sonic youth with sonic dreams

Hirunaka no Ryuusei, admittedly, has become a favorite shojo manga series of mine lately, despite just having read it out of the blue. I've become smitten with the perky yet mysterious Shishio Satsuki and his relationship with the naive yet surprisingly strong Yosano Suzume. Notice how I'm mentioning Shishio first as if he's the main character of the series, lol.



I normally really don't like teacher/student relationships, honestly, and I was a bit disappointed to find out that Shishio was Suzume's teacher - I was already sold with the thought of Shishio being Uncle Yukichi's "weird boyfriend"! But what's really promising about HnR is that Shishio and Suzume's relationship is more than just the usual ~forbidden love~ trope. Considering that they first met outside of the school, you'd know that they didn't just fall for one another as just teacher and student.

Though of course, despite all my love and praise for HnR (*cough* and Shishio *cough*), it also has its flaws.

( Spoilers under the cut if you haven't read til the latest chapter! )

I kinda take back what I said from my previous post - that I could hardly tolerate fanservice anime/manga anymore - because there are actual good ones.



So, I've just read every single chapter of Yamada-kun and the 7 witches in one sitting (sort of). It was not my first time hearing about the series, really. I've been seeing the title a lot from my f-list, though never a preview of the actual series itself. From the title itself, however, I was assuming it was a yaoi/BL manga, seeing as it seems like something CJ Michalski would name her manga, prolly because of her work entitled The pretty wolf and the 7 goaty. I'm quite relieved that there's an actual similarity to the names and not just a usual blunder of mine.

It wasn't until earlier, however, that I found that an anime of the series will be released pretty soon, and that there's actually an existing live-action drama of the series already. Plus the gif set was pretty promising - though I've got to admit, the boy-to-boy kissing scenes got me hook, line and sinker. So I figured since the series got both an anime and a drama already, it's probably not so bad, and that I could give it a shot.

This series thoroughly exceeded my expectations. The mangaka of this series, Yoshikawa Miki is the one who did Yankee-kun to Megane-chan as well. And oohh, she's actually a former assistant of Mashima Hiro, mangaka of Rave and Fairy Tail! No wonder the art style was eerily similar. Anyway, I've read Yankee-kun to Megane-chan before - found it pretty funny and all, but I never got the chance to go past volume 1 or 2, nor did I want to catch up on later chapters. So I was expecting more or less the same vibe from this one, but boy was I so wrong. The reviews were right, every chapter gets more and more interesting; and lo and behold - there's more to this manga than just fanservice! *sobs* It was a really refreshing read, as compared to that useless manga I read yesterday.

The story starts with a delinquent student named Yamada Ryuu who gets into an accident with the smartest student in their year, Shiraishi Urara. But here's the thing, they actually switch bodies. How? Kissing. As the series progresses, we find out that there are other students in the school who have the same ability as theirs, so Yamada and his friends go on a ~quest~ to find these witches! There's a gratuitous amount of fanservice in this manga, for both guys and gals alike, so it's bound to be an enjoyable read for anyone, as long as they're not icky on the guy-to-guy kissing. There's a harem, yes.. in a way, but it's not the ridiculous sort that's the usual in shonen rom-com manga. But really, this was such a great read. The recent chapters got me bawling, tbh. I can't wait to read the upcoming chapter!!

While we're at it, imma showcase my favorite OT3 from this manga. I love Yamada and Shiraishi a lot, really, and I'm really pining for them, but this takes the cake:



Miyamura/Yamada/Itou ftw! As to why they're both smitten with Yamada, I'm not saying anything, so go read the manga!



Jfc this manga's hilarious, ok. One of my headcanons (or it's probably CANON IDK) is that Miyamura is actually bisexual aahhhh plz be true lol



One last because Miyamura and Itou are hilarious (and I ship them, too!).

As of late, I've been drifting along with the mainstream and actually getting into current anime series such as Free! and Shingeki no Kyojin, but I have to admit that I've become easily hooked to the latter. Because of that, I've been desperately seeking out friends from the fandom to discuss the latest chapters and spoilers with. Hence, I've been nagging friends to watch the series so I could have someone to fangirl with and actually get what I'm saying.

So far, my latest victims include a high school friend of mine and my boyfriend, both of whom I've been coercing to watch SnK because they both seemed interested. Luckily, I got them both hooked - though they aren't exactly up to date with the series (one follows the anime only, the other has only read up 'til the female titan arc). But! I found out recently that another good friend of mine has apparently been following the series and has read the manga, too, so I've been able to discuss some spoiler-y stuff with him. Yay!


Yes, Yagami Laito, this never gets old.

( The downsides of getting your boyfriend to like SnK, and possible spoilers, so read at your own risk )