Backlog (manga)

[cyphomandra]

At some stage I will actually start making posts more imminently relevant to this particular icon, but not yet. In the meantime -

Fruits Basket. An orphaned girl is offered a home with three members of the Sohma family, cursed to transform into members of the Chinese Zodiac whenever they are hugged by someone of the opposite gender. So far, this series dances cheerfully right along the edge of my ability to tolerate a) cuteness and b) massively self-effacing female leads, best exemplified by the fact that I found myself buying something (volume 3) with a blurb that said, amongst other things “It's Valentine's Day and you know what that means - lots of chocolates for the cutest boys at school!”. Momiji does not work for me at all, and all the Sohma males are just slightly too pretty. However, Tohru Honda’s great – a genuinely nice character – and her classmates are interesting, and there is sadness there as well, and other hints at less fluffy undertones. I haven’t ordered the next volumes yet, but I’m thinking about it.


Death Note. Light Yagami, a rather arrogant elite high school student picks up a death note dropped by a shinigami (death spirit). Anyone whose name he writes in the death note will die, and he uses this to start wiping out all the world’s most dangerous criminals, bringing him to the attention of L, a mysterious faceless detective who is determined to stop him. Am currently cheering on L (who is twitchy and strange and endearing) and hoping Light starts running into problems real soon, as he is creepily effective and bent on creating a crime-free utopia, probably with a population of one.

In volume 3 L brings Light into the investigation *and* tells him he’s a suspect (which made me start waving my free hand at the book in an wordlessly emotional and over-dramatic fashion) and joins him at university, so they can play psychological tennis matches with each other. I like the way this series does not hesitate to move forward, upping the stakes with increasing frequency, and my only concern is how well they're going to keep it up.

Comments

[pats-quinade.livejournal.com]

I'd continue with Fruits Basket. I've watched the anime, and while there are some significant differences between the anime and the manga, I've been told that they're pretty similar in how well they go cute, cute, cute, heartwrench.

(And yes, Tohru's self-effacement became a household joke for awhile.)

[cyphomandra.livejournal.com]

Your assurance of future heartbreak is most encouraging :) (and I do really like Tohru). I haven't gone looking for the anime - it's just the first half-dozen or so books, right? Or is it ongoing as well?

[pats-quinade.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, the anime goes through about volume 8 -- although it condenses a lot of things and leaves some things out entirely. I don't know why it ended there -- it is AN ending, but it doesn't have all the closure I would have wanted. We did like it, though, and considering that it's Shoju anime, that's saying a lot for us. (It made Karin cry, incidentally.)