Caffeine & Painkillers

Don't you just love how stuff can come up and throw your plans off track? My planned entry for last week was delayed because my friend Crash got me a late birthday present which totally distracted me from things. She got my Fossil Fighters for the DS. It's not a fairly complex game, it's pretty much simplified Pokemon only with prehistoric animals instead of cute little creatures. Still, it has it's charm and an addictive quality to it. Having grown up with a huge interest in dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals I find it even more compelling a game. When I was in high school still and could still be fairly active I was making plans about where to go to college wanting to become a paleontologist and help find their bones and footprints, even find their droppings and the like. It was when my fibromyalgia really kicked in I realize I'd have to give up on that (at least for the present) because there's a lot of hard work involved that would leave me so sore I'd be incapable of doing anything. Being able to dig up virtual dinosaurs makes me kind of nostalgic because of that. Add in the fact that some of the things you can dig up include creatures like Andrewsarchus, an ancient ungulate carnivore with an impressive set of jaws (which were likely more powerful than even a hyena's), and Pachycetus, a whale ancestor that was at home both in the water and on land, and I could almost squee with glee. I have a little bit of a passion for mesonychids like Andrewsarchus and mesonychid cousins like whale ancestors (whales were originally thought to have evolved from mesonychids but recent genetic testing shows they're descended from a cousin of them instead and their closest living cousins are hippopotamuses).

After managing to pull myself away from that for a bit I found I had quite a backlog of new anime to watch, too. I spent quite a bit of time working to catch up on Beast Player Erin, which just seems to get better and better to the point the fact the artwork, except the artwork of the tohdas and ohjus, is a little on the childish-looking side barely registers anymore. I've been giving Book of Bantorra and Sacred Blacksmith more of a chance despite the fact I wasn't too sure about them based on the first episodes. I think I like Sacred Blacksmith more than Book of Bantorra so far. The new Shugo Chara season is definitely disappointing, the live action segments are blah and the bits with the guardian characters seem like they're really kodomo instead of shojo in terms of demographic. Darker Than BLACK is great so far, the music is just as good as last season even without Yoko Kanno composing it and the plot is getting interesting. I'm kind of disappointed they abandoned the two episode arc format this time around, but I can live with that. I was also hoping Suou would remain a "mundane" instead of becoming a contractor just because of how it could affect the point of view, however, I'm VERY interested in what that meteor fragment she has can do. Kimi ni Todoke, to go to the opposite side of the anime spectrum, is also coming along well. The relationship between Sawako and Kazehaya is awkwardly sweet and at episode three we have our first bit of real drama coming our way with a jealous schoolgirl trying to break up Sawako's budding friendships with her classmates and budding romance with Kazehaya (which is where the jealousy comes from) by starting rumors and indicating Sawako started them. I'm really anxious to see more now.

And catching up on older titles I've yet to see I started watching Turn A Gundam. Sadly there's no way I can get it in English legally so I downloaded fansubs. After hearing how Tomino reacted to being told he couldn't have a female main character by making the male lead wind up in drag for a good chunk of the series I couldn't NOT watch it. So far it's something I regret not watching sooner as it has a nice solid story. It's got a lot of plot to it, with the mecha aspect not being too major, but not being overly shoved in the background either so far. I really recommend looking it up on TVtropes to see if it's something you may like and then giving it a chance if there's even a chance you think you may like it. I know it gets a lot of flack in the Gundam fandom for a few reasons, but it does look like a nice solid series that one may like if they set aside their prejudices and give it a chance.

Right now I'm getting completely excited. Thanks to my friend Mary and her parents I'm going to be able to make it to YoumaCon this year even tho my car needs to get worked on and I haven't had time to try and book a room there for myself. So far the only convention I've been to is JAFAX which is fairly small and based on a college campus (meaning they can't charge entry fees and thus have a smaller budget and can't many, if any, get big name industry members there) so this will be my first pay-for-entry convention. It's also going to have better panels than JAFAX and I can't wait to see the kind of things I can find dealers selling there, too. I'll probably be drooling over most everything there. And I can just imagine the number of cosplayers at a bigger con like that, meaning more chances to find good cosplayers to take pictures of AND a better chance of running into a Train Heartnet cosplayer. I may dig out stuff for a Rinslet Walker cosplay, I still have the wig and pendant for that and a nice top for that which is suited to autumn weather, all I'd have to do is find some halfway decent pants/capris to go with it. I really love Black Cat so it only seems right I cosplay one of my favorite characters from it. Rinslet is pretty much THE badass normal for the series. Sure, she doesn't measure up to many of the other characters, but those characters are all super-powerful elites with special weapons or superpowered. For someone who is basically a normal person she manages pretty well for being in a shonen action series.

Well, time to make a second go at trying to find what my dad did with my duffel bag so I have something decent to pack my YoumaCon stuff in instead of old, tattered suitcases.

Darker Than BLACK: Ryuusei no Gemini starts off in a way that can appeal both to the new watcher and the established fan. We start off with Suou, her twin brother Shion, and their father as the events of the finale of the first season trigger her brother's transformation into a Contractor. While they're not directly connected with the events of the first season (so far) they serve as a way to introduce new viewers to some of the concepts of the series and they do that in a way that doesn't seem overly forced. Old faces appearing make it wonderful for an existing fan to watch and wonder just how they'll be interacting with this plot. Heck, they've even got a way to try and get the moe fans to check this out with Suou's moe-ish design.

