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Webcomic review: Girl Genius
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Apr. 4th, 2008 @ 04:38 pm
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I'd never heard of "steampunk" before, but if Girl Genius is a representation of that then I think I could get into it.
The story follows Agatha Clay as she encounters monsters, machines (called clanks), and crazed scientists (calls Sparks). I don't want to give away too much of the story, because you really should read it. Well, I wouldn't recommend it to little kids since there is blood, mild swearing, and acres of cleavage. Not to mention several deaths, including a few sympathetic characters.
If I were to complain about anything, it'd probably be how every single woman in the comic is built like a Buxom 'This Corset Is Going To Blow' Barmaid. Are there any women in that world who are, oh I don't know, skinny? Fat? (I'm not counting the operatic cameo.) Less physically endowed than Dolly Parton?
Still, the characters are all definitely unique individuals in personality and appearance. That's a good thing.
One thing that makes me curious is the art style. It looks exactly like the art in some old Dragon Magazine comics Dad saved. I'm currently trying to find out if this is an amazing coincidence or if GG is drawn by the same people who did those comics. That would be so cool.
Edit: Just received confirmation that my suspicions were correct.
Phil Foglio, artist of Girl Genius also did the Phil & Dixie comics of Dragon Magazine.
Must tell Dad. Now.Current Mood:  curious Current Music: road work (sounds of spring) |
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A product review: Debbie Meyer Green Bags
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Mar. 16th, 2008 @ 10:11 am
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The bags are quite literally green. In color and in design.
The commercials are quite accurate, by the way, food really does stay fresh longer when put in these bags than if they're put in regular plastic bags.
Just one little problem that you won't find on the official site...
NEVER put fruit in them if any of the insides are exposed. That means no halved cantaloupe, sliced apples, or sectioned oranges. Or any other exposed fruits.
Why? Because whatever it is the bags are made of will give the fruit a really nasty taste where the two come in contact.
And when I say nasty, I mean **nasty!**
Other than that, though, they're a pretty good buy.Current Mood:  cheerful Current Music: none |
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Manga Review: Red River
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Jan. 20th, 2008 @ 04:51 pm
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First let me introduce you to Typical Shojo Heroine:
Skinny teenage girl who's good at sports, bad at math, clumsy around boys, hates violence, cries easily, is a strong believer in treating people equally, she manages to make best friends out of people who previously hated her guts, every single (and not so single) guy in the entire series adores her, she's constantly being kidnapped/nearly raped/otherwise in need of rescuing by--
The Toxic Prince:
Tall, handsome, more than a little androgynous, easily made jealous, alternates between trying to seduce Typical Shojo Heroine and pushing her away because he's not right for her (boy has be got that last part right), every woman in the world wants him, men follow him or try to steal Typical Shojo Heroine from him.
Why do I call him The Toxic Prince? Because that's his effect on Typical Shojo Heroine. At first the relationship is rocky and Typical Shojo Heroine isn't even sure that she likes him. When she finds herself liking him she beats herself up over it because of some problem with making the relationship work.
In the case of Red River it's because Typical Shojo Heroine, Yuri, is from modern day Japan and The Toxic Prince, Kail, is from Bronze Age Anatolia. Yuri got sucked into that world through, of all things, a rain puddle.
I'm seeing shades of Fushigi Yugi on the horizon.
Thankfully, Yuri isn't anywhere near as suicidal as Mika from Fushigi Yugi. Not that it'd take much. When she isn't thinking about her handsome prince she's really a very capable leader. And when she isn't just about being raped she can fight.
That last really bothers me. Here's this girl who learned how to use a sword with amazing speed. Yet a guy makes sexual advances on her and she's suddenly helpless! Your legs are free, kick him where it hurts! Your hands are free, scratch his eyes out! *Do* something! Don't just lay there screaming "No!" and wishing for your prince to come save you.
And when the golden couple get intimate do we really have to see them pressing flesh, kissing each other's chests, and groaning? They're in a bed room looking longingly into each other's eyes and the door's closed. You can cut right there, we get the idea. Hitting us about the head with a flowered sledgehammer is unnecessary.
