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

Book Review: Our Lady of the Ice

Well this review is far later than I wanted it to be, both in terms of this blog's supposed update schedule and in general, I think when I read this book it was still cold outside! But hopefully this is a book that I'll be recommending to people for years to come, no matter the season.

Our Lady of the Ice by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Book Review: The Mermaid's Sister

Back in February Amazon offered me a free Prime trial membership (I had a free trial when I was a student but since that one was about five years ago I guess they decided to give me another chance at free shipping) which was great and I found out that Prime members can get a free, Amazon-first, ebook each month, curated from a special list by the editors. My membership was spread out over February and March and, in honor of National Reading Month, I actually got two free books in February so I have three, Amazon-first ebooks in total that I'll be talking about soon. It's a rather nice perk!

The Mermaid's Sister by Carrie Anne Noble

Webcomic Review: Widdershins

Well it's that time of the month again, it's a bit terrifying how fast this first part of the year goes by. I'm afraid that I've been focusing one fantasy/sci-fi webcomics here more than I meant to but after thinking about it I realized that most of my favorite "realistic" comics are real-world journal comics, many of which are still fairly new or on and off hiatus fairly regularly. I'd ask for people to recommend me more but I'm not even sure what I would want out of a "realistic fiction" comic, do those include mysteries? Since I am completely down with more mysteries, although nearly every plot-centric comic will have a mystery or two in it just like this one here does.

Widdershins by Kate Ashwin

Audio Book Review: Strange Maid

 I received this from my library through the Overdrive program/app and holy cow that was the least intuitive app I have ever used and I cannot believe that people actually think this is a good program. I had to use a separate app for my computer and phone, unsure if they synced since I didn't want to even try it out after all the hassle it had already taken, and the program didn't even save my place when I stopped for the day. A third of the time I would open it up and it would start playing where I left off but I couldn't figure out the rhyme or reason for why it saved my place sometimes and not others (it's not because of the bookmark function). The book was also split up into ten sections for downloading/accessing but these sections didn't necessarily line up with chapter breaks, as would be logical and there seemed to be enough free space in the last section to allow for shuffling, left me wondering why this app was even designed this way if it wasn't either logical or elegant, one or the other I could understand but not neither! 

The Strange Maid by Tessa Gratton, narrated by Cynthia Holloway 

Book Review: Waistcoats and Weaponry

As a general heads-up, no anime/cartoon review on Monday since all of my plans to watch something have fallen short this week and I'm feeling rather grumpy about it honestly.

Like many things in life, author visits/book-signings seem to be something that happens sporadically and in groupings. I only found out about this one a week beforehand and was rather grumpy since I do own the Parasol Protectorate omnibuses and would have liked to get them signed but they were several hundred miles away from me and I didn't trust the post office to get them up to me in time. I only found out because the local indie bookstore that was helping with the events posted it in their newsletter, Carriger never goes on tour on the East Coast and didn't announce it on her blog until just two days in advance! Grumbling aside, it was a good talk and I was quite happy to spot this book just a couple of weeks later at my other library system since I still recalled some of the things Carriger said in her talk that were rather pertinent to this book!

Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail Carriger

Book Review: The Far West

The bad thing about reviewing a series and reviewing all of the books so close together is that I run out of things to say to introduce it! So, here is the last book in Wrede's frontier magic series and as always, don't read unless you haven't read the other books first (for once it's not for spoilerly reasons however, it just defeats the purpose of the series!).

The Far West by Patricia C Wrede

Book Review: Across the Great Barrier

Moving right along with this series (since the sooner I write a proper review of it the sooner I can write the next book, I've found if I don't I risk muddling the stories together and write overall less satisfying reviews) so there's not much to say to introduce it, it's magic, the Wild West, and not in the way you just thought when you heard those two phrases put together!

Across the Great Barrier by Patricia C Wrede

Book Review: A Natural History of Dragons

This will be my last review of a 2013 book for a while, thank goodness, I've had to completely reorder my reviewing list to get these done as quickly as I could and as a result there are some things that have been on there for quite a while. Perhaps in the future I should continue reviewing novels during November Month of Manga as well, hmm. Regardless, I'm a little surprised that out of all the 2013 books I was looking for in my library that hey had this one (new author, not your typical set-up for a fantasy, etc) but I am not one to complain when the library has things I want to read!

A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Tent by Marie Brennan 

Book Review: Thirteenth Child

Patricia Wrede is one of my favorite authors and one whom I credit with really getting me interested in fantasy way back in middle school yet if you asked me I wouldn't be able to name that many books of hers. I've read The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (which starts with Dealing with Dragons which is probably a more recognizable name) and I enjoyed her The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (and it's sequels) with co-author Caroline Stevemer quite well but I've never really looked up her other works. So it was a combination of pleasant surprise and slight embarrassment when I found out she had another fantasy series currently going, although the fact it was a few years old already meant that at least I didn't have any trouble getting it from the library.

