ceru-chan's anime review journal

Yeahh so it’s been like half a year since I uploaded anything…. doesn’t help that the translation of Valshe’s song Another Sky (album Jester) was already done by someone else and I didn’t realize till I was about to upload. =.= So here’s another of Valshe’s songs, Responsive from her 7th single Blessing Card, which itself is the second ED of Tanken Driland: 1000nen no Mahou anime.

I've pimped Valshe before, so I'm going to be lazy and not do it again - suffice it to say that Valshe is my ultimate favorite female utaite, even more than 96neko or Hanatan. :3

Anyways... I really like all the songs on the Blessing Card single, but it seems that Responsive is the only one to not have a really obvious English translation online yet so here’s mine!

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Main thing here for me was, there's a lot of the word 進む in various forms throughout the song, and it seems to be pretty important to the meaning... but I'm not entirely sure whether to translate it as 'move on' or 'advance'. In the end I stuck with advance... but mehhh either way I don't feel entirely happy about it. There's always a lot of iffy points for me when translating, and there were of course others, but this was definitely the main place where I was stuck on in this song. OTL

Comments are awesome, but I've come to not expect any. Still, I'd welcome the surprise! =P

VALSHE BANZAIIIIII KEEP THOSE SINGLES COMING

Haven't done a Matsushita Yuya song in AGES.... O.o Anyways. This is my favorite song from his latest single Kimi e no Love Song -10nen saki mo- (which I will admit is not exactly recent.... I just never got around to it till now...... =.=), 冬空 (romaji Fuyuzora). It's a sad song, reminds me a little of Lonely Rain, but there we go. I think Yuya-san's voice really suits these slow ballad love/regret type songs. So here we go then.

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I really liked translating this song because everything made sense!!! Although I doubt it's because I've increased in Japanese proficiency, I do appreciate how it has such deep meaning without using too difficult language.

As always, please let me know if you think I misunderstood the meaning and would like to correct it, or if you've found a better translation elsewhere. Thanks for reading!

Very very belated post, because IRL is ridiculously busy. But hey it's not as though anyone reads this, it's more for my own memories of what I have watched and liked and so on. Here goes then.

Watched

K

A little like DRRR!! with a large dose of fantasy and magical powers but the same colour-gang system. Amazing cast with Daisuke Ono, Tomokazu Sugita, Miyano Mamoru and Jun Fukuyama all playing important characters. Lots of BL overtones to make any self-respecting BL fan a devotee and gorgeous art to boot.

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun

An unexpected star this season with a great female main character (with a nerdy personality, for once!) and WTF-worthy antics. Cute art, a little like Bakuman (but better) and absolute LOLworthy fun every episode with some fluff thrown in to keep it romance-y.

Jormungand: Perfect Order (season 2)

Jormungand's second season and conclusion. Enough said. XD

Kamisama Hajimemashita

Same old story - annoying girl, pretty bishies to help her. Slight twist in that the girl becomes a god and the pretty bishies are her familiars... I watched this mainly for fox-demon familiar Tomoe because I have a huge weakness for kemonomimi (and tails, at that).

Zetsuen no Tempest

End-of-the-world shizz involving an interesting new concept of magic and two guys obsessing over a girl who's dead before the series begins. Albeit this rather kills the potential of BL between the two, which was otherwise perfect... IQ-test type of show with loads of logical deduction going on onscreen, but pretty art and tantalizing hints of potential BL.

Gintama Season 3

Gintama FTW!

Magi

Took a while to get used to the whole Arabian Nights theme, but with Daisuke Ono making an appearance as an important side character and a nice shounen fighting and saving the world theme going on it's good enough for me. It helps that there's loads of Magi doujin available out there too... ;)

Dropped

Bakuman 3

Shin Sekai Yori

Btooom!

Aoi Sekai no Chuushin de

May pick up again if bored

Robotics;Notes

Psycho-Pass

Sukitte ii na yo

Code Breaker

Hiiro no Kakera Dai Ni Shou (season 2)

Seitokai no Ichizon 2

Title: Translation of “Moon” by Clear

One of my favorite songs from one of my favorite singers of all time, Clear. He’s an utaite who became popular in Japan by posting covers of Vocaloid songs, and now makes and sells his own albums (much like Valshe). One of his (many) awesome Vocaloid covers available on Youtube is Kagefumi. As a measure of his success, he’s released 2 solo albums (Dearest I and II), 3 albums collaborated with his friend and fellow utaite Nero (First Contact, Second Impact, Third Invitation), and 3 more singles (Kawaranu Omoi, Colors, Shining) since 2010. Not bad for someone whose face is barely ever on camera (the rare exception being the live PV for Shining).

So Clear is famous for his, well, clear voice. A huge difference from the synthesizer voices of the Vocaloids, and absolutely beautiful. A popular phrase used by fans commenting on Youtube is ‘Cleargasm’, which kinda speaks for itself... more about him on the Utaite Wiki. Having seen him in the live PV for Shining, I must say he compares less than favorably with most Japanese idols (Tegomass in particular come to mind) but dammit his voice is too gorgeous for me to care. I have a thing for voices and I love Clear’s voice to bits. Listening to his slower songs with earphones is like being serenaded.... I could go on forever.

More importantly, this is Clear’s solo song “Moon” from his first collaboration album with Nero, First Contact. Listen to it here on Youtube. It’s a wonderful slow sad song with lots of piano in the background and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of listening to it because it’s just so beautiful. Enjoy~!

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As far as understanding the lyrics goes this was fairly straightforward - the main problem was putting it in English that sounded vaguely normal and not completely weird. I hope I succeeded. =/

Comments would be very much loved~! ^^

This is a good season! I think. It’s at least 4 weeks into the Winter 2011/2012 season; it seems I’m getting later and later with these posts…. –is shot- Soooo the anime worth watching this season, so far, are as the follows!

Brave 10

Similar to: Sengoku Basara, Rurouni Kenshin, Samurai Deeper Kyo

Comment: Damn, this one is good. Definitely one of the best shows this season. This is Naruto, grown up version. The art is awesome, the seiyuu cast is awesome, and hey, who can say no to hot smexy ninjas? Main chara Saizou is voiced by my all-time favourite Daisuke Ono, which is a nice extra bonus. I really love Edo-period ninja-samurai-swordfighting goodness~~ ^^

New Prince of Tennis

Similar to: Prince of Tennis, Ookiku Furikabutte, Area no Kishi

Comment:Continuing on from where the original Prince of Tennis ended off, this is about all the cool PoT characters going on to fight against high schoolers in the U-17 selection camp. There probably wasn’t any other sensible story progression, though to be honest it would have been okay ending with the Nationals…. =/ That aside, this is somewhat better in that most of the uncool characters (e.g. Yanagizawa the ‘dane’ guy) don’t appear. ;P Otherwise it’s pretty much the same physics-defying outlandish tennis as in the National Championships. Good for anyone who watched the first seasons though I would hesitate to recommend to any newbies as they’d probably go ‘wtf is this this isn’t tennis!!’ or something. ^^;;

Natsume Yuujinchou Shi

Similar to: Nurarihyon no Mago

Comment: I love Natsume. I really do. He’s so cute and sweet and nice to anything and anybody. I’d definitely want a boyfriend like him~~~ This 4th season, just as the previous 3, continues to follow our dear Natsume Takashi in his journey towards better understanding both humans and youkai. The reappearance of Matoba in the first 2 episodes made me particularly happy; something about one-eyed guys is just………. Yeah. –fangirls-

Area no Kishi

Similar to: Prince of Tennis, Ookiku Furikabutte

Comment: CAUTION - MAJOR SPOILER ALERT. Holy fucking shit, the character played by my beloved Jun Fukuyama DIES. His younger brother will, as expected, take over his brother’s dream and play football internationally for Japan…. Yadda yadda yadda. Seems like a good story, but WHY THE FUCK DO YOU NEED TO KILL HIM OFF DAMMIT. ;;A;;

Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou

Similar to: Seitokai Yakuindomo, Kimi to Boku, Lucky Star

Comment: This one has let down my expectations in the few episodes so far. The summary looked awesome, but…. Well, for one, I feel that Tomokazu Sugita’s voice just doesn’t suit his character. For two, the jokes are in far too many instances too ‘out there’ to even think about. Okay, maybe I’m just biased against it because I was expecting something as good as Kimi to Boku but with an even more stellar seiyuu cast (which, don’t get me wrong, this show actually has, even if I don’t really agree with the casting). Basically, yes, it is a reasonably humourous show, but as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t live up to its hype and doesn’t compare favourably with previous shows like Kimi to Boku. I’d even go so far as to say that Seitokai Yakuindomo was funnier, even if it relied on sexual humour rather too much.

