I'll probably make a post about moving and my new job soon, but first, some fandom talk. I've checked out the new season's anime titles now, and I'm starting to think that Sakamichi no Apollon and Tsuritama are the only ones I will be following (unless I manage to catch up on Fate Zero, that is). That's fine though, because these two have started out wonderfully. Both have great animation, great music (especially Sakamichi no Apollon, of course) and characters that you just can't wait to find out more about. I might continue to watch Zetman too if I have enough time for it, but I'm not sure yet.

Moreover, the second season of Game of Thrones started. The new actors all fit their roles; I especially love Brienne, but Melisandre seems great too, and Margaery as well, even though she's very different from how I pictured her in the books. Asha Yara is also perfect so far. Theon's storyline didn't interest me too much in the books (mostly because I hated him there) but I find myself caring more for it now. With Jon, it's the opposite. My favorite storyline is probably the one with Sansa and the others at King's Landing.

Also, quick mini reviews of some books I've been reading lately:

Black Heart by Holly Black (final book in The Curse Workers series): I liked it, though maybe not quite as much as I liked the previous books in the series. Some of the subplots seemed slightly out of place and the narrative felt a little unstructured at times. I guess I'd been expecting something more of the finale, or at least a more intense buildup before the ending. But overall, this is definitely one of the better YA series I've read the last few years.

Timeless by Gail Carriger (final book in the Parasol Protectorate series): I adored this one. Carriger's books aren't completely free from flaws, but they're very entertaining, at least if you like quirky and slightly absurd humor. Some of my favorite characters got a lot of development in this book, and the finale was more satisfying than I'd dared to hope for. I'm looking forward to the sequel series now.

The song of Achilles by Madeline Miller: I've read and watched quite a few interpretations of the Trojan war, but I don't think I'll ever get tired of them, and I was positively surprised by this one. Achilles is portrayed as more sympathetic here than in most other retellings I've come across, and I loved following his and Patroclus' development from childhood, through the war and until the bitter end. I especially liked how the last few chapters were written -- the final exchange between Patroclus and Thetis made me a bit teary-eyed, even though I was prepared for sad scenes. You can tell how invested the author is in the old myth, and how much she loves these characters.

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal: The description of this novel reads: "Shades of Milk and Honey is exactly what we could expect from Jane Austen if she had been a fantasy writer." That's a lie; it's not. Overall, this book was something of a disappointment to me. I liked the premise with glamour being used as art, but the characters never managed to engage me and the writing had nothing of the style or sharpness that I generally associate with fantasy of manners. One Amazon reviewer puts it: "Jane Austen's books are subtle, but filled with witty characters, interesting conversations, clever plot twists, and entertaining side characters. The characters in this book are dull and have incredibly boring conversations." I agree.

Just a few updates on things. :) Not very much has happened here recently; everyone is waiting for spring but we keep getting more snow just when it looks like winter finally has given up. I've been making preparations for next month, but it feels like I still haven't grasped that I'll be moving away from this place in less than three weeks. There are many things here that I'm going to miss, although I'm excited about coming to a new place as well.

Last week I finished the story I've been writing on since last summer. It ended up being ~130k words, although I still have some editing to do. I'm not sure what to do with it in the future (it probably depends on how I feel about it once it's completely done) but I had lots of fun writing it. Now I'm contemplating what to write next - I have many story ideas (or well, many character ideas at least), but I'm not sure how much time I'll have for stuff like that the next few months. I need to start on something though, it would feel too strange not to have anything at all to write on.

Fandom-wise I've mostly been obsessing over Natsume Yuujinchou lately, and I find it incredibly sad that there's only one episode left of this season now. I don't dare to be too optimistic about the possibilities of a continuation either, because there has been so much talk about this really being the final season and messages like this one don't sound too promising. Still, one can always hope. I'd really love to see the current manga arc animated eventually.

By the way, what to you guys think about the spring anime season? So far there's no new series that I'm super excited about, but I'll probably check out Zetman and Sakamichi no Apollon, and maybe Accel World too. And then there's the Blood-C movie, I'm actually looking forward to that one.

