Last time I blogged, I mentioned looking forward to the PhD program as a break from all the work.  I knew at the time that was a silly thing to say, and boy have I learned just HOW silly.  I’m learning how to be a better student, but it’s not happening quickly enough to suit me.  I have an incomplete from last semester already, and that’s not a good sign already.  The prof is wonderful and very nice and she gave me a grade in anticipation of what she thought I’d do on the paper, but…here’s the confession…I haven’t written the goddamned thing yet.  Spring break is for that.  And the conference paper for the Modernism class.  (Thus the title of this little rant.)  My closest friends might have noticed an undercurrent of stress with me since Christmas, well that paper is why.  No worries, though — I will get it done.

You see, I have managed to convince myself that this is pretty much my last chance to do something with my life.  Yes, I know that’s faulty reasoning, but this is my blog, not yours.  As such, I am determined to do WHATEVER it takes to succeed at the PhD.  For some of you, this is bad news, since it means I won’t be doing too much with the manga scanlation world sometimes.

Anyway…news news…  I am taking only two classes and working at the Tennis Club.  The classes are quite enough though, I’m not sure I could ever take three classes at once.  British Modernism is basically a survey course with a very green professor, but a totally nice guy (he says before getting anything graded back from him…).  Because of the survey nature of the course, it’s been VERY hard to figure out what to write on for a graduate level course.  Ideally, any paper you write for grad school should be publishable.  I’m not there yet.  The Post(-)Colonial London course is the real gem.  The reading is a lot to keep up with (and I’m not keeping up), but it’s been very interesting so far.  How can I not like a professor who is 4 foot 10 inches tall and bullies people around, and gave me my paper topic on a silver platter?  She said, “You should do this, Eric.  It’s publishable and it would even make a good chapter for your dissertation.”  Almost no agonizing or thought required, I know what I’m writing about already.  Done.  Next?  Oh, I have to actually research it and write it?  Damn…

That paper is going to be a comparison of sorts of the kind of racially-mixed, cosmopolitan London of the late 80′s and 90′s to the racially-mixed, cosmopolitan London of Shakespeare’s time.  I’m a little worried, because this is more of a Neo-Historicist kind of paper, and I’ve never written one before.  I probably have a ton of reading ahead of me.

Nothing else much is happening with me.  If I think of more, I’ll (gasp) blog more.

Of course, there’s various reasons for this.  And while I originally intended for this blog to be little more than a holding place for my better reviews, I think I’d better make some posts in the tradition of the original purpose of blogging: news and such for family and friends.  If you don’t care, then don’t comment and move on.

Right after January, I took on a job re-doing a house in order to sell it.  This was inside and out, and the previous tenants (owner) did almost nothing in the way of the typical upkeep a house requires.  There was a LOT of work to do.  On top of that, all of their possessions were still there, too.  Unfortunately, I wasted a lot of time cleaning up possessions until it finally became clear a month later that the house was going to be SOLD and I got some advice from a contractor about just exactly what needed to be done.  It was lots more than I had thought.  More money for me, of course, but a longer job overall.  We didn’t finish the house until early May.  This was removing, tearing out carpets (throughout), fixing, texturing, masking, spray-painting, replacing all outlets and switches, patching stucco, gardening, and replacing a swamp cooler on the roof.  I mostly came home exhausted every day, leaving me no time to write or review.  OTOH, I had no time to substitute teach in Belen Schools, which was such a relief.

Problem number two raised it’s ugly head once I secured a couple of little jobs (writing a real-estate blog and working at a tennis club).  My parents are intending to move as soon as they reasonably can, but there’s likely to be about a year’s worth of work to do on that house to shape it up for sale.  I’m relatively free until classes start this fall, so guess what?  A year’s worth of work gets compacted into one summer.  Yay.

Two bathrooms needed the tile and drywall taken out, plumbing needed replacement, re-drywall, then tile the walls and grout them.  Then the last of the godawful carpet in the house, both bedrooms, was going to come out and we were going to lay down parquet flooring.  This meant leveling the concrete slab (there’s no basement) because concrete does all kinds of weird sagging over time.  Then we simply glued the wood tiles directly to the concrete.  Yes, yes, I know about all the problems with this.  Our reasoning is; my parents are only going to be in the house for 4 more years at most.

