October stats

[flemmings]

English reading: Mythago Wood, Good Omens and Monsieur Beaucaire

Japanese reading:
Hatsu Akiko, The Chinese Bird
-such a civilized mangaka, Hatsu

Ima Ichiko, Memory of Nostalgic Flowers
--early fluff, pleasant enough; the 'fantasy' last story gives me the creeps because, well, it's utterly creepy. Mad kings, casual slaughters, extreme nastiness, seen through a child's uncomprehending eye. Also dwarfs. Also its real genre is a spoiler. Were it other than it is 'twere less brilliant; and I do not like it.

Ima Ichiko, Beyond the night and stars
--The obi says 'Is it a home drama? Is it a horror drama?' For once the Japanese are as confused as I am. Dragons and firebirds, one discovers, except incarnated as humans. Also various amphibians. Incarnated as humans. Possibly Ima stretching the possibilities of narrative; possibly a total mess. time will tell.

Vol 9 of the Gensou fantasy series of short stories, called Selections from the Blue Dragon. There are no blue dragons in it. Next vol is called Selections from the White Tiger. I should have guessed.

Makiko, Demon City.
--demon city is Shanghai in the 30's, and for the rest, it's Makiko.

Kisaragi Hirotaka, Gate 1+2
--and vol 3 arrived in the mail today

Minami Megumu, Lying Lover and Protect Me

Kanno Yuki, The Jade Sigh and The Beauty in the Tower
--oddity: Edwardian nobleman rescues Chinese boy from English opium den and takes him home to be assistant to his butler as well as his lover. Boy looks like girl. Boy still can't do one-to-one replacement as girl because while the Oh I love him blush blush trope will do for either sex, the Oh I will bring shame on his family if our relationship is found out trope will not. It's a fantasy, certainly, but the fantasy is more of the servant devoted to death than of the exotic Oriental. Especially because in the mind of the mangaka, it's the Englishman who's the exotic.

The aesthetic Edwardian Englishman reads indeed aesthetic Edwardian English ie lackadaisical and laissez faire and not given to otoko-rashii dust-ups. That he's a Japanese version of Clovis is incidental. Besides, he's much more sincere than Clovis: the surface may be laidback but the heart is junsui and sincere. He's also a twit. Volume 2 turns into The Perils of Liiyou as Twit keeps taking Liiyou to places where unmannerly men can do unmannerly things to him. This annoys me for various reasons, not least of which is that the trope is creeping into my current dragon plottings, with Pipang standing in for Liiyou. Goushou brings him to the Southern Ocean where he's set upon by visiting Kaiei. Goushou takes him to the Eastern Ocean where he's set upon by visiting Gouen. Etc etc bah humbug.

Comments

[stormcloude]

I am sadly disappointed that Gates 2&3 probably won't be coming out in English since ADV seems to have dropped that ball.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty series, I must say. Wish she'd continue it.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

What on earth is a jade sigh?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Dunno, but it sounds good and has really **pretty!!** kanji.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

And of course I only know the kanji because you showed me them. My normal reading taught me 'fiddle with' and 'crawl' and 'molest' and 'hold in one's mouth' and 'all fours' but somehow not 'jade'. Jade towers are found only in western smut.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Ah. 翡翠のためいき (http://www.jpqueen.com/onlineshop/productinfo.asp?PID=16771). I never knew there were other readings for the characters, frankly. And don't we wish Qing men really had worn their hair like that; would have saved me a lot of grief while watching period dramas.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Mh? Other readings than what?

My sense of chinese history is out because I'd got the notion that by the 1890's the occasional Qing guy was letting his hair grow. Was that later, then? Also Our Hero is actually born in England and usage might not havew been so strict. Especially if he's groomed to work in a boy brothel serving westerners.

Otherwise, agreed. Three-quarters of the HK film makers' output is utterly unwatchable because of the flipping Manchus' notion of style. Luckily my first period drama was Dharma, with lots 'n' lots of flowing locks, flowing robes, and flowing everything.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Other than jade.

Not too sure about the timeframe but I thought they'd crop their hair western style, not let it grow out in flowing tresses or anything. Except maybe the Taiping rebels?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Belatedly seeing the source of the confusion: no no, 翡翠 only means jade AFAIK. What I meant was, while my reading has taught me the kanji for various quasi-erotic vocabulary-- truly, where else does one find 銜える (or 衔 as simplified seems to have it) used for anything, save in BL novels?-- it never taught me the kanji for jade, which would seem to be more basic.

(Just ran into a book about the Taiping rebels at the 2nd hand bookstore. "...and in the end, 20,000,000 Chinese would be dead." WTF? Even in the 19th century it takes *work* to kill 20 million people. The first world war was straight-out butchery, and its toll was only 8 million. Sheesh.)

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a lot of it was famine and starvation, over more than a decade, but still. That's hella lot of people.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

on an entirely different note I read this post and thought of you.

http://ditch-gospel.livejournal.com/27526.html

So I thought I would share!