The lately

I haven't been doing much of anything lately. Watched one or two episodes of Noir. Read the usual unending trickle of manga; some may be worth discussing in depth.

The only thing I really caught up on is Kimikiss. Certain portions are absolutely inane (you know, the frogs) but the rest is exactly the vicarious romance that the doctor ordered, in a variety of addicting flavors. (The worst part about romance material is withdrawal, after all.) Putting that matter aside, it seems that the production committee blew their budget on that sax CG. That said, it's actually pretty good CG for once, and musically accurate (disclaimer: the only wind instrument I play is the recorder). But the question is, why'd they devote the effort to it? Why go so far as to integrate a solo passage into the CG sequence? It boggles the mind.

Oh, since I was in the city today, I went to Kinokuniya. It seems they've expanded into the ground floor, basically directly below the second floor space, with a reduced footprint. The first floor is all manga, and the second floor is "other stuff". The expanded store might be larger than the San Jose location, but I'm not sure. I somehow felt that the manga selection wasn't as large, but that may be because I wasn't able to find Moyashimon.（Their website shows it in stock at SF, but I looked around the KC section several times and didn't see it. Maybe I should just ask next time. Or bring one of these along.) But I got the rest of what I was looking for, and resisted buying some mysterious $10 boxed Haruhi figure. (Seems to be the Solid Works Collection DX.)

The requisite picture:



I haven't been keeping up with news, so it was gratifying to see that Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is getting a second season. The volume of N.H.K. is for a friend who's also slowly learning Japanese. Minami-ke is just for staying current, even if I can't read it properly.

Mokke is definitely much better than the anime adaptation would lead one to believe. It feels like a seinen manga -- and I'm not talking about the lack of furigana.

All this manga piling up means that I need to start studying the language seriously. I've been sitting on this textbook for almost six months, sigh. Time to get cracking.