addictive things

[owlmoose]

I have suddenly found myself in the possession of large quanities of manga. First off, thanks to the incredible bottle_of_shine, I now own the first two volumes of One Piece, which I pretty much devoured today. Pirates! Made of rubber! This so should not be my thing, and yet I'm enjoying it immensely. Luffy is fun, and a great character, and definitely appealing. I laugh every time he grins and the word DOOM appears in big black letters over his head. Nami is great, too, and I'm looking forward to learning her real backstory. But the character I love, the one who sucks me in and will keep me going even if everything else falters, is Zolo. A swashbuckler with a mission and a sword in his mouth? Count. Me. In. He is, as they say, made of awesome. Cute, too. It's a little daunting, knowing that there are over 400 issues out there, and the series is apparently nowhere near finished, but oh well. I knew there was a reason I had a job.

The other new acquisitions were lent to me by SE: a horror book called Uzumaki (which is fortunately complete in three volumes) and the first five volumes of Fruits Basket. Yes, the high school romance comic. But SE recommended it so strongly that I have to give it a try. Am very curious to get into that, but I haven't had time to crack it yet. Probably tomorrow. Speaking of addictions, there's also Death Note 9, which I believe comes out next week. Must have. Yes yes.

But you know, none of this holds a candle to another addiction I've developed recently. To a certain game that a certain poster (who shall remain anonymous, except it's totally luvmoose) pointed me toward: FizzBall. If any of you remember Arkanoid or Breakout, it's a lot like that. If you don't know those games, think Pong crossed with Katamari Damacy, and you're pretty close. It is complete and total crack. I can't sit down at my computer without turning it on. I'm almost finished with my first play-through, after which I will continue to quest for perfect scores and more efficiency and so forth. T is utterly addicted as well. Not just to playing, but to watching me play -- as soon as he hears the music, I soon become aware of a presense at my shoulder. It's sort of cute, actually. And only fair, considering how much of my life I've frittered away watching him play videogames!

Comments

[cosmorific.livejournal.com]

Fruits Basket is so much more than a high school romance, though. It's about family, friendship, secrets, redemption, the Chinese zodiac, onigiri, and...

Yeah. I'm a fan. Can you tell? ^_^

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I noticed that, a bit. ;)

I understand, though. The friend who recc'd it to me is picky and I trust her judgement, so I expect there to be more to it than that. But it's definitely never the kind of thing I would have picked up on my own. Then again, I'd have said that about manga generally six months ago, so... :D

[cosmorific.livejournal.com]

Well, at least you're open to trying new things. ;) Let me know what you think of the series!

[angeltaisha.livejournal.com]

I loved Arkanoid back in the day! I can still remember the little jingle before each level started! We used to use this code to jump to level 20 because we got tired of not making it far, LOL! I think I was about ten when that came out if memory serves. Arkanoid II for SNES wasn't too bad either; it was the only one I beat, lol.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

I was thoroughly addicted to Arkanoid II for the PC in high school. I never found a code to jump levels! That would have been awesome.

You should totally try FizzBall. It plays like Arkanoid, but there are cute animals involved. You can download a free trial version, and the full version is pretty cheap.

[angeltaisha.livejournal.com]

I may have to check it out, thanks!

I've never read the One Piece manga, but I watched a lot of the anime [til my husband sold it without knowing I wasn't finished with it] and I just loved it! I liked Nami too; you'll enjoy her backstory. I cringe whenever I see the cartoon on TV because not only did they butcher it to meet America's standards, the English dubbing was *horrible*. I just got so busy I didn't have time to watch it, and by the time I saw it on TV, shuddered, and asked Erik where our DVD's were he was all..."um, sorry hon. I sold it."

Oh! I also read in a magazine *the name escapes me* that SIP was ending this year! So sad. :(

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard that about SiP. Although I love a lot about that comic, I do feel like he's been running out of steam lately. So I'm not surprised that he's wrapping things up. I am curious to see how it all finally ends!

[luvmoose.livejournal.com]

Don't bother with the demo version. Just pay the $20 and get the real thing. Because the hour you get to demo will be gone before you think you've even started playing. And you will be annoyed at the time it takes you to dig up your credit card when you could have been playing Fizz instead.

[parron.livejournal.com]

Furuba! I love Fruits Basket! *laugh* It's not a fandom thing with me, which is the only reason I don't talk on and on about it, but it's great. My messenger bag is Furuba. *laugh* I was planning on pimping it to you someday, too, so you should read it for sure.

One Piece is cute, but not really my thing. I do read it, though. It's... it gets kinda repetitive after a while, I think.

You should check out Tokyo Babylon sometime, you know. ;)

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

I'm about halfway through the first issue and it's great. I like the older cousin especially, even if I do forget his name offhand).

re. Tokyo Bablyon: but I already know the whole story... ;)

[giandujabird.livejournal.com]

The somewhat disappointing thing about Fruits Basket is its publication schedule in the US: the latest volume (#15) came out last month. And the next one (#16) will be out in...April?!? I guess I don't understand the translation and publication processes. Is this considered typical for modern manga, a new volume every 4+ months? Sigh, I know. Must learn patience. (There'll supposed be 24 volumes total, and the manga finished last November, so at least we know that it's finite. ;)

[giandujabird.livejournal.com]

Hm, checking the wiki for Furuba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruits_Basket), the manga publication info in the sidebar says that it's up to #20 in Singapore and Australia, which are in English. Hm, wonder why the US translators are behind? Plagarism/copyright issues? Solar flares?

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Who knows. I gather manga publication schedules are wacky things. Death Note comes out every two months like clockwork, but the One Piece schedule seems to be very random. And they come from the same publisher! So who knows.

I'm about halfway through the first volume of Fruits Basket right now. Very much enjoying so far!