Not only that, but the readers are supposed to want these two to end up together, right? I didn't. Not at all. I wanted Yuri to go home as soon as possible. And it didn't have anything to do with the near constant dangers of that world or the perpetual plots to tear these two apart. It was the terrible effect Toxic Prince Kail had on her emotional and mental well being.
Every stinking time she thinks about that guy or is separated from him her confidence goes out the window. She's not worthy, she's always making mistakes, she's just dragging him down, yadda yadda yadda. Que total psychophysical meltdown.
It is disturbing that there are women who write stories like this. A lot of stories like this. This is why I never really got into shojo manga. There are more believable relationships in shonen manga. And without anywhere near as much nudity.
And this is *shojo* we're talking about. Intended for the under 18 female crowd. Josei is for older women and supposedly is more sexually explicit.
More? I fear for the Japanese culture if that is so.
I give this series, and most of the shojo genre, a thumbs down.Current Mood:  annoyed Current Music: (watching World's Wildest Police Videos) |
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Manga Review: Bokurano
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Jan. 2nd, 2008 @ 06:29 pm
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Don't let the young cast fool you, this manga is for adults *only*!
Good grief. The things these kids talk about and think about. Most of them are seriously disturbed individuals. On beats his sister, another takes pleasure in shooting cats, another wants to commit murder... the list goes on. And don't even get me started on what a couple of thirteen-year-olds are doing doing *that* together.
The impression one might get of Japanese family life from this story is grim at best. I think there's one so far who actually has a halfway normal family.
Then there's the contract with the giant robot. I won't go into details in case you want to read it, but it's not pleasant.
The art is very good, though. It really carries the mood. The mangaka does anxiety-to-the-point-of-not-eating-for-days very well.
Can't say that I agree with much, if any, of the philosophy presented. There's a rather fatalistic streak running through this that is rather more depressing than I'd really like.
Still, the story's interesting. I think I'll stick with it to the end.
I give it a neutral rating, maybe a slight thumbs up.Current Mood:  anxious Current Music: (watching Trauma: Life in the ER) |
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Manga Review Update: Ga-Rei
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Dec. 28th, 2007 @ 06:45 pm
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Hmm. Well, the story just about lost me on several occasions. At the moment it seems to me to be a great example of why people in high activity, high risk jobs should *not* wear miniskirts.
So many panty shots. 0.0
The icchi seems to come and go. It's weird. I think I'm reading it mainly because all the other manga I've been following haven't updated in a while. Stupid reason, I know.Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: (watching Walker Texas Ranger) |
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Manga Review: Air
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Dec. 22nd, 2007 @ 09:05 pm
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I'm confused. The story follows Yukito, who's looking for a girl with wings, and Misuzu who seems to have some social anxiety issues.
There's a lot of talk about flying, and dreams, and some seriously surreal stuff that I completely didn't understand. I think there was something about reincarnation but I really didn't understand much of anything in it. There are also some other characters who really don't appear much. Misuzu almost makes friends with them, then they kinda disappear.
What I really didn't understand was the ending. I mean, what happened to Yukito? How did Misuzu over come her paralysis? I'm so confused. @.@
Apparently it's based on a computer game that, according to Wikipedia, has some adult-only content. There doesn't seem to be anything like that in the manga, though. Not even a panty shot. The art is nice, too. I just wish I understood what was going on!
If anyone has the answer, please let me know.Current Mood: confused Current Music: (watching Murder by the Book) |
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Manga Review: Akuma Jiten
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Dec. 22nd, 2007 @ 10:57 am
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The title means 'Evil Spirit Encyclopedia'. Rather odd title since there isn't anything terribly encyclopedic about the story.
It started out rather cute. Hiroyuki is a 16-year-old who's rented a house to live in while going to high school. How a 16-year-old could afford a house or even live on his own is beyond me. Anyway, it turns out the house is occupied by a demon named Milky Way. The demon is a girl, of course.
