Book Review: Persona

Persona by Genevieve Valentine

Book Review: Log Horizon (volume two)

A short review for a short book? Fine by me! And for people who have forgotten, I have seen the Log Horizon anime (and enjoyed it hence why I've been buying Yen Press's release of the novels) but I will try not to just compare the two!

Log Horizon by Mamare Touno 

Anime Review: Classroom*Crisis

Okay, baby-steps to getting these reviews back on time, baby steeeeps. Oh and I'd like to note, while I still have over half of my summer shows to review, this is the last of the "this was good for sure" tier of shows. Nothing else was terrible, I don't have the time to finish terrible, full seasons of anime, but going forward I had quite a few more problems with the next few shows on the list.

Classroom*Crisis

Anime Review: Gatchman Crowds Insight

I, like everyone else, was surprised when I heard that were was going to be a sequel to the 2013 incarnation of Gatchaman since it seemed like the series had tied itself up quite nicely. However, after having seen this sequel it's a must see, that story wasn't complete before which I suppose makes this the best sequel ever in a sense.

But first things first, if you have seen Crowds but not the director's cut of episode 12 you need to see that. Given the half recap episode in the tv run they had to re-edit episode 12 on the DVDs (Japan only, Sentai could not get the license in the US) which includes how Hajime finally defeated Berg Katze and a few other key details. Next, make sure to watch episode 0 on Crunchyroll before going onto episode 1 since it has new stuff as well. And then you're all set for what may be the most decisive anime of 2015!

Gatchaman Crowds Insight

Comic Review: In Real Life

For once I found out about this comic long before it came out (instead of discovering it years later on a library shelf) since publisher First Second made the odd choice to start marketing the book 11 months before it was even out. Like the current American election cycle, starting that early seemed a bit excessive to me, although Cory Doctorow's original short story ( "Anda's Game") had been out on the internet even longer so maybe that was the line of thinking. Regardless, I liked the preview I found on Tor.com and I was already familiar with Doctorow (loved Little Brother, couldn't make it more than a few chapters in For the Win) and Jen Wang (I really liked Koko Be Good) so this was a must-read for me as soon as my library got its copies.

In Real Life story copyright Cory Doctorow, art and adaption by Jen Wang

Manga Review: Magi (volumes six through ten)

Funny enough, when I posted my review of the first five volumes of Magi I thought "yeah, I'd really like to read more of this" and went back to my library website where I found volumes nine and ten. I requested them and kept scrolling (my library, like every other one I've known, doesn't always have an author's work appear chronologically in searches) only to realize that nope, volume ten had only dropped the previous week but they had never gotten six through eight! I had a similar situation with Gundam The Origin some people might recall so I do plan on submitting a purchase request for everyone else who wants to read it (my library doesn't just ask for the title and author, I have to put in things like original publication date, publisher, and ISBN which seems like a safeguard against spam but a really inelegant way to do it). So, scanlations were used for those missing volumes and man I am glad for professional translations, I have known some scanlation groups who do a pretty good job but these were inferior to the Viz ones in style and word choice!

Magi by Shinobu Ohtaka

Book Review: City of Stairs

It's a little hard to tell but I think I've made some good progress on my books-to-read list which is always a nice thing. I've been able to knock off some stuff I've had on the list for years and found that by now my library systems have a surprising number of 2014 books. Not everything (they seem to have gotten in Children of a Hidden Sea and then promptly lost it) but enough things that I always have something nice to read these days!

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

Manga Review: Magi (volumes one through five)

In case anyone has looked at their title and then double-checked their calendar, yes this week should technically be a Webcomic Wednesday. However, in March all of my Wednesdays will be Webcomic Wednesday and that means if I don't review Magi now I won't get to it until April, nearly four months after I read it. So fret not, webcomics are coming next week and I would now like to talk about a series which was hot stuff in Japan for a while (and may still be) but never quite caught on in the US the way some other shonen series have.

Magi by Shinobu Ohtaka

Book Review: Siege and Storm

As I believe I mentioned recently, occasionally I just plain forget to review something and that was the case with Shadow and Bone last year where I didn't realize until months and months later that I hadn't reviewed it and by that point my memory of the book was just fuzzy enough that I didn't feel as if I could do a good review. Which is strange, not only did I enjoy the book but I also looked through it's list of references in the back and was reading this enormous, 1980s tome of Russian history from practically it's beginning in modern-day Ukraine up until the late 1800s, you'd think that sitting down to read that nearly every day for a month would have reminded me at the very least....

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Anime Review: Log Horizon

So some people who don't follow me on twitter might be confused to see this title since I said I dropped it last fall and didn't talk about it at all during the winter anime round-UP. What happened was that I has caught up with all my current shows and asked twitter what I should try out next, Witch Craft Works or Log Horizon. They actually had me watch WCW first but I decided after three episodes that even though the through gender flipping of the situation amused me, if this had been your standard "girl has mysterious powers and is defined by equally mysterious boy" I wouldn't really be interested in it either so it's no wonder that it just wasn't grabbing me. I have also heard that originally both of those characters were female but even that doesn't really interest me (and why Riddle Story of the Devil doesn't either). So, I did have a few friends recommend LH to me a few hours later and decided to give it a second shot after all, especially since I hadn't dropped it for having a terrible first episode. 

