Wednesday Briefs: Washed Right Out, Chapter Thirteen

Hey hey! New Wednesday Briefs update before the Christmas vacation! In this installment of Washed Right Out, Riley gets a cold welcome from an ex and an unlikely hero arrives to save the day. There will be danger! There will be intrigue! There will be blood! Actually, I have just been informed there will not be blood. But you'll still like it!

Washed Right Out, Chapter Thirteen. Prompts used: we need to talk, have a character take a sick day.

"Riles. You're here."

A hand—Jonathan's hand—set itself on Riley's shoulder. He’d been trapped. The usage of his nickname—Riles—had once thrilled him, but now it terrified him. The other man's hand felt cold through his shirt, and Riley immediately regretted not bringing his overcoat.

"It's okay," Jonathan continued. "You don't have to say anything. You don't even have to look at me."

PR: Viz Promotes New Digital Manga Titles, End of Year Sale

Vampire Knight © Matsuri Hino
2004/HAKUSENSHA, Inc.

Round Out The Year With The Launch Of 4 New Manga Series And A Special Year-End Promotion Offering Up To 70% Off On All Digital Manga Titles

VIZ Media completes December with a final digital manga update for the year. Fans and readers can wrap up 2014 and accent their holiday season with a wide variety of new manga (graphic novel) volumes as well as catch the launch of a trio of exciting new series from the VIZ Select imprint and new Shojo title.

VIZ Media also ends the year with its annual digital manga sale. For a limited time only – from December 15^th to January 15^th – readers can dive into scores of new series or catch up on continuing favorites for up to 70% off the regular digital MSRP on digital manga titles featured on VIZManga.com and the VIZ Manga App. 

Some titles will be available for as low as $1.99. Special sale pricing also may be available from a variety of partner’s digital platforms. Check partner sites for details and specific pricing.

New Digital Manga Series Debuts:

YUKARISM, Vol. 1 · Rated ‘T’ for Teens ·

DIGITAL MSRP: $6.99 (U.S. / CAN) · Available Now!

In this new series from the creator of YURARA and RASETSU, Yukari Kobayakawa, an accomplished author at the age of 17, writes with amazingly accurate details about historical Japan. As it turns out, he has the ability to slip into his past life in the Edo period—as a beautiful, renowned courtesan named Yumurasaki!

Sunshine and Murder, Or When Another Goes To The Beach

Spoiler alert: Post contains spoilers for Another episode 8, "Hair stand", and other plot elements from the rest of the series.

A melon that looks like it's been murdered?
Yep, it's Another.

I knew I wanted to blog again about Another, now that I have finished the anime, but I had been visibly torn over whether to blog about the series' use of whispers and gossip throughout all twelve episodes or just concentrate on the beach episode and how great it was.

Eventually, I decided. Bugger it, beach episode of Another all the way. Why not? It's the holidays. Let's talk about girls in bikinis on the beach and bloody, bloody murder. 'Tis the season to talk killer curses.

December Link Post: Saturday Night's All Right For Link Spam

Here are some of the great and interesting items I've read since the last link dump:

• Lauren at Otaku Journalist is kicking off her 2014 edition of Twelve Days of Anime, something she took part in last year and was great to read every day. I'd participate as well but I didn't even watch enough anime this year to cover twelve days of talking about it.
• Smart Bitchy, Trashy Books talk about the latest attempt by mainstream television to cater to geeks and nerds who love adventure shows, the TNT program the Librarians. I dunno - it sounds like a brainless version of Warehouse 13.
• The Asahi Shimbun talks about the Westernized Doraemon and how it was brought over to America via Disney XD. I didn't realize his "yummy buns" were actually cut down in amount, yikes!
• My fave music blogger and IRL friend Gaosalad has introduced me to a new J-Pop group, Color-Code, whose "I LIKE DAT" music video pleases me on so many levels. They're like a cross between Capsule, Saori@Destiny, and Ayu herself.
• [CW: racialized slurs, anti-Chinese slurs] It's more about Chinese-centric racism than Asia in general, but it's worth a read for anime fans who interact with Asian culture on a regular basis: s.e. smith writes on Chop Suey, Ching Chong and Asia in pop culture.
• Lastly, at the Hungry Bug Diner, ABCBTom writes about Sayo Yamamoto and her use of charcoals for anime art, in series like Attack on Titan, Psycho-Pass and Eureka Seven.

Manga Review: Kamisama Kiss GN 16

Kamisama Kiss volume 16
Author: Julietta Suzuki
Viz Manga/Shojo Beat
200 pages

Back in feudal Japan, Akura-oh is getting frustrated with his best friend and rampage companion Tomoe. He correctly guesses that Tomoe is lovesick, and decides the best way to deal with it is to kill the object of his affection--Yukiji! And to make matters worse, when Nanami wears historical clothes, she looks an awful lot like Yukiji! Can she manage to preserve the past, save Tomoe, protect Yukiji and keep from getting killed?!

I am really digging the current time travel arc in Kamisama Kiss. I'm a big fan of shows which incorporate time travel into their stories and have near-time paradox situations that actually work out (with a little in series explanation, of course) – LOST did this very well in seasons four and five – and Kamisama Kiss' own "rescue Tomoe with the past" arc is coming along well.

In this volume, Nanami works harder than ever to find a cure for Tomoe's curse, determined to find Kuromaro of Mount Ontake, wherever that may be. Her mission gets slightly sidetracked after escaping from Akura-oh's company and falling back in with Yukiji, but it looks like Nanami's more than passing resemblance to the other woman will become a useful tool to ward off a couple of mischievous, dangerous demons.