what dread hand

In my eternal quest to procastinate as much as possible before actually sitting down to read those damn books I have to read, I have begun to re-read the 21 volume epic that is Please Save My Earth.

One good thing has come of that, though. I now know who Peter Petrelli was in his past life.

Issei. Only problem being I actually like Issei a lot. Milo Ventimiglia should totally play him if they do a Hollywood remake (highly unlikely).

My favorite character in PSME, though, is totally Haruhiko. I didn't yet consciously realize it the last few times I read this comic, but I think the biggest reason I adore Haru-chan is that he is a guy with huuuuge issues from his past who gets mentally and physically tortured by a guy with even huger issues. I guess I always digged that kind of thing. It's especially nice because although Haru-chan is a crybaby (and, I believe, hated by fans for it), he has such a strong will to survive and live and go on, no matter how hard he's beaten up. (Although he does try to kill himself once.) I just love that kind of character.

(Also, Haru-chan is quarter-Indian. Total coincidence, I swear.)

I'll go back to procastinating now. If the weather is good tomorrow, I'll go to the park to read, methinks.

I was sorting old papers when I stumbled over a piece of fanart from 2002. I probably drew it after reading the manga for the upteenth time, but it seems a bit more relevant now, seeing as it was recently (completely unexpectedly) animated. Terra e, Keith and Johmmy.

Well, that was ... embarrassing. I remember I inked this, too, but can't find that version. It seems that I had an odd habit of drawing too long heads and drawing the eyes far too high up in the face in 2002, but I liked the composition of this one, so I decided to ... uh, remake it? I suppose you could say?

Keith is my favorite character in this manga. He's not a nice person and probably unredeemable by nature, but his standpoint and conflict in the series is fascinating and really out of the norm. His casting is probably why I'll never watch the anime (well, aside the fact that I never watch anime anyway); Koyasu Takehito is undeniably talented and has done good work, yes, but does nothing for me.

This isn't a shippy drawing, by the way. Just thematic. If I were to ship Keith with anyone, it would be Shiroe while they were in that school. So much tension!!! Dwama!!! Ded!!!

(No idea about the spellings of the names. Feel free to correct me.)

Because I'll take any chance to show off my YYH memorabilia, and Wintersea liked the S&I one. Below are five scans of the newer pics included in the book. It also includes all the colors Togashi did for Jump and the tankobon while YYH actually ran. And has Togashi's completely "blah" comments on all of them, which are hilarious.

• Hot smokin' Sensui & Itsuki pic which shows Togashi still ships this pairing.
• Cover image. On the actual cover, it's embossed in silver.
• A scan just to illustrate that Kuwabara is hot-damn and awesome.
• Minamino Kurama & Yoko Kurama, kind of like the drawing at the back of vol. 19, but in color. Along with the S&I one, my favorite of this book.
• Chibis!

Completely unrelated, but I made this yesterday:

And I feel like making Jurassic Park book quote icons, partly because I downloaded some awesomely pretty textures the other day. Hmm.

Warning: manga review. Meaning 85% of you won't care. Skip! Skip!

A 55-page one-shot in Weekly Shonen Jump #6-7, by the artist of Death Note and the writer who apparently wrote its spin-off novel. I can't tell if it's just a gimmick one-shot to boost the spin-off, or if it's a pilot like the Death Note one-shot that preceeded the series.

Manga review. Skip skip, no one cares. Mostly writing because I think I vaguely promised Anna I'd blog about the manga I read...? Maybe...?

Suzuki Nakaba is a shonen manga-ka probably famous for breaking his contract with Weekly Shonen Jump to seek greener pastures. He is mostly known for sports manga, such as the golf series Rising Impact in Jump and the figure skating series Blizzard Axel in Weekly Shonen Sunday. Kimi to boku no aida ni is his first monthly series, seriealized in Ultra Jump, and his first fantasy/SF.

The wine manga that was featured on 4ch for major lulz. After having read volume one, I'm not sure why the people on 4ch chose the pages they did for the lulz. Maybe only chapter one had been scanlated? Because the remaining pages feature the protagonist hearing Queen (the band) at drinking a wine, and the biggest wine-expert in Shinjuku being a homeless guy who lives in a tent in a park.

lulz.

It's funny because it's essentially an RPG. Go through these hardships! Get better weapons (more wine to drink) to aid your journey by proving yourself in challenges by old sages! Defeat the enemy!

I don't think I need to read more, though. I don't exactly care whether the protagonist will manage to inharit his father's wine collection because, uh, you sort of already know he will, and I'm not interested in all the wine he has to drink to get there.

(And wah, so much spam today.)

The two concluding volumes, including the second half of the Amazons arc and the final arc which reveals Daria's past and the over-all structure of this planet. The final revelations on this manga are so highly coherent, everything from the first chapter onwards falling so neatly into place, I was honestly "ahhh" and "ohhhh"ing every other page. As far as I know Suzuku Nakaba never showed such tight plotting in any of his other work, which always seemed more character-driven, so I was muchly impressed.

Too bad it was all crammed into so few pages. Wiki claims the series wasn't cancelled, but it could easily have included three or more arcs before reaching its final one, and the final arc could easily have been twice as long. I hate expositionary dialogue, especially when what's being revealed is to damn interesting I'd have liked to read it much slower and enjoyed it much deeper. Bummer. But still, I recommend this series very much if you're into retro-futuristic dystpias and you like lively, quirky characters. And if you don't mind a bit of sex and gore.

ETA: I wasn't going to comment on Heath Ledger's death, since a lot of people who care about him more than I do are commenting already so why should I, but WHAT.

There are still people out there who argue that YGO isn't a "kid's show", lol.

I seem to recall also ranting about this back in 2004 or so, but what annoys me about this "my favorite TV show wasn't for kids in Japan! it's dark and deep and violent! stupid US TV censored it!!" attitude isn't actually people's inability to grasp that in different countries, different things are deemed "appropriate" for kids; no, it's the attitude that calling something a "kid's show" is apparently somehow an insult and warrents loud defending.

What's wrong with kid's shows, anyway. Good shows for children is damn hard to come by, and can be damn good. Even better than a lot of dark "adult" shows. How difficult do people think it is to speak of deep and relevant themes about the human condition without degenerating it all to sex and violence? I don't have anything against using sex or violence to get a point across, but good children's shows are relevant without utilizing a lot of elements that adult shows get to use, and it takes masterful skills to pull that kind of thing off. Fujiko Fujio, anyone? Tezuka Osamu's works for young boys and girls? It's hardly a shame for your show to be placed in the same category as fucking Fujiko and Tezuka!

Grr.

This reminds me I need to finish Konjiki no Gash!!, a great manga for children if there ever was one.

Anime post.

Hakaba Kitaro (official site) is the newest series in the Gegege no Kitaro franchise based on Mizuki Shigeru's classic manga of same name. Unlike the other anime series in the franchise (of which the fifth is running now), this one is based on the manga Mizuki used to draw as kashihon (rental books) in the post-WWII years, and not the shonen series he drew later. The stance seems to be that while the ordinary series is a prime time kids' show, this series is horror and thus broadcast late at night. The story follows the early years of the protagonist Kitaro, a yokai (mythological monster) boy who is the last descendant of the Ghost Tribe, as he tries to find his way in the human world.