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.

For some reason, I found this concept a bit strange. It's an AMV featuring Rakka's story in Haibane Renmei, but the song is "Fuushun" (Thanks w for the correction!) from The Twelve Kingdoms soundtrack.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

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.

I had turned 28 on Friday and received volumes 1 and 4 of the Monster manga as gifts. I went ahead and bought volumes 2 and 3 of Monster to fill in the missing volumes and volumes 2-4 of Berserk to continue it (getting both series and a Haibane Renmei t-shirt from Robert's Anime Corner Store). Monster was one of my favorite anime at the beginning of last year, perhaps the best suspense-thriller anime I've seen yet and has very well developed characters (Heck, how many anime series feature a 30-something year old neurosurgeon as the main character?). With Berserk, I largely just wanted to continue on with the events in the manga after what is portrayed in the anime.

It's been a couple of weeks since I've had one of these, and instead of looking at code this late on a Sunday, I might as well get an update in on what I've been watching in the anime world.

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: