Author Archives: Anna

Absolute Boyfriend & Golgo 13

I can’t think of two titles featuring men that are more opposite in character than Absolute Boyfriend and Golgo 13, so of course I’ll review them at the same time.

Absolute Boyfriend by Yuu Watase 3.5/5 (amazon)

I’m guaranteed to like any series by Yuu Watase, so I was happy to read the first collection of the new series being serialized in Shojo Beat. Riiko is home alone, as her parents have gone abroad to work. There seems to be an epidemic of lone high school students in her apartement building, as her next door neighbor and friend since childhood Soshi and his little brother also have absent parents. Soshi checks on Riiko from time to time, bringing her food and tidying up her apartment. She’s oblivious to the idea that Soshi may have feelings for her. Their usual interaction goes something like this – he teases her for her inability to get a boyfriend and she punches him in the face.
Riiko’s latest cruch rejects her, and she’s feeling as if she’s destined to die alone. She spots an odd cellphone in the park and picks it up. It rings, and she agrees to deliver it to its owner at a nearby cafe. The owner of the cellphone is Gaku Namikiru, an oddly-dressed salesman for a mail order business called Kronos Heaven. He offers Riiko some of his products as a reward for bringing his cellphone back, but she refuses, saying she only wants a boyfriend. He leaves her with a CD rom that takes her to a web site where she can order a boy for a three day trial period. Riiko doesn’t take the process very seriously, so she orders a cute boy with a random selecton of personality options.

The next day after school Riiko is surprised to see a giant cardboard box waiting for her. When she opens it, a naked boy falls out. He can cuddle, cook, defend her in a fight, and in many ways he seems to be the perfect boyfriend. Absolute Boyfriend is Yuu Watase in full comedy mode. While some of her other books deal with darker themes, this series one is light, fluffy, and totally frivolous.

Golgo 13: Supergun 3/5 stars (amazon)

Golgo 13 is the ultimate assassin, a mysterious man with hundreds of alternate identities. The series ran from 1968-2003 in Japan. There’s no way someone would be able to sustain a sequential translation of Golgo 13 from start to finish, so Viz is picking selected stories for their English language edition. The first volume of Viz’s signature line edition of Golgo 13 features a story called “The Gun at Am Shara” which is set in the early 1990s. UN Weapons inspectors see something fishy going on in Iraq. A fanatical ballistics scientist has allied himself with Saddam Hussein. Someone’s building a giant gun hidden in a dam? Who’re you gonna call? Golgo 13! Golgo 13 never fails when he accepts a contract. Golgo 13 might be Japanese or half-Japanese, but nobody knows! He sometimes poses as a journalist. He doesn’t talk much. When he is at his most expressive, he says stuff like this, “………”

I think that the key to Golgo 13’s long-running appeal is the way he functions as a walking symbol. He’s so blank, and so mysterious that a reader is free to imagine almost any sort of backstory or motivation for him. One volume of Golgo 13 was enough for me, but I think the series would appeal to people who like spy novels or movies. It is nice that Viz is reprinting some older manga.

I saw the link to this on the message boards at Anime News Network, if you want even more proof at how the Tokyopop RSOM entry Samurai Zombie ripped off Blade of the Immortal, look at this image.

Book “Segregation” in Oklahoma

Here’s an LISNews article about a recent bill in Oklahoma that proposes to pull books with “homosexual” and “sexually explicit” content from kids and YA book collections. This seems a little nutty to me, if the bill passes a panel will be appointed that will select the sequestered books? And I love the quote from the sponsor of the bill, that “the American Library Association is out to sexualize our children.”

Naomi Wolf and YA Novels

There’s an essay by Naomi Wolf on YA Novels in the New York Times Book Review. She looks at series like Gossip Girl, A-List and the Clique. Of the series mentioned I think I’ve only read the first volume of Gossip Girl, and that was because the publisher was handing it out at an ALA conference with an inspired marketing campaign that included Gossip Girl lip gloss. It made me think that more advanced reader’s editions should have complementary makeup attached.
I thought Gossip Girl was entertaining, and I could understand why it would appeal to teens, but I’m not sure if the series are as damaging as Wolf thinks. I probably have a much higher tolerance for fluff than some readers.

Updated to add that I should have known that some of the kids lit bloggers would be commenting on the article. Hop on over to Chicken Spagetti for linky goodness with a round-up of blog posts.

Sorcerers & Secretaries

Sorcerers & Secretaries by Amy Kim Ganter 3.5/5 stars amazon

I’ve previewed some of Tokyopop’s original graphic novels online. They put out so much product, but only a few of the titles appeal to me. After seeing a couple chapters of Sorcerers & Secretaries online I decided to order the book.

Nicole goes to school and has a boring job as a receptionist. She is a bit of a loner, and not very assertive about expressing her true feelings to friends and family. The activity that engages her the most is writing a fantasy story in a special notebook. She uses her notebook to escape from the mundane details of daily life.

Josh Kim is a bookstore clerk and Nicole’s former neighbor. He’s a total flirt, keeping a collection of girls’ numbers but rarely calling them. He has a crush on Nicole, partly because she seems so unattainable, and when they lived in the same building they used to hang out. When he sees Nicole browsing in his bookstore he leaps over stacks of books and shoves a cashier out of the way, just so he can talk with her. He asks Nicole for her phone number, and she decides that she’ll give him a chance since she’s feeling lonely. But she tells him to meet her at a coffee shop, because she’s well aware of Josh’s habit of never following through with anything. Are Josh and Nicole going to grow closer, or is Nicole going to retreat to her fantasy world?

Ganter’s an accomplished artist with a background in web comics. She’s also published a piece in the second Flight anthology. The art captures Josh’s exuberance and the fantastic world that Nicole finds refuge in during her dreams. Sometimes Nicole’s fantasy life blends with reality in unexpected ways.