Oh, and I usually don't follow Melodifestivalen very closely, but this year I watched all the semi-finals + the final that was held a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad that Loreen won, I was rooting for her. I have no idea how high her chances might be in the ESC though, it's always so hard to predict what will be popular there.

Look, an update! And on a leap day, too. I'm just going to make a list, since I have a whole bunch of random things to talk about.

( this is why I shouldn't wait so long between each new entry )

First, Happy Birthday Jiayi! I suspect it's already the 22nd where you are, but I hope you had a fabulous day! ♥

It looks like my resolution to start this year by posting more here failed pretty badly, haha. According to my old plans I'd be back in my own apartment by now, but my schedule for January was changed when I found out that I have to go to Uppsala to do some work next week. As a result I'm still at my parent's place, since it's much easier to get to Uppsala from here. It feels strange to have been here for so long, but it's nice as well. I should be back in my own apartment next weekend though, and in a way I'm looking forward to returning to my ordinary daily routines again.

As for what I've done during the holidays and my vacation ... well, let's just say that everything has been very calm here. I've mostly used my free time for writing and it's been going better than I'd expected – in five weeks I've been able to produce about 40k words, which is something of a record for me (no, I've never done Nanowrimo, and I'm not sure if I'd be able to either). It's all just for fun, but maybe it could be something to continue working on later.

In other news:

- The winter anime season started, but the only new shows that seem to have stuck with me are Natsume Yuujinchou Shi and Daily Lives of High School Boys. The former has been amazing so far, and the latter is probably something of a hate-or-love title, but I found the first two episodes really entertaining.

- Pandora Hearts continues to be brilliant; I loved the latest chapter and I'm starting to like Jack and Glen more and more now. Lacie is a fascinating character as well.

- More info on LJ's upcoming changes. I ... just don't know. I understand what they're trying to do, but "designed to deemphasize blog content"? And "metrics and statistics on user activity that appear to be more detailed than Facebook"? Also, what does GRRM have to do with any of that?

- I'll probably be a little absent next week (not that I've been very active lately anyway), but ‏like I said, by the end of the month I should be back at my own place. I'm planning to do a major catch-up on everything fandom-related then. :3

Happy New Year! ♥

Here's something of a 2011 fandom summary (that turned out much longer than I thought it would):


( Anime )

( Other TV-series )

( Manga )

( Books )

Aaand that's it for now, I think. Have nice weekend, everyone!

Merry Christmas/God Jul/Happy Holidays (etc), everyone! I hope you all are having a good time!

- I've been staying at my parents' place for a week now and so far things have been very calm here. The weather is mild (it feels more like mid-October than December), my siblings are home and we've all been helping out with the Christmas preparations together.

- We (my family and I) had decided not to buy a lot of Christmas presents this year, which was nice. Less stress, and less money gone. :) We gave each other a few small things though, mostly chocolates and candy. I also got a home-made Leo (from PH) doll from my youngest sister. It was a joke from her side since she hates him after the recent events in the manga, while I'm always defending him.

- Due to the recent issues with LJ, I've decided to let my paid subscription here expire. I have no intentions of leaving, but I'm probably going to try to use my DW account more actively from now on, as a complement to this one. Feel free to add me over there if you want to!

Ah, it feels like ages since I last wrote an entry. I don't know if it's because there's a lot to do before Christmas or because the days are so short right now, but I've been awfully tired and unproductive the last few weeks. It's like I need at least two more hours of sleep every night at this time of the year, compared to in the summer. This weekend I have a billion things on my to-do list but so far I've only been procrastinating, i.e. cleaning my apartment, drawing pointless random doodles, sorting the books on my shelves multiple times, digging up my car from the pile of snow it'd been buried under (ok, that was necessary) and taking walks with my dog while listening to audio books. I'm probably going home on Christmas vacation next week, although I haven't decided on what day yet.

It has snowed quite a lot the last few days (here and here are pics of what it looks like at my place right now, I took these photos earlier this morning) so now it finally feels like we have some real winter. The temperature is still mild though, only a few minus degrees. Not that I'm complaining, it's nice not having to freeze your hands and feet off when you go outside.

