Of Swords and Parasols

So,octopedingenueis kicking offreread_no_jutsu, a community whose description reads "It's like Fight Club, only more Book Group. Because the only thing better than reading ten years' and 400+ chapters' worth of babyninja punching each other is figuring out why we'd do it all over again."

I'm not participating because until I whittle down the backlog and catch up with various series, I'm not allowed to reread Basara Blade of the Immortal Fullmetal Alchemist Claymore Cantarella xxxHolic/Tsubasa Skip-Beat manga I really really like, much less a series that I dropped a good while back. I'll be following the discussions, though. That does create the threat of my being swallowed up in a deep dark hole of moral shame and guilt that I read about 15 volumes further in scanslations than what I bought of the licensed volumes, but I shall attempt to be strong.

As a frame of reference for how far I got/how long it's been, when I stopped it was somewhere around or just past Vol 30 in Japan, and Viz was about a month into "Let's spam the US market by releasing for volumes a month AND ALL FOUR VOLUMES THE SAME DAY!" (I have no idea if they're still doing that, or doing it again.) The last thing I remember happening was (assume this could be as far into the series as about Vol 35...and I could be thinking I read further than I did) Sakura, Naruto, Sai and their teacher had run into Sasuke. About a dozen or so chapters after that. Sai, IIRC, had played some sort of fanservice to slash fans.

 

( cut for length )
And so I have made my yearly or so post on Naruto. (You know, when I was reading the series, I knew about 3 people who read it. Now I see at least 1 post a day on it, usually more. And that was before the idea of the community started to be tossed around.)

Please use the spoiler code for any spoilers. I know at least one person on the f-list is currently reading Naruto for the first time, and others are are playing catchup forreread_no_jutsu . Spoiler code:

<span style="color: #333333;background-color: #333333">Spoilers here.</span>

P.S.: You almost got a huge rant because LJ ate this!  But then LJ gave it back, so it's ok.

P.P.S.:  I swear I used to have a Naruto tag, but it seems to be gone.  *makes new one*