It Took 10 Volumes For Me To Warm To The Magi Manga

This is a story about the flow of fate and the battle to keep the world on the right path. Aladdin is a boy who has set out to explore the world after being trapped in a room for most of his life. His best friend is a flute with a djinn in it named Ugo. Soon enough, Aladdin discovers he is a Magi, a magician who chooses kings, and he was born to choose kings who will follow the righteous path, battling against those who want to destroy fate. (Source: MU)

I'm kind of tired of people telling me that mediocre manga "gets better" the further you get into it. I don't have a lot of time to invest in lower quality storytelling and art when I already read a lot of good-and-above manga series. Magi, for the longest time it seems, was one of those titles. However, the person telling me this about Magi is one of my best friends, so for him, I persevered, as sempai often do for their kohai.

Well, kohai, I am here to report that ten volumes into Magi (I follow the Viz releases, so sue me) I have not fallen in love with the series but it is so much of a bearable story than it was at the beginning.

When Did Blogging Get So Hard?

This blog is in UNACCEPTABLE CONDITION???
Yeah, y'know that was coming.

I am going to be honest with everyone, because if you're still reading this, you deserve it: I don't know if I'll have time for Nagareboshi Reviews this year.

I thought going back to school and doing my studies/BA at the same time as blogging regularly would be as comparable as it was back in community college. I didn't expect school to throw so much at me so fast, or getting an on-campus job in the first month of attending, or being a regular staff writer on the student newspaper. That means less time for blogging, and that sucks. Like, I hate how much stuff I want to blog about but I simply don't have the time or energy to after doing school work every day.

I wish I knew what direction to go in right now. I don't want to leave Nagareboshi Reviews, but I know that eventually I will have to focus on my fiction writing and my studies. Until then, I will try my best to keep this blog alive. It may not be active as much as other blogs, but I'll fight to post more than I have this month so far.

Thank you for reading! Hopefully we can celebrate the blog's upcoming fourth birthday together! [/Obligatory 'thanks for reading' manga-ka note, seriously every manga-ka does this. EVEN THE HENTAI MANGA-KA DO IT. Like, "dear readers, thank you for supporting my unicorn girl futanari h-manga, please continue to cheer on my efforts."]

PR: Viz Media Brings Hakusensha Manga Titles To Comixology

Toshokan Sensou LOVE&WAR ©
Kiiro Yumi and Hiro Arikawa 2008/HAKUSENSHA, Inc.

ComiXology, The Revolutionary Cloud-Based Digital Comics Platform, Adds More Than 385 New VIZ Media Manga Volumes Including Scores Of Legacy Titles And Fan Favorite Shojo Series

San Francisco, CA / New York, NY, March 17, 2015 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest publisher, distributor and licensor of manga and anime in North America, and comiXology have announced the latest substantial addition of new VIZ Media manga titles to the revolutionary cloud-based digital comics platform. More than 385 volumes are available now on comiXology.com and on the comiXology app for Kindle Fire tablets, iPad, iPhone, Android and Windows 8-based devices.

The new English manga volumes span 36 acclaimed series and offer a wide variety of fan-loved action, comedy, and shojo romance titles. New volumes for scores of other continuing series also are added to comiXology each week as part of VIZ Media’s regular digital manga update schedule. Please visit www.comixology.com for more information.

The new VIZ Media titles featured in this update are all published in Japan by Hakusensha, Inc., one of Japan’s most prominent publishing companies and renowned for offering a wide array of award-winning shojo manga series in addition to other genres. This latest comiXology content update expands the VIZ Media manga catalog on the platform to more than 1,500 volumes across more than 220 different series. Readers can enjoy all of these acclaimed releases using comiXology’s Manga Fixed Format, which enables a dedicated right-to-left full-page reading experience and the highest page resolution currently available.

Fujoshi O'Clock (3/14/15)

What time is it? It's Fujoshi O'Clock, a regular feature at Nagareboshi Review, when I bring to you the latest fujoshi-related news and reviews and various shiny BL-flavored things. There is also a focus on trans and bisexual anime/manga. Why? Because rotten girls need love too!

This week on Fujoshi O'Clock:

• According to a Twitter report, manga-ka Gengoroh Tagame's latest work is an all-ages manga about a gay couple and their daughter.
• An Answerman article from early February talks about the Free! anime and the issue with the anime's licensing confusion.
• ANN looks at Sparkler Monthly, which publishes multiple BL and LGBT-friendly titles of original English language manga. And, yes, they talk about Off*Beat quite a bit!
• Hazukashii Kedo looks at the haitoku/'fall from virtue' themed anthology of BL that will be published by Charles Comics.

