Today we saw episode 1 of Urusei Yatsura, Rumiko Takahashi-sensei's classic love comedy. It was pretty good, silly but rather funny. ^^ I think I understand why Lum is one of the most popular Magical Girlfriends™ out there.

I really need the raws of Hoshi wa Utau (chapters 37, 38 and 44). ;-; The most recent installments seem to have quite a bit of Kanade x Sakuya content, and I like Kanade x Sakuya - I'm rooting for them and Chihiro x Sakura. I'd also like to mention another interesting comic, Dear My Girls (available here), a Korean manhwa loosely based on Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Dear My Girls features Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy in a Victorian private school setting, and Beth is strikingly different from her novel prototype. Unlike Alcott's pure and innocent Beth, this Beth has a somewhat dark personality and is bitterly jealous of her talented, charismatic sisters. I'm rather fond of such alternate interpretations of classic novels. And I honestly think that Beth is the prettiest in the manhwa version. ^^;

I'd like to recommend FWD/Forward, a blog focused on and written by feminists with disabilities. It's a great and highly important resource, so please check it out.

Volume 5 of Baku-man will be released on November 4! The cover features Fukuda and his gang. ^^ It's really funny... and I can totally relate to Fukuda's anger and anguish. ^^;;; I rarely work with traditional ink these days because I ink everything in Paint Tool SAI, but I remember the pain of seeing an ugly blotch on your drawing... ;o; Hehe. And because I'll get paid for my translation work very soon, I'll be able to buy it without problems. Hmm... you know, I actually enjoy working as a freelance translator. I mean, I wouldn't want all of my jobs to be freelance, I DO need a regular job in order to feel safe, but it's still nice. Well, ideally, I'd like to be a cat or a panda in a zoo. Much like Hiramaru. ^^;;; Incidentally, I want volume 6 to have Hiramaru on it! Or maybe Aoki. Or both.

Another thing I need to talk about is the new La Corda d'Oro game that Koei is planning to release sometime soon. I haven't even played the original games yet, due to various technical difficulties, but I'm actually very excited about this, especially since it's not a direct sequel but a new story with a new set of characters. You can see some pictures here. I'm very interested in Ritsu Kisaragi, the serious-looking guy with glasses. >.>; I'm shallow and predictable, I know, but... for me, he's the hottest of the bunch. Kanade Kohinata, the heroine, is also lovely. Gah, I want them to make an official manga adaptation of this... I know that Kure-sensei is not done with the original La Corda d'Oro manga yet, and it's not like I want it to end sooner for the sequel's sake, b-but... I'm kinda shipping Ritsu x Kanade already even though there's nothing to ship at the moment. o.o; They're just so pretty, I can't help it, and Kanade has the cutest smile. As usual, Kure-sensei's designs are excellent.

Chapter 55 is out! \^^/ As usual, I've got lots to talk about, such as the fact that Ouri-sama is apparently Sara's fiance. I'm very curious about him now, since he, in Sara's own words, treats her as a little girl. Does he look like a mature man or is he a pretty-looking guy (who only seems young)? I'm also glad that Takuma doesn't act like Sara's brainwashed doll: his mind is fully intact and he honestly likes her, even though he's still her prisoner. ^^; Hehe, Vampire Knight is kinky like that. I'm not even particularly interested in Takuma, yet this is just lovely. Oh, and Yuuki is being awesome, if also somewhat reckless, again. I adore this girl so much. Her and her cute relationship with Yori-chan. This month's LaLa cover features Yuuki with Zero, and it's a very beautiful image - I'd like to get a textless version of it somewhere.

