Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

Dropping in to the area bookstore not that long ago, I had definite thoughts of looking for a single new volume of manga by an artist I’d read some works from before. The consciousness I haven’t been grabbed by all that many new titles of late, bringing me pretty close to confronting those stacked-up volumes “waiting until I’ve seen their anime adaptation first,” did get me at least passing by a display table. One title I’d been aware of caught my eye again, and this time I picked up a first volume of Destroy All Humans. They Can’t Be Regenerated, then looked around a little more and saw the second volume in the series was also available. The small wrinkle that this was a manga about Magic: The Gathering, which I’ve never played, was still in effect. Now, though, I was at least wondering if this might be a marshmallow-light example of “even if a story isn’t ‘meant for you,’ you still might come to understand another small part of humanity a little better from it.”
( It’s in the cards )

When I set about watching through “sample episodes” from six decades of anime two years ago, I had only one series starting in 1970 available with subtitles. Unlike a few other early cases of that, I was uncertain about sampling it. My post about Tomorrow’s Joe began by lamenting how, for all that I knew the original manga had been a very big deal, the accumulating injuries of boxing unsettle me. I do wonder, though, if I’d protested too much; I can at least understand how the “repelled” versus “compelling” balance has varied over time and for different people even if some of the results of being punched repeatedly start to hint at “body horror,” something in general I really don’t do well with at all. (For that matter, clothing getting ripped in “staged fights” doesn’t appeal to me either. By the time this leads to admitting that bits of an outfit being lost over the course of a story might not appeal as well, maybe I’ve given enough away to be psychoanalysed.) All of that does lead into how, when I learned the original manga was being translated and released over here, I wound up buying a copy even if a “three-in-one hardcover” was awfully expensive, especially given the paper didn’t seem that different from the stuff that yellows over time in ordinary manga.
( A bone-white ring under the red-hot sun )

Not all that long, or so it seemed, after I‘d read Gou Tanabe‘s manga adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft‘s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” Dark Horse announced another adaptation was going to be translated and released over here. This time it would be “The Call of Cthulhu,” significant enough for providing the name for the whole “Mythos.” I got around to buying and reading a copy.
( Conceivably a survival )

To be brief, I’ve pared time spent with a web browser open well back. To fill that gap, I decided to return to some manga and read it again. Picking up The Promised Neverland, I pushed through twenty volumes and a special follow-up of one-shots also from author Kaiu Shirai and artist Posuka Demizu in four days. This was a considerable acceleration from my usual pace of courteous chapter-sized nibbles.
( The reason for my choice )

Not that long after reading the first two volumes of Nico Nicholson’s My Lovesick Life as a ’90s Otaku in rapid succession and commenting on both of them, I picked up the third instalment of the manga. Very little time passed between that and ordering the fourth volume, and I started thinking about making another double comment. By the time that fourth volume showed up, though, I’d realised it would be the conclusion of the series. Having started reading the manga in part through the thought I ought to “begin new titles,” having it wrap up so soon was a little hard to take for a few moments. After that, I did start wondering if a longer series would have changed from “ha-ha, I got that reference” to “arrgh, why don’t they settle things?”
( From then to now )

After building a Gundam model I found myself tempted to go back to Kio Shimoku’s Genshiken manga and find the chapter of it involving the same hobby project. Whether or not that contributed to reading through twelve volumes of Witch Hat Atelier again, once I’d reached the current end of that story in print my thoughts did turn back to the older manga. This might, I suppose, betray that right now I’m making some efforts not to just fritter away all my spare time using web browsers.
( Dropping back in )

Noticing some unfortunate, yet still somehow understandable, suspicions of how long the upcoming Witch Hat Atelier anime would “hold together” did get me thinking back to those just as unfortunate cracks that “the trailer’s always the best part of the movie” and the days of OVAs (although I can now think of a few OVAs that didn’t “hold together,” or indeed even reach their concluding instalment). At a certain point, a sort of premature bargaining had me wondering whether there might be an early point in the manga where, should the anime be fortunate enough to “hold together” even that far, you could “cut off there” with some measure of satisfaction. I took the first volume of the manga off my shelves and thought that getting to the moment where Coco is given her witch hat would work for me. Then, I kept reading through the other eleven volumes of manga I have.
( Putting the pieces together again )

All in all I don’t lack for manga to read. Only going back every once in a long while to any of the series I have shelved or just stacked seems evidence of that. With that said, I must admit to a certain recent impression of not having begun many new series from among the great number being translated and published. Every once in a while a series I’m reading ends; to wind up returning to completed series just because I’ve run out of attention-catching new manga to replace them doesn’t seem the most appealing way to do that.
( But my attention did get stolen )

When I ordered the third volume of Minami Nanami wants to Shine (after commenting on three of the translated light novels it’s an “alternative universe spinoff” of had got in between it and its previous instalment), I hadn’t known it would be the final part of its series. That hard fact was revealed from the comments of others. Receiving the manga as I was finishing up the anime adaptation of some more of the original novels, and going on a vacation afterwards, did sort of get in the way of reading it too.
( Catching up anyway )

In some fashion or another I became aware of a “light novel” named Qualia the Purple translated from Japanese, but long enough ago I don’t quite remember the specifics. I do have the impression some brought up Last and First Idol while mentioning this new release, which would have got my attention. There was also a bit of “positive recommendations that tried not to give too much away,” which I suppose always has me wondering if I just wind up being vague. Still, when I did get around to picking up the novel at last from where I’d had a copy waiting, I read it with growing interest.
( What do you see? )