Aquarion Evol

Similar to: Uhmmmm at a stretch maybe the various members of the Gundam family, Macross Frontier and by reputation possibly Infinite Stratos.

Comment: A new mecha, this show relies more than a little on boy-girl fanservice to keep itself going. As of the moment I still don’t see why the main guy character (voiced by Miyano Mamoru!) likes the main female character quite as much as he does (somehow this reminds me disturbingly of Guilty Crown), and I find how he flies (paralleling his getting aroused) at the thought of the girl watching him fight quite disturbing. On the other side of the coin, the main antagonist is seriously hot (red hair and gold eyes and fights like a demon!! What’s not to love? XD), which is a major reason as to why I’m still watching this. As for the mechas, I’ve yet to be impressed by any mecha shows ever since the Gundams and Code Geass. =/

Mouretsu Uchuu Kaizoku

Similar to: Gintama

Comment: Basically about a ‘normal’ girl becoming the captain of a space pirate ship, which, as it so happens, is actually legal. Legal pirating, yes. Not kidding. O.o Well, the premise requires a fair leap of faith, but plenty of shows do that. The main girl is cute and not too annoying in terms of voice and behaviour; the art is nice and the spaceships passable as far as mechas go. Some male-oriented fanservice but not to the point that it is unbearable. The whole space pirates thing reminds me distinctly of Harusame in Gintama, hence the similarity, but frankly I can’t really think of much else. Basically a nice, kind and friendly version of Harusame, I guess. =X

Inu X Boku SS

Similar to: Kami-sama no Memo-chou, Kuroshitsuji

Comment: The main girl is so similar to Alice from Kami-sama no Memo-chou that it’s disturbing. But the main guy, her butler/servant/dog (yes, dog) is so not like that guy in Kami-sama no Memo-chou, much less anything like Sebastian in Kuroshitsuji. Okay, so he’s hot and has magic powers and is devoted to his master – but that’s where the similarity ends. HE IS SUCH A DOORMAT it makes me cringe. And some distinct stalker tendencies to boot. ‘You’re as beautiful as always today’, ‘if I am of no use to you, my life has no meaning’ - please,, seriously? His seiyuu is Nakamura Yuichi and damn I feel so sorry for him, having to voice such a doormat of a character when he normally plays the gangster strong-man in-control powerful kind of characters. -.-|| And the female-oriented fanservice is just… waaaaaaay over the top. Kissing her toenail as a sign of loyalty? Excuse me while I retch. It’s pathetic to see anyone demeaned to that level, much less hear the voice of someone who I’m accustomed to hearing being the powerful guy at the top giving the orders suddenly saying that he’d rather die than be of no use to this girl. –shudders- But! He is beyond hot, and the art is generally really good, and the story seems fairly interesting. So yes, I’m still going to watch this…. But we’ll see how far I can stand the over-fanservicing. =S

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That's all for this season. I seem to have several issues with most of the shows, and I notice my comments are getting longer... =/ But I really, really strongly recommend Brave 10 in particular. Opinions and comments are always welcome, and the full list of anime screening this season can be found here.

A preliminary roundup of what’s worth watching this autumn season, in ranking order. At the present moment, all of these anime are available online up to at least episode 3. Overall I’m of the opinion that Autumn 2011 is a fairly good crop of mostly slice-of-life shows, with an significant and unfortunate slant to the ecchi as compared to Summer 2011

Sekaiichi Hatsukoi 2

Similar to: Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, Junjou Romantica

Comment: OMG I was literally over the moon when I saw the first episode of this listed on the recent episodes pages. Might’ve seen it on the sites for upcoming anime but must’ve missed it. Sekaiichi Hatsukoi is Junjou’s companion and partner in getting lovely BL anime to us starving yaoi fangirls.

Kimi to Boku.

Similar to: Hachimitsu to Clover, Lucky Star

Comment: So cute! Slice of life show very much like Lucky Star in that you wonder what was the whole point of the episode after you watch it, but it makes you laugh while watching and feel happy after so that’s okay. I would even say that this is Lucky Star except it has an almost all-male cast.

