Paper Moon

Elementary
So this is officially the best version of Sherlock anything that I've ever seen, ever. Not hyberbole. It's that awesome. And that's not just because it has probably the best Watson of all time, either. I love this Sherlock, I love the complex relationship he has with his Watson, I love the mysteries, and I love everything about this show.

Hannibal
Damn, what can I say about this show that hasn't been said already? The casting is fucking amazing, the horror elements are incredibly disturbing and incredibly well-executed, the characters and their interactions are deliciously complex and complicated, and the atmosphere and cinematography oh my god. I don't care how many times I've seen it every episode, that shot of the swiftly-moving grey clouds on top of EVERY BUILDING that the characters ever step foot in never gets old. What I'm actually torn about, however, is whether this show is treating its viewers like they're smart... or like they're really, really stupid. Honestly, I think the answer is that it does both. On the one hand, it's a show that very deliberately broadcasts the fact that it wants its audience to feel like they're smarter than the average television viewer. Between the subtle acting, the dense visual symbolism, the refusal to neatly tie up subplots or character arcs in single episodes and let them simply percolate in the background until they show up again several episodes later, and the constant references to classical music and food porn (admit it, you've Googled some of those episode titles because you didn't know what they were, I know you have), it's a show that's meant to make you think as you watch it, and it's meant to make you feel clever and sophisticated if you really appreciate all of its layers, its nuances, its refusals to conform to the usual storytelling rules of serial television. BUT, on the other hand... It really is a show that you have to turn off part of your brain to enjoy. Half of this show wants you the viewer to know that it thinks you're smart and you should feel smart for watching it, but the other half of the show is also trying desperately not to reveal the fact that it also thinks that you, the viewer, are very stupid. Stupid enough to believe that Hannibal Lecter can teleport himself from Maryland to Minnesota faster than a speeding airplane (HOW????), stupid enough to believe that a teenage girl can sneak out of a mental hospital in Maryland and dig up a body in Minnesota and then be back in said mental hospital in Maryland in one night (again, HOW?????), and just in general stupid enough to believe that Hannibal Lecter can get away with his crimes for so long despite the fact that the show is set in contemporary times and that we constantly see the FBI applying modern forensic science to the murders. There's a LOT of suspension of disbelief required to really enjoy this show. And that's kind of disappointing considering that the show seems so invested in making you feel like you're a clever, smart, sophisticated television viewer when you watch it.

The Wind in the Keyhole
It's been a long, long time since I sat down with a Stephen King novel that was anywhere near as engrossing as this one. I know that Stephen King loves his high fantasy, but so rarely does he actually pull it off as beautifully as he does in this book. Plus there's actually a lot of interesting gender and sexuality things woven into the subplots of both of the meta-stories, and thankfully these themes are approached with a lot more maturity and sophistication than King usually exhibits, even despite the medieval setting. But really this is my favorite thing that King has written in a while just because it's everything that makes the best of King's writing great: great characters, creepy buildups, epic payoffs, and of course, interwoven stories that echo and mirror each other in very, very intriguing ways. I'd easily rank this one up there with Hearts in Atlantis as my favorite of King's novels, with the happy caveat that Keyhole is actually far better in the way that it handles sexism in its setting than Atlantis is.

Ava's Demon
I started reading this because friends were raving about it, and I love it. The artwork is gorgeous, the characters are intriguing, and the setting is pretty interesting so far, even if not terribly coherent. Yes, some of the writing is amateurish and some of the info-dumps are awkward. But I really do feel like the writing is showing signs of improving already. So this one is definitely a series that I'll be keeping up with.

Gunnerkrigg Court
Just to put things in perspective, this is a comic in which a non-sequitor gag about an octopus jumping off a cliff is presented as a visual metaphor for one of the two main characters finally becoming comfortable with embracing her homosexuality, and it's STILL by far and away the best comic that I'm reading right now, hands-down.

Steven Universe
YES YES CARTOON NETWORK THIS IS GREAT MORE OF THIS PLEASE PLEASE PLEAAAAAAAASE

Aku no Hana/The Flowers of Evil
I'm sticking with exactly four shows from the spring anime season: Attack on Titan, Hataraki Maou-sama, Precure, and Aku no Hana. Of the four, Aku no Hana is by far and away the best of the lot, even accounting for the difficulty of comparing apples to oranges. It's not just good. It's fucking great. I already wrote out my opinions about the animation style, the sexual politics, and the overall themes of the show on tumblr and I don't feel like repeating myself here, but I will say that the animation gets more and more gorgeous (and the actual message of the series harder and harder to ignore) with every episode.

