R. Rose's Reading Diary

  Gyo  is not Ito's best work, but it is one of his most interesting. While most of his stories are surreal and dread filled, Gyo is a full on creature feature. It hits differently than a lot of his stuff, while still keeping with his wonderful, creepy visuals.  The plot is straight out of a SyFy original movie, with robotic legged fish coming from the ocean and invading the land. You have a whole bevy of killer sea creatures on robotic legs, a virus that has some very nasty side effects, and even a mad scientist. This one is like Ito is playing out a love for B-movies that you don't see in some of his better loved works like Uzumaki. The closest I can think of in comparison is Remina  maybe? Gyo kind of got buried when it first got released. Uzumaki  had made such a splash, but when Gyo  hit, it was so different that I remember critics not being as warm to it. It didn't get bad reviews by any means, but it for sure was considered lesser than. I guess it is...

I had picked up the first volume of this series almost a year ago when I was back home visiting family. I got volume 2 pretty quickly after that, and then I sat on reading the last volume for way too long. I think I have a problem with finishing series. Like, my brain just doesn't want them to be over. So, I pushed back whatever is going on in in my skull, and I finally got around to finishing this little three volume comedy series. I don't know why it took me so long to pick up volume 3, but I am so glad I did.  The basic premise of My Dad's the Queen of All VTubers?! is that a high school student finds out that his dad is secretly a super popular "female" VTuber. One that he himself had been obsessed with. Once that cat is out of the bag hijinks ensue as everyone is pulled into the wild world of being a VTuber.  The series is mostly a series of comical sketches with very little over all narrative moving from chapter to chapter. I think the sitcom approach works ...

 This is going to be a much smaller manga batch, as I have been juggling a little more this week so I haven't been able to read as much.   I did read The Strange House  vol. 2, and I am fricken loving this series so far. I'm kind of sad that I can't find the movie in English anywhere, but that also means I won't have the story spoiled for me. The first volume was a lot of the characters speculating about what could have happened. The second volume starts to introduce some solid facts into the story. This is a pretty small story, with really only three main characters, and the books just fly by. I cannot recommend this one enough for someone looking for a decent horror manga!  I also revisited a series I haven't read in years. I checked out Case Closed vol. 23. I binged the first 22 volumes one summer probably ten years ago. Reading that much Case Closed  back to back was a bad idea, as the series can start to feel repetitive. After a long break, though, I w...

 So, I recently took some time off work, and part of relaxing was digging into my TBR pile.  In that TBR pile was a crap ton of manga! Considering how quick most manga reads, I decided to take a chunk out of that portion of my TBR.  Most of these series are new to me, so I was happy to finally get a chance to check some of them out.  Out of the four I am going to be talking about, all of them were pretty solid four star reads.  First up was The Strange House vol. 1 by Uketsu and Kyo Ano.  I was urning for some horror manga, and had kind of tapped out my supply of Junji Ito, so this one hit the spot. Very heavy on the atmosphere, this one sets up a pretty interesting mystery in the first volume. While there is definitely a lot more talk than action here, the well paced dialogue, and interesting art keep things interesting. While there was a bit of gore here and there, creeping dread was the name of the game in The Strange House . I flew through this one...

 As gross as the base idea of Wedding Peach initial felt to me, I was surprised at how much I appreciated the simple quest for cuteness that Wedding Peach turned out to be. Yes, the series feels very dated, with a group of boy crazy heroines who have to fight demons looking to remove love from the world. There is no dark twist. Nothing here is aiming to subvert the genre. Wedding Peach is here to give the reader exactly what is says on the tin. This is pure magical girl cuteness. The sacred items that they are sworn to protect are called "The Four Sacred Somethings" for crying out loud. (Something old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue).  And I didn't hate it! This is a solid three (out of 5) star read for me. There is nothing ground breaking here. The art is nice, the story telling well paced, and the characters aren't annoying. In fact, there is something about reading something so wholesome that is kind of refreshing, especially after some of the ...

 While I am listening to Pride & Prejudice & Zombies I thought I would break things up by diving into Seven Seas re-release of the shojo classic Pet Shop of Horrors . This was a series I read back when Tokyopop was originally releasing it, and am insanely overjoyed to get a chance to read it again. Especially since this new edition is very nicely put together.  My first exposure to this series was actual the anime when it was released by Urban Vision many years ago. The anime episodes adapt a few of the early stories from the manga, and manage to get the general tone and feel of the manga down near perfectly.  The manga itself follows a formula. Essentially, it uses the structure of the film Gremlins . A customer comes into Count D's Pet Shop looking for a rare and exotic pet.  Count D will take them to the back and introduce them to the "pet", which usually resembles a human. The person will become entranced with the pet, and purchase it straight away. Of co...