Admin note: Still v. behind on everything. Am reading things, but haven't had a lot of energy to follow closely or comment or reply to people, apologies.

Alex's sister Sarah works at the Nightschool, a school for witches, vampires, and assorted other supernatural beings that exists in the same place as a normal public school. When something starts acting up at the school, Alex ends up enrolling to try and get to the bottom of things.

This is an extremely bad summary of the series. Alex is a witch, as far as I can tell, with an inky familiar (called an astral) who can shapeshift. And for some reason, she's involved in some rather dire prophecies. There are also Hunters in this world who I think target supernatural creatures even though some of them may also have powers. And then, of course, there are the kids in the Nightschool, all of whom Alex is slowly meeting. I still have very little idea who is who and how the world works; Chmakova introduces an extremely large cast in volume 1, and most of the people are on different sides.

Still, I've been really enjoying the two volumes. Chmakova's chibis are, as always, absolutely adorable, and the series often makes me laugh. The very meta sequence in volume 2 was especially awesome. And although Alex is white (I think), Chmakova has a very diverse world without making anyone a token so far. I do wish more of the characters of color had depth to them, but since even Alex is a little lacking in that aspect due to the large cast, I think it'll come with time. I already have some favorites from the snippets of hobbies and personalities Chmakova's shown us.

While the concept of the Nightschool isn't exceptional in and of itself, Chmakova's putting some new twists in there. Nothing is absolutely jaw-dropping so far, but the feel I get is that she's taking a while to set up the very complicated world. And given that I like many of the characters, the art, and the worldbuilding, I'm definitely hanging around for more.

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Via rilina: MORE YUKI KAORI EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

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In this, the sports festival continues and Yoh goes to prep school.

( Spoilers still love Haruna )

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Shirayuki (Japanese for "Snow White") is an ordinary girl, except for her head of bright red hair. Because of this, she attracts the attention of the prince of her country. In order to escape becoming his concubine, she runs off and meets Zen, the second prince of another country.

So far, I am not actually sure what the plot of this is. The first volume is largely about Shirayuki getting used to her new place in Zen's palace, while the second is more about her becoming a royal pharmacist. Then again, I'm not sure it'll actually matter that much as to what the plot is; the joys of this manga are the cute and sweet art and the extremely cute and sweet interactions between Shirayuki and Zen.

Zen is one of those rare shoujo heroes, someone who is genuinely nice. He rescues Shirayuki a few too many times for my taste, but he's never meanly possessive of her, he gives her room, and he trusts her to do what she needs to do. And he does sweet things like make sure she gets enough sleep without being a jerk about it!

Shirayuki may be a more standard sweet shoujo heroine, but I don't particularly care right now because she and Zen are so adorable!

Overall, this is immensely cute and sweet in the best of ways, with two very likable leads, nice art, and situations that so far don't depend on the leads acting irrationally. I really hope this gets licensed, because good sweet shoujo is actually fairly difficult to find.

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Ichihashi Nanao has just transferred into super preppy Mehabia Academy, where one of the strange traditions is having a student judiciary club pass judgment on cases brought before them. She ends up being roped into the club by the charismatic Hanegi Reika, who plays the judge.

The series is largely very mystery of the week, looking into cases like a student accusing a teacher of sexual harassment to a case of possible plagiarism. As with all mysteries, nothing is as straightforward as it seems, although the sexual harassment case was actually extremely typical and not surprising at all considering the percentage of sexual harassment cases in fiction that actually have someone culpable, as opposed to IRL.

There are bits and pieces of character development scattered throughout the cases, from Reika's Angsty Background to Nanao growing into herself as a member of the club, but overall, I wanted more of the club members and less of the mysteries. I also felt that the series often fell prey to the Ordinary Girl Amongst Gorgeous Guys trope (see: Fushigi Yuugi, Ouran, etc.), although thankfully, the gorgeousness of some of the other guys in the club isn't emphasized as much as Reika's, as Reika is the capricious judge with a tragic background who is so beautiful he's probably more gorgeous than most of the girls. There is, of course, cross-dressing and a maid cafe involved.

Overall, this is not bad, and the art is clearly morphing between Mizushiro's older style and her newer one in After School Nightmare; you can see faces and chins getting less round, hair getting slightly less poofy. But it's not overwhelmingly awesome, and I wish it had more of an arc.

