Another Week
Jun. 29th, 2002 02:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2I've been reading this one fan fiction story on the FFML. The writer is amazingly fast, and is working on more than one story at the same time. He mentioned at one point that he forces himself to write at least 2000 words a day.
Now, this is something that I could do if I could find the motivation, so all week I've been saying to myself that I need to do this. At the very least, get a scene written each night, or mostly written.
I got one scene on a fan fiction story written this week. That's it.
This just isn't good enough.
But it's not like I've been playing computer games or completely wasting my time. I've assembled 3 desks and 2 bookcases this week, and organized my computer room quite a bit in the process. I've watched 4 Buffy episodes, which is a lot considering I've had Kristin's season one dvd set for months and had only watched 5 episodes before this week.
And I've been reading all of those manga I picked up last week. So here's a quick review:
Marmalade Boy vol 2 by Wataru Yoshizumi. Well, I love her work. It's a wacky shoujo love polygon story, what else? Miki's mother and father have met another couple with a son Miki's age (his name is Yuu), and somewhere along the way her father fell in love with his mother, and his father fell in love with her mother, and they all decided to get divorced and then remarry, and then all live together... and Miki hates the idea, but she starts to fall in love with Yuu, who is sort of her brother now but sort of not, and then Ginta tells Miki he loves her, but while she loved him in Junior High he didn't love her then, and she doesn't love him now, and Yuu's old girlfriend shows up wanting him back, but he never really loved her, and Miki's best friend is having a secret affair with a teacher and Yuu finds out, and... well, like I said, love polygon. Fun stuff. ^_^ I'm hoping they'll translate her other stuff, such as "We Are Mint / Mint na Bokura".
Love Hina vol 2 by Ken Akamatsu. Well I don't need to read this since I've read the dual language volumes put out by Kodansha, but they won't translate the entire series (after all, they do this to help people learn English, not to publish a series for an English-speaking audience). So I need to collect the Mixx volumes and hope that it doesn't take forever for them to get up to volume 9. Anyway, this is a very good series, a shonen story that follows a familiar theme (geeky boy with a good heart falls in love with a beautiful girl). The boy is Keitaro, and he winds up manager of an all-girl boarding house with a large hot bath/pool in the back, which allows for a lot of hijinks and misunderstandings of course. ^_^ But the story's well done, the characters are cool, and it's always funny.
Kodacha vol 1 by Miho Obana. This one is about a grade school girl who's a television star and who attends a dysfunctional school where bullies rule. Sana decides that someone needs to stand up to the bullies, but ultimately she's trying to fix everything for everyone, and not always with good results. It's an odd shoujo comedy that feels a bit loose plot-wise, but is a fun read so far, with the usual odd details such as the squirrel that lives in Sana's mother's hair. Similar in tone to Love Hina or Marmalade Boy, but not as tightly written.
Mars vol 1 by Fuyumi Soryo. This is one of those that I only bought because it was half price (at Half Price books of course). This is a serious shoujo love story, and it's really good so far... typical of shoujo stories, it's very strong on character and plot. Basically about a shy girl who's an artist but socially withdrawn, who winds up in a relationship with a hip biker/sports guy who is one of the most popular boys on campus. At first she can't stand him, but then she realizes that he's not simply a bike-racing, cigarette-smoking thug/delinquent, he's intelligent and actually very kind... well you get the picture. It may sound sappy but it's very well written. ^_^
Real Bout High School vol 1 by Reiji Saiga and Sora Inoue. Another half price pickup. This one... well, half the reason it even exists is to draw martial artist girls in very short skirts... not a lot of actual "fan service" (I don't think I saw any actually) but the girls are all over-endowed... the artwork is actually very good, but the storyline is difficult to follow... minimal plot, and a scattered approach to writing, which seems much more common in shonen manga. Basically, Ryoko is a kick-ass kendoist, and there are tons of other skilled fighters at her school, and some boy transfers there just because he wants to test his fighting abilities against all these other martial artists, and the Principal is a yakuza-looking guy who thinks it's cool to have everyone fight and thus not only allows it but arranges the school rules to encourage fights between the various school clubs... and lots of fighting ensues, without a lot of extra plot to get in the way.
I'm thinking that probably it should be a video game.