Thirteenth Child by Patricia C Wrede

Book Review: Without A Summer

So, I know I had said I wasn't particularly interested in reading more novels in this series since I suspected that nothing was really going to change from story to story but, well, it was sitting in the new books section of my library and looked really nice and shiny! Plus it had a colorful cover, yep I don't have a really good reason for why I picked it up anyway.


Without A Summer by  Mary Robinette Kowal

Summary: Jane and Vincent are back in England and taking private glamural commissions again which takes them out to London during the season and Jane invites her sister along. While trying to make sure her sister has enough to do Jane begins to hear rumors of something involving the Catholics which may or may not be related to the overly chilly year they are having, a bit of misfortune that same have started blaming on the glamourists.

The Good: I can safely I've never seen fiction set during "the year without a summer" before, although knowing the true cause of the bad weather (I was already familiar with the disaster and figured it out as soon as I glanced at the summary) did take out some of the tension. I did like how Kowal used it to recreate similar protests and social upheaval of the real 1800s, most of which I hadn't been aware of until I looked at the notes in the back and that's one of my favorite things about alternate histories, taking a real world issue, changing it a bit to fit the setting and yet in the process informing the reader in such a way that they don't realize it's happening.

The Bad: I was more or less correct, after the charming first volume it seems as if the books are starting to fall into a routine (Jane learns of a plot, suspects the worst, it turns out to not be the worst but more communication could have helped even more) and I don't like routine in my books, if I want to read the same idea over I'll go reread a book I already love. So yet again, technically and story-wise there's nothing wrong here but character wise I am starting to get bored, although I'm not sure how much character development actually is appropriate for fully grown adults.


In the end I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars since while I did enjoy it more than the previous book I still feel like the original book stands strongest on it's own. I've heard that Kowal plans to have even more books, I suppose it must be selling well, and I guess that if I come across any more of them in the library I'll pick them up but otherwise I won't be going out of my way to read them. 

Book Review: Heartless

And moving right along we've reached the penultimate book in the Parasol Protectorate series so there's not much I can say to introduce it now, just the usual warning that due to how this this series is set up by summarizing the book I spoil a large twist from earlier books. Thankfully this one isn't as bad as the others, nothing jaw-droppingly surprising happened in the third book but if you haven't read the second book yet then just read that first and then look at my reviews in case you aren't sure if you want to continue.


Heartless by Gail Carriger

Summary: Alexia and Connall are back together and finally know what their baby will be, something different from either of them, a skin-stealer, and that's why the vampires have been putting up a fuss about their marriage from the very start. So, even though that is resolved now, their lives aren't quiet enough to let them simply prepare for the baby's arrival, the politics of London's supernatural society continue to shift and change and cause rather major problems for everyone involved. 

The Good: Even though I'm about to outline why I thought this book was rather weak it was still a fun read and I was interested to see that some of the side characters are becoming steadily more important with more time and characterization spent on them. I'm used to stories that are more or less one long story broken into chunks of some kind (episodes, books, updates) and therefore don't add onto the main cast as much since the story is already going. This series is a bit different since you could split it into a few stories all within a larger story and that gives it a chance to elevate these characters without taking away from the rest of the cast, I rather like this and wouldn't mind seeing other stories do similarly.

The Bad: Looking back on this series as a whole this was the weakest book in it and in some ways I wish three and four had been rewritten to combine the two since no big plot revelations really happened in either and this book feels like it's just tidying up a few loose ends in preparation for the last book/setting the stage by creating a few extra conflicts for it. Speaking of that, I've just been a bit unhappy with how Madame Lefoux has been portrayed this entire series. Perhaps I should have waited until the Timeless review to bring it up but she feels like an entirely different character if you compare the second volume to this one or the fifth, and not because of growth but just because it feels like Carriger changed her mind about her partway through and either couldn't or didn't rewrite everything else to be in line.


Sorry this is a bit short but unfortunately I was unable to finish writing this while I still had the book in front of me so some of the plots of 3/4/5 are starting to blend together in my mind and I don't want to talk about something which didn't actually happen in this book. Since it's a bit weak I'm going to give it only a 3 out of 5 (which I know I give to a lot of things but a 3 is average and, well, most things are average), onto the final one!

