Manga Review: Magi (volumes 13 - 17)

Well I guess this is the once-yearly Magi post, based on when I last posted. Since I'm trying to review Magi by arc now I should note that this isn't the end of an arc, going by summaries for future volumes and accounting for my library taking a little bit of time to acquire the volumes, I worked out that if I waited until this arc was over that I wouldn't review this batch of volumes until January 2017. So, plan B, I kept looking through the summaries and this appears to be the calm before the storm of the climax of the arc and therefore the next best stopping place to talk about what is going on (I also might've forgotten to review volumes 11 and 12 in the past???). So, let's get to it!

Magi by Shinobu Ohtaka (volumes 13-17)

Manga Review: Spirit Circle

This review is a bit later than I hoped, both in the context of this week and in general since Crunchyroll was a bit slow getting the final chapter up. I'm not sure why, they were fairly up to date with the rest of the chapters, but I have noticed that there are some, less popular CR series that don't update quite as regularly as others (by that I mean, not consistently same day, two days later etc than the Japanese magazine release). I don't think that contributed to the manga's relative unpopularity however, I have just had the hardest time convincing people to try this series so, once more with feeling! This is one of my favorite series from the last few years and dammit if it's never gonna get a physical release you should at least read this digital release since who knows how long CR will hold this release.

Spirit Circle by Satoshi Mizukami

Anime Review: Concrete Revolutio: Superhuman Phantasmagoria: The Last Song

I don't believe it, I somehow managed to hold out all the way until the spring season batch of shows without running out of things to blog! I'm pretty thrilled by this turn of events, although I didn't watch many spring shows so I'm going to actually run out of things to blog pretty soon. 

Hmm, well for the moment, as per-usual my first review of the season is my favorite show/the one that really needs as many views as it can get (places like Funimation have said that the views that count towards determining if a show is going to get a physical release or not are all of the views while the show was airing+one week, although I've missed that window). I talked about the first half of Concrete Revolutio earlier in the year so I suppose this is my last shot to convince folks that yes, this is yet another superhero anime worth watching.

Concrete Revolutio: Superhuman Phantasmagoria: The Last Song

Anime Review: Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash

Okay, let's try this again, life isn't any less crazy but not blogging drives me crazier. Although I'm a little alarmed that I'm running out of anime to review faster than I expected. Guess that shows that I'm really watching fewer shows this year....

Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash (Hai To Gensou No Grimgar)

Book Review: The Grace of Kings

I think I made a mistake, back in November I realized "oh no, it's near the end of the year and I haven't more than a couple of 2015 books!" and then requested entirely too many from the library. Seriously, it's now March and I still have about five left in my to-read stack. Some of the books, like this/last week's title, were rather long but really, it was just too many books at once.

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu

Book Review: A Darker Shade of Magic

Man, colds are terrible. So are unpredictable weather patterns, neck aches, and everything else that gives me headaches. Since Wednesday's review was already going to be a shorter one I'm going to wrap it into my round-up on later today (along with last week's posts, it's going to be a long post) and instead just keep moving forward and getting some of these posts out on time (or close) for once.

I'm glad that I enjoyed all of the books I read between Thanksgiving and Christmas since it means I can still remember a lot of aspects of the stories and give them the reviews their deserve! At this point I'm still just getting started with all of the 2015 releases so hilariously enough for this book I just found out today that the sequel is already out! Doesn't change my feelings on the book thankfully (I thought I had heard/suspected from reading the book that this wouldn't be a standalone) and hopefully I'll get around to reading A Gathering of Shadows sooner rather than later.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Movie Review: Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise

This is yet another film I saw thanks to the JICC and I went to it since I'd always heard good things about it but people never mentioned details. I knew that there was a struggle in the end with the older characters giving up and the younger ones advocating pushing on (and that I only know because of some folks saying those roles should be reversed) but that was it, people just weren't selling the movie to me! So let me do the job instead and say: this was a fantastic film, everyone shouldn't just want to see it, everyone needs to see it.

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise

TWELVE DAYS OF ANIME 2015 Anime Review: Castle Town Dandelion

Yep, still using this as an excuse to catch up on reviews, I only wish that I was using this time to talk review some of the best shows of the year instead of my least favorite summer shows!

