Mangaka Yumeka Sumomo/Sahara Mizu (BL + Seinen + Shoujo)

• According to Wikipedia, she also writes under Sahara Keita, but I haven't found any reference to this name anywhere else.

• According to mangaupdates.com, she is rumored to be a layout artist for Studio Ghibli, but I've seen no sources. Her art certainly has a level of ability and apparent education to allow me to believe it's possible.
  

• She did the artwork for manga versions of Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days, both written by Shinkai Makoto, who directed the anime versions (both based on novels).

While her stories often cover the usual ground (mostly teens falling in love), her characters are grounded in the real world and have a depth of feeling not often seen in shoujo manga. They react to their situations with humanity instead of theatricality, and she is able to convey their emotions through a subtlety of expression native to her thoughtful, internal characters. Her stories don't always "live happily ever after".

She has a sketch-like style of line work, almost like quick pencil drawings, but stronger — loose but purposeful, with angular curves. While she leaves her backgrounds empty except for essentials, she has a great grasp of anatomy, with an elegant attention to underlying structures. She draws great hair and hands, and really great necks. Her covers and color pages display a facility with watercolor, often in a loose style that complements her drawing style.

HIGHLIGHTS:
So, here are a few of my favorites of her works, followed by a current list of all of her titles, as listed on mangaupdates.com, where you can find more info on where you can pick them up. I had something like an epiphany when I realised she had done several of my favorite stories, and I immediately had to collect everything else of hers that I could get my hands on.

My Girl [Storm in Heaven + Aku Tenshi] is a series about a young man who finds out he has a daughter he never knew existed, when he attends the funeral of the girlfriend who left him to study abroad, and follows as he learns how to be a father and what it means to be family. As someone who honestly has a lot of trouble understanding the thoughts and appeal of children, I can tell you that this is a really sweet and soft-spoken series that almost makes me understand.

Icchoume Kikyouya no Hime-sama (story 2 of Natsukashi Machi no Rizioni [Storm in Heaven + Dark Kitsune]) is a oneshot about the daughter and heiress of a yakuza family clinging to her independence while knowing she must soon give it up for the sake of her family by marrying the heir of an ally family whom she doesn't know. She desperately maintains a front of "normal girl" for the ramen shop employee she likes, while knowing she can never have a real relationship with him, but…

Nemonuki no Geshukusou [Storm in Heaven] Chidori is a teenage man-hater running a boarding house full of men for her father, a home inventor-type sciency guy. Dad builds her a robot boy to change her opinion of men. Of course the robot is actually a boy who is interested in her.

as Yumeka Sumomo

Chou ni Naru Hi
Dousaibou Seibutsu
Fuyu no Hana
Gundam Wing dj - Oh My Lover
Kimi wa Boku no Taiyou
Kokoro Kikai
Kon no Ki Konoha
Naruto dj - Sakyuu Rasenron & Baku
Natsukashi Machi no Rozione
Nemunoki no Geshukusou
Soshite Hibi Koishiteku
Soshite Koi ga Hajimaru
Tengujin
Wasurene no Language

as Sahara Mizu

Bus Hashiru
Hoshi no Koe
Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho
My Girl
Nanairo Sekai
Sukima Shiki
Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan

Feeling Über Guilty…

When I checked the site out for a post I'm hoping to do, I noticed I hadn't posted since October 2007. Augh. Disgusting. Why did I start this if that's how it was going to be? [Never mind the fact that the site looks awful. orz] Not a good blogger.
Well, to update, from my high-point of having a list of 35+ series I was watching one season, I've completely fallen out of any anime at all! I'm thinking about trickling back in, and I've got a couple things that I've been keeping tabs on, but not a single show from the new season. I need to research that a bit and see if there's anything of interest. I guess my tastes have naturally been honed, by now, so I'm not gobbling it up as much as before.
Now I'm gobbling up manga. Tons of it, all night every night, so I think I'm going to try to cover some of that territory. I hope. Ambition to write, versus ambition to read manga…hopefully it won't take me until 2011.
Maybe I'll even cover some music, but only in a general way — check out ZB's A to Z of J-music for the real stuff.
I promise to try harder.