Working!! 2

Similar to: Working!!, Hanasaku Iroha

Comment: Same cutesy family restaurant staff as in the first season. My main gripe is the much-increased presence of Yamada and Otoo-san, both of whom I find are utterly unnecessary characters. The show would be perfectly fine without them. >.<

Guilty Crown

Similar to: Code Geass, Busou Renkin, Shining Tears X Wind

Comment: Supposedly the ‘new’ Code Geass in that it’s set in dystopic, conquered Japan, with a main character who thinks there’s nothing he can do to change the world order until he meets a mysterious girl and is given a power that is pretty much magical. Sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? Only thing is that this main character (to me at least) isn’t nearly as cool as Lelouch, and his power involves drawing weapons out of other people, much like how things work over in Shining Tears X Wind.

Un-go

Similar to: Kami-sama no Memo-chou, Gosick

Comment: Art style isn’t nearly as pretty as Kami-sama no Memo-chou or Gosick, but it’s similarly a detective/mystery anime. What makes it stand out is the dynamic between male lead Yuuki Shinjuurou and major supporting character Kaishou Rinroku. Rinroku is a celebrity detective whose deductions are almost always politically correct. Shinjuurou, on the other hand, goes behind and digs out the dirty laundry for the truth. Rinroku’s ‘truth’ is still the one that’s made public, though both know that Shinjuurou’s is the ‘real’ truth. That, to me at least, is the main point of interest. Of course, Inga, the strange supernatural woman/boy is cool too, but I like the contrast between Shinjuurou’s ‘reality’ and Rinroku’s ‘correct’. ;)

Chihayafuru

Similar to: Saki, Hikaru no Go, Kaichou wa Maid-sama

Comment: Love the art and Wataya’s cute Kansai accent, but for the moment I’m still finding it a little difficult to connect to ‘the game’ of the story, karuta. Kinda... old-fashioned. =/

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai

Similar to: Toradora!, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu

Comment: Striking similarity to Toradora in how the two main characters are both thought of as scary gangster-types but in reality are really nice people if you look past their faces. In fact, if it wasn’t for the addition of the second girl (who’s unbearably popular with the guys but wants to make friends and maybe more with other girls, it would really be a second Toradora. The other thing that makes it different from Toradora is how it’s more than a little ecchi - almost-panty shots, breasts spilling out of bikinis, you get the picture. Not to my taste, but I’m putting up with it for now for the sole sake of Ryohei Kimura who voices the male lead character. =S

Bakuman. 2

Similar to: Bakuman., (if I may) Sekaiichi Hatsukoi

Comment: Okay, it’s only similar to Sekaiichi Hatsukoi in that it’s about the manga industry. Apart from that... well, it seems harder than I expected to find anime about the manga industry! So yes, Bakuman. 2 is simply a continuation of Bakuman. season 1. So far no major changes for me to gripe or rave about, so I’ll leave it as - if you like Bakuman, obviously you’d be watching this by now. Yeah. =)

Shakugan no Shana III

Similar to: Shakugan no Shana, Zero no Tsukaima, Toradora

Comment: Who doesn’t know about Shana? I for one enjoyed the first two (loooong) seasons, which is why I was overjoyed when this came out, but got the shock of my life when I saw Yuuji appear in what looks rather like a Chinese period-style armour costume. And he has apparently gone over to the dark side (Bal Masque), become a Guze no Ou (Crimson King) and gotten immensely powerful in a not-exactly-good way. I’m still in the dark (watched till episode 4) and am not, so to speak, very favorably impressed by the extreme development between the 2nd and 3rd seasons, but I’m hanging on for the sake of Shana. =X

Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle

Similar to: Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro

Comment: Art style is rather odd, somewhere between Naruto and One Piece, but for the moment it’s still bearable. Basically, it’s about this guy who loves solving puzzles and is considered a puzzle genius. He gets caught up in a deadly puzzle competition where failing to solve the puzzle (usually in a given time limit) would be fatal to the person who attempts the puzzle. This is supposed to lead to solving ‘God’s Puzzle’ (hence Kami no Puzzle in the title) which is something to the effect of solving the mysteries of the world. Pretty cool and makes me feel like I’m using my brain in trying to figure out how on earth Kaito figures out the puzzles. ^^;;

Ben-To

Similar to: I honestly can’t think of anything. O.o

Comment: Again, sadly, this one has a rather strong ecchi aspect to it. (I just suffered an undeniably yuri-fanservice scene in episode 4 >.<) But it’s really quite cute in how it focuses on the (very exaggerated) competition for half-price bento in supermarkets and convenience stores. Of course, we know we won’t actually find Japanese brawling in the supermarket over bento (or at least I really hope we don’t) but it’s funny to watch these desperately hungry characters literally fight tooth and nail for half-price bento.