Anime Review: Eureka Seven Astral Ocean

This year has been a weird year for sequels. We started out the year with Last Exile: Fam of the Silver Wing (whose first half I think was better than the part that aired this year), Legend of Korra (which, to sum it up, tried to cram 20 episodes worth of material into 12 which gave it some terrible pacing problems towards the end) and then this, the sequel to Eureka Seven: Psalm of the Planets, despite the fact that it's set in the early part of the 2000s on Earth which is about 10,000 years earlier than E7 and, knowing how history went down on E7, seemed to be an alternate world (which reminded some fans of the movie, I only saw part of it but even after that small part I saw I had to spend about 15 minutes explaining to a friend what the tv show was actually about). So, as per usual for me, I was excited for the new show to see how exactly this was going to work and a bit cautious but hey, this is a group of people all working together, surely they can call each other out if they did something stupid right?
Well, from what I've heard (I haven't been able to double check this since I don't read Japanese) apparently the show changed from a more, monster-of-the-week approach early on (with Naru being a prominent character) to what we got which was more connected to the original series and, given the strange difference between the early promo art/first opening and what actually happened I'd believe it. I am happy that it wasn't just monster-of-the-week but I don't think it was a good call to apparently re-write the entire story just weeks before the broadcast start.....

Eureka Seven: Astral Ocean

Summary: Ao has never known his father and his mysterious, turquoise haired mother vanished years ago in a scub burst. So he's grown up on the semi-independent island of Okinawa shunned by just about everyone but his sickly friend Naru and, through a slightly complicated series of events, ends up piloting his mother's old mech to save the island and becomes closely entwined with the eventual fate of the world and it's fight against the secrets and the scub. 

The Good: When the show is firing on all pistons it's a really great show, for the spring and summer it and Hyouka were the two shows I was most pumped about. Ao is a sympathetic character, like the viewer he's caught up in the growing, changing politics and (since for the majority of the show even veteran viewers had only theories on how the two shows were connected) there really is no easy or right way out in this show IMO. The side characters got a bit more fleshed out than I expected, the show showed off more of it's setting than I expected and it did do one of the better versions of a parallel universe that I've seen. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that, since you say a series is a sequel and it's set 10,000 years earlier it's logically got to be something like that, and it actually explains how that happened and puts the viewer in the interesting position of knowing that the "real" world (ours/the one that the people in the original show left and came back to) is out there but wondering if that's really what the characters should be aiming for. I imagine most people didn't care that much about that detail but I really liked it, now if only they had actually answered that question in the end....

The Bad: The show reached it's peak towards the middle of the series and it's not like it skyrocketed downhill from there, it got really confused and it only became apparently in the last few episodes (especially the last two) that it just wasn't working. The short version is that the show took all of the themes that were so important from the original series and tossed them out the window by ignoring them/having the characters destroy them, the long version was eloquently written up by some of the users on tvtropes (especially the 10th post down, number 510, spoilers for the last two episodes apply to the entire page but everything should be behind spoiler tags). I'll admit, I'm biased against series where to create a sequel they have to undo what was supposed to be a happy ending in the first series (as opposed to a show which was always meant to have a sequel and this was always the intent) and again, in doing so the writers ended up contradicting all of the themes from the first show which just didn't work. I had some trouble with some of the other subplots, I feel like they changed whatever was going on romantically with Ao at least twice during the show, Elana's bit was dragged out too long (not a lot too long but long enough and it was really confusing at parts), and both Naru and Truth didn't quite work in the end (which is an understatement for Truth in my opinion) but I was still okay with the show up to those last two episodes, now I'm confused about how I feel and just generally unhappy that whoever was in charge of the writing thought this made sense and made for a good story.     

The Audio: As far as I can tell, ANN isn't being really clear here, the musical team behind AO is not the same as the team behind the original but damn the music is still catchy none the less. I do question some of the music (like the second ending theme, is it just me or do shows these days love to have catchy outro music when the show gets dark?) but hey there were some parts in the original show that I really questioned as well. The voice acting was pretty good, Ao was even voiced by a teenager which gave his voice some nice rawness, although there was one casting decision I questioned. I probably shouldn't say who it is but again, it's from the last two episodes and if you've seen E7 recently (and in Japanese obviously) you'll know it when you hear it and I really didn't like it, although it does fit in with the destruction of themes if you think about it in a sideways kind of manner. 

The Visuals: Like the audio, no complaints here, the show looked fantastic! It was colorful, the mechs looked similar enough to know that they were based on some from the original series (no literally, that's the in-universe reason) yet different enough because they did come from two different groups of people (again in-universe), and the fight scenes looked glorious. The character designs also looked similar to the original series (as far as I can tell neither the character no the mecha designer are the same people from the original show, although it looks like some of the other people who did design did some in both) and the backgrounds were nicely detailed as well. So, like Fam and Korra (hell, did all three sequel shows have the protagonist's name in the title?) this is a show which had amazing production values yet some writers which seemed to have trouble this time around.


