A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

sister_coyote is watching Naruto and writing hilarious recaps.

I'll take a moment to say that I think that—entirely contrary to all appearances!—Jiraya is one of the sanest and smartest ninja we see. Why? Becaiuse he left The Traumatic Village of Trauma (Occupation: Have Major Emotional Distress, Then Get Yourself Killed By Enemy Ninja) in order to wander the world drinking sake, hitting on women, and writing adult novels. This to me is an excellent coping strategy!

With a little assistance from yours truly, she is plotting the Casefiles of a Psychiatrist in Konoha. Go cheer her on!

I went to the manga shop to pick up the latest volumes of Naruto. As I grabbed the latest one, one of the two ten or eleven-year-old boys standing there examining them said, "Oh, that's the one where [GINORMOUS AND TOTALLY UNEXPECTED SPOILER HAPPENS!]"

"...what?" I said. "WHAT?! HEY! I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!!!"

I had the volume in my hand, and I bopped him atop the head with it. (Not hard!)

"Dude!" said his friend. "Don't blurt out spoilers like that."

"Uh, sorry," said Spoiler Boy.

"You SHOULD be sorry!" I retorted ungracefully.

The shop employees attempted to console me ("you should have hit him harder!"), but the damage was done. It was just like Kakashi getting spoiler-attacked, only worse.

And then I went home and tried to console myself by printing the yaoi-illusion since stupid Viz censored it by transforming it into a silhouette, only the site linked on reread_no_jutsu is virus-infected and completely crashed my computer, forcing me to type from a net cafe until tomorrow, when hopefully the computer repair place can fix it. (Details at oyceter.)

...please do not put spoilers in comments, or I will hit you with a shrink-wrapped volume of Naruto.

Would anyone like a brand-new copy of this volume? I bought it twice by accident. I'll mail it anywhere in the USA for $5, fic, or baked goods. Best offer gets it.

In honor of Viz flinging new volumes of Naruto into the market - up to 41 in English now and I'm not yet caught up so please don't spoil me - octopedingenue has launched reread_no_jutsu, a group reread community for Naruto, the shounen ninja manga that charmed me with its portrayal of a young ninja losing his mind during the ninja written exams and then broke and healed my heart more thoroughly than anything ever. (Volume 31, in case you're curious. Again, please do not spoil here.)

Please join and discuss!

Order the series from Amazon: Naruto, Volume 1

I am having a hard tine getting net access, so I am way behind in recording what has been going on. Expect some out of order reports as I catch up.

A couple nights ago Stephanie and I were tired, so we decided to spend a quiet night in the hotel watching DVDs. But before putting in a DVD, we decided to check out Japanese TV. Two DVD-less hours later, we went to sleep. This is what we saw-- all in Japanese, but I translated a bit:

1. An international women's shot-put competition, held in Osaka. This was pretty amazing. I had previously not known what shot-put is: it's a very heavy-looking metal ball on a long wire, which you spin around your head until it spins you in a tight circle, heels digging a hole into the earth, and then release it to fly some ridiculous distance away. Those women were really built on the upper body, and it was great to watch.

ETA: Stephanie says that's actually the hammer throw.

(Speaking of women's upper bodies, a number of people at the con seemed quite hypnotized by mine, due to the spectacular outfit I had previously purchased in Harajuku and wore to the con. Several men asked to take my picture (and some women did too) and some of those asked if they could post it on their home page. Due to a language barrier, I momentarily thought one of them was asking if he could use it as a model for a figurine, but alas, no-- he just belonged to a figurine club and was indicating the home page on its business card.)

2. A sushi-eating contest. The contestants, three men, one of whom had matching green clothes, and hair, consumed plate after plate of conveyer-belt sushi in a leisurely fashion, with a loud DOING every time they finished a piece.

(We had conveyer belt sushi for lunch today. It was delicious! The sushi chefs stood in the middle of an enormous conveyer belt, bellowing (in Japanese) "Two uni for number thirty-nine!" HAIIIII!!!" My favorites were lush salmon striped in orange-pink and white like rock strata, a very nice tamago (egg omelet cooked in dashi), and cold but still fine and sweet unagi (sea eel-- not to be confused, as I did once, with usagi (rabbit.)

I did not care for the disturbingly cartilageneous crab salad or the natto roll, though Stephanie enjoyed both! A roll involving some fish and salmon eggs was also very good, and probably the first time I've enjoyed salmon eggs. We also got some nice broiled salmon-- finished by a chef with a blowtorch in either hand.)

3. An episode of an anime series I like, Naruto. It was the conclusion of the post-timeskip Sakura puppet battle of DOOM. Nothing can shamelessly break your heart like anime, and I especially liked the image of the lonely little boy with puppet jutsu, creating two life-size parent puppets after his own parents had died, and using magic marionette strings to make them embrace him. Awww!