Castle Town Dandelion (Jokamachi no Dandelion)

Book Review: Born Wicked

Sorry for the delay in all of the reviews this week guys, details tomorrow but it's nothing exciting, just too many things going wrong at once. And speaking of things going wrong....

Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

Manga Review: Spirit Circle

Funny story, I actually had this post all ready to go last night and completely forgot until 11:30 to actually hit post so I decided to wait until morning. Which means, this post originally appeared on Organization of Anti-Social Geniuses!

This is one of the many manga I first tried out when I was using friends' guest passes on Crunchyroll and frankly my luck for finding good series on there was pretty terrible. Honestly it still is but I'm lad I stumbled across this one, I actually had no idea it was by the same manga-ka as The Biscuit Hammer and after I enjoyed this series so much I was convinced to try The Biscuit Hammer again and I think that one is growing on me too!

Spirit Circle by Satoshi Mizukami

Book Review: Silverblind

I probably should have mentioned it was unlikely I was going to have a post on Christmas day, I did actually intend to have one up but then I was hit by the headache monster again (and this one is late because of attack of the insane work schedule, I don't recall agreeing to 10 hour shifts when I signed my work agreement!). And next week's movie/comic review is going to be pre-empted by my end-of-year post but that has lists in it and everyone likes lists so I think this is an acceptable compromise.

Well I did it, I got a review of Silverblind out in 2014 even though I wasn't sure it was going to happen! I would like to thank the DC library system and the Montgomery County library system for making this happen (even if both of you have accused me of not returning books this year, took the DC system about 3 months to find one of them!) and again I received this book from Tor.com as part of a contest. It is an ARC so somethings may be different from the final version but I am assuming that no major plot points were changed between this version and the final printing.

Silverblind by Tina Connolly

Book Review: Cooperhead

Previously on Narrative Investigations: Helen receives an ARC from Tor only to discover it's the third book in a series, crap! Thankfully her library had the first book in the series but, after writing that review, she discovered that they didn't have the second book! So it was off to the other library system so that a review of Silverblind will still happen before the new year!

Cooperhead by Tina Connolly

Book Reivew: Ironskin

I've been a reader of the tor.com blog for many years now and I really like a lot of the books that Tor Publishing puts out, it's a consistently good mix of fantasy and sci-fi, so I read a lot of the excerpts and summaries of new books and I also have fairly good luck with winning their ARC contests. I was hooked when I read the excerpt for a book coming out this fall, Silverblind, it's another fantasy story about a young woman naturalist similar to A Natural History of Dragons (which, if I remember correctly, was also a Tor book), and eagerly entered their contest to win an ARC. I did, opened up my package as soon as I got it, and then did a little bit of swearing when the back of the book mentioned it was the third in a series and I had completely missed that on the website. But thankfully my library had, well, this book and hopefully I'll be able to find the next one soon enough, I need to have a word with my other system, maybe my plan of actually reviewing a 2014 book in 2014 won't be in vain after all!

Ironskin by Tina Connolly

Book Review: Sorrow's Knot

I can't remember if it was last summer or the year before but whichever it was I finally picked up a copy of Plain Kate, which I had seen at the library for years and avoided since the blurb didn't sound interesting, and feel completely in love with it. So, as it often happens, I poked around the internet, found out that she had a new book in the pipeline and that it would be a fantasy set in a Native American-esque setting which in an of itself is exciting since I can think of very few other books like that (the only one that even comes to mind is one I read back in middle school and I'm not completely sure of the title!). As per usual it took a little bit of time for my library to get the book, and more time for me to remember to search their catalog to see if they had it yet but I certainly got to it more quickly than Plain Kate!

Sorrow's Knot by Erin Bow

Anime Review: The Pilot's Love Song

Management here again, a combination of work, a book that I didn't have much to say about, and a stubborn head cold made me realize that it would be best to push back this past week's book review to this Friday instead of putting out something subpar. And the only reason this review is going up is because I already had 95% of it pre-written which hopefully makes up for it! 