Log Horizon

Book Review: Dark Triumph

With so many new books to keep track of this year it's not surprising that one or two nearly slipped my mind, after all it's not like I'm thinking of medieval, nearly-France, or assassins everyday. However my new library system actually has a section within the young adult section (the section forbidden to over-eighteens after 3pm on weekdays and all day on weekends, for once my ambiguous age appearance works in my favor!) dedicated to new books and that has helped me out quite a bit in keeping track of books. Now, if only all the books I wanted to read would magically pop up there....

Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers 

Manga Review: Bokura no Kiseki

I half remember where I first stumbled across this manga, I could have sworn I was on a thread on Anime News Network, I believe something had just gotten an anime adaptation, and someone said something dismissive about this title so of course I went and looked it up. I checked yesterday though and could not find the thread at all so perhaps I found this one via tumblr as well. Regardless, I looked it up and went ahead and tried out the first chapter expecting, based on the tone of the person who first mentioned it, to dislike it and quit halfway through. After the first chapter though there was a little bit of swearing on my part as I realized that this was exactly the kind of manga I loved, I was hooked, and had next to no hopes that it would ever get licensed, a truly winning combination!

Bokura no Kiseki by Kumeta Natsuo 

The manga title translates as "Our Miracle" but I've never seen anybody actually use it, probably because it's so generic (and I have no idea at this point what the "miracle" is supposed to be, that they've all been reincarnated???).


When he was a kid Harusami Minami told his classmates that he was the reincarnation of a princess from a far off land and unsurprisingly was teased for it mercilessly. By middle school he knows well enough to keep quiet about it and seems to doubt even himself a little bit. But when cornered by bullies he almost unthinkingly uses magic to scare them off and suddenly there's no doubt that everything he remembers, from the people around him to being killed by invaders from his fiancee's country, is completely true. A few years later he's starting high school with a surprisingly tight-knit class and jotting down everything he remembers from his former life in a notebook written in the old language. When a few of his classmates find the book they don't tease him about it, Minami has gotten too good at lying over the years to distract them, but some of them seem confused by it. And later that night when someone starts firing off magic in the school building he finds out why, suddenly his classmates are remembering their past lives as well and they were all connected to Princesse Veronica's life. As everyone begins to sort out who they were and which side they were on the various groups of students all have the same goal, to figure out what happened hundreds of years ago and why they died.


Often I feel bad about writing a long synopsis of a story but considering just how detailed the set-up for this one is this time it feels reasonable. This truly is a story best read in chunks and preferably with a character chart nearby (heck, I even took one from one of the later volumes and added onto it since it wasn't detailed enough!) since there are about five different factions of characters to keep track of, some of whom overlap, and about 20 characters which means 20 in the present day and 20 in the past (plus a few key players from the past who haven't shown up yet that the reader knows of, most notably Veronica's betrothed Prince Eugene). And in case anyone was wondering if they've been reading this right, yes Minami is a guy and Veronica was a girl, both cisgendered and straight, honestly since he's grown up with most of her memories it just doesn't seem to phase him at all (I believe either the series proper or the omakes makes mention of this at least once). 

I actually really like Minami as a main character since he's just a bit more manipulative than normal which keeps things interesting. Admittedly, part of the reason he is manipulative is due to his friends advising hiding that he really is Veronica (which I honestly do agree with from a logical perspective, not just because it makes things more dramatic) but I still find it rather interesting to see that his classmates who knew Veronica (who wasn't that terrifying) completely cave in to his bluffs and think it speaks volumes about how isolated Minami has been if his classmates can't work out that if Minami isn't like this and Veronica wasn't like this then it must clearly be a bluff. This doesn't mean that I think the other characters are dumb however, I'll certainly allow that high emotions and general confusion (unlike Minami whose memories gradually returned over 15 years, and still aren't completely there it seems, all of his classmates had theirs return all at once and are having a hard time reconciling the war with their current situation) account for a lot of the character's freaking out. 

Heck, I like a lot of the character dynamics here. Like I said in the summary, they've all just started high school so some of them have known each other for years and years but a lot of them haven't yet they were shaping up to be a really fun, close-knit class. And then you have characters realizing that their childhood friends were on the opposite side in their past lives which means that they very well could have been fighting and killing each other* and have to work it out. I'll admit that I like the "characters on the opposite sides for reasons they can't control" trope more as I get older but what I really like here is seeing the characters having to choose how they'll let it define each other, especially since some groups were keeping secrets in the past and have to deal with those as well. And the story really does focus on a lot of different characters, lately it's branched out from following just the three main groups (the Zestrains, Moswicks, and the neutral Church) to follow some characters who are forming splinter groups and I just love both how complicated it's become and watching one or two characters in particular navigate and manipulate their way through because they don't know that much which in my eyes makes them even more relatable. All of the characters that the story has focused on thus far feel like real, fleshed out characters with a lot of different emotions and goals right now since they are so rounded I can't fault the story for not focusing on every character (although I do wonder if there will be an important reason later on why some of them, namely a few servants on both sides, were also reincarnated).

