A book, a musical, a video game, and an anime
I'm certainly getting my culture/entertainment fix this summer. Here're some of the things I've enjoyed recently.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It took me a while to finish this. I read a hundred pages, then put it down for a year. It's written in the style of early 19th century literature, which isn't generally my thing, but when you look closely at it, the sarcasm and wit that are there are lovely. It's alternate history and fantasy (set in England during and after the Napoleonic Wars), and so right up my alley in terms of genre. The characters are more human than they are likable, and the style keeps them somewhat distant. But the Raven King is amazing. And so are footnotes. It really picks up speed near the end, too, such that I breezed through the last 200 pages.
Wicked. A couple weeks ago, I got to go see the musical in Memphis. Elphaba, the Witch, is incredibly sympathetic. The song "Defying Gravity" makes for one of the best first-act finales I've ever seen. Shortly afterward, I read the book, by Gregory Maguire, which is very different in the details, and ultimately much more realistic.
Jade Empire. It's an RPG in a Chinese-style setting. The martial arts combat style is fun, and the story and characters are engaging, even if the whole thing is a bit short and easy. There were several challenging mid-game boss fights, but I beat the final boss on my first try using mainly Focus Mode and the Stone Immortal magic style. On the other hand, you do get to make moral choices. I played as Monk Zeng and was in general as nice as possible, which gives me the opportunity to replay it as Scholar Ling and be an asshole (and romance Silk Fox ^_^).
Most notable to me was the same-sex romance option (for male characters, with Sky), which I naturally availed myself of. However, if you do (likewise with the threesome option, I believe, but not so with the het), the kiss scene in Chapter 6 is censored. Never mind that to even get to the scene you have to break off any entanglements with both female characters, and then deliberately pursue the gay, so there's no way someone could stumble across it by accident. To make up for it, there's some hacked uncensored pics here.
Natsume Yuujinchou. I watched the first season of it raw, so I missed lots of the little details, but it was definitely worth watching. It's a lot like xxxHolic--boy can see spirits but is isolated from everyone else, winds up making friends in the end--but the overall effect is more endearing rather than haunting. Natsume is much more likeable than Watanuki, who I truthfully found somewhat annoying. OTOH, Yuuko>Madara/Nyanko-sensei.
So, I crushed on Natsume pretty hard. And then Tanuma showed up. And I fell for the pairing pretty hard too. There seems to be a preference, in what little fandom there is, for NatsumexMadara or NatsumexNatori (which strikes me as a reflection of the preference in general for seme/uke-ness, which isn't to my taste), but there needs to be more NatsumexTanuma out there. If I can sustain the motivation, I may try writing some. After watching the second season, at least.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It took me a while to finish this. I read a hundred pages, then put it down for a year. It's written in the style of early 19th century literature, which isn't generally my thing, but when you look closely at it, the sarcasm and wit that are there are lovely. It's alternate history and fantasy (set in England during and after the Napoleonic Wars), and so right up my alley in terms of genre. The characters are more human than they are likable, and the style keeps them somewhat distant. But the Raven King is amazing. And so are footnotes. It really picks up speed near the end, too, such that I breezed through the last 200 pages.
Wicked. A couple weeks ago, I got to go see the musical in Memphis. Elphaba, the Witch, is incredibly sympathetic. The song "Defying Gravity" makes for one of the best first-act finales I've ever seen. Shortly afterward, I read the book, by Gregory Maguire, which is very different in the details, and ultimately much more realistic.
Jade Empire. It's an RPG in a Chinese-style setting. The martial arts combat style is fun, and the story and characters are engaging, even if the whole thing is a bit short and easy. There were several challenging mid-game boss fights, but I beat the final boss on my first try using mainly Focus Mode and the Stone Immortal magic style. On the other hand, you do get to make moral choices. I played as Monk Zeng and was in general as nice as possible, which gives me the opportunity to replay it as Scholar Ling and be an asshole (and romance Silk Fox ^_^).
Most notable to me was the same-sex romance option (for male characters, with Sky), which I naturally availed myself of. However, if you do (likewise with the threesome option, I believe, but not so with the het), the kiss scene in Chapter 6 is censored. Never mind that to even get to the scene you have to break off any entanglements with both female characters, and then deliberately pursue the gay, so there's no way someone could stumble across it by accident. To make up for it, there's some hacked uncensored pics here.
Natsume Yuujinchou. I watched the first season of it raw, so I missed lots of the little details, but it was definitely worth watching. It's a lot like xxxHolic--boy can see spirits but is isolated from everyone else, winds up making friends in the end--but the overall effect is more endearing rather than haunting. Natsume is much more likeable than Watanuki, who I truthfully found somewhat annoying. OTOH, Yuuko>Madara/Nyanko-sensei.
So, I crushed on Natsume pretty hard. And then Tanuma showed up. And I fell for the pairing pretty hard too. There seems to be a preference, in what little fandom there is, for NatsumexMadara or NatsumexNatori (which strikes me as a reflection of the preference in general for seme/uke-ness, which isn't to my taste), but there needs to be more NatsumexTanuma out there. If I can sustain the motivation, I may try writing some. After watching the second season, at least.