- Princess princess :
The french edition was out a couple of days and like an addicted to junk foodmanga I went out of my way to pick it up.
I remember that the anime put the emphasis on Tohru and Mikoto's first encounter, you know with the slow motion and the background of pink love. So the logical conclusion was that Mikoto and Tohru would be special friends but no, not at all. Like the manga the anime made it clear but later Yuujirou and Tohru were the item of the story. Mikoto is at best at Sakamoto's level i.e. a bit above nameless background characters.
What I found interesting is that Tsuda sensei started princess princess as a BL and Yuujirou and Tohru were meant to be together. Since she wanted to go mainstream she changed a bit the story. But clearly who is going to believe that Princess princess is a straight story ?

Oh and the omake behind the cover is hilarious. "Prince prince" would have make my junk food list too (especially a "prince prince of tennis" remake would be perfect. Who is up for a AU fic ?) Can't wait to read the second tank with the family complex side story.

- Naruto :
I still follow the manga out of habit but I lost my interest for it since Sasuke and Kakashi are there only now and then. It's like reading/watching the James Bond serie and being only interested in the outcome of Q's fate. Although I had to concede those last weeks were delightful as Sasuke did come back and was forming his little squad of worshippers.
Guess what ? The only girl has a crush on him. It's like Kishimoto sensei can not compute how a girl could not fall for Sasuke....

Source for raw

- Prince of tennis :
So Rikkai versus Seigaku in the final ?
100% of chance that my heart is going to be crushed by Rikkai's defeat >__<. (and it's not ii data)

Source for raw
Weekly summaries

- Video games freak
Meanwhile I sort of became of video games freak since the percentage of video games blog and bbs I read is now bigger than the anime/manga ones.
I'm and always was a Nintendo fan. It's nothing rational, it's just that my first memories of game video are composed of afternoons with the boy next door playing NES games (duckhunt was fun) and being totally not impressed with playstation 3D. To me, Sony and Microsoft killed the spirit (Yes I'm aware there's good games on PS2 but to me it killed the dreamcast, home of Chuchu rocket)
Well DS and Wii brought me back at home. Can't wait to play Cooking Mama on Wii and the next Gyakuten Saiban.

- Mistful rec
Could she stop being so prolific ? I weep since it's been so long she didn't update Quality of mercy that I couldn't remember how I miss her Charlie until today.

Drop Dead Gorgeous part 5 update yesterday.
I like Maya's style but I can't help myself being disappointed by that particular fic. It began so funny and fast paced... and now it took a weird turn toward her usual Draco's circus. It's still funny since her writing is enjoyable buut the fic lost its wacky premise... well there's still hope since she usually writes long fics. The wacky will have many chance to return !

The Way we get by : new
Yet Another fic (no longer a one shot since LJ limit means nothing for our brilliant H/D lover). Draco centric this time (Drop dead gorgeous is more or less a Harry's POV isnt' it ?)

( French election )

So I have the shiny newtype in my hands. It's like a new born baby, totally useless but utterly cute.

So what's inside ?
- The usual : Their iconic manga and their characters (Tokyo Babylon got more page than RG veda *weird*)

- The nice touch : a retrospective of many articles about clamp series (the lego feature didn't make the list T_T)

- The big surprise : Remember Yuukoi.e. clamp is a fan of Cat's eyes ? They did an illustration for a city hunter article... sweet !

- The practical : nice pictures without taglines because we are all layout whores.

- The next in line : ad for Clamp newtype PASTEL tagline : How to hit your fan in their weakpoint to make massive damage

- The you're going to cry because you are not in japan right now merchandise page : special mention for Emily avoid page 132 !

- The X fans are gonna love it while I will wait a translation to eventually find it funny page : A Comic in clamp no kiseki style where Kamui is under fuma's sword and suddenly disappear. He realize he's now inside Yuuko's shop. And as usually it ends up in mayhem and chaos with Watanuki being annoyed with the mess. By the way Kamui in that little comic had been kobato-ed. HA !