So what exactly is the plot some people might be asking by now, especially since that's what I usually talk about first about a story. Well, in short the characters have two goals; one that everybody shares is trying to figure out how they all died and putting together what everyone remembers (since even the Moswicks, where the attackers came from, have said that they don't know anything and given that the story shows their points of view I'm inclined to believe them). Minami's group, and the Church as well to a lesser extent, is also trying to figure out who was attacking people with magic that first night in the school since at this point it's clear that this person is a key player in the current day plot and probably the story of the past as well. I have my own theories on who it might be (since again, there are two key players and one moderately important one still missing, although the story has all but confirmed one of them is present this has become more complicated) but I'm sure that no matter how it turns out that it'll be interesting. I'm slightly torn on the pacing of the story again, the chapters are long (I think the magazine it runs in is published every two months) so a lot happens but the story so far, at 8 volumes, has all happened within the span of a month I believe which does stretch my suspension of disbelief a bit. Then again, as I already mentioned, add together teenagers, sudden intense memories about how you were just attacked and dying, plus the realization that you have no idea whose telling the truth and whose lying around you, yes I can see why a lot is going on at the same time. 


As for licensing, well, I'm not that optimistic here. The publisher is Ichijinsha (and it looks like the magazine is a spin off of Comic Zero-Sum, of course that's why I liked it!) so no publisher except Kodansha is restricted from it but I don't know how well it really fits with any of the current manga publishers. Someone asked Seven Seas about it on tumblr and it sounds like the fact that it's already 8 volumes long has them hesitant (I don't see it ending in under 12 volumes myself, under 20 but maybe more like 12-16, but that's just going by how the plot currently feels to me and the scanlations seem to be behind by at least a few chapters if not an entire volume). The manga-ka hasn't had anything published over here before, looks like she hasn't done much except a shorter series or two and contributed to a few anthologies, so that's nothing to worry about here but it's always good to check. And aside from the size, this is older shojo (not precisely josei but rather close to the line), fantasy, not much romance going on (since with how messy everything has gotten people are a bit turned off by romance for the moment), and it has some kinda-complicated politicking in it. I would love to be wrong about all of this and have it picked up but as it currently stands I guess this is another manga which I need to plan on importing for myself someday.




*admittedly it's unlikely that they managed to kill each because of one detail, that you had to be killed by magic to be reincarnated, although a large chunk of the characters were magic users. And that detail actually makes the story even more interesting, how did all of these characters die by magic, especially some that were nowhere near Veronica's castle when the hostilities go down? It seems that everyone's memories get hazier right before their deaths so no one knows, Minami actually realizes that what he thought were Veronica's last moments in fact weren't and unsurprisingly it looks like her last few moments were rather important ones.

Manhwa Review: Goong: The Royal Palace (1-3)

Another title I was happy to find at the not so local library since I had read a lot of gushing for it over at the Manga Bookshelf but none of the other libraries I had been to had any of the books. Actually it's interesting, after going to so many different libraries over the years you can really tell which ones had a librarian (or more than one) who was really dedicated to buying manga and you can even tell when they started. This library must have started putting together it's collection in the early 2000s judging from the age of some of the books which is fascinating since I remember around 2005 when I first discovered manga my library had a few books but didn't really start getting more until 2009 and even then seems to have stopped in favor of buying more graphic novels instead. I just find all this fascinating, it provides an odd look into another book lover's mind.

Goong: The Royal Palace by So Hee Park

Summary: In an alternate world Korea still has it's monarchy and much like the British Crown it wields some power and has a great deal of pomp and circumstance. With it's crown prince coming of age the family feels the pressure to marry him off and recall a promise the old king made to his friend, to marry his heir to his daughter. Neither of the young people in question, Prince Shin Lee and average girl Che-Kyung are at all happy with this arrangement but neither of them can break it for now and must go through the show of being a happily married husband and wife.

The Good: Well I learned some real-world history but probably not in the way the creator meant to concerning the Korean monarchy (it seems it was dissolved during World War II which, sadly, was way too recently for any of my history classes to have covered) which was interesting. I did like the politics as well, I can easily see how some problems that some characters are starting in these volumes could take quite a while to resolve, but sadly that's about the only part about the volumes I did enjoy and the politics at this point are still only a sub-plot.

