Friday, April 9, 2010

Of Price Hikes and Manga
Monday – wasn’t much going on, just the usual in my classes; apart from me wanting to fall asleep a couple of times, but that’s because Mom had me up until nearly 3 am to help with her English essay (which reminds me I still gotta start that research paper for Mass Communications… >.>; I tried to do more research on it tonight, but for some reason Academic OneFile was loading really really slow. So next time there’s a connection in the Student Lounge I should go and do my research on the school’s databases instead of working on my math homework. Also joined TinierMe on Sunday night.

Tuesday, however, was a day full of working almost nonstop on my math homework… after I got up at noon, anyway. Then around 5-ish I took a break to go run some errands with Mom, which led to a trip to the mall, which led to nearly 50 bucks of my birthday money going towards manga. Now this is where the “price hikes” part of the title comes in.

Apparently, Viz has raised the prices of their Shonen Jump titles from 7.99 to 9.99. Yeah, that’s why I only bought Shaman King 26 instead of both 26 and 27, because I wanted to buy some other manga too.

But as a result, I now have in addition to the previously mentioned, Ultimo volume 1, Hana-Kimi volume 1, and Natsume’s Book of Friends volume 1. The latter is, if I guessed correctly ‘cause I didn’t catch the title of the anime adaptation, in my manga collection mainly because I wanted to figure out what the heck it’s all about – I saw part of an episode of the anime in Japan (that is, provided I got the right manga) and had no idea what was going on, interesting though it was.
But before I move on to Wednesday, I also got a haircut – just a trim though, but it still feels so much shorter compared to before… and healthier because all of the split ends are gone.

Yesterday was classes again. Not too much going on there.

Today… today I woke up, took a shower, cleaned the kitchen and changed the litter box, and worked on my homework until Dad came home. The usual fare that happens when he comes home occurred, but thankfully I still got some of my math homework done, so it’s not a complete loss of a day. And later in the evening, I started reading some of the manga I bought (though I did read part of Shaman King 26 while waiting at the hair salon). My opinions/rants on the ones I’ve read thus far…

SK 26 - … wow. Just wow. Ironic as it is, I remember friends that I used to RP with years ago talking about the events that occurred towards the end of this volume/going into volume 27. The whole Jeanne-getting-in-a-car-crash-possibly-not-surviving thing (though ultimately she does, but you did not hear that from me!), Yoh getting sent to Hell... why didn’t I know about this stuff when my RP friends were talking about it? I had just barely entered the ManKin fandom at that point and was on… volume 1 or 2 at the time, maybe. I just find it funny though that nearly 10 years later (this was back in 2003 or maybe early 2004) it finally comes around full-circle on my end. Granted, I still talk to a couple of said RP friends, if not rarely, but… I don’t think I’m gonna bring this up to them. Just ‘cause I’m sure they have a bunch of other things to worry about, what with two of them in college now like me. Can’t wait ‘til I get a chance to buy volume 27 though!

Ultimo 1 – love it, love it, love it! Uru (or rather “Ulti” as it seems SJ decided to translate it) is so cute~! <3 although… is it bad that I keep comparing some of the characters/plot/other stuff to Shaman King? Or at the very least noticed there’s still a short (compared to Yamada, at least) side-character from a rich family… Vice slicing a bus in two (remind anyone of a certain pointy-haired Tao?). That and in one of the opening illustrations of the book, Uru’s wearing a necklace that looks suspiciously like Yoh’s… gah, I’m over-analyzing this all! XD just shows how pathetic I am (and bummed that Stan Lee is only going to be at PCC on Sunday – he and Takei-sensei are in effect working on the manga together if I recall).

Hana-Kimi 1- I’m only about 21 pages into it so far. Since I already know the jist of the plot from watching the first two episodes of the drama (the Japanese one… I keep reading in the YouTube comments though that the Chinese version is better, but I might stick with the Japanese. Just ‘cause, really.), the manga so far is more of a review.

But honestly, I know this might be bad to say since the manga came before any of the dramas (that I know of), I think I prefer the J-drama over the manga. I don’t quite know if it’s simply because I started with it, but… in the drama the story seems to flow a little more smoothly, it seems. There are some scenes in there that the manga doesn’t have, but they don’t substantially alter the plot too much other than a few changes such as Mizuki supposedly running into the nurse instead of Sano. That, and… the drama is a little funnier, in a way. But that’s just me; I’ll probably still read the manga, of course, until/unless the drama comes out on DVD here in the US, in which case I may try to hunt down the DVDs.

And… Book of Friends I haven’t touched yet. XD but I will, as soon as I’m done with Hana-Kimi. Though for now, since it’s midnight, I shall take my leave. Until next time, ja ne!
Comments (0)