laceblade: Ashe from FF XII, looking at viewer over her shoulder. Text reads: "So you say you want a revolution?" (FFXII: You say you want a revolution)
• What are you currently reading?
Cross Game, volume 7. Almost done?!

A Woman Wrapped in Silence - I've mentioned this before, basically the all-in-verse fic about Mary. In the passages I read over the weekend, Jesus was born - yay!
I'm not sure how I'll feel about this long-term. As implied by the title, it's basically about the silence/mystery surrounding Mary during moments of high emotion/drama. It's not really compelling to me for a woman's silence to be the most important thing about her, ;p


• What did you recently finish reading?
Basara, volumes 25-27 - Wow, the end! Yumi Tamura really knows how to pull all her threads together. As for the past/future after-stories, I really only cared for the ones about Sarasa & Shuri and the one about Hayato (OMG HAYATO). Someone should write a paper about how Sarasa views her own gender, kthx.
I just really loved this series. Definitely one of my favorites. I'll now spend my life hunting for these volumes in used bookstores!
Maybe now I'll read her current series, 7 Seed, like all the cool kid?? It's only available to me in scanlation format, though, & I vastly prefer reading manga in paper format. Before switching to another apocalyptic one, I'd like to finish some other things I have downloaded, like Gokinjo Monogatari.

Cross Game, volume 6 - Still gr9. I was wary about Akane at first, but I like her quite a bit.

The Last of Us #4 (final) - this was good, although as predicted, now I just want to play the video game for which this mini-series is a prequel. Unfortunately, it's for the PS3. Who knows, maybe I'll get a PS3 after the PS4 comes out & there's a price drop?? WE'LL SEE. I just love Faith's art. I'll read any story she's drawn/written. Post-apocalypse is so much the better. I'm glad I read this mini-series!

Mara #5 - That's how it ends?? Meh. I won't be keeping these issues, so look for my upcoming "take my stuff" post, because my current paper grocery bag marked "sell" is full ;)

Buffy, season 9 #23/24 (The Core, parts 3 & 4) - I love that Spike has Xander entered in his phone as "Wanker," :*) UMM THESE WERE INTENSE BUT I DON'T HAVE MUCH TO SAY ABOUT THEM?! The final issue comes out today. Overall, I've liked Season 9 more than Season 8.

Angel & Faith #24/25 (What You Want, Not What You Need, parts 4 & 5) (final) - umm, wow, I just really loved Angel & Faith a lot, this entire run. Go Christos Gage for being a great writer, & I really loved Rebekah Isaacs's art, too. The characterization has been spot-on, & the emotional arc was super compelling for me (I <3 angst-ridden stuff about finding your own way/meaning in life, so ymmv).
GILES'S AUNTS! GILES'S AUNTS! GILES'S AUNTS! Also spoiler )
I'm sad it's over, & will definitely reread this. I loved it way more than Buffy season 8. I'm interested in the details regarding Buffy season 10 - when it's going to start, obviously, but what the partner titles will be, too.

X-Men #3 & #4 - I <3 the art in this series. I still don't know who the fuck anybody is, but I like it enough to keep going & I want to make an icon out of Jubilee working on a tablet from issue #3.


• What do you think you’ll read next?
I've been organizing/catching up on my comics (can you tell?!). I have a larger stack of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which I'd really like to read & get through, & decide whether to continue to keep it on my pull list or not.
Since I don't know who the hell anyone is in X-Men, it seems like it'd behoove me to read some more X-Men stuff -_-
laceblade: fanart of Inner Senshi in street clothes, hugging & smiling (Sailor Moon: inners)
--I am still watching The Newsroom, but I am loving the ever-living fuck out of Political Animals. [personal profile] meganbmoore and [personal profile] liseuse are both writing great thoughts about the show, and I don't have much to add. EXCEPT THAT I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

--I finished reading Kou Yaginuma's 12-volume manga series, Twin Spica. Its premise is really interesting - a small, young girl wants to be an astronaut, so she goes to space school. There are some flashbacks to a tragedy that took place before the series begins. The protagonist, Asami, meets friends at space camp school and it is sometimes pretty adorable.
After a few volumes, though, the story begins to lag.
And then to wrap things up, the manga-ka takes this turn with chronic/severe illness, basically saying that it is okay to literally work so hard that you kill yourself by refusing to live by any standards that aren't the same as your best friends - so long as you're all together.
This was extremely disturbing to me. The emotional impact of a character death had a way different effect on me than it was supposed to, I think, and this narrative thread kind of retrospectively ruined the entire series for me.

--The first omnibus volume of Mitsuru Adachi's Cross Game was emotionally compelling in a way I wasn't expecting. Highly recommended; I'll be reading more.
I somehow came to this book unspoiled despite everyone & their mom blogging about it the last couple years.
I'd also give a shout-out to the flawless backgrounds. Normally I find this vaguely cartoon-ish drawing style hard to get through, but the amazingly well-done backgrounds make it extremely tolerable for me.

--Kaoru Mori's A Bride's Story continues to be fantastic. It's worth picking these up just to sigh at the art. I <3 Kaoru Mori.

--ALSO EVERYONE, EVER, SHOULD READ CODE NAME: VERITY BY ELIZABETH WEIN. HOLY SHIT.



Manga Bookshelf recently held a blog carnival about series by the group CLAMP.
This post about Why You Should Read Cardcaptor Sakura is great, and includes many images from the series. Cardcaptor Sakura is one of my all-time favorites; this blog post does a great job explaining why.

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