A quick overview of the shows that "didn't blow my skirt up"

Kodomo no Jikan (just wasn't in the mood)
The OVA was OK, so I thought the show would be interesting enough (kinda wanted to know what was going to happen with the older brother), but when it came down to watching the first episode, I was just bored within seconds. Really, I don't think there's anything wrong—I'm sure I'm just not in the mood for it—but I did actually not like the character design that much, anyway: the girls all look like raccoons to me, and it's another weird/non-existent nose series. Gia, however, is really into it, so her opinion might be of more use.

Night Wizard - The Animation (shounen pap)
I dunno. Maybe this one is good, but after two episodes, there weren't any real hooks for me. Seems like pure shounen drivel. I have a bad memory, but this one might be another flaky ghost (not lit.) of a girl who's always writing to Oji-sama, and who is, of course, the one and only most important person in the world. Hell, that describes half of anime, I think, but if I'm going to hate the main character, I might as well learn from Kyoshiro and drop it now. (If I'm wrong about the writing to Oji-sama, she still looks like a boring, useless flake.) Otherwise, there looks like there'll be a lot of fighting silly monsters and an eventual boss, and collecting of jewels to make the prettiest bracelet in the world (oh, I'm sorry: the power jewels to save the world). Bah.

Shugo Chara! — shoujo pap
Holy shit, do I hate this one. I'm told that this one has a very nice message about being yourself, but I just can't quite buy it. The overview: hard-nails on the outside, gooey pink inside Outsider Girl allows her "front" to cover up the girl she really wants to be, until three plaid eggs appear in her bed, hatch, and become flying mini-lolis who seem to shut down her inhibitions in a misguided attempt to let out her real self. There's so much pink in the show that it makes me want to die (not to mention the stupid capes that the student councilors wear), but what really bothers me is my perception of the message, which I'm told I shouldn't do, but isn't that the point of things, really: to imagine yourself in the character's position? So: in a way, I can relate to the main character as being an inherent outsider that most others don't "get", and wishing I could be a better person than I am; however, the message as I perceive it is that it's bad to be an outsider and you'll be happier if you fit your gender better and are as flaky as girls are supposed to be. Oh, and the final nail in this series' coffin for me: the über-lame heart-beam hand-motion "killer move" she did towards the end of ep 2. If I hadn't immediately deleted the episode out of frustration, I'd post a screen cap. Geez. Oh, god: and the "Humpty Lock". I shouldn't even have to express what's so stupid about that. Maybe you should watch a couple eps just to see how stupid it is.
(A catboy is usually promising, but this one's got his own flying mini-shota and is not all that cool-looking, so he won't be saving the day for me.)

Sketchbook ~full color's~ bijou boredom
This one has been described as atmospheric, but that only translates to boredom for me. Basically, it's another "daily life of some boring, slightly quirky girls". Listen: my friends are artistic girls who are really quirky, so a vapid girl who only likes to draw cats is not going to impress me. I guess this one is for old men, or something, I guess. Or voyeurs of the mundane. I might have laughed a couple of times, I'll admit, but the show was just boring for me overall. Take it as you will.

ef-a tale of memories
ef is probably on its way off of my watch-list. I'm not really interested in any of the characters, nor the progression of their relationships, and I find the character design on the slightly ugly side and some of the voices are irritating. There doesn't appear to be much plot to this one, so if I don't have interest in the characters, it's a gimme that it's a waste of my time to continue with. If you like relationship dramas, this will probably be OK, though. It's similar to Clannad, but I like the characters, voices, and character design of Clannad much more.