But if moe is a turnoff for you, try to look past it. What you've got in Darker Than BLACK, as established in the first season, is a setting that sets it's characters in a world not too unlike our own, not too far into the future, and with it's own set of secrets and shows us that world from the perspective of the characters. The characters range from mundane normals to super-powered, coldly inhuman Contractors, and emotionless, mediumistic Dolls. It's a series with plenty of action that explores the preconceptions established in the series. It's a series with some depth to it that can make you think, but that you don't have to think about too much to enjoy.

In the beginning we see Suou, who is half Japanese and half Russian, living in an out of the way area of Russia as a normal schoolgirl. Her brother is locked away because he became a Contractor and her father wants to limit her contact with him because Contractors don't necessarily care about family bonds and the like. Shion appears to care at least somewhat about his sister, but he has absolutely no care for their absentee mother. Despite the little issue with her twin brother becoming a heartless super-powered (potential) killer and the absentee mother her life still seems pretty idyllic. At least until her friend who, just the day before being a girl in love who just had a guy ask her to be his girlfriend and getting all blushy and gushy over him, started wanting nothing to do with her friends and the guy in question, herself having become a Contractor. Add in the fact her house is getting raided because her father has been researching things related to Contractors and the Gates and she's forced to flee for her life and it's pretty clear her life is getting pretty damn tough now. Getting suddenly stuck in a fight between Contractors just makes things even worse for her.

The biggest question so far is just how much of a focus will be on the new characters. Darker Than BLACK's established two-episode arcs mean this could be just a minor plot, but then as a new season this could be something more than just that. Something that gets more significant elements added to it as it culminates into something even bigger. Also, there's questions to how much of the new season will feature old characters. If the ending of this first episode and the preview for the next are to be believed they've already got one killed off, so there's no saying how many reintroduced characters will stay in the picture. Of course, that begs the question how will the reintroduced characters that AREN'T killed off react.

As a Hei fan I was blinking a bit at what was shown of Hei. Apparently hes let himself go a little bit and needs to get some sleep, visine, eye cream, and reacquaint himself with a razor. While stubble can look interesting when done well (or gotten use to when added to a previously clean shaven character) that's still not a way this fangirl wanted to imagine seeing one of her favorite bishonen. Also, as a Yoko Kanno fan I was saddened to hear she wouldn‘t be composing for this season, but I can find no flaw with the music so far, they chose a replacement that‘s handling things competently. They even have Abingdon Boys School doing one of the themes again, this time with the ending instead of the opening. While the first episode is slow to start there's some good action later on, there's even one chuckle-inducing moment where a Contractor whose ability is super speed gets forced into a stop by running into a tree.

In short, if you liked the first season you'll probably like this new one. If you haven't seen the first season and start off with this you'll have some questions, but the important facts will get touched upon by the new characters as they establish how much they know, but it's important to remember even the ending of the first season left existing fans with questions left unanswered. Perhaps the questions are one of the biggest draws of the series.

Well, things have remained fairly interesting here. Mom's not home yet but she'll hopefully be home by early next week. Her strength and balance are getting very good, all she needs to get the okay to leave is to get one of the doctors give her the okay and for my dad to finish some slight modifications to the house (like making Buddha a place to sleep that isn't on the counter and is as high or higher than the counter and putting some railing on the steps).

My own health still isn't back to what it was and dealing with recent changes to my insurance policy haven't made it any easier. They suddenly decided that my lyrica was going from the covered name brand list to the non-covered name brand list, meaning now instead of paying $30 like I use to they only cover a small percentage of it, leaving me to pay $140 for one month's worth of it. It took me several calls to the insurance and my doctor to get something worked out. It ended with me switching from lyrica to gabapentin (also known by the brand name neurontin, lyrica is the brand name for pregabalin which is kind of a more refined version of gabapentin). Annoyingly I have to take this 3 times a day instead of 2, as I really dislike taking pills, but on the good side of things this only costs me $4 a month. It's kind of ironic that even though I hate taking pills I wind up taking so many, ah, to have been born with better genetics and not need to take them. People, if you are healthy, enjoy it. There's people like me out there who aren't as lucky who would give anything to be able to stand and walk all day and work multiple jobs and take a full course of college and not need to pop pills several times each day.

Since I'm still visiting mom every day (except for Sunday when I spent time with a friend whose birthday it was, since mine was a week before and I had no party she made it a double party for both of us) I've decided to drag out a series I haven't read since before I got sick two years ago. That being David Edding's Belgariad and Malloreon series, each 5 books long. I wound up with them (and Belgarath the Sorcerer) several years ago as a birthday gift from my brother and sister-in-law, arguably one of the better birthday gifts this bibliophile has ever received. While the story presented in them isn't completely original it's well written and well presented, explores its themes well, and is an utterly enjoyable read. It's an epic tale of a boy who is the universe's key to setting right something that went wrong before the creation of the world. It's filled to the brim with well done tropes, trope subversions, with some lampshading done for good measure. It also has lots of characters which are quite badass (each in their own way) and well written. If you like high fantasy with sword and sorcery then this is something you really shouldn't miss out on. I'd say Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress, two spinoffs focusing on the named characters, are something one can skip as there's a lot of overlap between the material in the series proper, but there are some parts in those two which add depth to the series as well.

And now for a little anime ramble. A new season has begun in Japan, and of course I have to check some of it out. We've got new seasons of Beast Player Erin and Shugo Chara and while I'm still catching up on Beast Player Erin on Crunchyroll I've checked out the first new Shugo Chara episode. We've got a new character introduced who can see guardian characters even though she has none of her own and has somehow managed to befriend x-eggs. The live action bits and the bits focusing on fluffy bits about the guardian characters are utterly skippable, but the main segment, Shugo Chara Doki Dokki, seems like it's more of the same fluff from the first two parts. If you're sick of that then that's a bad thing, but if you liked that fluff enough to want more then you'll be satisfied with it.

