My Lovely Ghost KANA is a short manga ( 3 volumes) about a guy named Amano Daikichi who after losing his home and job stumbles upon an abandoned apartment building where resides the ghost of a girl (Kana) who can’t remember her past. And so it’s the story of their daily life ( despite the fact that she’s a ghost) . Also they hop on like rabbits.

My Lovely Ghost KANA didn’t get much the exposure it could have gotten however. At first people jumped on it because it was written by Tanaka Yukata, yknow , the same bloke who gave us Ai-Ren ( which, I still haven’t read past chapter 2 ) , but then they quickly lost interest because it apparently didn’t have the level of life drama they wanted it to have. meh. My Lovely Ghost KANA was very Slice-of-life, nothing more, nothing less. If slice-of-life isn’t your cup of tea, you should pass, but if like Slice-of-life, then it’s definitely worth your read.

oh, also, it’s mildly heart-warming/touching and might give you a fuzzy feeling or something. there’s some daww as Kana is adorable. This definitely could / should get a one episode OVA . I’d dig Hanazawa as Kana ( See what I did thar ?!).

So yeah, give it a try if you don’t mind slice-of-life, and the hopping like rabbit part.

Woo, once again I’m late to the party. I finally started reading Yankee-Kun to Megane-Chan. It’s probably a good thing that I was late because the first chapters are so-so.

Here’s the description if knew of this manga :

“The story starts with a seemingly unassuming class rep Adachi Hana who has taken an interest in the school’s known delinquent, Shinagawa Daichi. Just what is her reason for following Daichi and wanting him to go on the class field trip?”

I somehow concluded that this manga was about some diligent Class-rep-like girl who decided to reform the class delinquent to be a fitting member of society.

BOY was I wrong !

Turns out Megane-chan is a former delinquent and a quite strong and feared one at that. And that is why she felt a connection with Yankee-Kun. Also turns out that Megane- chan, against all stereotypes…is pretty retarded. And by retarded I mean…stupid…extremely stupid.

She sucks in class ( so much that she repeated once already ) , fails to present any kind of logic, is crude, selfish, thinks with her stomach and seems to have no redeeming quality.

Well no ok, to be fair, she does have a big heart and really want to help people out.

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The story in the first 3 volumes thus follow the adventures of Yankee-Kun (Shinagawa Daichi) and Megane-Chan (Adachi Hana) trough their freshman years, and I suppose their getting accustomed to each other. Sadly, the first 2 vol are actually not that interesting.

   Things eventually get better when the 3rd gang member joins in, Chiba Seiya , the sweet , tall and shy classmate with the glare of death.

Chiba is the somewhat comic relief of the manga. He gets his own 2 chapter mini-arc in chapter 3 and 4, too suddenly be forgotten until chapter 19. Chiba suffers from frequent bullying due to his involuntary glare of death that makes him look like he picks up fight with anyone when in reality he’s pretty chicken.

Not long after that the 3 friends pass on the 2nd year and are joined by Himeji Rinka , Hana’s underclassman from her previous school who had a pretty strong entrance, and  while not as stupid as Hana, is almost as particular.

——–

But the real deal begins when Hana decides to be candidate for student council… yeah… a bunch of delinquent in the student council. Crazy idea right ? …Until they actually get elected. 

  They are joined by their final (gang?) member : Izumi Gaku . The second best student after Chiba…who happens to also be a former Yankee.

Interestingly enough, He and Daichi become BEST buds from the get-go.

While the formula didn’t change much and it pretty much stayed the same manga with more characters, the fact that delinquents became Student council makes the manga 10 times better simply for the Irony.

It gets better, while on a “student council retreat” during the summer, they meet the former student council.

The former president is actually a pretty cool and laid back guy……until someone calls him the forbidden word “ Girl” and he instantly turns into a blood thirsty , hungry for battle , super vicious delinquent.

It is then explained that it’s almost a tradition in the school to have a student council composed of erm “strong” elements, for the school attracts “particular” students.

But while composed of delinquents, they are actually good people with big hearts, even if they can get pretty sidetracked at times…

Helping bullied students here and there, making geeks look more confident, etc.

From to

There appears to be some sort of subplot with Hana, not being a simple girl ( or rather former delinquent), but the manga doesn’t dwelve too much into that so far. or rather , at least not what I read so far.

If you don’t read this manga yet and have some spare time, I highly recommend you start reading it.

here’s to hoping it gets an anime soon.

Yes I know, late much and all, but I finally caught up ( or rather forced myself to) with Omamori Himari.

