not sure I care too much.
I preferred v.1 to v.2 because I liked the dynamic of Shikimi teaching Taki to fight demons and vampires. There was comedy in it too, but once the other two characters arrived, the story changed enough to irritate me and make me lose most of my interest. I guess I was more interested in seeing Taki grow up and learn from a seriously annoying mentor than in seeing him competing for that mentor's attention and/or soul with other random guys.
(I'm not utterly sure that the demon hunter is a guy. He says he's male-- the story makes a big deal about that, repeatedly-- but Taki keeps thinking he's seen breasts under the demon hunter's clothes. I'd be interested in a story about a transsexual demon hunter or about a girl pretending to be a boy because it's easier to become a demon hunter that way, so this may be wishful thinking on my part. I'm just not interested in the character as currently presented.)
Buckley, Michael. The Fairy-Tale Detectives - This is the first in a series of kids' books called The Sisters Grimm (or maybe The Grimm Sisters. I don't have the book in front of me, so I'll go with the one that sounds better to me). Two girls whose parents have disappeared have been passed from dreadful foster home to dreadful foster home. Then they're claimed by a woman who says she's their grandmother. The girls are dubious because their parents always told them their grandparents were dead. The woman takes them to a very odd town and a very odd house and tells them about the family business.
Once things start moving, they don't stop. I had fun spotting fictional and fairy tale characters. I suspect that both Mayor Charming and Jack owe a little to Fables, but I might be completely wrong.
Chibi Vampire 6 - This volume is mostly annoying relationship soap opera. Karin almost dies from blood loss due to being too near whatshisname, her almost-romantic partner. He, in turn, has problems because his mother's past is catching up with them. I'm kind of curious about what's going on with that. I think I'll be cranky if there's a Big Misunderstanding in it that has her dragging her son to flee when it's not necessary. I'd rather have her mother and former lover be genuine problems.
Claymore 7 - Ophelia is terrifying. I'm even more scared of an organization that would choose to keep her around because I think her fate was inevitable. As to Clare-- I'm kind of amused by power ups that involve limb loss and replacement.
DearS 8 - Now that I've finished the series, I can't say that I recommend it. I kept thinking as I read that there were interesting things to be done with the characters and the core idea, but none of them happened. Just a lot of cheesecake and a lot of Love Will Conquer. Those aren't awful things in themselves, but this title ventured too near my squick territory for me to be comfortable.
I did enjoy, though, seeing Neneko smack sense into the hero when he tried to use her to as an easy way out of his romantic/emotional troubles. I was please that she decided to travel to pursue her dreams, dreams that had nothing at all to do with him. She even said, "...we don't exist to comfort you when you need us!" (Admittedly, that was just before she sent him off to find his True Love, but I'll take what I can get.)
Fantasy Land 1 - Very pretty. I'm not sure if the plot's going anywhere. I'm amused to see the heroine so ticked off about being in a child's body. I also like that she doesn't seem to have fallen in love with anybody yet and has ideas about who she wants to be.
Hunter x Hunter 20 - Can I have plot that's neither bug hunt nor powering up, please? Maybe some character development?
I.N.V.U. 1 - I gave up on this one maybe a third of the way through. Some of it was that I was confused about the names used for characters. I wasn't sure if a given character was the same person being called by a different name or a different character altogether. All signs were pointing to relationship soap opera without any of the things that hook me, so I bailed.
Arm of Kannon 8 - So why am I reading this again? Right. Because it's there in the library and so easy to get.
I have got to find a better way to find out the story arc of this manga than reading it. I avoid looking at the art, but it's pretty grotesque. I'm not sure that vague curiosity will be enough to carry me through. The story has looped back in time. I'll have to read more if I want to see what comes of that loop. We'll see if I bother.
The Arrival - Very pretty and very surreal. Some bits didn't quite make sense to me, but I think they weren't meant to. After all, everything around him is alien to the immigrant main character. I like the digressions into the pasts of various people that the immigrant meets. They're powerful, scary, sad, and sometimes hopeful. This whole book manages without words.
If it worked for me, it's likely to work well for those who're more visually inclined than I am. I'm sure I missed a lot as my eyes just skimmed over the details.
