comics: Witchblade #118-123, Captain America #43-46

I read these a few weeks ago and wrote them up, and then completely forgot to post on them.  I'm sorry, beloved U.S. comivd that I actually still read!  i swear that I didn't do it deliberately!

( Witchblade )

( Captain America )

anime: Speed Grapher eps 1-12

In the near future, Tatsumi Saiga is a war photographer who found pleasure in death. Now back in Japan, he’s a photojournalist uncovering corruption. While investigating an illegal nightclub that caters to the most depraved sensibilities of Japan’s upper class, he discovers a ceremony where a young girl called the Goddess kisses men, awakening in them the ability to make their true desires reality. When Saiga is discovered, she kisses him and asks him to save her. Saiga’s desire is to truly kill with his camera, and now anything he takes a picture of explodes. (Best shounen power ever?)

The Goddess is Kagura, a physically and emotionally mistreated girl who thinks the nightclub is a horrible dream. Perhaps the only redeeming quality her mother has is that she doesn’t know her lover, Suitengu, takes Kagura to the nightclub and lets the men there do “horrible things” (according to Kagura) there, and is mad enough when she thinks Kagura only snuck out and learned the club even existed.

After the initial arc of Saiga rescuing Kagura, the series devolved for a bit into random Euphorics who Kagura had given abilities to trying to capture them, but seems to have returned to the main plot with the last few episodes. I both disliked and was bored by the first episode, which featured Saiga’s background and search for the club, but was more interested when we got to the second episode and Kagura’s background. The series literally makes me physically uncomfortable, and the opening credits alone exceed my squick and fanservice levels. It’s ridiculously fanservice-y at times 9and then not at all at others), and parts of it are an endless barrage of bondage, molestation, and “kinks.” Despite this, Kagura and Saiga are engaging leads, and the core plot underneath all the fetishism is interesting, with genetic engineering and secret parents and girls who can awaken secret abilities.

Even more than the molestation of fetishism overkill, though, what bugs me is how, so far, virtually every female character but Kagura is an evil psycho. The only exception so far is the woman who ran a bathhouse they stayed at while they were on the run. The one that seriously burns, though, even more than “mother who abuses her child and is obsessively jealous and paranoid of her,” though, is Ginza, the badass cop who’s in love with Saiga. I can’t help but think that, is Ginza were a man, her unrequited love would still be unhealthy, but the character would be tragic and sympathetic, which fits with the show’s general portrayal of men so far, the creepier Euphorics aside. Instead, Ginza is psychotic, obsessive, pathetic ,and eventually a betrayer and rapist. Which fits the show’s portrayal of women.

Episode12 also has what may be one of the more creepifying plot twists I’ve encountered in anime. [spoilers] As near as I can tell, Suitengu is Kagura’s father, or at least a new being in the body of what used to be Kagura’s father, which was operated on after his death to somehow represent everyone who died in battle. After Kagura’s mother orders Kagura and Suitengu killed for betraying her (Suitengu did, Kagura didn’t) Suitengu kills her, and declares that he can still take over the Tennozu group by marrying 15-year-old Kagura, who is the heir. I pray that I misunderstood the explanation of his origins. And even if I did misunderstand, I pray that there is no marriage, and definitely no wedding night. Saiga can just wake up and break out of wherever Ginza stashed him after raping him while he was unconscious and go blow up walls in the mansion until he finds her.

No spoilers for past episode 12 in comments, please.

manga: Claymore ch 90

( Spoilers make one concerned at how loss of bodyparts in this series can make the fandom so giddy. )

Mish mash, mostly (all?) bookish

1. Is it just me, or do books look better the more cheaply you acquire them? Because somehow, the stack of $0.99 manga (actually, mostly manhwa, but that's nitpicking) that I only have mild curiosity about and figured that it couldn't hurt to check them out at that price looks more attractive than the stack of series I love and/or can't wait to check out. But between the Book Closeouts sale and Rightstuf's current sale, my plans to wipe out the manga backlog before A-Kon are crushed. Also, I am disappointed that the copy of Vol 1 of Never Give Up that I ordered didn't ship, because Vols 2-3 did. I guess I'll add Vol 1 to the list of stuff to look for at A-Kon.