In the past 2 or 3 years that this manga’s been out, I tried at least 4 times to read it, but I could never make it past vol 1. Actually I had never even finished vol 1. But as the air date of the anime approaches ( not to mention that fantastic state if boredom I was in) I decided to once again force myself to read it.

Turns out as soon as shizuru appears the manga becomes instantly awesome. One of the major problem I had before was that the scan team had opted to use old English to represent the fact that Himari speaks in old Japanese. The old English was the greatest turn off and the plot was generally uninteresting to me : a classic case of girl who protects wimp, wimp wants to become stronger, childhood friend gets jealous, other girls add to harem, blah blah blah.

Tough once you get past that it’s a pretty fun read I must admit, basic humour but still enjoyable and basic Matra Milan fanservice. If you’ve read his other stuff, you should know what to expect.

My favourites characters so far are :

- shizuru

- Ques

and,

-  Ageha ( 90% because she looks like Kallen).

Himari is ok , but I don’t fancy her that much , seeing as she’s the main character , she will obviously win by default, and I’ve grown tired of default winners.

The tea fairy is not too bad either , but clumsy maid moe is getting old.

oh and the childhood friend  is uh…there ( that says it all).

on the plot itself , well there’s not much to say. The story has not really advanced much. Only recently did the more than more likely  main (or major at least) antagonist appeared, but there is still a lot we don’t know about them , or about the other families , as it’s progressing slowly . we got glimpse of other people who might be future allies recently…maybe, I’m not really sure where the story is at in japan right now , but I get the feeling the anime will quickly cover the 5 published volumes and will have an open ending. with luck ( if the anime doesn’t suck too much) we’ll get a season 2 like Sekirei.

Anyway , now that I’ve finally caught up and I can say that I fairly enjoy it, I’ll be sure to pick up Yen press release. Here’s to hoping they don’t use old English.

Today aired the last episode of the epic saga , TOWARD THE TERRA (TV)

Adapted from the award winning manga by Keiko Takemiya , Toward the terra(TV)  tells the story of the war between two race who longs for the planet they once destroyed , earth . The setting is in distant future , after having polluted the earth at an extreme level , the humans have decided to leave it so that it could heal , while only few selected being would have been able to set foot on it .  However , deep in the reaches of space , a new race of humans endows with psychic abilities  is born , they are called the MU . Because of their differences , humans starts persecuting them while all the MU wants is to return to Terra. And so begins the war of the Mu vs the Humans . The story follows the path of two men , Jomy Marcus Shin , leader of the MU and Keith Anyan , a Human elite who will do everything he can to get rid of the MU.

while , the TV series retained the plot line and many elements from the original manga , it took another approach at re-telling the story , so what you get is new character design and no copy-pasta of what already existed and you don’t feel like watching fillers unlike the typical shonen anime ( Bleach , naruto . ) , but then again you’d have to have read the original manga to say what’s filler or what isn’t.

Another major point the TV series has but this time compared to the movie would the character development which the movie cruelly lacked.

The soundtrack is marvellously arranged ..and I don’t know what to say anymore…except that it’s one of the MUST-SEE of the year .

Thankfully  Bandai ent licensed it , so we should expect DVD releases by 20098 .

I’ll write more later when I’ll remember what to write . As for why I post this when it could be in a draft ? just because knowing me the way I do , I may never go and continue writing on it , and it would end up dying in my cemetery of draft. …yea..I got a lot of draft of post I was writing , but never got to publish in the end.  =/

That’s right , As of the latest issue of Shonen Magazine , 3 years later , Suzuka , which ran from the 3rd March 2004 to the 21th September 2007 finally reached an end.

For those who have only seen the anime , it may have ended a long time ago , but for those who followed the manga it was quite a run .

Suzuka , tells the story of a young boy named Yamato Akitsuki and a girl named Asahina Suzuka ( pretty original right?) , Akitsuki Yamato decided to go to Tokyo to pursues his studies , there it is arranged that he will lodge at his aunt Apartment complex. However before going there , he drops by his new school and that’s where he will meet Suzuka . The young Yamato is then struck by what they call love at first sight. And what greater odds for him , she happens to live in the apartments next door .

Unfortunately for the poor Yamato , Suzuka is as beautiful as she hard to get . She’s may be cute , but she is stubborn , can be selfish , is often grumpy , and clearly despises Yamato. Deciding that he would not give up and to get closer to her , he decides to join a Track team . After that will happen a series of event involving a rival for Suzuka , or rather , one who sees Suzuka as a rival , and I of course talk about Honoka . Because Yamato is being a pathetic dumbass , and that for some reasons , Honoka really wants him , she ends up getting what she want after many unsuccessful ( maybe not many , haven’t read in a while eh) at getting Suzuka such as discovering for example how her first love was the best runner in their school track team and yet died , hence why it makes her afraid of relationship , Yamato ends up going out Honoka .