Soul Eater
So we are now two chapters from the end and DAMN, this month's chapter is fucking finally doing what a big series-finale climatic battle chapter SHOULD be doing. Main character gets a badass powerup, supporting characters get their chance to shine with individual Crowning Moments of Awesome (even Gopher!!!), there's significantly less dumbass screaming about order and chaos than we've had to suffer through in previous chapters (man Ohkubo you actually used to be interesting in your treatment of those themes what happened?!), and wow some of those panels of Maka building up toward her finishing move are just fucking spectacular. My threshold requirements for What Would Make a Great Soul Eater Finale were basically "Maka should be awesome" and "it shouldn't drag on forever to the point where it gets boring," which are admittedly low expectations given how great Soul Eater was at its peak a few years ago, but hey so far the finale is delivering so I'm happy.

So obviously I'm not going to be recapping these chapters anymore - not for lack of interest, but lack of time, especially now that Attack on Titan has exploded all over the internet and I can barely keep up with that one fandom. I WOULD like to say that I really want to take time to recap the final chapter in August, but to be honest that's not terribly likely to happen considering that August 12th will be right smack in the middle of my last few vacation days of the year and I'm already making plans to spend that week visiting friends out-of-state. Plus I think that maybe like five people have actually been reading my recaps for the past few months, and although I appreciate the support, let's be honest, writing a recap post is a LOT of effort for little reward, and frankly I'm having more fun spending free time that I would previously have devoted to recapping Soul Eater to catching up my summer reading pile and to-watch list. So for those of you who enjoyed the recaps, thanks for sticking with me for all these years, and I'm sorry that I don't have time to see it through to the end!

But by far the most important thing here is that the Soul Eater ending is actually REALLY FUCKING AWESOME so far, so here's hoping for two more months of this level of FUCK YEAH from Ohkubo.

First of all, allow me to be the umpteen millionth person on the internet to squee about the new Sailor Moon anime that will air in 2013!!!!! For the record, I dragged my ass out of bed at 6:30 this morning to watch the streamed announcement on NicoVideo, because I had a hunch that the promised "special surprise" would be an anime announcement.

BTW, anybody reporting on twitter or elsewhere that the new Sailor Moon anime is "for adults, not for kids" is blatantly wrong. Or they misunderstood what was said during the NicoVideo announcement. The new show is promised to "appeal to adults who grew up with the original," but it will still be a kid's show. So in other words, it will be just like the My Little Pony reboot: clever and layered enough to appeal to adults who grew up with the original series, but still very much intended primarily for little girls.

In other news, the Montreal Fantasia Festival (one of the largest fantasy/sci-fi film festivals in North America) is rechristening its animation prize as the Satoshi Kon Award for Achievement in Animation. That's a pretty awesome way to honor Kon, especially considering that Perfect Blue and Millenium Actress had their world premieres at the Fantasia Festival in 1997 and 2001, respectively.

Speaking of good stuff! I somehow found myself volunteering at a local anime con this afternoon (not my fault, blame my co-worker!) and ended up watching the first four episodes of Hanasaku Iroha. This is a show that some people on my flist were gushing about when it aired last year, but I never got around to checking it out because a) the opening song was so terrible and b) the publicity artwork made it look like the main character was another Honda Tohru clone whose defining personality trait would be relentless cheerfulness in the face of adversity, but without any of the accompanying depth and complexity of Honda Tohru Original Flavor, since most Tohru-type clones end up being annoyingly shallow waifu-type moeblobs. I also knew that the series was based on (ETA: actually, the anime is an original production, the manga was the adaptation - sorry!) a manga that ran in GanGan Joker, a magazine which is defined by moe-moe-blargh manga desperately trying to grasp for a sheen of depth/respectability when really all they want to do is wallow in moe-moe-blarghness. Since the Hanasaku manga was serialized in the same magazine alongside such esteemed (*cough*) peers as Zombie-Bitch Sakina, Inu x Boku SS, and the worst of the Umineko manga adaptations, I didn't expect it to be very good, and I didn't expect the original anime series to be very good either.

