one day a tortoise will learn how to fly

I finished up this anime last night. I am late to the bandwagon, but I really, really loved this.

The plot, which takes place first in Heian era Japan and then skips forward about a thousand years to modern day Tokyo, follows noblewoman Hikura Minamoto as she defends the capital and her family from evil by cross dressing as a man and mainly being epic as hell until she and everyone else are later reincarnated in modern day Tokyo, where she is landlady extraodinaire and still epic as hell.

While the plot somehow managed to be crazy, it was also a little uninspired (except for the reincarnating in modern Tokyo which was really neat and I liked A LOT). However, the characters, ALL of them, were very, very awesome. I didn't particularly like Heian era Mansairaku, who was a dancer (Noh?) and the main love interest for Hikaru(who is one of the best examples of a realistically done, very cool, very awesome teenage girl I've seen. Plus, she's an archer that is, yanno, useful). I knew he was trouble the moment he told her he heard "her flute crying in the darkness" or some other such nonesense. But I liked his fate and I liked him quite a bit in the Tokyo arc, so there ya go.

Sadamitsu was my favorite, because everyone loves a man-whore with a heart of gold. But I also loved Tsuna and Hikaru about equally. And Urabe! And Kintaro! See what I mean about liking all the characters. Plus, it was funny.

Some thoughts:

I believe that although Sadamitsu was a soldier in his former life, he reincarnated as a man-slut, as in, that was his job. If it's not, please don't tell, because I like it my way better.

Mansairaku has got to learn some more skillz if he ever wants make it with the ladies. His first two dates were okay, what with the dancing and the poetry and the strange mysterious smile, but uh, his third date included a plan to destroy the world; he might have wanted to rethink that because that's the quickest way not to get laid.

Hikaru should never, ever change. And should have more shows about her and her group of crazy friends because I could watch them forever, even without the epic end of the world stuff.

I have just pre-ordered Megan Whalen Turner's A Conspiracy of Kings. Behold, I have singled handedly staved off Earth's eventual slide into oblivion by a few more days, if not weeks, for now all is right and well in the universe.

Finished Cast in Secret. I love this series, it's so solid. I noticed that I have only Cast in Fury and Cast in Silence and then there is apparently no more? Which breaks my heart. I hope Cast in Silence isn't the last title of this series, because I'd read this till I was seventy, really. I just love the world building and characters and, well, it resonates with me and hits soooooooooo many of the things I love in fantasy.

This one made me especially happy because, woah, telepaths that I liked, a lot. And yay, Tiamaris was back, even if it was just for a minute or two.


Nightshade needs to GTFO because he gives me the creeps. But yay, five pages of Andellen and five pages of Teela, which is much better than none!


Can't wait to go home to start reading Cast in Fury.

I read American Nerd: The Story of My People last night in one sitting.

It's a sly, wink and nod to ethnography, but has some surprisely insightful thoughts about the condition of being a "nerd" in America. There is also quite a bit of social thought and social commentary. Some of it is wonderful and some of it is skeevy as hell.

I think I liked Nugent's point about nerds. (We)They are the people who don't fit in, sometimes this is because of personality and sometimes this is social, as kids try to find some one to exclude. I am not a nerd by Nugent's first definition, which is complicated but is essentially that being a nerd has to do with an inability to function socially and emotionally at the prescribed socially normative level (he seems dubious that this is a good defintion and points out that this definition is all about social context and therefore in another context, being a nerd wouldn't be a disadvantage or socially unacceptable). I am not of this type of nerd, I am nerd because I was born chubby, then got fat and had to use fantasy and books as a defense. I made myself booksmart, because fat people usually get the short end of the stick, but if I was funny and smart, people would at least tolerate me....and that has been my experience. I am well aware that had I not inherited by parents' hypothyroidism, I would most likely not be a nerd. I am not ashamed of this and I am quite proud of all the activities that I participate in that raise non-nerd eyebrows. Yeah, I pretend to play a ginormouse, socially awkward elven priest of the book god, Biblioteca on the weekends. Wanna fight about it?


All in all, a decent read and pretty cathartic. At least for me.


The short story at the end features a frat house haunted by a demon created when an asshole frat boy desecrates the wooden owl mascot of the house by strapping a huge dildo to its head. I have no idea what to make of this story, but it was quirky and weird and pretty funny...and a little petty. But I dunno, the symbology of the blind pecker running around trying to penetrate things and getting nowhere seems to describe American life pretty well. We're all sorta these blind things, created quite often in asshole circumstances, swarmimg about trying to thrust our way into bliss, but really, what's we're doing is penetrating crap blindly and this is no way to achieve any sort of satisfaction. There is a definite sexual connotation to this as well, but I don't go with the school of that that life is about sex. I go with the school of thought that sex is a PART of life and therefore, in the end, everything, even sex, is about living.

I have the insane urge to watch all of Gargoyles, from beginning to end, without stop.


But I also have Luminous Arc 2, so maybe not.

I must admit, I compulsively buy volumes of One Thousand and One Nights whenever I see them because they're gorgeous and the stories Sehara tells can be interesting. I have not read past volume four because the framework of the series irks me horribly. BUT, I was just flipping through volume six last night that came in the mail....and uh, woah----Bishounen Socrates and Alcibiades lovefest! AND AND AND Critias is the bad guy. I about died laughing because that's the craziest thing with history I've seen done to date in that series...and uh, the Julius Caesar one was pretty crazy.

I just had to share Pretty!Socrates is hilarious...as well as Alcibiades being a little girly boy...I just...wow...it almost makes me want to get out Plato's dialogues and re-read them...well at least Alcibiades and Critias.

OMG, Brom wrote a book! And it's a creepy, creepy retelling of Peter Pan. Complete with art from him!!!!!!!!!!

....and there are scary ass faeries. Huzzah!

This is Yoshinaga's Antique Bakery all over again. I mean, my reaction to it, that is. Antique Bakery was unlike any manga I'd ever read. I was haunted by it and compelled. I ran out to get the next three volumes in a snowstorm because I HAD to have them. Same goes here, except, they are not out and this leads to whine!flail.

In an alternate Japan, where a deadly disease has ravished the male population, women are forced to take on the traditional roles of men, including that of the Shogun. Men become almost like a natural resource and there is swapping of gender identities and places.

The Ooku is the inner chamber of the Shogun's palace...and that's where I'm lost, Japanese history being waaaaaaaaaay out of my field of knowledge. It's like a harem, but that's too simplistic and I have no idea what the historical Ooku was like, if there was one. I suppose I should probably wiki it, but then it will lead to me reading everything I can about Edo era Japan and not get any of the other reading I need to done.

But, I digrees, back to Ooku. I really, really liked it. The art was gorgeous, of course. And the story compelling. I particularly liked the end of the first volume. The current Shogun is piecing together the parts of what appears to be a conspiracy on the part of the Shogunate eighty years ago (ALTHOUGH, I'm not sure about the timeline in this manga...). And I'm like, ha! I knew some stuff was about the way the gender roles were handled was all skeevy and yes, apparently it is on purpose.

So color me intrigued and impressed. I just bought the second volume and am trying really, really hard not to fly through it.

So today, because I get bored and my mind wanders so I eavesdrop shamelessly, I heard a bunch of Kyo Kara Maoh fans bad mouthing Cecilie von Spitzweg.

DO NOT DO THIS FOR SHE IS AWESOME. I love her and she has so much more depth than fans give her credit for. Plus she is mama. And effing adorable and effing ridiculous and I loves her for that. Totes the reason I kept with the show in the beginning...well that and Yuri getting sucked down the toilet.