Reading recommendations
So, it has been an extremely long time since I last did a reading recommendation list. So, this time around I am recommending two different series. One is a novel, one a manga series.
The main character is an incredibly strong, self-reliant woman with a disability that makes it troublesome to interact with normal people. She reads minds whether she wants to or not and that leads to a frustrating life of ALWAYS knowing what something is thinking, even if it’s about her. Imagine dating someone and knowing what they were thinking all the time. Vampires have just come out and are intergrating with society. It just so happens that one moves into Sookie’s town and the quiet of their minds is a fantastic relief. It’s no wonder she quickly finds herself involved with all of the supernatural world. She’s not always waiting for someone to come and rescue her, but instead, will try to take you down herself. She’s also not afraid to dump a guy who treats her poorly. That’s an extremely respectable trait for a fantasy heroine!
The rest of cast is also marvelously fun to read. Pam, for instance, works at a bar where she is required to show up once a week in full on “vampire” clothes for the customers looking for authentic vampires. However, on her days off, this tough ancient vampire much prefers to wear pastel and suits.
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Pretty Guardian Sailormoon
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Manga to avoid!!
I don’t normally talk about books I didn’t like, but this series made me so upset, I felt I had to warn others. The series is called Hot Gimmick and it is one of the worst series I have come across. It started out fantastic and really pulled me in with the characters’ stories and pretty artwork. It convinced me to ask for the rest of the series for my birthday. Read them and was disgusted. The main female lead is so subserviant, she continues to be friends with a guy who tried to have a gang of his friends… er, take advantage of her against her will. She dates a guy who keeps belittling her and abuses her physically and emotionally (at one point he drops her on her tailbone just because, he kicked her down the stairs when they were younger, slaps her in the face). It’s scary when the ONLY good suitor for the main female lead is the brother character that by shoujo law can never happen in the end. The female lead NEVER grows as a character. In fact, she just becomes MORE subserviant and accepting of abuse as the series goes on. Let me save you the rage-dump you will have after reading it and just tell you that you’re way better off avoiding it.
Read the novel that was made with an alternative ending with her been with the brother
I agree with what you said about Hot Gimmick. I didn’t end up finishing it because I just got tired of it. x_x
I actually only read this comic because of Sailor Moon. She was my first anime and manga, and really the first time I experienced a culture completely different from mine that didn’t feel alien.
Years later when I watched Sailor Moon online, there was a commenter recommending this comic. Not because of the similarities but because it was “good.” And I’ve been reading since Karen became a character.
I love sailormoon!!! I nearly died when I heard they was redo the series. I can’t wait to collected them. Hopefully I don’t have to put up with their cousin excuse for Neptune and Uranus because that was silly. And hopefully the starlights gender gets straighten out. Or should I say the fact they are girls disguise as men. Hot gimmick….. Err I read it. Not sure if I read it to the end. Seeing as how I can’t recall the story at all says what expression it left on me. I can tell s person all about red string! Lol.. Kiss the baby for me Gina…… She is adoreable
They were never called cousins in the manga, even in the original translation. And the Starlights are also permanently female in the original English version of the manga, but change sex in the original anime. Pissed off poor Takeuchi.
Oh my gosh, Gina, you’re totally right about Hot Gimmick. As far as I’m concerned, stories like that are poison for people who relate to those situations. “Maybe it will get better later…” No, honey… you are being abused emotionally, physically, and mentally. It won’t get better if you sit there and accept it. I read it all the way through (simply because I have to know how the story ends) and I was utterly disgusted and angry. Gina, you put it nicely. “Rage-dump.”
I’m surprised to hear about Hot Gimmick because another of Miki Aihara’s manga, Honey Hunt, features a shy but very strong female lead. It’s about a girl who decides to become an actress because her mother (a famous actress) has treated her so poorly growing up, and the only way to get at her is to be better than her at her career. Apparently it’s a lot like Skip Beat!, but I’ve never read that.
And pick up Codename: Sailor V! It’s only two volumes, but you see as it goes on when Takeuchi started writing and really developing Sailor Moon throughout the course of the story. She started Sailor V first, but wrote it very infrequently and ended it after she finished Sailor Moon. It’s a great deal sillier than Sailor Moon, but still a beautiful and fun read.
Skip Beat is GREAT. I highly recommend it. A woman was walked on by one guy who she loved dearly with all her heart then overheard him saying while flirting with his manager (he’s a vocalist) that she’s just his housekeeper. She cracked and decided to get revenge by becoming an even bigger star than him! …with many comedic antics to follow, but many heart felt moments too.
