lydamorehouse: Renji is a moron (eyebrow tats)
 I skipped my Zoom writing accountability meeting today because I need to watch all the things before we dump our Hulu subscription on the first. 

The truly hilarious part of this is that the only thing I really need to watch is the second season of the new Bleach arc (Thousand Year Blood War). And, I say this as a tried and true Bleach fan, but it is so dumb and so cringe (the jiggle physics are just... gods help us all) that I need an emotional support fan to be on Discord with me while I watch it.

Seriously, I tried this on my own several times before and I kept hitting cetain moments where I'd have to stop, yell, "THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS, KUBO*" slam the off button, and then not watch for months. 

My dear longtime Bleach fan friend in Wales agreed to sit with me (on Discord and on a different streaming platform and in a different time zone) so that we could both get through this. I mean, there is part of me that would be fine if I never watched it to the end. I hate the ending with the fire of a thousand burning suns. However, I am such a completist for this fandom that it just doesn't feel right to give up, you know? I'm still writing fic in this universe from time to time (though my fervor has mostly died. I used to post something once a week. I just don't have that fire in my belly any more since Kubo killed all that is good and right in the world, by which I mostly mean Captain Ukitake but also my ships.) And, despite everything, some of the very best twists--some of which were signaled from the very begining--are in this arc. So, it's... worth it??

Plus, at this point I only have to put up with it for a couple of days. Then there's no more Hulu and no more Bleach. In the US, Hulu is the only place it's streaming; you can't even get it on Crunchyroll. So, I'm in it for the next however many days. And, we watched quite a few episodes today. Hopefully, we can just power through it. (We haven't even hit the awful transphobic scene yet. I can not watch that alone.)

So, that's part of what I'm watching and reading. Not that I would recommend it to anyone. Unless I HATED them.

The other media related thing I did recently was that I downloaded a whole bunch of audiobooks from Libby. Let me do an informal poll (not a real one, because I have never figured out how to embed them). Which of these should I listen to first:

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen
On Earth as It is on Television by Emily Jane
Queers Destroy Science Fiction! by Lightspeed, et. al
Amped by Daniel H. Wilson

I will eventually try to read them all in the time I have, and, if I'm honest, no matter what you all recommend I start with, I'll probaby start with whichever one is shortest (which is The Echo Wife, at 8 hours.)

Otherwise, I haven't been reading all that much. I did end up watching an anime (also on Hulu, since it was going away,) called Summer Time Rendering, which I liked for the cleverness of the time looping. It starts out seeming like it's going to be a murder mystery version of the movie Groundhog's Day (1993), but then the story veers into science fiction (and dark fantasy) kind of quickly. I will say that if you are not an anime or manga fan, this isn't a good one to start with, unfortunately. The manga it was based on is from a genre/publishing category called ecchi, which means that--speaking of jiggle physics--there is more than the typical amount of "fan service." Lots of panty shots and bouncing D-cup boobies. Heavy male gaze. And not nearly enough pretty. pretty men to make up for it. 

However, the mystery as it gets unraveled was pretty fascinating and by the time it turns into a battle/fighting anime (Summertime Render, the manga version, was a Monthly Shounen JUMP+ product, so becoming a fighting manga was inevitable, alas), the cleverness shifts to "how are they going to out run time and thwart the bad guy's ability to track them, this time." Which is a neat way to do it, for my money.  If you are cool with all the ecchi, I would recommend it. If not, yeah, there are a lot of uncomfortably large boobs bouncing around without nearly enough support. :-(

Otherwise, I will need to report soon on how my New Year's Resolution is going. I've heard back from nearly all 20 of the people who signed up to be my pen pal for a year. It's been really good for my mental health to have something to look foward to in my post box (gods know, my inbox is full of Democrats screaming for money and push articles from the NY Times and The Atlantic reminding me that the world is, in fact, on fire and democracy has died in darkness weeks ago.)

ANYWAY.

Oh, I forgot one other thing that I watched: The God of Ramen (2013). This a live-action documentary about a guy who makes ramen really, really well.  I am a member of Japanese Film Festival and so I get a lot of notifications when they run online "screenings" of various movies for international audiences. I have a couple more that I want to watch, but I also need to get though Bleach....

How are you all holding up? Reading (or watching) anything interesting lately? 


==

*Kubo Tite, Bleach's mangaka. A man I love to hate and hate to love. A ruiner of lives. A gifted genius and babbling dumb face.
lydamorehouse: (Bazz-B)
 As noted on a previous blog, I just finished Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell. I enjoyed it, despite occasionally feeling miles a head of the protagonist in terms of Clues to Pick Up On. However, I never know if that's actually a problem or just my well-honed writerly sense of foreshadowing and how it's used in narratives, due to spending much of my life workshopping professional-level writing in my two writers' groups. So, it's possible that it would not be an issue for most.

I have a number of things in my TBR pile, but probably I will be listening to Frankenstein next. Not only did Libby finally cough it up for me after being on hold forever, but we are doing a deep-dive into it for my cyberpunk podcast in time for Halloween, which is coming up fast. I think it will be fun to try to make the case that Frankenstein is cyberpunk--it certainly tackles a lot of the same themes as cyberpunk: what does it mean to be human? When is science TOO much science? And, there is no question in my mind that Frankenstein is the first science fiction novel. This will be, I think, my second reading. I'm pretty sure I had to read Frankenstein as part of my English major in college. Though I remember nothing of substance about it.

 As for manga and anime media, I seem to be falling into movies lately. On Crunchyroll, I watched Josee, the Tiger and the Fish.  I recommend it? It's a very sweet coming-of-age romance between two new adults, one of whom has been disabled (wheelchair bound) since birth. I found it really heartwarming. I tend to love me a good slice-of-life where a large percentage of it is just people discovering how cool it is to be alive in the world today.
 
The other one I watched yesterday might not be available anywhere you can get it because it comes via my membership in the Japanese Film Festival (JFF). You might be able to just sign up for it?  https://en.jff.jpf.go.jp/  It is, I believe, free.
 
Several years ago, I stumbled on to JFF because Facebook advertised to me that there was a Satoshi Kon film festival and I SLAMMED the sign me up button so hard that somehow I ended up with a Japan Foundation membership. At any rate, I get push notifications any time they're running another film festival. Thus, I spotted that the JFF was going to be debuting a live-action version of ReLife. Unfortunately, that isn't yet streaming in North America!  Bummer!

BUT, while I was there I found some things I could watch, including this great anime movie called Time of Eve, which is about robot love or rather more accurately the bonds between humans and machines. One of the things I adore about all the Japanese manga and anime I've consumed on the subject of artificial life so far is that the assumption never seems to be "Can machines generate real human emotions," but rather, "When the robots generate real human emotions, will we be emotionally mature enough to accept them as people?"   

Wikipedia tells me that there was an anime TV series of Time of Eve first, which doesn't surprise me.  You can kind of tell from the movie that they are condensing a lot. It was still a good movie.  Someone also did a manga after the fact, apparently, which I have open on another tab because I'd like to be able to review it for MangaKast (and I try to only review things that have corresponding manga--in part because everyone and their dog reviews anime TV and movies, and almost no one reviews solely manga.) 

I think that's most of what's been going into my brain lately. 

How about you? Whatcha reading?
lydamorehouse: (crazy eyed Renji)
 me "at" Scotland
Image: Me, on a panel at Glasgow WorldCON (hopefully not being too ridiculous.)

First, I have to say that the technical folks behind-the-scenes at WorldCON are INSANELY competent. I'm sooooo impressed. Getting into the panel was seamless. I was really impressed with how, on Zoom, we were able to not only see our fellow in-person panelists, but also a shot of the live audience (so that we could gauge reactions.)  Technically, it could not have been better. I'm sure there will be various technical snafus as the con continues, but this one went off in a way that seemed effortless--though very clearly that just meant well orchestrated. 