Highly recommended.
Black Sun, Silver Moon 1-2 - This is awfully fluffy. I'll probably read more if I find it, but I won't look very hard. A young man, Taki, needs to work to pay off his debts to a priest, Shikimi. If I'm recalling correctly, Shikimi's a former demon hunter who's been infected with vampirism and is slowly (he thinks) turning evil. I'm not sure how sexual Taki and Shikimi's relationship is supposed to seem. There's a demon hunter who turns up later who's definitely chasing Shikimi in a sexual/romantic way, and there's a vampire who turns up who has a relationship with Shikimi that might have sex in it somewhere (or might once have had). There're a lot of bits and pieces dropped in about Shikimi's angsty, tragic past. I'm not sure I care too much.
I preferred v.1 to v.2 because I liked the dynamic of Shikimi teaching Taki to fight demons and vampires. There was comedy in it too, but once the other two characters arrived, the story changed enough to irritate me and make me lose most of my interest. I guess I was more interested in seeing Taki grow up and learn from a seriously annoying mentor than in seeing him competing for that mentor's attention and/or soul with other random guys.
(I'm not utterly sure that the demon hunter is a guy. He says he's male-- the story makes a big deal about that, repeatedly-- but Taki keeps thinking he's seen breasts under the demon hunter's clothes. I'd be interested in a story about a transsexual demon hunter or about a girl pretending to be a boy because it's easier to become a demon hunter that way, so this may be wishful thinking on my part. I'm just not interested in the character as currently presented.)
Buckley, Michael. The Fairy-Tale Detectives - This is the first in a series of kids' books called The Sisters Grimm (or maybe The Grimm Sisters. I don't have the book in front of me, so I'll go with the one that sounds better to me). Two girls whose parents have disappeared have been passed from dreadful foster home to dreadful foster home. Then they're claimed by a woman who says she's their grandmother. The girls are dubious because their parents always told them their grandparents were dead. The woman takes them to a very odd town and a very odd house and tells them about the family business.
Once things start moving, they don't stop. I had fun spotting fictional and fairy tale characters. I suspect that both Mayor Charming and Jack owe a little to Fables, but I might be completely wrong.
Chibi Vampire 6 - This volume is mostly annoying relationship soap opera. Karin almost dies from blood loss due to being too near whatshisname, her almost-romantic partner. He, in turn, has problems because his mother's past is catching up with them. I'm kind of curious about what's going on with that. I think I'll be cranky if there's a Big Misunderstanding in it that has her dragging her son to flee when it's not necessary. I'd rather have her mother and former lover be genuine problems.
Claymore 7 - Ophelia is terrifying. I'm even more scared of an organization that would choose to keep her around because I think her fate was inevitable. As to Clare-- I'm kind of amused by power ups that involve limb loss and replacement.
DearS 8 - Now that I've finished the series, I can't say that I recommend it. I kept thinking as I read that there were interesting things to be done with the characters and the core idea, but none of them happened. Just a lot of cheesecake and a lot of Love Will Conquer. Those aren't awful things in themselves, but this title ventured too near my squick territory for me to be comfortable.
I did enjoy, though, seeing Neneko smack sense into the hero when he tried to use her to as an easy way out of his romantic/emotional troubles. I was please that she decided to travel to pursue her dreams, dreams that had nothing at all to do with him. She even said, "...we don't exist to comfort you when you need us!" (Admittedly, that was just before she sent him off to find his True Love, but I'll take what I can get.)
Fantasy Land 1 - Very pretty. I'm not sure if the plot's going anywhere. I'm amused to see the heroine so ticked off about being in a child's body. I also like that she doesn't seem to have fallen in love with anybody yet and has ideas about who she wants to be.
Hunter x Hunter 20 - Can I have plot that's neither bug hunt nor powering up, please? Maybe some character development?
I.N.V.U. 1 - I gave up on this one maybe a third of the way through. Some of it was that I was confused about the names used for characters. I wasn't sure if a given character was the same person being called by a different name or a different character altogether. All signs were pointing to relationship soap opera without any of the things that hook me, so I bailed.
