Day in the Life of an Idiot

 I was asked by SF Signals to join another "Mind Meld" to answer the question: "What was your favorite movies, books, video games, television, podcasts and other media that came out in 2014?"  

It will be a surprise to no one that anime and manga dominated my list:  MIND MELD: Favorite Genre Works 2014

I've linked here to my MangaKast reviews of a lot of the manga that I've been reading.  The ones that made the list that were new this year (by which I mean, of course, new in official English translation) were: Hitogatana (which actually isn't yet collected in English, but I liked it enough to want to include it), Gangsta, Deadman Wonderland, and What Did You Eat Yesterday?  

Anime for this year included two brand-new ones: Barakamon and Gekken-Shojo, Nozaki-Kun.


Neither are particularly science fictional, but they're both DEEPLY charming in their own ways.  Barakamon was my all-time favorite this year and it's about absolutely nothing at all.  That's not fair, of course.  There's a very strong story and  even wacky hi jinx but the pace and feel of it is extremely peaceful, which is what I enjoyed about it.  If you want to know more about the plot, check out the article. The short of it is that there's a calligraphy master who needs to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city (and mistakes he's made) to find his inner peace/inner art. Stuff happens, it's f*cking adorable an you should be watching it. (Who had this?  Hulu+ maybe? I don't think Crunchyroll had it, but I might be wrong.)

The other new, new anime I featured in my round-up was Gekken-Shojo, Nozaki-kun (Girl's Monthly, Nozaki-kun) which is wonderfully silly and really, really hard not to love.  Interestingly, this one is also about an artist, though this time our title hero, Nozaki, is a mangaka (writer/artist of manga) who happens to write and draw Girl's/shojo stories. The American analog would be discovering that a high school jock was secretly writing Harlequin Romances (of the super-thin serial kind). You can see the humor potential instantly, of course, but what I loved about this anime is that it could have ended up in the land of gender stereotypes, but instead worked hard to constantly flip expectations, types, etc. while also providing fairly real people that you could actually believe in and root for. (This one Crunchyroll has, for sure.)



The other anime I mentioned in the article were Yowapeda (or Yowamushi Pedal) and Free!, both of which were technically in their second seasons this year (both of which I watched on a pirate site, but I'm sure by now they're up on Crunchyroll).  But the second season of Yowapeda/Yowamushi Pedal only finished up last week, I think, so it's very current.  I love them both for very different reasons.  Free! (second and final season: "Eternal Summer") was bittersweet.  I'm not sure I've seen enough sports manga to know how typical it is to follow Third Year students through their final year of participation and spend much of the anime dealing with the whole idea of "Well, that was high school, so now what are you going to do??"  That made the show... almost heartbreaking in places.  And, of course, the other fun thing about Free! this year was that it was clear that the anime writers were very aware how GAY everyone thought this team was and there was a lot of teasing fan service to the point that I was constantly on Skype asking my friend, "Are they even pretending any more???"  which was actually quite fun.

Yowapeda/Yowamushi Pedal's second season is called "Grande Road' or something similar and it's the second and third days of the Inter-High race.  The entire season has been them racing, so that means there have been a lot of upsets, a lot of 'leave no man behind' moments, and general high tension. The first season has the distinction of actually making me cry.  This season less so, though we've gotten to know a lot more of the characters from the other teams.  It's still one of my favorites because Oonada is possibly the hugest dork in the history of dorks. This year my favorite scene involved Oonada following one of the rival team's captains basically because he thinks he's spotted a fellow otaku and even though this guy is a complete jerk to him Oonada just wants to talk anime.

Brother, I hear ya.

So, yeah, I mention a few other things in my review, but most of those I also discussed here (Guardians of the Galaxy movie and Ms. Marvel the Marvel comic book.)  

What about you?  Read, watch, listen to anything really good this year??

High-Brow: I was invited to participate in a conversation about gender bias in the SF/F publishing industry and what to do about it. The conversation is archived here: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006846.html. Please check it out and join in the conversation (there are a lot more interesting and articulate people than me participating.)

Low-Brow: Also, check out the very silly YouTube video promoting the mega-author signing my alter-ego had last night in Woodbury: http://youtube.com/watch?v=HXdiKexw7Jo. The signing, btw, was actually a great deal of fun, not because I signed a lot of books but because it's always so cool to hang out with other awesome romance authors (and collect industry gossip.)

In other news, I'm quite sunburned. Mason and I spent the day at the beach yesterday (from about 11:30 am to 3:00 pm). Yes, I DID remember sunscreen. The funny part is you can see where I hit my shoulders with the spray (there are dotted lines), and the rest of my skin is beet red. Mason, however, is unscathed, luckily, and desperate to go back to the water. Lake Josephine in Roseville is our favorite. It used to be a kind of white trash beach (complete with over-weight bikini clad chain smokers sunbathing in half submerged in lawn chairs in the water,) but they've since done a lot of revamping (a new beach house, life guards, smoking ban, etc.) and its more family friendly. I should note that we were quite fond of the beach in its trashier days as well, but it is a lot cleaner in terms of actual garbage now and I do appreciate that.

Then it was off to the signing which was fun. There are a number of Tate signings coming up that I've neglected to put on any calandar (including the official one at home), so part of told is going to have to be organizing my life a little better.

Good luck with that.

The only issue are the piranah. Okay, so obviously these aren't real piranah, but there are fish there that love to nibble on me. They don't seem to bite anyone else -- Mason can be sitting in the water right next to me, and the fish will circle me and bit at my under arms or legs. I thought I might just be kind of tasty, but I really think it's my swim suit. I noticed yesterday that I have flashing sliver threads in the suit that probably look exactly like bait.