talkingsoup | Entries tagged with manga

Ah, let's face it. I have a short attention span. It's like being told you're at risk for X cancer because your parents/grandparents had it. And no, at this point, there's no denying I'm at risk for esophagael cancer, but there's no point worrying about it. Which sounds so weird coming from me, doesn't it?

Anyway, I'm going to see the specialist on Monday, so we'll know where we stand then.

So, yeah! On to happier things! The muse is at work; I'm coming up with all kinds of little ideas. Not like ideas--more like flashes, like you know how you get that feeling of inspiration but you're not sure what it's for? Like that. I picked at Mot last night. And I really want a First Reader for Penta. Haha, my Uncle Craig wants to read it. I'm a bit leery of sending it to him. Like I'm leery of showing my dear Kaz to anyone not familiar with my, um, unusualness.

Oh, and D. Gray Man and Immortal Rain are very much awesomeness. Unfortunately I caught DGM on its inception, so there's only 2 volumes out now, and hell, the third doesn't come out till November. Immortal Rain is a lot of awesome, and I think the series is complete. It's one of those no one ever talks about. I think it would make a good anime.

I've also downloaded up to chapter 317 of Naruto, but I haven't read anymore. Though I have a few questions ( under the cut. )

Ah, and--Yami no Matsuei works! I figured out that I have to toggle the subtitles on and off. The first episode was very cute. Very shojo, but very cute, plus Tsuzuki's talent for summoning giant flaming birds is just awesome.

And seeing Muraki in color almost made me wet myself. Like, he came on the screen and I physically cringed. God! What a villain!

Oh--oh--god, you have to read this. This is hilarious. There's no way it can be real. I found this on a girl's DA site (she wasn't happy about it, obviously) and I linked to it and the first two sentences made me laugh out loud. Oh man. You just have to read it, look:

( Petition to Ban Anime )

Hahahahaha! Is that hilarious or what? Oh man, gets me every time. Here's the link if you want to see it in its original form (not that it's much different. This is just to prove it's "real")

Petition

If it's real, that just makes it even funnier.

Do you know how hard it is to find the Peacemaker Kurogane Volume 4? Like, it's not even in the Amazon warehouses. I'm gonna have to look in other places. Man. It's not even that old. And there's no way it could have been so unpopular that it would be out of print.

Current Mood: okay

The problem with Shoebox is that it reminds me of my own shortcomings as a writer. Like...how am I ever going to be able to convey emotion the way Jaida and Dork do? It takes an awful lot of talent to convey an emotion without actually using the word "anger" or "sad" or "love." Aw, man. Every cuddly scene I've written between E and Kail can't hold a candle to Shoebox. Though...maybe the birthday scene in the backstory comes a bit close.

*sigh*

Naruto continues to own my soul. No anime/manga has ever had this kind of effect on me (unless you count the fact that Muraki makes me cringe just to see him). I didn't realize they'd released the manga chapters well into the 300's--I spent the better part of tonight downloading them (I needed some cheering up after Cold Case and the subsequent rant). Oh man. I love Uzumaki Naruto. And Gaara. I hope we get more Gaara before the end. I want to see him smile. That boy needs to do some smiling.

Plus--new character who shall remain nameless! And he's even more of an asshole than Neji, Sasuke and the Four Sounds combined (beat that!)!

I went on a total manga kamikaze today. Maybe not the right word. I walked into Borders and walked out with five manga, only one of which was of a series I already have--the newest Bleach. Let's see *ticks off fingers* I got the first Immortal Rain, which I picked through and looked good--Enchanted, a DMP manga (so it has a cover), which is pretty much all fanservice, though it's fun--Buso Renkin, Watsuki's newest adventure (Kenshin manga-ka) which is good so far--D. Gray Man, which I've heard wonderful things about, wonderful things that are indeed true (it's a very unique story), and I think that's it. The newest Fruits Basket is supposed to be out, as is, I think, the newest Death Note (*dreads*), but they weren't there, and they still don't have the Yami no Matsuei's and PMK's that I need. Anyway, I spent the entire afternoon reading on to about 11. Crazy. I've never picked up that many new titles in one fell swoop.

I'm such a junkie.

There's only one more step to declaring myself a total fangirl and dork, and I'm about ready to take it. I'm seriously, seriously considering writing a fanfic. I think it'll be a good experience. Oh, who am I kidding--I just want to fangirl all over the place. I have a few ideas of what to do, but I figure my first one will be an Organization fic for KH2, since, you know, there's none of those out there. Probably circulating around Roxas and Axel, though probably not with slash, since I'm still not sure what I think of that pairing.

