Various reviews

[salinea]

I finally finished watching FMA.
The ending is emotionnaly satisfying, if anything else. Thematic wise, i'm not totally happy. Plot wise errr I stopped paying attention a long time ago why not !
I'm especially unhappy with the final handling of the Homunculus. I was expecting to see more about them, a better development of their thematics. The ending lets me down with a feeling of "Ah yeah; well, they don't have a soul, tough to be them, heh ? Look shiny ! Now I shall dispose of the last of them in suitably dramatic and ambigous fashion. 'Xcept for the kid cuz he's cute, so he just walked away !" -_-;;
There were other WTF moments, but apparently those will be explained with the movie which will have PULP!NAZIS ! Wonderful ! *rolls eyes*
I'm giving a worse impression of it than I felt. As I said, it was very emitionnaly satisfying. Pacing and action were cool. And I'm left loving most of those characters a great deal (even Envy who was always the Homunculus I loved the least found some redemption to my eyes when he finally revealed his story ^^) Plus, happy RizaxRoy happy !

Then I finally started watching Kyou Kara Maou. Boy, are those silly. Cute, but silly. I think I stood mesmerized and watched more and more of them thinking : Wow, that's like... plotless Slayers with Slash *watches more* Sooo is Wolfram a great character because he's really adorable or because he's the only decent character in the cast *watches watches* if this was clamp i would expect Conrad to have an evil secret of doom... dare I hope ? *watches-watched ... ooops done with the 15 episodes Isabelle had given me !*
So, tell me... Does this anime eventually develop a plot and does it remain pure silliness ? Is its only appeal the shiny slash or is there more to it ? And why did I watch so much of it when i thought it was so bad ? o^_^o;;

I read the comic Runaway during the week end, which was cute and cool. Very fun comic. Joss Whedon liked it, check it out. ^_^

Otherwise I took back an old book serie I had started last year. Fortress of Owls and Fortress of Dragon, sequel to the Fortress in the Eye of Time and Fortress of Eagles by Cherryh. It's pretty fine high fantasy. Slooooww, sometimes agonizingly so, and that's its biggest flaw, but not uninteresting. Characters were rather likeable when they were not too sugar-sweet. What I liked better was the sense of the magic given and how eminently slashable it was.

Soon I shall take up the Prince of Nothing which I borrowed from Pierre boyfriend and ex-boyfriend have the same tastes in books, >_>;; and Passage in french translation by Connie Willis (I heard the ending was disapointing, though :-( )

Comments

[generalblossom.livejournal.com]

Let me know what you think of the end of Passage. How people interpreted that so differently! I did not think it disapointing, but we will see :)

Cherryh is one of those authors one day I mean to read more of! ( BTW just read and loved Tanith lee´s Red as Blood)

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Ofcourse I will ! Yay for interpretation varying, that's always interesting ^^

Yeah she's that for me too actually (she wrote so many things) I only checked the Chanur thing and a couple of other space op books before. I think she was possibly better at science fiction in general... I want to find more ^^

Yeah, I saw your post. I'm horribly jealous of you : I saw those books onced but couldn't buy them because they were horribly expensive and I had no money. Woe is me ^^

[generalblossom.livejournal.com]

The fantasy by Cherryh I read ( the Tree and the swords, or whatever it was called) was very weird. I could not get to it, gave up at 50 pages.

About Tanith Lee, oh it was one of those bookcrossing books things, a sort of loan chain. Not wanting to push it, but you can sign up and even ask to read this exact same copy ( though it can be slow or even book get lost on the way). You sign up, when reader before you finishes it, he sends you a private message asking your adress and mails the book, you read it and mail it to next person. It can be stressfull to have to read something promptly, I just sign up sparingly for things I can not resist. And even so, then books arrive 3 in 2 days! evil evil.

[su-chan.livejournal.com]

XDD KKM is a bit _too_ silly, and about FMA the ending leaves you with a void feling, you miss something and me for example, I am still not able tosay whatit is, but I wanted more explantions, or how Ed managed to get Al back without the stone... even if he exchaged his own live, that was not so easily able to do so... But I like the Roy/Riza ending ^________^

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

A bit too... I don't mind silliness in general (I adored Slayers for exemple) but I like when there's a plot in my shameless fanservice comedy. I do abuse the striking function today, am I not ?

