A promise to all of you

I promise, no matter how many manga series' I read, or how many comic books I enjoy, or how many movies I watch, I will never want to do this.

Admiring is one thing, but I still know the difference between fantasy and reality... most of the time.



(Oh, BTW, there's a good knitting-related comic over at QC today.)

Follow the feathers

One of the three manga series' that I buy regularly is Reservoir Tsubasa Chronicles.


I originally started watching the anime before the manga was released in the west, and fell in love with it. I'm a fan of other CLAMP shows, and they had an ingenious idea with this series.

The main characters are alternate version of Sakura and Syaoran from Cardcaptor Sakura. The plot involves them traveling through different dimensions to find pieces of Sakura's heart/soul which are hidden in the form of very magically powerful feathers. The ingenious part is that every world they go to is populated by different characters from CLAMP manga!

(Because of this show, I've purchased and read all of RG Veda, and rekindled my love of X)

The manga also crosses paths with xxxHolic, which encourages readers to buy both mangas (which I do...)

Tsubasa is much darker than Cardcaptor Sakura, especially towards the later volumes, which makes it more appealing to older audiences while younger readers can first enjoy the bubblegum sweetness of Cardcaptor Sakura and still come to know the characters. Like I said earlier, it also exposes readers to characters from other CLAMP titles, which in turn encourages them to read those series'.

The real heart-wrencher for me was that in order to gain the power to travel to different worlds, Syaoran had to give up his relationship with Sakura, whom he loves. When she regains a feather and her memories come flooding back, she never remembers her childhood with Syaoran. Later volumes has the tragedy shift slightly, but I won't spoil it for anyone :)

Taking advantage of the rising dollar... or it taking advantage of me

I guess I'll never learn.

Last night, after returning home from the nice farewell sushi party for Amy (pictures to follow... eventually), I hopped on the internet and finally bought this:



From here. And in my amazing math ineptitude (and in the onslaught of a full-blown sushi coma), it took me a few double takes to realize that the total after tax and shipping was quite a bit less than the selling price.

Which inspired me to do a bit of ebay surfing... and I found this (which is something I've been looking for for quite some time)

Tempting, tempting... but the dollar won't stay high forever (in fact, I think it's already dropped) and I wonder if I should risk spending over $200 on manga in one go.

But at least I got a tote bag out of it!

Day 3! Done!

Make a Wish...

Wish (another Clamp creation) is a short 4 volume manga about a naive angel, Kohaku, who lands on Earth and is rescued by a human Shuichiro. She promises to grant him a wish in exchange for saving her, but Shuichiro says there is nothing he desires. Determined to fulfill her promise, Kohaku moves in with Shuichiro until he can think of the one wish he cannot fulfill himself.

The cast of this manga comprises of fallen angels and devils, as well as heavenly and hellish hosts. Of course, Clamp being Clamp, the whole thing is wrapped up in an adorable love story. The angels fall for the devils, the devils like to tease and bully the angels... and just to make the artwork as cutesy as the plot, whenever the sun is up the devils become chibi, and vice versa for the angels.

(see? chibi!)

Anyway, the story ends with an unexpected twist (remember, I love a good tragedy) but all works out in the end (of course)

Tokyo Babylon

Meet 16-year-old Subaru Sumeragi, the 13th head of his clan, and an onmyoji (a spiritual master). He's living in Tokyo with his twin sister Hokuto, and fulfilling his family's destiny to protect Japan from hostile spirits. Hokuto is always trying to set him up with Seishiro, a veterinarian and possibly a member of the Sakurazukamori, a clan of mystical assassins.



Those are the characters of the manga Tokyo Babylon, published in 1991 by CLAMP (one of their first manga). I'm pleasantly surprised with how much I'm enjoying reading these manga. The subplots are very monster-of-the-day, but the overall plot dealing with the relationship between Subaru and Seishiro is fascinating.



Of course, if you've seen X/1999, you probably can figure out how the relationship ends, but I'm not going to spoil it.

I'm trying hard not to race through the five volumes I have, and I'm a little sad there are only 7 volumes total, but I can hardly wait to see how it ends. If you like the occult/spiritual side of manga and are looking for a more mature series than, say, xxxHolic, definitely read this!

Anime North

I was going to wait until tomorrow to post these, but I figure I might as well do them now :)

This post will be very picture heavy, since I don't think blogger does cuts like Livejournal does. Also, if you want to see pictures of the cosplayers, go to my website. I'm not going to repost them here.

I will, however, post the pictures I didn't put on my website. Here they are!


J and J, pretending that they're too cool for an anime convention.


The Artist Alley part of the con (aka the boring part) - the work is all very pretty, but also expensive since its done by talented artists who are trying to make a profit. Nice to look at, though


Me, with two of my toys - a stuffed Chocobo, and Momiji in bunny form! I love that rabbit!


The rabbit likes J, too!

And now, onto the loot! I'm not saying how much I spent, but I got some great deals!


The loot, an overview.


My Chocobo, with seasons 1 and 2 of Magic Knight Rayearth


Momiji, with the 5 volumes of Tokyo Babylon I bought (I only need 6 & 7 now!)


The Munto movies, and the complete season of KareKano (or, His and Her Circumstances, in translation)

Not a bad haul, huh?

Incidentally, this post will be x-posted to my Livejournal, so everyone can see what happened at Anime North and so I don't have to type this all out again :)