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I just finished reading a manga series called NG Life, which was actually very good! It's a shoujo series about a kind of dorky guy who remembers his past life when he was living in a little Italian city hanging around with his best friend and his wife and an assortment of other characters who show up as reincarnations later in the manga. Thing is, even though there are a few people around him who he recognizes as reincarnations of those he knows (I was particularly amused by his mother and father being his rival and younger sister from his past life), none of them remember anything. The most important two are his best friend, who has reincarnated as a girl with feelings for him (although he can't see past the "you used to be a dude" bit), and his wife, who is now a boy.

As you can imagine, many crazy hijinks occur.

The manga does a fairly good job of keeping the full story of what happened in the past (and why the main character is so stuck on it) under wraps and revealing pieces of it as the story goes on. I personally thought the relationship between the main character's past life and his best friend was very cute and would've liked to see them get together back then! Of course, that doesn't happen, but oh well, you can't have everything. The conclusion of the past life had me in tears at the end, and it almost felt like the rest of what happened afterwards was overpowered by it.

Still, the main romance was pretty sweet and the characters were all fairly likeable (except for one or two who got on my nerves a few times). I was hoping the manga would go more along the lines of gender not being a barrier to affection (either with the main character realizing he was okay with loving a boy or okay with loving someone who he had previously known as a boy), but even though it didn't, I still enjoyed it. It had a theme of not getting stuck on the past and learning to be who you are without trying to be someone else, which is always cool.

For the most part, I'd recommend it if you like shoujo romance and don't mind a lot of silliness mixed in. I'm going to go try and track down the Tokyopop translated version and add it to my manga collection!

In other reading-related news, I'm just about done with my Austen readings (making my way through a Watsons continuation now), and I'm thinking I'll move on to Georgette Heyer next. I've got a number of samples downloaded to my kindle, so I'll be giving them a go shortly. My expectations are high, so I hope they turn out to be good!

Current Mood: enthralled

I posted the new chapter of Game Over. I figured I've been obsessing over it and whether it was good enough and if it fit properly and if everything worked and whatever else for long enough. Up it went. FictionPress seems determined to make formatting as difficult as possible. It's kind of annoying. But at least it's done now until I can crank out the next chapter.

This chapter got longer than I expected. The next chapter might end up a little short. We'll see how it goes, I guess. I just wish my motivation to work on this was stronger. Bleh.

I've been developing a new story in my head for a long time now, but it's not getting my attention until I've finished either Game Over or Piece of a Legend - preferably both. I really want them finished, but I'm determined to do them as much justice as I can.

In other news, I finished the Baccano OVAs, which basically served the purpose of tying off some loose ends but were still fun to watch. I'm working on Durarara now, which is even more fun. You can tell they came from the same creator.

I've been reading Jane Austen. I plowed through Love & Friendship, and then read Lady Susan (which was kind of fun) and The Watsons (now I have to pick a continuation). I'm working on Sandition right now, and also slowly watching the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice.

Cody and I finished all of the Harry Potter DVDs I bought, so I guess now the only thing left is to go see the last one in theaters when it comes out. Sweet.

Current Mood: calm

This is a random anime-viewing post, just for the hell of it.

Two more OVA episodes of Baccano to watch! I was pretty happy to find a DVD box set of the whole thing when I was at Otafest. I'm thinking I'll re-watch it in English - especially since I want to share it with a friend who has trouble reading fast enough to make subtitled anime enjoyable for her.

I'm about halfway through Mahou Shoujo Tai Arusu right now. I have mixed feelings about that show, but want to see it through to the end. I'm not watching it that often at the moment, but I'll probably try to work it into my workout/viewing schedule at some point again.

When I was at Otafest, I bought a new series called Neo Angelique: Abyss, which is a reverse-harem set in a fantasy-style world. So far I've watched two episodes, and it seems like standard fair as far as reverse-harems go. It's nothing special at all, but it's not bad either, so I'll probably watch through all 12 episodes.

I've also decided to check out Durarara, so I read the 13 chapters of manga that are out. It's... a very strange series. I am currently in the process of watching the anime (one episode in). Kind of hoping it'll be as fucked up as the manga is in places, but I think they'll tone it down a bit for TV.

