Once a Stranger

Natsume Yuujinchou x40
Miscellaneous x3 (Tokyo Babylonx2, Sarah Connor Chroniclesx1)

Teaser:

( Natsume Yuujinchou )

( Miscellaneous icons )

Comment & credit if you take them, please
Concrit always welcome

(so my first attempt at crossposting from DW: failed; and my LJ entries for some obscure reason looks better on LJ than on DW... oh well)

Somehow I tried to take advantage of the fact I had a lot of free time this year to watch a whole bunch of TV series and anime. I didn't actually review most of them, so I'll try to compile my impressions there.

( The Awesome )

( The Good )

( The Flawed yet Compelling yet Flawed )

( The Okay I guess )

( The Boring )

( The Not Sure Yet )

Whoa. This took me so long to type I started yesterday and only finished today. Next time I'll try to do more reviews as I go >_>;

Anyway, I'm off to see the new BSG ep!

Icons I made lately (and not so lately)

Avatar x4
BSG x16
CLAMP x18
ASOIAF x5
Miscellaneous x6
Gifts x11


( goodies! )

if you want comment & credit. Concrit always welcome.

Back home from my parents'. New year feasting went well. There were some interesting discussions.

While at was at my parents', I took advantage of my old library to re-read two manga series : Please Save My Earth and RG Veda.

Please Save My Earth is a late 80's shoujo manga involving a cast of seven high school characters realising that they are all the reincarnation of a group of aliens who used to study the Earth from a post of observation set on the moon. The past lives set of characters have convoluted and passionate relationships involving triangles, rivalry-friendship and one-sided loves which the real time sets of characters struggle with as they progressively remember them (if you think being a teenager wasn't confusing enough by itself, try being a young guy whose past lives was a woman who was in love with the guy whose current life is your male best friend) ; and to complicate matters one of them is reincarnated in a much younger 8 year boy, Ring, who seems to have a plot involving using the Tokyo Tower (what else? :) to contact the observation base still existing on the moon, and blackmailing/threatening/manipulating various people in order to do so.
PSME mostly focus on people's relationships, with a great flair for both the (melo)dramatic, the subtle and the heartbreaking. It's also got Psi-powers-based fighting scenes; volumes-spanning flashbacks, and a plot which ends up not being much at the end.
It's an old school manga, and it's got quite the silly idiosyncrasies. Our main female character, Alice, whom I adore nonetheless, is sadly not very proactive on the plot. And there's a face-palming inducing rape story which makes me ashamed of enjoying the male character involved anyway. The art hasn't always aged well (to say the least), and some cultural references haven't either (random saint seya references FTW!); and there's this hilarious use of dinosaurs as a motif... At the same time it manages juggling with an impressively large cast of characters (both lives of characters + secondary characters they interact with + other people getting involved in Ring's plot) and two timelines quite dexterously and continues being riveting and intense through a relatively (for a shoujo) long run of 21 volumes. I'm particularly fond of the characterisation - especially Alice and Ring and their past lives; but many other characters like Haruhiko, Tamura, Mikuro, Issei...
PSME was one of the first epic contemporary fantasy shoujo series I read some ten years ago along with Ayashi no Ceres and Basara, and one of my favourite ones. Upon re-read, despite all the silliness and idiosyncrasies; it still rings emotionally true to me, pushing the right buttons, and being a good story overall.

