There are no fish in the pond.

I finally started reading War and Peace, not in Russian though but an English translation (I couldn't find a Russian copy of the book in the whole damn city. It should be renamed from "capital city" to "backwoods"), which kinda defeats the whole purpose of why I read Anna Karenina in Russian. Ah well, better a translation than nothing.

I dropped my new year's resolution for kanji. Even though kanji has absolutely nothing to do with my plans for the future.

The thing is that seeing yourself know more and more kanji every day kinda encourages you to continue studying, but producing crappy uninspired drawings day after day certainly doesn't.

I was motivated at first, I actually felt like I'm really improving, but then, in the end of 2008, I looked at all my drawings from 2008 and all my drawings from 2007, and saw that all the ones from 2007 look like a thousand times better and more inspired than the ones from 2008. That kinda made me a little bit depressed, but I still promised myself to keep drawing... and now I'm starting to think that forcing creative output just like that makes more harm than good... but I can't really be sure. What if I'm wrong and I'm just wasting my time doing things other than drawing? I'd give up, but my supplies of hope just so happen to be infinite...

PS: the study of kanji is sure progressing though, I should be done with Joyo kanji by the end of august.

I finally finished reading A Darkling Plain, the fourth and the last book of the Mortal Engines Quartet.

I bought it back in the beginning of September, read a few chapters and lost interest, but there's no way in hell I'd just leave a book I bought unread (except for LotR books, which just sucked too much), so I spent most of the past few days reading it, and finished reading like a few seconds ago.

Out of the four books, I liked the first one the best. It was mostly because it was the first book, so everything felt new, and I could just go "whoa!" at the imaginativeness of the setting. But as I got to book two, I was already familiar with the author's writing style and his general tendencies, the world and its limitations, and the kind of people that live in it, and even though new things were still being introduced, it was mostly the plot that got the burden of having to entertain me. It was more so with the third book, and even more so with the fourth one.

And the fourth book had the most trouble with entertaining me not just because of my familiarity with the series, but also because I thought that I got spoiled about how it all ends. (It turns out that I didn't really get spoiled because I misinterpreted the spoiler I read.) And so, every time someone would miraculously survive, mostly thanks to their bravery and ingenuity, I, instead of feeling glad for them, would feel nothing, because I knew what fate they will meet in the very end... The main reason for why I'm such a big fan of fiction is that it makes me feel, so it's easy to see why I didn't enjoy the last book that much, and mostly read it because I wanted to know why the book ended they way it ended, and I wanted to find that out from the book itself.

But as I was getting closer and closer to the ending, it became evident that I got that spoiler totally wrong, and was all teary-eyed while reading the last chapters. It's funny how this story, which mostly disgusted and traumatised my poor mind, ended on such a heartwarming note. It's funny how a story, which throughout of the most of its run spent time showing the ugliest parts of humanity, making you wonder about why nature didn't yet come up with some virus to wipe us all off the planet, left you all filled with hope, that one day, humanity will get to its senses, and that whatever happens, life will forever go on.

In short, I did not enjoy this book as much as the previous ones, but I loved the last few chapters. I loved them more than all the four books put together. It was a very satisfying ending.

Now I need to go blow out my nose and see if I cold finally finish reading Анна Каренина.

I started studying kanji. Finally.

New years resolution: Draw three times the amount of what I drew in past three years put together. Drawing itself is easy, finding WHAT to draw... not so.

My jaw dropped when I saw how behind I am with Gintama, so I'm currently slowly catching up, since slowly catching up is better than continuing to fall behind.

Also, I'm trying to up my pathetic Japanese reading skillz by reading shounen manga in Japanese. I'd read something else, something that is NOT already translated into English, and what I have NOT already read like ten times before, but I can't read kanji, and the untranslated seinen I'd like to read doesn't have furigana... Why don't I just start learning kanji, or, for that matter, why have I not YET even STARTED learning kanji? Lack of motivation... It's not like I NEED to be able to read Japanese... Though Lithuania is in deficit of Japanese->Lithuanian translators so if I actually bothered to get a formal education... Nah, I don't want to be a translator, too boring.

Oh, and Vinland Saga is awesome.

And that's about it for now.

Only after reading 8 first volumes of Dragon Ball I realised how much I love dragged out fights full of dialogues and monologues.

Akira Toriyama doesn't let you wallow in anything. He does one thing and then he quickly goes on to the next thing. Fights are always resolved fast, usually just in a few punches, and usually are very straight-forward. And I don't like that.

I want those huge poetic panels, I want those pointless double page spreads, I want that cinematic feel. I want the protagonist to struggle at first and then suddenly get a mid-fight power up (or several) and win (or occasionally lose despite the power-up, and then come back next time and defeat the opponent). And I want fight to be loooooooong, and loaded with emotion to the brink. And I want the author to let me wallow in that emotion by using those previously-mentioned huge poetic panels and pointless double page spreads.

Realising all this made learn to appreciate shounen much more, so now I'm rereading Bleach Soul Society arc.

Cardboard + scissors + plastic wrap + duct tape + printing paper + loads of glue = new sketchbook. Officially glued together in 2008.10.27.( Read more... )

In the beginning of the previous week my mind somehow came upon Sasuke. I think I found a cool manga panel with him in it and then my mind just ran with it, or something along those lines. Whatever the reason for why I suddenly remembered him was, I started hunting for more cool panels with him in them.

I dropped reading Naruto in the end of Spring 2007 (I think) so there was loads of stuff to skim over. I ended up reading all pages with Sasuke in them (others I just quickly skimmed through) and started becoming interested with the plot once again. And ended up (sorta) getting up to date with the manga (so much for having it dropped forever).
( Read more... )

And , oh, right, today I bought the second volume of Dragon Ball. Akira Toriyama's art is so fun and inspiring, I suspect I'll end up drawing some Goku fanart too. If all free space in my sketchbook does not end until I get sufficiently inspired, that is. There are no whole pages left any more, I've been squeezing new drawings into all free patches of paper I can find. Need to buy myself a new sketchbook.

And while I'm on topic of shounen manga... Unfortunately I was unable to regain interest in Eyeshield 21 and Bleach, I just can't get excited about them any more, so I stopped my attempts at trying to getting back into reading them. But I'm back to reading D.Gray-Man. Now that those chapters set in Noah's Ark are behind, I'm enjoying it a lot again, but the mood just doesn't feel the same any more, it lost some of what drew me into it in the first place... (similar thing happened with Naruto, but to a much bigger extent).

Hey, Avatar: The Last Airbender actually is pretty good. I hesitated to watch it because I thought its mood and plot was that of your random cartoon, that anime influence was purely stylistical, and that would have made me dislike it, but I'm glad I was wrong. The show has its flaws, but it's much more watchable than any anime airing right now... though I'm not sure whether I should be glad about that part...