Of Swords and Parasols

So, in addition to making epic polls, I also spent the day reorganizing my “to read soon” pile, instead of doing something useful, like a yuletide reveal post. (Urm…they’re at my AO3 profile
? All Vampire Diaries, one of which I deeply surprised myself with by writing in my absolute least favorite style ever.) I’ll probably actually do a post to talk about them later.

The “to read soon” pile is basically my going through my entire backlog and pulling out books that I think I’ll want to read soon. This always ends up being about 70 books, far more than I’ll get read before I want to read something else, and I always end up adding things to it as I acquire them.

Anyway, this is what my subconscious thinks I’ll want to read soon:

1. Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Georgette Heyer.
2. It thinks I will be very devoted to that “read conventionally respectable books” thing.
3. Romance novels. Specifically Restoration era romance novels.
4. More Christopher Pike. (Brain, aren’t you tired of the Nice Guys? Or are you that distracted by things like time traveling, incestuous dinosaurs?)
5. Read all the new releases that came out in the second half of 2010 that I kept not reading because of L.J. Smith an Christopher Pike bingeing.
6. Every Arthuriana based book in my backlog. (Uhm…has NYONE READ Rosalind Miles’s trilogies about Guenevere and Isolde?)
7. The few Agatha Christie books I have with Ariadne Oliver.
8. Every non-fiction book I have in my backlog on European folklore and myth.
9. Every fiction book I have in my backlog based on fairy tales and European folklore and myth.
10. The Heian diaries and Ivan Morris’s book.
11. The Romance of the Rose, The Song of Roland and a collection of Tennyson’s poems (most of which I’ve probably read over the years), all of which I had forgotten I had.
12. Historical mysteries and the historical/mystery/romance blend books that get shelved in general fiction, but don‘t have an official category that I know of.

In reality, I’ll likely read an Austen, a couple Heyers, one or two other Respectable Books (most of which fall into “I watched the movie, I WILL read the book!”), probably some of the Restoration romances (I seem to do most of my romance novel reading earlier in the year, based on the last few years), Pike, Christie, most of the new-ish releases, but spread over a couple of months, a few Athuriana/fairy tale/folklore books, and maybe one of the Heian books. Probably a historical mystery and/or historical/mystery romance book, as those are always good fallbacks for me when I can’t decide what to read. At which point, we’ll be at least a month or two out.

But mostly, it’s interesting to see what themes show up in my choices when I’m not paying attention to what I’m picking out.

Also, unrelated, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the second season of Kyo Kara Maoh was meant to be the last? Because it felt like it was meant to be a conclusion. The second season didn’t border on being a loving parody of shoujo/shounen-ai/high fantasy (Yuri is a Magical Girl. Don’t try to deny that.) with tons of crack thrown in, but I think I prefer it to the first because of the more unified plot, and all the backstories, which it had without losing any of the humor or cracktasticness of the first season. Is there any word of season 3 hitting the US, as this has been out for a while, or will I have to Illicitly Acquire it?

So, what's Kyo Kara Maoh?  Here's the brief version:

Fifteen year old kid from out world gets transported to a fantasy world and learns they have a special destiny.  Of the core group, there's the borderline perfect knight(yet, naturally, with a tragic past and lost love) the loudmouthed hothead who's decent enough underneath and gets accidentally engaged to the main character right off the bat, the court official declaring his love for the main character left and right, the grouchy guy who's a big old softie underneath and has a protective streak, and the crossdresser who initially challenges and tests the main character, but is soon a hard and fast ally.

Sound familiar?

*waits for the friends list to stop chanting "FUSHIGI YUGI!!!!"*

The twist?  The main character is Yuri, a boy with a demeanor rather like that of Haruhi from Ouran High Host Club(I Keep comparing characters to Ouran characters lately...I think that means it's been too long since Viz put out book 8 and they need to get on the ball with it), and Yuri's destiny isn't to save the world from evil and monsters, but to become the demon king and save the demon tribe from humans.  And yes, all the above characters are male.



Short version is, there's plenty of fodder to keep yaoi fans happy(butthen, that's true of any anime or manga with at least 2 bishies), but as far as what's actually in the show...well, if it's been holding you back from checking it out, don't worry about it, there really isn't that much, or at least, there didn't seem to be much to me.  For the most part, it's just a fun, likable take on the "magical girl" genre.  It IS rather long though...78 episodes(season 1 is 39 eps)

Should finish X tonight, unless I get distracted(which, knowing me, is not only possible but entirely probable) and am pondering my next anime.  Options are:

Ai Yori Aoshi/Ai Yori Aoshi: Enishi: Boy meets clutzy hopeless girl in a kimono, learns she's his childhood friend and his fiance(I guess no one thought to tell him?) and romance and comedy ensue.  Enishi is a sequel(I think?  They came together)

E’s Otherwise: Teens with superpowers working for Evil Organization(or so I gather)  Boy who worked for them to get his sister medical attention decides to leave when she doesn't get any better.  Sounds rather liked S-cry-ed, if Kazuma had started out working on the other side.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Season 2: Detective robopunk noir about a team of cyborgs(most of them, anyway) who serve in whatever peacekeeping, terrorist/conspiracy stopping capacity they're needed for, even if it'stheir own higherups stirring up trouble.  Liked the movie, love the first series.

Gungrave: Hitman returns from the dead to get revenge on his killer and protect his girlfriend's(his?  I have no idea) daughter.  I think someone on my flist described it as Knives from Trigun, if he'd gotten his act together and been the protagonist.  Or something like that.  *vague memories of the post*

Inu Yasha:  Forget what eps I have waiting off hand. Main plot is essentially stalled out with the occassional baby steps forward, mostly worth watching for Sesshomaru, Rin, Sango, Miroku, Koga and Sango/Miroku(any of which makes it worth casual viewing, though)

Kyo Kara Maoh: Season 1: The ONLY shounen ai/yaoi to ever interest me, and that's because of the setup.  Watched at liked the first few eps when it first came stateside.  Parody of all the shojo manga about a girl from our world being the destined/special one in another(Fushigi Yugi, Inu Yasha, Escaflowne, Red River, From Far Away, etc.)  About a boy who gets sent to another world(I want to say he gets flushed down a toilet, but that sounds a little TOO odd so maybe I'm wrong) and learns he's the demon king, that his(male) sage is in love with him, and his lack of knowledge about local customs results in his finding himself engaged to the son of the former queen.  He, of course, being used to such stories having the normal person being the hero who vanquishs the demons, has a few problems adjusting to ideas like humans=meat and that he needs a demon sword to destroy the humans instead of a holy sword to save them, etc.  I'm always up for a well done parody, and everything about this is very much that.

Samurai 7: Scifi retelling of Seven Samurai.  Seen a few eps.  Very good, very gorgeous, keep putting it off because I want to watch the movie first, but I think I'm through waiting to feel like setting aside 3 1/2 HRs for a subtitled movie(not that I don't still plan to watch the movie)

Soul Hunter: Based on Chinese Mythology, end of the world, send a younger sorcerer not quite up to the job, etc.  Mostly wanna watch it for themythology aspect.

Opinions?

(oh, I also have Last Exile on the way, but don't know when it'll get here)