Sleep Is For the Weak

Who here is following Let Dai off netcomics.com? And read Chapter 4 of Volume 14? That comic is so damn dark it’s honestly started to scare the crap out of me. It’s like the murder in Michael Clayton - a million times creepier because you can actually imagine it happening. I love Let Dai, don’t get me wrong, but it is SERIOUSLY upsetting. How many shoujo do you read where the male lead ties his love interest to the train tracks and then leaves after an argument? IN VOLUME TWO?!

Don’t let Dai. Never let Dai. That kid is craaaaaaazy.

I updated the Staff page, since the old one was six years old. It also includes Orange Skirt now, since she writes stuff for us these days and it’s only fair I give her the same poor treatment as the rest of the staff.

But I also bring content: a Mini Review of Candy Boy. It’s media for boys that I have a positive review for.

I’m off to the States for a while, so next update will be a week from Thursday. Um…yeah, I’m hungry now bye.

NotHayama did a review of Gun Blaze West! Unfortunately, the manga sucks. But more shounen reviews are coming! But not today.

We’ll be back Tuesday! But not really.

Kidding. Tuesday. Easy.

As you probably noticed, we’re having a really rough week. Our next update will be Thursday. In the meantime, go to Free Comic Book Day this Saturday! NotHayama’s working a kid’s library branch of it, so I expect children will be swarming her for Owlie and possibly dragging her into a pile for some severe beatings.

Here are some geek updates:

1.) The Absolute Boyfriend drama that started a few weeks ago is surprisingly awesome. Like the manga, the robot is still the best character, but the changes from the manga are, for the most part, for the better. I actually don’t hate the lead female, either (even though she’s a twittery pushover like most office ladies in J-Dramas). Seriously give it a try, if only for the scene where the naked robot man who just cleaned her house comes to greet her when she returns home, and she screams rape and throws shit at his smiling face.

2.) This week/next week (depending on how your comic store gets its shipments) sees the release of new volumes of ALL THREE of the best (and most feminist) shoujo series out right now: High School Debut, Love*Com, and Skip Beat. I know for a fact that High School Debut #3 and Skip Beat #12 are especially hot for the series. Love*Com I haven’t read ahead in, BUT I CAN ONLY IMAGINE.

3.) Grown-up BL update: for Fumi Yoshinaga fans, the brand-spanking-new Gerard and Jacques Drama CD is pure win. They even toned down the sex a little, if you thought that distracted from the story. (The two disturbing sex scenes are possibly more terrifying in audio form, though.) Good music, good acting, good adaptation…I listened to it, like, three times in the first 24 hours I had it. PURE WIN. I’ve always considered Gerard and Jacques to be the Mona Lisa of 18+ BL, as strange a statement as that may be. It even has debates regarding how much political commentary you should include in lesbian erotica. Really, that kind of attitude is why Fumi Yoshinaga is a better mangaka than you and I could ever hope to be.

See you soon.

Oh my God. Look at this: http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/04/22/another-look-at-the-manga-style-wolverine-x-men/#more-7927

No no! Even better, look at this:

I didn’t ask Anzu or Del Ray or even Newsarama if I could post that, so I may have to take it down later. But look at it! And then go read the article, and the absolutely precious comments.

Can’t all geeks just get along? I have X-Factor on my shelf next to Fruits Basket, and the Master and Commander movie next to my Loveless DVDs. I know a kid who used to keep a Magic: The Gathering pin on the inside of his rugby letterman’s jacket, and a girl who went to a rock concert but only bonded with the band once they saw her DS. We’ve cross-breeded. It’s over. Embrace the new era of the geek mutt.

I watched an anime that was supposedly based off a non-shoujo manga, but the anime staff decided to make that show full of unnecessary homoeroticism. So this week’s update isn’t quite oozing with shounen/seinen manliness like I’d hoped. *sigh* Anyway, here you go: a mini review of Monochrome Factor.

More testosterone next week. I’m kinda hoping to get NotHayama to do a One Piece update or something.

Sorry I’m a bit late - I got carried away with 90s flashbacks while writing an Itazura na Kiss mini review. And since it involves complaining about the “the crap the kids are watching these days,” I decided to also do a mini review of some recent shoujo dreck: S.A., aka Special A.

Man, we need to review something for the boys next time. For those of you still reading, I hope you haven’t been insulted by the disproportionate amount of GIRLY at this place. I read boy comics, I swear. (OOOOOOOOOOOOONE PIEEEEEEEEEEECE LOOOOOOOOOOOVE.)

It seems that few people were interested in one of my favorite Boy’s Love titles, Slave for Sale. Maybe that’s because the link to the informational site was broken. I’ve since fixed it. Better now?

But in all seriousness, I decided to update with one of the actual best Boy’s Love titles you’ll read this year: The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese. It’s a full review, because I was supposed to be writing a final paper this week and that’s just how procrastination works.

See you in a week, with something decidedly more chaste.

So I guess Scott Pilgrim may actually become a movie. With, like, Michael Cera. I think we should try to get in the film as extras, since it’ll be filmed down the street and NotHayama’s boss is one of the characters in the comic. I wanna be one of the girls in the library who screams, “Oh my God, you can’t practice ninjitsu in here!”

Anyway, I know we don’t review many yaoi/BL titles here, but I read one the other day that I liked a lot when I REALLY didn’t expect to. REALLY DIDN’T EXPECT TO. So here you go: a mini review of Slave for Sale.

We’ll be back next Tuesday. Behave yourselves until then.

…I’ve completely lost the ability to write positive reviews. I’d like to say that this update is two days late because work or some other unspecified problem got in the way, but no. I’m late because I couldn’t write a review that managed to be both expressive and coherent without making me sound like a crazy person. I’m not sure I’ve succeeded, even now.

Anyway, stretching the definition of the word “mini” further than it’s ever been stretched before, here’s my mini review of High School Debut.

Expect another update on Tuesday. I think Lianne is doing that one, so hopefully the crazy will be gone by then.