Yesterday we went to the beach (for the second time this summer!) and Kito brought us our huge manga package. Heh... group orders are awesome because you can get something for yourself and look at other people's books for free. Anyway, I got my 3 new books (Baku-man, Vampire Knight and Natsume Yuujinchou) and flipped through my friends' manga. I also received the payment for my, er... random freelance work. ^^ I have to thank Kito for this, too. ♥ Greed is my favorite Fullmetal Alchemist character for a very good reason, yes. I'll probably waste it very soon, but right now it looks so nice in my wallet... ≧∇≦ Alright! Let's look for other money-making strategies! \*∆*/ Oh, and Vampire Knight is just too pretty with its Yuuki x Yori cover, and so is Natsume Yuujinchou, and Baku-man, well - I finally have a book with lots and lots of fantastic Eiji-centric scenes in it! Hmm... Oh, yeah, I saw episode 2 of Aoi Hana today. I won't blog about this series regularly (I'm afraid I'm too lazy and unorganized for proper anime-blogging), but I definitely will fangirl about it from time to time because it's beautiful and I love Akira to death.

...right, so I'm completely in love with Cross Game now. You'll hear a lot about it. I think it's going to be one of my favorite sports manga (namely baseball manga) - I like it even more than Ookiku Furikabutte, and Ookiku Furikabutte is quite good, although I don't really follow it anymore due to my short attention span. But yeah, anyway. I love Cross Game so much. *∆* My favorite characters are Wakaba Tsukishima and Yuhei Azuma, and I also like Momiji Tsukishima and Nomo, her kitty, although they're background characters. But the kitty is so damn cute, I can't stop staring at him. Wakaba, well... there are many reasons why I like her, and no, I won't spoil you. Kou Kitamura, the protagonist, is quite a charming kid as well. LOOK, PEOPLE, JUST READ THIS MANGA. ;;;

I read all 18 volumes of Peach Girl (as well as 3 volumes of Ura Peach Girl, Sae's sidestory) last night. It was fun, although most characters were hard for me to relate to. I just... kept laughing at their issues. ;;; Maybe I'm not sensitive enough. ^^;;; And now I'm reading Cross Game, a slice-of-life manga by Mitsuru Adachi. It's amazing. *.* No, really. Adachi-sensei's style is simple, but there's a lot of talent behind that simplicity, and he's a fantastic storyteller and a powerful realist. He seems to be a very popular author in Japan (I mean, hey, Rumiko Takahashi herself considers him a rival - in a friendly way, yes, but still...), and I can tell why, he's so damn good. I've just finished volume 1 and I'm already thinking about buying it - a bit later, maybe in August. It's THAT awesome. @.@ Gee... I'll have to save quite a lot of money. ;;; I want to buy at least one book of Aoi Hana, and volume 1 of Cross Game, and on top of that, I absolutely must complete my Death Note collection (I own all volumes that feature Teru and also a couple of Arc I books, but that's not enough, obviously!). Hee. Oh well. Life's like that.

I'm reading Peach Girl! It's a fairly well-known shoujo manga, I think. I like it a lot so far, it's very interesting and Momo is a good, unique heroine. My favorite character is Sae though, and... I have no idea why, she has so many disturbing traits and she makes me feel sorry for Momo. @.@; But because of that, she's seriously fascinating, like a villain from a horror story. I mean, Peach Girl isn't that scary, it's just a melodramatic shoujo series, but if you think about it, girls like Sae can hurt people pretty badly. Still, she's fun to read about.

This afternoon I attempted to color one of my newest pencil sketches. I... failed, so I sat down and wrote a short Teru x Kiyomi fic instead. Take a look at it? Heh, that's my favorite way of dealing with problems - when all else fails, do something related to your OTP. It'll make everything better.

