the book is an amusing way to pass the time. basically it's a story about a mouse, but there is a cat who keeps interrupting with the story because he wants it to be about him. so he writes over the author's words and scribbles over the pictures until at the end he takes over the book.

this story was somewhat reminiscent of the alanna series, what with the cross dressing to fulfill a dream. i'm not all that well versed in arabian culture, but from what i know of it this story seemed to be a valid representation. Buran is one of seven daughters, and of course in a patriarchal society this is not the best of luck as your daughters can't work or (in this case) even go out into public. She was her father's favourite and as there were no sons, her father taught her to read and write and play chess, basically educated her, and spent time with her in place of the son he never had. when buran's father gets sick he realizes that his family will be in trouble if anything happens to him, and as a result he allows buran to go out into the world, as a man, to try to better their family's fortune. she's a clever and courageous heroine. she comes up against several obstacles and approaches them with her strength of will and sharp wit.
the story was set up well and the characters were discussed in sufficient detail, or enough so that a reader of the target age wouldn't be left wondering anything. it was well written.

this movie is a masterpiece! quite honestly i don't know how anyone could watch it and not get sucked in. this movie was told with the air of a classic fairy tale, the real ones, not the watered down versions we give our children today. there is an atmosphere of danger and suspense that constantly surrounds the girl, and in response to that there is a persistent arousal of hope, or fantasy. the girl's environment is not the best, to say the least. she is in some camp under the jurisdiction of some heartless man who has married her mother, and who only cares about producing an heir. everything around her is militaristic and hard and cold, and yet she continuously bumps into this other world of wonder and mystery, of fairies and fauns and the like. it's like the metaphor of the flower that grows out of concrete. finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.
it's debatable whether she is actually interacting with this other world and that it exists, or if she's creating this world to escape her less than ideal reality. i suppose your answer would come from what kind of person you are and how you perceive the world. i enjoy the experience of believing it is real with a constant skeptic in the back of my mind nay saying everything the believer says, so i guess my view would change depending on what day you chanced upon asking me. the bottom line is that story is very well put together and whether or not you believe the world the girl is interacting with to be real, you'll enjoy it either way.

a common criticism i hear circling this movie is that it isn't for children. to these people, i don't really know what to say. i'm not sure how it was advertised to you, but from the advertisements i saw i was well aware that the movie was rated R and was a 'fairy tale for grown ups', so to speak. i did still take my younger sibling, but that's something else. if a parent or guardian is not willing to take the time to research a movie or heed the ratings, they shouldn't be allowed to complain about what their children see, as this unwanted event could have been prevented with a little effort on their part.

this movie is wonderful. i tear up at the end every time. for me it really stands out as a work of art against the back drop of the standard of movies we have come to expect will be playing in theaters every friday night. i'd even go so far as to say that it's a classic in it's own time, or is at least something to be aware of. but it's definitely awesome.

well, i'd say i'm kind of into the vampire scene. it's not my number one obsession, but i do appreciate a good vampire story. this movie was, well just ok. this movie wasn't really fresh, the 'vampire who cares about what he's eating' character seems to be explored a lot, so i kind of knew what was coming, but this wasn't what held it back from being great. what i didn't like was the fact that at the end of the movie i was still waiting for something to happen. the movie spends too much time introducing the characters and the setting and not enough actually dealing with what it has created. basically i didn't really feel connected to any of the characters, enough so that the achieving or failure of achieving their goals were irrelevant to me. right now if i was asked 'who is zachery' i would know who he is from the stereotypes surrounding that character type, but the movie didn't go into enough detail concerning his personality, his motives, his history... i could have told you who zachery was without watching the movie.

basically the characters were kind of flat.

and the movie is all suspense, but the ending isn't a sufficient catharsis. maybe because i wasn't that drawn into the characters the ending didn't quite satisfy me. but i think that there wasn't enough happening in the story, or more, what was happening wasn't fleshed out to its full potential, leaving me wanting more... but not in a good way.

aside from my criticisms however, the movie is worth viewing and isn't that bad. the music was alright and the costumes weren't bad either. the setting wasn't too bad either. though i unfortunately found no one in the movie attractive, i was oddly compelled to the guy who played zachery's mouth. when there was a close up of him that's what my eyes were drawn to. and of course the coming and going of the vampires when they fly was amusing. and the atmosphere was appropriate i think. all in all worth the watch.