At some point in the last month, I watched an episode of Black Cat. Still kind of on the fence about that one, but it did look neat for a slightly older series.

I started watching Eureka 7, but only got three or four episodes in and I'm finding it kind of boring. For anyone who's seen the series, does it get any more interesting? Do the characters become less boring? Right now I'm on the verge of dropping it.

However, I am thinking of picking up Pandora Hearts again, which I had originally dropped after three episodes. I think I will give it another try. Apparently the manga is ongoing, so the anime probably diverts from it somewhere. Not really sure, though. I might try out the manga and see.

I need to finish Mouryou no Hako as well... I've probably forgotten what was even going on in that one by now. But it's too slow-paced to watch while working out, which is about the only time I watch anime any more unless Cody is watching with me. And he has zero interest in this one, so... yeah. It's been slow going.

This weekend at some point, I will probably be watching the Summer Wars movie, which is like the expanded and refined version of the second Digimon movie, Our War Game. I'm pretty psyched for that!

To go a bit off-topic... While I was out of town, I purchased a game called Trails in the Sky for the PSP. The main reason I bought it is because it is an anime-ish RPG with a female protagonist who plays as a melee. The story looked good and all, but yeah. You don't see main female melee characters that often in RPGs. I am currently addicted to this game. The story is good, the characters are fun, and I like the style of gameplay (turn-based fighting tends to be my favorite).

I especially like the feature it has where if you die in a boss battle and get a game over, it gives you the option to retry the fight instead of having to restart at your last save point (you can save anywhere outside of cut scenes and battles, which is also convenient). The best part of this feature is that it has an option that can be configured in the settings to make the fight a little bit easier each time you retry it.

For a lazy gamer like me who doesn't like grinding my characters, this option is brilliant. The fights aren't ridiculously difficult, though, so I've only had to use it three times so far. But the fact that it is there makes me feel a lot more confidant.

Current Mood: mellow

So, yesterday evening I finished watching Mahou Shoujo (or Puella Magi, as some prefer) Madoka Magica. This was recommended to me by

herongale, so I was fairly confidant that it would be good. It's also a magical girl anime and in some ways is typical of the genre, but it contains numerous elements that I have never seen in any magical girl series anywhere.

( What wish would you make in exchange for your soul? (spoilers) )

I'd recommend this series to most people. The opening video can be found here, although it is not really representative of what the series is actually like. This scene that is shown at the beginning of the series is probably better. And just as a bonus, here are some magical girl transformation sequences.

I would also like to note that the BG music is done by Yuki Kajiura, and is therefore made of awesome.

Current Mood: enthralled

I finished watching Baccano just recently. It was pretty good, once I got used to the way it jumps around in the three different timelines. At first I was thinking that it might have spoiled things a bit to know that certain people lived through the events in the first two timelines, but then I got caught up in it and was just waiting to find out how it all happened. It was a really fun series. I liked the train arc the best - Jaccuzi was a surprisingly engaging character when he wasn't crying all the time. And Rail Tracer was quite the egomaniac! I couldn't tell who was more of an asshole, him or Ladd. I lean towards Ladd, but only because I wasn't very fond of his character and ended up kind of liking Rail Tracer. Isaac and Miria were highly amusing at all times.

I'll be watching the OVA episodes shortly. I might even watch one tonight when I work out.

I've also started watching Puella Magi Madoka Magica, recommended by

herongale. I'm five episodes in so far, and it's very good. The opening video does not match the show at all! But that's okay. It's kind of a strange take on the magical girl genre, and pretty dark in places. The music is gorgeous (it's Kajiura Yuki, after all) and the animation is very pretty. I'm thinking I'll probably finish it off before leaving for Otafest.

Book-wise... I'm starting on the Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling. It seems pretty decent so far, although I'm only a little under two chapters in. We'll see how it goes. Her other series looks interesting, too - if I end up liking Nightrunner, I'll be tackling that one next.

Current Mood: content

So I've been reading more fantasy/romance ebooks - surprise, surprise. That's been my reading material of choice for quite a while now.

