Alright, I'm not mad at Tite Kubo-san any more. (Bleach Ch. 460)

I'm glad I took a break from reading Bleach, because until the most recent chapter, it would have just kept pissing me off. Ichigo is a fighter. And even though he did fight in between the defeat of Aizen and chapter 160, it really wasn't right. He needs his zanpaktou. Seriously. And I really did miss my Shinigami. ^_^

Depressed by a Manga?

Bleach is just depressing right now. I have been keeping up with the manga, just not blogging about it. It's on chapter 424 right now. There are a few things bugging me and I just need to vent. If you haven't read up to the current chapter, be warned that the rest of this post will be full of spoilers for you.

First, the Deicide arc was freaking annoying. It took forever for anything to happen, and most of it was just Aizen leveling up. He turned into a freaking butterfly, for goodness sake. That wasn't exactly intimidating. The whole "yay we killed Aizen ... oh wait, we didn't" routine had gotten really old. I was looking forward to the guy finally kicking the bucket. But nooooo. I'm not allowed that satisfaction. Even Ichigo's  final getsuga tenshou doesn't do it. No dying, just sealing. It's like playing an incredibly long and difficult video game, battling the final boss for ages, and then, just when he's down to 10 hp, someone comes along and says, "alright, we're done here". It makes the last 400 chapters seem like a futile endeavor.

That seal is not going to last for 20,000 years. Come on, people. Don't you remember that the guy hypnotized everyone in Soul Society? There's no way he's gonna stay locked up for that long. Besides ... why only 20,000 years?? Why not forever? Or even better ... figure out a way to kill him, dammit!

It just pisses me off that Ichigo loses his shinigami powers and doesn't even accomplish his goal. Well, I guess Karakura town is safe, but I don't see that as the final goal. As long as Aizen is alive, no one is safe. Even if he is sealed.

So now, Ichigo has no powers at all. Normal human teenager. Well, he's strong, but I don't see that as incredibly unusual. But he can't see any of the friends he made from Soul Society and he doesn't really have a purpose or any direction in life. Things continue on around him like they did before he got his powers. No one needs Ichigo.

Then there's the mountain of unanswered questions. Do Orihime and Chad still have their powers? What happened to the Visoreds? Ichigo would probably be able to see them since they're in gigais, right? I'm not gonna write them all out... suffice it to say that I'm not satisfied. It also doesn't help that I don't have any friends who keep up with Bleach, so I can't vent with them about all of this crap. (That would be why I'm writing this post.)

So when I start thinking about all of this, it brings my mood down. I had a particularly frustrating day today and ended up falling asleep in front of my computer. When I woke up from my involuntary nap, I started thinking about Bleach and got downright depressed. I'm sure that there are other factors involved here, including my incredibly high stress level as of late. I probably shouldn't be surprised that I'm affected so much by a manga. I'm always very affected by books and movies in general. Much more so when I find them engaging. Since I've spent so much time reading and watching Bleach, I guess it should be expected.

Still. It's just a manga. I should just get over it. Right?

Gakuen Alice - Chapter 134

Natsume confessed to Sakura last chapter. This chapter Sakura returns her feelings. Then almost immediately, Ruka tells Sakura that he loves her too! Geez, all at once! Everyone is in love with this chick!

The traitor has been revealed as Hijiri Goshima. Honestly, I can't remember the details on the traitor stuff. I need to go back and re-read some chapters. It's been too long between releases. Anyway, Natsume is given the responsibility to catch Hijiri and get the key to the door that takes them out of Gakuen Alice.

Next chapter is out on 8/5. Gotta find another source, since OM will be gone by tonight.

Scanlations - Cleaning and Typesetting

So I had so much fun doing KWMS Chapter 52 that I'm going to apply to be a cleaner/typesetter for Franky House. What is cleaning and typesetting, you say?

Cleaning is the process of taking the raws, or scanned pages of a manga, and cleaning it up so it is easy to read, sharp, and pretty. Many teams remove the Japanese sound effects as well, which can be very difficult since you have to reconstruct the art that was obscured by the sound effect text.  

