Missin' & Missin' 2: Kasako by Novala Takemoto

The two volumes of Missin’ are actually three novellas. The first, “Little Shop Called End of the World,” is about a freelance journalist who quits writing to open a shop selling Vivienne Westwood merchandise who enters a strange relationship with a silent loli who frequents the shop. Like with Kamikaze Girls, one of favorite books from last year, Novala Takemoto uses the narrator’s dwelling of the subculture and its history to carry the story, and it was pretty entertaining until we got to pedophilia and “disturbed girl commits suicide after being cut off from her source of illegal sex. The second story, “Missin’” is the narrative of an angry, obsessive teenaged stalker in love with an angry, violent rocker. Missin’ 2: Kasako continues that with what happens once the stalker is allowed to enter into the rocker’s world.

Novala Takemoto’s writing is incredibly engaging, especially when he’s dwelling on subculture and its history, and having his characters give their thoughts on the same. Unfortunately, I ended up actively disliking every single character, and with writing that involving, I realized that it actually made me angry in the two days I was reading it. Though I think that that in itself is significant, as specific fiction almost never makes me angry in general when I’m not actually consuming it. Well, except for Dollhouse*, but I don’t think well written books that aren’t for me can really be compared to a TV show that basically exists to endorse rape fantasies and human trafficking.

*For which the universe owes me an apology in the form of a series where Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjojak play spies in love who sometimes try to kill each other, with Gina Torres and Olivia Williams as their bosses. I will settle for nothing less.

movie: The Abduction Club

This is a 2002 British movie (that doesn’t seem to have ever had any type of US release) set in 1780s Ireland about a group of younger sons of rich families who abduct heiresses to be their brides.

Apparently based on a true story!

Anyway, this is a romantic comedy (though from what I’d heard of it before hand, I thought it was less with the romance and more with the abducted brides making them suffer) and so the kidnappers remain 99% gentlemen, and take 5 minutes to get to know the women first. Kinda. When one club member, Byrn, kidnaps his heiress, Katherine, his friend, Strang, grabs Katherine’s younger sister, Anne, who is supposed to marry a man with a Very Bad Wig.

This is one pretty decent romantic comedy (Byrn and Katherine) mixed with one pretty weak romantic comedy (Strang and Anne). Between the four, there’s about 2 1/2 brains. Katherine claimed a full brain for herself, Byrn a bit more than ¾ of a brain, and then Strang and Anne had to split the rest. In the interest of full disclosure, I first heard of this because Byrn is played by Prince Wendell Daniel Lapaine from The 10th Kingdom, and I can’t quite separate Byrn from Wendell. Wendell cleans up nice.

The movie has some of the fun elements of 10 Things I Hate About You and House of St. Ives, but lacks the things that make them actually work. Actually, Anne reminded me a lot of Flora from St. Ives*, only…significantly less smart. Ok, Flora isn’t a genius, but she doesn’t think being kidnapped is fun (and funny) and least has a clue about St. Ives’s character before she’s sneaking around helping him. Not to mention that she’s in the position where she’s mentally cast herself as rescuing him (and is pretty on target there). Plus, she lives with an aunt who had adventures all over the world before settling down to raise her. I figure she has diaries full of entries like this:

October 21

Today I saw Aunt Susan polishing her dueling pistols and asked where she got them. She said it was from the gallant Spanish captain (she didn’t say he was gallant, but I’m sure he was) who rescued her from pirates. But she got a very strange look when I asked if her captain taught her to shoot, too, and if she thought there were any pirates who were women.

October 22

Today Aunt Susan wrote her letters. I accidentally read one that fell on the floor. It was to a friend in Italy, asking about convents. I wonder why she was asking about convents in Italy?

But anyway, at least Anne was sometimes amusing? And I can handwave a good chunk of it with her obvious extreme boredom. Strang I can think of no excuse for. But that’s ok, I’ve mentally edited the movie down to mostly just Anne and Strang reenacting Kat and Patrick.

I should mention that, though the end result was way more conventional than it really needed to be, the movie managed to avoid feeling like the heroines suffered from Stockholm’s Syndrome (ok, mostly because they thought the men were idiots) and managed to get in some hitting, vase throwing, and shooting. I’m a touch bitter at who wasn’t involved in the inevitable rescue near the end, though.

Here’s the trailer, if anyone is curious:

But mostly, I’m curious about the “real” club? I mean, what happened to the women who didn’t agree to get married? Why weren’t the men more worried about the fathers just disinheriting their daughters? And I really doubt the historical version was as…innocent (comparatively) and chivalrous as the movie.

*If anyone knows of an available, decently priced version of the book, point me in the right direction? I’ve been looking for a while, but…