...

I have been told I think 5 times, each by people who, to my knowledge, don't know each other(heck, they aren't even all active on lj)  that I need to write specific fanfic.  Crackfic, actually.

One of these suggestions, BTW, would involve massively heavy drinking on my part, and I am far too fond of my liver.

This is not including a convo about what could be the most cracktastic crossoverfic idea ever for Gundam Wing and Avatar, which involved Trowa and Ty Lee having super acrobat mecha flying babies and Mai and Zuko babysitting them.

*has no idea what to think of this recent phenomenon*

...

I have been told I think 5 times, each by people who, to my knowledge, don't know each other(heck, they aren't even all active on lj)  that I need to write specific fanfic.  Crackfic, actually.

One of these suggestions, BTW, would involve massively heavy drinking on my part, and I am far too fond of my liver.

This is not including a convo about what could be the most cracktastic crossoverfic idea ever for Gundam Wing and Avatar, which involved Trowa and Ty Lee having super acrobat mecha flying babies and Mai and Zuko babysitting them.

*has no idea what to think of this recent phenomenon*

Lovers eps 8-20(the end)

Despite the fact that a giant chunk of the last episode seemed like unneccessary dragging to fill up an hour of angst(which, frankly, is the case with every modern kdrama I've seen, so I'm not holding that against it) this remained good to the end, even though I called most plot developments well in advance.  It had every element of kdramas that I dislike, but instead of my having to handwave and look past them, a la My Girl and Spring Waltz, they actually made them work, primarily in regards to the traditional kdrama love square, and the secondary characters.  A lot of what I'd say about the leads, romance, and overall plot, I already said in other posts *points to tag* so instead, I'm going to focus in a couple things I touched on, but want to go into more now that I've finished it.

( as unspoilery as I can make it )

Short version:  Very good drama, both as a romance and a relationship drama.  It has its share of flaws, but most of them I got past without any hand waving.  

I shall try Lovers in Paris shortly, and we shall see if kdramas work better for me now than they have in the past, or if I just lucked into two of the rare ones that do work for me.

That said, looking at the elements of various kdramas that I HAVE enjoyed, I've realized that while the drawn out melodrama and love squares and the manipulation into disliking characters don't work for me, comedy in kdramas works very, very well for me .  Even Goong, which I have far more issues with than I'll ever get into in LJ(most of which have never made it to LJ, comments, post or otherwise) because I'd rather spend the typing time praising something, was borderline brilliant when it dumped the drama and went for comedy(I may have liked it as a comedy, actually) and has one comedy scene that's possibly my favorite kdrama comedy scene ever.

Lovers eps 8-20(the end)

Despite the fact that a giant chunk of the last episode seemed like unneccessary dragging to fill up an hour of angst(which, frankly, is the case with every modern kdrama I've seen, so I'm not holding that against it) this remained good to the end, even though I called most plot developments well in advance.  It had every element of kdramas that I dislike, but instead of my having to handwave and look past them, a la My Girl and Spring Waltz, they actually made them work, primarily in regards to the traditional kdrama love square, and the secondary characters.  A lot of what I'd say about the leads, romance, and overall plot, I already said in other posts *points to tag* so instead, I'm going to focus in a couple things I touched on, but want to go into more now that I've finished it.

( as unspoilery as I can make it )

Short version:  Very good drama, both as a romance and a relationship drama.  It has its share of flaws, but most of them I got past without any hand waving.  

I shall try Lovers in Paris shortly, and we shall see if kdramas work better for me now than they have in the past, or if I just lucked into two of the rare ones that do work for me.

That said, looking at the elements of various kdramas that I HAVE enjoyed, I've realized that while the drawn out melodrama and love squares and the manipulation into disliking characters don't work for me, comedy in kdramas works very, very well for me .  Even Goong, which I have far more issues with than I'll ever get into in LJ(most of which have never made it to LJ, comments, post or otherwise) because I'd rather spend the typing time praising something, was borderline brilliant when it dumped the drama and went for comedy(I may have liked it as a comedy, actually) and has one comedy scene that's possibly my favorite kdrama comedy scene ever.

random manga bits

1.  rightstuf.com is having a sale on all Viz anime and manga.  40% off anime, 33% off manga.  Codeword and link to the sale items are on the fron mapge.  If I order(don't know if I can, yet) it'll probably be mostly preorders.