I also checked out Book of Bantorra which seems very interesting, altho I'm not quite sure about several things in it. It seems a little convoluted, but I'm looking forward to watching more and trying to figure things out. The premise of the series is kind of interesting, that humans when they die become "books" - book-shaped slabs of rock that hold the memories of the person's life - and there's a "library" where people collect and care for those "books." there's also "librarians" which are people who collect, protect, and care for them. There's also some strange religious society involved as an antagonist and their business of calling some people "True Men" and others "Mock Men" (who are, of course, considered inferior to "True Men").

I'm still waiting to check out Sacred Blacksmith, Kimi ni Todoke, and the new Darker Than BLACK, the first two I plan to check out later tonight, the other as soon as it's out and subbed.

My mom is doing better health wise. She's had some stomach issues but her strength is to the point that with the aid of a wheeled walker she's zooming about right now. She's still not home, though, and there's still no word as to when she's going to be able to leave the live in physical rehabilitation center and return home. She's a little frustrated about that, as am I. She's considering telling the nurses there not to let dad see her since every time he comes in he starts complaining about things at home and pissing and moaning about how he thinks he's not feeling all that well. Considering he rarely gets more than the occasional sniffle and if he gets convinced he's really sick if he gets anything more than that he's actually doing better than I am, and worlds better than my mom. He's convinced his case of trigger finger is something very terrible and that the shoulder he strained a bit at work is even worse. There's mom recovering from open heart surgery and pretty weak, her restless leg syndrome coming back with such force it's causing full body twitches as well as her migraines (which she managed to go for two years where she only had one slight one before this) and he's trying to get pity from her. I'm recovering from a stress-induced anemic episode and fibromyalgia flareup as well as being off my main medication for now since my insurance stopped covering it and he's griping I'm being lazy because he's getting so much more done at home than I am.

On a brighter note, my birthday was a few days ago. I'm now the big 30. It kind of makes me feel old now, remembering hearing all my friends when I was little talking about not trusting anyone 30 or older. Granted, I'm still a big kid at heart and because of that part of me really feels my physical age doesn't fit me. I was even happy to hear someone tell me I didn't look over 18 when mom told one of the nurses where she is how old I was now. My birthday was a very simple affair with a small chocolate cake and only my mom and dad around to celebrate. My mom had gotten my gift for me months earlier, a wonderful ring with a decent sized cushion cut teal sapphire (it was a created one, tho, cheaper than a naturally made one, but still a real one instead of a simulated one) accented with high quality diamonique and on a 14 karat gold band.

I celebrated on my own last night with a nice small glass of amaretto and a little book binge, ordering several novels I've been wanting online. I'm really loving Viz's new Haikusoru imprint of Japanese sci-fi and horror novels so I ordered The Lord of the Sands of Time and having been secured as an Otsuichi fan after reading Zoo from that imprint I ordered Calling You, another of his short story anthologies (this one was picked up by Tokyopop around the same time they picked up GOTH, also by him and a very good read). I also ordered the first Shakugan no Shana novel, as a while back I accidentally picked up the second instead of the first, Guin Saga volume 4, and the second Haruhi Suzumiya novel in hardcover. To make the order enough to get free shipping and handling I also ordered Armitage III: Dual Matrix finally, the limited edition version with the figure of Naomi Armitage done by Toys. It was on special and only cost $9. I separately preordered the fourth Twelve Kingdoms novel since it's still listed in hopes it really is still coming out. I also don't want to risk missing out on the hardcover version since the hardcover printing of the third volume was pretty limited.

As for the Haikusoru titles, I'd have to say I'd REALLY recommend Housuke Nojiri's Userper of the Sun. It's a wonderfully intelligent sci-fi novel that starts off in what was, at the time it was written, a five minutes into the future setting (the novel was written in 2002, the first date in the novel's timeline is November of 2006). It starts with the observance of a strange structure observed forming on Mercury, which eventually becomes a ring surrounding the sun and causing massive climate changes on Earth. It deals a lot with how humanity would react to an alien structure forming in our solar system, the potential of first contact, and different forms of intelligence in lifeforms and the problems that could be inherent to communicating with different forms of intelligence. Even if you're not a fan of foreign literature it's a good read, as a good chunk of the book is set in North America, where the Japanese protagonist moves so she can work with the main group studying the ring.

As for Zoo, I wasn't overly impressed by the title story, but some of the other stories in it were great. "Find the Blood!" was a good murder mystery and I especially liked the final story, "Seven Rooms." "Words of God," a story about a guy with the ability to use words to influence living things, had a fascinatingly morbid ending, but "The White House in the Cold Forest" struck me as more morbid and less fascinating. "Song of the Sunny Spot" was more sci-fi than horror and a very interesting look at emotions and humanity and what separates that from artificial facsimiles of humanity as well as life, death, what death means, and the bittersweet side of both life and death. "SO-far" was a very trippy psychological tale that masquerades as a ghost story and a very interesting ending I really can't describe without spoiling the story. There were other stories included, but those are the ones that stood out to me the most.

Mom's doing pretty well. She's hurting, of course, but they've got her on enough meds for it right now the only place that hurts are her chest and arms. It may seem that's enough as it is, but she's had chronic full body pain for years, since I was little, so this means they're taking her pain levels seriously and are doing their best to minimize them. When she was hospitalized last year with encephalitis at another hospital they weren't taking her pain levels all that serious and telling her she should just bear with as much pain as she could for as long as possible. That was at another hospital, one in the town we live in instead of one 40 minutes away, but still, that was the one thing I didn't like about how she was treated there. Other than that they did well and got her treated before it got bad enough she slipped into a coma or anything.

