Morning Thoughts, Afternoon Thoughts

This image was taken by a government employee. I think this image is in the public domain. Anyways, there it is a great photograph of Elvis with Nixon.

Morning Thoughts

I don't know what happened to me yesterday morning. I couldn't get myself to write anything at all. Right now, I am drinking my coffee a little bit before noon. I read a little bit of Snopes this morning. A little odd and humorous news.
http://www.snopes.com/daily/index.asp

I am trying to do very little. I went to the laundromat yesterday and read some more of Manga The Complete Guide by Jason Thompason. Jason Thompson is an editor for Viz publisher which publishes manga. It was a very interesting book to read through. One of the huge faults with this book is that it only reviews manga from Japan that has translated into english. There is no coverage of original American manga from companies like Tokypop, Del Rey Manga, or Darkhores. There is now a lot of manga style comics being written by authors from others countries than Japan like Korea, China, and Canada.

Still the book is quite interesting. It reviews manga from the very beginnings starting with Four Immigrants Manga all the way through 2006. It uses a star rating system for the different manga comics with stars and half stars. I think it is pretty accurate. There is a lot of material covered Ranma 1/2, Lone Wolf and Cub, Iron Wok Jan, Harlem Beat, Sailor Moon, and a huge variety of subjects are covered.

In addition to the coverage of individual reviews there are two page overviews of different subjects in manga like Cooking, Crime and Yakuza, Fantasy, Japanese History, Otaku, Martial Arts, and many other subjects. This is quite interesting. It also includes discussions of the more risque material in manga, cross dressing, gay and lesbian, and sex.

There are separate review sectsions for Yaoi and Gay Manga, and Adult Manga. As part of its rating system, the book discusses many of the issues with differences in culture. The Japanese have very different taboos about nudity than westerners or people in the United States. They also have a tendency to include sexual innuendo about little girls. This is something we are careful about in our library.

We have had some interesting issues with Sailor Moon and older men (There is even a "Sailor Moon" fan made dating sim which is quite creepy.) Because of the issues of sexuality, we have to be very careful when ordering things for teenagers. Some of the material goes right to the adult section where there are less problems.

Ranma 1/2 for people in the United States also has some interesting connotations. When water is thrown on him, he turns into her. For some people in the United States this is more x-rated than sex. It would be no problem in the adult section, but some people sometimes object to it being in teen section or getting the book at all.

Still even in the adult section, the material can be quite explicit. I was surprised at how explicit Path of the Assassins was. It is on the top 50 bestselling manga by Diamond Comic Distributors. Just because something sells well does not make it non-explicit.

There is a glossary and an artist index. The artist index includes the titles they have published as well as links to their website if it is available.

The book has numerous black and white illustrations of covers. The back has a photo credits section. There are also a few panels from different manga in the book.

I think that this is an excellent guide to Japanese Manga. The key here is that it only covers manga in translation to english from Japanese. This is an awful lot of material.



Afternoon Thoughts

I looked at 101 Ways To Promote Your Website by Susan Sweeney, C.A. . In a way I was not impressed with the book. On the cover it says "Main Selection of Computer Books Directs book club" I wanted to see if this club still existed, so I looked it up and the membership is closed. There are also a lot of complaints Computer Books Direct from various people. This knocked the book down a little bit in my mind. I also read the very short section on blogs and was not impressed with her suggestions for promoting blogs. They were very basic. So, I am putting the book down for now.

I also took a few minutes to start reading, Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. It seems entertaining so far. They have a blog promoting the book which has a nice fluffy branded feeling to it. http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/

I went to my local library today. However, I got there a bit late. The computers were closing in fifteen minutes so I decided to take a pass. I picked up a few items to read, The Darkness, A Vampire Huntress Legend by L.A. Banks and The Discworld Graphic Novels The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett. I am hoping this will have a nice dose of humor in it. I also picked up a DVD, Inuyasha, I have not watched any of the television series anime, I have watched quite a few anime movies that are stand alone. So, this will be a slightly different experience for me.

Entrecard is still not working on my home computer. I wish they could tell me what was wrong with it, but they have not been able to.

Vampire Hunter D -- Hideyuki Kikuchi-- Adapted and Illustrated by Saiko Takaki

Vampire Hunter D -- Hideyuki Kikuchi-- Adapted and Illustrated by Saiko Takaki

This is a manga novel for adults. The themes and the violence give it a rating of 16+. It is quite graphic. The illustrator is translating a Japanese novel into manga form. She includes a few short comic strips on this process at the back of each manga. Despite being very action oriented, there are some interesting characteristics about the way the vampire hunter is drawn. He is physically lithe and beautiful to women. The lady monsters and vampires find him very attractive as well as the women he ends up protecting.

The setting is quite interesting. Long ago there was a nuclear war which annhilated most of civilization. Mutants and horrible things roamed the earth for thousands of years. Then out of the darkness rose the nobility vampires who ruled humanity for five thousand years. This rule collapsed eventually. Now, hunters roam the land, men, women, and others who unceasingly try to protect humanity from the dark creatures while a new civilization is being built. It has elements in it that remind of Jack Vance's the Dying Earth, gothic horror, a post apocalypse west, and classic horror novels.

Vampire Hunter D is a dhampir, half human and half vampire. He can walk during the daylight. He constantly seeks out the nobility which is what the monsters call themselves and kills them. He often draws sustenance from the nobles he has defeated. He dresses elegantly in a wide brimmed black hat, black leather armor, a dark cloak, and carries a sword. He also has a hand which is possessed by a ghost or spirit which talks to him sometimes.

When he is not fighting, he is talking to the local townspeople. He comes across as a kind of chevalier in his personal manners. He is shown riding a kind of mutant horse in the beginning of the story.

In Volume 1, D helps a young woman, Doris Lang, who has been bitten by a vampire. He must seek out and destroy the vampire lord which has bitten her. It reveals the inner tension inside him, as his hand says, you wanted to drink her blood more than you wanted to lay down with her. It seems that numerous of the local men have the hots for the woman he is supposed to protect as well. He must convince them to leaver her alone.

First D must face down the local townspeople who either want him dead or to leave very quickly. He also has to fight off a team of mutant hunters who want to kill the vampire lord themselves. There is constant fighting with lots of swordplay, monster fighting (a giant snakebodied woman, a werewolf, a golem and a few other creatures as well).

The manga is full of action sequences. The drawing uses very thick dark flowing lines. There is also a lot of jagged lettering used to show the fight sounds. During the fights, creatures use mystical powers against each other. For example when a creature sends a cloud of spiders to enwrap him, he uses his ghost hand to suck in all the spiders. The characters have big eyes and big hair, and finely drawn clothing.

There are three settings in which most of the action occurs, the farm of the girl and her little brother, the town which looks like something from the old west, and the gothic castle of the noble vampire.

The climactic battle is between the vampire lord Lee and Vampire Hunter D. Vampire Hunter D is revealed to be a possible scion of Dracula who most people never speak of the name of. D defeats the lord and all is put right again for the moment.

I really enjoyed the feel and style of this manga. I had seen the anime earlier. It is not for children. It is written for adults. If you like fantasy and vampire stories, you would probably like this manga.