Book Review: The Night Circus

I'd seen this book around for a while before I read it, the bookstore at my college had it proudly displayed with a lot of other books which I walked past frequently, and I had heard a lot of good things about the book online but what drove me to try it out was a combination of seeing some cosplayers say they were going to try and make cosplays from it (and they planned on outfits from other books I liked so I knew we had similar tastes). I think I saw someone say that it read a lot like a YA book despite the fact that it's adult fiction which also made me curious. I was sad about one thing however, the copy I got at the library was a large print edition and yet the print was still much too small for me to read without glasses, I remember when I could read those books without my glasses back in high school.....

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I love the papercut look of the cover and I love how the image is a reference to a clock mentioned in the book, I just like when covers go the extra step to reference a detail from a book instead of having a generic cover. That image is the one for the hardback and the paper back one is also interesting, it still has the clock in the middle but also has silhouettes of Celia and Marco on either side, it works equally well and I think it's a rather clever way to change the cover but still make it obvious that it's the same book. 

Summary: A magicians duel can take many shapes and can take years to finish so the onlooker might find it rather boring at first. But not in this case where the Cirque de Reves is the stage for Celia and Marco, two young magicians bound at a young age by their parent/mentor in a fight to the death simply to see whose student is better. Both of them grow up knowing about the duel but knowing nothing about it and have no choice but to go along as fate slowly draws them together collaborating more often than fighting, a choice that could bring disaster to both of them. 

The Good: I don't often come across stories that follow characters for years as they grow but I like the concept since so many times I'll come across stories where all kinds of big, world-changing events occur from start to finish in the space of a week. The Night Circus neatly averts that as it takes years to set up the titular circus for the duel and then the duel itself lasts years, that extended period of time makes the plot feel more "real" and it was easier to become attached to characters after seeing the grow up. The characters were interesting and sympathetic, the descriptions were amazing (I can only wonder what a movie version would look like if it had the budget and a screenwriter clever enough to make the story fit two and a half hours, it simply wouldn't work as multiple films or a serialized story in my opinion) and this is all made even more impressive when you realize that this was Morgenstern's debut novel. I enjoyed it quite a bit and highly recommend it to anyone who has ever enjoyed a fantasy story, be it high fantasy or urban fantasy, before.

The Bad: This book contains both timeskips and some out of order sequences so if you don't pay attention to the dates at the beginning of the chapters it's easy to get confused, I got particularly annoyed at one subplot which was introduced rather early on and I completely missed the fact that it was set 20 years later on. On a related note, the story starts when the two leads are quite young and doesn't finish until they're in they're in their late 20s at least so there is a lot of time when not much happens in the story. There is character development and there are some subplots which move along for sure but I wonder if the pace might be too slow for some people.


Another really strong book, something I won't be able to say next week (in case anyone was getting bored by all of my praise of late) and one I could easily recommend to half a dozen people I know. I'll have to keep an eye out for Morgenstern's next book whenever that will be since I liked how she did practically everything here and would like to see more of that.   

Manga Review: Kitchen Princess (volumes one and two)

Yep, two food related shojo manga two weeks in a row, bit odd but considering that's what the library had that I was interested in it just happened (funny enough I checked out Honey and Clover at the same time but I won't be talking about that since I think I already finished reading the manga regardless). I'd heard some good stuff about the story but had put it off for years since it turns out I was confusing it with yet another shojo cooking title, Yumeiro Pastissiere which just sounded too young for my tastes. Bit of a silly mistake, especially since the titles sound nothing alike, but better late than never right?

Kitchen Princess written by Miyuki Kobayashi and drawn by Natsumi Ando

 

Summary: Najika Kazami is a young girl whose always loved to cook and enrolls in the prestigious Seika Academy not only to learn how to cook but to meet her "flan prince," a boy who saved her from drowning years ago and then gave her the best flan she's ever tasted. This is a school for the rich and talented however and when orphaned Najika shows up without any obvious talent to start with it's clear that she's in for a rough time while she finds her place.