The Skull Man vol 1 by Kazuhiko Shimamoto and Shotaro Ishinomori. Ishinomori isn't well known in the west, but in Japan is considered probably the second-greatest manga writer/artist after Osamu Tezuka. Among other things, his fantasy hero series Masked Rider and The Five Rangers are more or less responsible for spawning an entire genre of Japanese heros and hero teams that includes the Might Morphin Power Rangers. The Skull Man is a series that he tried to sell, but he was forced to make so many changes that he actually transformed it into a different series (The masked Rider). But in the years just before he died he went back to his original idea for The Skull Man and finished the story, bringing in someone else to do the artwork since by that point he was bedridden.
So what we have here is a super hero/avenger story... with a spooky avenger along the lines of Batman or the Shadow, or the Crow... done pretty well too, with freaky villians, a secret past, a mysterious side kick, violence, tight plots. Lots of fun. ^_^
Dragon Knights vol 1 by Mineko Ohkami. Haven't read too much of this yet, seems like another confusing plotless mess, as with Real Bout High School, only this is more in the vein of Slayers. The first ten pages or so failed to interest me at all, but maybe I'll change my mind once I've read through the whole volume.
Angelic Layer vol 1 by Clamp. Just knowing it's a Clamp story, you can expect certain things, like good art, a tight story, a concept honed to a sharp edge. Also like some Clamp stories, it feels more than a little formulaic. It involves little doll-sized robots that you can control and have fights with... and a young girl who manages to get one, and naturally is gifted at fighting with it. You know, it's sort of like Smack-Down Barbie Dolls, now that I think of it. ^_^ Not bad so far.
Ragnarok vol 1 by Myung Jin Lee. I think this is a Korean title... more manga from places like Korea, China, Singapore, etc. are appearing in English these days. Anyway, while I haven't read far into this one either, I can tell you one thing about it... as opposed to goofy plotless nonsensical fantasy like Dragon Knights, here you've got some fantasy with teeth. The title is not just there to be trendy -- this is a story of the coming of Ragnarok, the battle between the Norse gods and their enemies. The gods want to put it off for another thousand years, but the Norns have foretold its coming and Fenris Fenrir knows that Ragnarok must come so that the age of the gods will finally pass and the age of man will begin. So she's looking for the reincarnation of Balder, while the Valkyries try to stop her (preferably by killing her). Fun to see a story spun from Norse legend by an Asian writer/artist (and no, Oh My Goddess doesn't count).
Now, this is something that I could do if I could find the motivation, so all week I've been saying to myself that I need to do this. At the very least, get a scene written each night, or mostly written.
I got one scene on a fan fiction story written this week. That's it.
This just isn't good enough.
But it's not like I've been playing computer games or completely wasting my time. I've assembled 3 desks and 2 bookcases this week, and organized my computer room quite a bit in the process. I've watched 4 Buffy episodes, which is a lot considering I've had Kristin's season one dvd set for months and had only watched 5 episodes before this week.
And I've been reading all of those manga I picked up last week. So here's a quick review:
Marmalade Boy vol 2 by Wataru Yoshizumi. Well, I love her work. It's a wacky shoujo love polygon story, what else? Miki's mother and father have met another couple with a son Miki's age (his name is Yuu), and somewhere along the way her father fell in love with his mother, and his father fell in love with her mother, and they all decided to get divorced and then remarry, and then all live together... and Miki hates the idea, but she starts to fall in love with Yuu, who is sort of her brother now but sort of not, and then Ginta tells Miki he loves her, but while she loved him in Junior High he didn't love her then, and she doesn't love him now, and Yuu's old girlfriend shows up wanting him back, but he never really loved her, and Miki's best friend is having a secret affair with a teacher and Yuu finds out, and... well, like I said, love polygon. Fun stuff. ^_^ I'm hoping they'll translate her other stuff, such as "We Are Mint / Mint na Bokura".
Love Hina vol 2 by Ken Akamatsu. Well I don't need to read this since I've read the dual language volumes put out by Kodansha, but they won't translate the entire series (after all, they do this to help people learn English, not to publish a series for an English-speaking audience). So I need to collect the Mixx volumes and hope that it doesn't take forever for them to get up to volume 9. Anyway, this is a very good series, a shonen story that follows a familiar theme (geeky boy with a good heart falls in love with a beautiful girl). The boy is Keitaro, and he winds up manager of an all-girl boarding house with a large hot bath/pool in the back, which allows for a lot of hijinks and misunderstandings of course. ^_^ But the story's well done, the characters are cool, and it's always funny.
