manga: Gintama Vol 11-12

Oh, poor Kagura. That may have been the worst possible introduction to the concept of slash ever, right up there with learning about sex by walking in on your parents. The anime’s adaptation (Kagura comes in near the end. Warning for almost everything you can think of except for mutilated bodies and actual sex):

( spoilers )

Mister Monday by Garth Nix

Mister Monday is the first book in a seven book series (each named, I believe, after the antagonist of the book, the antagonists being named after the days of the week). The writing is tighter here than in Sabriel, but closer to the quality ofd and ,em>Abhorsen. Which is not to knock Sabriel at all, but the writing does very much reveal it to be a first book at times.

Arthur Penhaligon is an asthmatic twelve-year-old. When he has an asthma attack at school, he sees what may be a hallucination of two men. One wants to give Arthur something called The Key because he’s the next in line for it, while the other, Mister Monday, doesn’t want to give the key to anyone, preferring to keep it for himself, despite his duty. He is assured, however, that Arthur is meant to die almost immediately, and so he grudgingly gives him the key. Arthur does not die, however, and soon starts seeing things that aren’t supposed to be there, such as strange dogmen and a huge house built in many styles. And then he realizes that he’s being hunted by people who want the key, and that it’s somehow connected to a plague that’s making people fall asleep and not wake up again.

I really like the strange, time-based mythology of this book that draws on various traditions, and I’m especially fond of the inclusion of Piper (presumably the Pied Piper) in it, and one of his children, Suzy, who helps Arthur in his quest. I also love the House, where most of the action takes place, and the oddity of Arthur’s opponents. I wish, though, that there had been more of Ed and Leaf, the two children Arthur befriended early in the book, and Arthur’s family. And I really like that, unlike so many of these twelve-year-old boy heroes, Arthur has a large family that he gets along with, doesn’t spend a lot of time angsting and/or complaining, and can make friends pretty normally. Which probably accounts for why I like him a lot more than I do a lot of angsty twelve-year-old boy heroes. But then, Nix does of a good job of making his characters seem fairly real to me, even when they’re annoying me. I can’t help but think, though, that I would have been more into Arthur and his story both if he’d been a little older. But I think that’s a hangup I have about kids going through bad things, even though I know they do in real life.