this was a great story! and according to the back of the book, is the story 'the anklet' from the arabian nights. i thought it was very well told. i didn't really like the pictures though. they kind of look like figures posing instead of characters in the story, and there are noticable outlines around the people so as to make you think they're cut outs, or are not a part of the scenery they're presented in. the over posy-ness and the not fitting into the background kind of reminds me of cheesy picture books i read from the 80's. now these pictures aren't as bad as those, but the way they are presented are reminiscent of that... style. for this reason i didn't give it a 5, but i still like the book and think it's worth reading as the storytelling was well done.

this manga's pretty cute. it's about this high school boy who has to take care of his 5 year old cousin who was temporarily abandoned by her mother. kippei starts out as a playboy of sorts with no responsibilities and when forced to be the replacement mother for this little girl he slowly grows more responsible. it's more of a comedy than a drama, though the end it kind of... emotional i guess you could call it, but chances are you'll end up smiling a few times throughout the series.
kippei's relationship with his girlfriend was also refreshing. she wasn't the typical dumb, clumsy girlfriend. instead she was calm and collected and not freaking out about stuff. women in general had more of a powerful voice in this manga, which is rare in manga in general, so to be appreciated when found i guess.

overall, cute.

well, i'm not finished this as of yet, and i'm not too sure i will. don't get me wrong it's not horrible, in fact i've read much worse... but neither is it the best. when i started reading it i thought it would be interesting because the premise at the beginning is that people misjudge her based on her skin tone which is darker than the other girls because she's on the swim team. this makes people assume she a party girl, or easy i guess would be a g- rated translation. but i think they're called ganguro girls in japan. either way, she isn't one of these girls but people see her tan and assume that she is. so as i say, i walked into this expecting this kind of thing, and while there was some of this conflict in the beginning, it soon fell away to needless drama. now drama isn't all bad, in fact it can be quite good, but the issue of her tan wasn't really resolved. she was kind of ashamed of her tan, but only because toji supposedly didn't like tanned girls. if a person were to consider this issue resolved in the first couple of volumes, when it stops being the primary focus, than it would be because she thought the guy didn't mind. basically it seems like a lot of her resolutions are based on his acceptance of her rather than some inner reassessment and acceptance of herself. and this kind of thing generally tends to get under my skin.
another thing i have issues with is the lack of communication up to the point of... i don't even know. i mean when her friend is sabotaging her, that stretch of the plot line, well i got sick of it about half way through. i'm all for jealousy n such, i mean it's a shoujo, we're kind of expecting relationship problems yes? but it seemed like it was dragged on for too long.
drama is good, but it's a delicate emotional tool. just enough and you've got gold, too much and it sucks. the lack of communication seemed a bit unbelievable at times, which frustrated me a bit, and the characters in general seemed to act in a way that almost deserved the angsty agony they brought upon themselves. i mean i haven't even finished it and i already dislike most of the characters, not so great.

but, even though i have these criticisms, i do admit that i can see myself finishing the series because it does have that shoujo draw where you want to know what happens in the end and you want them to be happy (... though you hate them). so i say read it, but there is definitely better out there.

sophie the spider goes out into the world to do something great, to create a masterpiece. she settles herself in this boarding house and attempts to help out the people who live there, but none of them accept her gifts and scream at the sight of her. sophie eventually finds a new mother who doesn't scream at the sight of her, but welcomes her. the mother is poor though and sophie sees an old blanket covering the mother's baby. sophie decides to make a new blanket for the baby, her masterpiece. the pictures are beautiful and the story touching. a great addition to the bookshelf.

this was a cute book about a little boy who loves to draw, and he draws quite a bit. one day his brother looks at his drawings and says that it doesn't look like what he was trying to draw. the boy looks at it again and agrees with his brother and he gets mad. i forget if he keeps drawing or not, but at one point he crumples up his 'last drawing' in frustration and swears to never draw again. his sister grabs the drawing and runs to her room. he chases her and when he goes in her room he sees all of his drawings. he asks why she kept them as they don't look anything like what they're supposed to. she replies 'well it looks vase-ish'. he looks around and agrees that it does look vase- ish. and continues drawing.
the guy's drawings don't have to be perfect. he draws because he loves it, not because he wants to make perfect pictures. it's sweet.

all i can say is... well read it. it's mostly pictures, so little to no effort on the reader, but it's worth it. there's a phrase on every page which enhances and ties together a collection of amazingly well done pictures. the pictures are somewhat surreal, like those pictures where there is a face and it can either be an old woman or a young woman, have we all been exposed to these? but optical illusions i guess. they are brightly coloured and imaginative and give the reader a lot to look at. the phrases don't exactly make a story out of the pictures, but there is a logical order to the presentation that can be almost thought provoking. it's a great book. to be flipped through by both young and old.