The Bad: Let me put it this way, the library had all the volumes so I planned to try and get through them all before I moved so I could have one large review yet I didn't and it wasn't for lack of time. After the third volume I gave up, Che-Kyung was too odd, Shin Lee was frankly an ass, heck I couldn't sympathize with any of the characters except for a few minor side ones, the other prince creeped me out a bit for no specific reason, didn't care about the "romance" and found the humor completely unfunny (part of which had to do with the art style). This was completely not my cup of tea, I had hoped for a stronger focus on politics (which may have come later and there was quite a bit of politics, don't get me wrong there) but the "romance" just killed it for me.

The Art: As mentioned earlier, the art for the comedic moments also really threw me out of the series, for some reason Park decides to use these really ugly chibis so I spent all my time just cringing at them instead of possibly laughing at them which isn't a good thing. The rest of the time the art looked rather lovely actually but the chibis come up pretty often which I thought was a bummer. 

In the end I'm only going to give these three volumes 2.5 out of 5 stars and don't intend to read the rest. I'm sure some people will really like this, and for those who do the series is licensed in North America by Yen Press, but I'm not one of them.

Manga Review: Basara (volumes 1-5)

And I'm back folks, survived the almost 35,000 person crowd that was called Otakon and, well, that was certainly an experience! And expect a non-review post sometime in the next few days detailing a few changes around the blog since I'm moving again soon and moves always seem to leave this little blog a bit different.

But enough about that, let me talk to you about amazingly late 1900s shojo for a few minutes. For some reason from the late 70s, maybe mid 80s, through the very early 2000s there was a lot of shojo which I term "epic fantasy shojo" where the focus was on sweeping stories, large casts, and the coming of age of female characters in tense, often political, situations with a bit of romance tossed in that rarely was the main driver in the story. I'm not sure what happened to those stories, I've seen YA fiction in the US that seems more similar to that manga than most shojo manga I can find these days yet these titles are so unknown outside of the really devoted manga fandom that I doubt there's any connection. And of those titles this is one of the best known and if I hadn't been hearing about it for literally years I probably would have passed it up when I cam across it at the not-so-local library. I mean, look at that font, Basara are you SURE you're only as old as I am because that font looks like it came straight out of the 80s, a classic example of just because the calendar has entered a different decade doesn't necessarily mean that design sensibilities have caught up yet.

Basara (volumes 1 through 5) by Yumi Tamura

Summary: When Sarasa and her twin brother Tatara were born a prophet declared one of them to be "the child of destiny" and the village always assumed that this proclamation referred to Tatara. So did the king of their area of post-apocalyptic Japan, the Red King, it seems and Tatara is slain before he can even begin a rebellion to change Japan and so Sarasa takes up his name and begins her quest of revenge while discovering what a complicated place the world now is.

The Good: I make no secret that I adore stories with complex politics woven in and I love how the story has set up Sarasa/Tatara with their goal to take down some clearly corrupt kings, including the Red King, to make life better for all and yet has also shown her and the reader that the Red King's land is far better than the rest of Japan with the implication that the reason rebellions like the one her village planned have been crushed so brutally is because if they succeed the other kings will move in and make that area even worse. It's a world where there appear to be completely cruel and one hundred percent sadistic villains yet no true heroes or right thing to do, a fun set-up for readers who enjoy watching their protagonists fight for a good ending. The cast, much like the setting, expands rapidly but so far I haven't had any trouble telling the characters apart and the story remarkably enough even managed to sell me on it's star-crossed lovers aspect. Normally I become frustrated by that, especially when it's between two characters who are sworn enemies as is the case here, but the way that Sarasa and Shuri's relationship begins and grows feels as natural as it could under the circumstances and even though I know it will almost certainly end in tears I'm continuing to hope for the best. Finally, it's amazing how much has already happened in five volumes of this story when you consider that the entire story is twenty-seven volumes long. It's well paced now and if it continues at this pace then it's literally an epic and I can't wait to read the rest regardless.

The Bad: I almost feel like Sarasa is gathering allies too easily in the story, she's not a shonen protagonist after all, but I recall a line (sadly I can't seem to find it at the moment) that said that while Sarasa should seek out the groups which have the three other swords that were made along with the one she inherited the swords aren't magical, it's to find the people who go with them that matters. So yes this seems to be too simple until you remember what kind of world these characters live in and what they stand to gain by allying themselves with their best chance at creating a better world for themselves, although the fact that this usually comes after a battle means I'm not going to give up that comparison anytime soon.

The Art: As previously alluded to, even though this manga started in 1991 it still has a bit of an 80s look to it, especially when you remember that the shojo manga from the 80s and the 90s don't look that different anyway. It's not a pretty manga as even the editor admits in their column in the back of the first volume, the characters have oddly elongated cheekbones, hair that seems to puff without hairspray, and rather unfashionable clothes as well. But it does have nice detail work and I was able to keep the characters straight much easier than I expected to and everything is laid out nicely as well, the art is just styled in an out-dated way. But I am curious about one thing Viz did, what the heck happened to the cover of volume two? Here's what the original Japanese cover looked like, here's what the cover of the volume I got out of the library I got looked like (the manga inside is unflipped). Apologies for the lighting because it does not truly get across just how damn pink this cover is, while some of it can be from aging over 10 years, and all of these volumes look a bit faded, I doubt that's the only reason why. Although, looking at these Japanese covers at least explains where the truly strange title font comes from, I had been questioning the sanity of designers in the early 2000s who were going for a font like that.


