Sunday, August 26, 2007

Sunday night book shopping and Love Hina

I was going to write about book shopping today, and I was really hoping I'd have more to say about the actual experience of shopping but unfortunately when I got to Borders tonight it was 20 minutes before closing and I was greeted with "You know what you're looking for, right?" as I walked in the door, which I interpreted as "get what you want and get the f**k out cause we want to go home."

Well I did know what I was looking for- the last two volumes of Love Hina- and they had them and I bought them (along with a new Kare Kano) and went home.

So instead I'm going to talk about the experience of shopping for Love Hina. Love Hina is the first Japanese manga series I've read; I picked up the second volume first, because I found it remaindered at a bookstore in my town, because I figured out right away that I didn't want to pay full price for what I knew was going to be a fluffy reading experience spanning 14 books. Cause I'm just cheap that way. So I started with #2, thought it was hilarious and picked up #1. Then I started looking around for the rest of the books as cheaply as I could. I found a few through the book swapping site I use, a few more remaindered, a few more through Bookfinder, and tonight I got the last two, which I had to buy new because they were impossible to get cheaply any other way. I know, Amazon has some used, but you can't use the free shipping on them if you buy them used and I make a point never to pay for shipping through Amazon, I don't care if Hell freezes over before I get my books I'm not going to pay shipping. Again, cause I'm cheap that way.

So I feel a little like a era is coming to an end. I don't know if I'm going to do a formal review on Love Hina- it doesn't seem worth the effort- but it's been a fun experience reading it. (If someone comments asking me to review it I will though). I know there are people who hate it with a passion and I understand that. But I really like it. Oh yeah, #10 sucked. And the T&A content is truly astounding sometimes- and I'm told it's not even that bad for shonen. And I think I like shojo manga better. But there is something about Love Hina. Sigh! Poor lovable loser Keitaro- will he ever get the girl? It's like the stupidest soap opera ever- it makes Beverly Hills 90210 look like Masterpiece Theatre. But then I've read shojo that makes Love Hina look like Masterpiece Theatre. Absolute Boyfriend, anyone? There is definitely something irresistible about Love Hina, whatever the flaws. It's good trashy fun, and it's sweet and funny and dumb-in-a-good-way.

I'm diving into the last three volumes starting tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Oh, and if any of my readers are on Bookmooch and you want to read Love Hina, as soon as I'm done with the series I'm going to be putting all of them up for trading, except #1 and #14, so keep an eye out. My Bookmooch username is mariekat FYI.

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