A Late Wednesday Reading

[lydamorehouse]

 My TBR pile has not gotten measurably shorter.

I did, at least, on the recommendation of hippogriff13 read the amazing seinen manga The Summer Hikaru Died by Mokumoku Ren. I only had the first volume out from the library and I loved it so much that I had to go find everything else that was available online. Then I also read literally everything else that Mokumoku-sensei has had published. I'm not sure I can recommend this manga enough, though it comes with a lot of caveats, namely that hauntingly sad. Also, I was expecting slice-of-life from the title? Nope. It's full-on supernatural/supernatural-horror. Because, as we learn on page one, Hikaru is dead, but something else comes back wearing his body.

Also, the art is amazing. Like, truly.

Otherwise, my pile remains static. It's been a strangely busy time for me. I find publicity for book releases to be as tiring as it is necessary. I am deeply excited to see these books in print, however. I made a little video of my unboxing, if you all want to see it. I probably should have combed my hair before filming, but I WAS JUST THAT EXCITED. 

Also, Shawn continues to have a number of doctor appointments--all of which are follow-ups, but it still require me to play taxi and drive all around town. 

Mason is coming home on Friday night, so Shawn and I had a "date night observed" last night. We got some hamburgers to go and sat in front of the computer and streamed The Voyagers, which was, as its Rotten Tomato scores suggest, OKAY. As I told Shawn halfway through, it's a bit like "What if Lord of the Flies, but Space... and also they work it out (possibly because there are women)?"

Comments

[elainegrey]

Yaaaayyy! (Your hair looks fine to me!)

[lydamorehouse]

You are so nice. And, you know how it is--it's always kind of hard to see yourself on video.

[kore]

You look good, I like the shirt! Also I BOUGHT THOSE BOOKS NEW AND NOW I GET TO DO IT AGAIN EEEEEEE

[lydamorehouse]

Hahaha, YAY!! And, thanks re: the shirt (and the book buying, of course!) I got the shirt out at the Minnesota State Fair. It was twenty bucks at the DFL tent.

[pameladean]

Your hair is perfectly fine and cute.

I hope they send the hardcovers soon. I am haplessly impressed by hardcovers, probably because my first three books only came out in mass-market paperback. Now, of course, I mourn that format, but at the time it was just not as grand.

P.

[lydamorehouse]

SAME.

I have actually never had a book get a hardcover. I was a mmpb writer (cue: Beatles' "Paperback Writer!") when they still had those (which I also miss.) Then, I was only ever published in trade paperback format.

So, I, too, am anxious to see what the hardbacks look like--especially given how gorgeous the trades are!

[hippogriff13]

Wow, it sounds as if the dire warning that old lady gave Yoshiki in volume one about fraternizing with supernatural beings who are supposed to stay far away up on the mountain came true in spades. I've been impatiently waiting for the Queens Public Library to get volume two of "The Summer Hikaru Died"--or for the Bookwalker digital site to include it in one of its fairly frequent sales--but so far neither option has materialized. I thought you might have read ahead beyond what I'd seen based on what you said in your manga blog, but I wasn't sure.

Congratulations on the arrival of the new hardcover editions of your novels!

[lydamorehouse]

Alas, I haven't gotten the hardcovers yet. The unboxing was just of the trade paperbacks. Still, thanks!

And, yeah, there was no way I could wait. Scanlators/pirates have the first two volumes and part of the third available of The Summer Hikaru Died and it just gets better and better. I refuse to feel guilty reading ahead because I will be buying these. They're already in my in-box on Amazon.

I have a weird relationship with pirates, anyway. Without pirates I wouldn't have had e-book editions. This is a story I've told many times, but the truth is that when I sold the AngeLINK series e-books weren't a thing. My books were already out of print when they were and, even though I had copies of my drafts on various technology, I didn't have an final/copyedited/offical electronic copy of my books when I finally got my rights reverted. My small press publisher and I used Torrent to get official copies. I mean, the other option back in the day was ripping apart a book and scanning it which... it was also difficult to find remaining physical copies of my books.

So, pirates saved my career.

[hippogriff13]

Speaking of queer subtext, if you haven't seen the off-the-wall 2012 sentai/superhero parody (among other things) anime "Samurai Flamenco," you might want to try sampling it now if you have access to the Funimation website. This website is going to be shut down by Crunchyroll, its new owners, at the beginning of April. Apparently most of the anime currently on the Funimation website are going to be switched over to the Crunchyroll website, if they haven't been already. "Samurai Flamenco" (along with the even more surreal yuri series "Yurikuma Arashi" and other items of potential feminist interest such as "The Vision of Escaflowne") is one of the series that isn't making the switch, and will thus become unavailable for streaming once the Funimation/Crunchyroll transition occurs.

Anyway, I'd vaguely heard that "Samurai Flamenco" had some sort of queer element, and the series sounded interesting enough in a weird way that it seemed worth checking out. So I marathoned all 22 episodes last week and was surprised to discover that not only is there potentially BL and/or queerbaiting subtext to the relationship between the main character, male model and wannabe superhero Masayoshi Hazama, and his friend, local police officer Goto Hidenori. There's also a B-storyline involving a three-woman idol group led by Mari Maya, another superhero otaku, who goes public as a magical girl-style vigilante shortly after Masayoshi starts patroling the streets in costume as the sentai-type hero Samurai Flamenco. (Mari is initially noticeably much more effective at fighting crime--or at least beating up criminals--than Masayoshi is, if only because she comes armed with an electrified magical girl scepter/mace she uses to tase her opponents, and because she's a lot more willing to get violent at the drop of a hat in general than the more idealistically justice-minded Masayoshi.)

Anyway, Mari also has a sort of quasi-friends-with-benefits-who-frequently-make-out-offstage relationship with Moe, one of the other two idols in the group, who is obviously madly in love with Mari. Unfortunately for Moe, Mari has a major kink for guys in police uniforms. So once she catches sight of Goto when he's on duty (she'd previously ignored him when she ran across him in civilian clothes during an encounter with Samurai Flamenco), she becomes mostly fixated on him. So the show also has what could be pretty accurately described as yuribaiting--although, as you can see from this description, this tends to be handled in a rather off-putting way.

In any case, even if you can't or don't want to watch the actual show, or you've seen it already, you might want to check out Vrai Kaiser's article about it "My Fave is Problematic: Samurai Flamenco" on the Animefeminist website. (I'd include the URL, but that usually tends to get comments put into limbo.)

I didn't agree with everything that Vrai said in the article. But I wrote a long response to it that will hopefully get past moderation and be posted sometime later today.