She hasn't eaten more than a bite or two yet today, but her appetite is going to be off for a while, they said it could actually be months before her appetite is what it use to be. At the rate she's going at they're going to have the drainage tube out of her chest tomorrow and off most of her IV medications by then as well. I'm gonna bring her one of my plushies tomorrow, since I have my Train Heartnet one that I haven't taken out of the bag yet so it's much cleaner than her own L plush (or even her slightly newer Urahara plush). That way she'll have something there to perk up the room a bit and remind her I'm thinking of her.

Work is being understanding of the whole situation going on. Corporate has their rules and regulations, but management at the location I work at is being very flexible. I have to stop in on Monday to talk with the location manager but everything should go smoothly. I'm still worried about possibly needing to use some holiday hours but there's a chance I may not have to. There's still some hope I may make it to at least part of YoumaCon then. Also, my niece and my sister-in-law's parents are great. They stopped by when we were still away and left us a frosted spice cake and a couple of cards to bring to mom tomorrow.

Personally I'm feeling a bit better. A little daunted by all I have to do to get the house ready, but I know I can manage it. I'm eating better, although it seems I can eat more without getting queasy or throwing up at the hospital. Perhaps it's the good sushi there, or perhaps it's because I know I'm closer to mom and can see how she's improving little by little there. And I know mom gets worried when I'm not eating well, so I guess if I let her know I'm starting to eat well again she can focus more on getting herself better and not get sidetracked by my own issues. She's got it bad enough as it is that I don't need her worrying about little things like my nervous tummy.

Alas, there is some sad news for anime and manga fans. As relieved as I am everything is going well with my mom it saddens me to have found out today that after being missing for about a week they've apparently found the remains of Yoshito Usui, creator of Crayon Shin-chan, and are still waiting to recover them and confirm its identity. I'm not a huge fan of the series but I know people who are and it's never a good thing when an accident takes someone's life and leaves family behind to mourn their loss. It wasn't a smart thing for him to go mountain climbing alone, perhaps at least one person can learn from this and remember to take their safety a little more seriously and bring a buddy along when they're hiking through potentially dangerous mountains. As pretty as nature can be it's not something to take lightly. My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

I just got back not too long ago from the hospital. Mom's surgery was postponed until today because someone else had an emergency. The good news is, all is well so far. She's recovering from the surgery at the normal rate, although it wound up taking a little bit longer to actually do since she wound up needing part of her aorta replaced too, as it had gotten a little too stretched. The best news of the day was her getting the breathing tube out of her mouth an hour before they expected, especially since that meant we got to talk to her before we left.

After seeing her talking and sounding something like her normal self, if a little bit hoarse and dopey, my nerves cleared up I could keep down a meal. Granted, it was a small meal and I didn't eat it all, but I hadn't been able to keep anything down for the last few days because of my nerves so it's a clear improvement. Now I just have to get things squared away with work, as I'm having issues getting time off. It turns out I didn't qualify for the type of time off the recommended me requesting for this situation as I'm part time and didn't meet the minimum requirement of hours worked in the last 12 months to qualify for it. I may wind up needing to use personal and vacation time to take care of mom. Needing to do that would put an end to some trips I wanted to make, but considering all my mom did for me when I was really sick she's worth it.

The day was VERY long. I actually didn't even sleep a wink Thursday night, only taking a two hour nap around 5pm on Thursday and a two hour nap on a loveseat in the waiting room this morning. It was a VERY uncomfortable nap and I wound up switching sides multiple times because of leg and neck cramps, but I got a little rest. I brought a backpack full of reading materials along with me, a few novels and a few manga volumes since I had no idea what I'd be in the mood to read. I barely read a chapter of even one of them, but I think I brought them along more as a "security blanket" thing than to actually read. Having reading material with me makes me feel a little more relaxed usually.

Between my dad and I we managed to contact most of our family and friends and keep them updated on everything once we got home. It would have been infinitely easier to keep everyone up to pace if dad had a cell phone but we've almost got everyone up to date on things. Right now I'm just going to focus on getting some rest, as I look like I feel right now and tomorrow is going to be enough of a challenge as it is, what with all the walking I did today and how my fibromyalgia is probably going to make me pay in spades for it tomorrow on top of dealing with work, that I should just rest as much as I can now.

Well, my mom's surgery has been scheduled and I'm working on getting time off for a month to take care of her. If anyone reading this is curious it will be on the 16th of this month, prayers and general positive thoughts generated in her direction will be much appreciated.

Now, for anyone keeping track of the anime and manga industry there's two big bits of news on those fronts.

First off there's the news that Japanese publisher Kodansha will not let Tokyopop continue licensing titles they own. This means there's a lot of manga, some not even done getting translated, Tokyopop has lost the rights to. The good news is many titles were already out of print and many have been picked up by either Dark Horse or Del Rey, the bad news is some titles we have no word on. Among those titles are the Twelve Kingdom novels, one source lists then as OOP and not picked up by anyone, other sources only mention manga titles and give no word on the status of the Twelve Kingdoms novels.

Now, depending on what you're keeping up on or what you've missed out on in the past this could be a good thing, a bad thing, a bit of both, or neither. As upset as I am with the uncertain state of the Twelve Kingdoms novels I'm looking forward to omnibus releases of CardCaptor Sakura as my collection of that isn't complete because my nieces lost some and most of it is the flipped version and, also on the CLAMP front, Rayearth is getting a new release by a new publisher. I sure hope this new version fixes some of the translation flubs from the Tokyopop version that weren't fixed even in their unflipped re-release.

