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puritybrown.livejournal.com33: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O'Malley
The sixth and final instalment of the Scott Pilgrim series is just as deliriously funny and clever as the first five, but with an added zing of metafictional deconstruction: turns out, the fact that Scott is a ditzy, self-centred manchild is not an oversight on O'Malley's part. It's the point, and the manner in which this fact is examined and played with and explained and overturned in this climactic volume is an utter delight. Marvellous.
34: Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi
In which a man decides to die, and does so, over eight days, while his wife and brother and children try to persuade him to live. This is good work which I enjoyed, up to a point, but I can't help comparing it to Satrapi's Persepolis and Embroideries, and I don't think it comes off well in the comparison. Although the storytelling and characterisation and observation are as thoughtful and well-executed as before, the art seems a little less polished, not quite as assured. It's always attractive and it never interferes with the story, but it's not as good a standard as I know Satrapi is capable of, which is disappointing.
35: Love Water by Venio Tachibana (with illustrations by Tooko Miyagi)
This is a BL/yaoi novel from Juné Manga's light novel line. To be honest, I've read quite a few of the novels from that line, and I only wrote up the first two I read for this comm. The others I passed by because they were so inconsequential and generic (when they weren't offensive) that I couldn't be bothered writing about them. Love Water is written to a rather higher standard. It's not a genre-transcender by any means -- if you don't like romance novels or BL in particular, Love Water's not likely to change your mind. But as an example of the genre, I found it very effective; atmospheric and emotionally intense, with gorgeous illustrations and a plot that made sense; and it's a lot better-written than most. (And better translated, too, though there are a few irritating glitches -- I suspect that the love interest's "flocked coat" is actually a frock coat. Easy mistake to make if you're not well up on 19th-century European men's fashions.)
I actually kind of want to gush like an overexcited teenager about this novel, because I loved it. But I will restrain myself! I will just say that it is about a beautiful young man who works in a brothel (but not as a prostitute) in Meiji-era Osaka and falls in love with a rich and handsome young entrepreneur; and if you like this sort of thing, this is very much the sort of thing you'll like.
The sixth and final instalment of the Scott Pilgrim series is just as deliriously funny and clever as the first five, but with an added zing of metafictional deconstruction: turns out, the fact that Scott is a ditzy, self-centred manchild is not an oversight on O'Malley's part. It's the point, and the manner in which this fact is examined and played with and explained and overturned in this climactic volume is an utter delight. Marvellous.
34: Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi
In which a man decides to die, and does so, over eight days, while his wife and brother and children try to persuade him to live. This is good work which I enjoyed, up to a point, but I can't help comparing it to Satrapi's Persepolis and Embroideries, and I don't think it comes off well in the comparison. Although the storytelling and characterisation and observation are as thoughtful and well-executed as before, the art seems a little less polished, not quite as assured. It's always attractive and it never interferes with the story, but it's not as good a standard as I know Satrapi is capable of, which is disappointing.
35: Love Water by Venio Tachibana (with illustrations by Tooko Miyagi)
This is a BL/yaoi novel from Juné Manga's light novel line. To be honest, I've read quite a few of the novels from that line, and I only wrote up the first two I read for this comm. The others I passed by because they were so inconsequential and generic (when they weren't offensive) that I couldn't be bothered writing about them. Love Water is written to a rather higher standard. It's not a genre-transcender by any means -- if you don't like romance novels or BL in particular, Love Water's not likely to change your mind. But as an example of the genre, I found it very effective; atmospheric and emotionally intense, with gorgeous illustrations and a plot that made sense; and it's a lot better-written than most. (And better translated, too, though there are a few irritating glitches -- I suspect that the love interest's "flocked coat" is actually a frock coat. Easy mistake to make if you're not well up on 19th-century European men's fashions.)
I actually kind of want to gush like an overexcited teenager about this novel, because I loved it. But I will restrain myself! I will just say that it is about a beautiful young man who works in a brothel (but not as a prostitute) in Meiji-era Osaka and falls in love with a rich and handsome young entrepreneur; and if you like this sort of thing, this is very much the sort of thing you'll like.
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