Typesetting seems like it should be really easy. You put text in the appropriate places on the page (in the speech bubbles, etc). There are many challenges, however. You have to make horizontally read English fit into vertically read Japanese bubbles. Then there's choosing the right font. Some typesetters use slightly different fonts for each character. This makes it easier to tell which person is talking.

I have no idea why I enjoy doing it so much. Maybe because it's something that's close to creating art without having to do the original drawing, since I suck at it so much. I enjoy the art a lot to begin with, too.

Here are some examples of what I've done so far. The original page is on the left and my finished version is on the right.

Ch. 52 - Kaichou wa Maid-sama

Ch. 390 Title Page - Naruto
To be used for Franky House test

Why no posts?

Part laziness. Part Kaichou wa Maid-sama chapter 52. Review to follow.

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge - Manga

Also known as The Wallflower or Perfect Girl Evolution. Yay. So many ways to be confused.

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge is about a girl who was called "ugly" by a boy, the first and only person to whom she confessed her love. This incident sparks a life change, and as a result Sunako shuns all forms of beauty, both in herself as well as in life. Concerned by her change for the worst, Sunako's aunt, the owner of a beautiful mansion where four very handsome students live, offers the guys free rent in her mansion if they can turn Sunako into a "perfect lady" (referred to in Japan as the titular Yamato Nadeshiko).

While the four of them manage to make Sunako physically beautiful enough to become a lady, the problem lies with her attitude and interests (which Sunako has no intention of changing). Up until the most recent release in the story, they've managed to convince Sunako's aunt that her niece is indeed a lady befitting the mansion in which they live (and prevent the rent from skyrocketing to triple the required amount). However, in reality, Sunako has not changed considerably. - Wikipedia

I like Sunako a lot. She's a very funny character. ^_^ The art is not quite my thing, though. The boys are supposed to be absolutely gorgeous, but they are often skeletal or too out of proportion. However, the artist is very good at eyes. There is a lot of chibi going on, which is my thing, so it's all a trade-off. As much as I love the characters, the recent lack of progress in the main storyline is making the series more repetitive and dull.

The scanlators are releasing chapters from the tankobon, so the release schedule is rather irregular. Right now they're up to chapter 98. I'll still be reading this one. It's always amusing!

Limited Lovers

Karin, a spoiled rich girl, falls down the stairs and becomes paralized from the waist down. While in the hospital, she falls in love with her doctor, Teppei. He refuses to give her his personal information when she leaves, so she investigates him herself. She ends up buying his house, but will let him continue staying there with her on one condition: he must spend 2 hours every day with her. She finds out soon enough that Teppei is engaged, but is only using the marriage as a stepping stone for his career. Eventually he falls in love with Karin and they get engaged, have some problems, break up, get back together, etc. Pretty average and predictable.

This one was a random short manga. Only 15 chapters. There was actually some potential in the story concept, but the writing was pretty terrible. I only read to the end because I knew it was so short and my sentimental side did want to see them together.

Faster Than A Kiss - Chapter 31

The conclusion of the Maeda-sensei story. Maeda-sensei was kidnapped by Kazuma's rival, Retsu, from another school. Kazuma goes to rescue him by himself, but a lot of other students follow him because they care about Maeda-sensei so much. When they get there, they see that Maeda-sensei had actually already made friends with Retsu. Kazuma is about to fight Retsu one-on-one when Maeda-sensei warns him that he's about to be ambushed. The thing is, the warning was in English, so it was a real accomplishment that Kazuma understood.

After this, Maeda collapses and has to be taken to the hospital. He has to quit being a teacher at Kazuma's high school, but he promises Kazuma that he'll keep teaching.