I'm not sure why but this title first started popping up on the summer 2013 anime charts and I was rather excited when I saw it, the cover art for the light novel looked rather pretty and the premise sounded like it was high fantasy with an adventure, action, and people hiding secrets, excellent! I learned a bit more about the series as the months went on and had a chance to see The Princess and the Pilot movie at Otakon which was based on a novel by the same author and set in the same world. It's not necessary to see it, there's technically only one crossover character who I hadn't even recognized since they were produced by different studios (another character is name-dropped and the story strongly hints that a third is involved but those references are much easier to pick up on) and this story takes place afterwards (and possibly before and during since P&P took place over three days and this one takes about two years). Regardless, that made me even more excited for the show, even when I realized it was by a different studio and wouldn't have the same budget because hey, I can put up with some less than stellar graphics for a good story.

The Pilot's Love Song (Toaru Hikuushi e no Koi Uta)

Winter 2014 Mid-Season Anime Round-UP

So I was thinking the other day that gee, while everyone obviously makes a fuss right when new anime series start, and a bit of one when they end, it's kind of hard to look at a season when it's half-way through and go "right, what did I miss?" Yes I follow quite a few anime blogs that post episode by episode thoughts and feelings, plus on twitter I see quite a few people talking about shows I don't follow, but you can't just jump into the post on episode 5 and get a feel from it if this something you really really need to start or not (plus, if you just try to read through a few posts chronologically you usually just end up horribly spoiled). So that's what I'm going to do here, I'm going to talk about all the shows I'm currently watching and hopefully convince a few more people to try them out, or not as the case may be since, while I am investing time each week into some of these shows, there are at least a couple I expect to have messy endings. And if there's anything I don't mention here feel free to chime in in the comments and convince me what to try out, there's a few I'm teetering on the edge of trying but just haven't been sure enough to dedicate the time to them. Oh and just to note I'm a week behind all the shows except Kill La Kill since even Funimation has free-viewer-delays now (they started it up DURING the new season with no prior notice, bah) so hopefully the last episode of these shows didn't do anything really weird that'll completely change my views.

Now, onto the shows and in the order they air each week, starting on Sunday!

Anime Review: Tweeny Witches

So, normally I say that I don't really have a tsundoku but given the sheer number of things I'm watching at any one time it usually takes me quite a while to get around to watching older things. Like this show which I picked up during a Right Stuf sale last Christmas, considering how unsteady Media Blasters has been over the past few years I didn't want to risk not picking up a show I was sure I'd like and did a semi-blind buy on it. Funny enough, one of the few other times I've done that was for another Media Blasters show, Moribito, although that one I enjoyed more than this one it turns out. And I'll note that while I have the last DVD with the extra episodes on it I did not have a chance to watch those before the review, I've heard they don't really change the story but if it turns out they do I shall edit the review accordingly at a later date.

Tweeny Witches (Mahou Shojo Tai Arusu)

Summary: Arusu is a normal human girl who can do a bit of slight of hand yet wants to be able to use real magic and sees the book her father once gave her as the way to do so. In a way she's right as she discovers one day as she falls down the rabbit hole into the magical world where witches and warlocks reside but they're nothing like she expected, meaner and more hidebound, and Arusu decides to stick around for a little bit to learn magic and to try and teach everyone that anyone can do magic if they believe.

The Good: Well that ended up going in quite a different direction than I expected, the show does use one of my favorite story-telling structures (start with one problem/quest and have it become part of an even larger story by the end, to the point where it's odd to look back from afar and see how small the story really was in the beginning) so I ended up enjoying the second half much more than I enjoyed the first half. From there the world just built and built and managed to introduce new characters easily, more factions, and keep the story on a good pace as well. Amazingly enough the show was not aired in a half hour format, much like the second half of Princess Tutu each "episode" is only about 12 minutes long which were then stitched together on the DVDs to make regular sized ones. I have no idea if the show was created with that format in mind or if it was merely another obstacle the writers had to deal with but I think it was managed as well as it could be and except early on when the show it clearly finding it's ground it all flows together well.