My first panel was "Let them Eat! Food in Anime." It went very well--at least from my perspective. I don't think I talked too much. This is a problem/bonus of being on a panel with me. I'm very much a cooperative overlapper, who will get excited and build on what has been said, but, in some ways, Zoom makes it easier for me to 'behave." I can put on the mute and nod along and make my "uh-huh" noises silently, and not be as tempted to leap in. Or if I am tempted, I can just mouth things to myself. I did re-watch a bit of the replay which is available on RingCentral and I *think* I did okay. 

I really loved everyone on the panel. They were all very knowledgeable and I loved that An wore her bear ears! I was telling Mason afterwards: THESE ARE MY PEOPLE.

Plus, I got to have an actual squee moment when someone in the audience mentioned Mr. Villain's Day Off, which I freaking LOVE. And my insane enthusiasm made the audience laugh. So, there is that. 

I'm currently listening to one of the livestream panels "Book Bans and Moral Fascism." 

I was inspired by my positive experience to get my questions and agenda together for the panel I need to moderate, so hopefully that will help them as much as Ryan's outline helped me.

Okay, not much else to report! More tomorrow!
lydamorehouse: (nic & coffee)
 Just two minutes ago, I finished reading a powerful webcomic recommended by [personal profile] bcholmes called O Human Star. I cried all the tears, the ugly ones and the happy ones. I can not recommend it enough. 

In a sort of similar vein (at least in terms of a world where androids and humans co-exist), I finished listening to the audiobook of  Klara and the Sun by Kazou Ishiguro. I can't say that I enjoyed Klara and the Sun because it's ultimately--in my opinion, anyway--a tragedy, I did find it very compelling all the way through. I'd read Ishiguro's previous novel, The Buried Giant, when it was up for the Mythopoeic Award (2016). Looking back at my review of that book, I can see that I had similar feelings about it. Ishiguro's narrative style is very dream-like in both of these books, though I was impressed in Klara and the Sun how he was able to tell the readers more than Klara herself always fully understood or grasped. That can be extremely tricky to pull off, and he does it masterfully here. As I told a friend, I liked this book right up to the very last line--and the last line didn't make me HATE the book, just feel deeply, DEEPLY sad.  

Otherwise, I crammed in a couple of food-related manga ahead of tomorrow's OH-F*CK-O'CLOCK WorldCON panel "Let Them Eat! Food in Anime."  Of them, I really loved all 70+ chapters of Wakako-Zake by Shinkyu Chie. (The link is to my review, but from there, if you like, you can find a copy of the manga.) It is impossible not to spoil this one because the entire manga is about a 28-year old woman who goes out to eat and enjoys her food (and whatever alcohol she pairs it with.) That's it. That's the entire manga. And, I would read 70 more chapter of it, if it were available. As part of all this prep, I also skimmed through the manga Tondemo Skill de Isekai Hourou Meshi / Campfire Cooking in Another World with my Absurd Skill by Eguchi Ren / Akagishi K, reminding myself as to why I loved the anime so much.  I also ended up watching a few episodes of Food Wars! so I could reasonably understand what people were talking about, should it come up. I should probably re-read my review of Dungeon Meshi before tomorrow AM, too. 

Unrelated, I also read the Japanese re-imagining of Batman manga called Batman: Justice Buster by by Shimizu Eiichi and Shimoguchi Tomohiro, (Again, all the links to the manga will take you to my review, but from there you can usually get to an online version of the manga.) I really loved what they did with the Joker in this series, honestly. If you are a Batman fan... well, it might drive you crazy? Or you might love it. 

Over the weekend, I read a couple of cyberpunk short stories that were collected in The Big Book of Cyberpunk that I'm borrowing from a friend. I re-read James Tiptree, Jr.'s "The Girl Who Was Plugged In," and Pat Cadigan's "Pretty Boy Crossover." 

Oh, and I listened to the first couple of episodes of the Call of Cthulhu Mystery Theater podcast and The-Channel-Show, since both of the producers of those shows will be part of the panel that I'll be moderating on Saturday.  The first is a slightly scripted TTRPG podcast of a cast of characters playing Call of Cthulhu, the only TTRPG that I ever rage quit. It is one of those that is designed to end in a total party kill/deep insanity and I had spent way too much time building my character... and so I was deeply upset to be agoraphobic (and thus basically useless) after the first session. Unlike me, these actors are aware of what they're getting into, so it's more fun to listen to. The-Channel-Show is... deeply weird. The first few episodes, at any rate, are basically two people (AIs?) "channeling" the future of... some world? Possibly ours? Possibly not? But, it's very surreal and... yeah, not for me. But, weirdly, when I was on the how-to workshop for Glasgow WorldCON online stuff, the writer/producer person Dana Little was on the same call. She didn't put her camera on, but seeing her name come up was just sort of "Oh. There you are. I was just listening to you be VERY STRANGE. Hello," you know? 

I think that's everything!  

I should probably go organize myself for tomorrow, but what about you? Have you been reading anything good lately? Anything not so good?
lydamorehouse: (phew)
I have been reading and consuming a literal f*ck ton thanks to my new podcast. Once again, I will break things down by category.

BOOKS
I started and finished listening to Annalee Newitz's novel Autonomous, which I sort of hated? I had real issues with the character of Paladin for reasons which I will only get into privately, so if you want to know reach out. But, it is definitely cyberpunk and queer, so it's on the list to talk about next week. 

The only other cyberpunk book that my library had available as an audiobook was Charlie Stross's Rule 34, which... is pretty fascinating so far, if only because it is told in the second person. 

SHORT STORIES
"Papa's Going to Buy You a Mockingbird," by Lillian Boyd (Fireside, June 2021).  Another story of hyper-capitalism, where our heroes come together to try to fix a problem caused by renting out your own head for ad space. It feels weirdly plausible in a depressing way.
 
"Across the River, My Heart, My Memory," by Ann LeBlanc (Fireside, July 2021). A story told from the point of view of someone's black market mod pancreas. Yes, the pancreas is telling the story, you heard that right. You kind of have to read it to believe it, but it works. The protag is a pancreas that has the stored memories of a lesbian who is part of a kind of institutional memory coop, which feels very 1990s dyke culture to me... and so read very authentically queer, if you know what I mean.

"Cruise Control,"
by Benjamin C. Kinney (Fireside, July 2021), which is about a guy who talks his grandpa into becoming a car. it's not gay in any way that I could see, but it is very, very cyberpunk.
 
"Clown Watches the Clown" by Sara S. Messenger, which is... clown beating fetish + unions??? It is rare that I leave a story and think, "What did I just read?" but this was definitely one of them.  Also, not sure how cyberpunk-y it is, outside of the world being very dystopian and the characters been very much part of the underclass. Kind of worth a read, though?


MANGA:
I am only just in the B's of the alphabetical list of cyberpunk manga generated for me by Baka-Updates. But, I got through several over the last week:

AD. Police by Suzuki Toshimichi / Tony Takezaki, which is apparently part of a fairly popular franchise that I had never heard of, but which is kind of a Blade Runner rip-off, in that basically these are cops who hunt down robot crimes (a theme that will continue as we go down the list.) 

Armored Gull: The Exoskeleton Frame
by Las, a Korean manhua which only had a few chapters published, so I was left wondering when the cyberpunk part would hit. Currently, it seems to be a mecha manga, which is very pretty? There may be a plot coming (as it seems to have been somewhat telegraphed) that our young scientist hero is maybe NOT who he says he is. 

Armitage the Third by Konaka Chiaki / Ikegami Tatsuya--another manga from a surprisingly large franchise of movies and anime. I had so much trouble reading more than a couple of chapters of this that I should probably put this one in the next category, which is things watched. I hunted down the first episode of a four part OVA of this just so I could get a better sense of it. It's basically about Martian cops who hunt down illegal robots and prosecute robot crimes. The twist here is that our heroine, Armitage, is herself a third generation robot virtually indistinguishable from humans. 

I also started and didn't yet finish Blame! by Nihei Tsutomu.

THINGS WATCHED:
In amongst all of this cyberpunk stuff, it is also the Japanese Film Festival Online (until June 18) and, while I'm not trying to catch everything (which would be darn near impossible, given that there are hundreds of films available,) I did pick up at least one other film this last week. 

