No more energy today I'm afraid. In fact, quite the opposite - I'm proper bloody knackered. Dunno why, I had a pretty good night's sleep. I think I'm just generally worn out.
Let's see, what can I talk about?
I guess I've read a bit more manga.
I finished up to volume 10 of Claymore. Really enjoyed that - volumes 11 on are pending from amazon.
I've also read the first volume of Doujin Work. It's a bit of "hmm" one. I guess part of it is that it isn't quite what I was expecting. The Doujin Work anime was one of the first I discovered after I switched to blanket coverage of fansubs.
Before that I just used to check out stuff I thought I'd be interested in, but discovered I was missing a few hidden gems, so I adopted blanket coverage. Anyway, Doujin work was one of the first that I really had no inkling I would like, but then really did. It was a "shorts" type of anime with eps about 10 minutes long and followed a girl (and her oddball friends) as she tries to become a Doujin artist.
The manga is sort of the same. It's one of those 4-panel gag mangas, which means story flow becomes a bit difficult. Also, it seems to head off in some really diverse tangents. In a way it's actually more like Genshiken and explores otaku culture, where the anime is more squarely about girl makes doujins.
Which isn't to say I don't like the manga, just it wasn't what I expected.
Weirdly, I've been kinda having the same experience with the other two manga I've been reading.
First off is Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei. Another one I'd probably not have known about if not for the blanket coverage and another I really enjoyed. And also another where the manga isn't quite what I expected.
Mainly, unfortunately, because the manga isn't as good as the anime. It's a bit weird in a way - they're very similar, it's just... I dunno, it's difficult to explain. The anime version just works better - the gags are clearer, better developed somehow. It's almost like the anime gags work because of the delivery and you loose that in the manga - you don't know where to pause. Plus the panels are often jam packed with extraneous 'stuff' so you're busy reading/looking at them and you forget what the joke was supposed to be.
It's also very rooted in Japanese culture. Now the anime was too, obviously, but I dunno, it didn't matter so much in the anime for some reason.
I'm really struggling to say why, but essentially I much preferred the anime version, even though they're actually very similar. Odd.
It's a similar story for Yozakura Quartet. I'd never have checked it out if not for the blanket coverage, liked it a lot and am not so keen on the manga. However, here I know why much more clearly.
The anime is quite different to the manga. I mean, the core story is still the same and the characters and their personalities are still the same. What's different, to be frank, is the quality of the storytelling.
The manga is all over the place - it's like the artist really doesn't know what he's doing, veering from one thing to another with only the vaguest hint of an overall plan. Something I read suggests it focuses better in the later volumes, but the introduction of focus to the anime is what really makes it better.
A good example of this is in a story to do with a character, Hime, adopting a stray dog. In the manga it's only one chapter and is kinda half-hearted. It's quite a harsh story and it's like the author stepped back a bit from making it harsh. In the anime the same story is much more sizeably told (not sure, but I think it's two episodes) and also it doesn't shy away from the harshness - it nearly made me cry.
Still, the artwork's nice.
And I managed to do something half resembling a blog entry!
Friday, 24 April 2009
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Strugglering
I've been struggling a bit with the old blog entries this week.
It's been a bit of a task to find any time to sit and do them for one thing - we're monumentally busy at work. Plus I've had some hectic weekends just recently and it's sucked the energy out of me a bit. It's like I've gotten on top of the telly stuff so I should really either have been watching anime DVDs or scanning the new anime mags, but I just can't be arsed.
I've only had the energy to read manga. And I can't be arsed to do mini-reviews of them either.
Maybe I'll have more energy tomorrow.
It's been a bit of a task to find any time to sit and do them for one thing - we're monumentally busy at work. Plus I've had some hectic weekends just recently and it's sucked the energy out of me a bit. It's like I've gotten on top of the telly stuff so I should really either have been watching anime DVDs or scanning the new anime mags, but I just can't be arsed.
I've only had the energy to read manga. And I can't be arsed to do mini-reviews of them either.
Maybe I'll have more energy tomorrow.
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
run, fat boy, run
This weekends DVD rentalage was Run, Fat Boy, Run.
It stars Simon Pegg, who was of course the creator of Spaced, the greatest sitcom ever.
He's pretty good in the film. The character he plays is a bit of an odd one, though. At the beginning he leaves his bride-to-be at the altar while she's pregnant.