4. A competitive glass-blowing show, in the style of "Top Chef" or "American Idol." This was fantastic and I think would do very well in American remake (probably in the works right now.) Four glass-blowes, three men and a woman, were first assigned to create donburi-- rice bowls-- in glass. One made an eel bowl, one made pork cutlets (tonkatsu) that doubled as a money box, one did a mixed one that doubled as a jewelry set (shrimp brooch, ginger rose ring, salmon egg bead necklace, etc.)

The last two continued to the final round, where they were tasked to create a goldfish bowl like none other. The methods were amazing, and the results were spectacular: the man did a fisherman's net with a crayfish peeking out inside a gold swirly bowl, all in a moat-dish with guppies in it. The woman did a three-tier planet thing with rings of Saturn! I kind of preferred his, but hers was the most spectacular and she won--Japan's newest Top Glassblower!

1. I've been given a membership to Comic Con, and will be there probably Friday and Saturday. Who wants to meet up?

2. Some people I know are signing up for a Japanese class. My Japanese could certainly use all the help it can get. However, the class is on Sunday afternoon, which is a good time for me to either write or relax, and which prevents me from taking a two-day weekend in Santa Barbara. I'd really like to get back into the Japanese groove, and that's a lot less inconvenient than another City College class. Hmmm.

3. I am taking time off from karate and have begun lifting weights three times per week in an attempt to not have my back hurt all the time. About two weeks in, I feel pretty good, my back is definitely improved, and I find lifting pleasantly meditative. Does anyone here lift weights seriously? How much improvement in strength can I reasonably expect if I persist?

I also walked three miles yesterday. Go me.

4. Today I finished and sent in revisions for Secret Project GW that I'm doing with Sherwood Smith. Go us. This makes me feel better about not having accomplished anything else this week.

5. DO NOT SPOIL ANYONE IN COMMENTS IF YOU CAN FOLLOW THIS but having recently hooked oyceter on Naruto and knowing that she was a fair way into the chuunin exams arc, I e-mailed her, "Have you gotten to [so-and-so]'s past yet?" She replied, "I think so, so-and-so mentioned such-and-such, which was interesting." I wrote, "Never mind, you're not there yet."

I knew exactly when she got there when I received an e-mail with the subject line: [so-and-so's spoiler-protected name]!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The flashback which completely changes your view of a character is an old and very frequently well-done device in manga, and one which Kishimoto uses to good effect in several places in the series, but [!!!!!!!!!] is the best take on it I've come across yet.

Order the series from Amazon: Naruto, Volume 1

I present to you songs from my four favorite Suzanne Vega albums. I'm not so crazy about Days of Open Hand, and Songs in Red and Gray, the breakup album, works well as a whole but doesn't have any really stand-out tracks, in my opinion.

From Nine Objects of Desire, a very warm and sexy album, one of the warmest and sexiest songs on it, Caramel. The "nine objects of desire," as I recall, are four men, a photograph, a woman, her baby daughter, Death, and a plum. I cannot help but read the plum as a metaphorical as well as an actual fruit, though-- the Plum of Knowledge.

Two tracks from 99.9 F, an album which I thought was overproduced and discordant when I first listened to it, but which has grown on me a lot since the chance discovery that it functions as a soundtrack for one of the characters in Naruto made me dig it up and listen to it again. That discovery happened like this:

octopedingenue: "I think of Blood Sings as so-and-so's theme song.

Me: "You mean Blood Makes Noise, right?

Both of us: "Whoa, check out some of the other tracks on that album."

Suzanne Vega is her first album, with lovely melodies and a cool, controlled tone in the lyrics overall, though not so much in the two tracks I'm hightlighting, Undertow and
Marlene on the Wall.

Solitude Standing had two famous tracks, "Luka" and "Tom's Diner," but I especially like the title song.

Order the series from Amazon: Naruto, Volume 1

octopedingenue kindly posted a list of recommended Naruto fanfiction, doujinshi downloads, and a gorgeous song by Aimee Mann.

Some of these are massively spoilery, so proceed with caution. If you're not that far into the series, I would not read anything that doesn't have the phrase "no spoilers" or an exact note of when it's set in the subject heading or author note at the top.

Also, some of the pairings listed are possibly spoilery in and of themselves, as they at least suggest that the characters interacted with each other in some memorable way in canon; though given my discovery (not on this list) of the Naruto/Tenten community, maybe not.

But anyone at all familiar with the series can (and should) read Naruto's email inbox.

Order the series from Amazon: Naruto, Volume 1

Last night I dreamed...
( sort-of spoilers for events occurring after Naruto's chuunin exams arc )

Beware massive spoilers.

( Read more... )