BL Metamorphosis, directed by Kariyama Shunsuki, which is based on a manga of the same name by Tsurutani Kaori. This film was INSANELY CHARMING. It's about a friendship that forms between a 78-year old woman and a 15 year old girl over their mutual appreciation of a particular yaoi series. I've been describing this to a lot of people because I love it so much, but one of the things that makes the movie awesome is that it's paced just like a yaoi, there's even a kind of "break-up due to easily solved miscommunication" that happens about 2/3rd in and they get a very satisfying friendship version of an HEA. There's even an element of forbidden love, because at one point the 15 year old gets asked who that woman is to her and she shouts, "She's not my grandma!" and runs away, ashamed, just like what happens in a lot of yaoi stories when someone first suggests to the hero that he might be gay.

Then, I watched the Netflix original anime movie based on Blame! (2017) directed by Seshita Hiroyuki and I'm not ashamed to say I liked it. Apparently, it gets a lot of hate because it's not a faithful adaptation of the manga, but I've been having  a hard time getting into the manga, so I'm not sure I care. 

So, that's been a lot. How about you? What 'cha reading these days?
lydamorehouse: void cat art (void cat)
 I am still sitting on a book that I should have gotten back to the library AGES ago. I should just give up on it, I think, and admit that I am not in the mood for horror manga right now: PTSD Radio. I think I'm just mad because I got halfway into it and then stopped. It's a book of pictures, I should just be able to push through.

Anyway.

What I did read (and also, as it happens, watch the anime for) was Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san / Mr. Villain’s Day Off by Morikawa Yuu. As I read this manga, I thought a lot about that torpedoed panel at Minicon: "Shipping Light and Dark." The main character of this manga is known only as Shogun or The General and it's clear that being The Villain is just his day job. He's good at it and high-ranking and does seem to sincerely want to end humanity reign on Earth (he's an alien), but when he has time off all The General really just wants to go to the Ueno Zoo to watch the pandas. 

The inherent ridiculousness of the situation fuels this gag manga. For those of you familiar with The Way of The House Husband, this manga runs of the same concept as that one: putting a scary guy (a villain, a yakuza gangster) into light and fluffy domestic situations is just so difficult for the brain to parse that it automatically seems silly. This is a guy who'd kill a man for looking at him funny, but he can't handle a roomba, right? It's just ridiculous!

And this is part of the appeal (for me, at least) of shipping dark characters with light ones. Taking the villain off the battlefield and asking the question, "What does Dr. Doom do on his day off?" forces us to attempt to humanize someone who is maybe, normally, only seen in black and white and as larger-than-life. And, I think this works especially well for those villains who are mostly just foils for the hero. Those villains whose motives are somewhat vague, or like Crowley in Good Omens, just sort of works for the Other Side--and who doesn't necessarily buy into the full agenda. 

This isn't to say there isn't value in exploring those that are more committed to the "evil" cause, however. 

One of the things I really didn't get to talk about on that panel (because it was so thoroughly shamed out of us) was the fact that, in my fan writing, I am actually interested in sociopathy. Like, there was a really fascinating recent article in the New York Times interviewing a woman who is a psychotherapist and a (diagnosed) sociopath. She apparently has a new book out that I should probably find and order all about her life, etc. But, she points out in the interview that not every sociopath is a serial killer, despite the popular imagination. It's a mental illness like any other for many people. It's difficult to medicate, so people have to learn to just live with it.  But, yet in the interview with her you can TOTALLY see her struggling with empathy and consequences... like she is COLD and you totally get the sense that she would cut you and have zero remorse, you know? Just in a half-page interview! And, I just find this utterly captivating. Like, she talks in the interview about what happens when she tells people that she is a honest-to-god sociopath at cocktail parties and the like because inevitably, apparently, people will just start telling her about their fantasies of murdering co-workers, spouses, etc. 

Anyway, in fiction, I've explored the idea that a sociopath, who among other problems severely lacks empathy, could be loved, particularly by a hero who has ALL the empathy. 

Like in the manga I just read, trying to write a sociopath just living their lives is a kind of fictional puzzle that I particularly like to play with. Can you write a sympathetic sociopath? Can you do that without "weakening" the sociopathy--what fan readers call OCC, being out of character? Like for me, the challenge is "Can I write a believable love story between two people who should be (or have been) enemies, in part because one of them LITERALLY has no conscience?"

And I don't know that I've done it, but it was a fun exercise to try, you know? And, I think one of the appeals of shipping these sorts.


==
Again, the article "What It's Like to Be a Sociopath?" is probably behind a paywall for most of you.  Apparently, the author is Patric Gagne and the book is Sociopath: A Memoir. Interestingly, there's some talk in various Reddit forums that in psychology the term "sociopath" isn't typically used as a diagnosis, instead folks who suffer from this mental illness are referred to as having anti-social personality disorder, which I knew from my previous research into this stuff for my fan fic. But, in this case since it appeared in a NYT article, it raised some flags for people working in the profession as to whether or not Gagne was merely sensationalizing for the publicity or actually lying about her credentials as a psychologist. And you know... fair point.

There is another article about her, here, in The Guardian that is free: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/apr/08/patric-gagne-sociopath-fighting-urges

And the Daily Mail... mmmm, seeming more an more disreputable... as this is a deeply sensational article about her, some of which seems a bit perposterous: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-13248861/sociopath-patric-gagne-new-memoir.html

Still, I should see if the library has this book.
lydamorehouse: (Default)
 A lot of nothing. 

I did, at least, get my flu shot. I had mistakenly been thinking, all week, (which granted is only since Sunday at the outside,) that my flu shot appointment was at 3 pm today. TURNS OUT, it was at 10:30 am. Luckily, CVS sends out push notification reminders. I was, as it happens, exactly one minute late to my flu shot appointment, which is impressive since I realized I was supposed to be there when there was only about five minutes to spare. (I live insanely close to our new pharmacy. We gave up on Walgreen's at Snelling and Randolph because the service was getting worse and worse.)

I am now vaccinated for the flu. You may remember that I got my latest COVID booster some time ago, so that should be me, all set, for the upcoming winter months. 

I am disappointed in myself for not getting any writing on the novel done so far today. There are still several hours left yet before I have to head off to other commitments for me to at least make a tiny bit of progress, but today has been one of those days when I would swear on a stack of Principia that time has ripples. Because I will be engaged in something that should take me at most a half hour and suddenly four hours are gone. I'm not a fan. I would like time to progress in a way that benefits me, personally. Time should anticipate when I need it the most and slow down. This sudden "what happened to my morning??" stuff needs to go.

In other news, while Shawn was at her Friends of the Library Board meeting last night, I picked up a huge pile of manga to read. I've already ripped through X Gender and Until I Love Myself, both autobiographical stories about nonbinary mangaka (complete in two volumes, each). I also picked up the two latest volumes of What Did You Eat Yesterday? and the first three of two older series, one that I had previously bounced out of as an anime, Sword Art Online, and the other one I've heard about vaguely, Boys Run The Riot, which is apparently about a trans boy. I'm looking forward to giving those a try.

I also started watching Netflix's Pluto, based on the manga of the same name by Urasawa Naoki, who is mostly known to American manga readers for Monster and 20th Century Boys, neither of which I have read (because I am a fake fan. Although I do like his current series, Asadora! and I noticed the library is continuing to collect those and so I should catch up. Maybe after I write this, I will drop off the volumes I finished reading and pick up those.)

That's kind of me? I have to run to store to get stuff for dinner, as well. Shawn has to work late tonight, so I'm going to try to make something quick and easy before I run off to media night at a friends' house tonight.

What have you been up to? Reading anything fun or interesting?

lydamorehouse: (Default)
 I posted my fic and then wandered away, I guess?

Sorry about that.