In lighter news, A.D. Vision is no more. It's not as bad as it could be as basically they've chucked that name out and split themselves into smaller companies, each handling different aspects of the process of bringing anime over to North America, even many A.D. Vision employees are working for these new smaller companies. It was a moved necessitated by the backstabbing by their former Japanese partner company, Sojitz, which remained hostile while still holding 20% of the company stock and some other financial issues, some of which were perhaps caused by Sojitz's backstabbing. While it's sad to see the A.D. Vision label leave the scene it's not as tragic as it could be and few if any titles are lost because of this.

That said I'd like to take a moment to complain my copies of the last two volumes of Her Majesty's Dog are on backorder and have been on backorder long enough that the rest of the order got shipped without them. I also am kind of miffed at myself for having taken so long to order the last two DVDs of the Fushigi Yugi TV series my only option now is to order through secondhand sellers as my online store of choice is now out of those volumes. Granted, I'm not likely to get to those episodes anytime soon, but I wanted to trim down the space my anime collection takes up by swapping my old VHS tapes of it (all 16 of them) for the DVDs. The good news is I'm getting the last two volumes of Dragon Knights soon so I'll finally be able to finish that up. At least, finish it up after I reread the series from volume 1 because of how long it's been since I read it last.

I'm not actually sure what to write about today. I've been quite distracted lately with everything going on so it's kind of hard to focus. Right now I'm kind of miffed at the people at the hospital here in Holland; they were supposed to send the information and DVD from my mom's last angioscope to the doctor in Grand Rapids but they forgot to send part of it. Initially they called my mom and told her she had to go to Holland Hospital herself to pick it up and bring it to the Grand Rapids hospital, then she got told they could send it via a courier to get it there on time, then we got told it didn't get there soon enough and now we have to wait until Thursday to talk to the doctor who is going to do the open heart surgery. I wanted to get this over with fast, it makes me nervous to think about it too much. It makes mom scared to think about it too much, too. I really can't blame her. Hopefully on Thursday we'll have a date for the surgery.

Distraction lately has been just flitting about from one thing to the next. I've poked about on the shojo visual novel Yo-Jin-Bo a bit, started re-watching OutLaw Star, got caught up (mostly) on the manga Her Majesty's Dog (I've ordered the next two in the series which finish things up). I completely adore that series and I've been seriously thinking of trying another series by that same mangaka. The dynamics between the clueless Amane and her koma-oni Hyoue are deliciously complex and when you get to hear Hyoue's feelings for Amane you can't help but root for him. He's so hopelessly devoted to Amane it's sweet. On the opposite side of the manga spectrum I've gotten the next volume of DOGS; sometimes dynamic action scenes and a series that aims to be, and accomplishes being, an action packed series with the action and violence being THE focus instead of being something overly complex is just what a person needs. I've also started poking at the visual novel Fate/Stay Night for the heck of it. Since there's an English patch for it I figured why not give it a go.

I've also started dragging out some old books I haven't read in a while. One in particular being a book called Satyrday by Steven Bauer. It's a wonderful book, and if you've never read it you should give it a try. It reads like a fairy tale, about an owl that steals the moon so he can try to take over the world and make an eternal night and the human and satyr that set out to stop him. From the first reading I was fascinated with Deirdre, the raven that sets about finding her old friend Matthew the satyr and trying to get the other ravens to question the owl's rule, and then there's also Vera, the magical silver fox. The line when she says "Those things most beautiful vanish first," when telling of how she is the last of her clan has stuck with me since the first time I've read that book. I could go on about my feelings about the character Condor, one of the ravens, but if I go on about him I'll eventually spoil something so I'll just say his character had an emotional impact on me, too. In all honesty I'd say this would be a book I'd put in the top five of my "books you should read and probably haven't" list. It would be right up there with Hope for the Flowers.

Ach, I almost forgot to mention this, but in my quest for media related to kamaitachi, a type of Japanese weasel yokai, I came about a series called Mokke which seems to be a rather cute series that combines slice of life elements and yokai of various types. Episode 10 features a kamaitachi who is trying to re-learn how to use his sickles after the kamaitachi lost the ability from misuse of it. I hunted down a fansub of it and watched it, and it was interesting enough to make me think I should maybe hunt down some more of the series. I'd like to see what other yokai get featured in it and find out more about the main characters. It's not really action packed or anything, but it has an easy, calming pace to it, like and yet unlike Mushishi... if that makes any sense. I'd really like to see this series get licensed, even if it just gets a sub-only release.

I screengrabbed the kamaitachi, just because there's not enough kamaitachi images out there;

Well, I've not posted lately because things have been a bit hectic at home. My mom's suffering from acute aortic valve stenosis and it's getting worse. She's tiring out doing the slightest thing and she even needs to be hooked up to an oxygen machine when she sleeps now. On Monday she's going to see her cardiologist and talk about when she's going to get the open heart surgery she's going to need to get the issue fixed. It's kind of scary to think about what that means; getting her chest cracked open so they can get to her heart then stopping her heart so they can replace the valve. The whole situation also means I'm picking up a lot of the slack at home and wearing myself out a lot faster.

I've got a friend who can see I need some time away from home now and then to relax, but she doesn't seem to get how to accomplish that well. She keeps on suggesting things like driving to the nearest amusement park and spending a whole day there. I'd like to be able to do that, but I'd be worn out to the point I'd be days recovering. I got worn out after JAFAX and when I was there I was very careful about not doing more than I could handle, at an amusement park I'd be drug about all over and put onto so many rides I'd pass out from exhaustion. Her other grand idea is camping out for a few days, and in a tent no less. I wake up stiff and sore enough sleeping in a normal bed, if I'd camp out like that I'd be so sore by the time it was over it would be insane.