2. rilinais hosting an anime/manga families thing here.  Please note the bit about how to hide spoilers in the main post. Nomination categories are:

1. Worst Father Figure in Anime/Manga
2. Most Tragically Dead Mother in Anime/Manga
3. Most Heartbreaking Sibling Relationship in Anime/Manga

3.  In other news, it looks like some US distributors are starting to crack down on sites that have scanslations.  My regular site was just forced to take down all the titles licensed by Tokyopop and Digital Manga Publishing, and seems to be revamping everything.  Don't know if it's having any effect on the individual scanslation teams's sites though, or if it's just the big ones.  Personally...well, as far as I'm concerned, read/DL something online, fine, but if you've done so and it's licensed, you buy the product, and as I know a lot of people DON'T buy the product because they can read or watch online, I can't exactly disapprove.  On the other hand...that's now I get my fodder for icons and pimp posts.  Anyway, could just be the one site, could spread, who knows.  I suspect a lot of titles will start disappearing in different places, though.

random manga bits

1.  rightstuf.com is having a sale on all Viz anime and manga.  40% off anime, 33% off manga.  Codeword and link to the sale items are on the fron mapge.  If I order(don't know if I can, yet) it'll probably be mostly preorders.

2. rilinais hosting an anime/manga families thing here.  Please note the bit about how to hide spoilers in the main post. Nomination categories are:

1. Worst Father Figure in Anime/Manga
2. Most Tragically Dead Mother in Anime/Manga
3. Most Heartbreaking Sibling Relationship in Anime/Manga

3.  In other news, it looks like some US distributors are starting to crack down on sites that have scanslations.  My regular site was just forced to take down all the titles licensed by Tokyopop and Digital Manga Publishing, and seems to be revamping everything.  Don't know if it's having any effect on the individual scanslation teams's sites though, or if it's just the big ones.  Personally...well, as far as I'm concerned, read/DL something online, fine, but if you've done so and it's licensed, you buy the product, and as I know a lot of people DON'T buy the product because they can read or watch online, I can't exactly disapprove.  On the other hand...that's now I get my fodder for icons and pimp posts.  Anyway, could just be the one site, could spread, who knows.  I suspect a lot of titles will start disappearing in different places, though.

jmovie: Dororo

Ah, Japan...you and your "just like manga"(because it's based on one) insane samurai-ish shonen action movies whose sole purpose is to make everyone who sees it run around screaming "CCCCRRRRRAAAAACCCCCCKKKKKK!!!  SWORD WEILDING MONSTER FIGHTING EMOTASTIC CCCCCCCRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!"

In this case, our emotastic hero is Hyakki-maru, also known as Dororo.  Years ago, Hyakki-maru's father, with half a dozen arrows sticking out of his back that he didn't seem to notice, made a deal with some demons:  If he gave them his unborn son's body, they would give him the ability to conquer the world.  He was pretty cool with this.  (Wait, DIDN'T I JUST READ SOMETHING WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER'S FATHER SOLD HIS UNBORN FOR POWER???  *sigh*)  When the baby was born, he only had a head and torso, and was alive despite missing all of his organs.  Mom saved him from dad and sent him down a river, Moses style, and he was found by Mad Scientist Medicine Man, who then used alchemy(I think) to turn the bodies of dead children into limbs and organs for Hyakki-maru.  In Hyakki-maru's fake arms, he installs two swords, one of which makes things blow up, and Hyakki-maru can remove the fake arms to fight, and then reattach them.  When grown, Hyakki-maru sets off to find and slay the 48 demons who have hios various body parts.  As he kills each one, the body part the demon has regrows on his own body.  Along the way, he meets a female thief who pretends to be a boy, who refuses to tell him her name, but decides she likes "Dororo."  She wants the exploding sword so she can get revenge for the death of her family.  They go on many adventures and make many demons blow up, set to jaunty music(I'm particularly fond of the Noh masked tree demon that spewed sakura feathers at them.) 

Naturally, of course, they must have a Big Conflict to wrap the movie up, and we learn that it was scum!Dad who killed Dororo's family.  WOE! EMO! ANGST!  Cue much drama and  fighting and and utterly awesome final fight.

Yes, it's cheap entertainment, but it's MASSIVELY ENTERTAINING cheap entertainment.

PEOPLE!  He removes his arms to fight!  When he gets his real body parts back, the fake ones either fall off or get puked up and then disintegrate!  Not only is he cool with his girlfriend taking his name and going around acting like a boy, he actually calls her a boy(probably because he gets kneed if he treats her like a girl, and he apparently got that part back inbetween the origin story and the main action)!  He rides bird demons! He battles 30 foot tongues!  He fights demons who SPEW SAKURA PETALS!  And his WOE! EMO! ANGST! MANPAIN! moments were glorious, as only manga and things based on manga can be.

Oh, and it has Eita.  Eita is always a nice bonus.  Especially as I wasn't expecting him to randomly appear halfway through.

Also, I think the girl who played Dororo must just enjoy genderbending roles...I'm pretty sure she played the Historical Personage of Questionable Gender(in the movie, male in history) in Taitei no Ken.

Uhm...he has 24 body parts left to find.  I demand a sequel.

