I will confess- I have a vulgar streak that rejoices in the possession of LOTS. I like having LOTS. Of certain things, because LOTS of clothes and LOTS of food gives me vague anxiety about managing the use of same. But one (almost) untrammelled joy is having LOTS of manga. It isn't entirely the expectation of reading them either, because that can be problematic. (Which is another category of twitch: my quest for a good reading lamp is up there with my quest for waterproof winter boots. You get them in Heaven. Or here, if prepared to shell out $300.) It's just the sheer volume of manga that glads my heart. Promising manga, I mean: my heart wouldn't be gladdened by a complete run of Initial D or Rayearth.
So, two runs through Book-off and a rummage through
paleaswater's castoffs and I have LOTS of manga, including some truly incomprehensible Ima Ichiko, some pretty but pointless shoujo and the first volume of A Cruel God Reigns. Which means I have to read the thing now. Not looking forward to it: the protagonist has a wobbly mouth. True you find out in the first three pages that he's tried to off his stepfather, and find out not much later why, but I can't see this turning into the classic everyone seems to think it is. Wobbly Hagio Moto heroes annoy me: and this one wobbles literally (and comically) at the funeral, first listing to one side and being straightened up by his half-brother, and then listing to the other. I don't expect the unconscious amusement to continue though.I also have LOTS of Twelve Kingdoms. But that I'll discuss another time because right now I need to get some sleep after rising at 5 am and spending twelve and a half hours on a train.