I'd like to recommend this set of video clips to all artists and everyone else who's interested in manga. These are step-by-step records of Kaoru Mori-sensei's drawing process. Even if you're not a fan of Victorian Romance Emma and Otoyomegatari, you really need to watch these anyway because Mori-sensei's art is absolutely stunning. *Δ* She's like a goddess to me. Her inking skills are frighteningly good. I'd sell my soul for 10% of her talent. ;-; And... heh, I guess I won't stop wasting my money on manga after all because I want to buy volume 1 of Otoyomegatari, now that it's out. I just... want to keep it in my personal library as an example of What Good Manga Must Be Like™, along with Obata-sensei's works. Sure, it'll give me a gigantic inferiority complex (...as if I don't have it already ;;;), but still... it's simply so gorgeous. ;o; I really like the cover, too. Amira looks very graceful. ♥

I love the new Death Note nendoroid photos so much. ;o; TERU, YOU ARE TOO CUTE. メガネ萌え~ ♥

Ah... why can't Kimi ni Todoke be a daily anime? ^^; And I still haven't found the raws of chapters 39 and 40, even though they supposedly contain some really interesting and important scenes with Sawako and Kazehaya... I've started reading Crazy For You though - it's also a romance shoujo manga done by Karuho Shiina-sensei. It's very interesting, though it also seems to be darker than Kimi ni Todoke. I mean, it's a teenage romance and not a thriller or anything, but it's psychologically dark in my opinion. Or maybe I just feel this way because I'm not a very passionate person, unlike the heroine. ;;; Anyway, it's pretty great. Also, this is completely off-topic, but in case you're into such things, I have a Plurk account now. I'll probably use it to kill time at work (because in some cases it's easier to use than my normal blog). ^^; Feel free to contact me there! My username is hiramaru, which is the last name of a certain character from Baku-man who resembles me in several unflattering ways. ^^;;; He's extremely lazy like me.

Wow, I'm not really a gamer (or rather... I'm not a gamer at all ;;;), but Aion: The Tower of Eternity is pretty damn stunning. *.* This is one of my favorite screenshots from the official gallery.

Hmm... Pandora Hearts is becoming somewhat popular among Russian BL fans. Although my personal OTP is still Oz x Alice, I like some BL pairings, too, such as Eliot x Reo or even Eliot x Oz. ^^ Eliot could be cute as a grumpy tsundere seme... I really like this Eliot x Reo x Oz OT3 picture from the artbook! ^^ And this one looks almost like a Gil x Oz wedding scene. o.o;;; And this high school AU illustration is plain hilarious - gotta love Alice's gigantic bento box! ♥ Can you tell that I'm in a Pandora Hearts mood today? I haven't finished the anime yet, but I'm actually very interested in the manga, even though it can be hard to understand sometimes, due to all those time twists and such. Still, it's one of my favorite supernatural mystery stories at the moment, and Oz is a terrific protagonist.

So, about the whole thing with Lambda Literary Awards (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6): this, I think, is my favorite post on the subject. It's an adequate and intelligent analysis of the problem, and I applaud the author for her great work. I don't have much to add to it. I keep failing to log in for some mysterious reason, so, alas, I can't thank her personally, but yeah, I sincerely appreciate it. To me, the most important part of the linked essay is the one that explains the academic meaning of the term LGBT literature; I believe that we need to keep it in mind when we approach the issue.

Today I saw Dimension Bomb, a short animated film from the Genius Party (or rather, Genius Party Beyond) series. It was... REALLY surreal and amazingly beautiful. I loved it so much. You can watch both parts of it here and here, though it's much more impressive if you watch in high quality. Seriously, it's gorgeous. And don't even try to analyze the plot - it's probably not meant to be understandable anyway. I do believe that all artists have at least SOME ideas about the meanings of their works, but sometimes these meanings are... you know, emotional and not logical. What I love about Dimension Bomb is that it feels like a recorded dream. Well, at least my dreams are often like that, and if I tried to write them down or draw them, scene by scene, I'd get a similar result. o.o;;; My subconsciousness is pretty creative.