On Tuesday, I went by myself to the fan screening of the movie Psycho-Pass: Providence at the Roseville AMC. As I said to a friend, Crunchyroll placed a surgically striking ad in a pop-up when I logged in to see if there was any anime I was interested in watching. I've been a fan of Psycho-Pass forever, but it's a weird little cyberpunk where, n some distant future, Japan has instituted something they call the Sybil System that monitors people's "crime-coefficient" (a thing that measures how likely you are to commit crimes.) You can be executed and/or imprisoned just for being "a criminal type." It's sort of like Minority Report, except in this the law enforcement agents actually employs some of these not-quite-criminal, but criminally-minded sorts to aid Investigators as "Enforcers." So, there's (for me, anyway,) this fascinating underclass of people who do the dirty work of enforcing the very system that oppresses them. I kind of love everything about it? But, for whatever reason, I can't talk a lot of my fan friends into it? So, even though I immediately bought TWO tickets to this show, I couldn't even convince my son to go with me. 

Worse, when I got there, I discovered that that particular screening was dubbed.

I try very hard not to be a snob about dubbed versus subbed. This is one of those fan wars I try to stay out of, but I definitely prefer subbed when I can get it. But, if someone tells me that they watch something dubbed that I watch subbed, I say, "Yay, we're in the same fandom!" And that's the end of it for me.

But, as I was telling another friend, this one was tough to appreciate because for whatever reason the dubbed director cast two English-speaking actors to play opposite each other who had the same vocal range, the same accent, the same clipped speaking style, and the same delivery. The scenes they were in where they were exchanging quips during a battle... I had no idea who was saying what. Yes, in English. It was a real problem for me. You're probably thinking, but Lyda, the one talking is the one moving his mouth, how hard is this for you? Well, not all scenes were "shot" where you could always see their mouths. Sometimes people were walking through dark tunnels. Sometimes there was just a lot of action. So, now you're saying, "But then how would this have been better if you had to read subtitles at the same time?" I will tell you. The Japanese voice actors for these two characters have totally different vocal ranges, speak differently (in terms of emotions), and are distinct! So, even though the subtitles don't tell you who is talking, it's actually far easier to tell speakers apart when, say, one guy is a tenor and the other an alto. 

I have had to complain to everyone I know about this because I was alone. It always kind of sucks to go to movie theaters alone. I was also masked, although given that there were four other people in the entire theater with me, I probably didn't have to be.

On Monday and Friday night I played taxi to my wife. She's on the board of The Friends of the Ramsey County Library and they had a meeting in Shoreview on Monday and then some tech training at, of all places, The Good Earth restaurant in Roseville. This used to be a relatively popular cafe/restaurant chain. The tea still remains, but the only two places left to get the vegetarian menu exist in Minnesota. But, in both cases, I was not invited to the actual meeting, not being the board member, so I spent Monday trying to find any good manga I hadn't read yet on the shelves at Shoreview, and on Friday I spent the time in a nearby Starbucks people watching and writing some snail mail letters to friends.

Wednesday night I had D&D, but I managed to fail to make cookies for them... and then subsequently failed to write up my usual letter home. As I was telling Mason later, I'm having a bit of trouble with this character? I have literally never played a woman in an RPG before and... I can't say I like it.  Beyond my very personal reasons for never having done this before, I also made some mistakes in designing this character because I forgot to factor in real life sexism? Like, I forgot that if you want to play a fun-loving, sexually adventurous, chatty (ditzy?) woman, not only will the other player's characters dismiss you as a silly little thing, but also the tenor of whole game shifts?  Suddenly a lot of the around the table jokes get more pointed about who your character might choose to sleep with and what EXACTLY they might be doing with them, etc., etc. There's always some of that stuff and so it's not necessarily even a dealbreaker for me? Still. I mean, I'm still having fun with this character and this group, but I find that I'm engaging slightly less in character moments when they come up (to be fair, my Wednesday night group is much more a "kill things and take your stuff" bunch of players, anyway?) 

I think that's my whole week? I did some writing, but not on the right things. 
lydamorehouse: (??!!)
We are getting prepped for our annual drive across half of this great nation to Connecticut to pick up Mason and bring him home for the summer. As long time readers know, my family loves road trips in general and our motto is always, "Might Be Worth a Detour." Last year, on the drive home Mason was not terribly interested in too many side trips or meanders because he had a summer internship starting almost immediately upon his arrival back in Minnesota. This year, he's struck out. (As an aside, I don't know why. I suspect that he just hasn't yet figured out the magic to looking good on paper. Gods know that when he CAN get into the interview stage, he rocks it. So who knows? I do know that summer internship are kind of hard to come by generally, so there's that.) At any rate, the good news for us is that this means there's opportunity for meandering on the way home as well.

The first time we drove east, I kind of fell in love with Pennsylvania. The rolling foothills felt like larger version of the coulees and valleys I grew up in (in Southwestern Wisconsin, in the Driftless Zone.) So, we have long talked about getting to Pennsylvania and then stopping, as it were, to see more things. The last time we drove through, Shawn noticed a plaque at a roadside stop that talked about the Pennsylvania Wilds. So, we decided to spend out extra day there. We're going to make a stop in Punxsutawney, the home of Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog of Groundhog's Day. He apparently lives at the local library, when he is not determining the upcoming weather on February 2nd. I am unreasonably excited to see this stupid rodent. When I was growing up, my family resisted Christmas cards (not being Christians) and New Years was my mother's birthday, so we had a funny little tradition of sending out Groundhog's Day cards to friends and family. 

From there, we're planning on seeing the Kinuza Skywalk. I may puke walking out on it, but it seems like a "must see."

I just got off the phone (yes, us Olds still talk on the phone) with a friend of mine who lives in Allentown, PA, about places he would recommend, so now I have several other things to add to our list:
So, it should be fun, especially since if we don't hit some of these things this time, we can certainly consider checking them out next time we go this way--which given that Mason will be a junior next year, is at least a couple of more times. 

The other thing I've been doing is watching a lot of episodes of Bakuman. This is an anime based on a manga series by the creative team that brought us Death Note (Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takashi) and which is kind of an intensely self-referential work about two manga creators struggling to get a hit series. It's also structured as a romance, which the anime highlights a lot more than the manga did. I loved the manga for its insider vibe to the world of manga creation and publication. As I was telling Naomi the other day, the thing I especially like about Bakuman is how much the two heroes FAIL.  It wouldn't be fun if that was all they did, but Ohba and Obata do a great job of sprinkling just enough success that you are always hopeful, and so that when the failures hit, it feels... real?  Even though these kids are WILDLY and kind of unreasonably successful for "real life" people, it still feels more like real life than is usually shown in movies and TV about writing and writers in the US.

Otherwise, here is a picture of my cat:

Snoozing Rhubarb
Image: snoozing Rhubarb


lydamorehouse: void cat art (void cat)
 Willow's stink eye
Image: Willow's "Why won't you play with me all day instead of that stupid box?" thousand yard stare.

So, I should be writing on a short story for an anthology I finagled an invite to, so of course, I am suddenly filled with a desire to write pretty much anything else. It is Wednesday, so I should probably tell you all about what I am reading. I recently read a couple of manga--one that I reviewed over on my review site, called Dinosaur Sanctuary by Kinoshita Itaru. I also read My Wandering Warrior Existence by Nagata Kabi, who is the author of a bunch of other autobiographical manga, most famously including: My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness and The Solo Exchange Diary

I haven't written up my review of My Wandering Warrior Existence yet because I'm not sure what I have to say about it. I will write something eventually, however, because my personal policy for MangaKast, my manga review site is that I review EVERYTHING I read that is manga or anime related. I do this because, otherwise, I'm sure I would skip reviewing all the trashy stuff I consume. I don't think there are a lot of review sites that faithfully record and discuss the weird, porn-y stuff that's out there? So, I hold my feet to the fire. Anything I finish, I review.