I probably should have said this at the beginning but no, I don't think that the original Eureka Seven was a masterpiece beyond words or anything like that and that's not why I'm so hard on this show. I did really enjoy it, especially in the end, but I still swear that the second cour was entirely filler (and joke that it should've been given to X'amd, which until now was considered E7's spiritual successor, since it needed more episodes) and it had a lot of situational gags which I know where supposed to be humorous but I just didn't find so. Eventually I'll rewatch the show for a full review, I meant to do that but didn't have the time last spring, but in the end while I still want to buy all of E7 I'm now torn on getting AO, maybe if I get it for a good price and just pretend that the ending is way different but usually when I say that I end up not buying the show, I'm just going to have to think about it some more. As it stands I give the show three our of five stars for having some really good bits but yeah, those last two episodes. :\

Book Review: Crucible of Gold

Continuing with the "Napoleon Wars with Dragons" series of books, I actually got to this one in the year it came out which I'm quite proud of, in case people haven't figured out by now I can be rather terrible at reading books soon after they come out. Although, given that it's going to be a least a year until the next book comes out it might've been a good idea to wait a little longer before reading and reduce the wait time....

Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik

Am I the only one who is getting real Master and Commander vibes from this cover? I blame the ship in the foreground and while I am a bit sad to see the covers start to deviate from the pattern they originally established I must admit that this cover is probably a bit more eye-catching than the originals were. 

Summary: Laurence and Temeraire have been called back into service in the British Air Forces, rather reluctantly on their part, for a new mission that the British apparently cannot trust to any other group (which further serves to annoy them): to travel to the great Incan Empire of South America and to convince them to not ally themselves with Napoleon. But the journey is never easy for these two, nor does it seem to ever end, and once again they will need to use nearly every skill they have to survive and to smooth over the many political scuffles that come up along their way.  

The Good: The parts of the series where Laurence and Temeraire visit other countries is rapidly becoming my favorite part and I would love for the series to devote some time near the end to showing Temeraire reforming the way dragons are treated in England (actually, I'm even more interested by that idea than the war at this point). The Incan Empire was an interesting setting, especially seeing how it differed from real world history, and I wish more of the book had been spent there instead of with the characters constantly traveling around. And the story reintroduces some characters that haven't been seen in two or so books which was rather nice (I'm all for expanding the cast but, as I've mentioned in other reviews, I am bothered when each book in a series receives an entirely new cast, it simply feels like a waste and I'm glad that's not the case here).  

The Bad: I am of the firm belief that Napoleon will be defeated by the end of the series, there's simply been too much build-up for that not to be the outcome, yet he gets stronger and stronger with each book which means that the ending will have to be more and more spectacular to pull that off. True there are at least two more books to go, and the ending to this one heavily hinted that the British will gain a new ally in the next book, but I'm now starting to lower my expectations of how the story will end since it has set up a problem almost too complex to be resolved. Also, even though these books are crammed full of plot and not much time is wasted, there is still just a lot going on in this book and I almost wish it was trimmed down (and to it's credit all the various subplots are addressed or resolved as they come up, it's still just a lot of stuff to take in).


The story certainly feels like it's beginning to enter the end game by now and I am happy to see it progressing along, even if I am getting worried if Novik can actually pull off an ending that will be worth an eight book wait. Guess there's nothing to do but to hope for the best! 

Book Review: Shades of Milk and Honey

Oddly enough for me I read a few adult fiction books this summer and enjoyed all of them, something which probably won't continue in the fall since I'm still not sure where my school library keeps the adult fiction (I blame the fact they use the Library of Congress system of ordering which is a total pain to find things in). I had heard a bit of buzz for this book's sequel and I realized that I occasionally listen to a podcast, Writing Excuses, which the author co-hosts and since I liked what she had to say there I thought that was a good enough reason to try the book out. I haven't gotten around to trying out the sequel yet but I do plan to do so when my reading pile isn't as ridiculous as it got in the past few months.

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Knowal

 
Summary: Jane Ellsworth is the 28 year old spinster daughter of the Ellsworth family and, while she's a charming young lady and quite talented at using Glamour (magic that alters how reality looks and to an extent how it interacts with it's surroundings), she's not stunningly beautiful and has resigned herself to the maiden aunt while her younger sister will eventually marry. But that doesn't mean she's one to sit by idly when her friends or family are in trouble and in the process she ends up having her own story to tell.  