I read 'A Matter of Magic' by Patricia C. Wrede, which is two books combined: 'Mairelon the Magician' and 'Magician's Ward'. I like Wrede's writing style. She has a light but engaging way of describing things. Plus, she seems to have a knack for creating appealing characters (at least, in my opinion). Kim was a great heroine, cynical and cautious, and made a good foil for Mairelon, who had more of an "it'll work out somehow" attitude. I really felt for Hunch, though, between the two of them. The romance was okay - nothing spectacular - but that wasn't the focus of these books, as is usual for Wrede. Overall, this was a good read.

After that, I read 'The Wide-Awake Princess' by E.D. Baker. This one wasn't as good as 'A Matter of Magic', but it had its moments. I didn't feel like I got to know the characters beyond a surface level, and conflict felt like it resolved itself a little too easily. But the book was light-hearted and never seemed to aspire towards great depth, so I think it succeeded with what it set out to do. Again, the romance was kind of 'meh'; I didn't really feel the chemistry between the two. But oh well.

I downloaded some samples for books by Shannon Hale, but didn't feel like buying them afterwards. Something about the style just didn't grab me, I guess. Still looking for new authors, but I'll probably be giving Wrede's 'Thirteenth Child' a go if nothing comes up.

I also read a manga series called 'Power!!!' (I think this has been translated to 'Girl Got Game' in the NA release), which wasn't bad. It was a silly series with a lot of decent comedy scenes. Nothing too deep or meaningful, but generally a lot of fun to read. And the main characters didn't annoy me, which is unusual for most of the shoujo series I've read lately.

Ganked from

yukinoomoni

Give me a single character -- in a fandom I write in -- and I will give you my:

+ OTP for them.
+ Runner-up pairing.
+ Honorable mention(s).
+ Crack pairing(s).
+ Ship everyone else seems to like, but I don't. (alternately: ship I like that everyone else seems to hate)

Lately I've been on the lookout for fantasy books with female protagonists who get involved in adventure with some cute romance on the side. I've downloaded a number of samples and I'm slowly working my way through them (if I like the sample, I'll buy the book and read it, which then sometimes means buying more books by the same author and reading them, so this process is going slowly).

I just finished reading a couple of books by Sherwood Smith, and I felt like talking about them - hence this post.

Now, I loved Sherwood Smith when I was younger (still do, as her writing style appeals to me a lot) for her 'Wren' books. Wren was my hero when I was about 12 or so. I'd only read the three at the time - now I've read 'Wren Journeymage' as well, which I didn't like as much as the others (but it was still a decent read). One thing I didn't notice at the time but which I have now come to realize is that I like her books that much more when nothing exciting is going on.

Does that seem weird? It sure does to me. It wasn't so apparent with the Wren books (there are so many action sequences that I adored), but with the ones I'm going to talk about now, it became obvious.

The first was 'A Posse of Princesses'. This is a book about a young princess with some unrealistic ideas about romance who gets invited to a gathering of her peers for the first time with the hope of potentially marrying this rich prince. She makes a number of friends, and there's a twist with the prince that I found obvious pretty much from the time she arrives (the mileage of other readers may vary). And, well, the scenes where she dances and chats and makes friends and basically engages in court activities are fantastic and engaging. Then the plot starts to unravel, and my connection to the story began to unravel with it. The main character becomes less likeable. The book becomes harder to read. I found myself skimming long passages. Then we go back to the ending, where the romance is resolved... and I found myself shaking my head and saying out loud, 'What?' Who could possibly think this is a good way to test whether a romance will hold up? Bleh.

Anyway, I still feel it's a pretty good book, but it's not a re-read.

The next was 'Crown Duel/Court Duel' - two books in one. And what a difference between the two! Crown Duel was so frustrating to get through for me... There were flashes of cleverness here and there, little golden moments that reminded me why I enjoyed Smith's work, but for the most part it was just hard to read. The heroine was almost completely unlikeable. She was abrasive, willfully ignorant, and - well - incompetent. Not saying I'd do any better in that situation, but it was almost embarrassing to read about this girl because of the way she thinks and acts. I think I read the next book mostly out of curiosity (and because I already had it, as they were part of the same big ebook purchase), but it ended up being a much better read. Suddenly Mel was someone much less abrasive (although she still had moments that made me roll my eyes) and more interesting to read about. And this book is about 90% non-action. The action sequence at the end was even pretty decent, and it meshed well with the story. The romance seemed believable (and was actually decently developed, although it was easy to figure out who was sending the letters). And the characters were interesting and fun to read about. All in all, a vast improvement.