Aw, man.

It's already four. Julie was online about 12 hours ago saying she was reading Shoebox and that she's going to call Northwest to get her phone back, which is good. Ipswich called too, though we didn't talk long.

It's late enough I'm probably not going to get much done in the way of writing. I haven't done any serious writing since before the con. I'm still in the middle of a Hex and Tag scene. The problem is that in the last few days the muse has started poking at the Kaiyss-Jaereiper-North-Naioh-Tobias-Dark-Rain-bat girl thing that really needs a code name. Getting all sorts of ideas about what to do with it. For the time being, names will do--like a code name and a name for bat-girl.

I have to admit, hearing that publishing houses are looking for books of about 100K these days was kind of a blow--considering Mot is up to 160K and Penta is well over 200. In terms of Penta--thats 100K words I need to cut out. Unless I break it into two books which...I'm considering. It might actually work. I even know the best place to cut it in half. Mot is a different story. There's a decent place coming up where it can be broken up, but the idea of ending it so quickly is daunting and makes me nervous. I've decided I'll continue through to the end I'd already decided on, then figure out what to do in the rewrite. In order to sell an over 200K book you have to be really, really good, which I'm not, so I don't have much of a choice. Penta, now that I'm thinking about it, would actually do really well as a trilogy, considering it was only ever going to be a duology. And I have the perfect place to split it up (leaving a nice cliffhanger ending, too. Naturally. I'm a big fan. Ever since I read Maggie Furey's Shadowleague trilogy.).

But of course none of this will matter if the muse decides that this third idea is looking prettier than the other two. I just have to convince her that Penta is the one with the totally awesome half-vampire, and Mot is the one with the Demons. Third Idea just has the tortured sweetie Dark and the adorable klepto Kaiyss who has a hat with a purple flower on it.

I can see why it's tempting.

I have too many characters. I still don't have a place for Gecko, and I'm still not sure what to do about Fox and Mike. All these people living in my head...

I wonder if I could work on three different projects simultaneously?

Current Mood: creative

Kenshin, Kenshin, Kenshin, *squee!*

Oh, and--I read my third Yami no Matsuei. And...gaaaah, the doctor is back. I'm serious, no, no, no character has ever disturbed me as much as Muraki does. When I was like thirteen or whatever and weirder than I am now, I kept a list of fictional characters who I held real hatred for. The only three I can remember right now are Percy Wetmore and Wild Bill from The Green Mile both the book and the movie, and Prof. Umbridge from the...5th Harry Potter? I suppose I kept a list because I wanted to one day be able to write the kind of villains who stir that kind of visceral reaction in me. Anyway, Muraki takes the cake. God, he scares me. He is made of evil.

And Julie, I'm serious about him being made of evil. I'll need to get you to read this series. Muraki is the kind of evil that villains should be.

Although, villains with a trace of humanity in them are just as good--they just don't get me to hate them as much. Then you start feeling a shred of sympathy for the villain and you get into all kinds of psychological and philisophical questions and stuff, which is all good and fine, unless you really just want to hate the fucker.

Anyway.

Saw a few episodes of Black Cat last night, and maybe it doesn't follow the manga, but it still roxors. And I found out there's a sequel to Honey and Clover! Dwah! Happiness!

Liz called me late last night too (she's still in MN) because her friend, Steve, has this girlfriend who apparently is psychotic and giving Liz a really hard time. Liz hates the girl, and I don't even know her but I don't like her already. Pretty much all the drama that's been happening in Liz's life comes from this girl. Bleah.

But between anime and the call I didn't get much writing done. Started the "E and Kail reconciliation scene, Take One" and redid a whole bunch of stuff between Morgan and Boone (I love how much they dislike each other and yet they tease each other incessently...gee, I wonder where that'll lead...but then you never know, mua-ha!). The start of the E and Kail scene is also only so-so. I don't know why I have such a hard time writing those two. I love them to death and I feel like I know them pretty well--but at the same time they're both really complex, and their relationship just adds a whole new series of complexities to their already complex selves. Heh.

Best Buy called me today. Day after I applied, too--pretty crazy. They're all, "oh, you're only seasonal? Sorry, no go." Which leads me to believe that most places are going to respond like that, considering that's pretty much exactly what the library said. But I dunno. Guess I'll still apply at the drinksy places...gotta keep applying to keep the 'rents happy. My dad came downstairs before I could sneak up to bed and flipped out on me. They really don't get it.

