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4.25 starsThis was really cute! Review to follow
So, we should be in the home stretch. I've read that this is to be the final arc of the series and while I really enjoy this manga, I think it's best to leave them still wanting more than begging you to end. (I'm looking at YOU Inuyasha!) But then I reached the end of this and died a little inside. It's not going to be easy, is it Julietta Suzuki? Just when things were looking so well. 
NOTE: As this is Vol 18 and takes place just after an arc ended, there are MAJOR SPOILERS ahead. Consider yourself warned.
So Nanami has returned from time traveling (the right way, not crazy jumping down wells for this chick. And a closed time loop to boot, I love this series) and everything is great. Tomoe's curse is lifted, he's confessed his feelings for her, and our dear shrine god 
even has the chance to finally go on a school trip. So perhaps no one should blame her for wandering through life looking like this.
Except that she's failing school and also seems completely oblivious to the fact that Tomoe and she are COMPLETELY NOT COMMUNICATING! Dear lord, it's pathetic. I want him to sit her down and explain to her (in small words as apparently she can't get the memo) that the snake is not okay and she needs to ignore basically everything he says. Argh. Mikage isn't much better, at times he really comes through and others he just watches with this knowing smile on his face. Grr.
However, there are several touching moments. Tomoe works to learn English and other problematic areas as he's now committed to living with her in the human world. His tenacity urges Nanami to reciprocate and when these two click, it's beautiful.
However, there is no rest for the wicked, therefore there's no rest for them either. Kirihito (Akura-oh) is stepping up his efforts to gain his true body from the land of the dead as the borrowed human body is failing. Because of this (and Nanami's admittedly recurring idiocy) the group, and especially Ami, are pulled into a dangerous situation. Nanami's secret and the truth of what Tomoe, Kurama, and others comes out and by the time the volume ends, things are looking very dicey.
Hopefully the wait for 19 won't be as long as this one.
Spring is here and I have officially run out of excuses for not cleaning. I have gained all of my original weight back, and that means that I have entered DEFCON 3 and I now have to keep the sugar away through any means necessary. Since I can't go to the gym three days out of the week (two days because I donate plasma for that sweet, sweet book money) I will need to turn days that I get milked for my blood water into cleaning days.
Just... I can't possibly get those scorch marks out of the carpet where that cast iron got dropped from that fire. Rugs? Gah.
I got my record player set up in the bedroom, and listening to records while writing in bed is actually a pretty great joy. Listening to that "Encounter with Monolith" song from 2001: A Space Odyssey on vinyl is an atmospheric, haunting experience.
I will have to start cleaning soon, but before I go about doing just that -
Kamisama Kiss, Vol. 1
Filled with a lot of that Shojo googly-eyed softened close-ups of character's faces as they come to realizations about other people's feelings, most of this is pretty uninteresting and has been done previously already, HOWEVER - the manga managed to surprise me about, oh, four times or so, with a few laughs to be had, surprisingly enough. You look at the cover, you know where this story is going to go. The protagonist is all knees and elbows, literally and figuratively knocking into everything like a seven year old, the guy is all aloof towards her and has adorable fox ears. The story is all Fruits Basket with its homeless pretty girl with no family and all of these mystical male characters telling her that she's actually super pretty *gasp* and super special somehow.
HOWEVER - this story is apparently contingent on the protagonist becoming powerful as she learns her own powers and grows to Believe in Herself(tm) and I have a soft spot for this type of trope. Also, I like how in spite of her weakness, she has some real balls and doesn't back down when she gets her mind to it.
I will give this manga one more volume to prove its worth to me, for I do have a sometimes longing for Shojo as long as its lower on the trashy spectrum.
Goddamn shojo,
Intense close-ups of the girl characters with their hair fluttering in the wind and a "I just saw a man naked for the first time" look on their faces for a good 1/5 of the manga - laziness, lack of artist ability or ART? You decide!