Suteki Tantei Labyrinth

Suteki Tantei Labyrinth is about a 12-year-old shota (Mayuki) with some kind of mysterious power, who can solve mysteries that the police are unable to figure out. He's a rich kid who has never been to school and lives by himself with a maid and a butler (in the first episode he meets some police and some kids his own age, so by ep 2 he's going to school). The butler (Seiran) is a "doll user" but as of ep 2 we don't know exactly what that means, except that he can cause the adorable maid (Hatsumi, weapon: her hair) and the busty sister (Sanae, weapon: her fingernails) of one of his new friends into sexy fighting chicks, who keep fighting another sexy fighting chick (Aya? —who has some really stupid-looking flower/bun things on her head á la Princess Leia). So expect a catfight per episode, eh?

It is implied that there's something mysterious and abnormal about Mayuki; the cops he meets are warned by their superior not to get involved with him, and Seiran comments to himself that Mayuki is still to young for "anything to happen, yet".

It's not really a stand-out series, thus far, but if you don't mind the genre (is there a genre of "tensai shota detectives"?) then it's certainly not going to hurt to watch the show. The animation isn't noticeably high- or low-quality and the music is unremarkable (which means it's not really noticed for being really good or really annoying). All in all, pretty average. My only gripe is Mayuki's voice acting: his normal conversational tone is alright, but his high-energy/stress voice is annoyingly high pitched and whispery, and altogether too obvious that there's a woman behind it.

Personally, I think I would continue watching even if I wasn't script editing the fansub. While I find the main character kind of dull, the supporting adults hold a little promise (Seiran fits right into my favorite character type), and, at this point, I'm curious about what the big mystery behind the kid is.

It's currently unknown how many total episodes there will be. I'm hoping for 13, since that's about how long my attention span is with a series like this. Of course, I'll continue working on it as long as I'm still wanted.

[By the way, if anyone reading this can think of a substitute word for "incident", please let me know in the comments. I feel kind of dumb having to use the same word over and over again, but "crime" doesn't always fit, and I haven't come up with anything else, yet. Onegaishimasu!]

[image courtesy anidb.net]

Making myself useful (for a change)

Hey. I'm helping Oomsub script editing their new project Suteki Tantei Labyrinth, beginning with ep 1 v2. There are a few things I wish I'd done a little differently, but overall I'm pretty happy with it. It's my first time helping out with a fansub project, so please check it out!

Final Review: Zombie-Loan

Zombie Loan is a fairly low-budget anime (based on a Peach-Pit manga) about a couple of guys who are zombies who kill off other zombies, and a nerdy girl who can see who is a zombie that others cannot.

All in all, it's an ugly show and the plot is essentially cookie-cutter, and I'm not sure what it is about the show that kept me watching through all 11 (Eleven? What kind of ep-count is that?!) episodes. Let's try to figure it out together, shall we?

What drew me:

If I remember correctly, the reason I started in with this series was because the representative art looked OK (as usual), and I generally like supernatural stories.

Characters:

Kita Michiru is a nerdy girl, the gopher of her group of friends, who has Zombie-Loan's version of the Shinigami Eyes, which allows/forces her to see the black ring around the necks of people who are dead or soon to be dead, and whose home-life isn't what it could be. Michiru-chan falls victim to a zombie and is saved from death by Shito and Chika.

Tachibana Shito and Akatsuki Chika are a couple of the school's hot guys who were the only survivors of a bus accident a year ago, and are now legal zombies—the dead whose lives are spared by a loan agency—who must work off their debt by killing illegal zombies. For unmemorable reason, their right hands were switched during their bodies' reconstruction; now, they must have the hand they were reconstructed with in day to day life, but to fight they need to switch hands so they can materialise their zombie weapon (Shito=gun, Chika=sword). If they're separated by proximity from their own hand (on the other guy's body) for too long, the hands will start to rot off at the wrist and die. I don't recall why they need to give the hand back after a fight (is it important? it's kind of a dumb premise, so I'm not worrying about it.)