You can view art and read the first three chapters of the book on the Sorcerers & Secretaries section of Ganter’s web site, Felaxx.com.

slight case of ennui

This is one of those posts where a blogger blogs about being less than enthusiastic about blogging. I’ve been feeling less than invested about blogging library issues recently. I don’t tend to be focused on blogging about a particular topic in any case, but I’m having a hard time focusing on the library stuff. Partially this is because I have no idea what I’m going to be doing career wise in a couple months. If I knew I’d wind up being a YA Librarian or doing web work for libraries (some options I’d pursue if I saw any open positions) I would be blogging the heck out of those topics.

I think that uncertainty about what exactly my future in libraries is combined with feeling less than enthused about some of the dominant topics of current dicussion in library blogs is making me feel like library blogging is more of a chore and not as much of an automatic activity. But I think this type of thing happens from time to time.

Now I’m going to watch Karate Bear Fighter and knit a lovely sweater.

phantom magazine subscriptions?

Has anyone had random magazines that they have not subscribed to show up at their house? I now have an April issue of Ladies’ Home Journal, but I have not subscribed to the magazine. Maybe someone is being mean and pulling a horrible prank on me to make sure I read tips about how to look years younger and appreciate that Diane Sawyer is Soul Searching at 60. I see no reason why this magazine would appear at my house.

Gorgeous Carat and some manga links

Gorgeous Carat by You Higuri 4/5 stars (amazon)

I enjoyed the first couple volumes of You Higuri’s series Cantarella, so I had a feeling that I’d also like this story about jewel thieves in turn of the century Paris. The story opens as the Paris nobility are besieged by a mysterious jewel thief named Noir. Florian is a member of the nobility, the only remaining heir to an impoverished family. His legacy is a house rapidly being emptied of all its furnishings by his mother, who is selling treasured family possessions to keep up the pretense of an aristocratic lifestyle. Although Florian offers to work, his mother will not allow him because she fears the loss of status. They have almost run out of money, and Florian suggests that she sell the giant 120 carat diamond that is the last treasure of the family. His mother refuses and tells him to dress well for the ball that she’s throwing that evening.

Noir attends the ball wearing an Arab coustume using the name Ray Courland. As soon as he arrives, he’s attracted by Florian’s jewel-like violet eyes. Florian is quite disturbed when learns from his Uncle Maurice that Ray is a distant relative and a usurer. He is even more disturbed when Ray comes to his house again and meets with his mother, promisising to give her a blank check if she entrusts Florian to him. If she won’t sell Florian, Ray will take the family diamond. Seeing his mother become distressed, Florian offers to go with Ray. Ray’s home has many servants, but he’s closest to a girl named Laila who frequently goes with him during his jewel heists and is utterly devoted to him. Ray sits down to a feast in his dining room with a petulant expression on his face because Florian has locked himself into his room and refuses to eat. Ray visits Florian and orders him to eat dinner, but Florian refuses, saying that he doesn’t take orders from “low-class swine”.

Ray’s solution to this problem is to chain Florian to a wall and torture him with a whip. He reveals that he’s actually Noir and demands that Florian tell him the location of the family diamond, but Florian refuses to talk. That evening, Florian’s house goes up in flames with his mother inside. Florian is a suspect in the murder, and he and Noir end up joining forces to track down the diamond and unravel the cause of the fire. Noir’s an interesting character. He’s obsessed with jewels and seems to keep shackles and whips around as handy house accessories, but even though he has a dominant personality occasionally he seems a bit immature. He’s actually a couple years younger than Florian, which adds another twist to their relationship. The first book features another story where Florian and Noir are placed in a situation where they need to unravel a mystery behind some other mysterious jewels, so I’d expect to see this type of story repeated in later volumes. In additon to the pretty men there’s plenty of action, adventure, and intrigue in Gorgeous Carat. You can take a look at the covers and plot summaries on Go Comi’s translation of Higuri’s web site.

You Yiguri’s art is lovely and expressive. Gorgeous Carat started coming out slightly before Cantarella, so it is one of her more recent works with her artistic style fully developed. She adeptly portrays Noir’s humor and cynicism, while Florian functions more as a quiet but strong moral compass. It’ll be interesting to see how their relationship develops and how many jewels will be added to Noir’s collection. You can see a few preview pages at Blu Manga’s web site.

Even though the first part of the 4 volume series is being released by Tokyopop’s Yaoi imprint Blu, it looks like the sequel to the series, Gorgeous Carat Galaxy, is going to be published by Digital Manga Publishing.

A couple manga links:

There’s an article on MTV news about Yaoi.

Irresponsible Pictures looks at the latest entries in Tokyopop’s rising stars of manga competition. Telophase also has two review posts. One of the series used Blade of the Immortal as source material for the art in a very blatant manner. Now, I think if you have to use reference material for something Blade of the Immortal has some exquisite art, but it seems really weird to submit something like that to a competition.

Death Note, Jewish Superheroes

I get all my Death Note movie news from Telophase. The official web site shows you some goodies if you click around in Light’s room. Here’s a pixelated version of the movie trailer on You Tube, although a much higher quality version is available if you click on the power button on the TV to the far right in Light’s room on the official web site.

Via The Great Curve, Jewish Superhero Corps, read all about Minyan Man and Matza Woman. You can buy them as Purim Costumes. I think this is an outrage. There is absolutley nothing wrong with more traditional purim costumes. If you don’t feel like dressing up like Esther or Mordecai, you can always dress like a cute yummy Hamentaschen. Or if you are a girl and you are tired of dressing up like Esther, you could be a little bit creative. I won a prize in a Purim costume contest when I was little because my mom made me a Queen Vashti costume.