Most of the people who have read this far already know this, but I am living at home with them.  They are getting to be in their 70′s and there’s nobody to do yardwork and these projects if it’s not me.  I get rent-free DSL-equipped housing and free meals.  It’s not so bad.  I also have a much better relationship with my parents than I used to, and better than most people do altogether.

However, this means that whenever I’m not working or sleeping, I’m busy with the house projects.  I’ve never actually looked forward to graduate school classes as a BREAK or a RESPITE from all the stress.  None of the groups I used to be involved with have given me any work for months, which while despressing, was good in that I didn’t have to say to anyone, “sorry, no.”  But this confrontation cannot be avoided for much longer.  Even if Jouhou revives, I’m not going to be a part of it anymore beyond a reviewer.  I honestly thought I’d be able to edit and do school, and maybe I can, but from where I sit today, there’s just no way.

To be sure, most of my groups are just in summer hiatus mode, so accusations of death may be premature.  But there looks like little to no movement in kotonoha or moob or any of the other groups I participate in and as for Animewaves, I continue to refuse to be a part of speedscans and shitty quality control processes.  I will not EVER participate in a group that releases a chapter that confuses “your” and “you’re”.  Especially after I corrected it.

Anyway, that’s the news from Jiji.

Title: Aqua
Volume: 1 (of 2)
Mangaka: Amano Kozue
Serialized in: Comic Blade (Mag Garden) & Stencil (Square Enix)
Genre: Sci-fi, Slice-of-life, Drama, Comedy
Publisher: Tokyopop
Rating: T (13+)

Akari Mizunashi is traveling to Aqua (Mars) from Manhome (Earth) to become an undine, one of the famous female gondoliers of Neo-Venezia (a replica of Venice). Akari knows nothing about Mars, which is now called Aqua since terraforming released tremendous amounts of water that now cover 90% of the surface. She also knows next to nothing about undines, only that she wants to be one. Slowly, day by day, she meets all kinds of new people and practices hard to become a good undine and adapts to the slow pace of life on Aqua.

Akari is our main character and often narrator, since she frequently writes to a mysterious someone back on Manhome. Her total innocence reflects the reader’s and she encounters new things in the same way that we do, making her reactions to them our guide to this futuristic world. I say “futuristic”, but in fact there’s a delightful mix of sci-fi, ‘magic’ and nostalgic old ways in this story. For instance, despite the availability of computers, people on Aqua prefer to send letters, which are collected by a mailman in a gondola, no less. We are never shown Manhome, but Akari refers often to how the weather is regulated and everything is “convenient” there — in contrast to Aqua where it’s not as convenient to have to go out to shop, or to travel in boats to do anything. An undine, by the way, is a water-spirit, an elemental, as recorded by Paracelcus.

I’m describing all this because in a slice-of-life story, this is a staple of its charm. It’s nostalgic for slower, simpler times or at least it is a reaction against the insane, dehumanizing pace of modern living. There are often panels showing little more than scenery and setting, showing tiny moments of time that have little to do with hurrying the plot along. In this way, Amano is in strict control of the pace of the story and the reader can find him/herself skipping panels to get to the “happenings”. This is a mistake, however — the reader ought to let Amano have her pacing. (Which I was finally able to do after the third reading ^^;;; )

Fans of the series in both its forms might be surprised how few characters there are in this first volume. Akari meets President Aria, a “Martian cat” who is as smart as a human and very large too, but can’t talk. He’s a fatty, and the hardest thing to get used to in this manga. My own reaction to him was, “that blob is supposed to be a cat??” Alicia is Akari’s boss, mentor and idol all in one. She is very kind and gentle and takes an immediate liking to Akari, not really affectionate, but mothering her nevertheless. Aria Company is very small, only Alicia and Akari for employees, but she’s nevertheless famous and highly-sought as an undine. Aika is another trainee from a rival company, an abrupt, totally practical girl, who is constantly bringing the dreamy Akari down to earth and completely idolizes Alicia for some reason. She and Akari strike up an immediate friendship and often practice together .