Fumino gets a call from Ryu saying that Maeda-sensei is in critical condition, so Fumino makes Kazuma rush to the hospital so he can talk to Maeda before it's too late. When they show up, they see that Maeda-sensei is just fine. He made Ryu call Fumino with the fake story so Kazuma would show up. Kazuma expresses his thanks to Maeda-sensei and introduces Fumino to him. Apparently he already knows their little secret and is just fine with it. ^_^

Faster Than A Kiss - Chapter 30

So here we get a glimpse of Kazuma's past. He was quite a delinquent in high school. One day, Maeda-sensei showed up and became his homeroom teacher. Maeda-sensei concentrated particularly on Kazuma, trying to get him to reform. He figured that if he took down the most delinquent student in the school that many others would follow. He even started an English exchange diary with Kazuma, who used the opportunity to try out using vulgar language in English. Other people started to notice that Kazuma was starting to calm down a bit and was refusing to fight. The boss of another high school was particularly upset about this, so he kidnapped Maeda-sensei and will only return him if Kazuma fights him. And so the chapter ends in a cliffhanger.

I really enjoyed the change of pace. We still got a bit of the weird but cute relationship between Fumino and Kazuma, but we also get to learn about Kazuma's past. During the chapter we also learn that Kazuma was disowned by his family during high school and he was living by himself. Good chapter. I'm looking forward to the next chapter, but the cliffhanger isn't so bad that I'm going to be in despair until I read it.

Kuroshitsuji - Manga

As soon as I finished watching the anime, I started on the manga. I was actually quite surprised at the limited overlap of the anime and manga. The manga has very little about Ciel's past or his goals in humiliating his enemy. There is a lot less material, even though there are currently 46 chapters. It is released in a monthly magazine, so I can see how it will go much slower. Chapters 23 and on contain material that was not used in the anime, so maybe they will throw those stories in for season 2 of the anime. I particularly liked the circus arc. Don't know how they'd do that, though...

Random Note: Apparently Sebastian was voted 9th in a survey of anime guys that fangirls would want to marry. Gintama had 3 characters in the top 10, though (Gintoki, Sougo, and Hijikata). Apparently Gintama is the hottie anime.

Faster Than A Kiss - Chapter 29

The new school year has started and Fumino is now in her third year of high school. The year begins with the "future aspirations form", basically having to choose what she wants to do after high school. Fumino realizes that she doesn't have any aspirations because she was only trying to figure out how to simply survive until recently. There is a forced 3-day separation from living with Kazuma to try to help her figure out what she wants to do without being influenced by their marriage. After discovering that she can now understand conversational English, she realizes that she really likes English now. She decides that she wants to study English and maybe be a teacher.

Recent Purchases

If I like a manga, I am going to buy it. I believe that it is only right to give my money to the manga artists who entertain me. The art and stories are amazing. It's going to take me a while, but I'm gradually starting up a collection. I've had Trigun for a while. I buy Yotsuba&! as it is released. I bought 20 volumes of Skip Beat! at once and I will be adding volumes as they are released. The boxed set of Death Note is on it's way from Amazon.com right now.

Yesterday was my birthday, so I thought I'd treat myself to some manga. ^_^ I had a $30 gift certificate from my sister to Barnes & Noble, so I bought the Azumanga Daioh Omnibus and the first fvei volumes of Hana Kimi. I had such a hard time deciding what to buy!! I wish they had Ouran High School Host Club, but Hana Kimi was a good second option. I was seriously like a kid in a candy shop. I was debating which series to buy up until the last minute that the store was open.

It'll take a while, but I'm going to have an impressive manga collection.

Gakuen Alice - Chapter 133

Well, I didn't expect this chapter to come out so quickly, but it seems that they were a month behind.

In this one, everyone ends up splitting up to get Mikan to the portal in the high school. It looks like Hotaru was able to save her brother too, if I understand the chapter correctly. There really are too many things going on at once and it's too hard to tell the difference between the characters some time. Next chapter is on July 20th. I'm hoping that they'll finally get to the portal during that chapter. This whole "race to the portal" part is taking forever.

Gakuen Alice - Chapter 132

Um. WHAT?!?! That was weird. Hotaru "loves" Mikan? That was out of left field. I wonder what the original Japanese was. Is this a romantic love kinda thing? I'm a bit confused. Shocked. Wow.

The rest of the chapter was so choppy because the manga-ka is trying to follow so many different storylines at once that I get confused. Definitely a weird chapter with not really all that much progress, except for the girl-girl love going on.

