I am not a devout follower of Neil Gaiman but I ended up reading The Graveyard Book yesterday. It's based off of Kipling's The Jungle Book; instead of a jungle, the main character grows up in a graveyard. As a baby, Nobody Owens escaped the murder of his entire family and is adopted by the ghosts of a local graveyard. He meets many types of people - ghouls, vampires, witches, villians - and learns lessons from these interactions.

While marketed towards young adults, I found it to be a good read. When I finished, I felt somewhat disappointed, but only because Gaiman could have easily written several more stories concerning Bod. I wouldn't mind a followup book either.

Yes, the premise of the book does begin with horrific murder, but Gaiman doesn't go into detail.  If you've ever read John Bellairs' books, you would recognize the tone. Although not many people have read his works. I like that macabre tone for these types of books, yet Gaiman infuses this book with genuine feelings.

Funnily enough, it reads like a fan fic to me. The style of writing reminded me of copperbadge for some reason. And I could see this as a movie; does that cheapen the experience? I know Gaiman has had many of his works translated to the big screen so was this also a project he was envisioning for movie material as well?




There are some illustrations in this book, which are reminiscent of a style from the mid 1900s. They're perfect though, as they contribute to the book's tone.

The final confrontation with the antagonist feels weak, and the development of Scarlett is disappointing and unexpectedly confusing - she goes from fearless to shallowly annoying. I know it's supposed to serve as lessons for Bod, but does it have to be at the expense of a potentially solid female character?

Overall, I recommend this as an engaging summer read.

I rarely watch anime these days - it was so much easier when my otaku friends lived closer and were able to just recommend me good stuff - but I recently watched the first two episodes of Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture.

It's the story about two rural boys - Kei and Sawaki - who are entering their first year of uni in the outskirts of Tokyo. Sawaki is from a family of yeast starters and Kei is from a family of sake brewers. Sawaki can somehow see microbes - and understand their feelings and play with them. Because of this skill and because they are at an agricultural university, they have many adventures.

Microbes, you say? Disgusting! But no, look:



Yes. Cute. Cute microbes. The animation is nothing complex, but decent.

The opening is live action but disgustingly cute.



And since it isn't licensed in the US yet, I will direct you to the BSS fansubs of Moyashimon.

Reuter's has an article about schoolboy cafes - the female equivalent of cosplay maid cafes - in Japan.



Wow. It's like Ouran Host Club, but most likely more awkward and not as charming. Someone needs to go and blog about their visit.

While the boys in the photos are not to my liking - too skinny and young-looking - I can see how they could be cute to women. Just stop it with all the brown, please. I wonder if they have to pretend-crush on each other.

The article itself was ok. Most people still don't get it about manga. It's just fantasy, but lay people are going to get the wrong idea about it when they read this article.

My feelings about Butler's Cafe - white guy servers-only cafe - are still undecided. All those dudes are meh. But at least they serve English lessons. To the servers: you came all the way to Japan for this? The money must be a motivator.

Butlers Cafe's offical site
Swallowtail's official site (more manservant cosplay)
Edelstein Cafe's official website.

PETA is definitely ramping up the sex levels in their ads.



I can't help but think that whoever designed this ad reads a lot of BL comics and just ripped off the cover from one of them.

My new place has DSL, but there is a bandwidth restriction. How do I ask the head of house to lift it so I may download my fansubs?

Even with the flooding in the UK, some people managed to get their Deathly Hallows on time, thanks to a courageous postman. Yay heartwarming story!

Sometimes the news is true and good:

Akihiro Ikeda, 55, president of the trade association for the promotion of the shopping district, commented: "I think the name Yaoi, which happened to coincide with a special slang term that describes male characters in anime and manga falling in love with each other, sparked the interest. And our mascot's unique strangeness caught on.
(Source)

A mall with a mascot called 801-chan, aka Yaoi-chan. Unintentional hilarity. You can see the mascot page here.

Just finished the series. Watanabe is a genius. Are there active links to the manga and doujinshi people have to share? Thanks.