angus and robertson's "top 100 books of all time"

Am shocked that Obernewtyn made it to top 4! I mean it's good, but that good? ==; And "of all time"?? ==;;

Shall pretend this is a meme and bold the ones I've read.


1 Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
2 Twilight - Stephenie Meyer
3 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
4 The Obernewtyn Chronicles - Isobelle Carmody
5 My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
6 To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
7 The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
8 Breath - Tim Winton
9 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
10 Break No Bones - Kathy Reichs
( The rest of the list )

Wow. I read a grand total of 6%. =__=;

Is it just me or are half of those fairly modern and adapted into movies recently?

2008 autumn anime (part b)

I'd just like to proclaim that the Vampire Knight soundtrack is absolutely beautiful *___* Ahhh strings. Sometimes I can love them so much.

Linebarrels of Iron (ANN Info)
I have seen rave reviews of this anime, in the sense that they all raved on about how utterly pathetic this anime is. So going in with expectations lower than sea level, it turned out to be...not as bad as expected. Or maybe I just don't believe something so cringeworthily bad is taking itself seriously. Some bits made me laugh out loud (at 3am in the morning *cough*) because it was so ludicrous it had to be a joke, right?

So we begin with a wimpy main character who's about 10 times more wimpy than Kira - it's worth mentioning here that the character designer also did the designs for Gundam Seed and it's not as pretty here, but still recognisable - he's getting bullied by a bunch of guys and scoots off to buy bread for them when a mobile suit lands right on top of his head. Quite literally. The mobile suit comes complete with a beautiful naked woman, whom he escorts home to get some clothes, and then he finds out that she grants him access (by letting him grab her boobs...yes) to the MS that just landed on him, and he totally kicks ass after jumping into the MS for the first time ever.

Like...TOTALLY kicks ass. Kira Yamato would be wiping the floor. And boy does he know it. His childhood friend watches on in horror as he broadcasts his maniacal glee by cackling through the microphones in his MS.


MUAHAHAHA LOOK AT ME!! I am a hero!!! Suck on that!!
Two minutes later he's informed by the beauty next to him that, "Gee, I'm sorry I forgot to tell you, but you know, you're dead. Like, NOT ALIVE anymore."

The production is by GONZO, and the series is GONZO's usual quality until the mecca comes in, and then one cringes at the jarring combination of 3D and 2D animation. The Gundam franchise does use 3D animation but as expected, their techniques are much more mature and it doesn't stand out like a sore thumb as it does here.

The whole premise is so laughable that surely it can't be done unintentionally! It's been a while since we've seen the hero this pathetic and dislikeable in a mecca anime. I mean, yes, Shinn and Heero were annoying each in their own ways, but not absolute...oh, I don't know the word for it, but it's not pretty. It's obvious that he has an immense superhero complex as well as inferior complex, and this newly acquired power just bared everything. This show could go both ways - be atrociously bad, or be shrewdly good - and at the moment it doesn't seem to sympathise any more with this "hero" than the audience does.

Kuroshitsuji (ANN Info)
Here's one anime of the season that hasn't been a letdown =D I haven't read enough of the series to comment on the plot, but the art and music for this is gorgeous, as it is in the manga. The series is, of course, 耽美系, which means it's better appreciated for its superficial elements than its plot and depth XD


The story, as I said before, is very much like Yuki Kaori's Count Cain in setting. Set in what looks like Victorian England, Ciel Phantomhive is the young (13y.o.?) master of a wealthy aristocratic estate. His all-powerful butler is the youthful-looking Sebastien, who can do everything a human can and much more. Unsurprisingly(?), he turns out to be a demon butler, signed on to the family by a pact with Ciel.

Of course, we don't find all this out in episode one, just that Sebastien is prone to displays of superhuman dexterity, and something happened to/with Ciel's parents. Being young, Ciel becomes the target of many an adult who think they can fool him, and to these people, Ciel deals out his special kind of revenge..."the Phantomhive treatment".

Whether or not the plot can measure up to the heartwrenching polygon of love and hatred dealt out in Count Cain, the anime offers plenty of drool points, not just on the art. Ono Daisuke puts on his most gorrrgeousss 男公關(LOL) purr for Sebastian. Meanwhile Sakamoto Maaya - who did a flawless job as Host Club Haruhi - goes one pitch lower for Ciel and can rival Romi Paku in how convincingly she does a boy's voice, which once again proves the broad range she has as a voice actress. The anime also keeps much of the comical sequences of the manga, which somehow don't seem out of place in spite of the gloomy ambience of the lighting.

To enjoy this, you probably have to be into this sort of dark gothic stories, topped with angst and sprinkled with comedy. But I recommend it, because I am =D