Shito and Chika save Michiru from death by adding the saving of her life to their own debt. In return, they make her pay off her debt to them by making use of her zombie-spotting ability. Actually, throughout the 11 episodes, this ability hardly serves them at all.

Michiru meets other kooky employees of the Z-Loan agency over the span of the three or so story arcs that make up the show.

Visual Quality:

OK, the art quality of this show is pretty bad. It's not terrible, but it's really cheap. Things are so flat-looking that it's almost Scooby-Doo-ish, and some of the backgrounds are even just swooshy colors with maybe an outline of room detail. Then, every now and then there'll be a really nicely realised background. What the heck? The animation makes use of a lot of cyclical animation of wind blowing in trees or mouths moving on an unmoving person, and pans of still images.

Seiyuu:

Actually, one of the reasons I kept up with this show is that I've like the seiyuu in other things. Kita Michiru is played by Kuwashima Houko, whose voice hasn't actually stood out to me, yet, though she has a long list of big-name series to her credit, including Azumanga Daioh's Kagura, Chobits' Minoru Kokubunji, Fullmetal Alchemists' Rose, and several characters from Mobile Suit Gundam Seed TV series and OAVs. Akatsuki Chika is played by Suzumura Kenichi, for me most notably known for his role as Hitachin Hikaru, one of the twins from Ouran High School Host Club. Other series of note: D. Grayman (Lavi), The Gokusen (Sawada Shin), and Trinity Blood (Dietrich von Lohengrin). Tachibana Shito is played by Sakurai Takahiro who was Jirou Mochizuki in Black Blood Brothers, D. Grayman's Kanda Yu, FFVII: Advent Children's Cloud Strife (never mind the fact that I can't recall Cloud saying anything in the movie), Tsurasawa Jin in Innocent Venus, Shibuya Yuri in Kyo Kara Maoh!, and Zero no Tsukaima's Guiche (among a ton of others).

Overall, lots of been-in-everything seiyuu for such a crappy-looking show.

In The End…

In the end, I felt like there was actually an interesting story waiting to come out, and maybe if the show didn't look so bad, they'd have been able to continue the series. In fact, the third-to-last episode brought a major character twist, and the second-to-last introduced at least one new character, but just as things felt like they were starting to move, that was the end of the series.

I think this would actually make a great live action. There's an interesting plot to be had, and most of the zombies were just normal-looking people, so the costume budget would be minimal. Just having real people and real backgrounds would remove the poor elements that hold the show back as it is currently.

I've only managed to get my hands on one scanlated chapter of the manga, but, though the backgrounds look pretty minimal, the characters are better realised—the guys look cooler and Michiru looks cuter. I'd like to see more. If anyone knows where I can get scanlations without having to IRC download, please let me know.

Final Verdict: I would like to see more of this series.

Mid-term Review: Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto

I admit that I put this one on my must-watch list because the guy in the image representing the series on the anidb calendar looked cool. Is there a problem with that? OK, it's pretty lame, but it was good enough reason to watch one episode, and it paid off.

I really love Bakumatsu.

Surface: Really nice orchestral score with a strong theme, with a few "traditional" (I have no way of knowing if they're really traditional, but it's the style) Japanese songs in appropriate places. The opening is scenic shots (with awesome lenticular clouds) of Akidzuki looking cool doing sword-y stuff, interspersed with other characters looking serious (combined with the OP—very sweeping and epic). The war background story is given using a lot of maps and arrows, with a voice-over; it gives the impression that that segment of the story is just there to give the characters and time a frame, and that, if you're interested, you can pay attention, but it's not crucial to your understanding of the plot. The backgrounds are attractive—not a lot of detail but painterly. The well-designed characters and animation are somewhat simple, without cheapness, and detailed where they need to be, and haven't lost any noticeable quality. I can't say I really like the ED, and the next episode previews don't really give much (but maybe that's a good thing).