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And that's all! 11 of them - quite a few more than I posted for Summer 2011 (I shall have to edit it now that the Summer season is over). Probably that's because there are a lot of second/third seasons airing this autumn. =S

For anyone who’s interested even at this late date (we’re already more than 4 weeks into the autumn anime season), the full list of anime available/to be screened this autumn can be found here.

Opinions and comments are always welcome! =D

It so happens that this song was played as a form of graduation farewell by the language centre where I studied Japanese. A song that somehow manages to sound both sad and cheerful at the same time, this is 空への手紙 (Letter to the Sky) by GReeeeN, the 12th song of their 3rd album, 塩、コショウ (Shio, Koshou; Salt, Pepper). The Youtube video is here. Don’t be too shocked by the weird picture in the video. I’m fairly sure it’s the CD image. Just listen to the song and ignore the image. DX It’s a really nice song, sort of soothing and still upbeat, somewhat regretful and somewhat hopeful. =]

I was sure there had to be translation online, but noooooo apparently not. Maybe GReeeeN isn’t very popular outside Japan? I don’t know. In any case, listen to their song, read the translation and tell me what you think about it afterwards. ^^


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Hope you enjoyed the song~ =) My translation muscle still doesn’t seem back to what it was before, so again there’s general ambiguity throughout this translation. As always, please let me know if you think I misunderstood the meaning and would like to correct it, or if you've found a better translation elsewhere.

Comments would make my day! ;D

So I’m feeling rather guilty for not doing translations and exercising my brain’s language functions. Presenting L.o.L, track #3 of Matsushita Yuya’s 6th single Bird/4 Seasons. It’s one of my favorites by him. The Youtube video of it (which I watched last year or thereabouts) has been taken down, unfortunately, and the only other alternative I could find was a live performance. However, it’d be much better to just download the entire single from the matsushita_u comm. here and listen to the song from there because his voice doesn’t sound its best in the live performance video.

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Oddly enough, the song isn’t exactly happy despite its title (surely I’m not the only one who saw it as LOL=laugh out loud?). For that matter, I don’t even see how ‘Love or Lust’ ties in with the rest of the song. At all. Forgive the ungrammatical translation of the refrain; I pretty much just translated the part in Japanese and left the English as it was. This song was pretty troublesome (possibly due to me being out of practice... T.T) as a whole, so I won’t highlight any specific areas of concern apart from that ‘Love or Lust’ refrain. As usual, please let me know if you think I misunderstood the meaning and would like to correct it, or if you've found a better translation elsewhere.

Comments would be love~ =]

A preliminary roundup of what’s worth watching this season, in ranking order. At the present moment, all of these anime are available online up to at least episode 3.

No.6

Similar to: Code Geass, 07-ghost, Deadman Wonderland

Comment: Dystopia, rebellion, flight into the unknown. Oh, and not forgetting a healthy dose of almost-but-not-quite shounen-ai. It’s a winning formula! ;P

[EDIT: Scratch the almost-but-not-quite shounen-ai. It's shounen-ai. Episode 5 has confirmed my suspicions and made me ridiculously happy. XP]

Mawaru Penguin Drum

Similar to: Gintama, Busou Renkin, Arakawa Under the Bridge, Durarara!!

Comment: The title made me think twice, but I’m glad I went ahead to watch it anyways. I was in stitches throughout the second episode; the penguins are beyond cute. XDD

Kami-sama no Memo-chou (God’s Memo Pad)

Similar to: Gosick, Durarara!!

Comment: Yup, another detective/mystery type. The difference is that this crew of characters are all self-proclaimed NEETs. We have us a military otaku, a host, a ganger-turned-police-informer and a ramen shopowner, along with a kiddy genius hikikomori and the usual ‘straight man’ main character. I’m putting money that this becomes a hit like DRRR and Gosick. ;D

Natsume Yuujinchou San (Natsume’s Book of Friends, Season 3)

Similar to: Nurarihyon no Mago, Amatsuki, xxxHolic

Comment: A third season of Natsume Yuujinchou = more of that pretty art, cute porcelain cat and gorgeous Natsume. Watching him makes me feel happy. ^^

Dantalian no Shoka (Bibliotheca Mystica de Dantalian)

Similar to: Gosick, Pandora Hearts, Hakushaku to Yousei (Earl and Fairy)

Comment: The other new show this season with a detective theme, the other being Kami-sama no Memo-chou. This one is even more similar to Gosick in that it’s set sometime in the 1800s/1900s or thereabouts (I fail miserably at history) and therefore has similar costumes, art style etc. Bonus points for having Daisuke Ono playing the male lead. =DDD

Kami-sama Dolls

Similar to: Shakugan no Shana

Comment: At the moment I’m still a little iffy on this one, mostly because there is a lot of fanservice aimed at the male audience (i.e. accidental barging in on the female leads in the bath and suchlike) and also because the Dolls themselves look nowhere near as cool as mecha. But I’m sticking with it for now because I’m curious about the history between the antagonist and protagonist. (Both guys. Yeaaahhh awesome BL potential alert!)