Honorifics

If there's anything that chaps my hide about manga and anime translations, it's honorifics. Either they are left out completely or they are changed into some weird hybrid like Naruto-boy instead of Naruto-chan. If someone is going to take the time and effort to watch anime / read manga, they should know what the heck honorifics are and what they mean. If they don't, then leave a translators note. Honorifics, in one or two syllables, show the relationships between the characters.

For example, when Pain says Jiraya's name with the honorific -sensei, Naruto immediately knows that Pain was Jiraiya's student and thus intimately familiar with him. Tsuruga-san in Skip Beat is translated to Mr. Tsuruga, which is totally awkward. Don't get me started on familial honorifics.

Oishii Kankei - Chapter 35

Momoe gets her groove back. Then both Takahashi and Oda ask her to work at their restaurants. That's pretty much it. 50 pages. For that. *sigh* This manga is getting too slow for me.

Tokyo Crazy Paradise

This series is always cited in the mini-bio of Nakamura Yoshiki in the Skip Beat volumes. Kozuki Tsukasa is a girl, living as a boy, in Toyko in the year 2020. The city is so dangerous for women that pretending to be a boy is much safer for her. Tsukasa's parents were killed when investigating an incident involving the yakuza, leaving her and her 3 brothers to fend for themselves. Tsukasa is tricked into debt by her classmate and yakuza boss Shirogami Ryuji, who is one of the few people who know that Tsukasa is actually a female. Ryuji allows her to work off the debt as his bodyguard, but it is just an excuse for Ryuji to keep Tsukasa by his side. The story revolves around yakuza conflicts, Tsukasa's true identity, and the deepening relationship between Ryuji and Tsukasa.

I thought it was pretty good. I did finish all 111 chapters in 24 hours. (I didn't sleep last night.) The art is definitely recognizable as Nakamura's. There are a couple of panels that could have appeared in either manga. It is quite different from Skip Beat, though. The romance moved along much faster and there is a lot of action, which is virtually nonexistent in Skip Beat. It's quite a bit more graphic. Lots of blood, limbs being severed, and Tsukasa's breasts are shown about a half dozen times throughout the series. The boob shots aren't just random fanservice, though. They actually serve the plot.

The scanlations that I read often had missing pages, untranslated pages, or pages with blank speech bubbles. I don't think I missed anything major, but it was rather irritating. Maybe I'm just too spoiled by all the high-quality stuff I get. Since TCP is listed in all of the Skip Beat volumes, you'd think that it would be licensed in the US, right? Wrong. There is no English release for TCP. Why cite it as a major work in an English volume if it's not available in English? I don't understand. Ah well.

My verdict: Definitely worth the time, but I probably wouldn't buy it unless it was on sale (in English).

Faster Than A Kiss

I looked up LaLa magazine in Wikipedia to see what titles they are serializing since they publish Kaichou wa Maid-sama. Faster Than a Kiss is one of the titles that I thought looked interesting.

It's about a 16-year old girl, Kaji Fumino, who is taking care of her 4-year old brother after their parents died. None of their relatives are willing to take them in, so she is going to quit school to get a job. Her 24-year-old English teacher, Oijiro Kazuma, finds out and tries to convince not to. She basically says, "So what are you going to do about it? Marry me and support us?". He says "Fine! I will!" and so they get married. So the whole thing is about how a student and teacher who married on a whim can keep their relationship a secret and how they gradually become closer to one another.

It's rather predictable, but I find it cute and amusing. I'll continue to follow this one. (^_^)

Working!! - Manga

After watching some episodes of the anime, I decided to read the manga. It's the first four-panel format manga that I've read. It has a unique structure which breaks the plot up into very small pieces. The scans I found on mangafox.com were from the tankobon, so they included the extras. That was cool. There are 7 volumes, but I was only able to find volumes 1 and 2. I'll have to keep looking. I'm intrigued.

The anime is following the manga veeerry closely as far as I can tell.

Oishii Kankei - Chapter 34

Still have no idea who the old guy is. Well, whatever. I'm just going to assume that it's someone who knew her father. Let's go with that. Momoe is starting to get back on track after disappearing for 2 weeks. Maybe the spoiled brat will be an oddly good influence on her. Maybe she'll realize that she's the same way, somewhat.