I downloaded a DVD rip of Twilight from our local P2P network and watched it during supper. Hey, I had to relax after several hours of freelance work! The movie was... slightly more entertaining than the book. Edward and Bella's interaction felt awkward and some scenes creeped me out majorly, but overall, it was... amusing? And I liked Alice. She was pretty and rather charming. Heh, I have a feeling that most people like Alice even if they aren't exactly crazy about Twilight in general. Oh, and I... loved the woods around Forks. I'd like to take a walk at such a place (...not with Edward though; his sparkly skin makes me think of various icky diseases and... not sex, sorry). We have woods here where I live, too, but they're different, and what's worse, they're getting cut down... =.=; but that's a whole another story, I'll rant about it later. Hmm... now I want to work on my original vampire stories again. I don't read that much vampire fiction (I only really like Vampire Knight and Dracula, as well as various movie adaptations of Dracula, preferably parodies), but I do love vampires as mythological creatures, and my own stories... well, I'm not planning to write them down anytime soon, but they're just fun to think about. By the way, my vampires are not undead humans; they're a different species, so you can't get turned into a vampire in my universe.

I watched episode 1 of Taisho Yakyuu Musume without subtitles - my computer hates most .MKV files and there are no .AVI subs of this series at the moment; .MP4 is okay for me though, as long as the file is not too huge. Well, even so, it wasn't much of a problem for me: the plot and the dialogues were mostly understandable. And I loved it! I loved it so much! It might become my second favorite summer anime after Aoi Hana, and you know that I'm a huge fan of Aoi Hana. There are so many reasons why Taisho Yakyuu Musume is awesome - I like how it's set in the Taisho era and the all-female cast is really sweet. Much to my delight, Mamiko Noto-san is among the main seiyuu. And I have a thing for baseball, too, although I don't play it and I can't say that I know the rules all that well, much like the heroines. ^^;;; And despite the show's seemingly light-hearted nature, it actually deals with stuff like male chauvinism in a way that I like a lot (so far): Akiko wants to Prove a Point™ to a male baseball player who believes that women should be housewives and stop going to schools, but she's not a tough amazon, she can be gentle and sensitive and she allows herself to cry over things that hurt her and make her angry (such as this guy's words). Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against aggressive girls, but I also don't want fictional feminists to be stereotypical. Strength comes in different packages. ^^ Overall, I'm extremely pleased with Taisho Yakyuu Musume. ♥

Yesterday I went to my friend's place and we watched several Prince of Tennis OVAs together. I'm more of a manga fan and I don't watch that much anime when I'm alone... somehow it's more entertaining when I'm with my friends. The OVAs we saw were about the final Seigaku VS Rikkai games. The Rikkai boys were so awesome... *.* Admittedly, most of them did some highly questionable things during those matches, but that simply made the story more interesting. I like Rikkai because it's such a dark and militaristic team (only Marui and Jackal are relatively normal), and because Yukimura has Issues™. Today I also downloaded the latest chapters of New Prince of Tennis and they sort of... proved my point about Yukimura, too. Clearly, he's not planning to give up his Creepy Tennis™ anytime soon, and Echizen's Fun Tennis™ does nothing to him. Which... is actually kind of cool, in fact. I don't think that Yukimura is right, or even completely sane (he seems to have a number of pretty severe obsessions and fixations), but at the same time, I don't want everyone to accept Echizen's philosophy. A good story requires different ideologies. Oh! Right, and Sanada is fantastic. His sheer will to fight is... something special indeed. ♥

...wow, what a chapter. ( SPOILERS )

So... is anybody going to translate Umineko no Naku Koro ni? 'ω';;; I'm afraid I won't understand it too well without subtitles. I haven't finished Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (YET), but it seems that Umineko no Naku Koro ni is an AU story, and it features a different cast of characters, right? I want to check it out at least, it might be interesting, although I'm slightly worried about the possible amount of violence due to... certain events in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. But oh well, I'm still curious. I'm also waiting for Taisho Yakyuu Musume and episode 2 of Umi Monogatari.

Episode 1 of Aoi Hana was absolutely excellent. I loved every minute of it. ♥ I can't wait to see the next episode, even though I know the story from the manga! It's gonna be a long week! ^^; Really... it's just very well-made, fairly simple but beautiful, and all characters are very attractive. Ai Takabe-san sounds great as Fumi, she seems like a good new seiyuu, and I like Akira's voice, too. I'm also highly pleased with the fact that the OP has some amount of subtly erotic content - of the Akira x Fumi variety, of course; much as I like their pure and (currently) non-sexual relationship, I do want their OTP-ness to be obvious to everyone. \*≧∇≦*/