Blood-C

Similar to: Blood+, xxxHolic

Comment: Done by CLAMP, thus the similarity to xxxHolic. I like the parts where the protagonist does ordinary schoolgirl things like eat lunch and attend class. I don’t like the parts when she does ‘spiritual mission’ kinda stuff like monster-slaying. Me+Monsters=Bad. Especially because the 3rd episode (the latest I’ve watched) had one helluva freaky one. But if you’re the sort who likes that, go right ahead.

Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi

Similar to: Kore wa Zombie desu ka?, Pandora Hearts, Ayakashi

Comment: This is on my list primarily because Jun Fukuyama and Yuichi Nakamura are cast as important second-string characters. The extreme male-oriented fanservice (this one goes all the way to panty shots and suggestive postures) was very offputting to me, so I’m currently in a dilemma over whether or not to continue watching. Anyone who likes ecchi as well as hot guys can get high quality subbed downloads over on Derp Subs.

And that's it! =O Only 8 out of the... how many? Well, definitely a lot more than 8. Hm... =S

For anyone who’s interested even at this late date (we’re already more than 3 weeks into the summer anime season), the full list of anime available/to be screened this summer can be found here.

Comments are always love. ^^ Anyone wants to persuade me to add something to my list?

I’m thinking maybe I should change the title of this journal. It’s... not quite an anime review journal anymore. =X Honestly, I’m posting everything BUT anime reviews these days. -dies-

So yes, this post is a manga review. Or more accurately, a manga artist pimping post. Takarai Rihito drew the lovely shounen-ai manga Seven Days, as well as the genderbender shoujo manga Torikagoshou no Kyou mo Nemutai Juunintachi (literally The Sleepy Residents of Birdcage Manor [who are sleepy today too], officially Welcome to Hotel Williams Child Bird). She also has her own manga (i.e. a manga where she was the author as well as the artist), Hana Nomi zo Shiru (Only the Flower Knows). They’re all beautiful drawn manga, with the kind of soft fluffy sweetness that stands out against all the hardcore yaoi out there.

Some samples:

Torikagoshou no Kyou mo Nemutai Juunintachi:


Seven Days:


Hana Nomi zo Shiru:


To be honest, I think these are the kind of manga that can convince staunchly anti-BL fans of manga to revise their stand. [I’m talking to you in particular, Shu-chan, Ri-chan, Rei-chan!] Most people think that yaoi/slash/BL/shounen-ai is plain gay. Pretty boys who can and should get themselves girlfriends somehow falling in love with other pretty boys instead of girls. Or worse, hardcore gay porn, especially in the territory of doujinshi. Eye candy for females, but utter nonsense otherwise. They ask why would anyone want to read about male characters they like falling in love with other male characters and thus becoming even more firmly out of reach - as if they, being pictures on paper, weren’t already in a different dimension entirely. Others argue that slash is shallow, an incomprehensible linking of two male characters for no logical reason and can’t possibly have the sweet, fluffy romance of shoujo manga (but even shoujo manga isn’t always logical, is it?) Well, I have every confidence that Takarai Rihito’s works can make proponents of the above arguments reconsider.

Not convinced? Let’s start off with the least objectionable one, Torikago. (The full name is a pain to type, so I’ll refer to Torikagoshou no Kyou mo Nemutai Juunintachi as Torikago henceforth.) Then we’ll work up the scale to Seven Days, before ending off with Hana Nomi zo Shiru. Click the cuts for a feast of gorgeous art and lovely stories! =D

[Of course, anyone who’s already a BL fan and has read one or more of Takarai Rihito’s works, please do check out the rest~ ^^]

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And that's all! Thanks very much for reading this super-long post (if you even read it all...)! Comments would make my day~ even if it's only to complain about how I've abandoned the anime reviews this journal was supposed to focus on! =DDD