The Good: Despite the fact that magic is an important part of the story, and that the story would have played out quite differently without it, Kowal makes it clear early on that it is not the most important part of the story and always made sure that, while it certainly helped move the story along at parts, it never overwhelmed the story or was the major driving force. I thought it was great that she was able to balance something so fantastical with Jane's rather mundane life and that she was able to create a very natural setting out of it. Also, a love triangle develops in the story (concerning Jane) and, while I was able to figure out by the end of the first few chapters who she would end up with, I felt that the way it was resolved was a very logical and in a way sincere manner. To keep spoilers to a minimum, there is a scene near the end where Jane and one of the men are talking and there is a moment where both Jane and the audience realize that, even though both of them have feelings for each other, they have some very different principles and Jane sees that she just can't agree with them and holds true to her own values and chooses the other man. I just really liked how that played out, especially since Jane is 28 and her suitors are at least that old/maybe even older, and more mature characters should (hopefully!) mean a more mature resolution for their problems.  

The Bad: While the romance is certainly done well, and I really like how the love triangle was resolved, as I said earlier it was dead simple to see who Jane would choose in the end just because it was the same person that nearly every heroine in her situation would have. Ie, while it does what it set out to do well it doesn't do anything better than I've ever seen or do anything new (except the part with the magic but, also as stated above, that's not the main focus of the story regardless).  Thankfully the story was strong enough that it never became dull but I wonder if some people, who have read a lot of Austin-esque romance, might find it a bit dull.


So again, despite the fact that this book felt more like comfort food than a strange, and oddly tasty, new dish I still rather liked it and plan on reading Glamor in Glass whenever I come across it. Hmm, it seems that I'm reading, and enjoying, more stories set in Regency England these days, maybe there's simply more stories in that setting being published so it's easier to find stories that I like.  

Manga Review: Ooku: The Inner Chambers (volumes 1-4)

I believe I reviewed the first volume of this quite a while ago, I know I've at least read it before (which reminds me, I need to tell the librarians that this series should be in the nonfiction/adult comic section, not next to all the kiddie comics) and while it didn't grab me enough to go out and buy the other volumes un-read it did grab me enough to track down the other volumes my library system had. According to the Japanese Wikipedia there are seven (out of a projected ten) volumes out in Japan right now (and I'm guessing another one should come out soon) and according to The Right Stuf volume 7 will be out in the US in about two weeks. So four volumes covers a good chunk of the series so far and I think it gave me a pretty good feeling for it.

Ooku: The Inner Chambers by Fumi Yoshinaga

 

Summary: In an alternate Japan, a plauge has struck that spans decades and by it's end the male population of Japan is reduced down to just one-fourth of the female population. Desperate times call for desperate measures with women assuming almost all the major roles of society, from the lowly peasant farmer all the way up to shogun and the shogun's Inner Chambers are now staffed with dozens of young men instead of women. But this was hardly a smooth transition nor a speedy one and everything still feels rather delicate, as if a single action could shatter everything that has been rebuilt. 

The Good: While it can be hard to tell some of the characters apart with such a large cast, by and large all of the major characters are each era are quite well fleshed out and grow as well. The characters are the main draw of the series but I also enjoyed the well-thought out politics and the tiny bit of musing on gender roles the series provided me with (namely that gender roles are more nurture than nature but even with the reversal of men and women that people, usually the guys, will still act in certain ways). Overall it was an interesting, satisfying read, although it did have one huge problem with it.

The Bad: The story starts in one time period (which we are led to believe is present time) and then spends three volumes in a flashback chronicling how Japan went from a male dominated society to a female led one and, while interesting, I would like to get back to the “present” time soon. There is still more to go, I would think at least a volume (going by how enormus the character list on the Japanese wiki is, and while I can see why the story was framed as it was (I can’t deny that it’s much more interesting this way), multi-volume flashbacks just get a bit tedious after a while and I wish that they had either been shorter or somehow connected back to/interspersed with scenes from the present day. Also, as I mentioned just above, since there are so many characters to keep track of I would suggest reading these volumes in quick succession of each other, I think it would be much harder to follow based on it's one-volume-a-year publishing schedule. And finally, a problem that seems to be unique to the US translation, the idea of using psuedo-Shakespeare speak to mimic the old-fashioned Japanese which does not work in the slightest. There were literally pages where I could not understand what the characters were talking about and had to skim until I could again. This isn't a minor problem either, when I first heard about this I thought fans were over-reacting but no, the books are nigh un-readable at parts and that makes it very hard to recommend them.

The Art: Yoshinaga seems to have gotten a bit better at drawing character’s faces since Antique Bakery (ie, she can draw more, distinct faces than she could before, see only six faces syndrome) and while I did have to rely on hair style at times, the cast is so large it’s unsurprising that there is some overlap still, it never looked like she was recycling designs. She also uses chibi faces less, which is more to my tastes, and everything was nicely detailed. I believe these, SigIkki, volumes are a little larger than normal and I also really liked their size and presentation.

