#yay 1 grand miku yay!

[figurecollection]

Miku Hatsune 1/4 Scale by FuRyu, of Vocaloid

[recentanimenews]

Manga the Week of 10/25/17

SEAN: Honestly, thanks to Kodansha’s digital push, there are not even any medium weeks anymore. Every week is huge. Forever! Good news for manga fans, bad news for budgets.

ASH: So true!

SEAN: Dark Horse has the 3rd Hatsune Miku:Rin-chan Now!, theoretically: the title’s been bumped 3 weeks in a row.

ASH: That’s not nearly as timely as the title might suggest.

SEAN: J-Novel Club has a great deal out next week. We get the third volume of If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord, which remains heartwarming and family-oriented… FOR NOW. (ominous thunder)

The polarizing light novel In Another World With My Smartphone just finished a polarizing anime just in time for Vol. 5. I’m hoping it stays laid-back and ridiculous.

And we’re almost done with My Big Sister Lives in a Fantasy World with the penultimate book, Vol. 6.

As you can guess, there’s a lot of Kodansha. Princess Resurrection has its 19th volume, on the Del Rey rescue front.

On the print front, we see a 3rd Aho-Girl, a 7th Heroic Legend of Arslan, a 3rd Land of the Lustrous (now with an anime), a 2nd Love & Lies, and a 2nd Toppu GP, for all your motocross needs.

MICHELLE: In real life, I’ve no interest in motocross, but Kate’s review convinced me I would probably enjoy Toppu GP. I’ll check it out soon, hopefully.

ANNA: It does sound interesting!

ASH: I need to catch up on so many of these!

SEAN: The print “debut” is Fairy Tail S, which collects some of the special “omake” chapters that have been released over the course of the series. Expect a lot of fanservice, meaning both nudity *and* ‘shout outs to fans”.

On the digital front, first off, Cosplay Animal 2 apparently came out already, though is not at all major online places. Next week, we have the 5th Altair: A Record of Battles, the 2nd Grand Blue Dreaming, the 4th Kounodori: Dr. Stork, the 5th Real Girl,, the 2nd Shojo Fight!, and the 4th Tsuredure Children.

MICHELLE: Yay for more Shojo Fight! Not that I’ve been able to read the first one yet…

ANNA: So behind, I bought the first couple volumes of Altair but haven’t read it yet. Maybe too much digital????

SEAN: There will also be a horror manga being debuted by Kodansha, but we don’t know what it is yet. Be prepared!

ASH: Always prepared for more horror manga.

SEAN: One Peace has everyone’s favorite girl and bear manga, Kuma Miko. This is the 6th volume.

Seven Seas has a plethora of titles as well. There’s a 2nd Alice & Zoroku, the third volume of Hatsune Miku spinoff Bad End Night, the 6th Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (always #1 on lists of “where is the light novel this was adapted from?), and a 4th Please Tell Me, Galko-chan!. That’s… quite a variety of genres there.

Their debut is Yokai Rental Shop (Yokai Nii-san), whose description makes it sound like xxxHOLIC with a gender-reversed Yuko. It runs in Square Enix’s GFantasy, and I think is that rare Seven Seas title that Michelle and Melinda will want to check out.

MICHELLE: Interesting! I had been curious about the creator’s other licensed series, Nightmare Inspector, but never read any of it.

ASH: I’m very excited for this one; I really liked Nightmare Inspector!

MELINDA: Oooooooh, honestly I’ll check out anything from GFantasy. Okay, Seven Seas, you have intrigued me!

SEAN: The title that interests me the most this week is from Vertical Comics, who are debuting a manga series written by NISIOISIN. Imperfect Girl (Shoujo Fujuubun). Like a lot of Nisio titles, it has a supernatural bent, a twisted female lead, and lots of talking. The artist will also be familiar to North American readers for the series Sankarea. This series ran for 3 volumes in Young Magazine, so should be nice and compact.

ANNA: I’m cautiously intrigued.

ASH: I’m also rather curious about this one.

SEAN: Lastly, Viz has some digital-only titles as well, with the 3rd élDLIVE and the 2nd The Emperor and I.

Any of this interest you? Or are you saving up for MANGAGEDDON the week after next?

By: Sean Gaffney

[estin1987]

My Second Date

For once I was actually on time for something. Well, as much as I try to be, its not always intentional to be late. I swear I try.

"I'm in the Grand Hall at Union" He texted.

"I'm on the TTC side, I'll walk to ward you" I replied.

As I walked up the stairs to his direction, I can feel my heart flutter with every step. But with every step also came some anxiety. I was nervous. Do I hug? do I kiss his cheek or on the lips?