In short, if my library had more than the first five volumes I would have checked out and read those by now as well (funny enough, I'm not the only blogger to have this problem recently and according to Ash yes, this is one of those series with out of print volumes that are hideously priced). I actually got rather excited at Viz's panel at Otakon since when they were talking about their digital manga I swear they mentioned Basara yet when I checked online afterwords it's not on their site. Hopefully this means that it will be up soon, since they've put up a lot of the other "epic shojo fantasy" manga (Red River, From Far Away, Please Save My Earth although that's technically sci-fi) they must have at least tried to get the digital rights for this one as well. 

Book Review: Crown Duel

Well I was hoping that I would be able to get this second review out yesterday but then got involved in a rather long, hmm, contentious debate on twitter (must be Memorial weekend, everyone has been online all weekend long) and didn't have the energy to be coherent any longer once that finally wound down so apologies, for once this one isn't just my fault! As for the book itself, it's funny but this book really reminded me of Tamora Pierce's various Tortall series for some reason. Meliara isn't very similar to any of her protagonists yet I did notice that this book came out around the time some of Pierce's earlier books did, perhaps there was some common source of inspiration which led to both of these.


Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith

Summary: Meliara and her brother swear on their father's deathbed that they will overthrow the current, corrupt king who assassinated their mother and then rule together in his stead. Thus the two of them embark on a gurella war and, even though she doesn't want to, Meliara ends up learning more about her enemies than she wanted.

The Good: Meliara is a pretty likable lead and at first I thought the story was going to make everything too easy for her, such as when she's captured and later escapes but that wasn't the case and the story managed to keep the tension up during those bits as well. She was a bit thick in places, thick enough to be slightly unbelievable, but thankfully not so much that I disliked her. One random note, I've think I've said before but I'v read a lot of fantasy YA, enough to the point where I can usually pin-point the year in which it was written fairly accurately. While I did get Tamora Pierce, specifically early Pierce, vibes from it at points I'm still a bit surprised that this book came from the 90s, it has a lightness and flexibility to it (just, less emphasis on the "inspired by medieval Europe" part of the setting and a bit more on the "fantasy" side) that I usually see in post 2000s books so I think that it probably appeals to a wider bunch of readers than other books from the same year do.

The Bad: This is a fairly slim book, although I need to keep in mind this is before Harry Potter became big and publishers would publish larger books for young adults, and is often the case with slim books the plot was a bit too simple for my liking. It worked and straightforwardness isn't a bad thing yet I kept feeling like the story was a bit too pale, like a soup where someone has forgotten a few key ingredients. I'm not sure what else the story would have needed, it had intrigue, plotting, enough characters, and good pacing, maybe it just needed more details. 


So, 3 out of 5 stars for this book. I'll also note that I didn't realize until I was already done that there's a sequel to this, Court Duel and it seems like there are even editions where both stories are bundled together, and since I already had to place an interlibrary loan for this book and it was right at the end of the school year (ie, before I move for the summer) I don't have a way to get a hold of it. Honestly I'm not sure exactly why there's a sequel, everything wrapped up so nicely I'm not sure why Meliara had to go to court and apparently get into trouble, but from what I'm seeing on goodreads there is also a revised edition out there so I'm wondering how different that version is.

Webcomic Review Month 2013: Knights Errant

Meant to talk about this a few days ago but it slipped my mind, I seem to have finally found a partial solution to keeping up with all my comics. I've mentioned in the past that when I started reading webcomics (using Safari as my browser) I just made bookmark folders but that hasn't really worked for Firefox or Chrome. But this winter I installed an RSS feed collector right into Chrome and about 80, maybe 90% of my webcomics these days have RSS feeds so I've been able to keep up with everything nicely. Some comics don't have RSS feeds, or have ones but don't seem to be working (and whenever I mention it in the comments section I never an answer) and for those I still use twitter/facebook as a way to follow them but thankfully most of those comics also update promptly. I've seen more people using feed aggregator sites, such as Comic Rocket and Ink Outbreak, in the past year and while I can see the appeal I just follow entirely too many comics and when I find a new one I don't want to go to all the hassle to see if it's on the site already or not. In any case, onto tonight's review!


Knights Errant by Jennifer "theyoungdoyley" Doyle

Wilfrid is a mercenary who rather likes being one and is thrilled when a war breaks out between the nations of Aster-Morgaria and Vetal. They join a group of mercenaries known as the Errant Knights due to their reputation and discovers that their young commander, Oswald Dytel, is even more intriguing than he first appears.

