SOUL EATER

Due to my being insanely busy with edits, Kiwi volunteered to write a guest post for me. She is far more knowledgable about manga and anime, so it's for the best that she handle these mini reviews. I still haven't finished InuYasha...so yeah.

Take it away, Kiwi.

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Soul Eater is a shonen manga from 2004. It is written and illustrated by Atsushi Ōkubo, and is still coming out today. An anime came out in 2008. It takes place at Death City, Nevada, and the plot is basically students at Shibusen (Death Weapons Meisters Academy) fight kishin eggs to protect the world. Some students can transform into weapons and are handled by meisters.


It’s a really cool show and its very funny as well.

FRUITS BASKET

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FRUITS BASKET written by Natsuki Takaya starts with orphan, Tohru Honda living in a tent in the woods until she meets Yuki, Shigure, and Kyo Sohma. They invite her to live in their home, and she discovers their clan secret. The members of the Sohma family are cursed, possessed by animals from the Chinese zodiac. Whenever a member of the opposite sex not possessed by the zodiac hugs a Sohma, they change into their animal form.

This is one of my daughter's favorite anime series. So much so that after she watched the series, she read the manga online. The anime series leave you hanging at the end of the 26 episodes, plus the storyline is a bit different.

Wishing for a season 2, but there doesn't appear to be one.

INUYASHA, A FEUDAL FAIRY TALE

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Today,  I'll have a little bit of fun talking about my new, favorite anime addiction. I started watching InuYasha after I got caught up with Naruto Shippuden (OMG, the last episode finally brought back Naruto, thank God).

Here is the blurb from Wikipedia:

InuYasha (犬夜叉), also known as InuYasha, a Feudal Fairy Tale (戦国御伽草子 犬夜叉, Sengoku Otogizōshi InuYasha), is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. The series was adapted into anime and follows Kagome Higurashi, a teenager from Tokyo, who is transported back in time to the Sengoku period, where she meets the half demon, InuYasha. When a centipede demon from that era tries to take the magical Jewel of Four Souls embodied in Kagome, she accidentally splits the Jewel into various shards, which are dispersed across Japan. InuYasha and Kagome start travelling to recover it, gaining allies and enemies throughout the journey.

Anyway, I think if I were a teenage girl I would totally be in love with InuYasha. What's not to like really? He's protective. He growls. He has cute dog ears. Adorable. My son is lucky I didn't watch this series when I was pregnant with him or he would be in need of a nickname: Yasha or Inu.

And what's up with the love triangle between Kikyo and Kagome? I really wanted Kagome to punch Inyasha in the face whenever he puts Kikyo before her (okay, I don't really condone violence in the real world, but I get a kick everytime Kagome yells, "Osuwari!" )

Rumiko Takahashi does a wonderful job of making his each of his characters flawed, yet loveable because of those flaws.

NARUTO

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Kiwi Sandro is here with a special guest post. She promised not to totally embarrass me by telling everyone about how I cried in the last episode, but I guess I just did that myself.

Oh well, please welcome her to the blog for her very first guest post. YAY!!

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Naruto is a manga created by Masashi Kishimoto in 1999. It was so popular it was turned into an anime. It’s so awesome! My mom thinks so too. When she gets home, we start watching, if she doesn’t have to work on her book first.

So far we are early in the hundreds of the first series. We have switched from English to Japanese (I prefer the latter) and so mom had to get used to the new voices. One part in after the chunin exams ended, Naruto did something AWESOME and we both yelled “BOOYAH!"

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This show is awesome. Momma asked me to write who is better, Aang or Naruto. But I couldn’t because they both rock, and so I wrote this instead. You got to see to believe it! (Naruto’s catch phrase, the ‘believe it’.)

-Kiwi

BOYS BEFORE FLOWERS

This week I took advantage of my 10 hour day work week. Since I have Wednesdays off, I used a vacation day on Tuesday. This gave me five days to lounge. Since my kids were also out of school, we’ve had some nice bonding time. I introduced Kiwi to Princess Hours after begging and pleading with her to watch it with me. It was the Vampire Diaries all over again. She loved it. Maybe in the future, she’ll stop arguing with me when I make show recommendations.

Ha! Double dog doubt it.

We’re now watching Kgotboda Namja BOYS BEFORE FLOWERS. We’re four episodes into this series and it’s hilarious. Four mega rich boys terrorize the students at the elite, Shin Hwa High School, through bullying. If a student gets on their bad side, a red F4 card shows up in their locker, and the entire student body attacks them.

The first scene shows a boy being beaten up and chased through the school. He ends up on the roof threatening to jump. That’s when our lovely heroine, Geum Jan Di, swoops in on her bike to save the day. She’s on campus delivering laundry, sees what is going on, and saves the boys life. As a reward/punishment, she’s given a scholarship to attend the school and begins to systematically take down the F4’s with wit, charm, and a mighty roundhouse kick to the face.

This first scene is pretty intense. The ruthlessness of the students and the terror of the boy being abused was no joke. It truly showed the horror of bullying. It provided the perfect opportunity for me to talk to my daughter about speaking out if she's ever the victim of bullying. But, it also showed how one person can make a difference. When Jan Di stands up to the F4's, wow. My daughter's face lit up. I hope that this is something that she'll take with her in her daily life. That she will stand up against injustice and not moo with the herd.
 
Anyway, as a parent, it is wonderful to find shows where I don't have to yell, "Cover your eyes," every few minutes because of graphic content. There is a sweet, innocence to the characters. Even the boys. There were quite a few moments when we laughed so hard the boys wandered into the room to find out why. I can't wait to see how this series to end. I, of course, am hoping the bad guy transforms into a gem and gets the girl in the end.