Jojo's Bizarre Adventure 1

falxumbra, you'd like this. Cheese! Cheese everywhere! Gratuitous eye-gougings! Traumatic backstories! Emotionally retarded men with bulging muscles!

I told worldserpent I couldn't read this series, but what I actually meant was that I tried it in one of those weird "skimming" moods -- you know, the kind where you can't concentrate long enough to do anything productive -- and since I'd heard the first two arcs were sketchy, I started with the third. There was a lot of dialog (which I skimmed), and there were all these suddenly-introduced characters who were not particularly likable. The Stand powers were boring and I concluded that whatever the appeal of the series was, it was beyond my ability to appreciate. Strangely, the one thing I have heard turns most people off -- the art -- wasn't an issue.

But if canis_m can read it, so can I! After all, she is not even a shounen fan! This time I started at the beginning and...OMG, how could I have been so dumb?! This series is gr8. Dio's father won me over. He's this classic dirty thieving abusive drunk. The first arc isn't just set in 19th century England, it's filled with 19th century English characters. I bet he robs graves too. Dio is so evil. The part where he is best friends/secret worst enemies with Jonathan gets a little repetitive, but it is saved by the way he achieves ever higher levels of diabolical evil. The first final showdown was awesome. ( Read more... )

Finishing the third arc today. I've got most of the day to read, I'll probably be finished with scanlations by tonight.

P.S. Going the serious-fandom-research route for fan_extension. The journal is doctairej. That stuff in the userinfo is not actually a full explanation of what we'll be doing, more like a few broad hints to tempt people into signing up. I'd like some Western media fans to sign up too, but who knows if that will happen.

P.P.S. A note so I don't forget about these before I blog them, it's been so long. The books I've read since July split evenly into good and bad:

Good
Intuition by Allegra Goodman
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Around the Bloc by Stephanie Elonzo Griest
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Bad
His Quiet Dust by William Styron
Half-Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins
The Best American Travel Writing, edited by Jamaica Kincaid
Maps for Lost Lovers by who really cares? I couldn't get past the first page.
The Fall of the Towers by Roger Delany.