The Good: The story has some unexpected dark aspects to it which, rather than feeling like an attempt to draw in older readers because of how "edgy" it is, feels like the genuine kind of darkness you find in a lot of kid's stories. Those moments work well and give Najika time to develop and Najika herself is a likable character who tries, succeeds, fails, and tries to give up at times which makes her feel more rounded than some other shojo I've read lately. She reminds me a lot of Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket actually with her determined cheerfullness yet breaks some of the time. It was a much more engaging story than I expected and if I came across more volumes, I'm regretting not grabbing more from the library when I had the chance, I would keep reading it. 

The Bad: I really couldn't find much wrong in this story after just two volumes. I would like there to be a slightly more central plotline, which I doubt would happen since that just doesn't feel like the manga's style, and I hope Najika makes some progress finding her prince soon (tvtropes accidentally spoiled who it was for me, although I had already guessed before the first volume was over). The series is at least eight volumes long so it seems silly to complain about stuff like that yet so I'll say it again, this was a much stronger series than I expected and if you like shojo, give it a shot.

The Art: The cover gives you a good idea what all the character designs look like (another reason Najika reminds me a bit of Tohru, they both have those extra huge eyes) and it has a lot of other normal shojo hallmarks as well. It's nothing new for shojo readers and will probably put off non-shojo fans a bit (if the premise doesn't already scare them off since it is a rather girly one) but it's consistent and detailed so it didn't bother me.

As I mentioned earlier the omnibus editions that are coming out now (by Kodansha I guess since Del Ray doesn't exactly exist anymore) are tempting me since it would be a pretty cheap way to collect the series, although I have so much other stuff to buy that it's going to be a while before I get around to them, maybe during a sale on TRSI next year. 

Anime Review: X TV

Moving right along with the Year of Clamp livestream we've gotten to X TV, the animated version of one of Clamp's more infamous works which I had been curious about for a while but hadn't tried out either version since I hadn't read all of Tokyo Babylon (to which it's sorta-kinda a sequel, more a spinoff but knowing what I did of Subaru's story made the parallels between him and Kamui much more obvious and tragic). But that sounds like something I should put into the actual review so onto the review!

X TV

Summary: The year is 1999 and with the new millennium upon them the world has come to a crossroads, unbeknownst to all except for a few magic users in Tokyo. They are the Dragons of Heaven and the Dragons of Earth, those who wish the save humanity (and bet the eventual fate of the world on the belief that the humans won't destroy it) and those who wish to end humanity so the world can be born anew. At the heart of this conflict is Kamui, an angsty teen whose presence causes fate to shift who doesn't seem to care much about the conflict one way or another but both sides are determined to bring him around.

The Good: I know the anime ending is radically different from the manga's cliffhanger (I've actually seen that bit) but you know what, I liked how it ended. It made sense logically and thematically and I was satisfied with it, although I think I can hear manga-readers disavowing me now. While I do wish that Fuuma had been explored more (especially after the mid-point of the series) I was surprised at how much screen time nearly every other side character got and was pleased to see that many of the Dragons of the Earth had a reason that they were on that side, even if I didn't agree and I felt like overall what side they were on had almost nothing to do with free will and was all predestined instead (which did bother me). If you're already a fan of Clamp's work and want to see more of their series I recommend this one over a few others I've seen this year although I know in my case if it wasn't for that I probably would have dropped it after four or five episodes. 

The Bad: I should probably note that I didn't see Episode 0 but I have heard that it spoils a lot of the anime if you're a new viewer so people should choose carefully if they're thinking about watching that first (also, I had no trouble understanding the show without seeing it so clearly it's not crucial viewing material). As for the show itself, it took me a while to get into the show and I only really started enjoying it once Kamui stopped being so much of an ass. While I certainly liked most of the side characters long before that point they just weren't enough to keep me interested in the story for whatever reason. And speaking of the side characters, I feel like at some point the production team said "oh right a lot of people are supposed to die, let's kill off these characters and we don't care how" because that would explain a lot. I'm tempted to look up what has happened to the characters by the end of the manga (given the sheer number of Clamp fans out there someone must have a comparison chart or something) and I really hope the deaths felt less random than the ones here.