Skip Beat is one of my Favorite mangas highly recommend.
They are actually calling it “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon”? That’s going to get really confusing, since that’s the title of the live-action adaptation, which has a substantially different plot from the original manga and anime (but is also very, very good). Anyway, it’s an awesome series in all its forms, and always a pleasure to meet another fan
I feel totally old that there are people out there who don’t know what Sailor Moon is.
Also, I read the first chapter of Hot Gimmick just to see what all the fuss was about and I wanted to strangle everyone within. She ends up dating the sadist in glasses? The one who physically molests her in his first appearance and throws her down a flight of stairs in his first flashback? THAT guy? That initial conversation would go very differently with me.
Sadist: Ha, ha, I know your secret. I won’t tell anyone if you promise to be my slave!
JR: How about this? You keep your mouth shut and you won’t have to worry about me beating you with a baseball bat when you least suspect it and cover your face and balls with a fine, homemade mixture of lye and honey? How’s that work for you?
Sadist: Errrr….
JR: Great! See you in the shadows!
I am like Joe. I only started reading Red String (all those years ago), because Gina did some Sailor Moon fan art, which I loved!
I am SO HAPPY that Sailor Moon is being re-released in English, and at an affordable price too! I’ve been getting mine through Book Depository, because they have free shipping world wide (good for when you live in Australia =P).
I currently have volume three on the way to me!
Also, Sailor V was just a bit too silly for me to get the second volume. Fun, but very silly.
I chose to go and read Hot Gimmick and completely disagree. I liked it a lot. It was certainly frustrating seeing Ryoki treat her the way he did, but it was just because of the way he was raised. I loved stories where someone has been through so much that they dont know how to treat others, but someone still manages to love them. She loved him because she saw the good in him and not just the bad and she couldn’t love her brother even if he was adopted because she always saw him as a brother and nothing more. I liked how it ended.
This is where I have to disagree (and I have a feeling we will have to agree to disagree, so apologies in advance). It doesn’t matter how someone was raised. Abuse is never okay. She allowed him to walk all over her, verbally and physically abuse her. And neither character grew in the end. In the end, she was still being abused and bullied and he was still bullying, being violent and telling her it’s HER fault that he’s hitting her. That’s just not okay with me. If either of them had even started to show signs of growth as characters I would have probably enjoyed it.
Okay, I haven’t actually read Hot Gimmick yet, so I admit full well to that, but your explanation of why you like it kind of makes me think Gina’s summary of it was probably adequate. Everyone is broken- we all have our ways that we were f*ed up and can’t function properly. Which is horrible and sad, but it NEVER gives you the right to hurt anyone else. People stay with abusive people because half the time they are beautiful, and lovely, and you think- if only they could always be this way. Everyone I know who has been emotionally abusive in my life had very good reasons why they were that way, and the point still came that Abuse Is Never Okay. Ever. Rant done.
Guh Hot Gimmick I decided to take a gander at the series; and because I wanted to see where it went after it made me interested enough to want to see how it goes… in the end I felt disgusted and disappointed. As you said Gina, the female lead is a prime example of how “NOT” a female lead should be, and save for the brother character, the other male leads are guys I would have left battered in a trashcan in real life, especially the guy who wanted the female lead gang-banged; especially later when it’s discovered he singled her out for something she never did nor the person by proxy he wanted to suffer NEVER did!! He never truely apologized or paid for his actions! Ryoki the abuse male lead, he’d be removing his glasses from up his nose if I wrote the story.
I’ve heard the Hot Gimmick-S novel has the alt-ending with the brother winning; and while I am curious to see it; I’m not terribly in a hurry, especially since the creator made the novel because her fans were outraged over how the manga ended which…should have been plain as freaking day.
Hot Gimmick AVOID PEOPLE!!
I read through all of Hot Gimmick a while ago, half reaching the end through trainwreck syndrome, half reaching there just to see if the manga would salvage its failure with a brother win. In the end I was as utterly unentertained as the first chapter, and the later chapters showed themselves even more aborrent than the beginning. Truly, a waste of 50-odd chapters of my time, other than a prime example of what not to write.
Honestly, I really liked Hot Gimmick… Then again my favorite part of the series was the Sister/friend romance side stories. Anyway, different strokes for different folks!