One thing that struck me in both 'A Posse of Princesses' and 'Crown Duel/Court Duel' is the clear dividing line that seems to exist between women and men. I'm sure Smith didn't set out to do this (I don't remember it from the 'Wren' books - maybe I need to re-read them), but it felt like the women in the books were naive, ignorant things while the men were worldly and knowledgeable but still were willing to humor these poor uneducated and vulnerable women because they had spirit and were nice and honest and pure. I didn't care much for that. The books were good, but they're not going on my favorites list.

I'm moving on to a new author now (and I have a lot of samples to get through), but I'm still open for recs on fantasy/romance with fun female protagonists!

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Mai-HiME - Yamiyo no Prologue

So the cat got his head stuck in the handle of a plastic bag last night, and tore around the house at top speed trying to get himself free. It was highly amusing. And no, he wasn't hurt or anything, just didn't like being stuck to the bag. He eventually stopped and we got it off him, but it was highly amusing to watch him freak out.

I seriously do love my cat! He's just... so dumb.

I finished my second Mai-HiME fanfic today! I think. Gonna let it sit for a couple more days, and then read it through and make sure it still seems all right.

Current Mood: amused

I don't update very often any more, do I? Well... work and cosplay preparation are sucking up a lot of my time, but I've also been working on another fanfic. Yes, for Mai-HiME. And I have more fanfic ideas too! What the hell? When I was starting this series, I'd have never predicted that I would write fanfic for it. I love this one pairing a little too much, I'm thinking.

Oh, and for those who are wondering what the heck is this series that is consuming all of my attention, here are some pretty cool music videos (Note: unless you LOVE spoilers, I don't recommend watching them if you believe that you may one day watch this series).

Blow them away
Mortal Kombat (I will never not love this song)

Current Mood: calm

So, apparently Touya Akira (Hikaru no Go) and Okuzaki Akira (Mai-HiME) are voiced by the same person.

Not that there are any other similarities in the character designs or anything.

/geek

Current Mood: amused

Picked up both of these links from

maderr's post on the subject.

A prime example of how NOT to respond to bad reviews (Because 'Fuck you' is always the professional response)

And an equally amusing but much less career-shattering response (Now I'm going to have to do a google search for 'Virgin Bride With Secret Babies Wants A Cop who Rides The Range')

That is all.

Current Mood: amused

So Cody and I finally finished off Mai-HiME (My-HiME?) last night. It was a pretty neat series. The animation and the fight scenes were really awesome, and the music was absolutely gorgeous (well, it's Kajiura Yuki, how can it not be?).

( Thoughts )

Overall, I think I would recommend this series to most people. Even if you're not into anime with "fighting and fanservice", I'd advise you to stick it out through the somewhat mediocre first half, because there is a pretty decent payoff in the second half.

Opening video: LINK (this OP sequence is currently one of my top 10 favorites)
BG music example: Mezame (because it's just that good)

Current Mood: satisfied

I came home sick from work today. Still feel kind of blah, but will hopefully be able to go in tomorrow. I took a four-hour nap as soon as I got home, and then had some chicken-noodle soup. I'm still tired, but it's about time to go to bed anyway, so I guess that's a good thing.

So I've watched three episodes of Shugo Chara, and - ZOMG - it's CUTE. I am drowning in adorable-ness. Reminds me of Card Captor Sakura but with more spazzing out. Ikuto is just like 90% of all shoujo love interests, and Tadase is the remaining 10%. Heh. How predictable. Not sure if I care about pairing either of them with Amu at this point. Oh well. I like the other guy member of the Guardians - what the heck is his name? Why isn't there more of him? Maybe that will come with time; there are over 100 episodes, after all...

Geh. what the heck are they gonna do for 100 episodes? I'm sure there will be at least 60% filler content in this series. But - but it's so cute!