All for the best …? Not really , Suzuka starts to discover she is getting jealous . And when comes the time to buy a present to his girlfriend , sir.Dumbass has the brilliant idea to go ask the one girl he’s been pursuing all along , to come and help him , of course , Honoka learns this and one thing leading to another , Yamato ends up breaking up with the poor girl . That’s when he decided to re-examine his love for his former un-required love , and so Yamato finds the way to declare his love to Suzuka once again , this time she accepts and the two of them start going out ….

All for the best ? not really , the couple quarrel which leads to having Suzuka going to a winter training camp…which leads her to accept an athletic scholarship in order to study during a year in the USA. While , Yamato himself found a job in a cafe where works of course a really cute waitress who only sees Yamato in her eyes ( good lord >_> ) . Suzuka ends up leaving and of course this is the end for the couple . That’s exactly when Yui , the cute waitress decides to make her move , but Dumbass rejects her . And so he also stops working at the cafe .

Anyway , the year passes , Yamato became almost good in track , bla bla bla , Honoka ( who’s back ) spends the year trying to send signal to dumbass so they could get back together , but dumbass doesn’t see any of those . Suddenly one day he wakes up and decide to ask Honoka out , and that’s the same day she announces to him that she found herself a boyfriend. Coincidently , Suzuka is coming back from the States , bla bla bla , they discuss , and then they are back together.

Time passes , as the couple is in elision , Yamato’s friend suggest him to pass the next step , after struggling to make Suzuka accept , Yamato and Suzuka pass the next step , and they can’t be happier. That’s when they decide to make a trip , just to two of them , knowing their parent would not approve , so they find a way to lie …but are caught anyway , Suzuka’s father is very not happy , and it takes time for him to recognize/accept/forgive Yamato . Once it’s done , all should go perfectly well ……but it seems destiny doesn’t want it to be so , and Suzuka learns that she’s pregnant . They both talk and in the end it’s been decided that they would keep the kid . And so they all make preparations for such , Suzuka and Yamato get married , Suzuka has a daughter , and finally , all is well……?

Anyway it’s over now .

Basically , reading Suzuka was a pain by time , it was like eating apples even though you’re allergic and your face starts to swell and even thought you suffer , you keep eating it, and you don’t even know why since it doesn’t taste particularly good . Yamato was the kind of character that you’d want to beat the crap out of almost every chapter for being so dense , stupid and …a dumbass ! And Suzuka was no better , honestly , you’d knew they’d make the perfect couple so much they’d piss you off . But weirdly enough , you could not stop yourself from reading .

In the end , I enjoyed this manga , it was quite a run , tough but enjoyable nonetheless. , and I am kind of sad that it ended , but everything that stars must ends .

Would I recommend it to anyone ?

yes …and Not really , I mean if you are looking for this kind of stories , then you’d better go read love hina , or Maison Ikkoku . Not that Suzuka isn’t good at all , but there really are better manga of this style out there , but then again , there my whole personal bias against Yamato .

Of course , when i go there I only plan on picking 1 manga , but i end up leaving with generally more then 3 , depending on how much money I have .

Unfortunately ( or luckily ? ) for me , I happened to have received money Tuesday , so yesterday i went to the the book store and that’s when i see “The Cross Triangle ” ( along with Kekkaishi 8 and GetBackers 21 T_T ) .

The first thought that cross my mind when i saw the cover was ” wtf , is this..Himeko O_o ?! . Kannazuki made it here ? O_o . Damn them , i can’t believe those idiot renamed “kannazuki no Miko ” into “the cross triangle ” , because after all , these idiot did translate “bokura ga ita ” into “c’etait nous ” ( in English , “it was us ” ) . And by these idiot’s , i’m of course talking about Vegeta Manga Shoten/Soleil .

And the way the manga begun didn’t help me into thinking it wasn’t Kannazuki , but as I went to the last page to see if there was the YFR , i realized it was another manga .

Actually , The Cross Triangle was made two years before Kannazuki , and is a one-shot manga . But you can could consider it Kannazuki’s parent as you can see that Kannazuki was loosely inspired of this story .

now on to the review .