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Asami Shio has it all: looks, money, talent. Midorikawa Moe doesn't. Neither of the two realize that they will be rivals in the quest to become Japan's greatest opera singer.

I keep wanting to read Ichijo Yukari's work because she's a fairly well-known mangaka, but I bounced off this hard. The volume I read reads like more old-fashioned shoujo with lots of glamour, tragedy, and overall drama. Unfortunately, with the glamour comes a ton of class issues. Shio's father ends up losing all their money, so we get her poor-little-rich-girl story, which I am actually guiltily fond of.

However, what's extremely annoying is the portrayal of Moe. She's introduced as a sweet girl, which fits right into the poor-but-hard-working-and-cheerful stereotype, but once she realizes she doesn't have half the advantages Shio does, she chooses to do whatever it takes to get to her goal. I feel this could have read as class commentary on how difficult it is to combat generations of privilege (Shio's mother was also a famous opera singer), but instead, the series paints Shio as cold and impractical but essentially trying her best in a cruel world, while Moe schemes, deliberately sabotages people, and may be driven to murderous impulses. Also, to hit all the stereotypes, Shio is drawn with light hair (blond on the cover), while Moe has dark hair.

Pass!

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It is a new Yuki Kaori series! With gender bending!! And killer dolls!!! Called Guignols!!!!

ILU YUKI KAORI ILU.

The Galatea virus somehow turns people into flesh-eating dolls who roam around trying to catch prey; people mostly live in walled cities to avoid them. A mysterious court rules the land. It's not quite sure what they do yet, but given that it is an authoritative figure in a Yuki Kaori series, i am certain they are corrupt and morally bankrupt.

Lucille, Kohaku, and Gwindel compose a (very tiny) orchestra whose music somehow destroys the Guignol dolls.

Right now, it looks like the series is fairly episodic, a la early Cain Saga/Godchild, but we're already getting very brief glimpses into Lucille's Sekrit Angsty Backstory.

( Spoilers as only Yuki Kaori can do )

Also, there is a pet hedgehog that lives in a hat. And offering your flesh to be eaten as an expression of true love.

And did I mention the FLESH-EATING DOLLS who can ONLY BE DEFEATED BY MUSIC?

So far, no zombie doll fetus armadas, but I am confident they (or something of that ilk) will be in future volumes! I'm also hoping that this is a nice long series with room for many, many cracktastic plot twists, because while Fairy Cube was fun, it was too short for me to get very attached to the characters. Also, the ending was largely incomprehensible, but that seems par for the course. I feel the solution to that is to just have more awesome middle so no one cares if they can't figure out the ending.

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This continues to be an excellent series touching on many of the same themes as Fruits Basket, albeit without making me think that Takaya is simply repeating herself. Some of it is because the metaphor of being an alien to the planet is an actual metaphor, as opposed to the metaphor-turned-fantasy of the curse in Fruits Basket. But much of it is that even while Takaya has similar character types, she's a good enough writer to distinguish them as individual characters.

( Spoilers have entirely earned angst )

Part of me is almost afraid to keep reading this because of how emotionally invested I was in Fruits Basket—it broke my heart a little when it ended, but only because it was over, not because of any dissatisfaction with the ending. But most of me just wants more about the characters, because I know Takaya will do good by them.

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Habara Takami and Sasaki Akira are childhood friends, and Takami has always thought of Akira as her little sister because he's so feminine and delicate while she's not. Akira, however, has decidedly non-sibling-like feelings for Takami that mostly go unnoticed by her.

I picked up this series largely because I was interested in the older girl/younger guy set up (she's two years older) and the possible gender play, but was mostly disappointed in that respect. Although the series does have some romance in it, most of it is about Akira's piano playing. Takami plays piano as well, but he's the genius while she is mostly the muse that makes him play with emotion, as opposed to mechanically.

Although there are a few good moments throughout the series re: Takami taking the lead in certain aspects, the series largely falls prey to the standard shoujo problems of making the heroine the warm shoulder for the hero to lean on, prioritizing the hero's angst over the heroine, and making the hero's story and development the main narrative.

Added to that, there are a few moments of "let us have Takami wandering about in a possibly tempting fashion to make Akira's control break and do the whole 'you are a girl and you must remember guys cannot control themselves' thing to further the romantic plot." I am not picking on this series in particular, as it is in a ton of shoujo and romance novels, but it annoys me because it feeds into the rape myth that men cannot control themselves when aroused, that women are responsible for controlling that, and that this is a good method to demonstrate romantic regard.