Now here we have the films first and biggest real problem. Jilting your pregnant wife at the altar makes a humongous shit. A ginormous steaming turd of a man. Reasons are given and on some level they're understandable reasons, but they're not good reasons - that's the problem.
The reason boils down, essentially, to cowardice. Pegg's character needs to grow a pair - and that's the essence of the movie. He redeems himself by becoming a man, essentially. Except, as I say, the thing he did is so utterly appalling this isn't really satisfying.
I think if he'd been in a much worse position, or perhaps if people had acknowledged how big a shit he was a bit more then it would have compensated to some degree.
Anyway, when we pick up with him again he's become an over-weight security guard and his ex-fiancée is in a new relationship with a smarmy American twat. This spurs Pegg's character to enter a marathon - American twat being a marathon runner.
To some extent some of these things start to fall apart when examined to closely - how did ex-fiancée and American twat meet, for example? And how come their relationship is so advanced, yet Pegg hasn't met him before?
Especially since he keeps turning up to see his son. This story element is a mixed blessing - Pegg & son's relationship is screen gold, but it opens up more questions about why and how she let him see her. If Pegg is such a ginormous cowardly shit of a man, how did he have the stones to approach her?
Pegg and ex-fiancée's relationship also seems strangely cordial, given what a gigantic shit he was to her. And what about her family? Or his family?
Anyway, these things could be forgiveable - it's a romantic comedy, so the key elements are romance, which is pretty much there, and comedy, which is kinda there, some of the time.
I mean, there are a lot of good gags in the film, don't get me wrong, it's just they're unevenly paced. You can go twenty minutes without a single chuckle and then there's ten minutes of good belly laughs. And I don't think this is just me not getting the gags - there just aren't any.
Plus some of the gags are pretty much incidental - random funny stuff, that is unrelated to plot or anything else. If they were cut you wouldn't notice them going.
Still, it's an enjoyable enough watch, if you don't dwell too much on the plot holes.
No extras, though.
It stars Simon Pegg, who was of course the creator of Spaced, the greatest sitcom ever.
He's pretty good in the film. The character he plays is a bit of an odd one, though. At the beginning he leaves his bride-to-be at the altar while she's pregnant.
Now here we have the films first and biggest real problem. Jilting your pregnant wife at the altar makes a humongous shit. A ginormous steaming turd of a man. Reasons are given and on some level they're understandable reasons, but they're not good reasons - that's the problem.
The reason boils down, essentially, to cowardice. Pegg's character needs to grow a pair - and that's the essence of the movie. He redeems himself by becoming a man, essentially. Except, as I say, the thing he did is so utterly appalling this isn't really satisfying.
I think if he'd been in a much worse position, or perhaps if people had acknowledged how big a shit he was a bit more then it would have compensated to some degree.
Anyway, when we pick up with him again he's become an over-weight security guard and his ex-fiancée is in a new relationship with a smarmy American twat. This spurs Pegg's character to enter a marathon - American twat being a marathon runner.
To some extent some of these things start to fall apart when examined to closely - how did ex-fiancée and American twat meet, for example? And how come their relationship is so advanced, yet Pegg hasn't met him before?
Especially since he keeps turning up to see his son. This story element is a mixed blessing - Pegg & son's relationship is screen gold, but it opens up more questions about why and how she let him see her. If Pegg is such a ginormous cowardly shit of a man, how did he have the stones to approach her?
Pegg and ex-fiancée's relationship also seems strangely cordial, given what a gigantic shit he was to her. And what about her family? Or his family?
Anyway, these things could be forgiveable - it's a romantic comedy, so the key elements are romance, which is pretty much there, and comedy, which is kinda there, some of the time.
I mean, there are a lot of good gags in the film, don't get me wrong, it's just they're unevenly paced. You can go twenty minutes without a single chuckle and then there's ten minutes of good belly laughs. And I don't think this is just me not getting the gags - there just aren't any.
Plus some of the gags are pretty much incidental - random funny stuff, that is unrelated to plot or anything else. If they were cut you wouldn't notice them going.
Still, it's an enjoyable enough watch, if you don't dwell too much on the plot holes.
No extras, though.
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
turned out nice again
Well the weather's taken something of a turn for the nice just recently.