Normally I wouldn't read a comic like this because, well, the characters are asses. But they are well-developed, amusing, and interesting asses and I like a story with good character development so why not! The summary mentions a war going on and while that's certainly a driving force lurking in the background of the story, so far everything has been rather character driven, although if the prologue is any indication that plot will kick in sooner or later, for better or for worse. The art style varies quite a bit from section to section, I have yet to figure out if there's a pattern or reason why some pages are in full color and others are not (believe me I have been trying for months now) but regardless of whatever style or color the pages are in the art is dynamic, expressive, and as it goes on increasingly detailed as well. I find the art style rather attractive, and thankfully not overly gorey, so while a bit inconsistent it's not jarring enough to take most readers out of the story. 


Knights Errant can be read on it's website and does not seem to have a print edition yet, although I'm sure one is coming down the road. It can also be read online in Russian which appears to be only a few pages behind the English version.

One thing that does have me worried about this comic is how it has a rather complicated set of character relationships and politics, which is awesome, but it hasn't updated in a bit and I'm worried that I'm going to start forgetting who was who and where they stand. And this is a worry I have with a lot of webcomics actually, the one great failing of webcomics is how they update so much more slowly than print comics (some might put out a full chapter a month, very few, and others will barely get a chapter out in a year) and that just completely messes with the pacing. I'm sure this comic will start updating again soon, I'm not too worried about that, but it does make me ruminate on what the proper way to read it is, there's no point in reading scattered updates if I know that I'll forget what happened in a month but I want to read it regardless, maybe someday I'll find a happy compromise between the two of them.


2012 "K" Comic

2011 "J" Comic
2011 "K" Comic

Movie Review: Argo

Back this past summer or so I stumbled across this article on Wired.com talking about how during the Iranian Hostage Crisis there had been some other Americans who had gotten out of the embassy and managed to escape well before the rest of the hostages (who were still alive) were released (according to wikipedia the screenplay was actually based on that article, need a source on that though). Shortly afterwords I saw an ad for a movie called Argo and thought what a funny coincidence and it took me an embarrassingly long time to make the connection (I should've at least noticed that the article dated from 2007). For those who don't understand how history classes in the US go (or at least classes in the Midwest and South), American history/American involve in history is king yet, while you would think that would mean that high schoolers would have learned about the crisis, really those classes focus on the American Revolutionary War and American Civil War ad nasuem so it had never come up in any of my (advanced even) history classes. So, armed with only the knowledge from that article and what had come up in my nonfiction reading (I remember the characters briefly commenting in Persepolis that with the embassy closed that there would be no more visas but the hostage crisis was never mentioned) I headed out to catch the film at school and see how well it worked on the silver screen.


Argo

Summary: The year is 1979 and tensions are high in Iran due to all of the political upheaval and unease over the past few years. As our story begins these tensions come to a point and citizens storm the American embassy and take all the workers hostage, all but six that is who manage to escape and hide out in Tehran, almost as trapped as their colleagues. The CIA gets word of these six and starts to devise plans to get them out and for once it seems like the flashiest plan, to claim that their part of a fake movie production crew, might be the one that saves them.

The Good: Normally I don't like thrillers since they remind me a bit too much of conspiracy theories, both of them rely on the idea that there are people out there who are so much smarter than the average person and perfectly control everything (well except for that one moment that starts the plot/leads a person to concoct an insane theory) and that stretches my suspension of disbelief a bit too far. Here however we have a realistic set-up (growing tensions lead to an embassy being attacked and people in one building are situated in a way that lets them escape and then hide out with allies) and it's this setting that makes the rest of the story work. I also liked a lot of the dialogue on the American side of things (although sadly I think all of the snappiest lines were made up since they were in situations that weren't based on real events), although that leads to my biggest problem with the film.

The Bad: While I am okay with some dramatization of the events for the sake of a movie (the confrontation with the guards at the airport? Okay especially since it wraps up a character arc) but some of them were just silly (the scene following it, that was just unnecessary). Wikipedia (both the Argo [2012 film] and the Canadian Caper pages) has a whole section on historical accuracy, with sources, and it sounds like quite a few little details were changed and I highly recommend anyone whose seen the film to at least glance through, a few things in the film didn't ring true with me and sure enough they weren't. I suspect the reason for at least a few of the changes was to make the movie longer (it clocks in at 2 hours exactly and I had been curious how they were going to make a full length film with what is essentially, as odd as it sounds, a straightforward story) and after looking at Wikipedia I think they could've cut some of the fake events and instead focuses more on the Americans in Tehran (really the film was about  Mendez, not the Americans) since they went through a lot more there which could've filled the time instead.

The Audio: No real comments here, the audio wasn't really important to the story (neither were the visuals actually, this is a story that also works just fine in print) but nothing stuck out to me for the wrong reasons so I suppose it was technically sound.

The Visuals: The film used some actual news reports from 1979 and I'm curious if some of the video of the protests in Tehran were also from 1979 since were were some shots there were letter-boxed (followed immediately afterwards by shots that were not). Regardless, the use of actual broadcast was a nice touch and was the only thing that really stood out to me visual wise (well, I have learned since that Mendez was part Hispanic so it's a bit frustrating that he was portrayed by a clearly all white guy).


