Original.Tough.Adaptable.Keen.Unique

This Sunday, my family went shopping for some presents. We bought clothes, perfume, and most importantly books. I bought Hanazakari to Kimitachi He [Hana-Kimi] vol. 20 [yes, finally!],Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle vol. 15 Nodame Cantabile vol. 1 [a review which will come later...] and a one-shot manga, Kedamono Damono vols. 1 & 2. Kedamono Damono is only 2 volumes, published by TokyoPop and both volumes have been released as of this date. So no more. This manga is written by Haruka Fukushima, the author of one of my favorite series, Instant Teen! I'll do my best to review this one. It's been released for about 2 months now, so... yeah, I'm kinda late, but it's something you should look into... or is it? Read on to find out!

Story
Konatsu, the manager of a basketball team likes one guy who plays on the team. She confides in another player, Haruki, a shy boy who seems to be a cool guy. Later that day, Konatsu goes to change and a mysterious girl pantses her. Embarrased, she demands to know who this girl is. Much to her surprise, the girl introduces herself as Haruki! She then goes on to explain that by day, she is a shy guy, but at night she turns into a pervy girl. Kewlie! Gender-benderation! Now, a lot of manga like this have some form of Yaoi/Yuri, usually just a little bit considering how the gender crossing one's "normal form" is that of being the opposite sex of the one s/he likes. Get it? Not really... Well this one goes straight into the yuri label. Girl Haruki [now shall be known as G.H.] is a lot more aggresssive than the B.H. [boy Haruki]. So there's a lot of Girl-Girl action going on, which isn't a bad thing, but sometimes it goes to the extent that's kind of uncomfortable. That's an unfortunate thing considering how this story is pretty good. It's like one moment, something happens, usually Konatsu is wondering whether B.H. really likes her, and if it's only G.H. that likes her, then the next page they end up kissing. It's really abrupt and kinda annoying at times, since the story doesn't have much flow in the second volume. OK, we got it, they can kiss. Now then... moving on. The way this story ends is really disappointing. It ends very abruptly, and for some reason, there's a "To Be Continued in Volume 3" but there is no volume 3, so what's up with that? There's an extra story in the second volume, so that was good. But other than just being a really fanservice-y 2-volume fling, it's not much. This story only gets 6/10.

Pros: Great short series to keep around for those days that you're reallllllly bored. Nice artwork, and great scenes.

Cons: Yuri to the uncomfortable extent and doesn't end very well.

Haha-Update
It turns out that there really will be a volume 3... when I don't know, but it's advertised on TokyoPop's webpage [after all the trouble I went to on Wikipedia too...] But then again, Suki Dakara Suki is still advertised inspite of going out of print.

It's been a while since I posted a topic relevant to graphic design so I thought I'd make one. I just recently [today] made a signature tutorial featuring one of my favorite creations. I've only posted this on a few sites, so feel special! BTW, Thanksgiving & Black Friday is coming up, so I'll write something about that later. This tutorial is about 500x10528 pxls, so don't fall asleep while reading it~ Well, edit that, I decided to spare you [and myself] and I linked it. 10,000 pixels takes up about a third of all my blog entries to this date. Happy Life~

LINKAGE

Ah, I feel so special. Yesterday, I hit B&N and to my surprise, I found Fruits Basket 18. Cool, huh? I got it let's see.... 3 days before release! Coolio! Well anyways, as a recap, in the last book a few things happened:

1) Yuki wants Tohru as a mother [wait no, that's book 1, nevermind]
2) Isuzu Rin was trying to find a way to break the curse
3) Kureno already broke the curse
4) Holy **8*, Akito's a girl!

