Tag: manga

I really need to change my reading habits

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I seem to have fallen back into a terrible habit of re-re-re-reading. In my current case, I’ve been rereading various manga on the Hoopla and Kodansha apps. Not that I mind rereading stories that I currently enjoy, but there’s a point where I’m just passively going in circles and I really need to break myself out of that when it happens.

I’m still not entirely sure how I got into this cycle, but I have a few theories. Some years ago I read the Super Ridiculously Long Edition of Mark Lewisohn’s Beatles history Tune In which ended up exhausting my reading brain for a few months afterwards, but it’s been a while so it’s not entirely that these days. It could be that I’m just being super passive about my reading habits lately. It could also be that I went through a phase where no new books were intriguing me at all (not that they’re bad, just that I’d grown weary of a particular genre that was still everywhere). And it was definitely partly due to Real Life Stuff taking up too many spoons and I needed something light.

That’s not to say I’ll stop reading manga cold turkey, because that wouldn’t fix the problem at all, only shift it onto some other subject or genre I might be interested in. Besides, I’ve grown fond of a few series on the Kodansha app and I want to keep tabs on its weekly updates. No, this is merely about making a concerted effort to pick up a book from my bedside shelf and start reading. That’s all there is to it.

I just need to, y’know, start doing it.

It’s been a strange few weeks…

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
Rintaro from The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity

…most of which I won’t go into as it’s something that should stay personal, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it’s doing its best to derail me from my nightly writing sessions. The most I can say is that I’m doing my best to keep that from happening. I just need to balance it all out and keep moving forward.

Meanwhile, I’ve been doing a lot of manga reading lately, though this time via Hoopla and more often on the K Manga app that’s run by Kodansha. One title in particular that I’ve come to currently obsess over is The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity (aka Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku). It’s a YA story about two teens from opposite social circles (in this case, a boy from a school full of losers and a girl from an elite academy whose buildings are next door to each other) that fall in love against all odds. It’s quite lovely and heartfelt without being schmaltzy or too slight. It’s a high school story where there’s conflict that doesn’t necessarily have to be dialed up to eleven unless it needs it, and I’ve really come to appreciate that kind of Zen-like style of storytelling. I’ve also learned that Netflix released a thirteen-episode season just recently, which I’m yet to watch in its entirety.

It’s well worth checking out, I highly recommend it.

I’ve also been reading a few other titles both on the K Manga app and elsewhere online. There’s the competitive hip-hop dancing manga Wandance featuring a lonely teen boy with a stutter who meets a girl who inspires him to join the dance club at their high school. There’s the hilariously quirky Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You, centering on an exhausted salaryman who befriends a snarky checkout girl…who happens to also be the amazingly adorable ringer that makes his heart beat. Then there’s the light and enjoyable Laid Back Camp about a group of high school girls who learn the ins and outs (and the hidden joys) of outdoor camping and all it brings. There’s You Can’t Live All On Your Own! about four young women living together in a shared apartment and dealing with the joys and frustrations of post-school adulthood.

I’ll be honest, I’ve been falling behind on my other reading (current book: The God and the Gwisin by Sophie Kim, the second Fate’s Thread book after The God and the Gumiho) so once I’m caught up with this manga binge-read, I’ll finally get back to my To Be Read pile.

Though I will say all this manga is inspiring me with some new story ideas…