cyphomandra

I was overseas and in a manga shop, and mentioned that I was eagerly awaiting v5 of Pluto.

Counter guy: Oh. That came in yesterday morning.
Me (turning to look at shelves expectantly): Ooh.
Counter guy: And sold out by the end of the day. It’s our most popular title.
Me (exhibiting a broad and deep vocabulary): Oh, man.
Counter guy (quite possibly just toying with me): Would you like to buy the volume I read once lightly on the train home last night?
Me (not actually lunging): Yes please.

And it was very good.

( Pluto, Naoki Urasawa, v3-5. )

( 20th Century Boys, Naoki Urasawa, v3-4. )

( Ooku: the inner chamber, Fumi Yoshinaga, v1. )

My current main sources of manga are on-line ordering and attending international conferences (at the most recent one, my hotel was two blocks away from the manga shop, which was also having a 25% off sale). The latter is certainly effective but leads to moments of panic when I show up at the airport with 17 more books (volumes, whatever) than I left with, and have to put my suitcase on the scales. This time I was 400g under, thus demonstrating my remarkable restraint... and the fact that the manga shop was out of volumes 1-4 of Oishinbo.

(I did pick up v5. It was good.)

I have been having problems with movies, in that they have all been a) not that good and b) too long and c) just not theatre, but tonight I saw I'm Not There (the Bob Dylan movie) and loved it. Even the bits with Richard Gere, who normally annoys the heck out of me - obviously what I needed to enjoy Pretty Woman was escaped zoo animals and a semi-apocalyptic Western setting (well, that and extensive feminist rewrites).

Anyway. My manga log for this year has gone over 100 volumes and, frankly, the chances of detailed updates on all of them are slim. This seemed like a reasonable compromise. I have included multiple links to Shaenon Garrity's overlooked manga festival entries, which are funny and have scans and are where I got a number of recs from anyway. I'll start with current reads, and then post finished series and those I am currently stalled on.

Currently reading:

My current favourite series are Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service and After School Nightmare, only one of which (ASN) I’ve actually posted about on here, because a) I keep lending out The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, and b) to do justice to Monster I really need to re-read it, but all three of these are excellent and all strongly recommended. I skew towards shonen/seinen and have stalled on a number of shojo series, as apparently I am just not girly enough for them; I’m also not mad keen on BL stuff unless there's a really strong nonrelationship storyline, and I get very twitchy about fixed sex/gender roles.

( After School Nightmare, Mizushiro Setona, v1-6. )

( Battle Royale, Takami Koushun & Taguchi Masayuki,v1-6. )

( Black Sun, Silver Moon, Tomo Maeda, v1-3. )

( Flower of Life, Fumi Yoshinaga, v1-3. )

( Hands Off! Kasane Katsumoto, v1-4. )

( Kekkaishi, Yellow Tanabe, v1-11. )

( Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Eiji Otsuka, Housui Yamazaki, v1-6. )

( Legal Drug, CLAMP, v1-2. )

( Loveless, Yun Kouga, v1-8 (scanlation), v1-7 (Tokyopop). )

( Monster, Naoki Urasawa, v1-13. )

( Mushishi, Yuki Urushibara, v1-3. )

( Parasyte, Hitoshi Iwaaki, v1-2. )

( Pumpkin Scissors, Ryotaro Iwanga, v1. )

( X/1999, CLAMP, v1-2. )

( X-Day, Setona Mizushiro, v1. )

( Yotsuba&!, Kiyohiko Azuma, V1-4. )

( The Young Magician, Yuri Narushima, v1-2. )