Tokyojupiter - Side B

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BONUS:



Akito showing off.

Obtained: NYPL
Finished: 15-July 2009

Story Synopsis:

Between the pressures to marry and become a traditional Indian wife and the humiliation of losing her job in Silicon Valley, Devi is on the edge–where the only way out seems to be to jump.

Yet Devi’s plans to "end it all" fall short when she is saved by the last person she wants to see: her mother. Forced to move in with her parents until she recovers, Devi refuses to speak. Instead, she cooks...nonstop. And not the usual fare, but off the wall twists on Indian classics, like blueberry curry chicken or Cajun prawn biryani. Now family meals are no longer obligations. Devi’s parents, her sister, and her brother-in-law can’t get enough–and they suddenly find their lives taking turns as surprising as the impromptu creations Devi whips up in the kitchen each night. Then a stranger appears out of the blue. Devi, it appears, had a secret–one that touches many a nerve in her tightly wound family. Though exposing some shattering truths, the secret will also gather them back together in ways they never dreamed possible.

Commentary:

I actually found out about this book through GoodReads, as part of their "Desi Chick Lit" list. I found it quite amusing that some marketing person thought up something like that to call the growing number of books about young Indian females, but hey, it got my attention so I guess it works.

As a chick lit book, Serving Crazy with Curry is actually really good. The main character is Devi, the one who tries to commit suicide in the bathtub, but the rest of the book also covers the lives of the other women in her family, namely her sister, her mother, and even her grandmother. The characterizations of each one is intricate and compelling, even if a little melodramatic at times.

And that's where the lines of classifying novels based on certain marketing terms starts to fail. Like I said, if this was your run-of-the-mill chick lit book, it would be among the best of that type that I've read so far. But if I look at it as a book dealing with immigrant families and their experiences in America, it's actually pretty generic. The story's been done before: parents come from the old world, and therefore clash with the values of their children, who have grown up in the new country, etc. etc.

Predictably, I was also attracted to this book because of the promise of the recipes. They weren't really recipes, per se, but write-ups of how the main character prepared traditional Indian dishes but added a non-typical Indian ingredient here and there to make it unusual enough. Hey, it's cool, but if I guess I was expecting actual recipes with measurements should I want to try making those dishes myself. Then again, this is a novel, not a cookbook so I don't know what I was thinking.

Great book to bring to the beach or vacation. You may start craving Indian food afterwards though.

I totally have enough clutter in my house, but milchstrasse's photo shoots with Zetsubou-sensei makes me want to start buying Re-Ment sets too.

Like, there's just so many cute things!

A few changes happen to our couple in this second volume… This book feels less intense than the first one, but I think that’s really due to the introduction of a new group of characters into Chouko’s world.

As a college freshman, Chouko gets roped into a school club. She joins out mostly out of pity for the guy trying to recruit new members… so even though she’s not interested in the activities of the circle (they’re a Taisho Writers book group), she joins anyway. The current club members are already so grateful that she’s joined, but once they realize that she lives in the same house as Kei, they stage a scheme where they’ll follow him on a business vacation to the hot springs in Hakone.

The club members definitely change the tone of this series. They actually remind me of Yukino and Arima’s wacky gang of friends in Kare Kano. They mean well, but they get overly excited at times. And like Yukino before her, Chouko becomes a more interesting character once she starts interacting with people. I like how she’s pretty much down for going out and drinking with the group, almost as soon as they’ve met her. She really did just need other people to break out of her shell.

Kei, too, undergoes some interesting changes in volume 2. While we were made aware of his melancholy nature already, he also doesn’t seem to shy away from his developing feelings for Chouko. I actually was pretty shocked in his cocky statement to Paa-suke in the hot springs. He knows that there are numerous complications involved with pursuing a relationship with her beyond boarder and landlord, but at the same time, he’s no dummy. He knows that she has feelings for him just as he does for her.

I like the pace that this series is going along so far. This volume has a different feel from the first volume, but that change is a nice change in what’s already an extremely readable and enjoyable story.

Originally published at 2 screenshot limit. You can comment here or there.

I was making squeaky fangirl noises last night when I realized that some of the old cast members of the Gokusen jdrama were going to show up in the movie. And by old cast members, I mean Oguri Shun. (UCHI! ♥) I didn't realize that so many of the young jdrama actors actually did a stint in this series...

I really have to admire Yukie Nakama for still looking the same that she did in the first series till the very end. (Also, it's disturbing to realize that I'm actually older than her. Gulp.) Kind of a bummer though that MatsuJun didn't appear in the movie. Having Shin there would've been great.

Episodes 174-180

Okay, as usual, I'm exaggerating when I write that this arc (ie. Skypiea) is the longest one. It just feels that way most of the time. I mean, really, I've been watching this series off and on since 2004 and stopped watching in 2005. It took me FOUR years to get from episode 159 to episode 180 (where I finished yesterday).

Let's talk about Enel -- not even Morikawa's voice could save him from being one of the most boring and long-winded One Piece villains to date. Okay, so you want to kill everybody living on Sky Island -- you don't need to cause a catastrophe to do it! Just use your scary lightning powers. There were so many instances of frustrating displays of uselessness among the crew too. Only Zoro (and to an certain extent, Chopper) managed to keep his general wits about them.

