My elementary school daughters have recently discovered the manga section at the library and due to their interest in cooking shows they brought home Kitchen Princess: Volume 1. It is a classic shoujo manga. Shoujo stories are aimed primarily at young females and are heavily focused on personal and romantic relationships this is no exception. The heart of the story is Najika Kazami an orphan (because of course she is) with the ability to remember everything she has ever tasted and can recreate a dish perfectly […]
Charming manga for the tween set
Cardcaptor Sakura is a Japanese comic, commonly called manga, that is created by an all female team who style themselves as CLAMP. Fourth grader Sakura Kinomoto found an old book in her dad’s library, when she opened it a deck of cards flew out and disappeared. The cards were created by the magician Clow Reed and are colloquially called the Clow cards. Each card represents a different power, such as the four elements but also things like flying and illusion. Only someone with magical ability has […]
Just Lovely
In times of darkness, books provide me comfort. I picked this up after it was recommended in NPR’s book concierge as a best book of 2017 and finally got around to reading it. I took a lot of history courses in college that studied Asian and Middle Eastern cultures because so much of what we are taught is centered on US and European History. I have always been interested in Japanese history and culture. My Brother’s Husband tells the story of Yaichi, a stay-at-home dad […]
Evil Little Girl Corporate Villain vs God
I’m going to be upfront: I like the graphic novel version of this story much better than I do the light novel. I saw this Tanya the Evil series on Crunchyroll (but haven’t watched it yet), and the premise looked interesting, so when I saw the books I figured I’d try those. If I hadn’t read the manga first, I would have given up on the series. The light novel version is just too confusing and monotone; it shifts between perspectives at random intervals and […]
Best Christmas present EVER!
I found out about this book from one of my close friends last year but I completely forgot about it until recently. I found it in a Barnes and Nobles and thought that the cover looked really cool and that I heard good things about it previously. When I found it I asked my mom to put it on my Christmas wishlist and I was so happy when my grandparents gave me it for Christmas. There are a total of 13 books in the series and I intend to […]
There’s more to that Studio Ghibli film…
My introduction to Nausicaä was the 1984 Studio Ghibli film of the same name. I didn’t see the film until about ten years ago when I began collecting all the films of Hayao Miyazaki. My daughter and I enjoy watching Miyazaki stories, and I have an appreciation for his strong female characters. I had no idea that the movie was only a fraction (about two chapters) fo the story and world of the Valley of the Wind. I purchased this two-volume case-bound collection on a whim – our local […]