Some of Amano-sensei’s earlier works were pretty bland and mediocre (Crescent Noise, Ohi-sama Egao). With this series, she is breaking free of shoujo or shounen standard style, although she brings some of those details with her, too. The style is very clean and graphical, with little sketch-like approach at all. And although the characters are well-drawn and likeable, it’s the backgrounds that are breathtakingly spectacular. It’s pretty clear that Amano traveled to Venice at some point, and probably took hundreds of pictures for reference, or at least is using photos from somewhere. On nearly every page, there’s something that is quite clearly drawn “from life”, whether it’s famous St. Mark’s Square or just a dilapidated building, losing its plaster over the bricks.

This manga, whatever other charms it has (and it has a lot), is a love letter to Venice. And the famous landmarks are not highlighted in such a way as to make one think that they’re the point. No, they’re simply there, in the background, like the little throwaway details that Sudio Ghibli animates in their films, as Ebert noted in his Totoro review. Akari struggles to control her gondola…under the Bridge of Sighs or through the Grand Canal, without calling attention to it. It’s fabulous. I have to admit that it’s a little “orientalist” too. A futuristic, sci-fi setting and it’s in a replica of Venice down to the last brick? It’s as if Amano is saying that Venice is so weird, it might as well be the moon — or, well, mars. But of course, it allows her to do what she wishes with the story, make it as lovely as Venice should be, not to mention have gondoliers who are beautiful girls, not sweaty, hairy men.

Many of you already know that ADV, for reasons that pass understanding, already started to publish this series, but skipping to the sequel, Aria. The license was acquired by Tokyopop and they’re starting from the beginning this time. Aqua is only two volumes, and Aria is on it’s 11th volume and still continuing in Japan, so I’m hoping Tokyopop stays with it. Tokyopop is doing their usual job on this manga; the printing is consistent, very little of the tops and bottoms of pages are cut off (none of the dialogue or art is lost, don’t worry), and the translation is, so far as I checked, fairly good. They have not “localized” it too much, as they euphemize the horrible treatments publishers give some manga. However, I have to take exception to the cover. Why change the stately, widely-spaced roman title from the Japanese version to this logo-ed, sci-fi title font? Nitpicky, I know, but this shows the level of regard TP has for this manga, I think. They took the time to redesign a title, but for no good reason. Also, as usual, there are no colour pages in the interior at all. I used to dismiss this as cost-saving, since colour printing is prohibitive and would likely make manga jump from $10 to $12. However, Infinity manages to do it. They also manage to have dust covers, like the Japanese tankoubon have.

In the interest of full disclosure, yes: I am a fanboy of this series in all its forms. But I have to say that it took me FOUR tries to like it. I didn’t at first. But I would say that it’s well worth trying out. It’s hard to say who would like this manga, it’s so outside of the usual thing. Give it a go.

Got my DVD in the mail today and finished the series. No huge complaints, it was a fun ride. But having the English dub with the Japanese dub to compare with…I found an excellent example of the difference between them.

I apologise in advance if I start up a “sub-vs-dub” debate again. I am one who used to feel that whichever you encounter *first* usually ends up your favourite, but I am slowly coming to believe that Japanese actors/actresses are trying harder — and here’s why.

There are crowd scenes, of people running and screaming to get away from a Mikura. If you have the R1 DVD, switch between the English and Japanese at that point. It’s amazing the difference. In the English, the crowd sounds like they’re riding the log flume ride at the park. In the Japanese the crowd sounds like they’re in mortal fear of being eaten by a monster. There’s just no comparison between them. It’s like the difference between “Aaah. Oh dear oh dear, I might break a nail.” and “AAAAAGH!!! IT’S A FREEKEN DEMON, I’M GONNA DIE!!!!!” Listen to the actress playing Yoshiko (Chiba Saeko and Dorothy Fahn) after that point. Fahn *squeals*, I kid you not. Chiba sounds like she tore her vocal chords. She sounds like someone in actual fear for her life.

This, boys and girls, is what’s known as *believability* in acting, and it’s by far and away the biggest thing an actor/actress needs. It’s their stock-in-trade. If they’re not believable, then either, a) they’re not very good at their job or b) they’re being hamstrung by the Director. Are there good English anime dubs? Sure there are. I was always fairly impressed with the dub for Ghost in the Shell — although to be honest, not a whole lot of acting was required for Motoko or Batou. There are other good examples, though.

