My first manga I have read for this year, I could be naive and say I am reading this to pad out my total books read but genuinely I am reading this to compare the manga to the anime. Last year I read the first 4 volumes and this is the first one I have finished for this year.
I enjoyed the anime very much and it is nice to read the manga, that said I do prefer the anime. There are some subtle differences between both versions.
This fifth volumes follows the scouts from Eren’s Titan reveal and introduction to the Scouts up to the Scouts expeditionary mission and the reveal of a new type of Titan…
This is a book I have read many, many times in the past, its a haunting novella focused around the Japanese tea ceremony and of a man who gets involved with his dead fathers mistress and the shadow of his fathers previous long term mistress hovers over him constantly. A very tragic novella and one where the past weighs heavily on the present.
Despite the bleakness of his works, I have yet to read a Yasunari Kawabata book that I did not like. His books are my gateway to Japanese literature in general. They are ones I come back to yearly especially this one and Snow Country. I do have five of his translated works yet to read, and I should get around to them soon. The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa, The Lake, The Old Capital, The Rainbow and Dandelions. I also want to read The Sound of the Mountain and The Master of Go again, having only read those once.
I notice this book is also newly re-published here (UK) as one of the 90 new Penguin Archive books. All short stories or novellas re-released with a beautiful minimalist new cover.
This makes it 10 books for the year so far, I was tempted to increase my years target to 50 but I think for now I will keep it at 25. I have plans for some longer books which I may get bogged down in.
Something a little different today. A few weeks ago I did a post here about converting an old PS VITA to be an emulator for playing roms of retro consoles like Gameboy Colour etc. It worked well but I had a problem with the charging cable, it being a proprietary cable and not easy to source unlike a USB C or Micro USB cable. I had always been curious about emulators and with my birthday a few weeks ago I treated myself to an emulator. The emulator I purchased was Anbernic RG35XX Plus.
I have been using it for a few weeks now and I love it. It emulates consoles up to PS1 and Nintendo N64, essentially anything before the use of analogue sticks. You can buy emulators that have them but for this first purchase I played it safe. It looks like a classic Gameboy console and has the added bonus of the R1,R2,L1,L2 buttons on the back. It is smaller to a Gameboy original so more like the Colour but chunkier. Very comfortable with the added buttons on the back. The sound is not Dolby Atmos quality but it is a nostalgia hit similar to the Gameboy and retro handhelds. The screen is excellent too and the games look great on it.
In terms of emulators and emulation it is perfect, I am mostly using it for Gameboy Colour, Mega Drive, NES and PS1 games and not had a problem at all. It is very easy to upload and add roms to the memory cards.
You can purchase it online from many retailers but I purchased mine from UK retro console refurbisher and modern emulator seller called Retrolize. What I like about the purchase was it came with a case and the included memory cards were replaced from generic Chinese ones to more reliable SanDisk ones. The price was cheaper than Amazon too, for more product and better cards.
At the moment I am enjoying getting lost (literally) in Pokémon Yellow, its a nice addition to my EDC and with a long trip coming up shortly it along with Kindle will help alleviate boredom.
Jesus wept this book felt a bit of a chore. I thoroughly love this series but this book just felt like a slog and chore to get through. Very card game orientated with the magic and plot and something I am not really into beyond Pokemon cards. Its not that I didn’t like the book, which I did very much. It just felt a drag.
Finishing this means I’m onto the last book (as of writing) and I think it is going to be amazing and full of action. I am happy to be done with this book, it could have been a fair chunk shorter. Despite loving this series I find some of the books have grabbed me more than others. Perhaps this one my least favourite so far and it has felt like forever since I started this book.
I think I will take a little break before I read Book 7.
Valley Reviews 