there it is, plain as daylight.

It’s a beautiful day, and I should be taking advantage of that, so this will be a brief post. I just had a few thoughts regarding new chapters of Bleach and xxxHolic released this week.

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Once upon a time in my secret fannish life, sad and frustrated with the small size of the xxxHolic fandom, I created a so-called “persuasion post.” Its purpose was to inspire friends to begin reading the series, write lots of fanfiction, and join in on all my xxxHolic glee. I think, however, that this post deserves better than being hidden behind a fannish identity, so I have unearthed it from the clutter, and reworked it for a broader audience. Behold, the new (de-fandomed) xxxHolic Persuasion Post:

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First of all, many thanks to those who have been leaving BL recommendations for me here! I’ve started looking a bit at some of the recs, and will report back in more detail soon. So far, the series I’ve looked at are Shout out Loud!, Let Dai, and Totally Captivated, and I’ve liked at least *something* about each of them, though I still have some reservations.

Random: This made me laugh for an entire day. Seriously.

Happy: I have at last acquired a scanner, which means that my next installment of the Fullmetal Alchemist Read-a-Long will include scanned pages from the Viz editions, rather than scanlations which I’d resorted to originally. I’ve also updated the previous entries (vol. 1 & 2 | vol. 3 & 4) with the proper pages. I’m also thinking of posting some version of my massive xxxHolic post in this blog (previously posted in fannish places), now that I have proper scanned pages, as I have a pretty much constant urge to try to draw people into that series.

A bit of navel-gazing to follow: Continue Reading »

First off, a few interesting links from the non-manga portion of my blogroll (yes, I do care about things other than manga):

Wil Wheaton says we should try to stop MTV from remaking The Rocky Horror Picture Show. W. T. F? I agree. Sign the petition here. AmyM has posted a list of writing contests of many kinds. Very cool, and also a strong reminder that none of us have an excuse to be sitting on our asses. Neil Gaiman is not blogging but links to the Coraline promo video-a-day. Coraline is one of my favorite books, and though I’ve been a little suspicious of the way it’s being put on the screen, I remain cautiously optimistic.

Okay, this is actually from my LJ friends-list (and *is* about manga), but ashura-sama has posted her translation of this week’s xxxHolic spoilers, and I admit I’m a bit giddy. Her cut tag jokes that “-This- should be chapter 104″ and okay, yes, I ’ship Doumeki/Watanuki, what can I say? Note: Link contains spoilers for xxxHolic chapter 163. Click at your own risk.

On other CLAMP-related subjects, I am still catching up on older series, and finally picked up volume 1 of Wish from the used shelf at my local comic shop (Modern Myths, by the way, a lovely store indeed*), and read it last evening. Continue Reading »

I had a busy weekend, spending some with an old family friend and her teenaged daughter (a toddler the last I’d seen her!) who arrived in town Friday, and then attending last night’s installment of “Hooked on Who” at the Brattle theater in Cambridge (quite a hike from here, but so much fun). We watched Douglas Adams’ Pirate Planet arc along with a theater full of like-minded fans, well worth the drive. Before the event began, there was a rousing introduction that included a rundown of some of the theater’s upcoming events (including a screening of “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” which is such a lovely film). The whole thing made us wish that our local independent theaters (in Northampton and Amherst) would host these kinds of things.

In manga news, the first chapter of the new manga, Bakuman, by Death Note’s Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata is out, and it’s definitely got me interested. Continue Reading »

I’ve been waiting anxiously for the official release of xxxHolic volume 12, and though it’s been quite an ordeal getting to finally read it (late shipments, car crashes, etc.) it was such a treat to finally really sit down with it. I read it once last night while I was still pretty screwed up in the head (that would be the car crash factor), and then again tonight, slightly less screwed up. Both reads were pretty intense. Volume 12 is very special to me, and I’ll talk a bit about why.

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I haven’t come here to talk about manga for a while, and I’ve really read quite a bit of it in the meantime, though much of it has been a single series.  Work on my own graphic novel has been going slowly, but right now, I feel like talking about other people’s universes.

I think I mentioned that I finally got the last 11 volumes of Banana Fish (thank you to a generous birthday gift from my folks), and I gobbled them up in very little time.   

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Life is a pretty weird thing, and it’s rendered me largely unproductive in the past couple of months, even here on the internet, where I am usually able to ramble on without rest. In April, I took a tour of the midwest for the latest round of FP auditions, which was a pretty nice trip. Not only did we see a lot of very talented folks, but I also got to meet up with a friend in Indianapolis the evening before my flight home, which was a wonderful bonus! May brought me to auditions in New York, where I also visited with a friend during her last week in Manhattan, and had dinner bought for me by another friend in honor of my birthday, which was the next day.

Speaking of birthdays, mine was filled with manga (glorious manga!), including the elusive Maison Ikkoku volume 3, which for some reason is impossible to get, and Banana Fish, volumes 8-19, which makes my collection complete! Continue Reading »

I’ve been MIA, I know. Lots going on lately. But I did have some time to write up reports from my experience at Anime Boston this past weekend. Continue Reading »