Thursday, April 27, 2006

   I love manga!!! (scanlation good)
Well howdy-do! I have returned from Basic Military Training and Tech Training to become a part of the US Air Force. Ain't that nice?? And in three days I'll be getting on a plain to New Mexico to start working in the "Operational" Air Force. So I finished up Tech School and got home Easter sunday. Since then I've mostly just been relaxing and downloading massive amounts of manga! ^_^

Yeah, I was on Anime News Network browsing CLAMP manga titles and I was looking at the page about Kobato, one of the few CLAMP titles that haven't been licensed in English. I just happened to click the "links" and found CLAMP No Lumiere which has scanlations of Kobato! That made me happy. ^_^ Although they only have the first 4 chapters of the story translated so far. It's a pretty nice manga. I'm looking forward to them finishing it.

CLAMP No Lumiere is cool but they didn't have much aside from Kobato. I was still craving manga and it just wasn't enough so I checked to see what all Lililicious had put out since I had been gone. I downloaded some new chapters of Maria-sama ga Miteru and Maka-Maka, but before I got to reading them I stumbled onto a scanlation group from the Lililicious site. They are Kotonoha and they kick ass! They've had a few joint projects with Lililicious and translate some pretty sweet stuff on their own. With the help of the site Myran-san's Manga who hosts files for Kotonoha and some other scanlation groups I've downloaded nearly a GB worth of manga in about a weeks time (that's pretty damn good on this old, crappy dial-up computer). A bunch of Kotonoha's stuff is listed as only being available in bit.torrent on their site but Myran-san's Manga actually hosts pretty much all of their titles. I've downloaded a lot of stuff but I've only really had the time to read 4 titles so far:

Girlfriend
The first manga I read off of Kotonoha was their newest series because the http downloads are available right off of the site. "Girlfriend" isn't the usual romantic comedy manga. It's mostly made up of new, unrelated short stories for each chapter much like Tokyopop's "Boys Be" release. What makes Girlfriend different is that the girls are mostly cold, detached and just want to have sex. It's not the usual silly comedy flirting with sex and perversion using a bunch of fanservice. Girlfriend just puts everything out there (calling it "real" would be the cliche thing to do). Instead of littering the pages with fanservice shots, nearly every chapter has a short soft-core sex scene. I've read a comment once saying that only a pervert can find Girlfriend to be "charming", but these days I wonder, who isn't a little perverted anymore?? I find Girlfriend to be a touching, cute, and refreshing alternative to the usual romance manga. It's interesting and has beautiful artwork. Kotonoha has the first two of the three volumes translated so far and the third is on it's way. I'll definitely be buying the Japanese books the first chance I get after I'm settled into my dorm....

Milk Closet
I've wanted to read this manga ever since I read Hitoshi Tomizawa's later work, Alien 9 a few years back. I was so happy when I saw that Kotonoha was translating it. Then I was sad when I saw it was only available on BT on the site. But then I found out that Myran-san's Manga had it! Yay!! Anyways, Kotonoha has released all but the last 3 chapters of the 4 book series so far and now I'm having the hardest time trying to decide if I like Milk Closet or Alien 9 more.... I'll have to wait until I'm able to finish reading Milk Closet to decide for sure but so far Milk Closet is really amazing and has a strong chance to surpass Alien 9.... Oh yeah, I should probably say what these books are all about, huh? Well, for anyone who has read Alien 9 or seen the anime, Milk Closet is pretty similar. In both stories, little girls use the power of symbiotic aliens to fight against monsters. They rip apart the bad guys, they get scared, and they get ripped apart and get put back together so they can be scared and rip apart more bad guys. Yeah, that's pretty much the basic theme of Alien 9 and Milk Closet. It's a lot of bizarre craziness and I love it. Now for the differences between the two. Alien 9: 6th-7th graders // Milk Closet: 3rd graders // Alien 9: aliens go on the girls' heads // Milk Closet: aliens become tails // Alien 9: aliens are attacking the planet or something.... // Milk Closet: kids slip between different universes and get attacked by the creatures there // Alien 9: drill chain things coming out of symbiotic alien used as weapons and for protection // Milk Closet: kids can change the form of their bodies into blades, stone, or anything else they think to become weapons and protection // Alien 9: some weird goo is used to regenerate girls that get ripped apart // Milk Closet: regeneration is built into the symbiotic creatures.... Okay, I think that's enough about Milk Closet. Damn, these were only supposed to be short summaries.... Anyways, it's really awesome and if this weirdness sounds like your kind of thing, you should check it out, along with Alien 9 while you're at it. ^_^

GOTH
So there's a series simply called "GOTH"?? Well, personally, I was a little put off at first because of the name. I didn't really feel in the mood to read about some gloomy kids talking about how the world sucks or some shit.... But I downloaded it and started reading it and all I have to say is, goddamn, this is some twisted, fucked up shit! Yeah, sorry for the pointless, childish use of profanity, but really, this manga is insane. It's only one volume long, all of which is available from Kotonoha, but that is plenty long. It's about a guy and a girl who are really interested in murder, death, and torture. They have a very odd relationship to say the least, especially from the guy's point of view. They do a little detective work on a few murder cases and get into some weird situations.... I don't really want to give away anything in the story so I won't say anymore. Just check it out if it sounds like your kind of thing.... I found it to be really creepy. I almost began to shake at times. Also, chapter 2 has just about the most disturbing picture I have ever seen anywhere....

Chokotto Sister
And now to do a complete 180, the last manga I've began to read from Kotonoha probably can't be any more different from "GOTH". It's a cute story about a little kid who asks god to bring him a little sister after his mother has a miscarriage and loses the ability to have children. Well, years pass by and after he's nearly forgotten about his wish, Santa comes along and gives him his new sister.... I've only read the first chapter so far so all I can really say about it is, "cute! soooo cute!" Yeah, I'm getting myself a good manga sugar fix before I head off to New Mexico. Kotonoha is about half way through translating the 4th volume, so any fans of big brother & little sister cuteness, enjoy. ^_^

And that is all for now.... So long. Damn. Anyways, next time I post something I'll be over in the dry heat and all that good(?) junk. Laters!

=Drake Aaron Rain
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