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The manga stars with Ogami ( yeah , the same Ogami Souma , expect he is only called Ogami ) confessing to Kurusu ( Himeko’s ancestor..¬¬) and saying he is there to protect her . However , because she is persuaded her best friend Kihara ( Chikane’s ancestor..¬¬ ) loves Ogami , she backs down and doesn’t answer the man even thought she loves him . Those three go the the same catholic school and are in the same class . Later on , in the class , the girls chatter about a new priest who is attractive . Troubled because of Ogami’s declaration earlier , Kurusu decide to go to the church and there she meets the Priest ( he looks like one of the guy from Kyoushiro . ) The later tells he incomprehensible things that only confuse the poor girl even more , such as telling her she doesn’t realize who she is . Scared , she goes back home . The night , she wants to feed her cat , but cut slightly cut herself . While the cat was eating ( a bit of blood had been mixed with the food ) , it transformed and grew wings . Scared , she runs outside where Ogami is waiting for her and tells her he loves her and will protect her from those after her body . Afraid of understand what Ogami is trying to mean , she escapes and hides under a tree where she cries . A little comes to comfort her , but it turned out to be a monster after her . and it wasn’t alone . Of course Ogami comes to the rescue ( at least tries ) , but the Priest arrives , saves her and kill the monsters .

The second chapter skipped some times , Kurusu is now used to her daily life of fighting the monster and accepted the fact that she is non other but the Goddess of the Darkness , the Princess who reins over the creatures from the Darkness . But the Priest who is watching from afar consider Ogami not to be fitting for protecting her . He is talking with another person who he calls “Princess” , but the person replies by saying she has no intention of becoming “queen” .

The next day , Kihara is waiting for Kurusu to go back home , because the latter has been avoiding her recently so that she wouldn’t get involved in the fights . But as they get out of school , Kurusu is being target by a student of their school and Because Ogami was injured ( and thus absent ) , she couldn’t do anything. But then Priest Dior comes and the student leave . Only to attack later the night . And he easily owns Ogami but then is killed impaled by the Sword of the Crimson Lotus ( Gurren Nishiki anyone ? ) , and ancient artifact supposedly lost but Dior claim having known where it was . Then he said the one holding it is non other but his master , the other Princess of Darkness that Kurusu will have to fight : Kihara Azathot( Dun dun dun ! ) . Back at her place , not knowing what do to , Kurusu is tormenting herself , but then she remembers Kihara is her friend , so she decide to show up at school the next morning . When she tries to find Kihara to discuss , she overhears Ogami saying that she (Kurusu) doesn’t mean anything to him . Feeling betrayed she escapes ( again ) but runs into Dior who tells her to meet them the night at the rooftop so they can discuss a way to end this without having to fight .

The night , Kihara tells Kurusu she loves her , but that this feeling is incompatible with their nature , so she declares she can’t forgive neither her nor Ogami and she tries to kill Kurusu , only to have Ogami protect her and getting stabbed at her place . Then we get to see a glimpse of Ogami’s past and we learn his name is Serios . and he was chosen to wield the sword of the crimson lotus , but his Brother then went and killed everyone and escaped with the sword for unknown reasons ( Itachi ? ) . When about to finish of Ogami , Kihara is stopped by Kurusu who begs her to let him live . Dior and Kihara then leave , while Kurusu brings Ogami back to her place and tries to heal him . She then bit her lip to give him a bit of her blood by kissing him ( blood+ anyone ) .

The next morning , She decide that to protect Ogami , she must fight and kill Kihara to become the Queen , and suddenly , her cat transforms the Crux she always with her into a sword.

And so the two girl fight , Kihara confess again and cried because she can’t be happy with Kurusu , then she ask Kurusu to help her and Kurusu stabs her ..she also takes the time to kiss her and this somehow exorcise a demon that had possessed Kihara . Kurusu then kill the demon .Dior in the back comment on how he knew everything , which pisses of Ogami ( back his feet ) . Dior says that Ogami received “the sacred seal” but that it isn’t enough , and that he must became Stronger and Stronger if he wants to handle the heads of the clergy , and he escaped saying farewell to Serios .

Ogami then decide to leave to become stronger so that when he comes back , he’ll be able to protect Kurusu like a man protects the woman he loves .

the end

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So.. hum , overall that was a rather short manga , but i guess this is why they call them “one-shot ” .

It probably would have been better had it been longer . It cruelly lacked of Character development . And it kinda pissed me off that they didn’t clearly said if Dior was indeed Ogami’s brother +_+

I guess the ending of Kannazuki no Miko was basically the Kihara route when The Cross Triangle was the Ogami route .

I like Kihara better then Chikane anyway . Chikane was this annoying snobby bitch i felt like killing when Kihara is the perfect opposite , the only thing that stayed was that they both love Kurusu/Himeko .

my verdict is..although i liked it ( i hated Kannazuki because i hated Chikane ) , save your money , don’t buy this . Find the scans or something . Unless you feel like collecting everything made by “Kaishaku”