manga: Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne Vol 1-7 (complete)

I read the first volume of this a while back, but decided to reread it with the rest. Maron is the teenaged reincarnation of Jeanne d’Arc, and has been asked by an angel, Finn Fish, to become Kaito Jeanne, a magical warrior who saves people from the demons that possess them by exorcising paintings they own. Opposing her is Kaito Sinbad (reincarnation status unknown) who is also collecting the demons in the paintings. According to Finn, the angel assisting Kaito Sinbad, Access, is a demon, and the two are collecting demons for Satan. Unknown to Maron, Kaito Sinbad is actually her neighbor and classmate, Chiaki, who claims to have a crush on her, but who actually knows she’s Kaito Jeanne, and is getting close to her to get her to stop being a kaito.

The first three or so volumes are fluffy “magical girl thief and her boyfriend, who is a rival magical boy thief and their zany adventures” fare. And then suddenly Jeanne d’Arc’s demon possessed boyfriend shows up after waiting a few centuries for her to be reincarnated and characters are secretly in love with Satan and there is angsty-angel-cannot-touch and time travel and “Satan is really *spoiler spoiler spoiler*” and such.

The angel/demon, Heaven/Hell, immortal shenanigans are pretty awesome (except for the attempted rape,  which is thankfully not between anyone who actuslly ends up together) the human stuff…less so. Arina Tanemura is seriously into her “epic all encompassing love” here and while it works with the supernatural characters, it’s rather meh with Maron and Chiaki. Which were actually endearing until Chiaki revealed himself to be the sort of shoujo hero who likes to thrown hissy fits and pin Maron to floors and walls when she, you know, talks to other men. Tanemura seems to think it’s cute and shows how much he loves her. Thankfully, with everything else that was going on, I found him decently easy to ignore most of the time, and Maron remained pretty fun.

Since this is Arina Tanemura and not Kaori Yuki or Clamp, the insanity is more zany and “HA HA WHAT?” and “ZOMG! Plot twist!” then brain breaking or requiring a flowchart. The art is typical Tanemura fare, though less cluttered than her more recent stuff, but with even more terrifying EYES.

So, fairly typical but fun early volumes followed by utter insanity and bizarre plot twists, both of the decipherable sort. The main romance is irritating, but is compensated for by Angsty Angel Cannot Touch and the general insanity.

(no subject)

*learns spoilers about tonight's Supernatural*

It...is amazing that a show exists where it's actually better that it forgets that non-evil, non-victimized women actually exist in its canon. They actually continue to exist that way.

And now I remember why I didn't run to watch Eastwick, despite it apparently being created just for me.

As a warning I...almost consider spoilers for Supernatural and Dollhouse to be public service announcements at this point.  For future reference.

ETA:  *learns details*  DIERAGEAGONYFROTH  IT BURNS WHY DOES THIS SHOW EXIST?????

Legend of the Seeker 1.1

Well, if I needed confirmation that "young farmboy/orphan learning he's the destined hero and coming of age" wasn't for me, that was it.  The first 5 or so minutes were fun, but that was largely due to the cinematography blatantly being ripped off of Legend and Korean historical dramas.  (Err, by "Legend" I mean the 80s movie that the Lord of the Rings movies also ripped off a lot for cinematography, but more successfully, not the Korean historical fantasy.)

Kahlan looks like she'll probably be as awesome as everyone says once things gets going, but the episode was mostly just really generic Destined Farmboy Hero fantasy, and rather dull.  It lacked the cheese and camp to be ridiculously entertaining, but couldn't pull off the drama and epicness.  Not bad, but mostly really really dull.

Sadly, a pass, much as i long for a new show with people in (pseudo-)medieval clothing running around with weapons.