The thing is, Nagata-sensei is writing about her life. It's difficult to critique a narrative when it's essentially someone's lived experience, only illustrated and made public. Yet reading this particular volume makes me want to learn enough Japanese in order to write a letter to Nagata-sensei explaining to her that it's pretty clear to me that her "problem" in this particular volume isn't a problem at all. It's not that there's something wrong with her and, for me, it's not at all funny that she doesn't understand how people get into relationships. She sounds a bit neurotypical? But, otherwise, she's perfectly healthy and fine. She's just on the aromantic and/or asexual spectrum. She never seems to come to this conclusion in the book, however? Instead, she sets herself up--as she does in these manga--as a target for ridicule and laughter. That last bit made reading this particular volume kind of un-fun. I left the last page with a bad taste in my mouth, like I'd participated in self-bullying or something, you know? I felt the same way about her last autobiographical manga, My Alcoholic Escape from Reality. Yet I keep buying these books??  

I think it's that last part that I'm finding hard to justify to the audience that reads my manga reviews. I really need to stop reading about this woman's life. It feels weird to be taking enjoyment out of her actually very serious train wreck of a life. Like, in the previous book, My Alcoholic Escape from Reality, she ends up hospitalized for fatty liver disease which she brought on by basically being an untreated alcoholic, a condition she never solves, other than to realize that she can cheat on her fatty liver diet by STILL DRINKING OCASSIONALLY. Like, this woman needs therapy, not another manga contract. Or she needs a contract to write a manga called, "My Life-Changing Experience Getting Therapy."

And, if I write that in a review that's going to harsh someone's squee about this mangaka and her work.

I will probably write it anyway? But, this is why I've been dragging my heels. It's not going to be a fun review, where I say, "Dinosaurs! Hot guys! Hot guys and dinosaurs! What more do you want??" which is the thumb nail for Dinosaur Sanctuary, basically.

So, let's see. In other news, a combination of dental surgery (my DM's) and weather has cancelled our Dungeons & Dragons game for tonight.  Honestly? Either of those is a fine excuse. Both of them seems a bit like overkill. But, so no further adventures of the barbarian elf this week, as a head's up for the two of you reading my post-game write-ups.

Otherwise, what else have I been consuming? Mason and I finished up a marathon viewing of FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, (I had only ever previously seen the 2003 FullMetal Alchemist anime, which, once it diverges, is shockingly different, and so much BETTER. The 2003 version doesn't have General Armstrong and, frankly, her absence is a crime against humanity. She is god's gift to humankind and my ONLY anime waifu.)  So, that's been fun, in so much as a world-ending story can be fun.

I'm finally at the very last episode of Critical Role's second season... just in time to watch the new one-shot reprisal of that season's characters that they did.

I have the second Paladin book by Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher, Paladin's Strength, in my hot little hands and am hoping to start reading that tonight. 

And, unrelated, but related to some of the TV/YouTube consumption, I started a new quilt. This one is going to be weird... pretty intentionally, but the friend I'm making it for loves both octopuses and sheep. 
lydamorehouse: (Bazz-B)
 Saint Paul only just now called a snow emergency, which means they won't even start plowing side streets until 9 pm. I just shoveled an additional 7 inches of snow from my sidewalk. Shawn and I estimate that about ten or eleven inches. (25.4 cm or 30 cm) fell in the last day.

A bit of snow for Minnesota
Image: the snow covered tree in front of our house. (The little blue sign is our "We protect the Mississippi," thing which really just means that Mason adopted a storm drain when he needed a volunteer project a few years ago in order to get into the honors program in high school. I think his favorite part of that program was getting to name the drain. These are in Rochester, but explain what I mean: https://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/funny-storm-drain-names-grate)

So, yeah, it snowed? 

I have not tried to move the car, nor do I intend to. Since St. Paul won't even be dusting off the plows until after 9 pm today, I am parked on the "night plow" side of the street and that's where I plan to stay. Technically, D&D is tonight, but I am hopeful that either we will ALL move to Discord or they can let me "phone it in," as it were.

All this snow started falling yesterday. Shawn was supposed to go into work for her performance review, but that meeting got shifted to virtual so she bailed at around 11 am.  She worked from home all day yesterday, but Mason and I (neither of us who normally have work do to right now) treated it as a snow day and spent the day watching TV (he is re-watching and I'm watching for the first time FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I'd seen FullMetal Alchemist a long time ago, but, even though everyone TOLD me how much better "Brotherhood" is, I never got around to watching it. GUYS, IT'S A WHOLE LOT BETTER.)  I tried to do some quilting, but was stymied by the angry peanut.

angry (actually very sweet) peanut loafing on top of the quilting frame
Image: Rhubarb (who is actually very sweet these days) loafing in the middle of the quilting hoop.

I should say that even though Willow and Rhubarb still stalk each other around the house, we have mostly settled into a détente. Rhubarb no longer holds any ill-will towards the people. I can't remember the last time she swiped at us with claws out. It's all been play bats. Willow would still like it very much if this interloper would move along, but she's settled back into snoozing under the covers by my legs at night, and otherwise TOLERATING this other cat. Buttercup is still baffled why his two favorite black-haired ladies don't love each other as much as he loves them.

I hope you are all being safe out there, if you are also experiencing snow (and even if you're not.)
lydamorehouse: (Default)
Hello Kitty Shinkansen / Bullet Train
Image: Hello Kitty wishing us a nice trip on the Hello Kitty Shinkansen / Bullet Train

For Children's Day in Japan, Dave (our Canadian ex-pat) took the Hello Kitty Bullet train. I was annoyed by this HeyGo because all of the material for it sad BE ON TIME, leaving promptly when the train departs!! And the time the tour started in Central Time (where I am) was listed as 9:30 pm. I was in the tour ten minutes early and they were clearly well on their way. I checked and double checked because I did not want to miss seeing the exterior. 

Alas.

The interior is a lot of what you might expect--just a lot of Hello Kitty pictures on everything. The only additions that you would not likely find on your normal shinkansen ride were the opportunity to buy Hello Kitty bento (Dave tried to buy one, but they were already sold out) and a Hello Kitty smoking room. 

I am a moderate Hello Kitty fan. I find Hello Kitty fascinating as a cultural phenomenon. She is cute and I have several items of clothing (pajama pants, mostly,) that bear her visage. I would buy and treasure a Hello Kitty wrist watch or stationary, etc., but, once again, I am not sure I would go out of my way to take the Hello Kitty shinkansen. However, it was nifty to see.

Dave, who has been doing these kinds of "tours" long before his stint on HeyGo, took the Hello Kitty bullet train in the summer of 2020. Here's his video of it:




 
The next HeyGo of interest was with Yusuke. I went along on his Golden Week trip to Nagasaki. Nagasaki is on the Kyushuu Island. As his tour notes say, "Because of its location, rather closer to China than Tokyo, Nagasaki has played an essential role in connecting the nation to the outside world. Especially during the Edo (Tokyo) period (1603 – 1867), the government closed the country from outside the world to prevent the country from foreign influence, except Korea, China, and Holland." So part of what we looked while we were walking around was Oranda-zaka, the Dutch Slope.  

There are several Western-style mansions (that survived the atomic bomb)  that are open to the public. 

Western enclave in Nagasaki
Image: Western enclave in Nagasaki

I was not able to stay for the whole tour, but apparently they also visited Japan's oldest Christian church. As I learned from watching Samurai Champloo, Christianity was outlawed in Japan and was a crime you could be, of all ironic things, crucified for.  The secret history of Christianity in Japan is something that shows up periodically in anime. It also featured strongly in an anime series that I adored (but had some issues with at the end) called Kids on the Slope, which I reviewed here: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/kids-on-the-slope-anime-review-and-thought-about-josei/ (This is one of the very few times that I reviewed an anime as an anime, without a corresponding manga on my site.)

Anyway, this tour was fascinating for its history. As you can see from the above, it was not really a "postcard" friendly tour. 

But, speaking of postcard friendly... the last tour I took was to the Nagamineyama rest stop/observation area.

Mountain view
The snow caped  Northern Alps as viewed from the Nagamineyama rest stop near Azumino City, Nagano Prefecture.