The Bad: It's rather rare for me to say this but I wish that Arusu had encountered a few more set-backs in regards to her overly cheerful worldview (since this does involve some end of series spoilers I'm putting the rest in a footnote*). I did also say I enjoyed the second half more than the first half, however since in a way that story doesn't truly reveal itself until the halfway point that's not exactly a good thing. I don't recall seeing any foreshadowing earlier on, if there was enough to show there was intentional preluding to what would happen that would change my feelings on the show more than a bit. And the ending itself is a little bit of a mess, suddenly characters are traveling great distances in a fraction of the time it took earlier, some logistical details are never even handwaved away, and as I mentioned in the footnote, I'm still not entirely sure HOW the resolution was brought about, I really feel like the story just forgot to show an entire step (either that or it's exactly as it appears and it was an amazingly silly, in character with Arusu but not in character with the setting, solution).  

The Production Values: Visually this show runs the whole gamit from pretty, nicely animated scenes to some rather crappy looking ones. We've all seen screenshots where a background character with a silly, simplified face is blown up but here you sometimes don't even have to look for the background characters, I don't want to know what the schedule for this show much have been like. Heck, there are even a couple of episodes where they make a rather determined attempt to never show any of the characters actually talking and cut away every time they would have to open their mouth (some people might call that an artistic choice but having seen it in context it wasn't). The art designs never quite clicked with me but I still thought some of the designs were quite creative (although there was also some rather conspicuous CGI in the show, I must image the show had a rushed schedule and practically no money since again, in context these weren't stylistic choices). Music wise the only piece that stood out to me was the piece that was also used as the main theme (erm, the second theme, not the very first piece played in each episode but the other one) which had a bit of a reedy, Celtic sound to it so of course I liked it.


In the end I'm a bit conflicted, I liked parts of the show and thought a lot of it had flaws, at this point I'm not even sure if I'll keep my DVD box in the long run or if I'll sell it off to buy something I enjoy more and free up shelf space for it. I feel like a 3.5 out of 5 rating for the show is fair however, for becoming much more than I could have expected when I first started watching but taking a bumpy road with potholes as large as the one my bus hits everyday on the way. 




*so by the end of the show Arusu is literally supposed to be the savior of the magical world, although I'm not exactly sure how it was saved since it seemed more like bad stuff stopped happening, and she's the only human (that they know of) who could use magic and is able to inspire other people to use magic by believing in it. One could make a case that the societies in the show treated magic so differently than how Arusu viewed it that that's why they had so many people who failed, that they were scared of failure and then perpetuated it, so when Arusu gave them hope of course it worked since that's how their magic actually worked all along. I  feel like that argument is on rather shaky ground. I'd like to compare Arusu to Hajime of the currently airing Gatchaman Crowds for a moment, since this was on my mind the entire time I saw the show; in Crowds we have a character who lives in a world much like ours with good bits and bad bits and Hajime both questions why the world works as it does (why does she have to have a secret identity as a superhero after all) yet seems to understand the world's limits and rules (people bad-mouthing her online? Turn off your phone, don't spend your time arguing). In the long run what she's trying to do is both logical and actually for the betterment of the world, create more communication between different crowds of people, whether it's government officials or warning the public about a bat-shit alien on the loose. Arusu however challenges years of traditions with no other explanation of "but magic should make people happy!" and somehow it works. In Crowds we see a flawed world, and see both why it needs to change and why it hasn't yet. In TW we see an another world which probably needs to change yet no reason that it hasn't yet, the fact that it was so easy in the end for Arusu to do magic and to convince others to believe made it really hard for me to take a lot of the show seriously (especially since it's even twisted against another character in the end and I'm still not 100% sure why it was different in her case, if the show had just done a few things differently I probably wouldn't even have this setting-breaking problem).

(Audio) Book Review: Shadows on the Moon

So, many moons ago, the author Zoe Marriott had a contest on her blog which involved people all commenting and keeping up with their writing goals for each month and I talked about keeping up with my blog entries and when I fell behind (I think this was last spring so I was dealing with final projects at the same time, yippee). She then collected everyone who had commented on all the posts, put them into a drawing, and someone I won and recieved a mystery package which turned out to have a few different things in it including an audio book copy of one of her books, Shadows on the Moon. I'll confess, I was okay with audio books when I was on long car rides in elementary school but even back then they weren't my favorite method of getting to know a story since I could already read faster than they could narrate and just wasn't fond of how the voice work was handled. So I put off listening to this one for a long time, even though I was interested in the story, until December when I made myself get into the habit of listening to it working on various projects and thankfully once I got in the groove of putting it on and just letting it play I was able to get into the story and enjoy it regardless of my personal preference for these things. 