So, while I enjoyed the movie while I was watching it (and was annoyed by some parts I knew to be dramatizations), after reading more about the history of the Canadian Caper I'm frustrated that they did dramatize some parts when they cut out other parts that could have helped fill the time and up the tension instead (and that there were a few lines in particular that paint some people/groups in completely the wrong light and could have been easily re-written so as to not do it). So I'm only going to give this movie a 3 out of 5 after all and probably won't rewatch it (then again I don't think it's the kind of story that benefits from rewatching anyway, regardless of historical accuracy).  

Book Review: Grave Mercy

I've already seen a few lists of books coming out in 2013 which people are excited for and I was thinking "man, it seems like assassins are the new in thing (which is kinda odd but o-kay)" and then remembered that I had heard a lot of good things about a book which involved an assassin in a medieval sounding setting that came out in 2012. Lo and behold my school library even had a copy of it, hurray!


Grave Mercy by Robin Lafevers

Summary: Before Ismae was born her mother tried to abort her but she was born anyway prompting the local herbwife to say that her father was actually Death himself. After a rather miserable life Ismae finds herself at the convent that serves death and is trained in all kinds of things including fighting, poison-mixing, and killing. She has no reason to question the sisters who took her in but when she's on an extended mission to keep the young duchess of her country safe and out of the hands of the invading French she begins to question whose will she is really following, Death's or the convents.

The Good: I really liked Ismae's character, she both loyal to the convent but still thinks for herself, even before all the facts start piling up in front of her. And all of her character development is paced well, it's a thick book (I believe it was a bit over 500 pages) but it never felt like the book was stalling for time or got lost and was wallowing around. The side characters also have some character development, or at least turn out to be more complicated than they originally seemed, and I'm happy that this is part of a series since I really want to see where Ismae goes after her big choice. As a side note, it's actually rather interesting to read this book so soon after Seraphina, both of them have very similar settings, conflicts, and character archetypes yet Ismae and Seraphina come from completely different places and it's interesting to compare how you can have two different characters in similar situations and seeing how they approach the problem.  

The Bad: I have absolutely no clue what is up with that tagline across the top of the book, Ismae rarely (if ever?) scorns the people around her for not knowing all the secrets of the court or for living simpler lives and it's almost the opposite of the character development she goes through. Bah, in any case, I'm also quibbling over the fact that the duchess is so young, just 13, I had wondered why she wasn't as active as I had expected but seriously, would it hurt or even change the character dynamics if she had been a bit older? After learning that I'm now questioning what she can really do in the next book or two with such little experience of life, hopefully I'll just be able to ignore it and not let that bother me too much.


So a 3.5 out of 5 for this book, not 100% if I'd buy it (since right now I don't have the urge to re-read it) but I'm certainly excited for the next books in the series (called the His Fair Assassin Series). I'm a little worried since it sounds like the viewpoint is switching over to another character (who did appear briefly so I have no idea where it'll fit timeline wise) and there were a few things left unresolved in this book but I'll just cross my fingers and hope that Lafevers makes it all work!

Anime Reviews: Guin Saga

The other anime I had a chance to get through this summer courtesy of the college library (unfortunately you can only check out two DVDs at a time and, since I'm not the only person in the household who likes movies, I was barely able to get through this, Paranoia Agent, and Veronica Mars before the summer was up) which was one I had been curious about since I say people talking about when it came out (fairly recently in 2009). It's high fantasy, based on a series of novels that seem to be fairly well regarded in Japan, has lots of world-building, that sounds like the series for me, right?

Guin Saga

Summary: In the middle of the night the country of Pharos is invaded by the army of the country of Mongaul* and the twins Rinda and Remus (the heir to the throne) barely manage to escape using an ancient device that seems to be one of the reasons for Mongaul's invasion. But the two do not end up where they mean to be and are ambushed again in a remote forest when they are saved by Guin, a strange man who remembers nothing of his past and has a leopard's head instead of his own. He agrees to help them escape and then regroup to take their country and they all become involved in the even wider politics of the world in the process.

The Good: I knew that this series had to cover multiple volumes in the series but I figured it was between 4 and six, which is standard for most light novel to anime adaptations. According to tvtropes this show crammed in 16 novels in 26 episodes which I'm rather impressed about, there must have been a ton of compression to make this work but the show didn't feel like it was cutting corners, rather that it was just quickly paced. I do have mixed feelings on the ending (on the one hand it was a logical place to end, on the other hand it had two rather large cliffhangers involving different characters) but they certainly couldn't have ended the show any earlier and I doubt they could have fit another few novels in. 