- The booklet : no color illustrations ! Well to be honest just like your average tank. The format is indeed really cool because Mokona's drawings are very detailed and you couldn't appreciate all of it with the quality of Asuka pages.
To be honest I felt a pinch in my heart when I open it because first think I saw was the double black pages. I don't even know why.

( the pictures )

I went to the bookshop this morning to do some inquiring about the Clamp NEWTYPE. Of course I ended up not booking the magazine and buying other stuff.

French version of FMA tank 8
Fabien Vautrin I love you ! (And before Fabrice start calling doctors, I'm not crazy I was only kidding) Well I don't love your stiffer than stiffy the stiffed stick translation but the fact that your Edition House did one of the Flame Alchemist 0 in a nice little booklet.
FMA is probably selling itself like hot cake right now. Can't wait to buy the artbook (again)

Volume 8 good memories :
- Al seeing the truth
- Barry in love with Hawkeye (and provoking Roy's fire)
- May imagining Prince Charming Edward Elric
- Al losing his big brother statut to his baby brother
- Black Ayate and Den omake.

NEW TYPE October : REI and KAWORU cover -don't read if you didn't see evangelion ep 24-
How many version of Evangelion will we have to watch ? A serie of 4 new movies is on production (wiki and gainax)Well if it means Kaworu bring it on.
While I would love to see more of him, the only problem I have with Kaworu, is that you get to feel how awesome he could have been with zero information (canon facts are compressed into 15 mins of one episode). It's really frustrating.

I didn't have the time to feel sad about his death the first time around. Everything happened too fast in episode 24 and now each time I'm watching that particular episode it's painful to see him in Shinji's hand during what seems the longest still scene in an animated show (one full minute I believe) and not wanting him to die.
And each time I have a glimpse of Kaworu (who seems to be in every group illustration) It feels like he's the most wasted character ever written on TV.

ANIMATION NOTE
A while ago Alex mentioned an interview about xxxHOLIC in Animation Note in his Clamp news June Edition.

Well I picked it up by chance (the cover was an old Gankutsuou illustration while clamp is mentionned in a small font) and was glad I did it. Last time I felt so happy about a magazine was probably when they released their first pretty pictures in Frau Magazine.

The magazine is fairly new (n°2) and doesn't really play in the Animemedia/ Newtype field. the inside of the magazine features interviews and doesn't overkill your eyes with flashy ads. It's not oriented toward fanbase (no drool worthy illustrations) and has a making-of/behind the scene feeling ♥ ♥ ♥

Gankutsuou scans
How many layers and patterns you can find in one picture of gankutsuou. There's also one page of storyboard

Clamp scans
There's Ohkawa and xxxholic's director interview. The rest is very clamp centric. You can see a timeline of what have been animated from their work. More picture of their studio and the last page is a big picture of the fantastic four (I will say it again : Igarashi san, please marry me!)

BLEACH

Complete melt down with that line : 'Should I pure some tea first'
( Picture of mod squad behind the cut )

Bleach forum for the translation and link raw

TENIPURI

( I hate that Konomi sensei is killing Fuji with all his love )
FET forums for summary

HAGAREN 63
( About that new general Amstrong )

I'm usually between 10 and 15 hours in front of a computer screen (working time included), whereas on vacation, I don't spend much time on it, and not necessarily by choice.

The only wired computer at home is located in my mother's office. That room is so cold, I had to wear a coat! So the first day at my mother's place is like a being in drug rehab for me (how can I live without my emails and rss feeds ????).
I have a "strict survival policy" i.e. a reduced favorite link list. Everything else is rescheduled at next week, because there's one thing I hate more than being deprived of my beloved lan connection it's freezing to death. But today I made an exception because despite what I'm saying Clamp is and always will be my beloved favorite subject.