I saw episode 1 of Umi Monogatari today and enjoyed it quite a bit. Perhaps I'll follow this series - it's not extraordinarily deep, but it's funny and well-drawn, and Kanon, the human protagonist, is very cynical and sarcastic unlike most normal shoujo heroines (Marin, the mermaid, is more like an ordinary shoujo character); she also appears to be depressed due to her failed relationship with a boy. Urin, Marin's younger sister, also provides many comic moments and lines. Anyway, it seems like a watchable magical girl series, even though Kanon doesn't get to use any supernatural powers in episode 1 - I guess episode 2 will be more action-packed, and judging by the preview, an antagonist will be introduced. Oh, and I like the ED, which is based on The Little Mermaid. ^^

So, um, I really need to squee about some awesome parts of Glass Mask. Be careful, there are spoilers for volumes 14-17, as well as... er, fangirly yuri talk. Feel free to skip it. ^^;;; ( SPOILERS )

Incidentally... Teru and Kiyomi's profiles are located next to each other at the official Death Note anime site, just like Raye and Naomi's profiles, by the way (I'm not a huge Raye x Naomi fan, but they ARE canon). In other words, they have a separate mini-section all to themselves. NATURALLY, it's a subtextual sign of their OTP-ness. OF COURSE. Page layouts are never not meaningful and I am not delusional. ♥ *≧∇≦* Also, Kiyomi's puzzled face is so cute.

Is anyone (other than Heather) familiar with Glass Mask? I'm reading the manga right now. Well, technically, I've known this story for quite a while, thanks to my friend, but only as an anime series (1984) and an OVA (1998); there's also a newer anime adaptation (2005), but I've only seen the first 5-6 episodes of it. And since the manga is the original version of the story and also the longest one - it's still ongoing! - I suppose I'll stick to it for now. Anyway, Glass Mask is a great shoujo series. Unlike many shoujo manga, it's not really focused on love, although it does contain a number of romantic subplots; rather, it's a story of personal and professional growth, which is one of my favorite topics in fiction. That's why I also like Baku-man, too, and... you know, it's funny, but my favorite Baku-man character, Eiji, is vaguely similar to my favorite Glass Mask character, Ayumi. I mean, their personalities are certainly different (well, they're both strong-willed, talented and determined, but that's where it ends - I can't really compare the princess-like Ayumi to Eiji in all seriousness ^^;;;), but they play the same roles in the plots and in the main characters' lives. Both are Maya and Moritaka's most powerful and important rivals who also respect the protagonists deeply and compete with them passionately. It's an odd parallel, but it does work. Heh... it seems that I have a thing for Eiji and Ayumi's character type, although I do like Moritaka and Maya as well. Also? Ayumi is damn hot.

Ooh, Saiko and Shujin are gaining popularity in Shounen Jump and Eiji is getting dangerously serious about them. This is going to be fun. The fandom is so used to goofy, crazy Eiji who treats everyone as buddies, but don't forget that he's actually a very determined and competitive person, and he DOES see the boys, especially Moritaka, as his rivals (「嬉しいですが。でも、亜城木先生には 絶対に負けたくないです！！」\*≧∇≦*/ ♥ ♥ ♥). Eiji? I don't want you to lose to them either. Much as I love Saiko and Shujin, I'm definitely going to root for you all the way. It's a pity that we can't vote for fictional manga. ^^;;; I'd totally vote for Crow! Haha, I also like Fukuda's punk assistant. ^^ They look funny together! And I'm glad that Nakai-san and Aoki-san are getting along.

R.I.P. Michael Jackson. You will be remembered.

As usual, you can read the chapter in English here. Oh, I want volume 11 to come out soon. It'll be full of epic stuff. Well, naturally, volume 10 is awesome too (I don't have a copy yet, but I know it is! ^^;), but volume 11 will contain some of my favorite scenes with Yuuki, Kaname and others. Er, anyway, about chapter 51... ( SPOILERS )

Today I went out to see Up!, Pixar and Disney's newest animated movie. It was awesome and very touching, although one part did upset me a little: ( SPOILERS ) Even so, I had a great time and I loved both Carl and Russel. And the animals. Alpha~ ♥ And now I'll go and waste an hour or two over at TV Tropes.