The series started out cute, with the occasional joke centered around sexual tension. It didn't start getting ecchi until the vampire showed up. Then the series slowly spiraled down the path of random ecchi-ness. Any plot the story had quickly got lost as the mangaka started adding characters with reckless abandon.
And why on earth do all these girls want a piece of Hiroyuki?
The whole thing hit a new low when Hiroyuki's little sister showed up and, in a classic case of projection, started talking about how ecchi her brother is.
Hey, she's the one who seemed to think suggesting incest was funny.
It's really too bad. The art is cute, the story started out cute, it really could have been a neat little series. Why everything had to be about sex I don't know.
The start is thumbs up, but as the story progresses I have to give it a thumbs down.Current Mood: cynical Current Music: (watching Justice Files) |
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Manga Mini Review: Ga-Rei
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Dec. 19th, 2007 @ 05:38 pm
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Okay, I just started reading this because it sounded interesting. This kid, Kensuke, can see ghosts, which seems to be detrimental to his social life. Then he meets this girl with a pet demon thing and that's how the story starts.
I actually haven't gotten much further than this right now. To tell you the truth when I first saw the main character I thought it was a skinny goth woman who hadn't had any sleep in about a month.
Turns out he looked like that because a rotten, maggot-riddled samurai ghost was sitting next to his date. That would freak just about anyone out.
Then there was that little incident with the panties. Kensuke was nearly run over by a girl on a motorcycle, so she got off and knelled down to check to see if he was okay. Since she was wearing a short skirt, her panties showed.
Granted, they were fairly good sized panties, but still. I do admire Kensuke's admonishing himself for getting excited, though.
I know a few people who'd stop reading a series right there, no matter how good the story, and
this one seems kinda standard issue for the genre, but it's just the first chapter.
It's still good enough for me to be curious about what happens next, so maybe there's hope.
What is interesting is the art. It's a bit like silly putty. The characters go from a semi-normal appearance to a sort of claymation version of The Scream in a single frame. This series must have the greatest range of deformation of any manga I've ever read. Still, it fits with the subject matter. (It's also kinda creepy, which also fits, I guess.)
I really don't know where to put this series right now. But I thought I should make a note of it. It has potential.Current Mood:  not-so-hot Current Music: (my mental noise--bills due, presents, rent, no job, aaaaa!) |
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Manga Review: Midori no Hibi
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Dec. 14th, 2007 @ 08:53 pm
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One word: riot.
I'm not sure what the translation of the title is exactly since I don't know what kanji are used, but Midori is the name of one of the characters. Hibi either means everyday or skin fissure (maybe flaw).
Either one would make sense, given the plot.
Okay, here's the set up. A tough-guy high school student named Seiji wants a girlfriend but everyone is scared of him. Midori is from a different school and has a crush on him. Through some means that have yet to be explained Midori ends up as Seiji's right hand.
...
No, really. Seiji's hand is now the body of a girl from the waist up. And she is absolutely obsessed with him.
His life kinda goes downhill from there.
But as much as he suffers the reader suffers more. From a repeatedly busted gut.
I suppose I should be kinder, the poor guy can't even use the bathroom in peace now. First having to use his left hand and secondly trying to keep her from "helping."
Midori is pure hearted but clueless. Funny how those two tend to go together in manga.
Anyway, the story is hilarious. Seiji spends most of the time either freaking out or desperately trying to look cool while freaking out internally. Otherwise he's a pretty cool guy.
A little gratuitous fan service when Seiji goes to Midori's house to figure out what's going on.
Really, I understand the idea of putting mini-Midori in contact with her body, but was it really necessary to pull back the covers? (I suppose if he thought proximity to the heart would make a difference...)
Oh well. It led into a really hilarious scene where the maid nearly kills him.
Like most guys, he's utterly clueless about girls. Probably more so than most. (He wouldn't get that a girl likes him even if she popped out of his sleeve and said so.)
But he's really sweet, and when he isn't freaking out at her he really cares about Midori.
