Two big ones complete this week! I've been working on both of these for quite some time.
Yakitate!! Japan is one of my favorite anime series, and I started buying the manga of it when I was in Japan (aka forever ago). I finished up my collection at Book Off in San Diego and by ordering a few off Amazon. I wanted to actually read all of them, because I knew the manga went a little further than the anime did, and it would be a great way to practice my Japanese, though my vocab is very food focused now, haha.
This is the story of Azuma Kazuma, a young boy who is on a mission to create a bread the the Japanese people love as much as they love rice. He begins working for Japan's top bakery and competes in their newcomer's bread tournament. He then competes in a world tournament, and goes on to compete on a Japanese bread competition show. All along the way, people have crazy reactions to his bread because they're so good. The reactions are a bit better in animation, but still funny in print. The reactions get crazy in the manga, though. We go from someone having visions of curry oceans in the first volume all the way to someone literally turning into a turtle. As the series progresses, the reactions seem to last longer, as well, and I became concerned at their lack of concern for human life. One baker Azuma competes against becomes a dam, and he is never mentioned again. We can only assume he is a permanent feature in that lake now.
The ending is a bit more dramatic in the manga, as well. Spoilers obviously follow if you'll ever read it yourself (they did translate it all in English, but I think it's out of print now). In the show, it culminates with Azuma battling his inspiration to enter into baking - a previously good-hearted man who taught young Azuma to make bread with soymilk, now head of the competing bakery and very evil. In the manga, this confrontation happens, as well, but it has been discovered that this man was taken over by aliens, I think, and is now a bread-creature. Azuma is basically fighting a giant bread mech in the end. Don't worry - he creates a bread that allows Kawachi to turn into Chopin (the composer) and defeat him. But that's not the end! After this dramatic battle, it becomes Azuma's task to solve global warming. I kid you not. He ends up creating a bread that allows Kawachi to make all of the earth parts of the globe hover over the oceans, so he doesn't really solve global warming, but he does remove the danger of floods as the ice caps melt.
I wasn't looking up any words as I read (it would have taken too long), so my translation may be off on some of that, but heck. It just got more and more ridiculous. And I felt more and more bad for Kawachi - not only is he the brunt of many reactions, but he ends up living as a video game villain for the rest of his days, while Azuma gets a peace prize and everyone else lives happily. Man.
Anyway, I'm glad I've read the whole series now. I'm probably getting rid of it all now because I don't think I'll be reading it again (and the manga was a bit less woman-friendly than the series), but it was a fun trip.
Shakespeare! This has already been a wordy post, so thanks for reading this far. I love seeing Shakespearean plays performed, and I wanted to read all of them! I didn't include the plays of questionable origin (Two Noble Kinsmen, etc.), and I didn't read the entirety of his poems, but I read all of the sonnets, plus a few of the poems included in the anthology I read. Did you know the majority of the sonnets were written to a man?? I had no idea. I can't believe I called myself a Shakespeare fan. But now I am one, no question!
Perennial favorites (aka I already knew I loved these):
Titus Andronicus
The Winter's Tale
As You Like It
Much Ado About Nothing
Macbeth
Romeo and Juliet
Merry Wives of Windsor
Richard III
Henry V
Richard II
Julius Caesar
Hamlet
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Twelfth Night
King Lear
Hidden Gems:
Pericles
Cymbeline
Henry VI, Parts 2 + 3
Coriolanus
The Merchant of Venice (Portia for life!)
No thank you:
Troilus and Cressida
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Taming of the Shrew (as written - I did see a modern performance with a feminist bent and that was alright)
Meh:
All's Well That Ends Well
Measure for Measure
Love's Labor's Lost
Timon of Athens
Othello
Antony and Cleopatra
Henry VIII
Henry VI, Part 1
Henry IV, Parts 1 + 2
King John
The Comedy of Errors
The Tempest
Those hidden gems made the whole read-through worth it. They aren't performed as often, so it was good to encounter them in the only way I could (though I did see The Merchant of Venice performed during the list!). I will definitely be watching out for performances of them, though it might take me a lifetime to track them all down.
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