manga: The Empty Empire Vol 4-7

I read the first few volumes of this a good while back, then got woefully sidetracked. (You may see me saying that a lot over the next bit.) It’s about an amnesiac boy who gets rescued by a whip-wielding girl named Ririka, who names him Rose, and whose caretaker, Eiri, is actually the kingdom’s head scientist, and had cloned him from Idea, the now-dead ruler of the world. There’s rival clones, evil scientists, angsty eye loss, angsty eye exchange, pirates, mysterious men who live in gothic mansions with fairies, crossdressing, android bishounen, Mysterious And Significant Accessories, and more! I think there may have been some pretty cute romance mixed in somewhere, but I’m not sure. It’s quite fun and endearing, and as much as I love my often incomprehensible, sometimes brainbreaking scifi shoujo, I can’t help but think there should be more licensed short scifi shoujo that doesn’t require a diagram. Or alcohol.

( brief spoilers )

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency: Season 1

Despite many changes to plot details, this series is surprisingly faithful to the feel of Alexander McCall Smith’s books, something that I wasn’t quite sure would be maintained despite my really liking the one episode I saw a while back. The episodes follow the various plotlines of the first few books about Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s first and (initially) only lady detective, though not always in the same combination, and with a few I’m not familiar with thrown in.

One important plotline that’s resolved in the first book is extended through the season (I’ve been told it was cruelly cancelled, and more recently that it wasn’t. I’m hoping for the latter.) but in general I think that people who may have been put off by the meandering approach of the books may prefer the series which, though still quite laid back, is a bit more direct and fast-paced than the books.

In general, it’s excellent, entertaining viewing with lots of endearing, entertaining characters, and a variety of relationships and relationship types. There’s also nothing else quite like it on TV.