Oct. 22nd, 2008

meganbmoore: (Default)
1.  There is a reason you  brave H.E.B.'s parking lot when you crave deli meats, instead of the more-accessible Wal-Mart:  Wal-Mart's idea of "thin sliced" is "slightly thinner slabs."

2.  Clean out refrigerator this afternoon.  (Please tell me I'm not the only person who lives alone who doesn't always immediately clean out the stuff that goes bad because you don't quite eat it in time, even though you try to buy smaller portions.)

3.  Call brother when you get home from lunch to find out what on Earth his message on the machine was saying.

Meanwhile, I think the temperature went down 15 degrees while I was in Wal-Mart.

Re:  work discount for apartment complex.  Since the new lease only went into effect this month, they'll give me a new one with the discount with no charge.  However, they changed electric providers, and the new one bilss the complex per-unit, not per-building, so we pay electric separately, but still to the apt. complex, not having to set up our own electric.  Supposedly, this will be cheaper for me, living alone, but I'm a bit leery.
meganbmoore: (strange girl)
No, I don’t think I’ll be reading more of this. Here’s the thing (actually, there are many “things”) the setup here is that Our Heroine has spent her entire life trying to beat Our Hero at something. Anything. No matter what it is, though, he always wins. Effortlessly. There’s no question that he’ll do better at everything without even trying. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I see someone trying that hard to succeed with the “opposition” not putting any effort into it, I want to root for them. Usually, the text will agree with that, and support them, even if it doesn’t let them achieve their goals.

This text, however, says that that’s silly. In fact, it says that it’s silly for Hikari to want to be the best. Even worse, it says it’s silly for her to be trying to beat a guy. Kei calls her a moron. The text calls her an idiot. This is supposed to be cute. Except, it isn’t even meant to be teasing. We’re supposed to be seeing Hikari as being dumb, both for trying to beat Kei, and for not getting that Kei likes her. And we’re supposed to feel sorry for Kei because Hikari “doesn’t get it.” I’m not sure why I should root for Kei, or why I should expect Hikari to “get it.”   Pretty much every chapter is a rinse and repeat of Hikari wanting something (whether to beat Kei at somerthing, or to help someone) the text calling her an idiot as she energetically goes about it, Kei calling her a moron/"Number 2" when she crosses his path, and he "fixes" things, and everyone going "Poor Kei, Hikari still doesn't get it.  Poor guy has no luck."

There’s no reason for Hikari to “get it.” All Kei ever does is make sure she understands that she’s second best, and that he’s smarter and better than she is. He may get upset when other people disrespect Hikari, but he certainly doesn’t respect her himself, and that’s the clincher. He doesn’t respect her, and neither does the text.

There are plenty of things to like here (Hikari, the crazy antics of the class-though I get very annoyed at how only Hikari ever studies-the random fits of insanity, and even “clueless girl who doesn’t get that stiff guy is mad for her,” and Kei's fixation on Hikari[at times...it was less charming here than in the first two volumes]) but I can get them all in other manga. Manga that doesn’t tell me that girls are second best to boys, shouldn’t try to be as good as or better than boys, and that it’s ok to look down on girls who want to be as good as boys because the girl will beat the boy in the end. It had a lot of potential, and it does pull some of it off, but the overall handling and message is a major turnoff.

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