What was fun about last week, of course, is that a lot of the Japanese HeyGo-ers were just taking us along to the places that they'd decided to visit as part of the Japanese Holiday known as Golden Week. Many hardcore manga fans know Golden Week because it is often the ONLY week (often two week period depending on the serialized manga) when JUMP does not publish. I don't know if it's still true, but, in the past, there was much bemoaning here in the West when the next chapter of Bleach was delayed due to this fairly baffling holiday (it's generally described as "The Emperor's Birthday," but there are actually several holidays that make up Golden Week, including Children's Day.) 

Anyway, because it is a full week off, a LOT of Japanese folks will take advantage of the time and go on a vacation. It follows so closely on Hanami that a lot of people will take a couple of weeks, the first to go view the cherry blossoms and then to see whatever else. Clearly, Toshi just wanted to see the Northern Alps and so we went along with him. He was the guy who tried to give us the spectacular ocean view of this mountain range, but we were rained out.

It was a good week for virtual travel. 
lydamorehouse: (Default)
 One of the exciting things that happened today that I totally forgot to mention in all my various updatery (Patreon and my newsletter) was that I was interviewed by Cat Rambo as part of the promotion they are doing around The Reinvented Heart Anthology. In a couple of days, Cat expects to have the interview with me up on the Cat Rambo Reinvented Anthology playlist. I will also absolutely drop a direct link when it goes live.

I always feel like I'm rambling? But, Cat says they will clean it up, so fingers cross that I come across vaguely human-ish. 

The interview came at a good time, at least, since I JUST (as in literal minutes earlier) finished writing the story that I'd promised Cat and crew for the next "Reinvented" anthology, called The Reinvented Detective. There is no detective in my story? Though it does deal with crime and punishment, per the submission guidelines. I love this story a lot because it is PRIME Lyda Morehouse weirdness, but I am uncertain that it will actually sell to this particularly market. We shall find out in May, one way or the other.

Other than that, I've been watching at lot of Satoshi Kon movies, actually. The Smithsonian's Museum of Asian Art is in the middle of a virtual film festival of Kon's work, and I've been taking advantage of the free access to finally catch up on Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, and a documentary of Kon's life called: Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist. My anime-turned-C-Drama friend had shown me his Paprika movie early on and I ADORED it. Paprika is 100% the kind of science fiction I strive to write. (I should probably read the novel is it based on, but I'm not sure if it's been translated. I should look.) I have not seen Kon's Paranoia Agent (which is a TV series,) but I have now picked up and read at least one of his manga, which I'll probably talk about tomorrow.  

Anyway, the virtual film festival has proved so popular that they opened up additional viewings of Perfect Blue (which I ran out an snagged a ticket for) and Tokyo Godfathers. It is a weird thing they are doing because it's free, but they make you get a ticket? I think because they are the Smithsonian/a museum, they're just trying to get a sense of how many people would attend a virtual showing, and since they have sold out, perhaps they are limited in terms of whatever they may have spent to be an official venue for these classic movies. Anyway, check them out, perhaps there are seats left: https://watch.eventive.org/satoshikon

So, that's been kind of fun.

The other thing I've been doing is finally going through a box of junk that I got as part of a stamp collection someone gave away on our neighborhood Buy Nothing group. I say junk, but it's basically a box full of envelopes with stamps on them. The stamps are all of one kind, so I am currently just harvesting them off the envelopes for eventual resale. But, occasionally, there are envelopes that have not been entirely stripped of their contents. The most interesting thing that I've found so far is a Japanese Government-Issued Peso, which was a fiat bill that was produced during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in WWII. This one is very specifically a 1942 issued ten centavos. 

A Japanese peso
Image: WEIRD bit of history found in a box of worthless stamps

I was a bit disappointed, after having read the Wikipedia article about these, that this one was not one of the counterfeit bills that the United State government printed in an attempt to destabilize Japan's occupying force. Apparently, those had specific letters printed on them and/or were actually overlaid with propaganda (and then dumped by the bucketful out of airplanes, holy shit)!  

Anyway, I also found a few letters home from 1889, of which only one is interesting because it is clearly in response to an accusation by this person's mother, who is convinced that son(?) talked dad out of an extra $200 loan (on top of the THOUSAND dad had already given him!!) What I found most amusing was the overuse of underlining, which of course made me imagine the whole thing as an ALL CAP email. :-)

The more things change, right?

Okay, I'm off. Hope you all are doing well!
lydamorehouse: (writer??)
I may risking jinxing it, but the writing thing has been working amazingly lately. I entirely credit all the words that I am getting on the page to my hour long Zoom meeting with [personal profile] naomikritzer every day (Monday-Thursday.)  I will be the first to admit that I usually poo-poo the whole concept of "writing dates," even though they have worked for me in the past, particularly with the MinnSpec meet-up.  They seem like they should be silly? Why would I write more just because I am sitting on a Zoom call? YET. I think having someone who is keeping me accountable totally works, plus, with the daily thing, it's a time I know I have already allocated for writing. It is SO EASY to do almost anything else all day long, instead of writing.

Writers: people for whom writing is more difficult than it is for most people.

Anyway, that's a yay.

I didn't post in yesterday's "What are you Reading Wednesday" meme-thingie because even though you lovely folks have nicely chosen my next book to read (We Have Always Been Here), I have not managed to crack it open.  Not sure what's up with that.  I sometimes feel like a fake fan, because I don't read nearly as much as all of the rest of y'all.  I haven't even been watching all that much anime to make up for my geek cred. I've been stuck working my way through campaign 2 of "Critical Role" (while also keeping up on the current campaign 3... ahhhh! Bye, Dorian Storm!!) My anime-turned-C-Drama friend had me watching the "Untamed (陈情令)" spin-off, "Fatal Journey (乱魄)"  the last time I was there. We also watched a few episodes of "Once Upon A Time In Lingjian Mountain (从前有座灵剑山)" and then switched to South Korea for "Hotel del Luna (호텔 델루나)."

I got her to watch exactly twenty minutes of an episode of "Sweetness & Lightning (甘々と稲妻)."

Sigh.

Let's see, other news... well, speaking of anime, my Japanese pen pal sent a letter recently that included a anime-themed stamp:

demon slayer Japanese stamp
Image: Demon Slayer (鬼滅の刃) stamp

As for the rest, you'll have to forgive me. I'm not feeling terribly brilliant today.

The last thing I'll say is that it looks like we're getting an influx of folks who are finally abandoning LJ thanks to the invasion of Ukraine. *waves hello to any newcomers!* 
lydamorehouse: (shield)
 my "voted" sticker
Image: Close-up on my "I VOTED" sticker.

Here in Saint Paul, the mayoral election isn't nearly as exciting as it is over in Minneapolis, but I have always voted in all so-called "off" elections. We did NOT have police reform on the ballot, only rent control. Even so, at 7 am, as the polls opened, our polling place was hopping. Often Shawn and I are the only people in the building besides the poll workers, but this time there was a steady stream of folks coming and going.  That was nice to see. Perhaps people are staying involved, even though the former presidential administration has been defeated. 

Last night, I attended the MinnSpec writing spree at 6;15 pm. I had a forgotten that November 1 would be the beginning of NaNoWriMo for every writer ever. Most of the folks who showed up were working on that. I have nothing against NaNoWriMo but it has never worked for me--except to demoralize me, because I inevitably fail to make word count. But, I got some writing done at the spree/sprint, which was good. I don't know why these kinds of Zoom "accountability" meetings work for me, but they do. I signed up to go to the one in the middle of the month right away, too.

Halloween was surprisingly nice for us. Since it was on a Sunday, we spent the day putting up decorations and carving pumpkins.

My silly-face pumpkin for Halloween 2021.
Image: My silly-face pumpkin for Halloween 2021. 

