Flowers and Bees 2 and 3

Today is a happy day, as I got Flowers and Bees 2 and 3. I've been enjoying it, as Komatsu learns that getting some isn't the key to happiness. He also learns that innocent seeming girls aren't so innocent, that some women are swingers and that his friend can get hot trim even looking like a pig.

I also noted that drawing in pubic hair seems pretty naughty, and wonder what happened to the dudes in the World of Beautiful Men. I love the devil sisters- they are always doing something shocking and demeaning, not just to Komastu, but to complete and total strangers.

I'm also adding Flowers and Bees to my manga canons with condoms in them- Nana, Happy Mania, Flowers and Bees, Tramps Like Us...

Immature Shannon is happy

I'm happy that I got volumes 1-6 of Hana Kimi for $20 shipped, and volumes 2 and 3 of Flowers and Bees for $7 shipped. Hana Kimi seems to be setting up for a nice healthy gender bending romance. Something innocent and sweet after reading Bitter Virgin...

ETA: I enjoyed it so much, I totally forgot about the fact that I got a note in the box about how 15$ is almost 1500 yen, and will pay for food once manga seller moves to Japan. I felt guilty about spending $15 on manga. ;_;

Me again

I have to admit that while reading this post, I much prefered the 80s style art to that slick 00 style we have nowadays.

Bitter Virgin

Ok, I'm pretty creeped out. Before he learns she was raped, she's a 'pass', but afterwards, it's all love story from then. I'm not sure rape and abortion makes a good ground for a romance. I mean, what is the attraction? "The girl who is hard to get'? The thought that he can 'save' her from her past? I'm not sure that's healthy. Of course, I think it's uncomfortable for me because even when reading manga with plots including rape, like Nana, or child abuse, like Fruits Basket or Kare Kano, we have a whole lot of time to get acquainted with the characters before the heavy stuff hits, so it doesn't come off as the typical 'excuse plot' to get people together. By that time, the story has grown beyond its premise and become it's own.

An additional Persona 3 note: Even on a second play through, I feel weirded out that MC is in a love triangle including a robot.

This AMV[ignore the silly look at my AMV group credits] is full of spoilers for Persona 3 but pretty good anyway.

Another fanfiction review

This Akihiko/Mitsuru story is a bit sappy in parts, but otherwise well written. I prefer the two of them as friends, but this story managed to sell them as romantic partners.

There seems to be something almost totally nonerotic about this S&M guide. But I can't put my finger on it.

Flowers and Bees

I got Flowers and Bees vol 1 and nearly died laughing. Oh, the duct tape scene. *shudders* I also like how his trying too hard gets him women who are exactly like him. Poor guy. Hahahhaah.

Persona 3 Manga

The fact that the Persona 3 manga skips around the story line, sometimes bringing scenes from The Answer, into it is confusing at first, but then strengthens the narrative. There's also some extra scenes, such as Fuuka's thoughts while awakening her Persona which strengthen the sense of character here.

I wish they could bring over the Persona manga to the US, but I guess the market is too limited.

AND STREGA ARRIVES

Fen of Color

United in awesome! Let's create racewin!

why am I so behind?

What is this gloriousness? Oh, high speed internet, I love you.

Set Phasers on Awesome! w/ Spoilers

I watched the Star Trek movie and it was great. I thought I had forgotten all of my Star Trek knowledge, but then I was like, everyone knows that Captain Kirk was the only person to pass the Koboyashi Maru[sp?] and thinking 'hey, why aren't those red shirts wearing red shirts', so I guess I must have retained almost all of the information I had.

I tried to remember that the physical rules of the Star Trek universe are different from ours. Because really...I'm not sure things would explode that pretty in space, and really, how did they avoid being sucked into those black holes? Also, I think that movie!Spock, movie!Kirk and movie!Uhuru in any combination is my OT3, even though I must ponder what's with my love of OTXs and what's with all the het pairings. I know everyone's like engage thrusters on K/S, but...

I was glad that it wasn't overly violent. When I'm playing a game, I'll be like 'eh, this game is too happy. Dead corpses hanging upside down? Eh, where's the fountains of blood and coffins everywhere?" But when seeing a movie in a theater, I really don't feel comfortable. Maybe it's because I think small children should see less violence nowadays, and many parents think *every* movie is appropriate for kids.

Of course, the whole time travel business made me think 'are they going to incorporate a time loop?' But then again...I may have played too much Final Fantasy- both 1 and 8 had time loops as plot devices.

Also,some of those girls in the background had some nice fros.

Also, the whole 'you're a child of two worlds, Spock' thing annoyed me because I don't like the undertone that mixed race[although here it's mixed species] people are necessarily caught between two worlds. Some biracial people identify with more one than the other, some identify with something totally different. And even monoracial people are children of many worlds.

Charm School

I read Charm School. A nice light romance, but marred by the decision to make Blanchette a sort of you go girl voodoo priestess at times. It reminds me of how YU + Me was sometimes marred with the 'sucky culturally inaccurate ebonics' noted in comic 597 here.[will get permanent link soon]. Remember people, we have enough ebonics speaking black best girl friends from central casting to last us for a life time. Even if your characters get more fleshed out eventually, starting out with the stereotype makes a lot of people roll their eyes and say...NEXT.

