Demon ChildI had finished The Twelve Kingdoms Volume Two: Sea of Wind novel a while back, and I have to say that I've enjoyed it1. Like most books, it goes further into Taiki's thoughts and experiences than the anime does. Too bad it doesn't have Takasato's experiences in modern Japan, which is told in Demon Child, the actual first book by Fuyumi Ono in the Twelve Kingdoms world before Ono was encouraged to build a fantasy world. Unfortunately, it looks like Demon Child was released by a different publisher than her other Twelve Kingdom novels, so it's likely Tokyopop was unable to license it. Fortunately, there are always fan translations2.

In other news, I did stumble on what would be a very good t-shirt...

1. 1. As expected
2. 2. Hey! That Prologue is very familiar after reading Sea of Wind.

Looks like there's been some recent resurge of interest in The Twelve Kingdoms recently. Maybe it's the new volume of the novel series coming out or the 90 page story released in a Japanese magazine that sparking it, but the attention still being put on this series isn't too bad for a now 6-years-old TV series.

Well, I've been holding on to some good news when it came to this franchise, but I'll get to that later...

For now, look at this:

The second volume of the Twelve Kingdoms novel, titled "Sea of Wind", is due on March 11, 2008, only a few weeks away!

Here's some links on where to get it:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• BooksAMillion

This is going to be about Taiki's journey in the land of Tai. Should be interesting to read, as his story didn't get a big chunk of the anime series to get told.

Time for an update of what I've been watching.

Finished Watching

Catblue: Dynamite

I had finished a review of this 40-minute movie this morning. In truth, I've probably rewatched this around 5 times in the past week or so, most of that showing the movie off to different people. I don't have much to add here on top of my review of it.

Call it laziness or burn-out, but I just haven't had the energy or will to sit down and write about the recent anime I've been watching. Indeed, I've been meaning to write an analysis of the Twelve Kingdoms novel and Fuyumi Ono's interview and a review of Asatte no Houkou (Quite a nice little series that doesn't overextend itself) and Mushishi. As it is, I do have a list of some of the new anime I'm watching:

It seems that Anime News Network is using a theme inspired by Fuyumi Ono's The Twelve Kingdoms - Sea of Shadows novel as part of a sweepstakes from TOKYOPOP.

(via jougetsu)

It's nice to see that this excellent story is getting some pretty major attention!

There's quite a bit that I've been meaning to write about, but I just haven't had the energy to just write even when I had the time. For example, I've been meaning to do an analysis on Anime News Networks interview with Fuyumi Ono for some time now. I've also finished the official English translation of Ono's The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadows several days back, and was itching to write about that one too; I'll probably end up combining my thoughts in those in one big post later. Also, I got up to episode 5 of Asatte no Houkou, and want to note some stuff down here before continuing, but for some reason, I can't just sit down and write it. Rather frustrating, as I'm now writing this at work, when I should be coding! Well, it is the end of the day, and I'm about to head out to get some dinner before coming back to work on this current project...

So, instead of watching more of Asatte no Houkou, I've started on a series that I've watched a while ago and been enjoyed that Rosepetals is currently blogging about currently: Infinite Ryvius. I'm up to episode 5 of that, but most of my discussion of the series will probably on her site.

Oh, thanks to Don for pointing me to something I can spring on my guests this Saturday when I hold another "Anime Evening" at my house. Hopefully, the last part of the title of this post would give a clue as to what that is...