Of Swords and Parasols

When we left off in volume 1, Momoko, the girl who was raised by pigeons, and Shota, the young man who accidentally killed his sensei trying to save him after his sensei was attacked by a rampaging backhoe, and who has been attempting to perfect the move, the One Shot No Fail Repair Blow, in a Snowy Cabin of Emo Solitude atop Mt. Fuji, had left Mt. Fuji so Shota could practice the One Shot No Fail Repair Blow as he travelled the world. Along the way, they were joined by a con artist named Kanji, who thought he could pimp out the One Shot No Fail Repair Blow to line his own pockets. At the end of volume 1, they were accosted by Ninja Girl, the daughter of Shota’s fallen sensei, who blames Shota for his death.

We will now begin volume 2…

( CRACK AHOY! )

It is now safe to eat girl scout cookies.

 

 "raised by pigeons" as a user interest has almost quadrupled...to 7 users.  I find this to still be appallingly small.

For those who are unaware of or have forgotten the significance of this, I shall remind you.

Or if you don't want to read:  Momoko, the heroine of Hikkatsu! Strike A Blow to Vivify was raised by pigeons and left her home to find her True Love, who she found in the form of the emotastic Shota, a young man who has spent years living in an Emo Fortress of Snowy Solitude, attempting to perfect the One Shot No-Fail Repair Blow, the karate move that he accidentally killed his master years ago, but that is meant to heal.  (ETA: Please note that Shota is completely oblivious of his True Love status and it's debatable whether or not he even realizes Momoko is a girl...or that girls even exist.)

Yes, the fact that the heroine was raised by pigeons is the mildest crack in this entire book.

Yes, the entire thing is played out like it was a serious drama.

It is, after all, from the brain of the same person who went "what the world really needs is for 3 people to get transported to another world and have to strip elves to find pieces of the spell to get them back home and they have a giant tank and the elf who accidentally took them there accidentally transforms herself into a small animal and is in love with the jock." (I possibly just copied my description of Those Who Hunt Elves to lesbiassparrowand and pasted it.)

Amazon informs me that I can have Vol 2 on 12/15, which probably means late December/early January.  I highly anticipate it.

More people should read it.  And have "raised by pigeons" as an interest.

 

In the non-manga arena: tonight is the  church Thanksgiving meal.  This will be Thanksgiving meal #2 of 4.  The first was work, the third will be with Dad's family on Thursday and the fourth Mom's family on Saturday.  Thank goodness it was agreed on year's ago that the Saturday meal was a no-turkey meal.

In other news, megaupload is evil and keeps cutting me off after one or two eps of Utawarerumono, making me wait 8 or so hours before I can have another(yet another argument to stick to my "dvds only" thing...)  If they announced a thinpak tomorrow I'd just wait the 4-5 months until I could get it(since I'm getting it anyway...)  I'm on ep 12 now and it's great, but one I think I'm better off waiting to really talk about until I finish.  I'm having to pace myself because of megaupload's meanness, but as soon as I get the whole thing...

Also, the online manga community has let me down thrice in the last week:  no scanslations to be found for Night of the Beasts, Qwan or Hikkatsu! Strike A Blow to Vivify?  I can find scanslations for every endless hearts and flowers and giant eyes love triangle shojo and every endless shonen action manga, but those?  Nowhere to be found.  Not even raws.  (Though, if anyone with mightier googlefu than mine wants to be nice and try...?)  At least I did find Togari, though I don't plan to read ahead there atm, just use for posts and maybe icons.  I have also decided to catch up with Bleach.  No idea what chapter/volume I left off at, so I'll just skim until I get to where I was.

[And since I'm talking a lot about downloading stuff:  I utterly despise reading manga/books and watching anything but youtube vids on my computer screen(though I have nothing but love and respect for scanslators and subbers.)  Especially reading.  I do it only to feed addictions, or if there's no other way to get it.  If I download it, I consider myself committed to buying the licensed version when/if it comes out.  The only exception is if I get completely fed up with something, at which point, I'll drop it...this has happened exactly once, and as I'd already given the US publisher a ton of money, I didn't feel real guilt over not paying for EVERY volume I read...]

On the printed manga front:

1.  I have vols 2-6 of xXxHoLic and vols 1-3 of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle waiting for me.  Do I need to read them in any specific order(since I know there are crossovers) or can I just catch up with xXxHoLic and then worry about Tsubasa?

2.  Anyone want me to try to create a comprehensible, semi-logical explanation of the plot of Hikkatsu! Strike A Blow to Vivify?  I feel compelled to pimp it more and since I can't provide scans...

ETA:  And if anyone wants to see the status of the "planned reading for the rest of the year" post I made a couple weeks ago:

 Ok, let's get something straight about me readingthis book, the back cober reads:

In Earth's distant future, geomagnetic abnormalities make every day a struggle to survive.  The Human race faces its greatest threat--not from aliens, meteors or global warming, but ordinary, everyday appliances!  With even the most basic of machine going haywire, one man holds the hope of Earth in his hands: karate student Shota, who can beat any appliance into submission with his Repair Blow technique!

The back cover shows the heroine attacking a vending machine with a pigeon sitting on her head.

Does anyone REALLY think I'm reading this for high quality plot or storytelling?  Or even characterization?  I shall now begin.

 

 At lunch I went to Waldenbooks armed with 3 30% off coupons.  My goal(which was attained) was Vol 1 of Hikkatsu! Strike a Blow to Vivify.  It has a heroine who was raised by pigeons, a hero who is eternally traumatzed by being chased by a backhoe and a sensei who scolds his student for using karate to fight.  To properly understand why I anticipate this manga so, click here and here.  Also:  same creator as Those Who Hunt Elves(which is not a favorite anime of mine, but one whose amazing OTT-ness I can appreciate)

As I already ordered the new Fruits Basket, Samurai Deeper Kyo and Basara from Rightstuf(may i mention that the ONE TIME this year Waldenbooks gets Basara in, it's the one time I already ordered it elsewhere?) I got Vol 1 of Zombie Loan, about zombies in high school(and what appears to be a rather Mary Sue heroine, but I'll be optimistic) and Yoki Koto Kiku, which is supposed to be a dark comedy cat-and-mouse with chibi demon hunters on a treasure hunt or some such.

Also, apparently my Bleach icons are being popular, which kinda surprises me...

I shall now do a couple silly work things and then blog Hikkatsu! Strike A Blow to Vivify as I read it.
  

ETA: calixastarted watching the Zombie Loan anime.  I AM SO GLAD I GOT THAT MANGA AT LUNCH!!!!  THEY HAVE MORTAGES ON LIFE!  AND THEY SWAP HANDS!  And one can summon a sword to fight zombies and the other a gun.

With Vol 21. we're getting fairly close to where I stopped reading scanslations a year or so ago.  Not because i wasn't still loving it, but because there were certain prominent characters that annoyed me and as much as I was still loving what was going on then,  I didn't want to go through the annoyance of reading on my computer just to have half of it be characters that annoy me.  But that's still a few volumes(and awesome things) away.

Also, telophasehas discovered what may be the most amazing manga in existence,  Read about it here  and stare in amazement at the scans here.