There’s something about manga magazines that keeps pulling me back in the more I try to escape the over-whelming pages of art. I have no idea what it is. Neo-shonen, comix, and heart pounding fantasy comics just rivet me they fulfill my emotional needs and more. They help me explore parts of myself I would otherwise have not known about and explore the unknown in a safe place in my mind.

The current update for Gangan Online offered a solid mix of chapters. The lineup was solid although nothing really stood out. It was a fun escape for a brief period of time. It cheered me up. I was very much thrilled and delighted by the chapters I read in the current update Square Enix put out for Gangan Online,

It was nice seeing one of my favourite comic relief characters in the series make his return. I really enjoy the series high energy sense of humour. The action scene was very kinetically drawn.

It’s been 15 years since I first picked up Vampire Knight in the pages of Shojo Beat. The series was one of my first experiences with Shojo manga. A decade and a half later, I’m still hooked on Hana to Yume, Lala, and the whole line of magazines. Writing this helped me realize just how deeply I love Hakusensha’s manga in general. Reading Vampire Knight chapter 1 after all these years brought back so many happy memories. It made me want to go back and find all my old Hana to Yume label of comics I’d purchased over the years. Mostly through Viz.

I started re-reading Fruits Basket, so far it’s fun! The first chapter explores Tohru’s back story and does a great job of setting up the universe and mythology. Not a bad start to the series.

I was reading some backlog chapters for Zero Sum Online and Monthly Comic Gene. It’s cathartic reading neo-Shonen manga. I’m not sure what it is pseudo-shipping the dripping homoeroticism from the manga as action scenes play out just feels like a nice release as a homoromantic asexual. Zero-sum Online is home to series such as High School Life of a Fudanshi among other quirky series.

I read some Comic Gene chapters to relax. It was a nice way to pass an hour. Comic Gene is a “Shonen manga for women” label it has a lot of cool stories running. The spin-off digital magazine Gene Pixiv is free for anyone curious. I did some exploring of comic pixiv there’s a lot of curious oddities on there from large Japanese comic publishers.

Finally completed the goddess dress route in Harvest Moon Save the Homeland. It was a fun game I quite liked it. I’ll go back and play the other routes at some point. I enjoy how different this entry is from the rest of Yasuhiro Wada’s run on Harvest Moon. Yasuhiro Wada had some interesting experiments when it came to full 3D Harvest Moon games.

This route in Harvest Moon Save the Homeland required a lot of looking through the internet to find information on, Harvest Moon games require the avatar to be in a certain location  for cutscenes to play out unfortunately this time the game only provides the gaymer with a year to reach the ending.

The premise of Save the Homeland is a giant company wishes to purchase the land, tear it all down and build a theme park. You have one year to do whatever you wish in game however, unlike most other entries, the game ends definitively. the Spring and Summer saw me reading through guides on the internet just to figure out what to do next. The game can be rather obtuse about what you need to do and where you need to go.

I’ve written extensively about Cardcaptor Sakura. Today I thought I’d start writing about each episode one at a time. I’ve re watched the premiere several times over the years. Firstly when I was younger as it aired on Teletoon years later the series was licensed by NIS America. NIS has experienced some financial issues recently. Thankfully, CLAMP is now working with Netflix and I managed to snap up one of the few copies left of Cardcaptor Sakura still for retail sale on Amazon Canada.

The first episode focuses on the clow book’s seal being opened as the cards fly out. Kero explains to Sakura her responsibility as a Cardcaptor. The episode focuses on the fly card’s capture. It’s explained in episode 4 that Windy is kind. I’m still not clear on why the Wind card one of the four most powerful cards does not require capture of some sort. I enjoyed re-watching this episode. Several times I re-played it to soak in all the little details.