Manga I am Following

[sub_divided]

(This is in answer to Crow here.)

Reading regularly:

Crimson Spell
Grant My Wish
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Loveless
Mirage of Blaze
Silver Diamond
Viewfinder
xxxHoLIC


Reading in sporadic bursts:

Bleach
Eyeshield 21
Gokusen
Koukou Debut
NANA
Naruto
Tsubasa
Vampire Knight
Vinland Saga


Behind due to inconvenience of scans:

Antique Bakery
Blade of the Immortal
Cross Game
H2
Itsumo Misora
Slow Step
Sensei!
Kyou Kara Maou (I should just watch the anime, right?)


If I remember:

Anastasia Club
Boku ni Natta Watashi
Bokutachi wa asu ni mukatte ikiru no da
Fairy Cube
G Senjou Heaven's Door
Mieru Hito
Mushishi


Recently finished:

Emma
Fruits Basket
Ichigenme wa Yaruki no Minpou
Island
Paradise Kiss
Kobatotei Ibun
Land of the Blindfolded
PSME (in hard-copy! *admires 22 volumes on shelves*)


Puchasing:

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Loveless
Twelve Kingdoms (novel translation)


Waiting on scans/waiting on bookstores:

Mainichi Seiten!
Ouchou Haru no Yoi no Romance
Pearl Pink
Sailor Fuki ni Onegai!


Waiting on Togashi:

Hunter x Hunter

Comments!


Bleach: Became suddenly more interesting in the last couple chapters. (This is actually a lie -- it's just the fights have been so exhaustingly wacky lately that when KT finally got to Chad it was like, HALLELUYAH!!! Oh and also, Rukia's moment of sudden soul-shattering betrayal. My advice, skim the endless rounds of training and formulaic fights, ignore the fact that Orihime is playing the Rukia role this arc (I MEAN EXACTLY), and just read for Chad and Rukia. No, better: just read chapter 263.


Land of the Blindfolded: This got really, really good in volumes 5-8, but sadly the author backs off in the final volume and returns to WAFF (and what's worse, "standard" oneshot storylines). Still, it was fun.


NANA: Binged up to the present chapter and ugh. It's dragging, the mangaka's started to draw flashbacks and future-flashes with no warning (confusing!) and above all I'm getting really annoyed with the treatment of the female characters. On the other hand it's fun reading about a "punk" band who have become stars before even releasing an album, and the endless rounds of gameshows they're replaced their musical careers with. And their fanclub, OH MY GOD. It's run like a paramilitary organization, I'm really not kidding.

Overall I think NANA's main selling point is "realism" and that it's a pretty realistic look at the Japanese music industry, though dramatized, of course. I like the way the relationships are handled, where they don't go in foreseeable directions. But I liked Parakiss better because it was a lot tighter.


Silver Diamond: What I love most about this series is that every chapter is sixty pages long with tons of dialog. So when a new chapter comes out, I can enjoy it for up to twenty minutes before I get to the end and have to suffer waiting for the next one.

Here's the long reaction post I wrote for chapter 16 and didn't post (spoilers):

I was just starting to think that maybe the jokes were being repeated too often, maybe there had been too much recapping, maybe I had in fact gotten tired of Rakan Who Is Always Correct, and anyway isn't this series very different from what I usually read? Only the thing was that I wasn't feeling any of these things, I was just thinking them, uselessly, because up until then all of the chapters had been so, so good and so, so satisfying (AND THANKFULLY, LONG.

But chapter 16 is awesome. I had to go back to the beginning of the volume, where the bandits first appear, to make sure, but it's true: Touji was never formally introduced. There is one scene where his name is mentioned in Kazuhi's presence, but since it comes in the middle of Rakan's declaration that he and Chigusa and Touji can totally take the Prince, I can understand why Kazuhi might have been too distracted to make note of it.

And then I had to go back so I could stare admiringly at every single panel that lined up Kazuhi and Chigusa -- they really do look alike! -- and squeal over every single panel where Chigusa stares meaningfully at Kazuhi. He's consistent about it but the thing is, this is so well integrated that I didn't even notice the first time through. When you know what you know later, these scenes read entirely differently.

The mangaka doesn't forget anything. I hear she only plans two or three chapters in advance? But considering the size of the chapters this is like planning an entire volume in advance. Anyway I'm horribly tempted to make yet another One Piece comparison even though I'm pretty sure I went over my quota, like, months ago. It's that solid.

Silver Diamond, by the way, is the mildest of mild BL. It's a fantasy set in another world where clouds cover the sun, but it never rains, so all the plants are dying and the world is slowly turning into a desert. Also: guns, clocks, and flashlights grow on trees. The Prince is secretly a demon sucking the life out of everything, but luckily there is this high school student, Rakan, who looks just like him but lives in our world (hobbies include: cooking, cleaning, laundry) who can make plants grow. One day the semi-immortal "monstrous traitor" Senrou Chigusa falls through a hole between the worlds to land in Rakan's flower garden, and...