Not too long ago, Roger Ebert, in a review of a foreign film, remarked that watching a foreign movie dubbed in English took half of the actor’s performance away from him or her.  Half of what they do is their voice, the timbre, the intonation, the inflexion.  Why take that away from them?  And think about this: when any movie is dubbed, the script is completely re-written so that the words in English the dubbing actors are saying match the movements of the mouth of the actor on screen.  That means correct translation goes right out the window and you’re left with whatever fits.  And that sucks.

Sure, there are timing and length considerations in a subtitle.  But not as much.  I also keep hearing that “I don’t wanna read when I’m trying to enjoy a movie.” or “I have to read it once, then watch it again, to watch the movie.”  Perhaps this is true.  I know that not everyone is as fast a reader as I am.  But you are still denying yourself something by not making the effort.  Remember, easier is always worse.

I guess what I’m saying is, ANYTIME an existing product is re-dubbed for a new audience, things are lost. Dubs of French films, whatever. Please, people, do yourselves a favour and watch anime in it’s originally intended way. A little reading won’t kill you. Oh, you don’t want to mess up the experience by having to look down from the action and scenery to read? Well, why deny the figures onscreen half of their instrument? And with anime, ALL of it.

Title: Hourou Musuko (”The Transient Son” / 放浪息子)
Mangaka: Takako Shimura / 志村貴子
Originally Serialized in: Comic Beam (Enter Brain)
Scanlated by: Kotonoha

Nitori has always been a bit of a girly kind of boy. He likes to cook, he’s sensative and has little in common with the other 5th-grade boys. He’s even cuter than his older sister, Maho, who wants to be a model. Saori Chiba is a classmate who seems to understand him, but mostly just likes dressing him up. He strikes up a friendship with Takatsuki, a tall girl who is very much a tomboy and who everyone calls “Takatsuki-kun”. They meet and befriend a gorgeous woman, Yuki, who is actually a transsexual. All the while, Nitori is discovering how good he looks as a girl, and how much he likes it.

Hourou Musuko centers around elementary- and middle-school children, but is a seinen manga, targeted at college-age readers. Although the look back at school days relies heavily on nostalgia, the issues the characters are wrestling with are very adult. Nitori isn’t gay in the sense that he has no real idea of, or interest in, sexuality or romance. He is more interested in having friends, and likes acting and dressing as a girl. For both him and Takatsuki, their friends and families are loving and supportive, but there is some tension with the schoolmates acting in proscribed manners.

Things move slowly in this manga, focused on social situations and the feelings of the characters. It almost makes you think it’s sort of shoujo, but there’s little in the way of overwrought interior dialogue (or screentone, either). It’s a slice-of-life story and despite the sexually liminal nature of the plot, it still manages to capture the reader with distinct and heartwarming characterizations. The crossdressing makes me think of sexual roles versus sexual gender…and those two versus sexuality. Hourou Musuko is much more concerned with sexual roles in society than with mere titillation, which I liked very much.

Shimura employs a very clean style, but somehow manages to retain a sketchbook sort of look, making it look as if she had simply sat down and effortlessly sketched her perfectly cute faces–impossible, as those of you who do art well know. Art this effective is always the result of hard work, and it certainly shows here. Most of her panels leave out the background of any kind, once she has set up the scene. She is an obviously very accomplished artist, since her figure studies are realistic and foreshortening of limbs or bodies (a sure giveaway of an artist’s skill) is very well-done.

Kotonoha‘s scanlation is typically of high-quality for them, the whites are white and the blacks are clean black. The typesetting is well-suited to the style of the manga, while being easy to read. I highly recommend downloading this one.