Turns out, I shouldn't have judged a book by its cover, or a series by the company that it keeps. Hanasaku Iroha is really, really, really good. Gorgeously animated, genuinely funny, genuinely moving, and with a fantastic cast of characters. Ohana, the heroine, is a completely different character than the type that I thought she would be. And I totally love her. I can't wait to watch the rest of this series.

Hanasaku Iroha is still available streaming on Crunchyroll. So if you're one of those skeptics like me who passed over it last year because it looked too much like the average boring moe-moe-blargh fare, you should definitely check it out. The series is not at all what it looks like (and certainly not at all what it was marketed as). I'm glad that I gave it a second chance.

That first opening song is still irredeemably horrible, though.

The Hero Initiative is seeking donations to cover the cost of Robert L. Washington III's funeral. Please please please help if you can. Washington was a groundbreaking writer who neither got the acclaim nor the financial compensation that he deserved from the comics industry. Without funds to cover the cost of a small, modest funeral his remains will literally be thrown into a ditch on Hart Island, without any ceremony, and without giving his family an opportunity to say goodbye.

Other links of interest:

Chris Claremont, Ann Nocenti, and Louise Simonson re-unite to discuss the original plans for Madelyne Pryor's character in the X-Men comics. Wow. Wooooooooooow.

Justin Sevakis explains the mysterious process by which film properties are licensed and distributed internationally: Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Molly McIsaac lists the ten best manga (available in English) for children. Comments argue about whether Dragonball should be on the list because of its sexual humor and whether the list fails for excluding Astro Boy. In response to the former, meh, I'd say there's no hard or fast ruling on that one - it really depends on the age, maturity, and experiences of the kid reading it. As for the latter, well, if I had to pick one kiddie Tezuka manga to put on the list, I would choose Princess Knight over Astro Boy. And I still think it's a shame that Honey Honey will likely never be available in English because it is still one of the greatest kids' manga of all time.

In much less light-hearted fare, Foz Meadows explains some basics of Rape Culture 101 in her two blog posts about rape culture and gaming: One | Two. The comments on the first post are unsurprisingly full of fail, hence the follow-up post. But I agree completely with the way that Meadows lays out the differences in terms of what rape culture looks like in a digital community versus how it manifests in meatspace. Both posts are definitely worth a read, even if you don't exactly need a 101-level explanation of the basic concepts involved.

Kathryn Hemmann writes about Bunny Drop, realism, "literature," and feminism. Great essay but I think that she gives waaaaaaaaay to much leeway to Bunny Drop's ending (which, BTW, is NOT spoiled in the essay, in case you're concerned about that sort of thing).

2011 comic book movies reviews vs. revenues. Lose your faith in humanity in one handy infographic.

Renta! is yet another new face in the recent-ish wave of Japanese websites (alongside Reading Room and JComi) that provide digital access to Japanese manga and magazines, both old and new, that us foreigners might never be able to feasibly access otherwise. Renta!, however, is based on ye olde fashioned rental business model: You buy "tickets" that allow you to access a book or magazine either for a set amount of time (48 hours) or "forever." The latter option is, of course, more expensive than the former.

And the prices over at Renta! are a little bit, well, pricey.

A couple of items that I browsed around for: A 160-page dog magazine cost me 400 yen to rent for 48 hours, or 800 yen to rent for "infinity." Each volume of Usagi Drop costs 500 yen to rent forever, as there is no 48-hour option. Each volume of Rose of Versailles cost 100 yen to read for 48 hours or 600 yen to rent without time limit. Each volume of Osamu Tezuka's Tetsuwan Atom cost only 100 yen to rent for 48 hours, but there was no unlimited option.

As we all know, the "forever"/unlimited/"infinity" rental really isn't any of those things, as your purchases will only last as long as Renta! itself does. But at least Renta! is being honest about the fact that at the end of the day, you're still paying to rent these digital books, not own them... Which is the same thing that you're really doing when you use any other digital comic service, from Comixology to Marvel Comics to Viz Manga to Square Enix. Renta! is just more up-front about what you're really paying for than its competitors are.