So, while I would read more of the series, and there's already only a small pool of people I'd recommend it to, that translation job really prevents me from wanting to re-read the show and is a pretty huge caveat as well. I would just love to know if that was an idea on the part of the American translation staff or if this was some weird request the Japanese publishers made. 

  

Manga Review: Sakura-Hime The Legend of Princess Sakura

So by now I have moved back home for the summer and that means I have two totally different libraries to get my books from, although sadly for one of them I've been checking out books from their comic section for almost five years now so there's not a lot of stuff left. This one is one of the new titles they seem to have picked up since last August or so which made me happy since I checked out the first chapter preview on Viz's manga site and it seemed not fantastic but alright. Now, was that first impression an accurate one?

Sakura-Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura by Arina Tanemura

 

Summary: Sakura is an orphaned princess with no living family and so, as much as she hates the idea, will soon be married to her finance, second Prince Aoba. However it turns out there more to Sakura that meets the eye, her grandmother was the legendary Princess Kaguya and she has inherited some of her powers and the perils that come with them.

The Good: There was an interesting twist in this volume (not in the first chapter or I would have mentioned it) did set the series apart from other standard magical girl shows (actually, while the twist is very dissimilar it does remind me a little bit of one of her other works, Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne) in a good way. It provides different conflicts and does genuinely make me want to read more, although sadly my library doesn't have any of the other volumes and there are enough things that I don't like that I'm hesitant to blind-buy the rest of the volumes.

The Bad: With only three or four chapters in the volume it seemed to go by very quickly and I felt like not much actually happened by the end of the volume. The volume was the average, 180 pages length but I wish the pacing at been a tad bit faster (especially since I had already read the one chapter preview on Viz’s website, which is great but means that even less of the story was new to me), the last chapter could have easily been three-fourths/two-thirds as long as it was and nothing would have been missed. Also, aside from that twist and it's implications on the plot, nothing is making me want to hunt down more volumes (abet that is a pretty convincing reason). The characters feel flat so far, the setting is more than simply cliched, and this is at least the third magical-girl (kinda) series Tanemura has done*, there's not much new territory covered here. For that reason I'd only recommend this manga to either people who are big fans of magical girl series or someone who enjoys shojo but hasn't read a ton of it (so 15 year old me I suppose). 

The Art: Even after enjoying a few of her works I still find Tanemura’s work a bit jarring, she draws the eyes too large and the faces too pointy for my tastes and I suspect I’m not the only person who feels that way. Everything else about the art fine, everything seemed to flow well, characters looked distinct enough from each other (within the series, compared to all of  her other characters it's hard to tell them apart), and the artwork also remained consistent enough. I would hesitate to recommend this series because of the art since it is very, very, modern shojo-y, but I expect it won’t bother people who are familiar with her other works or series like say Fruits Basket.

So that's it, I'd read more if given the chance but, since I don't, I won't sweat it. Starting to get a little worried since I thought there would be more manga at my public library I'd like but at least I still have the entire section at the college library to get through, I only just began to browse that last year and hopefully that will last me a few more months.



*if you would like to get technical, Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne is the only truly magical girl series she's done but I also count this as Full Moon o Sagashite/Seraching for the Full Moon since that involved magical transformations and there are other series that are considered "magical girl" shows that involve the main character transforming primarily to become an idol (it's also my favorite out of all her works and I was quite disappointed in how the anime made it less tragic).  

Book Review: Goliath

Bit later than I would have liked this review to be up, like it's predecessors this book was released back in the fall but between waiting for the library to get it and my large to-read pile (I, erm, may have bit off more than I could chew, combined with my March break I have more than enough books to review for a long time) it took a while to get to it. So no I do not have a copy of this book yet but fully intend to get one soon, if my anime expenses don't take over my budget for another month....

Goliath by Scott Westerfeld, illustrated by Keith Thompson

Summary: Deryn and Alek continue their trek eastward on the Leviathan as the world falls farther and farther into war. But the Leviathan might have the solution to the end of the war, along the way they pick up renowned scientist Telsa who claims to have a weapon that could level cities at a glance, a weapon that force anyone to stop all the fighting and what Alek is banking on. Deryn and the other Darwinists have their doubts however and Deryn is finding that it's becoming harder and harder to hide her true identity and the more involved she becomes in the world's affairs the more dangerous it becomes to reveal it.  