Ah! Movie review.

Memento

I must be the only person who hasn't seen this movie. Well, to refresh your short-term memory, it's about a guy who suffers from short-term memory loss, and he's trying to piece together the evidence he has in order to find the man who killed his wife. It starts at the end and works backward from there.

It's awesome. One of the most twisty movies I've ever seen. Incredible plot, great acting, wonderful editing, and the story flow, from end to beginning, is just so fricking sweet. You go along with everything that's happening around this guy (Leonard) and you're trying to piece together the mystery yourself, but at the same time it's like, who do you trust? Can Leonard's own memory be trusted?

It was really sad, actually. You get the feeling from the start that people all around him are using him, since he can't remember being used five minutes later.

Can't really talk much more without giving away details, and since I'm sure there's one or two people among us 6 billion who haven't seen it yet (like yours truly), I'll leave out the spoilers. But all the elements that make a great movie are in here. Gives new meaning to the genre "thriller."

Score: 9 out of 10.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Who Are You?, The Who

Julie, I will never again bug you about how you never update your LJ. Now I understand. You really don't have time for anything else when you work from, like, 9-5. Not that I work from 9-5, oh God, at least I hope not (don't have my schedule yet). But the training sessions the past two days have literally been from 9-5. Yesterday was hell because it was nothing but this woman talking about everything under the Nordstrom sun. Today was a little better--we spent the first four or five hours going over register stuff, then lunch break for two hours since we let out early. I bought a bunch more clothes because I realized I have about two nice shirts that are wearable. Anyway, after that I was supposed to shadow another employee for three hours, but that didn't pan out really. I hung around the register in Men's Sportswear for about five minutes with another girl who'll be working there too, and then the guy told us we could leave if we wanted. It's another 9-5 day tomorrow, and then we should learn our general schedules. There's a sale next weekend that we have to be there for, after that I guess it depends on the scheduling and stuff.

But, oh well, woot, I have a job and am making money for sitting around listening to people talk!

There was a bright spot yesterday, however, oh yes there was. Pirates!! I was literally bouncing up and down as we waited in line (me, Liz, Lindy and Liz's mom). The theater had at least eight of their theaters entirely devoted to Pirates 2. So many people dressed as pirates, too--funny, not very original though. And the movie? The movie, you ask? *zomgflailsqueedie!!! It was INCREDIBLE! AMAZING! SPECTACULAR! KICKASS! AWESOME! And every other adjective you can think of. Oh man. Orlando acts better in this one and Johnny is better than ever. The effects and the acting and the music and the cameras and EVERYTHING simply roxored!! It was also darker than the first one. And characters, Elizabeth especially (grrr...) revealed sides of themselves you never knew they had. Questions are answered!! Drama! Caribbean witches! Comedy! Ghosts! Friends reunited! Friends betrayed! And there's a Kraken! And cannibals! It has everything! EVERYTHING, I SAY! Even an ending that will leave you wringing your hands in anticipation of the third one, which doesn't come out till next year, DAMN IT! The ending was...well, there's no words to describe it. You'll understand when you see the movie. And I want the soundtrack! Better than the first movie all around!

Even the previews were awesome! They're making a Transformers movie! As in, live action, Transformers movie! I mean, that's just awesome, even though I've never actually seen the show. Giant fricking robots! There were others that I don't remember right now that looked awesome too.

All that's left is to see Snakes on a Plane when that comes out. Hooray!

There was even a moment in Pirates when Will reminded me of Naruto, the way he's always saying "I don't go back on my word!" That's probably just because I'm a dork though.

Between the movie and jobbage I haven't had time at all to read or write or watch much of anything. Did manage to read Peacemaker 3, though. It's strange and kind of saddening to read it and know that they'll eventually be defeated. History is catching up with all of them, Okita Soji in particular.

Dude...the very LAST Kenshin comes out this month. I read 27 in the store the other day. Duude...I can't believe it's ending. I can't believe 27 left us where it left us! Pleeease let this one have a happy ending. Anime/manga too often has sad endings.

It was weird going straight from a spacy, oddball version of Saito to a "fuck you all", distant Saito.

No time to write lately. Will do tonight! I've got a plan for what happens from here until they leave Tamara, so woots to the beans.

Also need to finish KH sometime soon. I wanna rent the second one.

Current Mood: good
Current Music: The Moth, Aimee Mann