dancing_moon: To Victory! Daleks can win the war (victory!)
Gosh, so tired. Just gotta get this off my chest, then I need a nap!

Today began horribly but ended with a partial triumph!

Yesterday, I discovered two very AUGH-worthy things re my university classes.
My mistake and their rescheduling equals panic )

The third yay is not really related to my university stay here, but is about my bachelor and general geekery
While listening to a rather boring lecture (not from the topic, but we had a guest lecturer who spoke at a super-rapid, low monotone in a rather echoing classroom and my brain just couldn't handle the effort of trying to listen) I began thinking of my bachelor essay, which I will begin to work on here in Germany. My last essay was for Sailor Moon and the role of the female hero. While the topic I worked with there was one I wouldn't mind returning to, I didn't really feel like doing it for the bachelor essay. Two reasons Firstly, I'd rather wait until the new English edition is out, because it was tricky to switch editions like I had to do. Second, all the literature regarding female heroes is apparantly crap (or I just fail at searching for it) and if I'm going to do some kind of meta-critical analysis of my theory books too I should either split it into two essays or I'll nead a heck of lot more pages than a bachelor essay gives me. Also, variety is good for you, or something, and since I already knew I want to write about something with a gender focus I might as well switch canons.

Anyway. In class, half dozing and doodling names of mahou shoujo manga in some vague notion that I could always compare the female portraits in general (Sailor Moon kicks Tokyo MewMew's ass might not be an approved thesis, but it's one I fully stand behind) or go the safe old route of body-shape analysis, I am suddenly hit with a lightningbolt of inspiration. CLAMP. I like them. A lot. They have a large enough body of work, which can be grouped in various ways, that it makes sense to compare their different series with each other along a given cross-section. Question is just which aspect to poke at...

Their female portraits are varied but I have a hunch - and this really is just a hunch, not to mention I've slept like five hours tonight! - that there portrayal of women complicated. CLAMP's got a very unique moral view, not just compared to Western media, but also to many other manga and there's bound to be something worth poking at there. So I'm writing down interesting points of attack; narratological analysis of female agency, image analysis of male vs. female protagonists, eye-poking-and-sacrificial-death-!

That's when it hit me.

Suicide.

Unless there turns out to already exist a fantastic essay about the theme, I'll ask my teachers (once they're back from the holidays) if I might write an essay analyzing the motif of chosen suicide* in chosen manga from CLAMP. Probably along the lines of gendered differences (are there any and what) and narrative outcome of the suicide (what happens in the story because of this?); though the latter perhaps only for one or two examples.

There's literature on the theme, I know that much, and since the topic is more narrow than "function of the heroine in a superhero story. which btw has nine superheroines", I can also juggle more canons without getting completely swamped in plot retelling.

CLAMP manga with Meaningful Voluntary Suicide that I remember from the top of my head is, uhm, worryingly long. And, also from memory, I can already group them in four categories 0.o
Death-spoilers for RG Veda, Tokyo Babylon, X, Magic Knight Rayearth, Clover )

I think this could be really interesting to do ^_^ If someone has meta-thoughts on my rambling little rant, please share! I need to go through all my CLAMP canons carefully looking for more cases, as well as check up on the ones that I only remember vaguely. I also have no idea what outcome I'll get, so that is interesting too.

Hopefully my teachers agree...a

*chosen suicide here is my own, made-up-just-now, term for a narratively active suicidal act. It basically has no counterpoint in the real world, because there a Hero/in sacrificing themselves won't save the world from blowing up.
dancing_moon: To Victory! Daleks can win the war (victory!)
Am at [personal profile] lanjelin's, waiting for her, [profile] lampadari and the others to finish watching their K-Drama before we continue to my parent's house to celebrate midsummer.

But that's neither here nor there for this post, really, as I mainly wanted to share this link to the From Eroica with Love side-story that I managed to grab from this site. There's a whole bunch of links there, but everything from Rapidshare seems to be too old :/

However, if you scroll down there's a working link to "Der Freischütz", a pure spy-thriller with Klaus in the starring role. Good and more serious then the main story (although also a bit less fabulous crack, what with no Dorian...)

In return, if anyone has working links to the scanlations for volume 16-19 with the "Emperor Waltz" story I would appreciated it muchly! With Eroica's publisher, CMX, having closed down the chances of anyone ever translating the rest of this series is pretty much nil.
dancing_moon: Kermit goes "YAY Ohmygod" (Yay)
Look wot I did this weekend!

Movie clip from the cosplay contest this Saturday )

I cutted the video too, but the fine steady filming creds go to dear shake_it_buddy who received the camera something like 10 minutes before the show ^^;;

Otherwise, a very nice and fun day. Everything went pretty smoothly, even though it was horribly hot in the store. Amigurumi, drawing, making manga crafts and cosplay alllllll day long
dancing_moon: Jadeite / DM / Me (Default)
Call for papers on the visual cues of manga over at fanficforensic.

Now, break is over. Back to bookkeeping *sigh* It's too hot to juggle numbers today, honestly
dancing_moon: Jadeite / DM / Me (Default)
Today we moved a whole bunch of manga at work. Everything in Swedish to a new place and a bunch of the other stuff where that stood before, and then to this shelf and those things together and... yeah, lots of moving books.

It's awesome to do this and get paid for it, not to mention that there were a lot of other people moving books too (they did most of it, tbh). Usually when I shuffle manga I do it all the lonesome at home and don't get anything for the hassle. Except maybe some extra shelf space

Also, I just realizes that I'll turn 26 in a few weeks and that means I'm officially out of the "buy youth tickets at the train" age group. Gah, I'm getting oldish
dancing_moon: Jadeite / DM / Me (Default)
Utställningen Carromic - Manga på svenska öppnar söndag 13/9 på Östasiatiska museet
En utställning med teckningar av Carolina ”Carromic” Ståhlberg, svensk serietecknare, som bland annat har tecknat serien Beckmossen Boys i Kamratposten.

Lite förvånad att jag inte sett mer om det här än, eller hänger jag på helt fel ställen? De har vad som verkar kunna bli en riktigt cool Kimono-utställning och Asienfestival samma dag dessutom. Gratis inträde för alla i cosplay!

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