The Old School Otaku Lounge

Finished reading "Magi", now catching up on the "Densha Otoko" mangas and "Yotsuba"

I spend a lot of time reading self help books such as: "Practice Perfect", "The first 20 hours: how to learn anything fast", and "Home Rules". I read a lot of sheet music and interior decoration books. I am starting to get into composing for cello.

My mom-in-law is visiting for the week, and yesterday we drove to Shizuoka City mainly to visit the Junkudo bookstore there. It's pretty big, and they have a niceselection of English language books. My first priority was to buy "It's Tokyo, Charlie Brown," a neat graphic novel that was unveiled at the 2012 SDCC. It's a very cute GN in which Charlie Brown's baseball team is selected as an abassador team to play in Japan. I really liked how Patty and Violet were in the story, because those two characters eventually disappeared. Frieda and Shermy are also seen playing on Charlie's team, but for some reason they don't go to Japan and instead are replaced by Peppermint Patty and Marcie. Anyhow, it's a cute book and it's nice to see other people making Peanuts comics.

So Junkudo also even has an English language manga selection. Most of it is obvious sellers like One Piece, Naruto, Ghost in the Shell, Evangelion, etc. The had the Attack on Titan manga volume 1, so I bought it on a whim. All their English manga is wrapped in plastic to prevent people from reading them. All I knew about this is what I'd seen of it at Wonder Fest with all its various gachapons, figures, etc. So apparently people are comparing this to Walking Dead, and I can see the similarities. Instead of zombies, 15 meter tall giants suddenly appear, eating people. Weird. Humans aren't very adept at killing them, either. The remaining humanity lives in a huge city made of enormous, 50 meter tall walls that form concentric circles, splitting the huge city into 3 parts. I read the first volume last night before bed. Not a good idea, since I don't like filling my head with lots of creepy imagery just before sleep. It didn't affect my dreams at all though, apparently.

OK, so some manga can be full of a ton of action, and this action can be displayed in manga form quite well. However sometimes, action as portrayed in manga can be rather confusing. This manga was confusing. This morning I watched a few clips on YouTube to realize that those apparatus the soldiers wear enable them to zip around in the air like Spider-Man. I totally didn't understand that from reading the manga. So it looks like the main character, Eren, gets devoured by the end of volume 1. A part of me realizes that this can't happen, since it it's already established him and his quest, as well as mysteries as to where his father went and what secrets lie inside his old house's basement.

While I'm glad that there's a new anime out there that doesn't focus on stuff like moeblobs or T&A, it's a bit gruesome and I'm not really into gruesome. If I continue this series, I'd rather see the anime, because apparently the action is easier to understand. IIRC, Usamimi said she watched this show in the "what are you watching" thread, and some others responded. I'll re-read that to see people's impressions.

YEAH, I haven't read much of the manga because I've heard that 1. it's a little more gory in parts (and cannibalism-sh stuff always kinda weirds me out) and 2. the manga artist started off a little wonky, so at first the manga's action is a bit hard to follow. I DO hear that, as volumes progress, the artist seems to get better at it, though, which is good. But I prolly won't get the manga until after the anime is over. I don't want to spoil myself. XD

I've hijacked the little lady's copies of Young Saints. I love the idea of G-whizz and Budda-Budda shacking up together.

Classic stuff.

Finished "Ikigami" v9, "One Piece" v68, purchased a whole set of "Love Hina" and "Prince of Tennis" and the GTO prequel, so will be reading those soon.

Just read Vol. 1 of Adam Warren's Empowered comic. Hilarious, wordy, perverted, but I loved it all. I used to dislike Adam Warren's stuff, but in a comic world where there isn't much older manga anymore, and his stuff is so influenced by 80's and 90's anime, I'll take what I can get. But I definitely like it alot more, now that I'm older.

I always enjoyed Adam Warren's work because he was like...a fan that got to do comics of "official fanart", basically! I know a lot of people hated that he was so anime/manga influenced, but I loved it. I still have some of his old comics (BGC and Dirty Pair, as well as some of his old Gen13 books and the Teen Titans book he did for DC). I haven't read his new book (I never see it in stores around here, plus I'm always broke, anyway ;p) but I've heard good things about it.

Haven't read Attack on Titan. Thumbed through the volume at Coles the other day. Definitely not as interesting as what's been going on in the Hellboy/BPRD books in the past couple years. The last remnants of humanity apparently are down to some kind of non techie society in AOT whereas the BPRD world is ours but we can't stop the supernatural invaders with our weaponry. Hellboy is missing, but "In Hell" was an excellent series. Dunno if you get these books in Japan though...

_D_ wrote:Haven't read Attack on Titan. Thumbed through the volume at Coles the other day. Definitely not as interesting as what's been going on in the Hellboy/BPRD books in the past couple years. The last remnants of humanity apparently are down to some kind of non techie society in AOT whereas the BPRD world is ours but we can't stop the supernatural invaders with our weaponry. Hellboy is missing, but "In Hell" was an excellent series. Dunno if you get these books in Japan though...

I've heard that Hellboy is actually kinda popular with some readers in Japan due to the occult-ish themes and unique artwork. (I could be wrong, though?) I haven't read Hellboy in quite some time but I do have the first few collected books and love them.

I started reading Naoki Urasawa's "Pluto" recently, and I've been kicking myself for not reading this sooner--it's SO GOOD. Urasawa's art and style of storytelling are perfect for a slightly darker and more realistic retelling of this Astro Boy story and I'm really loving it. (But then again, most of Urasawa's stuff I've read is top-notch, so no surprise.)