Alright, now that shock's over, I've got to say that book 18 is a tad bit disappointing compared to book 17. Book 18 does have the same amount of plot developments, but volume 17 had something that 18 didn't. Oh, that's right, it had a very-rare-until-this-point thing called Akito backstory plot development. No wonder I got bored reading the other 16 books. The first thing you'll see in this book are a couple of side stories which focus on Yuki's development with other women besides his mother [and Tohru, of course], like Machi and her problem with a rumor going around about how she tried to kill her little brother. In spite of the little developments between Yuki and other people, volume 18's plot development is almost entirely focused on Isuzu Rin, which is good, since we never got to see her much except for the cover of book 13 and her and Hatsuharu's little... ehr, fling. While the book does focus on the family curse, we actually get to see how people outside of the curse, but still in the Sohma family feel about things like Akito and how she treats others and whatnot. There's also a little bit from Ren, Akito-chan's mummy! Go to your local book joint and pick up a copy of Furuba 18! It's one more volume towards the truth about the Sohma family curse!

Del Rey has a lot of great manga. A LOT of great manga. But there are also their manga that aren't so popular. My Heavenly Hockey Club is one of them. Like a lot of Del Rey releases, the translation is good, there's no editing [as if there was anything to be edited] always fun to read. In My Heavenly Hockey Club, author Ai Morinaga blends in the elements of humorand above all, it's and a tiny bit of hinted romance to create a silver in the rough.

The story is about lazy Hana Suzuki. There are only two things in her world, eating and sleeping. The story revolves around her and this hockey club. She encounters the leader when he almost runs her over [with his car] and she quickly jumps out of the way. Seeing how well her reflexes were, he decided to get her to join the Hockey club. That... and he thought she was cute. Unfortunately for him, she turned out to only like food and sleep. She was unmotivated to do anything and that was a problem for them, which turned out to be the comedic motif for this story. Basically put, this story is about the hockey club trying there best to live and hang out without getting shut down or anything like that.

Volume 1: If you've ever read a shoujo manga before, you know that there's a distinct feature about it that is always there. It's always some form of harem. In this case it's similar to Bisco Hatori's Ouran High School Host Club, being a reverse harem. For those of you who don't know, a harem is when there is a male character in a situation where there are many female characters. A reverse harem is the opposite, one female and many males. Volume 1 will hold your attention, but it does slip off in the later chapters which basically show where this manga is going. Nowhere. From what I can see in Vol. 1, get this manga if you really like shoujo, or you're really bored with other ones. Ai Morinaga does give you some scenes and elements that aren't really there in other shoujo, but it's not as worth it in the first volume. Keep getting volume after volume, and this story might go somewhere.

Volume 2: I picked up this volume a few weeks ago under the impression that this was a cute manga, and I should really give it a chance. I was wrong. Well, I was also right, too. Very much like the first volume, the story goes on about there various adventures including trying to find an opponent to not get shut down and all. The story is basically the same, except volume 1 had a little bit more plot development. I can' see where this story is going, but it'll it's sure worth your buck on a rainy day.

All in all, this book is worth it, but also not at the same time. Don't bother if you ain't got the money.

I know it's a bit early to start with this, but what the heck? Everyone else is doing it. As we all know Christmas season usually starts from the end of November and ends somewhere in the first week of January. The mark of the beginning is usually Thanksgiving, and more specifically, the wholesale holiday known as Black Friday. Three years ago a tradition started, a very bad, annoying tradition. It was the unfortunate beginning of the extended Christmas season. For some reason, people started to think that they should start their Christmas shopping before Halloween. There are a few flaws with this plan:

~ Presents sit in your house for 2 months [while you resist using them...]
~ Around 75% of the time, you won't get your best deal. Retailers give that false sense of security, knowing that you spent 150 bucks on something that's 200 bucks. Come a week before Christmas, the price is down to 100 bucks. *hehe, suckaZ!*
~ Prices tend to drop at the end of the season.
~ Newer/better electronics come out at the last quarter of the season.

All of that, and it's really annoying to see some lame-o, random, and manic couple buying gifts in a mall that's filled with Christmas decorations.... on October 25th!

THANKS FOR READING! TUNE IN NEXT WEEK [or whenever] WHEN I FINISH THAT MONEY-SAVIN' GUIDE!