Some of me was disappointed in less romance, especially because I think the mangaka could have put in more gender role play there. Some of me might not have been so annoyed by the focus on piano had it not all been on Akira's piano playing and Takami as inspiration, along with the frequent assertion that Takami was just not as good.

Overall, the focus on the music is nice, but the series has too many episodic bits and in the end, it doesn't distinguish itself from many other shoujo series for me.

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More shoujo fluff! I read volume 1 of this nearly a year ago, so I don't remember much, save that Nakajo had awesome sketches of figure skaters in the chapter breaks.

I'm also a little confused as to the status of the series. I thought it was a 2-volume series, and I'm fairly sure the Taiwan version has a "fin" character on volume 2, but Wikipedia hints otherwise.

So, Shun and Maya are working to save their rink! There is, of course, a nefarious plot against them, plus obstacles such as Maya's lack of money for a new skating outfit to surmount. Overall, nothing surprising happens, but I was still charmed by Maya's youth (she's 13, younger than most shoujo heroines I read) and Nakajo's knowledge of the sport. There isn't a ton of figure skating in here, but I enjoyed what I saw.

I think I mentioned it in my write up of volume 1, but I very much appreciate that the scope of this is so small, that it's not Maya turning into a figure skating prodigy and going to the Olympics or something. My impression is that Nakajo's figure skating fannishness works for her in that respect; she knows what's more within the realm of possibility. Although I still laughed when we find out Maya's Sekrit Power, because it wouldn't be a sports series without one!

I also found the lack of romance refreshing.

Cute but probably not interesting to people who don't care about figure skating, although it's possibly suitable for a much younger audience than some of the shoujo I read.

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Does anyone know the origins of "プリン" (flan)? I know パン is from Portuguese, but I remember being confused by プリン when I was there.

Now that Najika's in the prestigious Seika Academy to find her Flan Prince (as one does), she must battle all the people who think she has no place in the special class! Sadly, the battles are not literal, although there are a few cook-offs involved.

And then there is a plot twist at the end of volume 5/beginning of volume 6 that was extremely unexpected. It briefly made me think this would not be quite as typical of a shoujo cooking series as it seemed, but things appear to have gone back to normal by volume 7. Maybe.

( Spoilers are actually surprising )

I'm not reading for deep characterization or surprising plot. The assorted food battles and espousing of food philosophy—"Best ingredients! Fancy plating! Exquisite taste!" vs. "COOK FROM THE HEART!"—are what make the series for me, and as the series continues to talk about food a lot, I will continue to enjoy.

Also, I am now so hungry for omurice and Japanese curry! And Japanese-style Italian pasta with an egg on top!

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The main story arc of the series finished in volume 7; these two volumes are collected short stories. Some feature characters from the main arc, and some are only related in the most tangential of ways. As Mori notes in the omake, she just wanted to draw them! Handwave the connection!

The stories here are about some of the maids Emma worked with, the Meredith family, Eleanor, Kelly Stowner, Hakim and William, and a slice-of-life story following the trail of a newspaper and another bittersweet romance about opera singers.

My favorites are the story about Mr. and Mrs. Meredith, the one about Kelly Stowner and the Crystal Palace, and the one about Eleanor. I am probably biased about the one on Eleanor, since I liked her a lot and was simply glad to see more of her.

I find some of the ones on the maids problematic; Mori does beautiful detail about people's daily lives, but the class issues (complete lack thereof) frustrate me. And oh, Hakim. I love the character, and yet, there is the same complete lack of talk about empire that is also even more wrong because it has Indian royalty befriending British bourgeoisie! Mori does say she wanted to talk more about empire in her notes, but I am kind of doubtful as to how critical she would be about it.

On a non-political note, I was also not initially charmed by the one about Erich Meredith and his pet squirrel—I am biased! Rats, infinitely better!—Mori completely won me over with her careful depictions of squirrel mannerisms. The squirrel scratches himself with his hind leg! He washes his face! It is SO CUTE.

Not that I am at all biased about cute rodents...

