Friday, February 19, 2010

Adachi Manga, Spring Training and Apathy


So over the past few months I've glutted myself on a lot of Adachi manga, I've read all of:
Cross Game - just ended a few days ago
H2
Rough
Katsu!

They were pretty much all excellent and I highly recommend them all if I had to rank them I don't think I could. I would say that H2 had better baseball than Cross Game (and a lot more of it) but that the relationships were less compelling than Cross Game. Rough and Katsu I view as being very similar, both excellent but probably not as deep as Cross Game. So I guess I could rank them in a way, Cross Game is my favorite, H2 has the best sports 'action' and I can't choose between Rough and Katsu.

Somehow I still haven't read Touch, maybe it's because the drawing is the most dated of any Adachi work I've read but I don't think so. I think it's that it's been hinted to me that there is a big tragedy in it and I don't feel like reading however many chapters there are of Touch (many many) with that hanging over me. Also I'm not sure I like the idea of brothers fighting over the same girl.

On to real baseball, spring training is upon us (thank god) and as a Tiger's fan it's been a very weird off season. I was crushed initially by the loss of Polonco and Granderson, which I had since gotten over. But then all this crap came out abut the Tiger's possibly signing Johnny Damon, how many ways can I say NO DO NOT WANT. We go from probably have the most upstanding admirable outfielder in the league (Curtis Granderson) to a player who bragged in his own book about how he had sex with 9 different women while his wife was giving birth to twins! (Damon) Plus Damon's career is in the decline, he won't be able to hit home runs in Comerica Park and I think Ryan Raburn could be an All Star if he was allowed to play every day. Needless to say I want the season to start.

And on to apathy. I've been unable reciently to really get into any anime series. Sure I'm still following Cross Game and I just picked up Nodame Cantabile: Final Chapter but I don't really see that as picking up a show as much as continuing one of my old favorites. I've stalled on Kimi ni Todoke, both the anime and the manga. This I am somewhat disappointed in, there are several chapters of the manga I have yet to read and ditto with episodes of anime. This makes me sad because I think the series has such promise and started so well, but it quickly reached the stage where I just wanted to yell at the screen "God damn it you both clearly like eachother someone just say it and get it over with!" I also stalled on Erin which also disappointed me because it was just getting tired and drawn out, I think they spent much too much time with her taking care of Beastlords and it just got boring. I dropped Letter Bee for pretty obvious reasons and haven't found anything else that seems remotely interesting.While I don't have much time for anime (read: 5 engineering classes) when I do want to watch something I find myself much more likely to load up an old episode of Natsume Yuujinchou or Nodame than I am to find something new. And now that I'm pretty much out of Adachi with the exception of 3 gatsu no lion (which someone needs to get scanlating faster now) and Oofuri I haven't found any manga I particually like either. I think my standards are just too high now, traditional animes which I used to enjoy just don't do it for my anymore, I need a Honey & Clover, a Cross Game, a Natsume or I'm just not happy.