Yukio Mishima's Sea of Fertility Tetralogy

 

Using my downtime over the last month's holiday breaks, I finally completed The Sea of Fertility by Yukio Mishima. Certainly, it was a time well spent before inevitably returning to my real-life obligation.

Mishima is often regarded as one of the most prominent postwar Japanese writers, and The Sea of Fertility stands as his undisputed magnum opus. Comprising Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and The Decay of the Angel, the tetralogy serves as a vessel for the ideas he cultivated throughout his life; questions of meaning, free will, beauty, and death, all anchored by the central theme of impermanence.

Legend of Galactic Heroes Novel

 Finally managed to get the LOGH novel into my collection which i had already planned even since a western publisher picked the series up. Legend of Galactic Heroes still remain the best anime i have ever watched and i am doing what i can to support this Masterpiece. I recall the Novel had around 10 Volumes and so my collection is still halfway to go, the publisher is working up to 8th Volume now and i hope they will commit till the end. I think each volume of the Novel worth about 10-15 episodes of the original OVA. For now i have just finished the first volume which roughly cover until the conclusion of Amlitzer/Amritsar battle. Compared to the Novel, i think the OVA fleshes out more at some aspects for instance the OVA expands on the Schenkopp Recruitment and the Iserlohn Capture part. Reading the novel makes me appreciate the OVA even better since they perfected the novel which has been really good already. Anyway i think i will enjoy my experience reading through the novel.

Muv-luv Integral Works

Should have posted this when i finished Alternative but seeing the recent kickstarter attempt by Age to bring Muvluv series to the west makes me kinda want to write a post about this. While now i still hate the series since it was ruined by fanservice and ultranationalist pandering, but i do still like mecha designs which are the best part of the series in my opinion. The series do have the artbook specifically for the TSFs called Integral Works which contained most of the TSF designs, personally i find Ni0 did good job on designing the mecha for the series. The book has been out for a long time already and cost around 4000 Yen, would have got one if i could find cheap copy though prolly i will save the opportunity till i went to Japan. Probably i have said this many times but Muvluv as series went well till Alternative even though it is not the most original thing ever. But afterwards the series just went downhill went it goes tryhard route and things gets rather derpy and adding balloon tits along with "Japan is the Master Race" attitude just make things even worse. Nevertheless i will still collect the Volks A3 and the Koto kits

Supersylph Yukikaze

I watched the OVA years ago which is beautifully animated though rather hard to follow and afterward i decided to get the Novels which have 2 volumes translated so far as i heard good things about them. Took me a year actually to get to read the novel but certainly this novel is well written one. The setting is your basic Humanity against Alien but what makes Yukikaze unique is the design of the Alien themselves which are called JAM in this series. Unlike most Aliens, design JAMs are not vicious looking creature like Zergs or Tyranids but instead in the novel they are deoicted as rather enigmatic beings, While Humanities managed to fight a stalemate fight with JAMs it appears that the Aliens are much sinister than they appear to be which is why they are rather appealing. Just like the OVA, Yukikaze focus on relationship between Rei Fukai and his seemingly sentient plane Yukikaze herself which feels like a romance between human and machine.

The first book is rather episodic roughly about Rei's daily life on Faery, the planet where the war with JAMs are being waged on and then the 2nd book takes up on the pace where one of the JAMs sinister plan begin to take place. For this series i wouldn't say it is appropriate to compare which works is superior but the Novel and the OVA goes hand in hand where the Novel served as the the foundation for the series and the OVA complements it. I heard there is 3rd book from the series which is untranslated yet but i hipe it will be translated one day

The Story of Philosophy

Seems like a totally random post for a rarely updated mecha blog but i can assure that i don't post this on a whim. Reading almost 700 pages book is quite a chore compared to reading manga but i managed to do it and learned something from this book. Will Durant's Story of Philosophy is really good gateway to western philosophy as it introduces several people who changed the shaped Western world with their ideas and thoughts. I had to appreciate Will Durant for his effort to bother analyzing lots of the Western Philosopher idea and summarize all of them to be still palatable while not overriding the original content. From the book, i am made to be interested in Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's ideas which i will try to get their works to read but i guess i am going to get Plato's Republic along the way. However i find the British Philosopher's thoughts like Herbert Spencer and Francis Bacon is rather hard to be digested in my thought and probably need to give them another go. If you want to get into the ideas of Western Philosophy and have no idea where to start, this book is a good choice to go. I wonder if there is similar book like this for Chinese Philosophy which are another interesting field which probably i need to learn Mandarin to savor their works. Lastly i think i will also have a look at the Story of Civilization which is the least thing i can do as a tribute for this Author.

The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks

If you have read Zombie Survival Guide or World War Z  by Max Brooks, you might be interested with this book. Recorded Attacks are graphic novel which contain short stories of the Zombie outbreaks based on the Zombie Survival Guide stories which cover the fictional recorded attacks from Stone Age until the present time. This book served as a supplemental material for the Zombie Survival Guide since it doesn't cover all of the recorded attacks in original novel. The Graphic Novel adapt the story from the Survival Guide faithfully and each stories are around 10 pages. Probably the Roman Legion chapter is my personal favorite though i wish the recorded attack of the Gangwars or the Zombie Hunter was covered in this book.

Valkryries Second Sortie preview

About 20 screenshots of the artbook's illustration

Valkyries Second Sortie and FSS Manga GET!

Just got the copy of the artbook and manga yesterday from HLJ. I had read both of them and they are worth to get. The FSS reboot manga is pretty much the reissue of the old volume and i haven't seen any difference so far. If you had the old volume perhaps you don't need to get this one. As for the Artbook the content are great though the size of the artbook is small for its given prize. Probably i will give some preview about the artbook if i had a spare time.

FSS Designs 3: Kalamity Godders

A great collection for FSS fans

Tenjin Hidetaka Valkyries Second Sortie

5 years after the first book, Tenjin Hidetaka released another book for his Macross artworks. It will be released on Japan next month on 19th with the price of 3600 Yen. The book will have about 110 pages which is kinda thin for an artbook for this price. But this is definitely one of the holy grail for the Macross fans since the artwork quality will be really amazing for sure. Wonder if the book will contain the new artwork only or had some of the older one, I will get this one for sure if it is available on HLJ or Amiami or Hobbysearch.

Tenjin Hidetaka Valkyries

Well this one of my favorite artbook out there and planning to get it someday. The illustrations are really beautifully drawn and some of the artworks even become the BoxArt for Hasegawa Macross kits which are really good as well. Too bad the price is pretty expensive(4000 Yen) for its kind considering artbooks usually cost around 2000 to 3000 Yen and the book only has 136 pages. You can find the scans for the book if you are interested by googling since it is pretty easy to get one as well and the quality is much better than most artbooks.