as you do

I've recently been reading Richard Hammond's new... I was going to say autobiography then, but it isn't really. It's more like a diary/journal thing, although there are some auto-biography elements.

The first part covers the race to the North Pole Top Gear did, where Hammond was racing Huskies and James & Jeremy went in a four-by-four. Later on - although I haven't got there yet - it seems to cover the Desert race they did, as well as Hammond's meeting with Evel Knievel in a documentary.

I remember those episodes and the documentary well and it's been interesting to read Richard's take on it and the behind-the-scenes stuff. I'd certainly recommend it, but probably only if you're a Top Gear watcher or interested in Hammond. It's not quite got the broader appeal of his autobiography, since it's a bit more focused on things you need to have watched Top Gear to get properly. But it's still an entertaining read.

And speaking of reading, although I've not been watching any anime (naughty Mark!) I have been plugging away with the old manga. So much so, in fact, that my pile of unread manga has almost halved. Indeed, where it actually consisted of two separate stacks, it's now down to 1 stack.

Okay - that's not quite true. Because I deliberately read all my manga twice, actually it's changed from 2 stacks of totally unread to 1 stack of read-once and 1 stack of unread. But that's a sufficiently good achievement for me to be happy.

Anyway, the point is I thought I'd do one of those summary-type list of my thoughts on some of the newer stuff I've tackled:

The Welcome to the NHK manga has been rather disappointing, if I'm honest. The main problem I'm having is that it doesn't seem to be very consistent, both in terms of plotting and tone.

I'm left puzzled as to quite what it's trying to say or to achieve. At some points it comes across as an all-out comedy, at others it seems to be trying to make more serious points about the hikikomori (shut-ins, basically, though this shut-in spends a remarkably large amount of time outside his apartment, which kinda exemplifies my issue with it). At others it seems be going for a more straight drama style.

It almost comes across as vaguely schizophrenic - switching from one idea to another as it suits the whims of the writer. Now this is either a clever representation of the psyche of the main character, or just plain bad writing. And unfortunately I've been erring towards the latter.

Samurai Harem: Asu No Yoichi is a series I picked up because I rather liked what I saw of the anime version. Whilst I wouldn't say I didn't like the manga, the anime is better. That's a raft of double negatives, isn't it?

Basically, what I mean is that the manga seems okay, where the anime seemed good. There's a lot of commonality between the two - all the same characters are featured and the set-up is the same - but the anime is slightly better written. Weirdly, this is because the anime is more happy to use already familiar harem-type devices.

Normally I'd have been rolling my eyes at this rolling out of clichés, but the thing with Harem was that the main character was actually quite likeable and not the usual loser/milquetoast they often feature. In the manga this is also true, but the writer has tried to be innovative about lost of other stuff too, and it doesn't quite work.

In other words, for the anime, they seem to have picked the best aspects and used those. Plus the tweaks to the chara designs make them a bit better in the anime, if I'm honest.

Two series I think I've mentioned before but I've now read a bit more of are Doujin Works and Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei.

Doujin Work I was a bit on-the-fence over, due mainly to the format, I think. Well I've decided I pretty much like it now. Weirdly, it actually reminds me of Garfield.

Not in the sense of sharing any plot elements, obviously, but Garfield was formatted in a rigid panel format that was designed mainly for short, gag-based strips. However, occasionally it would veer into longer stories across more strips.

Doujin works is very much like that and it suffers the same problem. Long-form comics almost demand the use of varying panel sizes. Kept in fixed formats they feel oddly contained; broken up somehow.

But the point is, when you get past that, it works as a series. It also helps that I'm now used to the weirdness of it all.

However, another series I was a bit on-the-fence about has proven to be less of goer. Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei is really leaving me cold.

And I just can't understand why - when I watched the anime I really loved it, but the manga. I dunno, I just can't explain it.

My only theory is that the manga is confusing me. A lot of the characters look very similar and the panels are riddled with obscure, Japan-centric visual jokes that I don't get.

But in the anime, these jokes are either ignorable, or they are better explained by being animated. For the characters of course, you have colour to help distinguish them and different sounding voice actors.

It's a pretty flimsy theory, but it's all I can think of.