Title: Blood Alone Volume One
Mangaka: Takano Masayuki
Serialized in: Dengeki Comics (Media Works)
Genre: seinen, supernatural, romance, slice of life, mystery
N. American license: Infinity Studios
Rating: 13+

Blood Alone revolves around a shoujo vampire (about 10 – 13 years old) named Misaki, and the man she lives with, Kuroe. His age is indeterminate so far, but he’s clearly past school age, a writer and part-time private eye. Despite this rather obviously lolicon situation, their relationship is a chaste one, even though they sleep in one bed together. Compounding the oddness of their arrangement, she has not made him into a will-less slave, a “Renfield” — which makes them unique in this milieu.

There is a lot more to Kuroe than meets the eye, however. Mysteries in his past and regarding his abilities are revealed slowly throughout the chapters. Although Misaki is “newly-turned”, a young vampire, she is protected by Higure, another child-vampire but one who is extremely old and powerful. Sainome, a police pathologist, is an old friend of Kuroe’s who sometimes asks him for help with odd or difficult cases.

This story is fun because it doesn’t focus solely on the action, nor does it sacrifice the action and mystery for the love story. Both are used effectively, sometimes one side in one chapter, sometimes the other, and a couple of times both are wound together in the plot.

Takano’s artwork is obviously influenced by shoujo style, but unlike some shoujo it is graphically clean, both when it confines itself to panels with borders and when it shifts to border-less pages. I thought this shifting quite innovative. Too often in shoujo manga, I find some scenes — especially action scenes — drawn too densely to see clearly what is happening. This is not a problem here. Misaki is always shown with a hint of her fangs, never letting the reader forget what she is. I would likely continue with this manga for the art alone, even if the story weren’t interesting.

Blood Alone volume two continues to develop the characters of, and relationship between, our adorable little vampiress and her detective-cum-writer. Takano continues to deftly balance the story on the edge of action and romance.Kuroe is taking on clients as a detective while Misaki visits Sainome. While Kuroe, once home again, is dreaming of his dead sister, Sainome tells Misaki other details about him, mixing into a delightful narrated look at his past. Misaki is jealous, but not nearly as jealous as the next chapter when it looks as if Kuroe has forgotten her in favor of an actress at a cocktail party. Higure, the child-like ancient vampire, makes another appearance, giving Kuroe some doubts about Misaki’s hunting habits. After a delightfully cute valentine’s story, Takano gives us a three-part story, that delves deeply into the various forces at play in this nighttime world the two lovers live in.

We are introduced to the “Einseigrad Sparuda” (The Crimson Sword), a group of vampires who are assassins for hire. They have been hired to kill an ex-assassin and Kuroe is hired to protect him, but the vampires have made the man’s own daughter into a “Renfield” (see my review of Blood Alone Vol. 1). By the time this extended action story gets going, both Kuroe and Misaki are involved. There’s no way I’m going to spoil it for anyone, but it’s exciting and well-worth the read.

Infinity’s production of the book is quite good, with no typesetting problems that I could see and the binding is top-rate — they didn’t skimp on the binding glue! I also appreciate that Infinity took the trouble to make a dust cover like the Japanese tankoubon have. The full-color cover and frontispiece add delightful touches. Blood Alone employs one break with manga tradition: black background borders do not indicate the past or flashbacks, but rather nighttime. Those borders fade from white to grey to black as the sun sets and vice versa in the morning, highlighting the danger to Misaki when she is inevitably caught outdoors.

I recommend Blood Alone highly. If I have any complaint, it’s perhaps that the 13+ rating might be a bit young — not due to violence or sex, but simply the subtlety itself. This runs in a seinen magazine, after all — college-age men’s publication. The story is delicate and most issues are handled subtly. Despite the lolicon situation, it is not played up at all, with zero use of fanservice whatsoever, which I appreciated. The action is actually exciting and Misaki is completely adorable.

Yoko is a high school girl with flaming red hair, going through life trying to please everyone, but inevitably failing. She is timid, deceitful, even cruel sometimes and she just wants to be liked and stay out of the spotlight. Unfortunately, living this way has the effect of making no real friends, and her red hair makes her teachers think she is a party girl who goes out at night. But suddenly, a strange man arrives with numerous monstrous creatures, turning her life upside-down and yanking her off to a strange place, and then promptly disappears. Yoko is left with a strange sword to fight for her survival in a world that mostly wants her dead. She is forced to deal with people without being able to hide behind social conventions, and as if that weren’t enough, a strange, blue, demonic monkey keeps appearing and playing on her fears and her despair.