Reviews:

• Otaku USA reviews the Massive Anthology, which features shorts from major bara/gay manga authors like Tagame and Jiraiya.
• Slightly Biased Manga reviews volume 2 of Crimson Spell by Ayano Yamane from SuBLime and the single-volume One Is Enough by love from GEN Manga.
• Experiments in Manga reviews Hide and Seek volume 1 by Yaya Sakuragi, a romance between a doctor and a candy store owner.
• Rebecca Silverman at ANN reviews volumes 1-3 of Hide and Seek by Yaya Sakuragi, and gives it a B overall.
• ふう子 at Hazukashii Kedo reviews Twilight Underground by Akihira Shiro, a new story by the manga-ka that is running in Craft magazine.

Am I missing your blog? Got some awesome fujoshi-related news and reviews you think deserve a shout-out? Poke me with a link and a bit of description over at my Twitter: @theseventhl. I'm always on the look out for more BL love!

Five Things I'll Miss About Pandora Hearts

Spoiler alert: Discusses Mochizuki Jun's Pandora Hearts up to and including volume 22.

I've just finished the 22nd volume of Pandora Hearts - which, WOW - and for some reason, Yen Press has no information about the next, allegedly final volume. Not even a placeholder on the series page! Yen Press, y'all killing me over here.

There are not many series in which I feel physical and emotional consternation after finishing a book, but damn if MochiJun's Pandora Hearts isn't one of them. Over twenty volumes later and she still has the power to make me care about her expansive cast of characters while keeping the story fresh and interesting. Plus, she knows just when a series needs to end. And right now, the end of the story of the Abyss and Oz is coming sooner than later.

With the end of the epic fantasy manga series Pandora Hearts just on the horizon (probably, most likely), I'm looking back at some of the things I'm gonna miss when Oz and Alice and the rest of the team sign off for good.

(Well, until Yen Press releases the Caucus Race companion novels. Excited for those!)

Now Is The Winter Of Our Link Spam ('15 Edition)

Been a while since I've done one of these, yeah? I'll keep it short.

• The Comics Journal covers alternative manga as they talk about the Fukui Ei'ichi incident and the prehistory of Komaga-Gekiga. It's about Osamu Tezuka! Who, naturally, is a complicated man and manga-ka.
• For fans of cult/classic TV and film, Shout! Factory now has a free streaming service for the shows and movies it has licensed, including MST3K, The Saint, and some Roger Corman films (via Comics Worth Reading).
• A delightful read from the poetry Dreamwidth community: If Dr Seuss Were A Technical Writer by Gene Ziegler.
• For the ladies of Star Trek fandom, this 'A Woman's Place Is On The Bridge' t-shirt seems like a must have.
• Snack food has a fandom? Apparently so! Stumbled across snack food review site Taquitos, which reviews snacks from across the globe, albeit with a North American bias.
• Lastly, did someone say Space Dandy deck-building tabletop card game? Because Seven Seas and Funimation are saying just that and it looks awesome.
  
  

Take A Dandy Guy In Space Home - On DVD

If this newest advert from Adult Swim doesn't convince you to pick up Space Dandy on DVD and Blu-Ray, well, nothing will.

I don't usually post video adverts but this one is too cool not to share. Seriously: let this be your monthly reminder that Space Dandy is one of the funniest, cleverest programs to grace the TV block of Adult Swim and you should own it!

Some Thoughts On The First SAO Fairy Dance Light Novel

Spoiler alert: Post contains spoilers for Sword Art Online's anime and the first Fairy Dance LN.

Kirito has escaped Sword Art Online, the forbidden VRMMORPG of death, and returned to reality. He heads off to find his game partner and lover, Asuna Yuuki. But Asuna never made it back from the nightmare. Lost and desperate, Kirito’s only clue to her virtual whereabouts is a mysterious screenshot of Asuna as a fairy trapped in a giant birdcage. His conclusion: She must be trapped within the new, high-powered VRMMORPG, ALfheim Online. Now Kirito must plunge into the world of ALO, where players are fairies who fly gracefully through the air! [x]

Sometimes, seeing into a main character's thought process can really elevate their actions and give clarity to a story. In visual novels, this usually works against the story - a lot of VN main characters are either arrogant blowhards who somehow attract lots of women or blank slates lacking personalities. Even in some light novels, seeing inside a character's head can make them more distant and unliked that before; Kyon of the Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu novels comes to mind.

And yet, if the Fairy Dance arc of the Sword Art Online anime had bothered tapping into some of the more pertinent thoughts of the arc's protagonists - cousins Kazuya/Kirito and Suguha/Leafa - those episodes would have been less painful to watch. In the anime, the Fairy Dance arc is my least favorite of the first season. In the light novel series so far, it is a lot more bearable and, in fact, more interesting as it plays out on the page.