The Audio: Well I hope you like the track "Sandame" (which I believe means destiny) because you're going to be hearing it at least once an episode if not more. It's actually such a distinctive piece that after hearing it just a couple of times and then watching the trailers for the anime Blood-C I was immediately able to tell that it was the same composer, although I'm not so sure that's a good thing. I didn't really care for either the opening or the ending themes (possibly because I kept going "KAMUI, WHY ARE YOU A VAMPIRE, THIS IS NOT TSUBASA" at the opening sequence....) so I skipped them almost every time and I watched the show in Japanese and I thought the voices worked well there (and I'm a bit curious, and a bit worried, about how some of the accents must have translated, even though I don't know much Japanese I could tell that Sora had a really thick dialect). 

The Visuals: While the show was made in the early 2001s the original manga was started back in the 1990s so it looks more than a bit like 90s shojo (is it just me or did eye size for shojo seem to peak in the 90s and go down since?) which I was cool with. I don't recall any usage of CGI in the show, it was produced by Studio Madhouse (who also did Cardcaptor Sakura amusingly enough) and they don't seem to use a lot of CGI in most of their shows, even the ones they produce today.

So, now all I need to see is Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and xxxHolic and I will have seen every full length tv anime based on a Clamp work, wohoo! Except that's still around 70+ episodes all total, I don't really like the art of the Holic anime and I'm told that TRC can get dull in places, hoo boy. For those who want to see X it can be viewed on Hulu, although they are missing Episode 0 and I don't know if there's a legal place to watch that online, weird.  

Movie Review: Jade Warrior

EDIT: Sorry guys, I got distracted, started this one too late last night, planned to finish this and the anime review today and woke up at 6:15 to my toilet flooding and just didn't get enough sleep after that to deal with the rest of the day and write two reviews. So, anime coming Tuesday, hopefully everything will be back on track by Friday (and hopefully I'll be able to finally get my schedule for this semester settled, the first few weeks are always hard for me to readjust to and that hasn't been helping either). 

Here's a title I've been meaning to see for years since it's a favorite of a friend of mine, a combination of Finnish and Chinese mythology set in modern day Finland about a smith. You can't say that any part of that is a regular in movies (heck, I can barely think of any stories, across mediums, that have a smith as a main character and that's the most normal part of the last sentence) and I had found a copy of it at the local college library a few years back so I made sure to find some time at the very tail end of my summer to see how this movie even worked.

Jade Warrior

Summary: Centuries ago in ancient China a half-Finnish half-Chinese warrior named Sintai was tasked with killing a demon that threatened to enslave all of humanity and was to be rewarded with Nirvana if he succeeded. Along the way however he falls in love and realizes if can never come to pass if he kills the demon (since he cannot be with her in this life and won't have any other lives if he succeeds) which leaves him conflicted over what path to take. Now in modern day Finland the smith Kai is feeling the effects of his previous life and must now choose how to finish that same task laid before him. 

The Good: The plot sounds a bit complicated on paper (I'm afraid I might've said too much actually but that was as far as I could pare it down) but it actually flows well and neither story line spoils the other surprisingly enough. The movie has a lot of ideas in it which I found rather new and it takes a path with the romance that isn't often done which made me happy since not only was it different but it worked within the story.  

The Bad: Despite my earlier comments about the plot, this wasn't really a plot heavy story or even a character heavy story for me, it was more about atmosphere than anything else. I still enjoyed it but I think that would make it harder to recommend to people (right now I can see myself recommending it to fans of the wuxia genre or if someone is a big mythology buff but outside of those two niches I don't know if many people would like it). I know that often I say that I can't recommend a story to a lot of people like it's a bad thing and truthfully it's not technically a bad thing, but the fact that I don't think a story will interest people and it's not full of anything like, facts that only a hardcore history buff would know and a non-buff wouldn't get/enjoy the story because of it, I think does mean that it hasn't worked the way it should. That's simply my opinion however, although I really don't think that this film is going to interest most people unless they want to sit through a slow, mostly atmosphere film that's told a bit out of order and doesn't have tons of character development either.

