Catching Up on Things – Seven Posts in One

So my exams for this year have finally ended, and now I’m free from all that stuff for another few months. Now all I have to worry about is my GPA and work and my website and countless other things. I suppose this is what being an adult means. Well at least I can be an adult and still enjoy manga the way I do. Since I’ve had difficulty talking about the most recent manga chapters lately, I thought I would make a post briefly discussing the things I might have blogged about had I not been busy. These won’t be as long as my normal posts, but I thought I should do a little catching up regardless.

One Piece – Caesar Clown’s Playhouse

His favourite song is Jumpin' Jack Flash, in case you were wondering.

Enemies in One Piece tend to fall all over the morality scale, from honorable soldiers like Smoker to professional killers like Rob Lucci to complete sadists like Moria. What I found interesting about Caesar Clown (aside from the name, of course) is that he’s managed to convince people he’s much more honorable and less insane than he really is. Listening to Brownbeard talk about him, you would almost think he was a decent guy with a passionate love for science. Of course one look at him shows that he’s every bit as insane and sadistic as the term “passionate love for science” would imply. This series used to tiptoe around the use of drugs and WMDs, which makes Clown’s behaviour feel all the more extreme and cruel. I honestly think all of Luffy’s training will have been worth it just so we can see him punch this guy in the face properly.

Open House for Aniblog Tourney Voters

A visual representation of today's match. Except with three Setsunas.

Hello and welcome, voters coming from the Aniblog Tourney. There are soft drinks and cookies in the back.

The post you are reading right now was written more than a week ago on the 18th. The reason for this – and the reason my blog hasn’t had as many posts lately – is because I’m currently in the middle of finals. In fact, if you’re coming in as soon as this post is released, I should be sitting down and writing my last exam for the year as you’re reading this! Here’s hoping I come home to some good news. ^_^

I’ve got an About page up that gives information about the site, but I’ll give you the abridged version here. My name is Yerocha, and I’ve been a manga and anime fan for several years now. Shades of Grey is a blog I started where the main focus is on manga. The average post is done in response to chapters from the series I read, although rather than simply discussing the events of the chapter, the focus is on how those events relate to the series as a whole, or sometimes what they might mean for the future. There’s almost no recap of chapter events because it’s rare for the posts to require it.

Kimi ni Todoke – The Rebuilding Phase

Aw, I missed these reaction faces.

I did something that I should not have done. A few days before this chapter came out, I found a link to one of the Japanese raws for the series. I ended up looking through that with no real idea what the characters were saying, and that got me a little worried. What was Sawako crying about? What did this mean for their relationship? When I finally read the translated version, I found out that things were nowhere near as bad as I’d thought. The thing that really got Sawako upset was how Yano and Kent have been acting, and while her relationship with Kazehaya was discussed, that part of the discussion wasn’t as sad. However, after everything that happened there’s still something bothering me. Do you know why I decided to check out that raw scan?

It’s because I was scared.

Liebster Blog Awards

After doing a bit of looking around the blogs I follow, I discovered that HippieFreak had actually nominated me for the Liebster Blog Award. Several weeks ago. NO idea how I missed that when it came out. Thanks for the nomination, and also thank you to Starsamaria for the nomination she gave in a similar award. Not sure why there are two kinds of awards, but I’m still happy with it.

As far as I can tell, this award is meant to highlight the lesser known bloggers out there. Upon receiving a nomination, the courteous procedure is to nominate five blogs of your own that you read on a regular basis. The only requirement is that these blogs need to have less than 200 followers. It took a bit of thinking to decide exactly which blogs to give nominations to, so I ended up going with those who have both been supportive and who I feel should receive support as well. I had trouble deciding exactly which five to nominate, but just know that all of you still have a place in my heart and my blogroll.

Transitioning From Anime to Manga

There are a few different ways to get into reading manga series. If you’re like me, then you usually start with the print volumes or scans, but sometimes it’s possible to start a series another way. I’m talking, of course, about the times where you begin by watching the anime and switch over when it ends. There’s nothing wrong with doing this, or at least there had better not be considering the amount of times I’ve done it. Just looking at the series I’ve discussed here, there’s Princess Jellyfish, The World God Only Knows, Kimi ni Todoke, and to an extent One Piece, among others. Since I’m about to add three more to that list, I felt it was worth the time to look at how to deal with transitioning.