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Samurai Swords

Samurai Swords

By Clive Sinclaire Read: May 2010 Ratings: Pleasurable My senior thesis was a story rooted in Japanese mythology surrounding  sword smithing. I spent years working on this thing, and have done a lot of research. Of course, I wasn’t able to lay my hands on anything really useful in the months leading up to my [...]

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Dreamless

Dreamless

By Sarah Ellerton (art) and Bobby Crosby (writing) Read: May 2009, ongoing Rating: Wow Read it at:  http://dreamless.keenspot.com/ Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother reviewing a comic that only has about a dozen pages, but my dearest Sreyaduck has been begging me to read this one. You should as well.  The art is beyond fantastic. Each panel [...]

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Megatokyo

Megatokyo

by Fred Gallagher Read: Continuously, reread May 2009 Rating: Brills Get sucked in: http://www.megatokyo.com/ If you’ve been reading webcomics for any period of time and haven’t come across Megatokyo you’re not surfing the right comics. Ever seen the Sad Girl In Snow trope? This is where it was born. Megatokyo is a lot of things, [...]

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Red String

Red String

By Gina Biggs Read: Continuously, reread April ’09 Rating: Squee Read at http://redstring.strawberrycomics.com/ I’ve been reading Red String for quite a while. The concept piqued my interest right away. Old Japanese myth/folktale says that true lovers are connected by a red string. Miharu wants to believe in true love, but her parents have arranged a [...]

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The Woman in the Dunes

The Woman in the Dunes

by Kobo Abe Read: May/June 2008 Rating: UGH This was recommended to me for my senior capstone project. I dutifully made it to the end, but gawd was it painful. Exemplifies all that I hate in a certain kind of writing, usually seen in short stories. Only this was longer. Unjustifiably so, in my opinion. [...]

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The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon

The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon

Translated by Ivan Morris Read: November 2008 Rating: Most delightful. I think I like Sei Shonagon herself more than I like her writing. She’s a fantastic character in and of herself–willful, witty, clever, eager to entertain, proud, and quick to judge. All of this comes across through her own recounts of her days, which are [...]

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The Pillow Boy of the Lady Onogoro

The Pillow Boy of the Lady Onogoro

By Alison Fell Read: July 2008 Rating: Humn. I bought this one for $1 at Strand, and so I can’t complain about the price. I was pretty pleased with it at first, titillated on my train ride home, but I stopped about midway through for some reason with the intention of picking it up again [...]

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Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha

By Arthur Golden Read: high school, January 2008 Rating: Lovely A lot has been said about MoaG, so I’m not going to give it a huge, thorough review. What I am going to say is that it is wonderful. The settings are thorough. The culture feels alive and natural. You sympathize with the characters and [...]

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Idoru

Idoru

By William Gibson Don’t send the nanotech after me! Amazon.com Rating: Evasive. Read: Freshman year (00-01), reread march 05 There are two people who may be upset that I did not enjoy Idoru, but I’m afraid I have to be honest. I found Idoru to be scatter-brained and evasive. I’ve never been a fan of [...]

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Amazing Agent Luna

Amazing Agent Luna

Story by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir & Art by Shiei Read a sample online: Amazing Agent Luna Rating: Fun. Read: Tonight! NOTE: Amazing Agent Luna is manga- a graphic novel, rather than prose. This has all the makings of a really enjoyeable shoujo series. The characters are well-defined, the art is fantastic, and the [...]

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