Shadows on the Moon by Zoe Marriott, performed by Amy Rubinate

Summary: Suzume lives a happy life with her family when the Moon Prince's men show up one day to slaughter her entire household on the charge of being a traitor and only she and a cinderman manage to escape. Ever since then she has to hide not only her feelings but what she really is, in the attack she discovered that she's a shadow-weaver (which is exactly what it sounds like) and, while it's certainly not illegal is hardly something she wants to tell the people around her and it becomes another tool she uses to hide behind. But living with that many lies takes a tole on a person and soon she begins to lose sight of everything except her goal, revenge.

The Good: I completely did not expect the story to get as dark as it did, I haven't had to do this before but people who are trigged by acts of self-mutilation should probably stay away here. It's not glorified or idealized but rather those are some rather, raw scenes, yet I liked how Suzume struggled with these problems since I can't remember the last time I came across someone with troubles like these in a fantasy book and I'm all for crossing of the genres in literature. As for the rest of the book, I have read some other really creative retellings of Cinderella so it's hard for me to say which one I thought was the most creative but this one is pretty high on the list. It's a very liberal interpretation/retelling and only keeps some of the barest themes but there's still enough to make it clear that this is a retelling. The setting, based on feudal Japan, seemed fairly realistic although honestly what I liked the most was how there were characters from that world's version of Africa present since again that was something I completely didn't expect*.

The Bad: The story wraps up a little too rapidly with an almost deus ex machina for a villain (which was vaguely hinted at earlier on but I still wish had had an actual explanation) and just super fast pacing for the last five chapters or so, especially in comparison to the other chapters. It made the ending feel a bit, well, messy and I wished for a little more conclusion on some of the characters, one or two seemed completely forgotten in the very end, so as long as this book was I wish it had gone on a tad bit longer just so it was a little smoother.

The Audio: Personally I'm not that fond of audio books that have just one person doing all the voices (although come to think of it I don't think I've ever heard a full cast audio book) but Rubinate keeps all the important character's voices distinct and never sounds tired or bored which I was impressed by since since book clocks in at nearly fourteen and a half hours (although since it is her job I guess I should expect such professionalism, although I still appreciate it). After a while I was able to get into the voices and such so I can say that yes this was a good audio book, it just didn't really change my preferences for print over audio books.

So I give this book a 4 out of 5 stars and plan on buying a print edition for myself (especially since that I've already donated the CD to the local library, since I couldn't get it to work on my old boombox I had just put it into itunes so I could listen to it on my ipod) and now I'm even more curious about her other works, to the library! For those interested, you can read the first chapter for free (and legally!) right over here, don't know if Audible has a preview of the audio book online however.



*although, looking over Goodreads I discovered that some of Marriott's other books seem to be set in an African-inspired fantasy setting, I wonder if there is crossover between the two....

Book Review: Chime

Checked this out from the library since I had heard some good things about it a couple of years back, although I could've sworn this was a book about vampires since I had previously come across it at one of my libraries and remembered it being about vampires. Normally when this happens it means I've confused one book for another, really trying to figure out what book I confused with this one, anyone know of any books with similar covers that do involve vampires?


Chime by Franny Billingsley

  
I haven't talked about book covers in a while, mainly because a lot of times I just don't have anything to say, but I really don't like this one because of what Briony is wearing. I already had a hard time pinning down which century this story took place in (I believe it's early 20th but it could've been early 19th) and having her in 21st century-esque clothes just didn't work for me, wish they had put more thought into the model's costume.

Summary: Briony has felt lost and, even though she won't admit it, ever since her step-mother died, ever since her father distanced himself from her and her twin sister Rose, ever since she accidentally hurt Rose as a child. But then things begin to change around her, from the arrival of the new boy Eldric in her swamp town to her beginning to reach out to the magical world around her in a way that she hasn't done in years.