Incidentally, there are TWO MANGA with this plot...there's also a manga called Madara...I investigated when I first heard of Dororo and found 2 different series.  So either two people in this world came up with that plot, or there's a mangaka out there with an awesome but limited imagination.

jmovie: Dororo

Ah, Japan...you and your "just like manga"(because it's based on one) insane samurai-ish shonen action movies whose sole purpose is to make everyone who sees it run around screaming "CCCCRRRRRAAAAACCCCCCKKKKKK!!!  SWORD WEILDING MONSTER FIGHTING EMOTASTIC CCCCCCCRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!"

In this case, our emotastic hero is Hyakki-maru, also known as Dororo.  Years ago, Hyakki-maru's father, with half a dozen arrows sticking out of his back that he didn't seem to notice, made a deal with some demons:  If he gave them his unborn son's body, they would give him the ability to conquer the world.  He was pretty cool with this.  (Wait, DIDN'T I JUST READ SOMETHING WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER'S FATHER SOLD HIS UNBORN FOR POWER???  *sigh*)  When the baby was born, he only had a head and torso, and was alive despite missing all of his organs.  Mom saved him from dad and sent him down a river, Moses style, and he was found by Mad Scientist Medicine Man, who then used alchemy(I think) to turn the bodies of dead children into limbs and organs for Hyakki-maru.  In Hyakki-maru's fake arms, he installs two swords, one of which makes things blow up, and Hyakki-maru can remove the fake arms to fight, and then reattach them.  When grown, Hyakki-maru sets off to find and slay the 48 demons who have hios various body parts.  As he kills each one, the body part the demon has regrows on his own body.  Along the way, he meets a female thief who pretends to be a boy, who refuses to tell him her name, but decides she likes "Dororo."  She wants the exploding sword so she can get revenge for the death of her family.  They go on many adventures and make many demons blow up, set to jaunty music(I'm particularly fond of the Noh masked tree demon that spewed sakura feathers at them.) 

Naturally, of course, they must have a Big Conflict to wrap the movie up, and we learn that it was scum!Dad who killed Dororo's family.  WOE! EMO! ANGST!  Cue much drama and  fighting and and utterly awesome final fight.

Yes, it's cheap entertainment, but it's MASSIVELY ENTERTAINING cheap entertainment.

PEOPLE!  He removes his arms to fight!  When he gets his real body parts back, the fake ones either fall off or get puked up and then disintegrate!  Not only is he cool with his girlfriend taking his name and going around acting like a boy, he actually calls her a boy(probably because he gets kneed if he treats her like a girl, and he apparently got that part back inbetween the origin story and the main action)!  He rides bird demons! He battles 30 foot tongues!  He fights demons who SPEW SAKURA PETALS!  And his WOE! EMO! ANGST! MANPAIN! moments were glorious, as only manga and things based on manga can be.

Oh, and it has Eita.  Eita is always a nice bonus.  Especially as I wasn't expecting him to randomly appear halfway through.

Also, I think the girl who played Dororo must just enjoy genderbending roles...I'm pretty sure she played the Historical Personage of Questionable Gender(in the movie, male in history) in Taitei no Ken.

Uhm...he has 24 body parts left to find.  I demand a sequel.

Incidentally, there are TWO MANGA with this plot...there's also a manga called Madara...I investigated when I first heard of Dororo and found 2 different series.  So either two people in this world came up with that plot, or there's a mangaka out there with an awesome but limited imagination.

BEST! SEPPUKU! EVER!

I am watching the anime Hakkenden, and in the second episode, the father of the hero(well, one of the heroes...there are 8...but if I recall the drama correctly, and it follows the "lead" pattern, he's the main one) decides to commit seppuku rather than hand over a sword.  Except his son is there and, to keep him from interfering, he tosses his son  facedown on the ground, then sits on him in the proper position and properly executes the seppuku despite the screaming and flailing teen under him, ending with the kid staring in horror at the fountain of blood around him(yes, it was a fountain.)


Ok, maybe not the bet seppuku ever, but I am mightily impressed that he managed to pull it off properly under those conditions.  And the fountain of blood.  I'm always surprised when a person has that much blood in them.

BEST! SEPPUKU! EVER!

I am watching the anime Hakkenden, and in the second episode, the father of the hero(well, one of the heroes...there are 8...but if I recall the drama correctly, and it follows the "lead" pattern, he's the main one) decides to commit seppuku rather than hand over a sword.  Except his son is there and, to keep him from interfering, he tosses his son  facedown on the ground, then sits on him in the proper position and properly executes the seppuku despite the screaming and flailing teen under him, ending with the kid staring in horror at the fountain of blood around him(yes, it was a fountain.)


Ok, maybe not the bet seppuku ever, but I am mightily impressed that he managed to pull it off properly under those conditions.  And the fountain of blood.  I'm always surprised when a person has that much blood in them.

