Watanabe Takeo - Kaze Hikaru, vol. 01 (Eng. trans.)

In order to avenge the deaths of her father and brother, Tominaga Sei shaves her head, disguises herself as a boy, renames herself "Kamiya Seizaburo" and joins the Shinsengumi. There, she's soon discovered by Okita Soji, who proceeds to take her under his wing instead of kicking her out.

This sounds like something I should love: girl-disguised-as-boy kicking ass, Shinsengumi, and right-around-Meiji-era Japan. And yet, I was so bored that I never even got around to finishing vol. 2.

I just don't like Sei very much, and I found that the humor of the manga really isn't all that funny to me. Sei freaks out every other second about the behavior of the Shinsengumi; she doesn't think that their bathroom humor, jokes about women, or assorted drunken parties are funny at all. Neither do I, but Sei objects on a more moral level; she doesn't think that honorable people upholding the honor of the shogun who have lots of honor (did I mention the honor thing?) should act that way. Mostly I want to slap her on the side of the head and tell her to get a life, or at least to get a better sense of how the real world works.

When she's not freaking out about honor and bushi and the bushi code, she's freaking out over Okita or getting teary-eyed about her revenge. Unfortunately, this also bores me and/or makes me want to slap her on the side of the head.

Sei seems to be the sort of person who doesn't actually know anything about how life works (why yes, you can be a promiscuous bastard and still be a folk hero to people), and the entire narrative on how she learns that wow, contradictions can actually exist in life, that the honorable and noble way of the bushi can also involve killing people in cold blood, and etc. isn't a narrative that interests me in the least.

On a more minor note, I don't like the art either.

Wow, I'm grumpy today.

On a less grumpy note, I'm not quite sure why this was published in Viz's Shojo Beat. The panel layouts, the narrative, the art and the main conflicts all seem to be very shounen to me. Maybe it's the Shinsengumi thing and the crush on Okita thing?

(no subject)

I am bored to death. Naturally, this is because I have too many things to do, none of which I actually want to do. Also, I think my brain has been mathed out, since I've been staring blankly at Fibonacci sequence problems for a good hour straight.

So, entertain me by making me entertain you!

I was going to make a poll, but I am so brain dead that I can't even think of good poll items. Tell me what to post about or posts/comments that you'd like to see!

(And for the knitters out there, new Knitty, new Magknits and the spring/summer Vogue Knitting preview are all up, yay! I am dying for the white lace things in VK already. And Elann currently has Rowan Tapestry on sale, which I've coveted for a while but don't know what to do with. Must go home to consult patterns.)

ETA: fixed link

Arakawa Hiromu - Fullmetal Alchemist, vol. 01-06 (Eng. trans.)

Hrm. It looks like I forgot to write up 1-2 when I first read them, which means I have forgotten a ton about them.

So far, the manga is following the plot of the anime fairly closely, with a few differences on the timeline of certain events. As of now, I like the anime timeline a little better, just because it introduces us to a more vulnerable Ed and Al much earlier on and got me emotionally invested sooner. The manga is a little snarkier and the art is a bit simpler.

Also, Scar is not hot. This makes me sad.

For those of you who haven't seen the anime: Edward and Alphonse Elric attempted human transmutation in order to resurrect their dead mother (never a good idea). Unsurprisingly, things go dreadfully wrong, leaving Ed without an arm and a leg, and leaving Al with pretty much nothing except a soul bound to a suit of armor. Currently, Ed is a State Alchemist; on the side, the brothers pursue the Philosopher's Stone in hopes of breaking the alchemical law of equivalent exchange and restoring their bodies. Meanwhile, these strange quasi-human things named after the seven deadly sins are wandering about, a guy with a scar is killing people, and Ed's superiors in the military don't seem all that trustworthy either.

I'm not quite as fond of the Elrics as I was in the series; part of that is probably the lack of the excellent voice acting. They're also a little snarkier and less vulnerable, as noted above. For example, in vol. 6, Ed and another person joke with Al about what I think was the single most terrifying image in the entire aniume series.

The action is happening fairly quickly; vol. 5 is around ep. 25 of the anime. The strange thing is, I felt that ep. 25 of the anime was like a mini-finale, but vol. 5 of the manga doesn't feel like the action has been ratcheted up that much. This is probably because a very dramatic part of the anime arc was added to the anime. But at vol. 6, it feels like things are starting to diverge a little more, and I'm getting curious as to where Arakawa is going.

Also, I like the manga's Winry better for some reason.

Please, no spoilers for the anime or the manga in the comments unless you want to use super-special spoiler code: <span style="color:#666666;background:#666666"> </span>