RG Veda is CLAMP's first professional manga, featuring a Hindu mythology inspired fantasy world where the rule of the Heaven has been overturned when Taishaku-Ten murdered the Emperor and the warrior god Ashura-Ou some 300 years ago; and where a prophecy about the being the destroyer of Heavens spurs Yasha-Ou, a young guardian god to find and protect Ashura, the child of Ashura-Ou, and revolt against Taishaku-Ten. Progressively, and in accordance with that prophecy, he is joined by several other gods who have their own reason to fight Taishaku-Ten.
RV Vega shows its age in its style of lavish, baroque, kinda of over the top art; yet i cannot help but find it gorgeous. The characters are very intriguing, likeable and amusing - I think they don't have quite the finesse or depth of characterisation that other CLAMP works show; but are still very appealing nevertheless. Thematically and relationship-wise this is definitely CLAMP's testing ground, showing their much-loved themes of fate, duality, the ties between people, eros/thanatos and strength. It is very much a tragedy, saved from melodrama only by the cheerfulness and grace typical of CLAMP characters. In terms of pacing it is slightly uneven, with several chapters without very much happening to Yasha, Ashura and co.
RG Veda is a manga I like comparing to X, for obviously thematic parallels : they're both tales of the prophecy of a world ending, except one's set in our modern world and the other in a fantasy world. The characters of Yasha and Ashura always reminded me a lot of Fuuma and Kamui; to which I sometimes like adding a parallel between Arashi and Karura. Upon reread, I was also struck with some parallels with latter arcs of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, and not only the parts about Fay and Ceres.
RG Veda was the first CLAMP I read which I really fell in love with - I had read several manga by them before (suki dakara suki, wish, 20 masks please, Magic Knight Rayearth and of course Card Captor Sakura), by impressions ranged from "meh" to "cute but not entrancing"; so along with Tokyo Babylon and X which I read a couple of months after RG Veda, it's one of the work responsible for my fangirlism of CLAMP overall. Upon reread I find it more uneven, but I still love it, and find myself extremely amused, especially at characters like Kendappa, or the villains like Shashi and Taishaku-Ten (Shashi is hilarious because she's so unredeemable, ruthlessly, unabashedly evil and power hungry and i guess the fact that she's easy on the eyes also help). Kujaku's still my favourite character, utterly adorable and cheerfully/teasingly mysterious, and the one I find the most heartbreaking. Kendappa/Souma's love story is still my favourite couple (they're also, sadly, CLAMP's only two sided femslash romance featured as prominently and as canonically). Ashura himself is adorable, and so is Yasha when he interacts with Ashura.

So I finally succumbed to shiinabambi's arguments and caught up on Tsubasa.

And... I neither like nor dislike it. I'm just... way, way confused @_@ and kinda dazzed.

( small )


Now I'll go back to watch 12 Kingdoms.

Bits of writing done for memes, which I liked enough to post at my writing journal - so you may have seen them before.

Title: Gardening conversation
Fandom: Tokyo Babylon/X – Shoujo Kakumei Utena
Characters/Pairings: Anthy, Seishirou
Length: 307 words
Notes: Done for keelieinblack for the crossover conversation meme


Title: Lucky boy
Fandom: Shoujo Kakumei Utena
Characters/Pairings: Anthy
Length: 89 words
Notes: done for sakanagi, headcanon meme.


Title: How Miki lost his virginity
Fandom: Shoujo Kakumei Utena
Characters/Pairings: Touga/Miki, implied Kozue/Miki
Length: 84 words
Notes: done for bitterfig, virginity loss meme


Title: Three facts about Seishirou
Fandom: Tokyo Babylon/X
Characters/Pairings: Seishirou, Setsuka, Subaru
Length: 328 words
Notes: Started for bitterfig, added another bit for a_white_rain, then reworked somewhat into this form.

Did a Tokyo Babylon drabble for sakanagi
Winter
Subaru
100 words

and I wrote a first Avatar fanfic. And it's all about Ozai, of all people, and about his relationship with his family (seriously, what is wrong with me?)
Weaknesses
Ozai (Azulon, Ursa, Iroh, Zuko, Azula)
5x100 words

Posted the DVD commentary of "The One-Eyed Man" (Seishirou/Subaru) at sakanagi's request.

Happy birthday su_chan happy birthday sakuraragi ♥ Sending much love and hopeful wishes to you.


A recent entry at the Encyclopedia Mythica :

Kamui

The sky-god of the Ainu people of the island of Hokkaido. He is also called Tuntu, "support, pillar" of the world.

Since I now know how to use yousendit (and megaupload because yousendit kept dying on me), and since I'm the utter dork that I am, I might as well do something utterly dorkish with it : which is share music adapted to my favourite fandoms yay !

Anyway, those are for Tokyo Babylon and X, and Seishirou and Subaru.

1.Monopolis, Michel Berger (Starmania)

The first song is from a French musical, something called Starmania which is gloriously camp and early 80's
The song to me is fitting to the ambiance of Tokyo Babylon. The theme of the all encompassing city and the modernity that rules everything. The superficial joyous tones always threatened by bittersweetness and melancholy. The questionning tone about any possible connection and future between two people in this setting. Hey ! the lyrics even announce the 1999 Appocalypse.

( lyrics )

2. Protection, Massive Attack

This is my Hokuto and Subaru song. It's probably sadder than such a song ought to be, but again it's got a very urban feel to it. The visual picture that accompagny it is the moment when Hokuto hugs catatonic!Subaru. Subaru keeps trying to save everyone as part of his job, but who saves Subaru ? Theres where Hokuto comes. "you're a boy and I'm a girl" becomes "you're a girl and I'm a boy" as part of the role trading. And there's always the third part of the triangle mentionned in the middle of them.