Minor consolations for these batch of eps:
- Holy, Ohm's boxing dog
- And knowing that Nakai Kazuya (♥) also voiced Pierre, that bird-horse thing. HAHHAHAHA.

I'm excited about this movie already! Though, just to be snarky, that shot of Olympus at the end is ever so reminiscent of the first time we see Hogwarts in the 1st HP movie (which Chris Columbus also directed).

This weekend, when the cool kids are at Otakon, I'm going to marathon myself sick on Gakuen Alice. Finally got the DVDs on Saturday and I love love RightStuf/Nozomi for putting the entire series in one set. Talk about knowing their target audience.

And since they have a Bandai sale, I'm kiiinda wanting to buy the 1st Gundam00 half-box. Not sure if I want just the regular or special edition version though. The special one just comes with a manga, which is kinda tempting to check out since it's only an additional $7. Decisions, decisions.

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Also, if I watch 5 episodes of One Piece every night, it'll take me a mere 46 days to catch up. That's not that much, right?

EDIT: Skypiea arc is so frustrating. e.g. the group that was swallowed by the python -- HELLO you guys have a bird with you, fly out of the snake!!

I sold a batch of manga to Book-off over the weekend, and this title was among the books in the ‘maybe’ batch. I remember liking the first chapter of this series, and had bought both volumes in Japanese to see what happened, but somehow, I must’ve forgotten to actually look at the books since one was still shrink-wrapped when I looked it over.

Star Blacks comes from Yoko MAKI, the creator of Aishiteruze Baby. It ran for 2 volumes in Ribon magazine. As much as I appreciate short-running manga, the fact that something only ran for 8 chapters should’ve been a sign about its quality.

The story actually starts out quite nicely: Kisaki is a seventeen-year old girl who finds herself becoming the unlikely master of the sword that can cut down demons. Her father, who owns a sword shop, realizes that Kisaki is the only one who can wield the Katana of Oni, which proves that she is the reincarnation of their ancestor who also fought the demons in the past.

So, yes, the premise sounds great: girl with sword, fighting demons, reincarnation… Trouble is, the mangaka didn’t seem to know where she was going with the story. Many times, it felt like an odd mash-up between a monster-of-the-week shonen series with a dash of boring school romance. Though the concept of a Ribon series dipping its toes in shonen-like fights, if the story isn’t up to par to the art, then readers aren’t going to stick around. And additionally, Japan’s fascination with Catholicism cracks me up. The first chapter features a nun whom Kisaki has considered as a second mother, but then, of course, the first demon that Kisaki fights emerges from the nun’s despair and weakness. Kisaki dons the nun’s rosary as a necklace, but it ends up getting wrecked in a subsequent fight anyway. Huh? Okaaay.

I really hope Yoko MAKI has better luck with her later series. Obviously, these books are going to be sold to Book-off. No sense having them take up valuable shelf space in my apartment.

Originally published at 2 screenshot limit. You can comment here or there.

If you had come up to me and told me a few years ago that cooking manga would actually be accepted and enjoyed here in the U.S., I would’ve figured you to be the most optimistic idealist. Manga about ninja, samurai, cute girls — sure, that’d work. But food? Good luck selling that.

But hey, I guess I underestimated the power of food AND manga. Oishinbo, one of the bestselling series in Japan, is being published in English and this volume, Oishinbo A La Carte: Japanese Cuisine, is the first one out.

Just a small note before I move on — Oishinbo has been running since 1983 and has been collected in 100+ tankoubon volumes. Viz has decided that its English release (the A La Carte volumes) compile the books thematically. This first volume covers the basics of Japanese cuisine (like dashi, tea, sashimi) and later volumes will cover sake, ramen & gyoza, etc. If you’re an experienced (or picky) manga reader, you’ll notice how the story seems to jump around all over the place, but otherwise, I think this was a good editorial decision on Viz’s part.

Why? Because in this manga, the plot is secondary. Shiro Yamaoka is a journalist who has to write about the “Ultimate Menu” for the newspaper’s anniversary. He’s extremely knowledgeable about food, but his greatest adversary is his father, Kaibara Yuzan, an acclaimed potter and the founder of the Gourmet Club, which is Japan’s foremost gourmet society. Even though they hate each other’s guts, their shared interest to food often finds them crossing paths and cross words with each other.

So, after multiple chapters where Shiro and Kaibara are just comparing their foodie skills/knowledge, I realize that what’s important to this manga are the expansive explanations of various food, notably Japanese cuisine.

I won’t lie to you; this manga’s talky. There’s a lot of explanations about even concepts that I would’ve thought would be common knowledge to an average Japanese reader. What sets it apart from other cooking manga that’s already out there (e.g. Yakitate Japan!!, Antique Bakery, etc.) is that the explanations seem to be more grounded in reality and in fact than the others. I wouldn’t rely on the information in the manga as encyclopedic fact, but it’s a good starting point for layman explanations of food and cuisine.

Also, this series goes to prove that a good number of Japanese were foodies, even before the word made its way into the public lexicon…

Originally published at 2 screenshot limit. You can comment here or there.