We made a giant sign to put on the door that was readable from the sidewalk that said, "We are masked and vaccinated. Trick-or-Treaters welcome." This seemed to encourage people to come onto the porch and knock on our door. We had almost as many in-person visitors as we would have had on a normal year--which is not to say very many? Our house is in a very cut-off neighborhood, being between the highway and University Avenue in one direction, and Fairview and Snelling in the other. (Out of towners, all those streets are very busy throughways.) We rarely used to get more than a half-dozen, even before the pandemic. That's about what we got this year--maybe even closer to a dozen. I did answer the door masked, and so we got to see a LOT of very smols. I was surprised how many parents were also dressed up? There was a cute set where the little was dressed as an angel and the parent was dressed as a devil. I had another very one little one who didn't want to leave our porch because we have a lot of decorations that will light up or which are motion activated and he wanted to stay and play with them all. It was pretty darned adorable.

Meanwhile, I roasted pumpkin seeds and dressed up to answer the door. I have a go-to costume, which is basically a character from Bleach, so I just pulled that out of storage. 

So I feel like Halloween, for us, was pretty much back to normal. 

In other news, I am starting to contemplate how to find myself a group to watch and discuss anime. I had a small gathering that was working, but they have shifted almost entirely over to C-dramas. And, while I have nothing against Chinese live-action, it is not Japanese anime--which is my first and only love. I joined Anime Twin Cities some time ago, but I'm not terribly active there because they don't actually talk about anime that often?? (Seriously, it's mostly gaming and cosplay.)  I miss having people I can talk to about this stuff. 

I'll be at CONFabulous this weekend. It's a virtual con, but I'm on at least one bit of paneling and I'm going to be gaming Thirsty Sword Lesbians, which I'm pretty excited about.  If you're curious, here's their schedule: http://confabulous.org/wordpress/schedule/
lydamorehouse: (Default)

A very sacked out big orange boy on the couch.
Image: A very sacked out big orange boy on the couch.

I have not been doing a ton of reading of anything 'normal,' like a novel. But, I have read a bunch of manga. For some reason, I've been on a yuri kick and so I have read (or am in the middle of reading):
  • Even If It Was Just Once, I Regret It  / Ichido Dake Demo, Koukai Shitemasu by Miyahara Miyakon (yuri)
  • Today, We Continue Our Lives Together Under One Roof by Inui Ayu (yuri) 
  • That Girl Through the Viewfinder / Fainda-goshi no ano ko by Kabocha (yuri)
  • Super Cub by Kanitan (shounen, slice-of-life)
I have not finished the first one and some of the rest are still in the process of being scanlated by the various pirate sites that do such things, alas. I have written reviews of all of these over on my manga reviewing site, if anyone is actually curious what I thought of them. (You can find that site here: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/)

On a side note, I started Mangakast when I thought Mason and I might record silly little podcasts together several years ago. (His voice hadn't dropped, so listening to it now is kind of a trip.) We never had any intention of having any kind of real production value, but we had a brief moment of fame when we came in second on a Bleach trivia contest run by a fairly popular (at the time) manga review vlogger, Tekking. We had one day of over two thousand hits. Beyond that one blip, however, I've never had much traffic. We gave up on the weekly podcast idea, but I continued to use the site to review anything manga related that I read.  Like, anything. If I read it, I wrote something about it. I've just kept that up over the last several years mostly imagining myself talking to myself, you know? Kind of like here, a reading journal of sorts.

Lo, I just crested 200 subscribers.

Which maybe still doesn't seem like a lot? But I really very much do this thing as an afterthought. I pander to no trend. I don't know why, but I find it kind of charming that this stupid little site has slowly gained even this much popularity. 

Anyway, the things I'm watching are probably more interesting.
  • "Super Cub" (simulcast on Funimation). The ridiculously slice-of-life story of a "nothing" girl who discovers freedom and friendship after she spontaneously buys a scooter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Cub_(novel_series)  Possibly my current favorite thing.
  • "Those Snow White Notes" (simulcast on Crunchyroll)  An anime I swear was invented to drum up interest in the traditional Japanese, three-stringed instrument called a 'shamisen,' only they accidentally made an AWESOME  story.  The music, in a surprise to no one, is pretty damn amazing. The opening song kills. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_Snow_White_Notes
  • "Odd Taxi," (simulcast on Crunchyroll). I don't even know how to tell you what this is, but remember, like, a hundred years ago, when there was a brief trend to take weird things people said and film animals who seemed to be saying them? "Odd Taxi" is kind of like that, only animated. It follows the life of a taxi driver who is a walrus for no apparent reason, and who picks up random passengers, and it shouldn't work but I am tuning in weekly, help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Taxi
  • ."Tokyo Revengers," (simulcast on Crunchyroll). A fairly straight-forward time-travel crime solving anime with yakuza. For reasons I do not fully comprehend, insanely popular in Japan right now. It has a live-action TV show and anime running concurrently.  Why? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Revengers
  • "Joran the Princess of Snow and Blood," (simulcast on Crunchyroll). A weird post-apocalyptic shifter assassin story? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joran:_The_Princess_of_Snow_and_Blood
  • "Tsurune," an anime that is 'Free," except with Japanese archery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsurune

I am behind on a number of these because I did not intend to be watching so many things that were releasing weekly. 

Anything of interest that you're watching or reading or otherwise consuming lately?
lydamorehouse: (Default)
 One of my "assignments" from the Domestika course was to make a short comic about myself to introduce myself to the instructor. I am not super into writing about myself? I kind of hate drawing myself?  So, I have written about VOID CAT.

First page of my silly comic about Void Cat
Image: First page of my silly comic about Void Cat.  The text reads:  (top left) "mew." (top right): "Void cat is only ears, eyes, and... shadow"(center) The ADVENTURES of... VOID CAT. (bottom right): "VOID CAT aka 'Willow' is polydactyl; she has six toes on both feet! Makes catching toys fun."

So far, there is no actual story, which is particularly hilarious since 'story' is normally my strong suit. However, I have just been filling panels with various bits of information and random art.

Second page of my silly comic about Willow, aka the Void Cat
Image: page two of my extremely silly comic about a cat.  Text reads (top left panel) "Willow lives with two other cats, Buttercup..." (top right panel) "Plus an extremely elderly cat named Miss Piggy. a little scary. 20+"  (middle panel) "Also there are humans?? Cat feeders! We love the cat feeders!" (bottom right panel): VOID CAT blends in SHADOW.

I am clearly in this to amuse myself.  

Plus I've had this blank comic book around for ages.

blank comic book
Image: blank comic book (apparently along with a copy of today's New York Times so that you can know that it is still alive as of today.)

I impulse bought myself this blank comic book several years ago under the illusion that it "would be fun" to make a visual diary of my life. I did start something, but I found the work of drawing myself doing things kind of overwhelming. I'm OK at drawing people, at least to my own mind, but I find all the trappings of life--chairs, rooms with perspective, beds, cars, etc. TOO MUCH.  Cats are easier. I think I will stick to the story of VOID CAT.  

Speaking of cats, I just ripped through the most adorable anime ever: With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day is Fun (犬と猫どっちも飼ってると毎日たのしい, Inu to Neko Docchimo Katteru to Mainichi Tanoshii by Hidekichi Matsumoto.  The anime is insanely short, I feel like it can only be 10-15 minutes for two short episodes, because I watched the entire first season while washing the dishes which, at most, takes me an hour. But, I mean, here also is a mangka who has made a living writing about their cat and dog.  I'm sure that this comic book will bring me equal fame and fortune, no??

Actually, I am going to hunt up the manga for this because I want to be able to review it for my manga blog. The thing I found the most amusing about the anime, however, was a completely random detail: the cat's voice actor had the deepest damn voice, ever. It was a hilarious counterpoint to the happy, child-like voice of the doggo. So, I mean, no stereotypes of cats were harmed in the making of this anime, alas, but it did add a new dimension to the whole "cats are evil and grumpy" thing, because dude's voice sounded like Satan, Himself.

Otherwise, my life continues apace. Mason is spending today writing an essay for his Shakespeare class. Shawn is grumpily making more masks (she enjoys sewing, but making masks depresses her). I've been writing to pen pals--fun fact! DeJoy has finally slowed down mail for me, I am ONLY JUST NOW receiving CHRISTMAS CARDS from my pen pals in Europe. I KID YOU NOT.

So that sucks.