The incredible richness of the fantasy world Yoko is thrown into draws in equal parts from modern realism, Japanese and Chinese mythology, and history. Yoko receives a sword with a jewel that functions also as a mirror, tying into the three treasures of Japanese mythology. Chinese mythology brings the story the Mandate of Heaven and the general cosmography.

Japanese writing in translation is typically a bit spare compared to the lavish descriptions Westerners are used to. This is largely due to the use of kanji, which convey a range of meanings, as opposed to the English language, which focuses on one right word out of many. However, Ono’s work here manages to give enough of the detail the reader wants so that the rich world of The Twelve Kingdoms comes quite alive. Few of the characters or plot points lose any of their expected vividness, and I often really did feel like I was there in the novel. The anime was routinely criticized for the confusing amount of terms that Ono made up for her world, but Tokyopop’s localization managed to balance the vocabulary well, so that when the reader is lost in the names, it is because Yoko herself is lost as well. In fact, the novel manages to remain accessible for both readers who don’t care about the Japanese language and readers who do by including kanji when a character is explaining something unfamiliar. I’m not so sure about TP’s decision to release this as a hardbound book since it might not “cross over” to regular young adult fiction like they think it might.

You don’t get the sense, fortunately, that Ono is trying to criticize modern life or government by proposing some pie-eyed return to a simpler time. This is not an allegory or even a rant against today’s society. If Ono has a point to make, it has more to do with how to live life on a personal level, that, as Shoryu says, one must first be master of one’s self before being a king…or indeed before being anything in life. Due to the blue monkey, Yoko frequently ponders moral issues and even religion’s influence on people at one point. If there is one obvious weakness in the novel, it is that the ending might seem slightly anti-climactic. Keep in mind: this is due to the fact that this is only the first book out of at least 6 that are planned by Tokyopop.

Comparisons with the anime will be unavoidable, and I certainly could not keep the images of the TV series out of my head completely, and the OST imposed itself frequently while I read. Much has been said about how the character of Asano is not expanded on in the novel, and how Sugimoto is a very minor character in the beginning, never seen again. This has the effect of increasing Yoko’s isolation and therefore increasing the dramatic impact of what she goes through. There are few other differences, however, making the question for the anime’s fans not “What happens next?” but rather, “How will Ono take us there?” Personally, I found the journey delightful.

I think that whether you are a fan of the anime or have never seen it and don’t want to, you will still enjoy this book enormously. The fact that the protagonist is a girl doesn’t, in my opinion, lessen the appeal this story would have to readers of both genders.

I recieved my copy of HP and the Deathly Hallows yesterday, and true to form, immediately spent all day and the night until 4 am reading it all the way through. Yes, I am a Harry Potter fan.

I realize this disqualifies me as an objective person regarding the Rowling oeuvre, but meh. But this isn’t going to be a slavishly slobbery ode to it. I certainly found weaknesses in it, to be sure. Fatal weaknesses? No.

I understand the many, many reviewers who have been disappointed with one thing or another, but I don’t think it’s necessary to lash out at the whole plot, book, Rowling or god. The problem is one encountered by Geo. Lucas with the Star Wars franchise. He made the mistake of divulging some hint of the whole structure of the thing. From that moment on, he was practically locked into completing it, considering the money everyone was printing off the whole concern. But the problem he ran into that I’m talking about is getting from point A to point Q, where the first story took place. A New Hope referred obliquely to a time of “peace and justice” in the galaxy, when the Jedi were in power. He had to get to a point where the galaxy was terrified of the psuedo-nazi Empire and the Old Republic was gone.

It’s all very well to say, oh I’ll get there–the mythological story-structures allow for a number of ways to get there, no worries. But then you actually have to DO it. And it never measures up to the imaginations of the fans.

Rowling was up against a similar thing. Although she had given no hints or leaks of what was going to happen in the end (and speculation was rife), the point is that she knew it, and she had to get from the death of Dumbledore to that point. Things are going to end up rushed. I know; I’m a writer too. You can make an outline and have a vague idea of what happens, but then you write it. And things go wrong.