As I walked toward him I smiled and was still even deciding what to do. But before I knew it, he was right in front of me and greeted each other with a peck by lips.

I thought to myself... "Ok, that's a good sign I hope. I'm not terribly ugly looking today, so that's a start" lol

We started walking to the Sushi place Miku by harbourfront and I've never been there before. But when we arrived, I thought, "shieeeeet, this is gonna be expensive!" *clenches wallet* NUTS! I say.

We ordered some brussel sprouts with pork belly bacon, spicy edamame, sushi rolls, and what not. IT was all good, surprisingly, especially the brussel sprouts.

Each taste and flavour was so satisfying, even the torched sushi melted in my mouth. It was worth the price I suppose. But in the end, let's face it, she was still hungry. I happily agreed with him, "Oh I'm open to ordering more if you want to. otherwise, I'm fine!" GASP! my first lie, well kinda. I could still have eaten more but I figure, drink more water! don't be bloated! Don't look like a fatass!

Alas, dinner was a success and I was so worried that I had food stuck in my teeth like I always do. Thankfully there was none. It wasn't until we got up from our table after paying did he point out "Oh your foot is dragging the table napkin with you". and I laughed embarrassingly OMG.

*stomps* DAMMIT! I thought I had it going for me. Embarrassment #1 of the night. There may be a few more as the night goes on. But man that was the first, I could not believe I did that. Better the table napkin than toilet paper I suppose!

We walked from the Harbourfront going north through the insides of office buildings towards union station and beyond. Little did I realize how quiet it was through these areas, like people deserted it and just left these unchartered roads for us. There was even a cute view when he showed his office building and the CN tower. I kinda wondered if this was a romantic moment or should I just ruin it and pull a joke of sorts.... I chose the latter lol. I can't remember what I said exactly, was it a pun? was it innuendo? was it reference of sorts to something earlier? Dammit I wish I knew, if he sticks around I'll ask him again and see. Perhaps his memory is better than mine.

Anywho, we kept walking and we ended up at MArche for dessert. He got his Apple strudel with chocolate sauce on it, where I had a crème brule. It was quite the tough choice between a crepe and waffle, but I saw the price of them both and I thought, HEYYYYYYLLL no. lol. HARD PASS.

We sat in the back of Marche which was coincidentally where he wanted to take me to but on the café side, which was closed. Either way, we sat in front of two of these cute photos of L'Arc de Triumph and La Basilique du Sacre Coeur in Mont Martre in Paris, literally one of my favourite spots in that city. How fitting to have a crème brule, I thought.

We talked, ate, talked and just got to know each other more. Though my contacts were drying out and I literally had a hard time trying to keep them moist. On top of that, my allergies were not that cute but I mean it could've been worse.

once we left marche I said I could walk him towards Queen at least so we can hang out somemore and we can catch our streetcars/subways from there to go home. but suddenly, one would think of it as a curse than a blessing, but for some reason I couldn't help but be happy that it started raining.

Rain is obviously not cute, but my attitude towards the rain has changed, mostly in part due to my new bright yellow umbrella. This umbrella signifies more than just the HIMYM reference, but that my personality and uniqueness and attitude should shine and be as bright even in stormy /rainy weather. That, and so many romantic associations can be made with an umbrella in the rain.

I suggested we just share the umbrella even thought he hated the rain. I sacrificed myside more just because of that but I didn't mind, I do honestly take up a lot more fat space. lol.

Instead of walking towards queen we decided King would be best to end our night. Though as romantic as I would've preferred, the homeless lady didn't help and kinda scared us a bit if she was to get hit by a car. But we went back to our romantic mood eventually and said our good byes.

Just when we were leaving we drew closer into each other's eyes and kissed under the umbrella as the rain poured down. Though I didn't feel the rain as much, its almost like the rain stopped for that brief moment as our lips softly met. Each kiss was sweet and sincere, I didn't want that to end.

I walked him down the stairs into the subway so he wouldn't get wet, kissed each other good night. and that's when my streetcar conveniently arrived.

I got home, only to receive a message from him saying he got home too. For once, I didn't have to send the first text back! YAY!

I'm honestly a bit smitten but I cant help it. I love and loathe this feeling. I don't wanna get my hopes up but should I just enjoy this moment while it lasts?

I want to say hi and text and talk every day, but what's the procedures like now? Wouldn't he be the one who wants to text too? I want to take this as slow and steady as possible. I think it could be something great. How do I not jump the gun on this one?

Either way, I haven't had a feeling like this in a while, and I like it. I miss it.