The Good: Westerfeld continues to expand his world by showing off Japan and the Americas and their blends of technologies and ideologies was nice*. Also nice was some characters from the second book reappearing, I’ve grown rather used to trilogies which have different expanded casts in every book that this was a nice surprise. The book actually balanced a large cast very well with even more factions being introduced and no one felt like a flat, background character. This was helped in part by the pacing, a lot happens in the story and the Leviathan covers even more ground than the first two books and it never feels like one area or place drags on too long or is breezed by too quickly, everything flowed very well.  Finally, fans should go to Westerfeld’s blog and read the extra chapter set after the series which was quite fun.

The Bad: While the ending wasn’t bad and was what I had been expecting, since I knew the actual history Goliath was borrowing, so it wasn’t quite as satisfying as I had hoped. Again, it’s a reasonable ending, makes sense (hence I had predicted something rather close), it just didn’t hit the right emotional notes with me (not the very end end, the whole ending in general). I was also a bit underwhelmed with what the Lorises were really supposed to be, it does sound like Doctor Barlow broke a major rule while creating them but I still fail to see why they were ever supposed to be important to the conflict. Overall, the ending was a bit underwhelming and played out fairly close to what I predicted and, as someone who likes tricky plots I found it a bit unsatisfying. 

The Art: The art continues to be stunning and while I felt like some of the crowd scenes weren’t quite as detailed as the ones from the second book but the art has noticeably improved from the first book (which wasn’t bad, it simply got even better). The art continues to be the easiest way for me to promote the book to friends (it’s much easier to flash a few pictures from a book rather than find time to make someone read a few passages that they hopefully like) and it’s the biggest reason that this book is on my to-buy list (and on a similar note I'm excited for the companion guide which will have even more illustrations in it, coming out later this year I believe). 

Despite the ending not being quite as interesting as I hoped this was still a very strong installment to end on and I'm looking forward to whatever Westerfeld writes next. Actually, come to think of it I don't think I've heard of what his next project is (other than the pre-Uglies graphic novels and the companion book for this), hope it's interesting!

*although I question that the [American] South, the god-fearing South which today still has issues with “moral debates” today (I mean, for god's sake my state votes on a constitutional amendment against gay marriage even though it's already illegal) being the half that had fabricated beasties, I can see where he was going with the North and their machines but it didn’t quite work for me, an East-West split with an industrialized East and a fabricated West would have made much more sense.

Webcomic Review Month 2012: Sfeer Theory, Snow by Night, Spare Keys for Strange Doors

Tonight's reviews reminded me that I'm always amused when I come across really similar settings in webcomics especially since it never seems like creators are copying each other. Such as the example tonight, every time I come across a comic set in colonial times there's always an element of fantasy to it (such as characters who are cats or time-traveling), although I'm also curious why I find so few straight up historical settings these days (in both comics and YA books) so that might be the case here. Again, I'm pretty sure none of these creators are copying each other, or possibly have seen the other comics, so it really makes me wonder if somehow our current, overall pop-culture is somehow inspiring all these people to do similar stories/settings, I find it interesting to muse about in any case.

Last years Ss (which I accidentally linked to yesterday, changed that) and the other part (since I had to split it in two last year).

Sfeer Theory by Alex "Muun" Singer and Jayd "Chira" Aït-Kaci

Luca Valentino is a foreigner to the Empire of Warassa and as such cannot apply to be a student at it's schools for magic and instead works as a technician in it's premier school, Uitspan Academy. And after two years of working there when the empire has reached it's height and his talents as a Cyclist* seem to have finally been noticed....

The artist here is the same one who works on The Fox Sister and again I love fluid motion all of her art seems to convey, for a comic that centers around magic that moves it's the perfect choice. When browsing the site I was interested to see that this part of the comic, called Uitspan Era, is going to be a prequel to an even larger story so I'm quite curious to see where it goes. I already really like the characters that have appeared and the magic system seems rather unique, I haven't seen any ideas quite like it before, so I'm excited for the rest.

*mage, sfeer means sphere and all of their magic is worked in circles hence the term Cyclist

 Snow by Night by Eric Menge and Brittany Michel

In an alternate world and time similar to the early American colonies, Blaise and Jassart are a pair of thieves who are living a rather good life until another thief starts stealing their targets and leave no clues how they did it. The two set out to catch this thief and find out why and discover a very different story than what they were expecting.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, I've read a few other webcomics set in colonial times but none quite like this. It has a semi-fantastical setting, and it's clear that the creators have put tons of work into it since they update an almanac with backstory every week in addition to regular pages and have had a number of guest comics with even more backstory, and I like how they've created a mythology of sorts that wouldn't feel that out of place in Trickster. I would like to see more stuff with some of the side characters in the comic since I find them pretty interesting as well but the comic is still young so I'm sure that will happen sooner or later.