And as a writer, I can tell you that well-established characters take on a life of their own in your head. You have this wonderfully tight outline written that will get there with drama and brevity without making it unreal…and then one of those characters pops up and says, “um, no. I wouldn’t do that. In fact, I’m going to do this.” “No, but…um, see this gets there better.” “I don’t care. I’m not doing that. In fact, I’m very angry about things and I’m going to leave.” “WHAT?? No! You can’t do that! That’ll add hundred pages to this thing! Wait–!!” Too late.

What does all this rambling have to do with the Deathly Hallows? Well, I really feel that Ms. Rowling got into those predicaments. Because there were a couple of things–not big things, mind you–that just seemed a little rushed or unrealistic. Now, don’t get me wrong. I thought it was a wonderful book, a fitting end to the HP saga. Rowling draws upon atmospheres of war from WWII that Americans never had to suffer: the bombings, the blitz, the near-invasions… Once you realize what and where she is taking her inspiration from, the deaths, the difficulties all make a great deal of sense.

I also think that Rowling avoided certain thematic comparisons not too badly. The comparison can still be made, but there’s equal evidence against it, for which I am especially happy. No, I’m not going to be more specific than that. No spoilers here. But don’t read the comments unless you want spoilers.

I can’t really say more without spoiling, so suffice it to say that I really liked it. Sad that it’s over, but knowing it was going to finish at 7 for years now has helped with that. For young adult fantasy fiction, Rowling has placed herself among the greats: Roald Dahl, Susan Cooper and Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

Yuno has been accepted to her dream school: Yamabuki Arts High School. To attend the school, Yuno moves and starts to live in a small apartment building named the Hidamari Apartments located near the school. Once there, she starts making new friends like her classmate Miyako and the second year students, Hiro and Sae. Surrounded by good friends, Yuno starts moving towards her dream of being an artist.

Now, if you think that description sounds familiar, in fact–hey, it’s from the ANN encyclopedia!– you’re right and that’s because I wrote it. So there. Now, you should know that my interest in anime has to do with 1) culture and 2) cuteness. This is why I am a slice-of-life anime and manga fan, and also why I tend to like moe a LOT. Hidamari Sketch has both. How could I NOT like it?

The apartments are a bit of an oddity to people in the West, so let me explain a little: Being an Arts School, and thus fairly unique, Yamabuki attracts students from all over the place, some of them from far enough away that a commute is impossible. The school purchased a block of flats across the street and now leases them to students who are in need. Over the years, what with high school students living on their own and all, the Hidmarai apts have garnered a reputation as the place where the truly weird live. Miyako fits that mold perfectly, I think.

The weird little creature in the anime has a lot of people confused, so I’ll let you know that it’s Ume Aoki (the original creator) in her cute little disguise that mangaka often use. It’s supposed to be a caterpillar. Ume-sensei’s voice is used in the anime, as the caterpillar and there is a fair amount of evidence that the story is auto-biographical. To be sure, Ume-sensei is really tiny, even by Japanese standards, and is a talented artist–just like Yuno. I’ve got a strong suspicion that Ume-sensei knew people just like the other characters when she went to a specialized arts high school.

Yuno is, in two words, freeken adorable. I have never felt that elusive emotion of moe more strongly than I do for this cute little girl. (Yes, I know she’s not real—shut up.) Like a lot of anime characters, she’s a bit lacking in character as the main character, but this allows the audience to sympathize more with the “blank slate” they see on screen. Her description on the official site says something about having a good connection between her left and right brain. The “left and right brain” thing is more in the zeitgeist of Japan than the West, so for those who don’t know; people with more coordination between right and left hemispheres of the brain, are seen as a bit smarter and better able to co-ordinate their creative and logical sides. This would make a great artist, among other possibilities.