In terms of craft, I loved the story about Mr. and Mrs. Meredith the most. I'm impressed that almost all of it takes place between the two of them in bed (with the occasional flashback to other scenes), and yet, it was not boring. I loved the detailed observations about hands and hair, the intimate looks at the tiny gestures within their marriage, and the way Mori so perfectly captures those tiny gestures and small moments. My favorite part is probably the sequence that begins with Mrs. Meredith examining Mr. Meredith's fingers. It continues with hand clasps and both of their memories of hands on the violin, hands brushing back hair, hands offered out for help. And almost all of it is completely wordless and reminds me of what very good sequential art is capable of. It's just... very impressive.

Overall, this is a good display of Mori's strengths—attention to detail and small moments—although I don't know how much it will resonate with those who haven't read the rest of the series. I think some of the stories are good standalones (the one about the Merediths, the Stowners visiting the Crystal Palace), while others need more context (the one about Eleanor).

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And somewhere down the line, the art stopped being horribly crowded and hard to read and became really gorgeous.

This series always makes me a little wary, even though I love it, largely because of the abundance of male characters and male angst. I very much love the series' acknowledgment of the female id in the entire host club set up, but I just wish there were more women.

( Spoilers grow into themselves )

In conclusion: more Haruhi! (And I wouldn't mind more Kyoya or Mori either.)

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This continues to be a fun albeit typical high school shoujo series, although the past few volumes have a few too many moments that make the characters act stupidly for the sake of the plot for me.

( Spoilers worry about entrance exams )

In conclusion: fluffy and cute (I will never get tired of Risa and Otani geeking out about video games and Umibouzu together) but a little like spun sugar. I think I would have enjoyed it much more had I not read it after the emotional depth of Fruits Basket.

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(The "mostly" is for vol. 22, which is a first read.)

Wow, it's been a long time since I've read Fruits Basket. I started in 2006 and got through the first chapter of vol. 22 before deciding that reading multiple chapters in Japanese meant poor reading comprehension on my part, and then tried to carefully reread in 2007. Now that the last volume is out, I am finally getting the chance to finish the series!

I was going to do detailed posts for my rereads, but when I attempted writing up my scribbled notes, I didn't actually have a post, just... random scribbled notes.

( Spoilers should be themselves )

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Wow, the plot has really started to speed up! And Arakawa's beginning to draw back on previous one-off characters or happenings and tying everything together. I'm guessing the manga is definitely in the final stretch now. Again, her characters don't break my heart the same way they do in the anime, but I still love them, and wow, the plot is great.

( Spoilers are ordered not to die )

In conclusion: plot!

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I had caught up on this back in 2007, but lately rilina's been saying there is much awesomeness going on, so I went back and reread the entire series. I had watched the anime back in 2006; a year after that provided some distance when I read the manga, but not enough. I remember being almost hurt by some of the changes in the manga, even though the manga is the original.

Fast forward 2 years, and it's been so long since I've seen the anime that I'm finally able to read the manga as its own entity.

So far, my impressions from 2007 largely hold: the manga doesn't make me as worried for all the characters that the anime does, the manga has much better women, and the manga has much, much better worldbuilding. I love the anime, but really, it's not that hard to beat the anime for worldbuilding that makes sense. The alchemy in the manga series feels more forgiving, and I do actually think Al will end up with his body back (I'm hoping, on the other hand, that Ed stays with his automail).

However, even though I don't feel the same sense of danger for the characters, the larger-scale plot is much more threatening than that of the anime. And that's where I think Arakawa excels. She actually looks at issues of war and genocide and weapons of mass destruction, and although her treatment isn't always as radical as I want it to be, it's still refreshing to see manga in which non-Japanese POC exist and which talk about imperialism and colonialism.

( Giant spoilers for both the manga and anime )

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This continues to be a lovely revisit of the anime for me (even though the manga came first), although I still miss the anime's gorgeous watercolors and the music. That said, I'm really loving Umino's very sketchy art style. Sometimes her head-on faces don't work for me; her mouths occasionally feel too wide. But she does these absolutely gorgeous profiles, especially when it's one character looking at another character who is engrossed in something else. There's a lovely wistfulness to the way she captures the second person's expression and the first person's longing which I find particularly suited to the many instances of unrequited love in the series.

( Spoilers )

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( Spoilers are spoilery like whoa )

Does anyone know how many more volumes this will be?

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Note: I'm reading these in the original Japanese, so I may be missing nuances and giant plot points.

( Spoilers are still worried )

No further spoilers please!

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