2. Speaking of those 2 websites, Rightstuf is currently having a Spring Cleaning sale until the 13th. Everything in stock is an extra 10% off, which makes most of the already discounted stuff 32% off. They already shipped all but 1 book in my order, and the sale only started Thursday. Book Closeouts is also having a sale until the 13th, this with a lot of their inventory marked down to $1.99. I'm not even allowing myself to look at that sale, as it's time to start saving spending money so I can blow it at A-Kon and Half Price Books.

3. The backlog has been updated. (It includes the stuff from Rightstuf, even though that has yet to finish the journey between here and the warehouse.)

( recent book acquisitions )

4. The parents and I will be visiting my brother's family from Friday to Sunday, and then my mother's sister. I have no idea who they're getting to feed the cats, as they hadn't even realized that would be a problem until I pointed out that their regular catsitter would be going with them. Meanwhile, I will be spending 9-10 hours in the backseat of their car.

[Poll #1378108]

5. Aren't these things supposed to have 5 items? *thinks* Verizon sent me a refund check for $27.87. I doubt I will do anything imaginative with it.

manga: Moon Child Vol 2-5

This remains possibly the most bizarre yet compelling manga that I’ve ever read.

In case you’ve forgotten or never knew, it’s the one based on The Little Mermaid where mermaids are aliens who swim through space to use Earth as a mating ground, apparently making it habitable in the process, but Seira, the little mermaid, doomed both races by abandoning her mermaid fiancé for the human prince (who still didn’t choose her anyway) thus dooming both races, unless her daughter, Benjamin, mates with Shonach, the fiance’s son. Except that Benjamin has somehow been turned into a bowtie-wearing little boy with amnesia, who still has the mind of a young boy with s/he returns to his/her true form.

Some people have a manga/book/movie/series/etc. of Deep Feminist Shame. This is a series of deep everything shame. The leader of the mermaids is a black woman with an offensively stereotyped design. Child abuse is treated as slapstick humor. Real life dangers and tragedies are turned into dramatic reasons Shonach absolutely must mate with Benjamin. Almost every woman in the book is either an evil conniver, or a (thankfully sympathetic) woman who is blindly in love with a man busy obsessing over someone else. Our heroine, Benjamin, is, for all intents and purposes, a little boy, and when s/he’s a woman, s/he is mute. Her love interests are the man who adopted her as Jimmy, the little boy, who hits him/her, and Shonach, who loves her due to their destiny and must mate with her to save both races, stop Earth from becoming a wasteland, and keep the other mermaids from killing her so one of her androgynous brothers can become female and mate with Shonach.

How can that happen, you ask? In one of the more interesting bits of the series, the biology of the mermaids is based on that of clownfish, where the most dominant fish becomes female, the second most dominant male, and the rest remain sexless. Incidentally, Teruto, the evil sibling, is sterile, and Seth, the sweet one, will be fertile if his gender changes. Teruto is also possibly in love with Seth, and agrees to sacrifice the entire planet to the Sea Witch if she/he/it will save Seth. Incidentally, the siblings are triplets, and were raised on the moon by Seira’s sisters.

Despite all this-or maybe because of it-the book is incredibly compelling. While I may not like a lot of the characters or their motives, they’re well drawn and interesting, whe worldbuilding is insane, but interesting, and the take on the fairy tale is an interesting and original one. Not to mention some of the imagery, such as the schools of fish swimming through the air.

In conclusion, alien mermaids who swim through space to use Earth as a mating ground. And sometimes possess nice young men so they can destroy the planet out of love.

Dollhouse 1.8

So, uhm, I…I liked this episode. Not wholly and I still don’t trust the show, but you know, the last thing I watched, aside from an episode of The Inside, were the skeeviest and most disturbing episodes yet of Speed Grapher. That may have stronger characters and a stronger plot than Dollhouse, but Dollhouse has nothing on it when it comes to the skeeve factor.

I think I need to hide everything I have on hand that isn’t fluff for a few days.

( Spoilers involve My Shame! )