Renta!'s browser-based reading interface uses a flash viewer, but there are apps available for iOS and Android devices. I read Usagi Drop on both my laptop and my iPad, and it looked great. I also had no problem getting the iPad app to recognize my login information and download my recent purchases, which is more than I can say for Reading-Room.jp's mess of an app.

You do NOT need a Japanese address, bank account, or credit card to use Renta!. You can easily set up an account with just a username and email address - no need to even tell them your mailing address or other personal information. You have the option of paying for everything through Paypal. I chose to utilize Paypal, so I ended up not having to give any personal information over to the Renta! website. Renta! also allows you to pay for purchases with a credit card, although I didn't test out that feature so I don't know whether it's easy to use or not.

I'd definitely recommend Renta! to anybody interested in reading popular vintage comics, particularly the works of Osamu Tezuka or any of the classic shoujo manga greats. Renta! seems for the moment to be filling a void that its competitors have left kind of gaping in the current digital manga market, as Reading-Room.jp only stocks current stuff and JComi just can't seem to attract the big-name publishers or the most popular manga series of the past. Renta! is also incredibly easy to use, both in terms of browsing and making purchases, which absolutely warms the cockles of my persnickety-manga-consumer's heart.

But it is expensive. Like... really expensive, especially if you're determined to read a longer manga series.

1. Comment with "the odds are ever in your favor."
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Post the names of five fictional characters and your thoughts on each.

redbrunja gave me M.

( Thoughts behind the cut. )

Moyashimon* and Durarara! are licensed. *ETA: Never mind, it was apparently only the upcoming live action Moyashimon broadcast that got licensed. The anime is still MIA. Oh well. Moving on...

Utena has finally gotten re-licensed.

The Mahabharata: A Child's View is getting reprinted after being out of print for fourteen years.

Sita's Ramayana, the first ever graphic novel to use Patua art, is going to be released soon.

See icon.

ETA: Oh yeah AND all the remaining Shakugan no Shana anime just got licensed, including the OAVs and the movie. FUCK YEAH.

Saying that this epilogue is "better" than last week's ending is like saying that Star Wars Episode II is "better" than Episode I. Trufax, yes, but an utterly meaningless comparison as well. Shit is still shit, even though it may seem preferable when compared to runny storytelling diarrhea. At the end of the day, it's still shit.

Right, so let's recap.

( Baby, you look hawt in that silly, silly hat. )

So like, I just heard that CLAMP got nominated for a Lulu award. I think they definitely deserve a spot in Lulu's Hall of Fame, if not for Cardcaptor Sakura alone, then at least for their phenomenal commercial success. However, I reeeaaaaally wish that the timing were different, as it's hard for me to root for CLAMP getting such an award at a time when they're basically at a creative nadir. It's kind of like Martin Scorsese getting his Best Director win for The Aviator. That movie didn't deserve the recognition, but Scorsese certainly did. The same could be said for CLAMP and the Lulus right now. Tsubasa is a pile of shit, xxxHolic is far from their best work, and Kobato is just silly fanpandering layered on top of silly fanpandering. At least Kobato is fun to read, though. Not like Tsubasa, which in its final hundred chapters wasn't fun to read at all. It was downright painful to read, actually. The final hundred chapters of Tsubasa are practically a literary colonoscopy.

Oh well. Here's hoping that CLAMP's next work will be better.

Edited to add: Once again, the master list of plot holes and critiques is here. Like, only one minor plot hole was actually resolved in this epilogue. Wow. That's pretty bad. I mean, wow.

Edited again: This is the most reasonable and intelligent defense of the series that I've seen yet. And of course, I waded in and disagreed. (*slaps self on wrist*)

Edit the third: Best. Summary. Ever. Seriously.

Two more chapters down. Let's go.

( Kurogane FTW. )

Next up: Chapter 231! Wait for it, guys. You're going to need to have some pretty strong liquor on hand to get through this next one. Or at least, I know that I will.

Because I think that she is awesome. And if anybody deserves her own scanspam day, it's her.





Click for high-res!

( Behind the cut: Flapper girls, geisha, little girl witches, working women, and a dress that I swear is made entirely out of cabbage. )

Tomorrow: Shoujo and Disney Day! Yes, I'm grouping them together. Because I say so!