I'm slightly drunk (today we had a small party at our department... I took one sip of red wine and my mind went completely blank in less than a minute @.@;;; I'm not a drinker at all, and I don't even act funny when I'm drunk, I just become sleepy and apathetic like a brick), but I still want to talk about Baku-man! The newest spoilers are behind the cut because they're pretty big. ( SPOILERS ) Man, do I love rambling about this series. Death Note is my top favorite because I'm fiercely loyal to Teru (that's why I torture him so much, OBVIOUSLY), but Baku-man just... has nearly everything I'm interested in, and it's realistic. I want my volume 4 to arrive soon. *.* Unless I'm mistaken, it contains the chapter where Aoki appears for the first time, among other things. ♥

Hahaha, oh, Eiji, you're so awesome. ≧∇≦ Seriously, this kid is insanely talented, rich and generous (a bit like Atobe from Prince of Tennis, though in a different way), and he knows how to drink from four glasses at once - through straws, of course. Well, okay, this chapter had tons of interesting and impressive content and I enjoyed it a lot, as usual, but... I'm a lazy blogger, I never do proper reviews. ^^;;; I prefer to just squee about Eiji instead.

So Saiko's illness has something to do with his liver, huh (is it something... mysterious like Yukimura's legendary illness? ;;;). And it requires surgery, too. And he's being a typical Japanese workaholic. Gee.

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. ♥

I've known Yonezou Nekota-sensei as a Prince of Tennis doujinshi artist for quite a while (I think she's a relatively popular Fuji x Tezuka artist; I'm not really into Fuji x Tezuka and I don't always agree with her characterizations, but her works are cute), and now I'm reading her original BL manga - Otona Keikenchi and Hidoku Shinaide. Otona Keikenchi is about a boy who's impotent due to a past trauma (an unsuccessful first time with a girl °x°;). I like Seiji, his admirer. He reminds me of Kirihara from Prince of Tennis. And their entire relationship is so awkward, I love it. ^^;;; I have a thing for embarrassing sex in fiction. I suppose I'm a sadist.

The deadline for the CLAMP fanbook submissions has been moved to July 11... which is just excellent for me because I can concentrate on the Death Note doujinshi now. ^^; It's so stupid, all I have to do for the CLAMP project is one color picture of... uh, I dunno, some CLAMP character (most likely Kamui ♥), but I'm an epic procrastinator and a huge perfectionist, so I always need a lot of time. ;;; This is why I'll never be a professional comic artist in a monthly magazine. ...THEN AGAIN. There are no monthly manga magazines in Russia, so it doesn't matter either way. Right now I'm struggling with the first page; I know what I want to have on it, but I'm still thinking about the characters' outfits. For some reason I don't feel like drawing Teru in a business suit... probably because I never do them well. =∇=; What else... Ah, I've caught up with New Prince of Tennis, the sequel to the original Prince of Tennis manga. I don't talk about Prince of Tennis too often because I'm not active in the fandom (it's too big for me...), but I'm a fan! My favorite character is Keigo Atobe-sama ♥, then Kirihara, Hiyoshi, Sanada and Yanagi.

I stole this fanfiction meme from Heather's journal. ( MEME )

Friday evenings are the best because I can spend them reading manga and NOT thinking about work! ^o^ Well - more or less. My newest discoveries are Brother x Brother and Special A. The first series involves incest, so I can't recommend it to everyone since it's a sensitive topic. However, it's also very hot. I've seen Kisaragi-sensei's Prince of Tennis (Kabaji x Atobe) doujinshi before, and his original work is even cooler. Special A deals with a lighter and cuter theme - it's about Hikari's rivalry with her old acquaintance, Kei.

Prince of Tennis turned out to be weirdly addictive. I don't even mind the predictability of the games because Konomi-sensei possesses a talent for fleshing his (secondary) characters out. I, however, do not care for anyone from Seigaku. My current #1 team is Hyoutei as it has players like Atobe, Hiyoshi and Shishido, my top 3 Prince of Tennis guys. Damn. Atobe. Call me unoriginal, but I can't resist his charm. Hiyoshi is the one I relate to on a very personal level - he's introverted, competitive and hopelessly dorky - and Shishido's development rocks. Now I want to see Rikkaidai since my friends are mad about them.

I'm thinking about reading Prince of Tennis (the anime is too long, but I'm used to devouring Shounen Jump's gigantic opuses). Yes, I'm kinda late, since Prince of Tennis is not a new series and it also has a somewhat intimidating fandom (well, at least it's active and there are tons of BL fanfics and fanart). >.>; One of my closest friends is very much into it, so I'm actually familiar with the plot.

My friend Anne and I have been studying the most common trends and patterns of angsty fanfiction. Anne likes Prince of Tennis; I'm not very familiar with this anime... well, it looks like a fairly optimistic series (forgive me if I'm mistaken). The fandom, however, has BILLIONS of extremely sad fics. I'm 99,9% sure there is at least one story where the main character's leg gets amputated due to osteosarcoma, and that's especially tragic since he's a talented tennis player. My point? SO many popular plots are built on misconceptions. For example... um, no, hair loss is not a SYMPTOM of cancer. It's a typical side effect of chemotherapy, in other words, it usually occurs during treatment. Yes, cancer does work in unpredictable ways and PERHAPS it MAY cause balding in some exceptional cases, I dunno, I'm not a medical expert, but still... ugh, sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine.