The Books She Carried

 

I’ve relocated.

This is why I’ve been absent for a bit. I had to haul my ass from one end of the country to the other, and it took a while, and it was very exhausting.

I also did not bring all of my manga. Or all of my anime. There just wasn’t enough room, and this is a temporary state of being, so, happily, my parents are cool with me just leaving all my shit in their house.

So, since I am still pretty tired, and I’m also behind on everything except UN-GO and Fate/Zero (did I mention my connection speed here is absolutely horrific?), a fluff post today, so you know I’m alive and well.

So which manga did I end up bringing?

For the most part, I did not bring full sets. There simply wasn’t enough room, at least not enough room where I felt secure enough that my poor little manga volumes wouldn’t get damaged in transit. I am very anal about my books, and their condition, and this is doubly true for manga. I hate bent pages. I hate damaged spines. I hate creased covers. I hate worn edges. My sole exception is for used books, but this does not even apply for manga. And this is why when I lent a friend a book this past summer, it was the first time I’d ever done so since I was eight years old. Oh, and you can blame her for my attitudes about book-lending – she bent the cover of it. Jerk.

Anyway. Here’s the manga I brought with me:

Chi’s Sweet Home

This was the only manga that I brought my full set of (so, volumes one through six), in part because the individual volumes are short, and also because to me this is the best manga to unwind to. I read these while commuting, and it always was a pleasant experience for me. Chi is cute, she does cute things, and it is simply delightful as a read, I don’t care how trite it sounds to phrase it that way. I love this series, and after a long day (and my days have been ranging between ten and thirteen hours so far), this is exactly the sort of thing I want to read.

Twin Spica Vol. 9, Kobato. Vol. 3

The first time I got to read Twin Spica Vol. 9, my eyes were dilated. It was a terribly disorienting experience, and it is why I have yet to review it; I didn’t re-read it until a few weeks later.

That aside, in the case of TS Vol. 9 and Kobato. Vol. 3, I took them along because they are the most recent volumes I have of series I am following. I like to be able to flip through the previous volume when I get new volumes, just in case there’s a detail I forgot. I don’t think this will happen with TS or Kobato., unlike with Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning, but its always good to be careful.

I am disappointed I didn’t have enough room for all nine volumes of TS, though.

Nobody Loves Me

Horrible title, wonderful BL. A character who actually identifies as gay? Holy shit! Now there’s a shocker! And from my favorite BL author, to boot? And about adults?!

If I was gonna bring any BL with me, this was exactly it. It is my most re-read BL in my collection, although the first volume of Close the Last Door is a close second.

solanin

I also wanted to bring along both volumes of What a Wonderful World!, but, again, lack of space. So, solanin was in, What a Wonderful World! got left at home.

I… man. I just love Inio Asano’s work. I cannot think of any male manga-ka who writes female characters better than he does. I wish more of his works would find their way into English.

I brought solanin because I want to re-read it. That’s the simplest answer. I also like it a lot. I really wish there were more titles like it available on the English-language market.

Aquarium

I bring it everywhere I go. Even as I grow older, it has never lost its worth to me. I first read Aquarium when I was fifteen, and I found the title story very comforting because I could relate to it and I did not feel like I could relate to much when I was a teenager. I’m a much happier person now (my theory is that I’m just one of those folks who was meant to be an adult, if that makes sense), but I still cart this one everywhere and re-read it every so often.