Rena & Tomoya: Fall in Love Like a Comic

In Manga and Romance, I talked about a topic that I was interested in exploring.  8 Essential Elements of Romance Novels defines my terms and explains the framework of the project.

I only got as far as Stan Sakai’s Circles (first and second parts), and then life intruded big time for a year or so.

But when I bought Fall in Love Like a Comic, I thought I’d try again.   FLLC is a romance but it’s not a particularly good one.  The artwork while serviceable seems a bit disconnected.  The story is rushes breathlessly from one cliché to another.  On the other hand, it’s enjoyably unpretentious and has some funny jokes.  The main joke is that Rena melts into a gelatinous blob anytime that she is overcome with passion.  It’s unbearably cute.

I thought I would not find any of the elements in a story this slight but I did.

There are lots of short tales included in the the two volumes.  I’m going to summarize the plot of each of them but I’m only going to use the main story and In Love Like a Comic.

Ah, I try not to use too much jargon but here are a few terms.

Manga – comic books made in Japan.

Mangaka – a comic book artist.

Shojo manga – girls’ comic books which tend to focus more on emotions and relationships.

merciless

spoilers

begin

here

Handsome Men & Awkward Families

I’m new to this one: Awkward Family Photos - it’s funny and painful.

This is a new blog that I hope goes far:  Handsome Men Who are Now Dead – retrospective on men in history who were good-looking.

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Books I read in June 2010

Cover of Thuvia, Maid of Mars

Picture Books

• Manatee Winter by Kathleen Zoehfeld
• Tiki Tiki Tembo by Arlene Mosel
• Cowboy and Octopus by Jon Scieszka
• Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea by Jan Peck
• Loud Emily by Alex O’Neill
• Harry’s Box by Angela McAllister

Manatee Winter is touching without being heavy-handed.  Worth reading if you want to garner sympathy for manatees.  Cowboy and Octopus is funny, especially if read aloud.  Loud Emily is nice for girls or boys who are always being shushed.

Fiction

• Escape  to Witch Mountain by Alexander Key
• Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Androids are Coming.  Edited by Robert Silverberg.

Order of the Arrow was violent and thoroughly repulsive.  Escape to Witch Mountain was easy reading, though very outdated.  Thuvia, Maid of Mars was pleasure that I refuse to feel guilt for.  It was so much fun reading it again after all these years.  It’s a simple love story with several frays thrown in for good measure.  The Androids are Coming – inquiry into what it means to be human.

Comics

• Stitches by David Small
• Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto #1, #2
• Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya #1, #2
• Bleach by Tite Kubo #1, #2, #3
• Foiled by Jane Yolen  & Mike Cavallaro
• Robot Dreams by Sara Varon
• The Dragonslayer by Jeff Smith
• Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci & Jim Rugg
• Fall in Love Like a Comic by Chitose Yagami #1 & #2
• Black Bird by Kanoko Sakurakoji #1
• Tail of the Moon by Rinko Ueda #1
• Shinobi Life by Shoko Konami #1

Lots of good comics this month.

Stitches was painful and exhilarating and ugly and beautiful.  It’s the horrible story of David Small’s childhood.  It reminded me of A Child Called It but with a poetic touch.  It ends quietly and triumphantly; I am grateful that I read it.

I’m reading 3 bestselling series:  Bleach, Naruto and Fruits Basket.  I’m liking Bleach best but the other two are entertaining as well.

Foiled by Jane Yolen is deceptively simple.  It’s about a young fencer who discovers she’s living in the midst of a fantasy world. I plan to buy it and reread it more carefully.  I want there to be a sequel.

Robot Dreams is wordless story of friendship between a dog and robot.  Not my favorite but there was nothing wrong with it.  With the Dragonslayer, Jeff Smith is getting a little less exuberant.  I wish things would stay small and funny and not veer into high fantasy.  Plain Janes tried to hard for me but I have nothing against young people challenging the status quo through art.

Black Bird is a story of a bird demon who falls in love with a human girl who is pursued by denizens of the supernatural world.  Tail of the Moon is a perky story of a clumsy ninjette who needs to marry a ninja leader to satisfy her family honor.  Shinobi Life is a fun story of a time traveling ninja who believes he’s found his princess in the person of a raucous contemporary girl.  All three please me enormously and I plan to collect all of them.

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Movies I watched in June 2010

Nim’s Island (2008)
Charmed 4:3
Blades of Glory (2007)
Survivor Man 1:1
When in Rome (2010)
THX 1138 (1971)
Solaris (1972)
Smile (1975)

Again, I didn’t keep the best records.  I think I preferred the book of Nim’s Island to the movie though the movie was well-done.  Smile disappointed but only in the latter part.  The first half was funny and worth watching.  Solaris was a pleasant surprise but I’ll talk at length about that.

6 annoyings about Eclipse (the book)

Image via Wikipedia

So, I finished Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer the other night.

There’s a lot wrong with this book.

Spoilers Ahoy!

But I have to say that I got caught up in it.  Meyer is a good tale-spinner.  The book ended with quite a bang.  The proposal scene with Edward and Bella was much less appalling in the book than it was in the movie. The farewell scene between Bella and Jacob near the end of the book was actually moving.

However,

1) It’s very, very slow in the beginning.

Bella wants to reject Jacob’s love but still have him like her.  She fills out applications for college.  She blathers about Wuthering Heights.  She and Edward have endless, dull arguments over turning her into a vampire.

2) There is a whole scene about fridge magnets representing their epic love triangle.

The last two magnets — round black utilitarian pieces that were my favorites because they could hold ten sheets of paper to the fridge without breaking a sweat — did not want to cooperate with my fixation.  Their polarities were reversed; every time I tried to line the last one up, the other jumped out of place.

For some reason — impending mania, perhaps — this really irritated me.  Why couldn’t they just play nice?  Stupid with stubbornness, I kept shoving them together as if I was expecting them to suddenly give up.  I could have flipped one over, but that felt like losing.  Finally, exasperated at myself more than the magnets, I pulled them from the fridge and held them together with two hands.  It took a little effort — they were strong enough to put up a fight — but I forced them to coexist side-by-side.

“See,” I said out loud — talking to inanimate objects, never a good sign — “That’s not so horrible, is it?   (95-96)

Meyer writes, “as if I was expecting them to suddenly give up” instead of as if I were expecting….  It’s the subjunctive mood. Meyer should be using the past tense plural form of the verb because the magnets have no real will.  But it’s a common mistake.

I also know that simple things like fridge magnets can become powerful metaphors in the hands of a skilled writer.  That didn’t happen here.

3) Charlie is just disgustingly smug about Jacob forcibly kissing Bella.

Watching the Eclipse (movie)

So, my sisters and I went to see Eclipse.  Sib B has read all four books but Sib R and I have only read Twilight and New Moon.  Sib R suggested the midnight showing but I laughed at her as we both had to work the next day.  Sib B’s husband was invited but he opined that he’d prefer paying someone $7.50 to repeatedly stab him in the arm.

We saw women wearing the Team Edward/Team Jacob shirts.  A good number of them were not teens or preteens.  When Jacob showed up, the females in the audience crowed.  One guy cheered when Edward killed someone.

We sat in the front of the theater and behaved in such a way to make us shoe-ins for special hell.  In short, we laughed at everything but the jokes.

My favorite digs were these:

Edward and Jacob are about to squabble over Bella and her dad steps in between them. Then Sib R quipped for Charlie, “Now, now, we all know I have the biggest penis here.”

In the second scene, Edward and Jacob are in a tent and they come to the conclusion that each was a good chap despite being a mortal enemy.  I said for Jacob, “Edward, I can’t quit you.”

Sib B and I really liked the tiny bit when Alice and Jasper are fighting and then they kiss at the end.  They had more chemistry in 20 seconds than Edward and Bella do in all three movies.  Also, Rosalie as Uma Thurman surprised me into laughing.

On the way home, Sib B pointed out with some fervor that predators don’t sparkle.  Sib R and I pondered this, and agreed that predators were good at camouflage.  But, if you think about it, Edward does not really want Bella for her nutritional value:  he wants to breed her.  And she does breed.  So, the sparkle is merely to denote that Edward is a peacock and Bella is a peahen.