There's been the occasional day of rain of course - it is April after all - but for the last couple of days it's been veritably summer-ish.
This is good news for me for a change. I'm not the biggest fan of summer and hot weather, being of the morbidly obese body-type, but the last few years seem to have brought a string of miserable summers followed by perishing winters. A bit of sun (even if it just reminds me of why I'm not keen on it!) will not go amiss, I think.
One interesting surprise on this front as well. The shining of the sun usually seems to bring out the ants that have been infesting my house. However, just recently I've virtually not seen them at all.
Now I've obviously got every finger and toe I possess crossed in saying that. The presence of irony in the world would tend to suggest that upon my return home I will be swamped in a surfeit of the little buggers.
However, in theory there's a reason for their disappearance. I recently bought a device that claims to act to repel insects, firstly by emitting a super-sonic squeal that insects find unpleasant, but also by making your mains wires produce an EM-filed that repels them.
Now when I first plugged this in it didn't seem to have much of an effect - the ants kept coming. However, a couple of days ago I tried changing the setting (as I say - it didn't seem to be working, so there seemed nothing to loose) and since then, almost ant free.
Here's hoping that when I return home tonight this is still the case!
I'm still blasting through Claymore. It's a really good manga and it's so easy to read.
There's been the occasional day of rain of course - it is April after all - but for the last couple of days it's been veritably summer-ish.
This is good news for me for a change. I'm not the biggest fan of summer and hot weather, being of the morbidly obese body-type, but the last few years seem to have brought a string of miserable summers followed by perishing winters. A bit of sun (even if it just reminds me of why I'm not keen on it!) will not go amiss, I think.
One interesting surprise on this front as well. The shining of the sun usually seems to bring out the ants that have been infesting my house. However, just recently I've virtually not seen them at all.
Now I've obviously got every finger and toe I possess crossed in saying that. The presence of irony in the world would tend to suggest that upon my return home I will be swamped in a surfeit of the little buggers.
However, in theory there's a reason for their disappearance. I recently bought a device that claims to act to repel insects, firstly by emitting a super-sonic squeal that insects find unpleasant, but also by making your mains wires produce an EM-filed that repels them.
Now when I first plugged this in it didn't seem to have much of an effect - the ants kept coming. However, a couple of days ago I tried changing the setting (as I say - it didn't seem to be working, so there seemed nothing to loose) and since then, almost ant free.
Here's hoping that when I return home tonight this is still the case!
I'm still blasting through Claymore. It's a really good manga and it's so easy to read.
Monday, 20 April 2009
big food
This last Saturday a good friend of mine was having a mini birthday celebration.
She's not been very well for a while now, but seems to have been doing better recently. Anyway, she seemed in relatively good spirits at least and it was a good day. I hope she didn't tire herself out, though.
It was also a long day for me - I set off about 9:30am and got back about 9:30pm - and a very filling day. She'd made a lovely lunch, but the portions were a little on the large size, even for me. The cake actually defeated me - tasty though it was, I was just too full to finish.
Anyway, Sunday I just crashed out. I was knackered anyway because of all the work we've got on at the moment and Saturday just finished me off and I watched telly all day. About the only thing I achieved was doing the ironing, which is pretty much a necessity or I don't have anything to wear at work.
Still, it meant that I cleared huge swathes of the PVR madness. All I had left was that Red Riding drama I mentioned a while back. If things go to plan, I should be able to start watching DVDs again soon, which is good as I've been a bit silly and bought loads more.
She's not been very well for a while now, but seems to have been doing better recently. Anyway, she seemed in relatively good spirits at least and it was a good day. I hope she didn't tire herself out, though.
It was also a long day for me - I set off about 9:30am and got back about 9:30pm - and a very filling day. She'd made a lovely lunch, but the portions were a little on the large size, even for me. The cake actually defeated me - tasty though it was, I was just too full to finish.
Anyway, Sunday I just crashed out. I was knackered anyway because of all the work we've got on at the moment and Saturday just finished me off and I watched telly all day. About the only thing I achieved was doing the ironing, which is pretty much a necessity or I don't have anything to wear at work.
Still, it meant that I cleared huge swathes of the PVR madness. All I had left was that Red Riding drama I mentioned a while back. If things go to plan, I should be able to start watching DVDs again soon, which is good as I've been a bit silly and bought loads more.
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