Yeah it's one of the thing that didn't make sense either, though i think they had stopped being coherent with the functionning of Alechmy oh... by episode 2 as far as I could noticed so I stopped paying attention to that part. I was more concerned about the whole "well resurection is bad. Except when you don't screw up" part. >_>;;

Hehe, it's the only ship I would aknowledge in that show. I don't understand why people want to ship characters in FMA otherwise.^^

[ripedecay.livejournal.com]

I was unsatisfied with Lust's death. Well, after watching it twice more, I finally accepted it, but I wanted her to have a grand death like Greed. BAH. Sloth got a pretty good death though along with Pride. Though his son, or step-son, ought to be smacked for coming BACK to the house xx; I felt sad when his kid died anyway. Envy disappeared, so that's interesting. Mmm, blond!Envy... Wrath...I pity the kid. He has no place, he's messed and there are no remains of his corpse to kill him. Poor kid. And Gluttony. Poor Gluttony. We don't know what happened to him or Dante. Makes me wonder :3

But the RoyxRiza made me smile. And Roy, with that huge eye patch, looks adorable XD

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was totally unsatisfied by it as well. I kept expecting to see more of her ;_; Poor girl, well she never had the same shiny style as Greed, but still. *adores Lust*

Sloth was okay... I was never overly fond of her for some reason, but her death was nice (if a bit too drawn out)

I think they plan to use Envy (and possibly Dante and Gluttony as well) in the movie. I think they tried to keep themselves to many doors opened and that's what gave such a mitigeated feel to the ending.

I really do pity all of the Homunculus. They are considered as abomination only for what they are, their actions nonewithstanding. They have very little choice.

[ripedecay.livejournal.com]

The manga, I have to say, is very interesting. It's hard to find scans online now, since VIZ licensed it, but it's quite interesting in how they deal with the homunculi in that.

It was drawn out, but at least it wasn't too quick >>; I don't know how I would have felt exactly if Ed had succeeded immediately ._.

That's true. And now I'm curious about the movie :3 As for the homunculi...it is a sad existence. I think Lust was one of the coolest ones who managed to gain some memories and did take charge. And Roy, I think, didn't care if Pride was a homunculus. He gave more of a damn about what Pirde had done. That was interesting, too.

Augh, now I'm going to watch it again this weekend XD;;

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Of course, I adored Lust she was the greatest. Yeah, you're right about Roy and Pride... though I was disapointed with Pride's himself and his lack of ambiguity.

[ripedecay.livejournal.com]

Actually, it took me just a little while to realize what Pride was up too. For a while, I thought he was just this cool and sometimes silly fuhrer. Well, he was and still is, but anyway...XD;

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

So glad you liked Runaways! I've read the three collections and they make for a very satisfying arc - Vaughan even describes it as his first season. Such a fun comic.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Yes ! I hope the following will be as delightful (and gets femslash !). Characters are very likeable and the art is very pretty (I'm far from always liking it in american comics) *is happy at last one of the comic she read someone else knows*

[slytherinblack.livejournal.com]

KKM...is so bad and cracky that it's good. It's _fun_. And it does develop a plot, of sorts.

if this was clamp i would expect Conrad to have an evil secret of doom... dare I hope ?

Yes.

And yes. Yes it is sort of like slashy Slayers with no point.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

lol yes, I certainly was watching it with glee myself ^^

thanks for the review (yay, evil secret of doom !)

[slytherinblack.livejournal.com]

It's not an evil secret persay, so much as a later event that will make his character far more interesting. However, it is very Clampish.

[meggu.livejournal.com]

The FMA ending is a bit... blah. Makes a lot of people go "WTF", includng me, and I haven't even seen it yet. <3 Spoilers are a wonderful thing.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

yeah I guess, we're all in chorus "Manga is better !" well I loved the manga before, anyway ^^

How come you haven't ? Couldn't you download it ? (<- hates spoilers)

[meggu.livejournal.com]

Mmm, the only thing I don't like about the manga is Sloth. He's... scary. But I <3 anime!Sloth, because she's so great... and pretty. :3

Eh, Bittorent doesn't work, and I can't find anywhere else to download it. ;;

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

manga!sloth is a man ? Damnit i so need to find a new place for scanlations ;_;

I got my last remaining Torrents here It worked very well... >_>

[catiechu.livejournal.com]

I have not watched FMA. I have only seen pictures. Sloth and Lust should hook up and that's all I'm gonna say. ♥

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen other people liking this pairing and i really don't understand why

[catiechu.livejournal.com]

Lazy people like to have sex? :/

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

but sex is sweaty and tiresome ! Too much work ^_^

[elihice.livejournal.com]

KKM eventually develops a very interesting plot and little simple details in the first episodes suddenly become important; but it never stops being silly and funny.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

yay for plot ! ^^

[sakanagi.livejournal.com]

plotless Slayers with Slash

Oh, I'm going to have to watch KKM. ^_^

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

lol

it's not quite as charming as Slayers... but it does got lots of slash ^^

[sakuraragi.livejournal.com]

I have this urge to read some books on some historical events and figures.

Oh, you read the Da Vinci Code, right? Is it any good? It makes me wonder how quickly it'll be made into a movie. *laughs* Naah.