Sweet Dreams

First off, Politically Incorrect is posted at dotmoon and FF.net. (I'll post it AO3 either later today or tomorrow; I didn't have time yesterday.). Decided just to post the whole thing as a long one-shot, since it really wasn't set up to be a chaptered story. If you read it before, I made a few really minor changes, but also added a One Year Later scene at the end that you may want to check out.

The reason why I didn't have time to post it at AO3 is because yesterday Mom and I went to the movies -- we saw Hope Springs, which was pretty good -- then did a little shopping. Of course, that meant manga for me! At Barnes & Noble, I picked up Sailor Moon Vol. 7, Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden Vol. 10 (finally, a new volume!), and the first 3-in-1 omnbus edition of Skip-Beat, which I've always wanted to read but thought was too long. Actually, I still think it's too long, but you know me, I'm always a sucker for an omnibus... *laughs* We also went to Half-Price Books. For once, though, they didn't have anything I was interested in, so I decided to satisfy my craving for bargain-hunting out-of-print manga on the Amazon Marketplace. I ordered Vols. 4 & 7 of Othello, Vol. 6 of Doubt! (all three missing volumes from series I bought previously at HPB), and Clannad: After Story Collection 2. (You may remember that I got the rest of the series for ridiculously cheap during Right Stuf's holiday sale last year.) Also bought some newer manga: Arata: The Legend Vol. 9, Kimi ni Todoke Vols. 8 and 9, and Kobato. Vols. 2-4.

So, yeah, I'm going to be in manga heaven for the next couple of weeks. ^_^

I'm getting really bad about doing my meme questions, so today will be another two-for-one. They're related anyway.

19. A manga/an anime that you disliked at first but came to enjoy later on

Hmm, this is a tough question. I guess I would have to say the manga series Phantom Dream did get a lot better later in the series. I didn't really care for it at all in the beginning. As for anime.... Maybe Gundam Wing? It was a bit of a struggle to get through the first half, but past the recap, I enjoyed it more, although I never really came to love it. It's a pretty average series.

20. A manga/an anime you started out enjoying but ended up not liking as much

Ah, this question is much easier to answer! I've already mentioned Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and xxxHolic in reply to a similar question from this meme, but for anime, it's gotta be Kare Kano. It was so, so good until the last couple of episodes! Unfortunately, the ending is so terrible that it's tainted the rest of the series for me.

I am extremely proud of myself right now.

My mom had the day off today, so we decided to go see License to Wed (which is absolutely hilarious, by the way). While we were waiting for the movie to start, we went to Waldenbooks so I could buy the missing volume 5 of NANA I needed to get up-to-date. Well, it just so happened that the store was having an awesome sale where if you bought three Viz titles, you could get a fourth one free. NANA was one of the included titles, but I'm up-to-date on all of the other Viz (mostly Shojo Beat) titles I'm currently collecting, so if I wanted to take advantage of the sale, it meant I would have to buy three volumes of a new series.

I was tempted. Boy, was I ever tempted. I must have spent at least twenty or thirty minutes browsing the manga section, going, "Oh, Skip-Beat looks kinda interesting... Ooo, La Corda D'oro! I've been wanting to read that... What about Full Moon? All seven volumes are out and in stock, so if I bought all of them, plus the NANA volume, I could buy six and get two free!"...etc., etc. You get the picture. *laughs* However, in the end, I decided I really did not need to start collecting another series right now (and buying all of Full Moon would have meant breaking into my savings wallet), so I just bought the NANA volume I needed and Vol. 7 of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles.

*pats self on the back*

In somewhat related news, for the life of me, I cannot understand why Vol. 5 and 6 of NANA were shrink-wrapped and slapped with a mature content label when those two volumes are actually tamer than some of the earlier volumes. There was sex, sure, but nothing detailed. I've seen more explicit stuff in the earlier volumes and in Watase Yuu manga. The only reason I can think of to justify it is the fact that one of the characters makes references to the fact that he has sex for money. Is prostitution really considered "mature content" now? *scratches head* I can think of plenty of other things I've seen in manga that I would consider more "mature" than that, yet they didn't get the label. It's strange. Oh, well.

(And I hate, hate, hate getting that shrink-wrap off!)

EDIT: I just checked out AnimeOnDVD and found out that the second season boxset of Kaleido Star is coming out September 4! *dances around happily* YES, YES, YES, YES, YES! Finally, I'll be able to buy it! This is great! Unfortunately, the suggested retail price is a bit higher than I would like to pay ($60), but I'm sure I can probably find it cheaper at Right Stuf or Best Buy. Even sixty would be worth it, though, to be able to watch all of my favorite anime again.

*resolves to save money until then*