( lyrics )

3. Enjoy the Silence, Depeche Mode (sorry, I only got a live version of this)

Enjoy the Silence conludes Tokyo Babylon era. It's there to fit with the theme of communication, and its failure, and the Tower of Babel which fall brought upon the breaking into different speeches. It's there because Seishirou and Subaru is a romance which starts and ends with words that we don't hear and that are taken away by the wind. It's there for all the lies Seishirou told. In silence only the truth remained.
And it's still got that trippy 80's feeling to it ^_^

( lyrics )

4. Time is running out, Muse

We leave the 80's and enter X1999 with a first Muse song. This is from Annex to Nakano sunplaza, and all the years of pursuit in between them as Seishirou and Subaru keeps playing with each others. Asphyxia, binding, addiction and all the cute themes of their interactions are there. And tension is building as, indeed, their time is running out.

( lyrics )

5. Haemoglobine, Placebo

Things keep getting more gorey and bloody as 1999 follows its course. This is Subaru as the Hanged Man and Seishirou as Death. This is the twisting madness of the Sakurazukamori, and Subaru's obsession with his Wish as Fuuma rips his eye away.

( lyrics )

6. Black Dove (January), Tori Amos (that one also i have only in live version because my CD is at my appartment ;_;)

Hey, you knew I had to put a Tori Amos song there, don't you ? Anyway this is my Setsuka song, from the flashback at the end of volume 16. She's a January girl. She's as crazy as she is delicately beautiful. She's cruel in a fairy tale like way, with innocence and a twisted tenderness, and this heavy feeling of not right. She lived in a january world and she died there. Happily. She was a black dove, terrible and dangerous, and got away from her cage. Maybe to Texas ?

( lyrics )

7. Sing for absolution, Muse
Second Muse song. I like Muse a lot. Also, my musical culture is very small so I have a small pool of songs to pick from.
This is Rainbow bridge. Seishirou is dead, long live necrophiliac sex. Oh well. This is about never having been able to tell someone you loved them. This is about the world crumbling down around you and nothing anymore mattering at all. And Subaru is forever falling from this grace.

( lyrics )

8. Raining Blood, Tori Amos (Slayer Cover)

What you didn't think I'd use only one Tori Amos song ? See what i said above about narrow musical culture.
This is the song for when Subaru becomes Sakurazukamori. It's slow and heavy, full of a despair that encompasses everything. There's the necessity to live on while everything is lifeless. And the whole world is turning to red.

( lyrics )

So I just got the third Clamp no Kiseki magazine and hold a very cute figurine of Subaru

I put it on the shelf next to the others and I realize that Subaru is smaller than Watanuki. Even with his hat. Granted it's TB!Subaru but still.

Then I realize that he's even smaller than Sakura.

OMG SUBARU YOU'RE MORE UKE THAN A 10 YEARS OLD GIRL

<--- is such a dork

Spent a lot of the two days before reading those books I found. Not so much childhood books in fact. That's The amulet of Samarkand and The eye of the golem by Jonathan Stroud. Nice little story, pretty grim humour and dark outlook. Modern world with magic twist, but every magicians are able to do magic only because of the spirits they summon and bind to them. The narrator is one of those djinni, and he's got the sense of humour to be expected with that. The other character is a young (12 in the first novel, 14 in the second) magician who summons him. He's not exactly a nice guy, either, though he's faintly better that most magicians (read, most of them are insanely proud, greedy, powerhungry and distrustable) Anyway, nice little plot, not too convulated but well told. I look forward finishing the second and getting the third (which i don't think is out yet)
the third english bookstore in Paris didn't have Howl's Moving Castle either. Librarians are stupid and makes no prevision. Bah, I say.
However that library had some Barbra Hambly books I was looking for (historical crime novels about a free black man and doctor in New Orlean during the 19th. I read one before which was very good) so i still got to spend much money, hoorah !
then I went to see a movie, alone, which is something I hadn't done in a long time and which I did on a strange impulse. T'was a Chilian movie called Machuca and was pretty good (but not very happy with happening in 73 when the Junta took power)

On to fandom stuff :

( a fandom meme )

~ Scan my interest list and pick out the one that seems the most odd/interesting to you.
~ I’ll explain it.
~ Then you post this in your journal so other people can ask you about your interests.

and... One of the best conversation I had about X/1999