Manga manga manga!

[slr2moons]

Yes, it's another long post. But this time I'm not ranting. ^^ Yakusoku yo!!

In light of my last introspective bit of blogging, I'm seriously considering drawing out the opening scene of my movie in manga format. This would accomplish several things, namely requiring me to chose a character design, practice drawing icky boring backgrounds and buildings, settle on pacing, and most importantly--finally figure out the graphic style I want.

You see, I know I want my movie to look something like a cross between Samurai Jack and Casablanca. I can't describe it well, probably because I haven't sat down and figured out exactly what I want. Suffice it to say that I don't mean the regular look of an animated movie. I intend for it to have a very strong sense of design. I want it to be functional and engaging at the same time. My only regret is that I'll need to include color on at least some pages when I do so love the clean lines of pure black and white manga.

Oh yes, and my manga will read from right to left, even though it will be in English. Why? Because that's what I'm used to reading. What I find encouraging is that I'm obsessing over this--whether I can make it work, what all it can accomplish--as much as I obsessed over writing my two fanfics and drawing that Lee/Naruto pic for Star-chan. This is good. Passion, please stay with me!!

I have most excellent news: the English is 4/5ths done. All that's left are corrections. So yay!! Indeed, if my mind weren't so preoccupied with my movie and it's about time, I would be dancing around my room. I'll hold the true celebration when the corrections are finished and the last English issue will finally be 100% OVER.

On my last fun outing several weeks ago when I went manga shopping with Yuumei, she told me about the series "Loveless" and talked me into buying it. I picked up the first two volumes.

I'm about a third of the way through the 2nd, and I must say, I am intrigued. The mangaka, Kouga Yun, is accomplishing an incredibly difficult balancing act. The art is gorgeous--and I admit finally seeing some cat-boys was a big selling point for me--but the series is much more than that. On the characterization level, it's extremely angst-ridden. The main char has an oniichan-complex, and a horrid past complete with murder and amnesia and an abusive mother. But it works. And the mysterious man is both beautiful, ethereal, yet very solid at the same time. So it works there, too. The shounenai overtones are all OVER the place--and almost almost make me squirm at the age of the main character--but it's just thrilling enough to be fun yet not squick-y. So that works, too.

The main thing that has struck me is the subtlety of how words have power in this series. It's the same message as in Watase Yuu's Alice 19th, but Loveless handles the idea with much more finesse. Alice 19th hits you over the head with words of power, Loveless makes you figure it out. Alice's words are made-up that form concrete and obvious spells, Loveless' are regular words imbibed with powers we have to guess at. Even names in Loveless have meaning.

I am very impressed by Loveless. You can read it on a purely superficial fangirl level: "OMG catboys-bishies-yaoi HAWT HAWT HAWT!!" but you'd only be seeing the surface. I hope this series continues to be as good. I definitely want more.

And no, Loveless is not a Viz title, it's licensed by Tokyopop. *gasp* Slr2Moons is reading the competition--and she LIKES it!! Oh noes!!! J/k j/k. I appreciate all excellent manga, regardless of publisher. *nods*


It's been days since my last manga report, so I have quite a bit to list. Wheee!

Claymore: 9.76, 77, 79, 84, 85, 91, 98, 99. and 18. Yes, 18. With this set of pages I finished the first half of Clay v9, and while I was double-checking to make sure I had FXed everything, I noticed I had somehow missed p18. Oops. This is the exact reason why I check.

New 1.78-88. Obviously the script for the 2nd half is here. I have almost no page buffer with New title, so like Temp, I must stay on top of my daily quota.

Skip Beat! 9.39. Only one page in the past 5 days. >< I had to make some difficult choices, what with the English hanging over me, and Skip and Clay were both the sacrifices. I did have a huge page buffer in Skip, and my editor offered an extra week--on her own!--which I took. So yay, now that English lettering is over, I can get back to Skip tonight. ^^V

Temp fanbook.326-239, and 243. I would still like to babble about my thoughts on Temp. >< Must do that. I have the script for the first of the three actual volumes I'll be lettering, but I don't want to touch it until I finish Clay v9. *nods*

And the English 6.3, 5, 9b, 16-19, 21-23, 23b, 24-27, 30-35, 39, 40, 40b, 41-44. Those three "b" pages are the casualty of incorrect page numbers. >< Pages were added here and there after the script was written without page renumbering, so when I had to save a page that was meant to be between pages 9 and 10, I named it "9b". Once everything was lettered, I went back and renamed everything properly. Only corrections left only corrections left...

Final color-coded breakdown: Green - 6, Yellow - 16, Orange - 18, Pink/Page from Hell - 16 of them, all in the English. Total pages completed: 46. Heh.

I think I've babbled enough tonight. *checks clock* It's Thursday!!! Naruto Shippuuden #4 is almost here...*drools* Bless the fansubbers who let me watch episodes a mere half-day from when they first air in Japan...