Lover Revealed by J.R. Ward

So, my feelings about the romance here can be summed up by a few lines from this review(which is a "backstage" discussion between the characters):

Butch: Me, too. This “your angst, my angst” thing is way tiring, you feel me?

Marissa: Frankly, I’m a little tired of feeling you. You’re all up my skirt with lust ahoy and then in the next chapter, if it’s not about some blonde baby powder monster man, you’re freaking out about your own worth or some shit, so you get drunk and you blow me off.

Butch: Hey, that’s how it’s written.

Marissa: I’m just saying, if I were an actual woman, I’d have kicked your ass to the curb by now with this, “I want you so much my balls are on fire but I’m not worthy of you” routine. You go get drunk off your ass and whine for awhile while I consider my perfect yet lonely life? Boring.

Butch: What can I say? I’m a sensitive man beneath a crusty exterior, both of which are intimidated by your beauty and perfection.

Marissa: Perfection? Please! I’ve never had an orgasm and don’t know what my vagina is for. 

Yup, that's basically the best explanation for the romance.

But really, never before have I seen an author so cheerfully, rabidly and shamelessly rip into her genre of choice.  Lately, I have been pondering her writing method.  My current theory is that she turns on Buffy(probably season 6) whips out a couple bad vampire romance novels to read, starts downing vodka, takes note of the worst cheesy cliche things, downs some more vodka, and then goes at it.

As much as she mocks her books(and cheerfully admits the heroines are Mary Sues and that Butch is a Gary Stu--THE ULTIMATE GARY STU!!) and vampire romances in general, I will never in this lifetime be convinced that it's not all deliberate.

Then there's her author's pic in the back.  It scares me.  Ward stares out at me like "llllooooookkkk aaaatttt mmmmmeeeee...I will devour your soul and make you read my books for all eternity."  It explains all the rabid fans who think they're reading high quality vampire romances.  As opposed to deliberately bad ones viciously ripping into everything about the genre.  Which is why the people who I know read them(without understandably fleeing in terror) do read them.  Because if you don't flee in terror THEN THERE IS NO ESCAPE FOR YOU! EVER!  YOU WILL READ AND STARE AT THE BOOKS FOR ALL ETERNITY WONDERING WHAT ON EARTH YOU'RE READING!!!

( In all seriousness, though... )

I'd say I want my soul back, but then I'd miss the sheer, viscious crack.

Lover Revealed by J.R. Ward

So, my feelings about the romance here can be summed up by a few lines from this review(which is a "backstage" discussion between the characters):

Butch: Me, too. This “your angst, my angst” thing is way tiring, you feel me?

Marissa: Frankly, I’m a little tired of feeling you. You’re all up my skirt with lust ahoy and then in the next chapter, if it’s not about some blonde baby powder monster man, you’re freaking out about your own worth or some shit, so you get drunk and you blow me off.

Butch: Hey, that’s how it’s written.

Marissa: I’m just saying, if I were an actual woman, I’d have kicked your ass to the curb by now with this, “I want you so much my balls are on fire but I’m not worthy of you” routine. You go get drunk off your ass and whine for awhile while I consider my perfect yet lonely life? Boring.

Butch: What can I say? I’m a sensitive man beneath a crusty exterior, both of which are intimidated by your beauty and perfection.

Marissa: Perfection? Please! I’ve never had an orgasm and don’t know what my vagina is for. 

Yup, that's basically the best explanation for the romance.

But really, never before have I seen an author so cheerfully, rabidly and shamelessly rip into her genre of choice.  Lately, I have been pondering her writing method.  My current theory is that she turns on Buffy(probably season 6) whips out a couple bad vampire romance novels to read, starts downing vodka, takes note of the worst cheesy cliche things, downs some more vodka, and then goes at it.

As much as she mocks her books(and cheerfully admits the heroines are Mary Sues and that Butch is a Gary Stu--THE ULTIMATE GARY STU!!) and vampire romances in general, I will never in this lifetime be convinced that it's not all deliberate.

Then there's her author's pic in the back.  It scares me.  Ward stares out at me like "llllooooookkkk aaaatttt mmmmmeeeee...I will devour your soul and make you read my books for all eternity."  It explains all the rabid fans who think they're reading high quality vampire romances.  As opposed to deliberately bad ones viciously ripping into everything about the genre.  Which is why the people who I know read them(without understandably fleeing in terror) do read them.  Because if you don't flee in terror THEN THERE IS NO ESCAPE FOR YOU! EVER!  YOU WILL READ AND STARE AT THE BOOKS FOR ALL ETERNITY WONDERING WHAT ON EARTH YOU'RE READING!!!

( In all seriousness, though... )

I'd say I want my soul back, but then I'd miss the sheer, viscious crack.