Fandom-wise I've been depressingly lazy recently, I've mostly been reading books and lurking around online. I will try to make up for that the upcoming weeks, since I should have a lot more free time once I get home to my parents' place. I loved last month's chapter of PH though, and the latest chapters of Gate 7 and Drug & Drop too. I find myself more and more fascinated by Gate 7; my copy of the first volume arrived in the mail a while ago, and I've been rereading it over and over since then. The more you read about all those historic characters, the more you want to know about who their original versions were.

Also, I recently bought the first volume of A bride's story/Otoyomegatari. It's the first time in years that I buy a new manga series before reading scanlations of it first (or well, I'd skimmed through it a little and I've loved Kaoru Mori's works ever since I read Emma and Shirley so I wasn't completely unfamiliar with it) but I don't regret it - I mean, I knew the art was gorgeous and amazingly detailed, but the characters themselves are all lovable and it has the same pleasant feeling to it as Emma.

Also, I watched How to train your dragon yesterday! I liked it a lot; Hiccup and Toothless are adorable and the animation was great. Ok, so the Viking warriors wear horns and speak Scottish, but nevermind. I think I'll have to watch it again with my siblings during Christmas.

Last, don't forget the Christmas cards post if you haven't commented already!

I told lavender88 and ryuuoh_elf that I'd let them know what I thought about The Hunger Games trilogy when I'd finished it, so here's a review! Or rather, a non-structured compilation of random impressions and thoughts (mostly on the last book), but oh well.

( spoilers for the whole series under the cut )

First, obligatory fangirling about the PH calendar: Reim! ♥ He even got two pictures, and one of them has Sharon and Break as well which makes things even better. All the other illustrations are gorgeous too, as expected of Mochizuki.

I feel like I still haven't realized that it's mid-November already, gah. The weather might have something to do with that - winter seems to be late this year, and apparently this has been the warmest autumn in ages. It's quite a contrast to last year, when November and December were freezing cold and I was working outdoors in -20°C, genuinely worrying that my hands and feet would be permanently damaged, haha. I hope the snow arrives soon though; it's so dark and gloomy without it.

Overall, things have been rather calm here lately. I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I'm trying to write as much as I can during evenings and weekends, and it's going surprisingly well. I've also been reading a few books - last week I finished Terry Pratchett's Snuff, which I liked a lot (I listened to the audio book version, mostly because I love how Stephen Briggs narrates the Discworld novels, and as always it resulted in weird looks from other people when they saw me walking by laughing for no apparent reason at all). Right now I'm reading The Cold Commands by Richard Morgan and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. After that I'll probably read some books in Swedish, because I realized that I've hardly done that at all this year. English practice is good and all, but sometimes you need to give yourself a reminder about your native tongue too.

Anime-wise, I've come to like UN-GO a lot more than I did initially. The last two episodes have been really good - the actual storytelling might be little strangely paced, but I find it interesting how the show brings up philosophies and themes that reflect our own society. As for the first chapter of CLAMP's Drug & Drop, it's a little too early to tell what I think about the "new" series yet, but it was great to see Rikuo and Kazahaya again. It still feels a little unreal that the manga actually is back - I guess some part of me firmly refused to believe that it would happen, after all. Nekoi's art style has changed, of course, but I don't mind - quite the opposite, actually; I think the art looks better now, at least when it comes to poses and anatomy.

Also, I loved the news about the Tiger & Bunny movies! I think they'll turn out great, and to be honest I'm almost a little relieved that there won't be a season 2 just yet, because I don't want Sunrise to rush to much in order to put together a second series (if they're planning it at all, I mean). I'm curious to see what ideas they'll come up with for the movies. :3

Hello! Just thought I'd make a quick post to say that I haven't disappeared for good, I've just been very busy with work recently. This month I've been moving around across half the country (or at least that's what it feels like), but things will probably calm down in a few weeks, or whenever the snow arrives. I'm looking forward to the winter a lot now, even though it's a little depressing that the days are getting shorter so fast. Daylight saving time ended yesterday, so today it's going to get dark even earlier, around 4 pm. On the other hand it was nice to get to sleep one hour extra this morning.

