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Vienna Teng's concert was pretty dang tasty -- playlist included "Harbor," "Blue Caravans," all but one song from the new album, and an encore of "Grandmother Song". "The Hymn of Acxiom" comes off startlingly well live. Alex Wong was part of the band, as usual, and opened with some pretty good songs from his recent solo project. And I am still tired from driving up to Phoenix and back.
None of which is about reading, heh. So:
What I've recently finished since last post:
The Analects along with A Reader's Companion to the Confucian Analects by Henry Rosemont. No, I don't even know why.
A Bride's Story volume 5 by Kaoru Mori. Man, her art keeps getting better and better -- the linework is cleaner than in volume 1 while still rendering all the gorgeous period and location details (how does that even work?). And the composition of landscape panels! Also, yay finally transitioning back to Amir's plotline.
Mahôka Kôkô no Rettôsei volume 10, the middle installment of a three-part novel, ending with even more of a cliff-hanger than the first. Satô continues to expand the consequences of his worldbuilding, to good effect. Well, good story effect -- this is not a good world to live in. (And -- ah -- I see an anime has been green-lit. Not at all surprised.)
What I'm reading now:
Hikaru ga Chikyû ni Itakoro... ("When Hikaru was in the world," I think?) volume 1 by Mizuki Nomura. Hikaru Mikado, teen lady's man and the "prince" of exclusive Heian Academy, has just drowned and the only person who can see his ghost and so help him fulfill a birthday promise to his fiancee Aoi is our gruff, anti-social protagonist, Koremitsu. Cue an exercise in stuffing as many Tale of Genji references as possible into a contemporary high school setting. This is the start of a series where each volume focuses on another heroine named from the source material -- for like Hikaru Genji, this Hikaru is a skank. Entertaining so far, though -- hmm -- it's been a week since I touched it.
Manga de Dokuha volume 76 Hyakunin Isshu, a study-guide manga of One Hundred People, One Poem Each -- a gift from our neighbor's mother. So far it has stuck to thoroughly traditional interpretations -- Tenji's #1 is both a field watchman getting dripped on+crying and codedly an emperor's crying over his people's troubles during civil war, Komachi's #9 is a purely seasonal poem, and so on. Utako ("poem-girl"), our "navigator" through the poems, is cute, despite the vaguely creepy permanent blush-stickers that hover above her cheeks so her hair sometimes slips behind them. I probably shouldn't be as pleased as I am at how easy I find this to read, given a) I have a leg up on the subject and b) its genre is supposed to be easy.
Another couple chapters of White-Haired Demoness by Liang Yusheng, and then the first quarter of Divine Eagle, Heroic Companion aka Return of the Condor Heroes by Louis Cha. I, uh, peeked at the opening in passing and got snorked in. Starts a decade after the first of the trilogy ends, but then adds several years of training montages to grow the next generation up enough they can take center stage. There's some good angst material here in a taboo romance between martial arts master and student, if you're into that sort of thing.
What I might read next:
A lot of Jesus/Voltron fanfic? I dunno ...
---L.
None of which is about reading, heh. So:
What I've recently finished since last post:
The Analects along with A Reader's Companion to the Confucian Analects by Henry Rosemont. No, I don't even know why.
A Bride's Story volume 5 by Kaoru Mori. Man, her art keeps getting better and better -- the linework is cleaner than in volume 1 while still rendering all the gorgeous period and location details (how does that even work?). And the composition of landscape panels! Also, yay finally transitioning back to Amir's plotline.
Mahôka Kôkô no Rettôsei volume 10, the middle installment of a three-part novel, ending with even more of a cliff-hanger than the first. Satô continues to expand the consequences of his worldbuilding, to good effect. Well, good story effect -- this is not a good world to live in. (And -- ah -- I see an anime has been green-lit. Not at all surprised.)
What I'm reading now:
Hikaru ga Chikyû ni Itakoro... ("When Hikaru was in the world," I think?) volume 1 by Mizuki Nomura. Hikaru Mikado, teen lady's man and the "prince" of exclusive Heian Academy, has just drowned and the only person who can see his ghost and so help him fulfill a birthday promise to his fiancee Aoi is our gruff, anti-social protagonist, Koremitsu. Cue an exercise in stuffing as many Tale of Genji references as possible into a contemporary high school setting. This is the start of a series where each volume focuses on another heroine named from the source material -- for like Hikaru Genji, this Hikaru is a skank. Entertaining so far, though -- hmm -- it's been a week since I touched it.
Manga de Dokuha volume 76 Hyakunin Isshu, a study-guide manga of One Hundred People, One Poem Each -- a gift from our neighbor's mother. So far it has stuck to thoroughly traditional interpretations -- Tenji's #1 is both a field watchman getting dripped on+crying and codedly an emperor's crying over his people's troubles during civil war, Komachi's #9 is a purely seasonal poem, and so on. Utako ("poem-girl"), our "navigator" through the poems, is cute, despite the vaguely creepy permanent blush-stickers that hover above her cheeks so her hair sometimes slips behind them. I probably shouldn't be as pleased as I am at how easy I find this to read, given a) I have a leg up on the subject and b) its genre is supposed to be easy.
Another couple chapters of White-Haired Demoness by Liang Yusheng, and then the first quarter of Divine Eagle, Heroic Companion aka Return of the Condor Heroes by Louis Cha. I, uh, peeked at the opening in passing and got snorked in. Starts a decade after the first of the trilogy ends, but then adds several years of training montages to grow the next generation up enough they can take center stage. There's some good angst material here in a taboo romance between martial arts master and student, if you're into that sort of thing.
What I might read next:
A lot of Jesus/Voltron fanfic? I dunno ...
---L.