The Bad: One of the extra features in the second set (which I didn't see since it was on a separate DVD and I was running out of time) was an interview with the original author who mentioned that she had trouble writing female characters, something I had noticed but I would go so far as to say that she just doesn't seem to be a great character writer. This series should've had me completely hooked on it with it's big politics and setting yet I just didn't like any of the characters (except for Rinda but unfortunately as Remus began to "grow" as a character, read become an ass, her role diminished even further) and just couldn't care about any of them by the end. I will note that I have read some translations of light novels (official and by fans) and I've noticed that Japanese writing tends to make the characters more introspective, which doesn't carry over well to anime most of the time, so part of this problem might be from the adaptation but I feel like my complaint still stands. I'm completely baffled how a female writer doesn't know how to write female characters whatsoever; you write a character, give them a personality, flaws, desires, etc, and then consider what affect their culture will have on them because of their gender. She instead seems to wallow in the idea of "oh they're a woman so they're in love and it makes them indecisive so they'll never be the major mover and shaker of the story!" and even knowing this series started in 1979 it frustrated me.   

The Audio: I watched the Japanese audio since I had heard rumors at how bad the English dub got (no seriously, at one point they have a guy singing out loud his internal dilemma which makes no sense at all and the script-writers should have understood from the context) which is a bit of a shame since the Japanese dub is rather average. The opening and ending songs are rather nice however, the opening is an instrumental only piece and the ending is a nice ballad and the lyrics even make sense within the context of the story. Together with the background music they felt like a cohesive soundtrack which had several good pieces, including one which I believe was the main theme (based on how often it appeared in the show). 

The Visuals: While the visuals they weren't utterly spectacular as I would have hoped for a fantasy series (think your average, comes out and in a few years people don't remember it, fantasy film vs Lord of the Rings in terms of looks) but again it works. It's simple plain, the colors come off as too bright and flat in many instances, and even the multiple fight scenes didn't draw me in, even the most simple looking of shows should have a style or flair to them that the viewer remembers and that helps out the story in some way.


By the end I was simply slogging through the story (doesn't help that for some reason it was packaged six episodes to a disc which made it feel even longer) and I have no interest in seeing the show again, recommending it, and after finding out that the few novels that were published in the US don't cover even half of what the anime did I have no interest in reading those either. Next! 



*which, amusingly to me, is pretty much pronounced "Mongol", seemed fitting for an invader. 

Manga Review: The Story of Saiunkoku (volume one)

As if I needed even more series on my "to-buy" list, I actually did catch the first few episodes of the anime adaptation about a year ago (both the anime and the manga are adapted from a series of light novels, interestingly enough the manga-ka here is apparently the same person who illustrates said light novels) and it caught my interest but at that point the anime was long out of print and way out of my price range. So, with that and no legal streaming option, I haven't gone back to it but I had heard good things about the manga, tried out some of it in a bookstore and when I cam across the first volume in a used bookstore a few days later it seemed like the universe was egging me on to read it.

The Story of Saiunkoku (volume one) original story by Sai Yukino, art by Kairi Yura

 
Summary: While Shurei Hong may hail from one of the highest noble families in the country of Saiunkoku her family has fallen on hard times and she is constantly running around taking various jobs to make ends meet. So when she is offered a high-paying job from one of her father's associates at the royal palace she jumps at the chance, only to discover that the job is to become a consort to the young emperor and try to teach him and make him fit to rule. Although, as hard-headed as Shurie is, none of that will even matter if she can't find the man himself.

The Good: Politics+attractive looking characters is enough to make me look into a series (I'm sorry for being shallow) and thankfully all of the characters here are quite shrewd and the machinations of the court are quite interesting to watch. Shurie is headstrong and clever which makes her quite a likable lead; I'm sure some will complain she is too perfect but her own small flaws were presented quite well in this volume as well. None of the male characters stood out to me quite as much as she did but I'm sure that even more page time they'll have a chance for character development as well. 

The Bad: I dare potential readers to look up the character list on wikipedia, it's quite impressive and, even though I'm experienced with keeping dozens of characters in any given work straight, given that many of the characters have similar sounding (to my western ears) names and the character designs aren't as distinct as they could be this does become a bit of a problem. I can only imagine that for future volumes I will need to keep that list open to keep everyone straight which isn't a great sign. And speaking of future volumes, the story is paced a bit slowly and I've heard that the manga series (in Japan) still hasn't progressed beyond where the first anime season (which was 39 episodes) left off which does make me a bit worried considering the series has been running for six years now. That was the reason I had held off on reading the manga for so long, while I am fine with a long running series I do like ones that plan to end before a decade is up. 

The Art: As mentioned earlier, it appears that Yura did the art for the light novels as well (ie, the original designs that would have been used as the basis for the anime designs as well) so there are no jarring differences and the character designs are quite detailed. It's often light on the backgrounds, preferring to have some toning or objects behind the characters (well, behind their talking heads) but that's rather common in manga so I didn't even notice it until I looked through the manga a second time. All in all it's a very good looking series and makes me wonder if there's an artbook or two for the franchise.

It's not my top priority but I will try to remember to purchase more volumes of this in the future and it has reminded me that I really want to hunt down more of the anime, perhaps later this summer if I don't have a lot of shows to watch.