I don't know if it's because the last anime season had so many awesome shows or because I've been too busy recently, but I've found it a little hard to get into any of this season's new series. Guilty Crown is gorgeous, but the story hasn't really got me hooked yet, and after three episodes I still can't say that I care much for any of the characters. UN-GO is good, although it feels like it hasn't reached its full potential yet, and Chihayafuru was a pleasant surprise. I've also enjoyed the first two episodes of Last Exile: Ginyoku no Fam, mostly because I like the settings and the visuals. Apart from these four titles I've ended up dropping everything else I've started watching though (Mirai Nikki, Kimi to Boku, Phi Brain, Tamayura, Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon). Then again, it's mostly due to lack of time, not because the shows are bad (although Horizon was really not that great, haha).

On another animanga-related note, I love how the latest chapters of Pandora Hearts have induced so much discussion among the fans. I haven't had time to participate myself, but it reminds me of the days when I spent way too much of my online time theorizing about Holic and TRC, and it's great to see the fandom so active because PH deserves all the attention it can get.

I also liked the latest Gate 7 chapter a lot, even though there's no translation for it yet. The art is simply amazing (the new color page is so pretty, by the way!) and the interactions between the four main characters are only getting more and more adorable. Also, speaking of CLAMP, only a few days are left until the first new chapter of Legal Drug Drug & Drop is released now! It's probably going to take a little while to get used to the new title, but I think I like it.

Anyway, that's all for now. I hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Today is one of those clear, colorful autumn days that make you feel awful for sitting inside in front of your computer. I might have to go out and take some photos later, and I have some work stuff to do as well, but first, an entry filled with random ramblings and picspam! Clearly my priorities are all in order.


( Mini-book review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern )

( Blood-C episode 12 + overall impression – slight spoilers )

( Fandom meme + picspam )

So many things happening, so little time to talk about them.

- Natsume Yuujinchou S4 has been announced! ♥ And what makes things even more awesome is that it starts in January next year. Like I said in one of my recent entries, I was expecting this series to get a fourth season eventually, but I didn't think it would be starting so soon. It's wonderful, amazing news though - now we don't have to be sad that the third season is ending soon anymore!

- The news about CLAMP's new project was something of a surprise, wasn't it? I can't say that I'm a big Gackt fan – I like some of his songs enough to listen to them now and then, and I've seen Moon Child, but apart from that I've never paid much attention to him - but a collaboration between him and CLAMP could be interesting, I suppose. Most of all I'm excited about the thought of a brand new CLAMP manga though. I wonder if they're planning to connect the story to Gate 7 in some way.

- The second season of Downton Abbey started! I liked the first episode a lot, it was great to see the series back and I think I fell in love with the whole cast all over again. It's nice to see the changes that have taken place since season 1 ended too – the fashion, the technical development, the zeitgeist and so on, even if some of it is relatively subtle.

More anime and manga talk (spoilers under the cuts):

( More thoughts on the Tiger & Bunny finale )
 
( No. 6 episode 11 )

( Pandora Hearts chapter 65 )

Tiger & Bunny ep 25, first reaction: ( spoilers )

I'll probably make a more coherent post tomorrow, because I need to ramble more about this and also about No. 6 (ahaha) and Pandora Hearts (Mochijun, you troll).

I'm back at my own place after being on a work trip for one and a half week, which means I'm dead tired and behind on everything right now, both online and irl. That's fine though, because I'm having today and tomorrow off, so I get an extra-long weekend to laze around and catch up with various stuff. Good times. It feels a little strange to be staying in my own apartment for that many work-free days, because usually when I have a longer period off I go home to my parents' place, but it's definitely nice to have some time to myself here.

I spent yesterday evening watching anime, and it hit me that all the shows I've been following this summer will be ending very soon. It's sad: no more Natsume on Mondays, no more No. 6 on Thursdays, and no more late Saturday evenings/early Sunday mornings with Tiger & Bunny. I've enjoyed this anime season incredibly, and I hope the next one will be good as well. Everyone seems to be talking about Guilty Crown right now (and it really does looks gorgeous), but there are several other interesting titles too.

Talking about Tiger & Bunny, a few thoughts on episode 24: ( spoilers )

Oh, and thanks to yubilee I realized that the new season of Downton Abbey begins on the 18th! I'm really looking forward to it, the first season was wonderful. The trailer looks so sad though; I hope everyone will be alright.