  Spare Keys for Strange Doors by Lucy Lyall

Toby Hathaway and Marion Sark are, specialists, at handling the mysterious and uncanny bits of normal life, if your definition of normal life includes ghosts and spells. They take on quite a large variety of jobs, some begin and some dangerous, and life for them is never dull.

While I see plenty of anime that revolve around a central cast dealing with cases that involve the supernatural with story arcs that generally don't overlap I don't see many webcomics that follow that format and, since I enjoy that format quite a bit, this makes for a nice change of pace. Each story has managed to be fairly different so far which is nice and, unlike a number of anime that follow this set-up, the two leads are both rather likeable characters who have their good moments and their grouchy moments. I think these stories never work as well if the leads are good so with solid leads here I think the story is in very good shape.

 

Anime Review: .hack//SIGN

The .hack (pronounced dot hack) franchise is one that I would really love to see someone do a complete retrospective of since there is so much of it and it's really hard to tell what's worth seeing and what isn't. So I did the next best thing, asked my friends if any of them really knew anything about the franchise or could at least give me a timeline of it. One of my friends did (I actually reposted it in a thread over on ANN) so now I at least have a basic idea of how the story all fits together. I've actually wanted to try out the shows for a long time now (I remember reading a bit about them in the readers corner in the magazine Cricket which I haven't gotten since I was 15 or so) but never had the chance until I found out that my current roommate had all the dvds for Sign. So they very nicely loaned them to me and even pointed out that the letters on the spines of the DVDs spell out "Log Out" which I thought was pretty neat.

.hack//SIGN

Summary: In an alternate future there is an online video game played by millions across the globe called "The World." It's an RPG where the players immerse themselves using special headsets to interact and can immediately disconnect if something goes wrong. But something has gone wrong and the character known as Tsukasa is stuck in The World. Already a withdrawn person, Tsukasa is broken and it's only due to the intervention of several other characters, some of whom think that Tsukasa's impossible condition is connected to another impossible event, the The Key of the Twilight, that he manages to keep from withdrawing from the world all together. 

The Good: Some stories that have the characters in or playing a video game like to be coy about it and reveal that it's only a game as a big twist, .hack//SIGN does not do that and I really liked that it didn't take that route. The fact that this is just a game, a game that has gotten terribly real for one person, is an interesting juxtaposition and I also liked how some of the characters were doing more research into the behind the scenes events outside of the game. There's also a lot of interesting background information about the story itself (the DVDs come with a pretty interesting timeline, detailing from when this world split from ours, right up to 2007 when The World was released), although it almost makes me wish that the show had been able to focus more on that instead of some of it's filler episodes. 

The Bad: I've seen a number of stories that involve people getting stuck in video games (both physically and mentally like here) so the idea doesn't feel as fresh anymore, I feel like I would have enjoyed this story much more if I had seen it when I was younger and wasn't as jaded about the philosophical conversations that many characters had. There were also a few small things about the story that bugged me (such as the fact that this was supposed to be one of the series that showed the characters outside the game yet barely did so and the whole deal with Balmug*). Tsukasa was also very hard to like, there were several times when I wondered why some of the characters still bothered to put up with him, and I thought that the way he eventually got out of the game was a bit of a cop-out, it was just so simple, basically an accident, that it bothered me after all the build-up that was one of the main points of the series.

The Audio: I had heard about people talking about the music for this series for years but I was still blown away by the soundtrack. There is tons and tons of music for this show, some only instrumental and some background insert songs (in surprisingly good English too) and the opening and ending songs were both great as well. I almost feel like it's a shame that it's a rather average show like this that gets such a gorgeous score, I'll be sure to see what other works the composer has done.

The Visuals: The visuals however aren't nearly as impressive as the music. The visuals aren't bad, not at all, but they make the show look very much like an early 2000s, average budget show. Despite the characters being in a video game (ie, there is no reason why their clothes have to obey the laws of physics and common sense) the clothes weren't that outrageous but the setting did explain some of the odder choices which was nice. There were also some nice settings within the show where it was clear that the creators remembered that this wasn't a standard fantasy show but a show set inside the video game (such as the upside down castle) and I thought those were nice touches.

I'm not exactly sure if I want to try out any more series in this franchise, especially since for some of them you need to see video game play throughs first and other bits are only explained in mangas/novels but I think in the end this is a franchise where I like the concept better than the execution. Hmm, that might explain some of the problems I had with Quantum's ending.... 



*they mention him in the very first episode (which got me excited since one of the characters in .hack//Quantum based their design off of him) and he even was on the cover of one of the DVDs, only to appear for a barely five minute cameo, lame! I've since been able to figure out what works he's really in and find his backstory but I was still miffed by this.