What I read Last Week: Manga Reviews!

I did quite a bit of pleasure readying last week, so I have four books to write about now.  I'll do full reviews for two book and quick review for the other two as they are follow on volumes to series I've been reading on an ongoing basis.

Title: Summer Wars, Part 1
Artists and Story:  Mamoru Hosoda and Iqura Sugimoto
US Publisher: Vertical
ISBN: 9781030130150
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

First Impression:  The cover makes it look like slice-of-life. I don't like slice of life, but this is Vertical, so I bet this cover totally misrepresents the actual train wreck of a story inside.  Whoa! What?!  This isn't a trainwreck?!!! It's actually a nice slice-of-life story with sci-fi elements.  I really like this!

Breakdown:

Artwork -- A: It's nice and simple.  The facial expressions are telling, the characters look distinct, the characters actually look their age, and backgrounds are nicely detailed. The color pages are really pretty (it helps that I love sunflowers).

Presentation -- B+:  I love the front and back covers. They are very telling of the story -- this is a slice-of-life story with sci-fi elements.  The color pages are gorgeous and the translation reads smoothly.  The drawback is the lettering. It looks amateurish.  I don't like manga with cased fonts used for the main dialog.  On top of that, the line spacing is too wide on some pages.  I think the inconsistency of line spacing is what bothered me the most.

Story -- B+: This is a typical loser-boy pursues a girl who he thinks is out of his league shounen story.  The main character is a loser even though his math skills are second in the nation, and the girl is just pretty and popular.  What's best about the story in this part is the interaction of the main character, Kenji, and his love interest's grandmother. The grandmother is the star of this part, and I wish there was some back story about her.  The sci-fi elements involve computer hacking in a virtual world. I just accepted the representation of the mechanics of this world because if it were realistically represented, it would be boring.  Anyhow, on the whole the pacing is good and Kenji and Wabisuke's interaction with the grandmother are quite interesting.

Overall -- B+:  This is a pleasant read with enough mystery to keep the reader wanting more. I highly recommend this title to Crimson Flower readers.
-------------------------------------------------

Title: Crimson Empire
Story and Artist: Quinrose and Hazuki Futaba
US Publisher: Seven Seas
ISBN: 978-1937867232
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

First Impressions: Meh... it looks like typical Quinrose.  The first chapter is really interesting. Can we continue with Sheila's back story, please? Meh... who are all these bishies that are being thrown into the story? What the heck is going on? Where did these bishies come from? @_@

Treasure....

 Treasure...get your own...

Hana to Yume 2010 Calendar Wallpaper

I've turned the 2010 Calendar that came in the January 5th 2010 issue of Hana to Yuma magazine into lovely 1600x1200 pixel wallpaper for your laptop or PC desktop.

Link to 2010 Hana to Yume Calendar

The calendar itself self is actually a good sized wall calender, so if you want one for yourself, go spend the $4 - $6 to get a copy of the first issue of the 2010 Hana to Yume magazine at your local Japanese bookstore.  For those of you in the US that aren't near a Japanese bookstore, try Akadot.  They should have the magazine in stock in a week or two and it'll run you about $14 after shipping (I recommend USPS Priority Mail -- it'll get it to you in 2-business days for a nice price) and sales tax.

Playing Card Freebies and Update

Get you manga magazines now! Lala 4/2009 has a lovely deck of Ouran Host Club playing cards (hahaha!!! I accidently bought 2 extra magazines this month. I may try to sell them -- playing cards included) and Hana to Yume 6/2009 has a really nice deck of Skip Beat playing cards. They are high quality thick and glossy playing cards, which was quite shocking to me, considering that they are freebies.

Other stuff: I read chp 69 of Ouran and it's very cute. Now that Tamaki has figured out his feelings for Haruhi he can't speak properly around her and Tamaki and Hikaru decide to have a challenge around who can give Haruhi the best birthday present. The chapter ends with Kyoya starting some mischief --- hmmm ;p. I also finished reading/translating Zettai Heiwa Diasakusen Chp 7. I'll get around to posting summaries of chp 6 and chp 7, hopefully, this week. I won't be able to get to that though for a week at the soonest (Dreamweaver project and a Java programming final this week).

Job Search: As you all know the world economy is in the toilet. Things are particularly tight where I live and all the local tech companies have hiring freezes. Military contractors are hiring but there are lots of folks companies like Boeing to compete with (10K+ recently laid off from Boeing competing for ~100 jobs in the area) ... sigh. Nevertheless, I haven't given up and I literally apply to 20 - 50 jobs a week. Thank goodness for unemployment insurance! Speaking of unemployment insurance: I you are from a state with a silly/idiotic/stupid/boneheaded/insensitive/a$$hole Republican Governor who has decided to deny his or her constituents extended unemployment benefits, please write to him or her and demand sanity under the threat of a lost vote. (Thank goodness my Governor is Arnold Swarzenegger -- I really like him.)