Current Mood: sick

I've been thinking about watching Shugo Chara. Actually, I have been eyeing this series for a while and considering whether or not to watch it - the main reason I hesitated was because it was not finished, and looked like it might go on for quite some time. However, I finally remembered to look it up again, and now it looks like it really is done, so maybe I'll give it a watch and see if I like it.

Because I love spoilers (under most circumstances - there are a few cases where I don't want to know what's coming), I went in to see what kind of series I could expect. Mostly I just want to make sure I'm not looking at something overly episodic (read: lots of filler), or with battles that drag on forever, or with characters who are overly whiny or annoying. In some cases, I'll check out what the fandom looks like. This was one of those cases. And - surprise, surprise - I find pairing wars.

Oh, fandom, you never disappoint.

One thing I found interesting about this series is that there are cute, blushy, awkward crushes - most of the characters are about 12, which reminds me of Digimon and CSS and other childrens' shows I adore. I really like cute, blushy, awkward stuff, because it's so freakin' adorable. Funny thing is, from what I could tell, the manga comes pretty darn close to confirming one pairing in the ship wars, and the anime comes pretty darn close to confirming the other one.

It reminds me of Angelic Layer. Are we sure that CLAMP didn't have any involvement in this series?

In any case, although this show seems to have a fair amount of filler - and it's a looooong series - I am drawn by the prospect of a female protagonist at a difficult age with believable insecurities who can still be expected to save the day without constantly having to be rescued.

Plus, it just looks cute.

Current Mood: lazy

Apparently, there will be ATLA graphic novels!

Yeah, I'll be buying these as soon as I possibly can.

Current Mood: excited

More book-reading! I have been doing a lot of this lately.

I read the second of Mercedes Lackey's 500 Kingdoms series, and enjoyed it more than the first. The plot held more direction, and I found several of the characters more interesting. The main conflict resolved itself a little too quickly - and almost seemed too easy - but it wasn't as rushed and contrived as in the first book. I like the fantasy world that's been created, and it's a lot of fun to read about. Unfortunately, I had trouble getting into the romance yet again. Not because of the unusual nature of the romance, but more because I wans't feeling the chemistry. The sense of companionship between the main character and her love interest was very nice, and I felt bad for her when she didn't think it would work out, but there was no fascinating pull to the relationship that made me very eager to find out what happened with it. And the second romance in the story seemed altogether too convenient. I liked it, but still.

I remember being enthralled by some of the romances in the Valdemar series when I was younger, so I'm not sure if ML is doing something different now or if my tastes have changed, but I haven't really been that into the love stories in these books. They're nice enough, but nothing really exciting. That would be a deal-breaker on a normal harlequin, but these ones have some other fun things about them that keep me entertained.

I'll probably read the third book eventually, but I decided to take a break and re-read some older books with a similar theme: Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest series.

I still find these pretty enjoyable. They're lively and fun, and have a cast of pretty colorful characters. Perfect for some light reading. I'm already through Dealing with Dragons and Searching for Dragons, and just getting started with Calling on Dragons. Much like the books above, the romance is not all that compelling, but this is okay because it plays such a small part in the overall story that I just don't care much. Plus, the way the characters play off of each other is fun. Simple and light-hearted fantasy like this is just fantastic to read - at least for me.

Current Mood: entertained

Cody drew my character from FFXIV again! Here: http://messenjari.deviantart.com/#/d375t1a

Current Mood: ecstatic

I've been thinking about doing this post for a while, mainly because my little blurb about FMA:B was so short, but also because I've never really talked about my thoughts on the original series. And I've seen this topic come up a few times and it kind of caught my interest.

I want to state right from the start that I really love both series, for all their flaws. They were both excellent watches, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. But they are definitely different, not just because of their storylines, but because of the way they did things.

But anyway, I'm going to do a brief comparison of the differences, and what I thought each series did better than the other.

( Here we go )

Current Mood: content

Ganked from

yukinoomoni

1. Do not look at the comments.
2. Take a look at my userpics: http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=silverthunder
3. Post a comment with the icon of mine you associate with me. Leave commentary if desired.
4. Repost with your default icon and profit.

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June 2014

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