The art is pretty good, too. Maybe not fantastic, but it does the job and a little more.
I really don't know what else to say. It's a really fun series with a lot of tension. It's not high drama and there really isn't any depth beyond the central storyline. (Shakespeare this ain't.) But who cares? This is escapist entertainment at its most basic.
I give this one a thumbs up!
I'm reading it on One Manga. Midori no HibiCurrent Mood: amused Current Music: (watching some medical show) |
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Manga Review: Hourou Musuko
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Dec. 13th, 2007 @ 01:17 pm
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Ah, how to start.
Well, I should say that after starting to read the series it occurred to me to look up the name in a Japanese to English dictionary. Really should have thought of that before reading the series.
Translated, it comes out to 'Wandering Son.' That's if you take the second word by its humble meaning. Colloquially its meaning is of a rather crude anatomical nature.
Some of you can probably stop reading now and just cross that series off your list of manga to read. Some might also think this would be a good place for me to stop typing (I know who you are) but this is a review and I think it's important.
Even without knowing what the title meant it's still my own fault for turning the first page. (Figuratively speaking, I found the translation on the One Manga site.) Along with the genres drama and school life the series was also labeled as gender bender.
Usually that turns me away from reading a series all together, but the series description sounded kinda like W Juliet. I really enjoyed W Juliet so I thought I'd give this series a shot.
This series is so not W Juliet.
For one thing, the characters look annoyingly alike. Their personalities aren't that well differentiated, either. I don't know that cardboard cutout is a good description. Cardboard does have some thickness, after all.
The scene transitions weren't to great, either. Usually it was well into a sequence before I realized what side of the door the characters were standing on. The rather vague artwork probably didn't help.
Actually, 'vague' is a very good way to describe most of the series. At least the early part. A lot of the characters spend a lot of time kind spaced out, as if going through life in a trance. Particularly Chiba-san, who instantly latched onto the idea of dressing the main character up in girl's clothes.
I started out kinda feeling sorry for Shu-kun, the main character, but I got over it. The boy is a wuss. He's described as a feminine boy and he actually wants to wear girl's clothes, but I really buy it. I don't know why everyone mistakes him for a girl on first glance. He really doesn't look like a girl when he's not wearing a long wig. (Then again, the girls don't look that different from the boys in this manga. They're all kinda androgynous.)
Shu-kun is a wuss. He can't stick with a decision, he waffles constantly, he gives up on everything way too easily, and he's just generally weak willed. He's not feminine at all unless you equate weakness and liking to cook feminine. Even if he were really a girl I'd find him just as idiotically weak.
Then there's Takatsuki, who's usually called Takatsuki-kun because she's such a tomboy. I think her main problem is that her family has some very strange ideas about what's okay and not okay for boys and girls. (They chewed her out once for staying out late. They said that it was one thing for Shu-kun since he was a boy, but Takatsuki's a girl.)
Uh... And they're both, what, 12 at most? That's kinda young to stay out late without telling anyone no matter what organs you have.
Anyway, Takatsuki introduces Shu-kun to taking the train to someplace far from home and then walking around like the opposite sex. On one of those trips, an older woman flirted with Takatsuki, and Takatsuki was thrilled.
This kid has **issues**.
Turns out the woman is actually a transsexual and becomes fast friends with Taktsuki and Shu-kun.
One word: gross.
I don't care what your personality is like or if you think you're a woman trapped in a man's body or vice versa or whatever. That's the package you were born with, deal with it. It's one thing if there's some life-threatening abnormality like the esophagus not reaching the stomach, but this is just nuts.
...
Okay, that's a really bad choice of words, but I guess I'll leave it like that. (In my current frame of mind, it'd probably only get worse if I changed it.)
Can't really say much about the other characters. They're just sorta... there.
So, um. How do I wrap this up? I guess if you like this sort of thing you can read it. Why you would I have no idea. Otherwise, it's a total skip. Nothing worth seeing here, people.Current Mood:  blah Current Music: (watching Family Feud) |
| » Creepy! |
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I have just now caught up to the rest of humanity and witnessed the phenomenon known as The Phantom of the Opera. Andrew Loyd Weber version.