- Newtype platinium : oups I forgot about it. It's only those damned missing chapters isn't it ? Yes the cover is gorgeous and if there's still one left in the bookshop (which I'm not sure)I'm buying it, but really wake me up when X will be back somewhere in prep for real.


( TRC 129 : almost a heart failure, for real )

-- As a french how could I not react to the Zinedine Zidane Case? I'm not glorifying his gesture. I'm even annoyed people find he was right to be violent. He deserved his red card because he was not fighting racism or his family honor. He was just angry because he was called a fag. Such rage for nothing... repression anyone ?
On a total swallow side, I just don't get how Football-RPS is not writing itself when you have that kind of quote "If you really want my shirt I WILL give it to you afterward". Someone write me a zizou/materazzi hate fic, PLZ THX BYE.


-- Rumiko Takahashi totally won me back with Inuyasha's last chapters. She's closing one by one each character storyline and if the conclusions are not unexpected they are nevertheless moving. I couldn't care less about Kouga but Kikyou got a conclusion and Sesshoumaru is about to have one too.

To me Kikyou was, is the soul of the story. If it wasn't for her, Inuyasha's plot would be pointless. Her story was poignant because she carried with her a sense of lost she couldn't overcome. On contrary of other characters you knew her road was a dead end, literally. Her job cost her everything from her youth to her life and even in death she was denied peace. She couldn't even pretend to feel nostalgia since she never formed a couple with Inuyasha.
I love how at first she was different from the lead characters. She was ruthless and depict as selfish through what seem a sadistic behavior. But later on, Takahashi started her "you're all gonna love her now or I end you" plan by making Kikyou taking care of old soldiers, young peasants and random lost children.

my top 5 kikyou scenes :
- "Don't call my name" (Chp 48)
- "When I was alive... I had wanted to do this" (Chp 76)
- "Because I didn't believe in Kikyou..." (Chp 78)
- "I won't give your life, to the likes of Naraku" (Chp 153)
- "To cry over wanting to live, is not shameful"(Chp 271)

and one I didn't include in the top 5 because it's anime only.
- I always associate "My Will" with Kikyou alone wandering in the forest aimlessly. Every time I'm listening to that song, it breaks my heart in tiny thousand pieces.

If the last chapter is the beginning of the last big arc about Sesshoumaru/Rin, Well it does kick the anime ass because it sounds much more interesting than episode 162. Is it next week yet ?

Reading the last chapter, I bet that if Sesshoumaru's parents were together at one time, she was the one who left, fed up with his personality. Why does the fandom see Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru's father as a kind loving guy ? It's not because Inuyasha got the bigger sword that he's the favorite child of the household. It's more like Inupapa pitied Inuyasha's weakness and gave him a big gun without a howto guide instead of a teddy bear. What a great father he was...
Sesshoumaru is a lame liar "I'm just going there to kill the dog" is the weakest excuse I ever heard. It is as weak as "tensaiga made me do it".


-- ***Few links to check ***

- deathtocapslock
A very sharp and critical reading of Half Blood Prince by sistermagpie chapter by chapter.
She does sound severe in her judgment but I do like the points she brings and she uses sarcasm so well. If you love her meta you will love that LJ comm.
- Radioblog
Find streaming music. the playlist function is a nice way to shuffle your way around.


-- a tag from rossignol : 6 things you didn't know about me (or maybe you did)

- I have an irrational fear of two things : dinosaurs and snails. (I fear more dinosaurs).
And I'm not kidding.

- I love musical movies, especially the old ones (my favorite one had to be My Fair Lady but it's a close call with Singin' In The Rain).

- I like Little Britain and am ridiculously infatuate with David Walliams.

- I drink my coffee black with sugar (And I don't like milk with my tea).

- I have three family names (I'm a strong dragon king ^_^).

- I believe that Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors" ending is very optimistic and beautiful. The movie makes me believe in the Humankind.