Now, with all this going on I'm getting stressed out to the point I'm twitchy all the time. I also am doing some major geeking out because of the nervousness. When I geek out I kind of use it as a coping method sometimes, it's kind of like a security blanket; hanging on to something familiar and welcoming, and when you establish you're a bit of a geek some actions that would be considered abnormal from most people become something accepted, or at least expected. This would be all well and good except one of my ways of geeking out involves collecting stuff. My bank account is starting to hurt because of this. I've spent money on ebay buying the whole set of Revolutionary Girl Utena (which I didn't expect to win, I put in a bid of less than half of what I've seen it go for most of the time and somehow won it), copies of the only two volumes of Eat-Man that Viz translated, and the last two volumes I needed of the Chuang Yi translation of Fruits Basket. Offline I bought three season of Beast Wars, some Tenchi Muyo, a season of Ruroni Kenshin, and some random volumes of manga. It's getting a little crazy, but it's kind of comforting when I collect stuff, and watching/reading it manages to calm my nerves, at least for a bit.

I guess it's kind of understandable, but sometimes I wish I had cheaper ways to cope with stuff like this.

I'd like to take a moment to start this post with a little bit about my dad and his new toy. After looking about at new cars for a couple years my dad finally went out and got one, a 2006 cherry red Mazda Miata convertible. It's a sweet little car, but completely impractical considering the trunk is barely bigger than a shoebox and it only seats two, and what the heck does a 72 year old happily married man need with a thing like that. It's not even a car I'd get for myself if I had the money to afford one, for one thing there's no place for me to stow my wheelchair in it and for another if I'm not driving myself alone I usually have at least two other people with me.

There's just one thing - dad's been claiming he can't afford to spend money to hire someone to finish the bathroom, a project he started while I was still working at my old job over half a decade ago, yet he somehow managed to afford $17,000 in cash to pay for his new little toy car. Mom is justifiably miffed at that, although she did find it fun riding in the car. We're still trying to figure out how he decided a little sportscar like that was a good thing to spend money on when we still need to get a lot of the remodeling projects for the inside of the house dad started done (all started around the same time as or before the redoing of the bathroom). Someone suggested he's having a midlife crisis, but he's a little too old for that, leading everyone involved to decided it must be a 3/4 life crisis instead.

As a joke I'm getting him vanity plate for it reading either GEEZER or G33Z3R.

On to more geekish matters: I squee with joy since I found out Darker Than BLACK's second season (Darker Than BLACK:Ryusei no Gemini/Meteor's Gemini) starts in October.

For those of you unfamiliar with the title DTB is a seinen anime about spies, secret agents, assassins, secret organizations, and special powers. It takes place in a slightly futuristic setting (the technology seen in normal settings is similar to what's high tech now, but some other technology is significantly more advanced) and pays homage to film noir. The premise of the series is that about 10 years before it starts something triggered the appearance of abnormal spaces (at least two of them Hell's Gate near Tokyo and Heaven's Gate somewhere in South America, which somehow cataclysmically vanished 5 years after appearing) and the appearance of humans with special powers. Those humans with special powers get separated into two kinds; Contractors with a special power which differs from individual to individual who have to perform an act of payment after using them (which also varies) and become amoral when their abilities start to manifest, the other type being mediumistic Dolls who can use "specters" to view what's going on elsewhere and lose their emotions when their abilities manifest.

You'd think a series like that would be some huge mystery/action series which may start out a little slow then dive right in to uncovering the mysteries about the Gates, Contractors, and Dolls but refreshingly it's not. Instead it's simply about the people in that world and how they go about their lives. You get to see how they live in a world like the one set up and you never get to know more than they know, plus since what we find out is simply what they believe some of the information may not even be correct even if it seems correct. What's given more focus is what's relevant to the characters, like Hei's desire to find out what happened to his sister when Heaven's Gate went poof while they were on a mission in that area. It also really makes use of the setup to use noir aspects, sometimes played straight, sometimes played for laughs. The story is divided into a series of two episode arcs that about halfway through start building up to something with a bigger scope.

What really brings this series together to the point it could be called a work of art is the fantastic animation work by Studio BONES and music by famed anime composer Yoko Kanno. Just knowing there's going to be more of their work makes me happy, but I have to admit the biggest draw will be the little bits of mysteries that may be answered as because of the focus not being on those in the first season there's a LOT more than can get hinted at, maybe even making much more sense when the hints from both season get compared and discussed.

So, JAFAX has come and gone and I've still got one of my nieces over. Sadly, I'm unable to keep her for a full month and have to bring her back tomorrow. As I managed to keep my spending down at JAFAX I've wound up getting caught up on some stuff I've been meaning to work on collecting. I've managed to finally get close to finished on the domestic release of the Black Cat manga with the help of the local Barns & Noble and have several other titles coming in the mail from RightStuf, most notably being Her Majesty's Dog, a title I fell behind on when the local Waldenbooks went out of business. All in all it's kind of fun getting caught up, although it's daunting at the same time, seeing the piles to go through to read and then sort.

I've also managed to get a little sorting done, even if I still need to wait for the next bit of floor to ceiling shelving to get done before I can really get going on it. Trying to find stuff that's out of place it probably the best motivator to get things in order. The collection is also getting trimmed up a bit. I've managed to replace a few things I had on VHS with DVD versions, such as the Rayearth OVAs, and gave away some single DVDs from stuff I eventually got boxsets of to my nieces.