But, anyway, I should figure out what's for dinner.  I shall leave you with my favorite panel of my goofy comic.

my favorite panel so far--Willow looking out a window
Image: cartoon image of cat staring out a window. Cat is just a silhouette. 

lydamorehouse: (writer??)
 As I believe I've mentioned previously, most of what I've been reading this month has been manuscripts.

The Loft offers a service to novice writers where they can get their manuscript critiqued by a professional. The service is really expensive, honestly. I suspect that's one of the reasons I normally only get two or three of these in any given year--that, plus the fact that a LOT of science fiction and fantasy writers know that they can get this service for free, by looking for beta readers. Obviously, I offer something of a much higher quality and in greater depth than presumably your friends would give you, but... combine that with the cost and you can sort of see why I'm not regularly completely inundated with these requests.

Except, currently, I am.

I have four clients at the moment. That's four, full manuscripts that I'm critiquing both for overarching issues like character, plot, theme, etc,, but also at a very line-by-line level. I don't do copy-editing (you read my blog, you KNOW I would be terrible at that,) but I do react to various happenings on the page, both as I'm going along and, then again, in a second read through.

So, that's what I've been reading lately. I'd like to say I'm enjoying it? But, you know, it's work.

However, I've still found time to consume a couple of anime.  I ended up watching a heart-warming slice-of-life called A Place Further than the Universe / Uchuu yori mo Tōi Basho.  The story follows a girl who, in her second year of high school, comes across her half-started middle school diary in which she made a list of things she wanted to do to "make the most of her youth." Feeling like she might never get a chance once high school is over, she is determined to try to check a few things off on her bucket list. One of them is: go on a spontaneous trip to somewhere you've never been before.

In the way of anime, it turns out that that place is Antarctica. 

It's actually a really lovely story. I was surprised to see that the Wikipedia article talking so much about the humor of this anime. I didn't find it particularly funny, beyond the inherent absurdity that a group of high school girls would be able to actually find their way onto a civilian research vessel headed to Antarctica. But, honestly, the story works hard to make that seem at least plausible?

I found this story to be the 'good tears' kind of heartwarming. But, no lie, GROSS SOBBING.  The ending is does NOT pull any punches and I sobbed into my kitchen sink (I watch most of my anime while doing the dishes) for a solid half hour.

The other show I just finished was actually similarly slice-of-life as A Place Further From the Universe, but lightly science fiction/fantasy. It was called: Erased: A Town Without Me / Boku dake ga Inai Machi.  This one follows a glum mangaka who has hit a wall in his career and has taken a part-time job as a pizza deliverer. Everything about this guy is super gloomy, he's 29 and has no friends and I started this thinking, "Oh, boy, well, we'll see how long I last," and then he's zipping about on his moped with his deliveries and there's this like pulse or shock that goes through the universe and suddenly the scene is starting over. The sad sack guy is all, "Where is it? What's different this time?" and we find out that ALL ALONG  he's had a super power he calls "Revival," where he is pushed back in time (often only a few minutes or so) in order to avert some misfortune. Like this time (and I feel okay telling you this, because it's in the first ten minutes,) he is able to stop a runaway truck from killing a kid who is a school crossing guard. 

Then, before the first episode even ends they introduce a murder mystery, and , as I told a friend, at that point I was ALL IN.

Having literally just finished the last episode this morning, I can highly recommend this one, as well. I figured out the murder mystery before the hero did by quite a few episodes. However, that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the story at all. I was on the edge of my seat through the whole thing. I may have lost some sleep last night staying up late to watch it, in fact. 

So that's me. What are you all reading or consuming on this fine Wednesday?
lydamorehouse: (renji has hair)
I didn't post yesterday, though I meant to. I still haven't been reading a ton, but I've been watching a lo of anime.

I just finished Ergo Proxy, which was very smart, trippy, philosophical cyberpunk/science fiction. I highly recommend it, if you've never seen it.  I've also been working my way through Lupin III, while doing the dishes, but man those old 70s anime are clunky. The first series, which I'm watching now was produced in 1971, no less.  i do need to find something new for my evening viewing, so if anyone has any specific recommendations, I would love to hear them. The sort of stuff I like is fairly broad. I tend to love science fiction, but have seen a lot of what's out there in that category. I will watch romances and slice-of-life, but I prefer a bit of fantasy elements. I'm not big on very silly or completely gonzo stuff, but otherwise I'm pretty open.  I have access to  US versions of Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Oh, and it's Thursday, so I can watch the new episode of Akudama Drive, which I started enjoying somewhere around the second and third episodes.

I finished a short story that I was working on for an anthology. I wonder if I should tell my editor-friend that the previous anthology that I was involved with seems rather cursed on Amazon.... (we are still working to get His Magical Pet up and running. And I LOVE my story in that!!! I want the world to be able to read it!)

Next up is some plotting for a lesbian cyberpunk space opera that I think, (speaking of anthologies I've appeared in,) going to exist in the world of "God Box."  "God Box' is a short story of mine that was published in King David and the Spiders of Mars. "God Box" was a horror story, and this is going to be light adventure, BUT why create another whole universe from scratch when one already exists, I say!  There were a lot of interesting tidbits I dropped into the background of that one, so it will be fun to pull those back out and do a deeper dive. 

It's nearly 6pm and there's still hours to go until my class tonight. I am still pondering what demon possessed me to say "yes" to a 10 pm CST class, but we gained another new student last minute, so the Loft might be on to something with their "night owl" programming. To be fair, I've been presuming these are all local folks, but West Coasters could be attending a very decently hour-ed 8 pm class, so.... there is that.

What else have I been doing? Well, a surprising number of this year's crop of International Pen Friends are reaching out to me.  This week alone I've gotten a letter from Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, and two from Italy. That's just fun. I've been enjoying writing back to them. 

Yeah... that's me? 

How's you?

lydamorehouse: (crazy eyed Renji)
Most of what I've been reading lately are the works of the students in my Loft class, but, on a lark, I decided to try out a free month of the Funimation streaming service, so I've been watching some anime.

The only thing I finished watching is Cowboy Bebop. Believe it or not, I have technically been an anime fan since the American broadcast of Star Blazers / Space Battleship Yamato in 1979, but I had not seen the Cowboy Bebop anime until this week.  Yeah, I have some feelings about it. In case you are somehow like me and have not yet seen this, I will put my thoughts under the cut.  

Spoilers for a show older than many of you.... )

So, that's that one.

The other anime I started watching is called Millionaire Detective: Unlimited Balance. 
 
I'm only a few episodes in,  but the basic premise has the classic rookie/veteran police partners trope with some fun new twists.  Basically, our hero, Kambe Diasuke, is ultra rich and decides to buy his way onto the police force. He gets partnered with a young hothead who is the kind of guy who believes in truth, justice and the Japanese way so hard that he actually also can't get along with regular police officers and so has been busted down to The Modern Crime Division's lowest department. They have a capital D, Dynamic and their cases, so far, are solved with money and the barest of detective work.

The end of each show shows a ledger of how much money Diasuke spent to solve the crime

It's pretty fluffy, but I'm enjoying it.

I'm also following a show that's being simulcast from Japan. It drops every Thursday and is called Akudama Drive.  This show is initially why I decided to give Funimation's streaming service a try.  I was on the Twin Cities Anime Fan discord and someone mentioned it in the list of shows new this fall. I went to the description and saw the words "a cyberpunk dystopia" and figured that was enough for me, right there. However, the story is kind of intriguing--it started out hyper-violent in a way that makes it hard to recommend to a huge number of my friends, but it has since settled into a heist... which is one of those plot tropes I will always, always watch.  Add to that the main character is a kind of modern day Bilbo Baggins. She gets caught up with someone mysterious (over food, takoyaki to be exact,) and then ends up saying that she's a master swindler/criminal when she is not....and yet every time she needs to use her skills, something random happens that makes her seem like she's absolutely what they think she is. I'm amused by that. Next week is the critical 4th episode were everything could turn on a dime, but right now I'm still enjoying it.

How about you? Read/Consume any interesting media?

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