reading for the week(mostly manga)
Jan. 6th, 2007 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreI got mostly manga read this week, though not as much as expected.
(1) "Ouran High School Host Club" Vol 8 by Bisco Hatori-After the rather amusing and quite Tamaki-ish recounting of how Kyoya and Tamaki became friends(poor Kyoya never stood a chance) this volume was mostly about Ritsu, a yakuza heir who hero worships Mori and looks like the meanest punk ever but is the world's biggest softie, and the club's attempts to make him not be seen as mean anymore. I rather like Ritsu and hope he sticks around. Interestingly, Bisco Hatori seems to have changed her stance from saying that if Haruhi becomes romantically involved with any members of the Host Club, it definately wouldn't be Tamaki and would most likely be Mori, to moving in the Tamaki/Haruhi direction. I find this odd as it's hard for me to imagine Haruhi viewing him with anything more than exasperated fondness, but I'm not oppsosed to it. Though the fact that Mori is my favorite character doesn't help.
(2) "FullMetal Alchemist" Vol 11 by Hiromu Arakawa-This one was mostly about Ed facing a lot of harsh realities and growing up a lot...probably more than almost any other manga character I've read has in a single volume. One of the best FMA books, though it needed more Roy, Hawkeye and Armstrong in his literally sparkly glory. At least Scar finally came back.
(3) "Skip-Beat" Vol 4 by Yoshiki Nakamura-As much as I still love this book, slightly-saner-and-calmer Kyoko just doesn't match full-wrath-and-vengeance-mode Kyoko. Still, you can't carry a book solely on the main character's 9fairly justifiable) woman-scorned need for vengeance, so there's a need for an ongoing plot. What's been hinted at for Kyoko's relationship with her looks bad for her but good for the story. Also, it seems Kyoko and Ren had an encounter similar enough to Aya's childhood encounter with Toya in "Ceres: Celestial Legend" that I'm looking for heroines possessed with the vengeful spirit of an ancestor(may THAT explains it) and heroes with supernatural powers, including being able to grow knives out of their arms...
(4) "Vampire Knight" Vol 1 by Matsuri Hino-This is by the same person as MeruPuri, but I suspect I'll end up liking it more than that one. Mind you, I liked MeruPuri, but I couldn't get past the fact that it was a teenaged girl and a kid falling in love, and the curls...good lord the curls. I liked them at first, but by the end, not so much. VK is, obviously, a vampire book(oddly, while I'm not big on vampires, there are a lot of instances where interesting things are done with them, so I find myself reading a lot of books with vampires.In this case, it's about Yuki who goes to an elite academy where the day class is your normal upper class japanese HS elite kids(according to manga, anime and doramas), and the night class is elite vampire kids, and Yuki, along with her partner, Zero, is responsible for keeping the two groups separated. I liked this quite a bit, and more than I expected, given that I picked it up based solely out of hopes from MeruPuri. I have a feeling, though that, like "Absolute Boyfriend," this is going to be one of the rare occassions where I'm on the wrong side of the romantic triangle. Still, I hold out hope, as the end made it look like it'll be one of those where the girl has a crush on a guy out of habit but will be with the better choice(Zero!!!) in the end. But then, I may be biased as, just like Soshi in AB, Zero was by far my favorite here.
Just realized those are all Viz and 3 of them were Shojo Beat...
(5) "Bridge of Souls" by Juliet McKenna-The third and last book of the Quickening trilogy, it was better than the second(which was still quite good) but not as good as the first. I was almost right about how I decided the series would end towards the middle of the second book, and right about how I revised it to be about a third of the way through this one. One thing I noticed during this book was that I'm not too big on the character of Valentyna. She was pretty cool for most of the first book, but it was like after the set up, we were supposed to automatically root for her and Wyl without being reminded why, except that they loved each other, and I found Elspyth, who never stopped working hard to help Wyl no matter how much it cost her, and Ylena, who had to grow up and learn to survive the hard way after a life of privilege, to be much more interesting characters. Still, I like Valentyna well enough and that's just something I noticed while reading. Still, an excellent series altogether, and I'm curious to see what McKenna's going to do in an Arabian Nights type of setting.
Right now I'm reading Judith Ivory's "Angel in A Red Dress." Comics came yesterday, so I'm not sure how much I'll get read...definately the rest of that, hopefull either the new Mercedes Lackey PB, or new Barb and C.J. Hendee PB too, and at least 1 or 2 manga. I want to get Eric Shanower's "Adventures in Oz" read soon, but I suspect it'll wait until next week.