Plot: Bakumatsu takes place at the time of the —the war that put the emperor back in control of Japan after centuries of Shogunate rule. There's a lot of war plot that goes by that I don't really pay attention to.

Akidzuki Youjiro (the cool guy from the image) is a sort of wandering-swordsman on a holy mission to seal "the Lord's Head"—a historical (within the story) artifact that has the power to destroy the world. We don't know exactly what Akidzuki's deal is, except that he's the Eternal Assasin and it's his job to seal this thing, and he's got some kind of power to do it with, evidenced by the way his eyes glow in certain fighting situations, and his sword with the little dongle on the end which helps him find the Head when he's in close proximity. He seems to have no material connection to the war going on.

Akidzuki meets the "Revenge Troupe"—a traveling group of actors who are on a personal mission to find and destroy the man who ruined their lives years ago. The group consists of Kakunojo ("Shacho"—the girl leader of the troupe), Soutetsu Sensei (the playwright who seems to write the chapters as needed), and miscellaneous odd-ball characters including "the strong guy", "the ninja/bandage-face guy", "the 'lover-boy' ", "the old guy", and two ugly children. You really only need to pay attention to Kikunojo and Sensei, because, as the story moves along, Shacho seems to become more than just the token girl/possible love interest, and Sensei has more going on than writing plays.

There are also people related specifically to the war part of the story, who are pretty one-dimensional, but of the group there's one stand-out character in the blond, one-eyed gunslinger: half Japanese, half English, who seems to have "a past". Is he a bodyguard? Is he a spy? How does he fit into Akidzuki's story?

What's so great: The story is so compelling (never thought I'd actually use that word) that I'm always let down when the end of the episode comes. I always want more, more, more. I wouldn't have expected to continue to be so interested in a story that centers around a war and a bunch of men angling against each other, but it's not only a war series, an action series, a romance, or a supernatural thriller. It has elements of all of them. It's never obvious, the pace is never too fast or slow, and, at the end of the first story arc which reached a point that felt very much like a dramatic close, the following episode didn't drop us down too far from that pitch of excitement. It just keeps steadily building. (One more important thing of note, plot-wise: there's no character level-up, as in, for example, Bleach, where there's an endless string of fight, level up, fight, level-up. Akidzuki is who he is, and if there's any strength gained, it's in better understanding of what and who he's up against.)

The characters are defined and dimensional. The secondary characters are not well-fleshed-out—they fit pretty well into anime chara-type—but they don't fall short (by being transparent or dull) or stick out too much (by being showier than the main characters). The main characters start out as flat as the rest, but are built up steadily, as needed, without the annoying reliance on excessive flashback or too much obvious "talk-about" (when other characters have unrealistic, out of place conversations for the sole purpose of filling in details about another character or event).

The character design is really interesting, too: historic costume in the great variety of the time with the mix of traditional Japan and the modernity of the encroaching British, but with the modern tweak of a select few hairstyles (those who need to appear cool do so, the ones who need to appear traditional or background do so, and the ones who need to look like crazy war-mongers usually have crazy mutton-chop sideburns ^_^). There is little reliance on hair-color to define individuals. The character rendering is as good at the midpoint as it was at the beginning.

The animation is decent (it's not surprisingly good, but not sparse) and maintains its integrity throughout.

Music: I got my hands on the OST, and it's excellent. It's very epic orchestral with Japanese elements such as taiko-esque drums, flutes, and koto (or some other pwang-y plucked string instrument). If you liked that Metal Gear theme (I'm not well-versed enough to know if it's in all of the recent games or only one), you'll probably like this OST.

Overall, it is, to me, a study in layers, balance, consistency, and "what's needed". The story has excellent flow without being episodic, and the characters build neatly as it flows. When the series is complete, I'm going to enjoy sitting down and watching all 26 episodes straight through.