I honestly love having a physical collection of things I like. Anime, manga, comics, books, music, figures... it doesn't matter. I've got my Fraud sculpture of his take on Puck displayed proudly next to my Suikoden figures and my fu dog statues. I have my favorite novels shelved with my manga. If I like it I like to have it to rewatch or reread, to look at whenever I feel like. I like to know I've got them and that I've done something to support the people who made them. I think that as a fan it's important to remember that, without the people who are behind what we're a fan of we wouldn't have it. They work hard at making it and the least we can do is make sure they get a little something for all their hard work.

I may have a collection large enough to make me look like a total obsessed geek, but at least I have it. I've been collecting for years and I'm proud of what I've managed to amass.

After a nice long weekend one needs a little rest, but there's still time to cover some of the fun of a convention. This year marks my 6th year going to JAFAX and the 14th year JAFAX has been around. It's a smallish convention, as it's free to attend because it's located at Grand Valley State University's Allendale, MI campus, so it's something you go for more to hang out with like-minded people, meet up with friends, pick up some good deals on merchandise, and check out some fun cosplays (or cosplay yourself) rather than check out some good panels (they pretty much have the same ones each year) and meet big names in the industry. Still, if you're in the area it's a GREAT place to go and hang.

Anyone who has been to a fandom convention can understand the kind of stuff that can happen, an expect the unexpected kind of thing. You can wind up trying melon-pan one minute and octopus ramune the next; you can find Xellos working for con security (a strangely disconcerting concept as that is). My two oldest nieces and I arrived early, getting a place pretty close to the doors, eating a breakfast of mini donuts and drinking Java Monster in line. We took a little time out of our breakfast to take part in an impromptu Caramelldanson started by another congoer. Being the dork that I am I rolled my wheelchair over and got down and I didn't do too badly at it either.

I had fun meeting people I've seen before and hanging out with some online friends, like chatting with my self-proclaimed waifu from Gaia Online, Mary, and meeting up with Gyrefalcon who I met on the Gryphon's Guild. Gyre had a kickass cane for me and while it's a little too long for me to use with flat bottomed shoes it's perfect to use with some of my cool boots. I managed to get some nice swag, like Transformers stacker rings, an adorable hand made wolf plush, a humorous and geeky shirt, picked up some old and new anime and manga, and managed to get some great pics of cosplayers. I even managed to be part of an amusing conversation when one of the dealers was explaining to another dealer at their table that there's potential sales coming from both sides. He missed me trying to get his attention trying to buy some used manga and I had to chime in with a "there's a potential sale right in front of you, too."

My nieces and I did a group cosplay on Saturday, with me cosplaying Aki from Keroro Gunso, my oldest niece cosplaying Natsumi, and my middle niece being human!Kitty. The only picture we had taken of us was by my dad taking a pic of us together by the pond in the back yard after the convention. Amusingly on Sunday we had three pictures taken of us and we were just hanging out with kitty ears on. Granted, I looked pretty nice in my black kimono-style top and gold pants and my nieces were pretty styling as well, so we were a little more flashy than on Saturday. I'm kind of disappointed, as I still have yet to run into a good Train Heartnet cosplayer at JAFAX (I did see a good Sven one year, though).

I spoiled my nieces by buying us all some melon-pan on Saturday and on Sunday I treated us all to some octopus ramune. I've wanted to try melon-pan for a while and octopus ramune sounded too weird not to try, at least to just say I had tried it. Melon-pan I'd recommend to anyone, but octopus ramune is something I'd say try with caution; I liked it, but it does have an interesting aftertaste (my middle niece said it tasted "like butt" altho she did finish it - after being bribed with a Sasori keychain by her sister). My mom I surprised with a Death Note necklace, a cross wit L's picture on it (my mom is an admitted L fangirl) - my dad got nothing since he really wouldn't appreciate it anyway. The entire thing left me rather worn out, but it's the good sort of worn out. The kind of worn out where you feel you've accomplished something and it's worth the drained feeling. It's a good thing I have plenty of new anime to watch and manga to read while I recover from everything that happened.

And now for some photo funnage!

Continue reading "Super and Special - JAFAX XIV Report" »

Yup, I'm making another post on the same subject. This is partially because my next entry may be late (as I've decided to make my posts on Saturday) because of JAFAX weekend and partially because I want to revisit my feelings on the Twelve Kingdoms.

There's all sorts of development in that series. Once you get to the second half and are introduced to Suzu and Shoukei you're introduced to two highly flawed female characters. You get to see what trials they've gone through to make them feel the way they do; to see why Suzu and Shoukei feel their lives are unfairly miserable, why Suzu has come to despair and see Yoko as her only hope and why Shoukei sees Yoko as someone to hate and envy. You get to sympathize with them even if at times their flaws glare at you and make you want to smack some sense into them because you know it's possible if you had went through hardships of the caliber they've gone through you may not have come out any better.

But what makes it memorable is you get to see them change in their travels, as they move beyond their personal hardships to see them face the world around them. You see them start to stop thinking only about what is unfair in their lives and look to what is unfair with the world. It's wonderful seeing them change for the better and reach out to make things around them better as well. It's something we who watch it can learn from, for how many of us actively seek to make things better in some way? Some make small donations to charity, but how much do they actually do? What good is it if we make paltry gestures if for the most part we don't do anything but go about our lives? We should at least seek out what we need to do to better ourselves and treat those about us fairly and kindly.

