Manga thus far
Apr. 25th, 2010 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraI now have a new benchmark in fiddly dessert recipes, having just spent a not inconsiderable portion of my evening making a chestnut chocolate mousse - my aunt gave me some chestnuts from their orchard, and the recipe didn't involve any trick steps like "now leave in fridge overnight", so I gave it a go. In hindsight I should have wondered why the recipe book also included a whole page on how to peel chestnuts. Because I now know that you can only peel them successfully when they're hot (i.e., just plucked from boiling water), and after that, boiling them again with milk, pushing them through a sieve, making and adding a) a sugar syrup b) melted chocolate and c) whipped cream, pales in comparison to burning my fingers repeatedly while trying to extract any chestnut at all (it does taste good, tho').
Anyway. Food experiments aside, I haven't reviewed any manga this year so far despite reading it, and thought I'd just do a quick summary post.
Excellent thriller that failed to stick the ending, which is a real shame after all the earlier character and plot work. I gather the movie runs in an entirely different direction, and will have to check it out.
Everest and rival climbers. Interesting, but a bit slow to start with.
Guy who can see and talk to bacteria starts course at an agricultural college. Brilliant, funny, fascinating, and has the most disgusting traditional delicacy ever described (and pictured) in the first couple of chapters. I had to stop reading it on the bus because I couldn't stop making faces (then I rang my sister to tell her. Her: "Is it that Norwegian one where they urinate on the fish and bury it -" Me: "No. It's worse.").
Businessman goes back in time to his younger self, around the time his own father abandoned the family. Nicely observed and a quiet moment of epiphany (this is the final volume), didn't quite sweep me away.
One more to go, and it just arrived in the mail. This keeps pushing the boundaries of what the reader expects, while being touching and spot-on in all the emotional beats. Still not sure where they're going with the Alexander the Great parallels.
This is stunning. Complex, unpredictable, funny and heart-wrenching. Reminds me very strongly of Stephen King at his best, while never being derivative.
Intertwining relationships, mainly around the women in a family. As always, amazing control of emotions (characters and readers), although I'm not sure that I actually liked all the people; still, I felt I understood them. One volume.
Wheelchair basketball. Continues to be stunning. I have no idea how he keeps up the art standard.
In order to boost morale and social commitment, young people get randomly selected for death by government. Two self-contained stories per volume, and a slowly developing character arc about the guy who delivers the Ikigami, the death papers. Consistently interesting.
I really wish Viz was putting out more of this series, although I could do without the jumping around in the story line. Both strong volumes, theme-wise, without too much organic/anti-pesticide campaigning - instead, there's a protectionist approach to rice importation and a brief complaint about the inability to harvest whales, but also a lot of great food and some more tempting recipes. No chestnuts, although a fair amount of fiddly food.
Anyway. Food experiments aside, I haven't reviewed any manga this year so far despite reading it, and thought I'd just do a quick summary post.
Excellent thriller that failed to stick the ending, which is a real shame after all the earlier character and plot work. I gather the movie runs in an entirely different direction, and will have to check it out.
Everest and rival climbers. Interesting, but a bit slow to start with.
Guy who can see and talk to bacteria starts course at an agricultural college. Brilliant, funny, fascinating, and has the most disgusting traditional delicacy ever described (and pictured) in the first couple of chapters. I had to stop reading it on the bus because I couldn't stop making faces (then I rang my sister to tell her. Her: "Is it that Norwegian one where they urinate on the fish and bury it -" Me: "No. It's worse.").
Businessman goes back in time to his younger self, around the time his own father abandoned the family. Nicely observed and a quiet moment of epiphany (this is the final volume), didn't quite sweep me away.
One more to go, and it just arrived in the mail. This keeps pushing the boundaries of what the reader expects, while being touching and spot-on in all the emotional beats. Still not sure where they're going with the Alexander the Great parallels.
This is stunning. Complex, unpredictable, funny and heart-wrenching. Reminds me very strongly of Stephen King at his best, while never being derivative.
Intertwining relationships, mainly around the women in a family. As always, amazing control of emotions (characters and readers), although I'm not sure that I actually liked all the people; still, I felt I understood them. One volume.
Wheelchair basketball. Continues to be stunning. I have no idea how he keeps up the art standard.
In order to boost morale and social commitment, young people get randomly selected for death by government. Two self-contained stories per volume, and a slowly developing character arc about the guy who delivers the Ikigami, the death papers. Consistently interesting.
I really wish Viz was putting out more of this series, although I could do without the jumping around in the story line. Both strong volumes, theme-wise, without too much organic/anti-pesticide campaigning - instead, there's a protectionist approach to rice importation and a brief complaint about the inability to harvest whales, but also a lot of great food and some more tempting recipes. No chestnuts, although a fair amount of fiddly food.