I love a good lesbian romance, and I'm your target audience people. So don't turn me off with that mess,ok?

Dreamwidth

I opened a dreamwidth account to archive any fanfiction that I can't post on FF.net because it may offend goodness and decency.

Ok, in Rin Ne, I like that at least they are filling out the character of supernatural boy love interest X by giving him a poor background.

We're having a good conversation on the gamers of color group here.

Also, wow, they were actually in before I had anal without lube or prep.

The upside

is that people are working so hard to think about inclusion in digital spaces.

Also, even though Takahashi's new manga isn't too exciting, the fact that it's free means that I'll come back tomorrow to see what happens next.

I'm glad to see

that you can put the guys in swimsuits in Persona 3. Elizabeth, the chivalry shirt[a loose shirt with shorts] is NOT the equivalent of the high cut armor[a battle one piece].

More I like this fic

I like this fic because it's not so much a pairing fic so the relationship does not have to be distorted. I thought Yukari went on a few sentences too long about the Arcana, but I enjoyed the integration of gameplay into the story here. Not forgetting that we spend a massive part of the game in a giant tower killing shadows instead of trying to hump our team members.

Why I don't read superhero comics

I mean, if folks say just don't read our comic books, I'm going to take you up on it. I have a limited budget for comics and I can fill all of it with indies and manga. At least I can get my stories[some sexist to be sure] without the president of the company telling me to shut up and go away.

Carol Lay and the Fat

I'm always late on the train. I was reading the sample chapter of Carol Lay's book about fat and the first thing I thought of was 'man, that's a whole lot of time and effort spent on eating every day. A whole lot of mind space spent on ticking off how many calories an orange has.' With the amount of time and energy we spend on weight loss, we could have set up colonies on Mars by now. My second thought was 'Too bad Random House didn't pick up her awesome comics that she's been drawing for years and collect them'. I understand that the American appetite for books on weight loss is insatiable, but man is it disappointing to hear yet another story about fat thighs when Carol has told so many other interesting and amazing stories.

Also, I was reading the American Failure blog, and I thought 'this guy is way too optimistic about most folks.' In this post on video games, he gets two things wrong. First, video games are not just young men anymore. Second, there's an underlying assumption that these guys could obtain any actual real success in life with years of effort. Of course, the problem is that the bar for success is way too high for some people to reach, even with years of effort.

In a world with so many variables, some people are going to be stuck with less than optimal abilities. Something taking them years of effort may be considered total crap by everyone else. For example, it would be a big achievement for me to go into a kitchen without causing havoc and chaos, but for everyone else, that's extremely easy. I guess what I mean is that the effort is too high for the return on investment.

What if greasy Cheetos boy spends years trying to be able to run a mile? Would he really be better off than if he played video games for all that time, had fun with some pals, and wasn't able to run a mile?*


*I can't run a mile, actually. And it would probably take me years to be able to. Scoff if you will.

Goofing Off.

Yay, Persona 4 manga. *enjoys*

Legend of Zelda manga..me want. Remember the full color comics in Nintendo Power though?

I am geeking out over the pencil line shading of necks in Kare Kano today.

PS2, forever

or at least until they drop the prices of these next gen systems! I hope Persona 5 is on the PS2 because I got my PS2 for $100 and can play zillions of games on it. Lack of money can be a real problem for the multi hobbied person. New board games are $50 at the lowest a lot of the time, manga is often $8 a pop, and of course, video games are at least $20 each.

I'm sorely behind on all my hobbies, as well. I'm stuck in 2003 as far as anime, and I only beat FFX at the start of this year...

More skip beat..

I've fallen in love with how the skip beat mangaka depicts hair. The use of white space at just the right place to give it tone and texture... It's really nice...especially in volumes 11 and 12...

Free Comic Book Day

Etsy covers free comic book day. I therefore learn that Dame Darcy has a shop.

In a painful case of overbuying, I picked up Skip Beat 18 and Nana 16.

Skip Beat 18 had enough bits about Ren and Kyoko's past and Kyoko learning about how to really act that I didn't mind the Ren/Kyoko romance or the general lack of Sho. Ren and Kyoko are OK as a sort of background couple, but eh, they don't seem to have much chemistry.

Nana 16 was quite satisfying as usual. It had a lot of the themes I enjoy- such as the difference of the dream of being in a band and the reality, how people drift apart over time, etc. The glimpses of the future often confuse me though. A nice extra manga with Nobuo's past explored is included in this volume.

I'm such a tomboy, floop de doop.

Now, I love tomboy characters. Dress a girl up as a boy, and man, I love it. But there's no reason to go on and on about how you were such a tomboy whenever some idiot goes on about how all girls love pink and princesses. If the person can't get it through their head from real life, a million comments on how ungirly we were won't do it.

Now, I don't generally like feminine stuff myself, although today I realized that it's not so much girly stuff I hate, but girly stuff that requires sitting still and being looked at. I'm cool if it's making a ten course meal using only cabbages and salt or let's all go and save the homestead using only a needle, thread and one reluctant cow, but stuff like "I sat around and removed my hair. Then I dressed in some Jimmy Choo stilettos, and nothing else but saran wrap because I wanted to be fresh to impress my man so he could give me moneys' bores me to death.