One word: CREEPY!
I am so glad I watched this at noon rather than in the evening. Bad enough that the wind was howling outside my window, I do not want to watch this in the dark.
It was the most amazing, frightening, moving, suffocating thing I have ever seen.
Though I can't say that I was particularly horrified by the phantom's appearance as everyone in the movie was. A bad burn, surely, but hardly the stuff of nightmares.
Then again, this is set in 1870, when malformations of any sort were hidden from public view.
No, his appearance didn't scare me. His personality did. The man seemed more demon than human until the very end of the movie. In fact, I think having him be flesh and blood made him scarier than if he really had been a phantom.
Man. I wonder what sort of dreams I'll have tonight.
Oct. 23rd, 2007 @ 03:20 pm
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| » A seasonable movie |
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Is it just me, or are kid-friendly Halloween specially getting dumber?
I suppose you can't entirely blaim them. It's nigh well impossible to show something truly frightening without breaking just about every kid-friendly TV rule in existance (not to mention raising the litigious wrath of hundreds of parents). So instead the writers of Halloween specials have fallen back on extra gross-out jokes, friendly monsters, and seriously hokey situations. (Anyone up for a Scooby Doo rerun?)
The adult fare offered isn't much better. ('Santa's Slay'? Guess someone figured making people petrified of hockey players wasn't enough.)
*sigh* It's been so long since I've seen a desent horror movie. Ironically, I'm pretty sure the last one I saw was one of the many screen adaptations of Braum Stoker's Dracula.
I say ironic because the movie I'm about to describe is the deceptively titled The Batman vs. Dracula.
'Deceptive' because you wouldn't think a movie with a this sort of title would be watchable. Brings to mind those old B-movies like Godzilla vs. King Kong. Or was it the other way around? Nevermind.
Don't let the title fool you, this is a really good example of feature-length animation. It also lives up to it's horror tale promises.
But how can that be? Isn't The Batman a kid show?
Quite true. The Batman can be seen on The WB during their afternoon kids' segment. However, the show itself has proven unafraid of delving into the dark and brooding. We're talking about Batman here, the poster child of brooders. (The guy needs some serious counciling.) The movie takes that several steps further.
I was actually quite surprised. Though I couldn't see the writers getting around Dracula's blood-sucking nature, I was anticipating them to gloss over the gorier possibilities. Instead I found two hours containing more animated blood than the entirety of the YuYu Hakusho Dark Tournament arc, uncut. I'd love to get a recording of the studio meetings that decision must've illicited. Not to mention the constant references to death.
I gotta describe this scene. The Penguin has just made the enormous blunder of waking up Dracula, but some poor cemetary patrol officer ends up getting the first bite. Penguin finds the corpse, which promptly starts moving.
"Dead people don't do that!" Penguin then has the misfortune of backing up right into Dracula.
"Not dead," says the king of vampires. "Undead."
*gulp* "I think I need to un-wet my pants."
^~^ Humor and terror all in the same scene. Now that's good writing.
Now, granted, this is still more or less family-friendly fare, and so Dracula's victims don't stay dead, I mean undead. In a more traditional Dracula movie, each and every one of those "lost ones" would've required a stake through the heart, not a vampirism antidote. Even so, the writers made up for it with a spectacularly dramatic death scene for the title villian.
As much as I would have liked to see Dracula shish kabobbed with one of the many ancient weapons Bruce has lying around his library (what're they doing there, anyway?), I was able to appreciate the idea of having Count Dracula, king of vampires, self-proclaimed evil incarnate soundly defeated by what amounted to a 5,000 watt lightbulb. Now that's a sunburn.
Oh, and in case anyone thought the Joker couldn't get any more insane, then you have to see him as a vampire. That alone was one freaky trip. (Not to mention the bloodiest set of scenes in the entire movie. The Joker has no table manners.)
Oct. 24th, 2005 @ 10:45 am
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