Week 7 reading

[meganbmoore]

(32) Her Majesty’s Dog Vol 5 by Mick Takeuchi:  I've decided that the Japanese have a fetish for schoolgirls and temperamental centuries old dog demon guys, cuz it's all over the place.  I think I like this book more and more each volume.  This volume has Amane and Hyoue(and of course their personal shipper, Takako) travelling back to their village for the annual festival where the koma-oni  choose their masters(for the non-spoilery version) and flashes back to how they first met.  Little Amane is beyond adorable, and Hyoue with long hair and traditional clothes was quite nice to look at.  Still, I wonder what the mangaka is going to do next, as a fair bit of the shippiness was Amane not actually, you know, noticing that Hyoue was a guy(manga girls can sometimes be amazingly blind in that way)

(33) Dragon Avenger by E.E. Knight:  This is a sequel to Dragon Champion, and follows Auron's sister, Wistala, after they're separated.  The series, for those who haven't heard of it, is about standard high fantasy, but about dragons, from their point of view.  Auron's story was the dragon who lived for centuries and became a leader and legend and united dragons.  Wistala's story, though, is the dragon who grows up among the humanoid races, and is shaped by them.  It also focuses on the back story that led to the attack on their family, and followed through on those plotlines.  Hopefully, there will be another book.  Even though things weren't left dangling, there are some things that should be followed up on(such as the fact that both Wistala and Auron are alive but haven't seen each other-or known the other was alive-since they were hatchlings)

(34) Seven Soldiers of Victory Vol 4 by Grant Morrison:  Sigh, it started so great, but the ending...Frankenstein was barely comprehensible from the start, and was consistently less and less so.  Mister Miracle tried to conceptualize the New Gods to the point where it didn't make sense, and Bulleteer was good up until the last few pages, where it just fizzled out.  And the last issue?  Made no sense at all.  All higher thinking with no ladder to help us climb up to see it.  Not holding the readers hand is one thing, but the reader needs to be able to understand it somehow, and Morrison didn't give us a way to understand it.  The project was a case of a lot of good ideas at once, but too many of them to keep track of or follow through on at once.  The minis that wrapped up earlier fared much better because Morrison had more time to make it work.  On the one hand, there WAS a lot of good reading up to this point, on the other hand, the mess of the ending pretty much negates that.  Ah well.

(35) Wild Adapter Vol 1 by Kazuya Minekura:  I have mixed feelings on this one.  Part of me really likes it, the rest of me isn't overly comfortable with.  There's also the fact that we don't even get to the main plot until the last few pages.  The rest of it is material that we should have got to a couple volumes later as a flashback, once we were acquainted with the characters.  Still, I'm interested enough to keep going, and like I said, we barely get a feel for the main story.  I'll be sticking with it a bit longer, but I don't like it as much as Bus Gamers, much less Saiyuki.

Comments

[gloryquest.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I still need to ge Dragon Avenger. Not too much of a hurry though, as I have 2-3 books I would be reading before it.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It was quite good. It'll be interesting when/if Wistala and Auron meet again.

[gloryquest.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention, there will be at least two more books in the series. The next one will be about the unnamed copper dragon. The fourth will be of all of them together.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

yeah, we see more of him in book 2, so i figured the copper dragon would get his own book. It'll be interesting to see how it gets pulled off

[silver-677.livejournal.com]

I'm either going to end up buying Wild Adapter or getting it through the library. I've picked it up twice and put it back because it's plastic wrapped. Some of her stuff can get a little weird and I don't want to have to return the book.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think this one falls into the weird category, but I want to read a little more before making a final decision.

[silver-677.livejournal.com]

Weird, but not too weird? I like the cover and the art. I'm just wondering if it's something that... That plastic wrap and sticker on the front are making me doubt it.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

There's nudity and some cussing, but no sex.

[silver-677.livejournal.com]

That's not the weird part. I'm pretty sure I've read stuff on the same level as Wild Adapter. Are the concepts (Kanan and Gonou, Gojyo and his mother) any more adult?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Not yet. There are a couple guys who obviously "like" the main character, but it doesn't seem to be reciprocated(he basically says that he's not gay, but he doesn't trust any woman enough to get naked around her), and one character supplied his mother with drugs because he knew if he didn't, she'd get them from somewhere else, and he could at least keep her away from the worst drugs(what, rehab never occurred to the guy? yeesh.)

But it's hard to judge...most of the volume was a prologue, and we don't get to the main story until the last few pages.

[silver-677.livejournal.com]

That doesn't sound too weird. I might wait until the second volume to make sure.