Chibi Vampire AKA: Karin

Chibi Vampire other wise known as Karin is the story of an un-vampire.

Karin is a strange young girl not only in the human world where she has the occasional nosebleed and is considered sickly at times; but also in the vampire world where she doesn't bite people to suck their blood, instead she bites people and gives blood. She can also walk around in sunlight, doesn't have the heightened senses a normal vampire does, and can't wipe people's memories as needed after biting someone. All in all, she is strange.

Things seem to run smoothly in the Marker household with Karin going to school and the rest of her family staying up all night, until a transfer student enters the class. Karin finds that her blood level increases quickly and nosebleeds happen more often when ever she is around Kenta Usui. In him she's found her bloods affinity, the type of emotion her body yearns to bite. When they bite a person normal vampires suck that emotion out. So if a person is super stressed and a vampire bit that person they would become stress free for a short period of time. This could be considered helpful and kind of a cool take on vampires. It is a 14 volume series so after she finds out how to cope with Usui, her grandma wakes up, and a new girl comes into town looking for the Markers and a specific vampire in their family.

I think it is a very well thought out and well done story. The overarching plot was interesting and cute, engaging and hysterical at times. I love the family dynamic throughout the series and the ending kind of had me angry. I really liked the epilogue episodes. They satisfied me enough to accept the decision that the writers made. The Marker family was full of fun, intersting characters with their own personality that rounded the family.

If you have enjoyed the anime before you read the manga, that's great. But know that the manga and anime are vastly different. The anime derails from the manga after only a few episodes. Sadly Winner St. Clair makes no appearance in the manga. This fact made me very sad. But the manga is really good and I do recommend it. An oldie but a goodie.

Herding Cats

Herding Cats is a from the "Sarah's Scribbles" collection, a comic series online that I find very funny. Her other books Adulthood is a Myth and Big Mushy Happy Lump and their reviews can be found here. I enjoyed them very much.

Much like her other books, these are full of one page comics about life. Sarah Andersen, I would assume, is an introvert and draws comics about her life as a human being. To me, many of her comics are relatible, not wanting to go outside, introverted-ness, artsy/creative-ish, a love of animals, slightly afraid of other people's children, etc. They are humorous and shed light on topics that are every day for her/us that others might just not get. I find them very accurate.

The particular thing I like about her books though is the writing at the end. In this book, she talks about drawing on the internet and how the internet has changed since she first started her career. She gives advice for young artists, but not only those who use paints or pen tablets. All artists, writers, and creators of any sort who are trying their craft will probably go through the things she discussing, I know I have. Your old stuff is probably crap and that's okay, knowing when to take it to heart and when to throw it in the trash, remember your human and feel things while taking criticism can be hard, you can get away from the interwebs and go outside to hear yourself think instead of getting bombarded by others opinions (that is probably healthy for everyone), and as always "Never give up. Never surrender" (from Galaxy Quest, not Sarah's Scribbles. Check it out anyway; it's a great movie.) keep going, you are doing great and always getting better. Sarah Anderson says more things, but these, I feel, are important.

I just really like her comics and hope she continues drawing.

Letters to a Young Poet

Ten simple letters with quite a bit of wisdom behind them. This is one of the few books that I would here. Please read it.
want to keep sticky notes in so then I could refer back to them later. The whole text can be found online

Rainer Maria Rilke was a poet in the early 20th Century who wrote letters to a fellow poet who went to the same military school he had--though a few years different.

There are many things that happen throughout the course of these letters. They are in response to an inquiry of critique on poetry. We only get one side of the letters, but they are full of inspiration, not only for writers (young and more experienced) but in almost any avenues of life. He asks his reader to look into himself and ask "Must I write?" You can ask yourself, "Must I ______ <insert what you most enjoy doing--reading, math, accounting, look at the stars, etc>?" When faced with that question myself, I found that I didn't need to write. It wasn't a must. Reading, devouring knowledge, is what I must. (This blog has helped that, which is awesome especially considering how much I disliked reading when I was little.) But you can ask yourself, what must you do?

There are many other things which Rilke discusses with his pen pal. Not only suggested books that he says has wisdom in them, but he discusses critiques (not to read them), solitude, the passion of writing, taking on anxieties and sadness, taking on what is difficult whilst in sadness, that your doubts can be a "good quality if you school them."

It seems Mr. Kappas, the pen pal to which Rilke is writing, had some dramatic changes in his life that kept him depressed and Rilke was one of the people who tried to assist and give advice as to how to overcome them. His advice was profound and from what I've been able to see in my own life, very accurate.

Some of my favorite quotes are these:

"The only sorrows which are harmful and bad are those one takes among people in order to drown them out."

"You shouldn't be dismayed if a sadness rises up in front of your, greater than any you have ever seen before; ...Why should you want to exclude from your life all unsettling, all pain, all depression of spirit, when you don't know what work it is these states are performing within you? ... You know well you are in a period of transformation and want nothing more than to be transformed. ... You must be patient as an invalid and trusting as a convalescent, for you are perhaps both. And more than that: you are also the doctor responsible for looking after himself. But with all illnesses there are many days when the doctor can do nothing but wait. And inasfar as you are your own doctor, this is above all is what you must do now."

"And your doubts can become a good quality if you school them. They must grow to be knowledgeable, they must learn to be critical. As soon as they begin to spoil something for you ask them why a thing is ugly, demand hard evidence, test them, and you will perhaps find them at a loss and short of an answer, or perhaps mutinous. But do not give in, request arguments, and act with this kind of attentiveness and consistency every single time, and the day will come when instead of behind demolishers they will be among your best workers--perhaps of all those at work on the building of your life."