We may feel our lives are unfair and come to feel great pity for ourselves or hate those that seem more fortunate. We may be ignorant of the world around us and the trials faced by others and that ignorance may hobble us. We may decide in our heads that things are a certain way when they aren't and judge people by those false assumptions. But it's when we try to look beyond all that, when we grow as people who consciously or subconsciously seek to better ourselves and learn more about things we shine. When we reach out to understand how the world is, how we can better it, and how we can help those around us, even in only small ways, we polish ourselves. When we realize our actions can better ourselves and our world we have a chance to become something that helps our whole world shine.

Think about it. Reach out for whatever wisdom comes your way. The greatest gems lie not in the ground, but in our hearts if only we allow them to shine.

Y'know how sometimes even when there's something new to watch sometimes you really wanna go back and read an oldie but goody you've already seen, maybe even more than twice? Well, I've been slowly watching Twelve Kingdoms over the past several days AND reading the light novels that it was based on - or at least what has been translated so far by Tokyopop. I've also got the Slayers novels and anime in my upcoming lineup.

Now, I've seen some people criticize Twelve Kingdoms early on and give up on it because they felt Yoko was too weak, to pathetic. Personally, after seeing all of the series I have to say Yoko is one of the most likable, dynamic characters I've seen in anime. She starts off weak and pathetic but by the end of the series she's grown to a point you can't recognize her from the Yoko in the beginning of the series. Watching her grow and learning about the world of Twelve Kingdoms is a wonderful experience that when watching in the right frame of mind can actually help the watcher learn more about themself and how they can change for the better.

I'd highly encourage both the reading of the novels and the watching of the anime, especially to those who gave up on it early on. I feel one is really missing out if they're an anime fan or a fantasy novel fan and overlooks this series. It's a gem, even if it does have a few minor flaws, including the fact they never finished Taiki's story in the anime, it's a must watch and must read. If only the author of the novels hadn't put the series on hold, perhaps then they'd have finished Taiki's story. Hopefully sales of the novels will go well and Tokyopop will release all the novels, even the one finishing Taiki's story so fans can get some closure. It would also be nice if they picked up Massho no Ko (Demonic Child), a novel written before the Twelve Kingdoms series was started by the same author that became part of Taiki's backstory.

It's been a rough week since I set this up with not much new going on besides work and spending time with one of my nieces. Time online has been on short supply, as been time to check new stuff out. However, even if you don't intend to find something new sometimes it manages to find you.

 The first big thing is I managed to find fansubs of the first two OVAs for DOGS: Stray Dogs Howling in the Dark. I've been a fan of the manga since shortly after the manga was completely scanlated, before the continuation Bullets & Carnage was announced or even before the oneshot sidestory Hardcore Twins came out. I was quite spazzed about the news a while back that the original four storylines from SDHitD were getting animated, and finally finding them translated was even better.

What impressed me from the manga were the fight scenes, mostly utilizing gun battles with some bladework used as well. The action scenes really managed to portrey more action than many action manga pull off - they weren't just still images, they were dynamic action shots! The OVA managed to get some of that kickass action in as well, seeing Mihai and Ian put their differences aside in "Weepy Old Killer" to jointly pwn the assassin gunning for both of them kept most of its affect as did Badou snapping from nicotine withdrawl in "Gun Smoker" - the animation even added to that one a lot with him puffing his invisible cigarette before spouting out some Engrish and mowing the Mafia goons down at their shins with two automatics was wicked!

The plot isn't perfect, I won't pretend it is, it's got it's cliches but it manages to do what it sets out to do in a way that one can enjoy for what it is. More depth shows up in Bullets & Carnage flesh out the world and characters, but it's still primarily a fun action series. If you like that kind of stuff look out for the manga, which is being published by Viz in  North America, or keep an eye out for fansubs (and hopefully later an English language DVD release, or at least legal streams) of the anime.

On the opposite side of the spectrum I decided to look out for something fluffy and checked out the first volume of the shojo series Otomen. In case you don't know what an "otomen" is the word is a portmanteau of the Japanese word "otome" (maiden, young girl) and "men" - basically, guys with feminine interests like cooking, sewing, cute things, and sweets. They're not gay or trans or anything, they just tend towards a slightly more feminine bend than most guys. As someone with a little interest in the concept of how mental and emotional gender relates to one's physical gender and how they may not always sync up the concept of checking out a series focusing on one of these otomen sounded like it could be interesting.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was better than I had been expecting and rather than finding something simply novel it was something that had me at times laughing out loud and other times almost touched. Some of the "it's important to be yourself" thing was a bit overdone - or underdone - in parts, but where it shone was in the comedy of it. From Asuka, the closet otoman and protagonist of the series, Ryo, his romantic interest the not-so-girly girl who can't cook or sew but can kick butt and even save the day, and Juta, their friend, who is secretly a shojo mangaka who has based his female protagonist on our hero you have dynamics that manage to amuse you and even aww over.

The weak point so far seems to be the utter hard-headedness of Asuka and Ryo - Juta practically flings them together even when they seem focused on staying only friends. I'm not very romantically inclined and I'd have more sense than to turn a romantic Christmas Party For Two into a party for three whereas Ryo eagerly invited both Asuka and Juta. Granted it's her first real Christmas party and she wants to spend it with her two best friends, but Asuka didn't show as much dislike for a third wheel getting in on it as a guy seriously interested in a girl should. The end of the second volume ALMOST ended in a sour note with an overly done arranged fiancee story, but it managed to salvaged it with its own brand of humor and an amusing (if slightly predictable) end.

I'm eagerly awaiting getting my hands on more volumes of this series! While it could wind up in a rut in later volumes it could also wind up really shining.