Kodacha vol 1 by Miho Obana. This one is about a grade school girl who's a television star and who attends a dysfunctional school where bullies rule. Sana decides that someone needs to stand up to the bullies, but ultimately she's trying to fix everything for everyone, and not always with good results. It's an odd shoujo comedy that feels a bit loose plot-wise, but is a fun read so far, with the usual odd details such as the squirrel that lives in Sana's mother's hair. Similar in tone to Love Hina or Marmalade Boy, but not as tightly written.
Mars vol 1 by Fuyumi Soryo. This is one of those that I only bought because it was half price (at Half Price books of course). This is a serious shoujo love story, and it's really good so far... typical of shoujo stories, it's very strong on character and plot. Basically about a shy girl who's an artist but socially withdrawn, who winds up in a relationship with a hip biker/sports guy who is one of the most popular boys on campus. At first she can't stand him, but then she realizes that he's not simply a bike-racing, cigarette-smoking thug/delinquent, he's intelligent and actually very kind... well you get the picture. It may sound sappy but it's very well written. ^_^
Real Bout High School vol 1 by Reiji Saiga and Sora Inoue. Another half price pickup. This one... well, half the reason it even exists is to draw martial artist girls in very short skirts... not a lot of actual "fan service" (I don't think I saw any actually) but the girls are all over-endowed... the artwork is actually very good, but the storyline is difficult to follow... minimal plot, and a scattered approach to writing, which seems much more common in shonen manga. Basically, Ryoko is a kick-ass kendoist, and there are tons of other skilled fighters at her school, and some boy transfers there just because he wants to test his fighting abilities against all these other martial artists, and the Principal is a yakuza-looking guy who thinks it's cool to have everyone fight and thus not only allows it but arranges the school rules to encourage fights between the various school clubs... and lots of fighting ensues, without a lot of extra plot to get in the way.
I'm thinking that probably it should be a video game.
The Skull Man vol 1 by Kazuhiko Shimamoto and Shotaro Ishinomori. Ishinomori isn't well known in the west, but in Japan is considered probably the second-greatest manga writer/artist after Osamu Tezuka. Among other things, his fantasy hero series Masked Rider and The Five Rangers are more or less responsible for spawning an entire genre of Japanese heros and hero teams that includes the Might Morphin Power Rangers. The Skull Man is a series that he tried to sell, but he was forced to make so many changes that he actually transformed it into a different series (The masked Rider). But in the years just before he died he went back to his original idea for The Skull Man and finished the story, bringing in someone else to do the artwork since by that point he was bedridden.
So what we have here is a super hero/avenger story... with a spooky avenger along the lines of Batman or the Shadow, or the Crow... done pretty well too, with freaky villians, a secret past, a mysterious side kick, violence, tight plots. Lots of fun. ^_^
Dragon Knights vol 1 by Mineko Ohkami. Haven't read too much of this yet, seems like another confusing plotless mess, as with Real Bout High School, only this is more in the vein of Slayers. The first ten pages or so failed to interest me at all, but maybe I'll change my mind once I've read through the whole volume.
Angelic Layer vol 1 by Clamp. Just knowing it's a Clamp story, you can expect certain things, like good art, a tight story, a concept honed to a sharp edge. Also like some Clamp stories, it feels more than a little formulaic. It involves little doll-sized robots that you can control and have fights with... and a young girl who manages to get one, and naturally is gifted at fighting with it. You know, it's sort of like Smack-Down Barbie Dolls, now that I think of it. ^_^ Not bad so far.
Ragnarok vol 1 by Myung Jin Lee. I think this is a Korean title... more manga from places like Korea, China, Singapore, etc. are appearing in English these days. Anyway, while I haven't read far into this one either, I can tell you one thing about it... as opposed to goofy plotless nonsensical fantasy like Dragon Knights, here you've got some fantasy with teeth. The title is not just there to be trendy -- this is a story of the coming of Ragnarok, the battle between the Norse gods and their enemies. The gods want to put it off for another thousand years, but the Norns have foretold its coming and Fenris Fenrir knows that Ragnarok must come so that the age of the gods will finally pass and the age of man will begin. So she's looking for the reincarnation of Balder, while the Valkyries try to stop her (preferably by killing her). Fun to see a story spun from Norse legend by an Asian writer/artist (and no, Oh My Goddess doesn't count).