(1) "Ouran High School Host Club" Vol 8 by Bisco Hatori-After the rather amusing and quite Tamaki-ish recounting of how Kyoya and Tamaki became friends(poor Kyoya never stood a chance) this volume was mostly about Ritsu, a yakuza heir who hero worships Mori and looks like the meanest punk ever but is the world's biggest softie, and the club's attempts to make him not be seen as mean anymore. I rather like Ritsu and hope he sticks around. Interestingly, Bisco Hatori seems to have changed her stance from saying that if Haruhi becomes romantically involved with any members of the Host Club, it definately wouldn't be Tamaki and would most likely be Mori, to moving in the Tamaki/Haruhi direction. I find this odd as it's hard for me to imagine Haruhi viewing him with anything more than exasperated fondness, but I'm not oppsosed to it. Though the fact that Mori is my favorite character doesn't help.
(2) "FullMetal Alchemist" Vol 11 by Hiromu Arakawa-This one was mostly about Ed facing a lot of harsh realities and growing up a lot...probably more than almost any other manga character I've read has in a single volume. One of the best FMA books, though it needed more Roy, Hawkeye and Armstrong in his literally sparkly glory. At least Scar finally came back.
(3) "Skip-Beat" Vol 4 by Yoshiki Nakamura-As much as I still love this book, slightly-saner-and-calmer Kyoko just doesn't match full-wrath-and-vengeance-mode Kyoko. Still, you can't carry a book solely on the main character's 9fairly justifiable) woman-scorned need for vengeance, so there's a need for an ongoing plot. What's been hinted at for Kyoko's relationship with her looks bad for her but good for the story. Also, it seems Kyoko and Ren had an encounter similar enough to Aya's childhood encounter with Toya in "Ceres: Celestial Legend" that I'm looking for heroines possessed with the vengeful spirit of an ancestor(may THAT explains it) and heroes with supernatural powers, including being able to grow knives out of their arms...
(4) "Vampire Knight" Vol 1 by Matsuri Hino-This is by the same person as MeruPuri, but I suspect I'll end up liking it more than that one. Mind you, I liked MeruPuri, but I couldn't get past the fact that it was a teenaged girl and a kid falling in love, and the curls...good lord the curls. I liked them at first, but by the end, not so much. VK is, obviously, a vampire book(oddly, while I'm not big on vampires, there are a lot of instances where interesting things are done with them, so I find myself reading a lot of books with vampires.In this case, it's about Yuki who goes to an elite academy where the day class is your normal upper class japanese HS elite kids(according to manga, anime and doramas), and the night class is elite vampire kids, and Yuki, along with her partner, Zero, is responsible for keeping the two groups separated. I liked this quite a bit, and more than I expected, given that I picked it up based solely out of hopes from MeruPuri. I have a feeling, though that, like "Absolute Boyfriend," this is going to be one of the rare occassions where I'm on the wrong side of the romantic triangle. Still, I hold out hope, as the end made it look like it'll be one of those where the girl has a crush on a guy out of habit but will be with the better choice(Zero!!!) in the end. But then, I may be biased as, just like Soshi in AB, Zero was by far my favorite here.
Just realized those are all Viz and 3 of them were Shojo Beat...
(5) "Bridge of Souls" by Juliet McKenna-The third and last book of the Quickening trilogy, it was better than the second(which was still quite good) but not as good as the first. I was almost right about how I decided the series would end towards the middle of the second book, and right about how I revised it to be about a third of the way through this one. One thing I noticed during this book was that I'm not too big on the character of Valentyna. She was pretty cool for most of the first book, but it was like after the set up, we were supposed to automatically root for her and Wyl without being reminded why, except that they loved each other, and I found Elspyth, who never stopped working hard to help Wyl no matter how much it cost her, and Ylena, who had to grow up and learn to survive the hard way after a life of privilege, to be much more interesting characters. Still, I like Valentyna well enough and that's just something I noticed while reading. Still, an excellent series altogether, and I'm curious to see what McKenna's going to do in an Arabian Nights type of setting.
Right now I'm reading Judith Ivory's "Angel in A Red Dress." Comics came yesterday, so I'm not sure how much I'll get read...definately the rest of that, hopefull either the new Mercedes Lackey PB, or new Barb and C.J. Hendee PB too, and at least 1 or 2 manga. I want to get Eric Shanower's "Adventures in Oz" read soon, but I suspect it'll wait until next week.
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Date: 2007-01-08 08:48 pm (UTC)*giggles*
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Date: 2007-01-08 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 09:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 12:51 pm (UTC)Vampire Knight... It's on my list of potential things to read. Is it fluffy or serious?
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Date: 2007-02-01 05:11 pm (UTC)Vampire Knight is mostly serious.