The Good: There was some interesting magic in the background of the story which seemed a bit different from what you normally find in low-fantasy these days and I would have liked it to have been expanded upon more (I felt like I was reading the companion novel to another book where all the world-building had already been done) but I can understand why the book didn't do so. Rose also ended up being a much more fleshed out character than I initially expected her to be and something like that always makes me happy.

The Bad: Briony is a character who doesn't think very highly of herself and that's okay, what's not okay for me is just how often she falls into this martyr-like, self-sacrifice way of thinking since it takes her about 90% of the book, maybe 95% of the book to grow out of it. I found it annoying, others may find it less so, but the fact that takes her so long to start changing should, well, tell you how long it takes her to change in the book. One, you really can't have your character grow and change only that close to the end, she does change some throughout the rest of the book but not a lot. Two, her change comes as the result of some events related to the plot which are supposed to be a great surprise but, well, not only does the title of the book give away one of them but I had guessed the second twist just because I've done a lot of reading and know when I'm supposed to be suspicious of certain characters and events. This goes back to what I've said in other reviews, plot twists are fine, just don't drag them out way past when the reader has figured them out or they become annoying instead. As I mentioned earlier, I also had a very hard time figuring out when this story was set (which is a bad sign since that never happens to me), found the romance a bit hard to follow (although that's rather normal for me), and just overall wasn't very interested in the story.


So, two out of five stars from me, for anyone whose curious for a book (or anything really) to get below stars means that there are problems with that actual presentation itself, like grammatical errors or horrible plot inconsistencies. Chime didn't have that so it gets a two but I can't see myself ever rereading this, recommending it, or really trying out Billingsley's other works unless they get glowing reviews (which weirdly enough it appears this book did, very strange).

Book Review: Glamour in Glass

Getting close to the end of the year here! For the record, I'm going to take the first through the fifth off, partially so I can sew for an upcoming con and also because I've done such a great job getting everything reviewed I'll be basically out of stuff to talk about by then! Besides, just about everyone who took a break took one this week so it's not like there will be a dearth of content elsewhere.
In any case, I attempted to get this book through an interlibrary loan, failed, discovered it was at my local library back home, got it from there once I got home for the holidays and then got a response from my college library saying they had it. I have absolutely no idea what they're doing now, especially since I was well into the book and knew I was going to finish it long before I got back to school and there doesn't seem to be a way to cancel the request. Oh well, what matters now is that I have read it and through entirely legal means to boot!


Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal

Summary: Jane and Vincent are now happily married and working together producing glamurals, even though Jane worries that she's not helping enough or that her contributions to the work are overlooked by everyone except her husband. However they decide to take a brief break and go on a honeymoon on the continent now that Napoleon has been disposed of and visit an old friend of Vincent's where Jane has a rather clever idea.

The Good: As odd as it sounds this book made me a bit interested in the history of the time and not the history of Napoleon and his wars but of society and the differences between countries in Europe. Possibly not what Kowal expected people to take away from it but I want to go off and read more about the time period now which I think means the book did at least a few things right. As for the story itself, it was cool to see how the magic changed and grew, although the story didn't focus as much on the magic so I almost want another book which focuses on it more. 

The Bad: I'm venturing dangerously close to spoilers here but the heck with it, despite the fact that it gives the book it's title the glassmaking ultimately didn't play a very large role in the book and I felt like it was almost disposed of by the end. Sure you could say it was only a plot device but I think it was a badly used one. And the book overall was, well, boring and I never found Shades of Milk and Honey boring. I've seen people that it is much harder to write a story about people staying in love than one about them falling in love and that certainly seemed to be the case here, even if it was nice to see Vincent be more open it was just more boring overall.

In the end I give this three stars out of five and found it much less interesting than it'd predecessor  It's not a full "you have to read this to know the entire story " sequel so read it if you want, if you don't then don't. I'm probably being a bit hard on it but, erm, oh well, I'm sure it's just to balance out how lenient I was on Kyousogiga yesterday.