rosesinbloom

After watching the first 21 eps of Yawara! I have to say I don't care for the series.

Yawara! stars Yawara Inokuma, a normal girl who is unusually strong at Judo. The series is about her journey to becoming a famous Judo Idol and discovering love. My issue with this show is that Yawara just wants to be a normal girl, wear pretty dresses, and fall in love and it doesn't let her do that. She doesn't have any agency, all the people making decisions for her, claiming that they know better are male. Her grandfather is determined that she's going to win the Olympic gold medal in Judo despite the fact that due to a childhood issue, Yawara doesn't want to compete in Judo. She's forced to fight due to the actions of a newspaper reporter and the sleazy coach uses the fact that she has a crush on him to get her to do stuff.

There are pieces that kept me going for a while until the urge to hit the guys got too great. Yawara teaching the Judo club and caring about what was happening to them was great. That was something she did because she wanted to and was challenged by it. Sayaka was great at the very beginning but then went all crazy over the coach guy which didn't make any sense for her character.

Animation is gorgeous and the characters are interesting but it is a very frustrating watch.

Go West Vol 1&2

This was an interesting story and I really like Naomi but the research for it was definitely superficial. It did at least acknowledge the fact that the Indians existed and that they had good reason to hate the white man.

The series is definitely cracky which can be expected as it's written and drawn by the guy who wrote Those who hunt for elves. I think I'm going to follow it for right now for Naomi. ^_^

Ashita no Ousama
Mangaka/Author: Yachi Emiko
Japanese Josei manga
scanslated by Wingtipcafe
Chpter downloads at website or you can find it on OneManga
http://wingtipcafe.com/en/?page_id=55

The Story:
Yuu a very plain girl from the country gets dragged along to see a play by a classmate. She ends up falling in love with the theater and is determined to become an actress. After getting accepted by a theater troupe as an odd-job girl she starts learning about the theater. The story continues with Yuu learning about what she wants from the theater and there is a romance blooming between Yuu and the actor that inspired her to join the theater.

The characterizations of the various characters are good and it is so nice to see a mature cast instead of teenagers. I enjoyed how it showed Yuu fantasizing about a relationship and knowing that is is fantasy. The bit about unrequited love was also spot on. ^_^

Artwise it uses a lot more backgrounds then I see in shojo today. I gulped this series down so fast that I didn't really notice much about the detail in the art but what I did notice was good.

Yay! The really crappy first draft of my Kyoko/Ren/Ogata thing is done. Of course I ended up backing off of having any romance happen and it could practically take the place of the chp. that was originally in the manga which could be good or bad. Bad because it wasn't what I really wanted to attempt to right and good because it means I didn't mangle the characters too badly. *hopefully*

Heh, I'm still slowly plugging away at my Ogata/Ren/Kyoko attempt and yeah, I'm not nearly as far along as I thought I was. This thing is going to need so! much editing before it is even close to being somewhat presentable. I do have the ending (sort of) though and I like the way it causes the story just to be this one big circle.

I've been rereading Skip Beat in between watching Detective Conan Season 1 and really want Ren/Kyoko/Ogata threesome. The pornier the better too. ^_^

You have Ogata wanting to do something for Ren in exchange for freeing him from his father's shadow. Ren struggling with finding his Katsuki and Kyoko who is standing right in front of him cheering him on. Really the main problem with this scenario is Kyoko and her issues regarding men thanks to Sho. It might work if it was a fantasy of Ogata's on how to solve Ren's problem with Katsuki. I really wish I could write porn, I may end up trying to even though it would be horrible.

I can't wait to see the translations for the latest chp. The spoilers I've read for it sound like the next couple of chapters are going to be awesome!