Garage Sale Finds & Off To Fanime!

Hi everyone,

Tomorrow is the official start of Fanime, one of my favorite cons in California. I’ll be attending, so my presence on this blog and on Twitter will be pretty limited. (Although I’ll still be checking in when I can.)

I really have to apologize for not blogging more right now. May has been a really hectic month with a lot of travel and work going on, but I hope to have something to show for it in the future. Even if the only thing I can show is my bookshelf beginning to run out of space to hold manga.

I’ve acquired a lot of old Tokyopop titles recently and I’ve been reading through a few of them to relax. Here are my favorites so far…

1. The Erica Sakurazawa collection: One of the great things Tokyopop tried to do back in the day was publish a lot of josei manga. I have a fair amount of their efforts in this category including Tramps Like Us. I had a few volumes of Erica Sakurazawa’s work before th Tokyopop garage sale, but now I have all of them except for one. Since each volume is a stand-alone story, I really do suggest picking up a copy of one if you see it on sale somewhere. The series explores love, depression and desperation from all sorts of perspectives.

2. Steady Beat by Rivkah: The only problem with this one is that there is no volume 3. Like most of Tokyopop’s OEL titles, Steady Beat was never finished. It starts out rough with blatant disregard for word balloons, but volume two really shows how Rivkah has matured as a writer. Plus I like how weird the characters are. I’ve never seen such an odd mish-mosh of people coming together (and in what seems like an unlikely location.)

3. Calling by Otsuki Miu: Most of my readers have probably heard me mention that I’m not a huge fan of yaoi. Still, I picked up some Blu one shots at the garage sale and read them. Lucky for me, almost every one in these manga was out of school (or at least in higher education.) Calling particularly stood out for it’s unique characters and the challenges they brought to the relationship, especially since one character is a porn star. I also liked the fact that it took time to address transition from straight to homosexual for the main character by allowing the two eventual lovers to become very close friends first. That, plus the way the manga addressed the issue of acceptance by friends and family was really refreshing. Calling is the first yaoi that I’ve truly enjoyed in a very long time. (Not including re-reads of old favorites.)

Just to remind you, my little contest is still running until Tuesday and only four people have entered! There are seven manga total, so anyone who enters still has a GREAT shot at winning!