The Audio: Due to some circumstances on my end I had a hard time hearing the movie (it was in no way shape or form the fault of the DVD, I just had a really loud fan blowing) and I honestly can't remember if there was an English dub for the movie (Amazon doesn't list on in any case) because I was watching the original audio. If I remember correctly the audio itself is something interesting it's half-Finnish and half-Chinese depending on what timeframe it's focusing on and movies that are bilingual are, while not unheard of, fairly uncommon and I can only think of a one or two others. Obviously I don't speak either of these languages so I can't say how good the acting was, and with the cast being a mixture of Finnish and Chinese this choice also makes some logical, filming, sense, but I still thought it was a neat idea and worked fine for me since both parts were subtitled. 

The Visuals: There were a lot of interesting settings in the movie, like Kai's forge and the desolate Chinese landscapes in the flashback, although there is some CGI used in points which seems rather obvious to me now (the joys of using a technology that is still advancing rapidly). I've seen a few complaints about how the fight scenes looked and, while I didn't see anything that seemed really off they certainly didn't grab me as much as the ones in say, Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. 


In the end I enjoyed the movie more than I thought I would (given it's weird premise), can't really think of anyone I know to recommend it to and don't feel the need to re-watch it anytime soon. Although writing this review reminds me that I never saw all of House of Flying Daggers and other than this it's been quite a while since I saw a wuxia film.....

Book Review: The Name of the Star

Despite the fact that I follow Maureen Johnson on twitter (and really love her twitter) I haven't read that many of her books. I've read Suite Scarlet (which I didn't really like) and then the two Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes books (which I did) so initially I was only a bit curious about her new series. But then her publisher kindly put up over 50 pages as a preview and I was hooked. Sadly the book came out over the holiday season last year so I couldn't buy it (and I haven't been this tempted to blind-buy a book where I haven't read any other volumes in the series in a long time) but thankfully it showed up at my local library this summer and I was able to finally read the rest of it.

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

A nice cover which, for the hardcover, also has an interesting texture to it (and I mean that in the most literal way possible, it's not quite raised but it has a very slightly more bumpy feeling to it than most covers do). There's something about the colors that feels just a little off to me but it's a good, fairly unique looking image which combined with a title that has no immediate connection to the image (Jack the Ripper fans will probably spot it right away however) and it's a good, grabbing cover. 

Summary: Rory is excited to spend her senior year of high school in London not because her hometown in Lousiana is boring but because London is different and exciting. Really exciting as it turns out since someone is going around and imitating Jack the Ripper and Rory's school is right smack in the middle of all the old crime scenes. And nobody has a clue how these crimes are being pulled off even when they have the CCTV footage right in front of them, it's almost like the ghost of Jack the Ripper itself has come back.....

The Good: One thing that I liked a lot about Thirteen Little Blue Envelops was how the characters were realistically weird with a quirkiness that I don't often find in fiction but find a lot in real life. Johnson has once again nailed this, Rory feels like a completely believable character and so do the others, their interactions and relationships also feel perfectly natural for high schoolers. On the flip side of things, I like how the supernatural was integrated into the story and felt like just enough was explained for a first book in a series and in-series that the characters explained everything they already knew. I'm really curious to see where the series goes next, some of the events in the ending went quite differently than I expected, maybe this time I'll be able to buy it right when it comes out!

The Bad: There wasn't much I disliked about the book actually, I felt like some of the side characters dropped out around two-thirds of the way through but since this is a series there's a good chance they'll come back later so I can't complain. I am also a little worried/curious about what the plot of the next two books will revolve around since, if you were to cut out one scene, the story would be entirely self-contained. But even that isn't a really bad thing, or at least it's something that's a bit silly to be worried about at this point.


If I had gotten a chance to read this book back in 2011 it almost certainly would have been on my favorite books of the year list, 2011 was actually a really good year for me when it came to YA books. Come to think of it, there haven't been many books at all that did/will come out in 2012 that I was/am excited for (only three or four I think) and while I have read a few books from this year already I haven't been grabbed as strongly by them either, perhaps that's why I've been reading more adult fiction that usual this year.....