Book Reviews: White Night

Someone is murdering magical practitioners.  And that someone just might be closer to Harry than he realizes.  As he draws closer and closer to the truth he realizes that whoever is involved is connected to the white court of vampires.

Manga Reviews: Bakuman Volume 2

The try-fail cycle is common in many different types of narratives.  Characters do their best, have some successes, but ultimately fail for any given reason.  Bakuman typifies that sort of narrative.  Mashiro and Takagi face failure and success with both manga and romance.  While volume 1 focused on the leading pair, volume 2 introduces what will eventually start to carry this manga.  A supporting cast.

Book Reviews: Proven Guilty

As a new Warden of the white council, part of Harry's duty is the execution of warlocks and dark wizards.  Considering how close he got to being executed as a warlock in the past Harry is understandably horrified at having to witness the execution of a sixteen year old Korean warlock.  He then becomes involved in a case involving monster attacks at a local horror convention, and somehow his friend Michael's daughter Molly is involved.

Manga Reviews: Toriko Volume 4

What makes for the best action scenes?  Anime or manga?  Depending on your personal preferences your answer will vary.  In my case however, the answer is not likely to change any time soon.  Why? You may ask.  Because when the comparison is between cycled frames of animation versus engaging, motion without motion, manga there really is no competition.

Book Reviews: Rising Fears

I normally hate horror, and for good reason.  I.  Am.  A.  Coward.  I was one of the rare teens that did not enjoy the goosebumps series, and as far as I'm concerned that effing ventriloquist dummy can burn in hell!  That being said, I really, really loved this book, Rising Fears by Michaelbrent Collings–even if I couldn't bear to look at the cover and had to always lay it facing down.  I mean, just look at that thing!

Fantasy Casting: Fairy Tail Update

I only just recently found out on twitter that the cast for Funimation's dub of Fairy Tail has been decided.  You can find the full press release here.  Or here, if you like your information with pictures.    This is what I've been waiting for, ever since I released my cast predictions back in April.  So let's take a moment and see which casting choices I got right, and which I–heaven forbid–got wrong.  Also, if you like being surprised, I recommend reading my article first before checking out the actual announcements.  It'd be more fun for you to go into my list not knowing who has actually been cast.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 10 - Sprint to Regal Island! Aim for the Regal Meat!

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Toriko and Rin find themselves surrounded by a horde of monsters.  With Toriko still injured from his fight in the coliseum he can't go on much longer.  When the strongest opponent so far arrives, an obasaurus owned by one of the GT robots, Toriko has no choice but to ask Rin to spray him with the Battle Fragrance.

Anime Reviews: Blue Exorcist Episode 08 - Now a Certain Man was Sick

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After an argument during class between Ryuji and Izumo gets out of hand, the class are all refined to the dorms to make up for the fight.  Even thought most of them weren't involved, Yukio tells them that exorcists have to fight in teams, and that any conflict among them affects the whole class.  After he goes off on an assignment the group are all left alone together.  Then the lights go out and they find themselves attacked by the ghoul from last episode.

Anime Reviews: Fairy Tail Episode 83 - Extalia

 
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Natsu and Wendy are thrown into jail, while Lucy is scheduled for execution because the kingdom has no need for her.  In the meanwhile the two Gajeels work together to figure out a way to get earthland Gajeel up to the crystal.  At the same time Happy and Charle wake up in Extalia, the kingdom of their own kind the Exceed.  There they learn that they were sent to earthland with the mission to assassinate the dragon slayers, but the order was remotely changed to lead the dragon slayers to Edolas.  The episode ends with Happy angrily declaring that they aren't the Exceeds' puppets, and Charle calling Happy by his real name for the first time.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 09 - The Man Who Has an Invincible Domain! His Name Is Sunny!

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Sunny shows up, carrying the Regal Mammoth in one hand.  Despite the awesome show of strength the man is by every definition of the word a fairy.  When Mansam tells them that the mammoth Sunny brought back is only a baby, the group has to head out into Biotope 1 to track down the full grown mammoth before the gourmet corps can.

Anime Reviews: Blue Exorcist Episode 07 - Flock of Plovers

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When Shiemi tries to make friends with the other two girls in the exorcist cram school, things backfire a little when Izumo Kamiki takes advantage of her and basically turns Shiemi into a personal servant.  Not that Shiemi minds, she's just glad to help out her friend.  Rin on the other hand notices how Izumo is treating Shiemi, and he doesn't like it.

Worldcon

Well, I've just registered for worldcon, and received my Hugo awards voters packet.  As a writer and reviewer I figured this is a good chance for me to do something relevant for once.  I'll be reading through the submissions, and posting my opinions for them here.  Some of the books I've already reviewed, so I'll probably just post a quick opinion on which ones I think are most likely to win in their respective category.  I don't know if I'll get through all of them before worldcon, but it's worth the attempt at least.

I think Saladin Ahmed's submissions are first and foremost in my list, I heard him on writing excuses and he interested me enough that I think I want to give his work a look see.

I'll be posting my reviews mostly here because I've decided that examiner.com isn't necessarily something I want my name attached to so much.  I've heard plenty of questionable things about them, and I already have a hard enough time keeping my own blog up, that I don't want to spread myself too thin.  So for the sake of not going crazy trying to keep up with a ridiculous reviewing schedule, which cuts into my writing, I'm going to start posting book reviews here again.  I just like the idea of being in complete control of my own writing.  Even if I don't have any guaranteed income from my blogging, I do have adsense set up, and I get a cent ever few hundred visitors or so.  Or I get more if people click on the links, but that's so irregular that that happens, that I'm not going to worry about it.  Since I'm not exactly trying to make this my day job, just a hobby that sometimes brings in some money.  Maybe.  So if anyone feels like being supportive, go ahead and check out some of those links, if not I'm fine with that.  I'll just keep working harder so that I become a blogger people want to support.  

Movie Reviews: Pirates of the Carribbean 4 - On Stranger Tides

Long after most thought, and wished, the franchise was dead, Jack Sparrow returns for yet another shot at big screen success.  But does he find it, or is success for the Pirates of the Caribbean series as elusive as the fabled fountain of youth?

Anime Reviews: Fairy Tail Episode 82 - Welcome Home

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Edolas Natsu, who is a complete wuss outside of his car, drops Natsu and group off at the capital city.  They explore the place for a bit, realizing that despite the magical shortage in all the other places they've gone, there is plenty in the capital city.  They find the lachryma crystal their friends have been converted to, and are dismayed to find the entire city rejoicing over the death of everyone trapped in the crystal.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 08 - Inheritance! Active, Gourmet Cell!

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Toriko faces off against, and defeats the GT robot.  The fight takes up most of the episode, and I can't help but say that I wasn't immensely impressed.  There were far too many loped frames of animation, and reused segments to make me consider this anything other than a stock shonen anime battle.  Comparing to what I know from the manga I have to say that there were some parts of the fight from the manga that didn't seem to come across quite as well as they could have.

Anime Reviews: Blue Exorcist Episode 06 - The Phantom Cook

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The fate of the world hangs in balance as demons stand poised to rush into the real world, bringing hell to earth.  But no time for that, our protagonist can't afford to buy food!  Now I know you're thinking I'm mocking an episode with what seems like a trivial concern.  You couldn't be farther from the truth.  Fact is that being able to feed oneself is a very real concern, especially in these troubling economic times.  So overall it's kind of nice to see an episode that can use a more mundane conflict as its driving force.