Miyako is Yuno’s close friend, classmate, and next-door neighbor in the apartment building where they live. She has an active personality and is always trying to have fun with her friends. Her exuberance frequently borders on the childlike, but she is undeniably creative. She loves to eat and has frequently asked for Hiro’s leftovers when she is on one of her diets. She sometimes points out that Hiro may be gaining weight, which earns her a thump on the head by Hiro. Miyako’s energy is frequently excessive and misplaced. Her rent is 5,000 yen cheaper than that of the other girls because her apartment is in poor repair, which is fortunate because she has less money than the other girls most of the time. She has an eidetic memory。

Hiro is a year older than Yuno and Miyako, living directly under Yuno’s apartment. Although she tries to be a supportive senpai to the girls, she tends to worry excessively about her weight, causing her to go on diets for periods while occasionally binging on sweets. A childhood friend of Sae, but despite tons of fan speculation, there’s no evidence that she and Sae are lovers.

Sae is an upperclassman and good friends with Hiro. Her artistic specialties are photography and fiction writing; she writes fiction professionally under a pseudonym and enrolled at the school specifically so she could learn how to illustrate her own works. She takes her role as sempai seriously and has a habit of giving Yuno just enough warning about potential problems for the younger girl to fail to avoid them. Sae is very masculine in all kinds of ways and is easily embarrassed for being thought of as kind or soft in any way.

SHAFT did amazingly well with this short anime, although they were running behind quite a bit and the regular TV broadcast was sometimes little more than still frames with dialogue until a week later when the widescreen broadcast came out and they had it fixed. Their style was often artistic to the point of almost avant-garde, so it makes me wonder if there will be further refinements to the animation when the DVDs come out. The episodes are one day (or so) a month for 12 months of the year, but out of chronological order. Little changed with the characters in that time (there’s no “character arc”), so it’s more fun to show things in a random order. After all this fanboy-ism, do I need to point out that it’s wonderful? Go download it and watch it.

Umisho: From a Hattori Mitsuru manga, author of Inu Neko Jump! and Otogi no Machi no Rena. Mysterious, fey girl arrives in a small town and due to some history with the main character when they were kids, promptly becomes a typhoon in his life.  Amano (the girl) is an amazing swimmer and Kaname (the boy) is afraid of the water after some strange mermaid saved him from drowning when he was a child.  There is an array of truly strange characters around them, something Hattori does very well.  True to form, he excels at making the standard love-comedy fare entertaining, but seldom gets any deeper than that. Lots of nudity (not really shown, though), lots of our main character getting into situations and beaten around for them. What I think really sets Hattori-sensei’s stories apart, is the almost completely cheerful, extremely genki nature of his heroines. Despite how the whole thing sounds, the anime is managing to really do something right.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: SHAFT has taken a quirky, entertaining manga and turned it into a comedic work of art. Freeze-frame is absolutely essential to fully enjoying this anime. Each time the camera changes, there are new, odd things written on chalkboards and signs, all over the place. I imagine most of them are “in” jokes, since they were mostly very surreal. SZS is a study in how ultimate despair not only becomes silly, but also reverses itself and manages to instill hope. I am reminded of Risky/Safety, how the little devil was trying to make Moe despair, but ended up cheering her up, while the angel did the opposite. SHAFT is carving out a niche for themselves. They are a good-quality animation house, but not as good as ProIG or KyoAni. So, instead, they are making themselves known for quirky, artistic treatments like Hidamari Sketch–and they’re succeeding.

Sky Girls: Well, the best that can be said for this one is that it managed to capture me for a whole episode, and even keep me watching for the next time. The OVA bored the hell out of me, mostly because it was too centered on fanservice, with nothing else to make it interesting. Still, it’s a pretty tired retread of Jinki, Idolm@ster, etc, etc…

Moetan: I’ll admit, I was totally captured by the artwork of the original artist. I thought this was going to be cute enough to overcome the shallow plot. It isn’t. Ink-chan is amazingly cute and the seiyuu is doing a great job, but it’s not enough. The animation and writing are extremely thin. I’m dropping it.

Doujin Work: Total win. The comedy works, moves quickly, but not at the manic pace of Excel Saga and others where you don’t even have time to hear the joke, let alone understand it. I’ll admit moe is going to slay me almost every time, so I’m predisposed to like this one, but it’s also got a sense of humor that is just great.

Continuing: Seirei no Moribito, Bokurano, Lucky*Star and Dennou Coil continue to completely amaze me. This year in anime has been something to behold so far. There is so much good anime this year, I need to buy an external HD for storage, since I just can’t burn quickly enough to make room!