You know, I think I'm glad that Aoki STILL doesn't like Nakai romantically. He won her respect and professional trust back in chapter 38, but he didn't win her heart, and thus she didn't end up looking like a prize. If Aoki is destined to fall for him (and I suspect that she is... though you can never be 100% sure with Ohba-sensei), I want her to do it under some entirely different circumstances and for different reasons. As for her new job offer, well... I understand why it looks like a very sexist scene, yet at the same time, Aoki's new editor is portrayed as a shallow and somewhat sleazy guy (take a look at chapter 53, he showed up there for the first time and even his co-workers scolded him for his attitude). I don't really feel that we're supposed to root for him, to be honest. Ohba-sensei is being realistic here, since such men exist everywhere, and Yamahisa is probably meant to represent the dirty side of the manga industry, much like that seiyuu manager who told Azuki to release an erotic photobook. Sadly, this is what Japan - as well as many other countries - can be like. I can't say that only bad secondary characters are sexist in Baku-man - Akito is a bit of a proverbial male chauvinist pig, too, but I must also note that girls often prove him and other guys wrong in subtle but clear ways (see Azuki with her acting career) or are not entirely comfortable with their ideas (like Aoki in this chapter). Again, I'm not saying that Baku-man doesn't have any problems, but it's not much worse than many other Shounen Jump manga and sometimes it actually shows misogyny in a distinctly negative light. Why am I rambling about this? Well, I do believe that if we want to dissect this series, we need to do it fairly and pay attention to all sides of the story.

In case you're curious, here are some color scans from the recent Shounen Jump issue. My personal favorite is, of course, the cover - because it features the Baku-man gang. Hmm... is it just the scan or Eiji really does have lavender hair? ^^ It's darker on the cover of volume 3. And the main duo seems younger for some reason.

I'm really interested in this new anime: Despera. Well, it hasn't been released yet, and even the broadcast date is still unknown, but the summary sounds great, and Yoshitoshi ABe-sensei is involved in this project! I adore ABe-sensei's art. And this story is set in an AU!Taisho era, and you know that I have a thing for the Taisho period! And the heroine is a mysterious girl with awesome technical skills! I'll definitely watch it.

I saw several episodes of Hakaba Kitaro and Umi Monogatari today. Sadly, Veoh doesn't seem to have episodes 4-11 of Hakaba Kitaro... My friend has them on CDs, but as usual, the file size is just too large and I can't watch them on my computer. >.<;;; Does anybody know any other good video streaming sites? ;-; I love this anime so much, I must watch it up to the end... somehow. It's not even that long, and it's such a bizarre little mixture of folklore and ordinary life. I'd gladly read the manga, too, but I haven't found any scanlations or even raw scans yet. Perhaps I'll buy it via Amazon the next time we make a group order. I'm seriously hooked. o.o;;; I don't even know why. But it's a cult classic in Japan, and I think I understand them. My situation with Umi Monogatari is slightly better though, it's available at Veoh and I'll finish it soon. ^^ It's getting better and better... and the delicious yuri subtext is still there!

Starry Heaven has released chapter 7 of Akatsuki no Aria. I'm so glad, I'm a big fan of this series, even though I'm still kinda new to it. It's getting more and more dramatic! ( SPOILERS ) I'm also reading Crimson Hero, which is a very interesting shoujo manga about Nobara Sumiyoshi, a tomboyish girl who loves volleyball more than anything else. It's also extremely well-drawn. *.* And I've just watched the Kimi ni Todoke promo video, too! The animation looks good, it'll be great if they manage to keep this level of quality up. And Noto-san sounds very cute as Sawako. ♥

According to this article and some other news sources, Elton John will not be allowed to adopt Lev, a HIV-positive Ukrainian toddler, since his union with David Furnish is not recognized as marriage in Ukraine and thus Sir Elton is considered single (INSERT A LONG CHAIN OF CUSS WORDS HERE -.-;;;). What makes me even angrier - and I'm absolutely furious - is the fact that many people are convinced that Sir Elton's aim is to make Lev his rape toy or something. UH, OF COURSE. All gay men are abusive pedophiles, DON'T YOU KNOW THAT. x.x;;; Ugh. I just really hate life sometimes. ;-; And some morons actually dare to say that this adoption is pointless because Lev is going to die anyway (YEAH RIGHT). Sure, it's not like he deserves a chance to live a nicer and possibly longer life or anything. In their opinion, even death is better than life with gay parents. =.=;;; Oh man, I'm just seriously upset.

Aw... Cyber Idol Mink doesn't seem to be directly available at Amazon. ;-; Apparently it's possible to buy a used copy, but I don't really know how to do that. I like Cyber Idol Mink a lot. ^^