Couldn't find a Comic Blade: Aria, Fairial Garden

(tags manga, magazine, Japan, Fairial Garden, failure)

I forgot to get the latest Monthly Comic Blade issue (2008-04), which has the latest episode of Fairial Garden. Woops. I checked today (after its been on the stands for two weeks) but it seems to be sold out at all the shops. Why?

(Monthly Comic Blade 2008-04)

According to a user review at Amazon and of course the front cover, it's the last episode for Aria. I don't follow Aria, but any manga that gets a third season anime TV series must be a cash cow.

I'm going to go to the less trafficked stores during the weekend. I hope there'll be a copy for me.

Buy confident: Fairial Garden

(tags manga, character goods, Fairial Garden, magazine)

Fairial Garden (FG) has got a hold on me. I've been looking for FG stuff on the net. I even prepped a RSS feed on the search words at Yahoo Auction JP (keyword: 「フェアリアル ガーデン」), which currently returns nothing. Only a few weeks back did I spot this in Den Den Town:

It's Comic Blade (bishoujo) and Comic Blade Avarus (boys life) magazine's informal tribute to Comic Market 73 (Winter 2007). It comes with a flimsy cloth bag and I paid too much for the set. :-/ FG's Claire graces the cover in a Santa outfit. Unfortunately Sakurano's illustrations only gets the cover and one page.

I assume this is supposed to be a blending of FG and a neko theme. Notice there are only cat ears, not the regular ears. Four ears looks strange?

I really wanted to read the next episode of this story. But I didn't know what episode was available in the current Comic Blade. I contemplated buying a back issue at one local used book store, but they didn't have it. So I took a chance and bought the 2008-02 (January) monthly issue.

Yokatta. Lucky for me it is the next episode, so there are no story breaks. Here I am cutting up the thick magazine so I save the manga that I want to keep.

I also clipped some seperate color illustrations and ads. The right most clipping shows a pink-themed illustration, nice. The original illustration is a green background on the manga. The middle clipping shows a raffle telephone card for 20 winners. Argh, want.

BTW, the issue held the last manga episode of Akazukin. I don't follow it, though. I did try to get into the DVDs because of the POP illustrations. With this issue, I just clipped the color parts. Talk about levelled up armor, the antithesis of kawaii. Heh.

Comic Blade is a monthly magazine that distributes every 30th. So next time I go out I'm gonna pick it up and clip it.

A fairy weekend: Fairial Garden, Bottle Fairy

(tags manga, kawaii, moe, Fairial Garden, anime, Bottle Fairy)

On Friday evening returning home, I spotted this kawaii manga called Fairial Garden by Minene Sakurano (桜野みねね). I wasn't expecting it at all. The images at the back sold me even though I couldn't tachiyomi. I even bought it at a place where I never buy manga. Strangely impulsive, this one.

When I got home I read it from cover to cover. On Saturday I read it again cover to cover. And Sunday morning I read it again one more time. I must really like the drawing style here. It reminds me of A Little Snow Fairy Sugar but with more moeness. I would like to call it kenzen but one of the male sub characters has a cosplay fetish, and Sakurano does not disappoint (muhaha) "Dance with the one you came with" I suppose. Otaroad Senaka Blog post 桜野みねねさん作 フェアリアルガーデン1巻発売 「妖精の女の子とドキドキ共同生活！？」 covers this release as well with some reviews and images. When Otaroad covers a manga you know its for the otaku set.

Okay, the story kinda bites, though. The fairy, Claire, can't talk a lot except for a few emotionally loaded phrases like okaeri, iya, and arigatou, having just been born. She can transform into three different size (no explanation). Noa, who brought home the flower which sprouted Claire, has some grief and coping issues with losing a rare pet to his parents' scientific whims. So the story is about how he returns to being an emotional and trusting person, I suppose. However, the character development shines, because I am rooting for him to get back to feeling again. The whole sequence about teaching Claire to say "arigatou" was endearing. I can't wait until the next volume comes out, in what 6 months? :-(

I don't recall who manga artist Minene Sakurano is, but the ever convenient Wikipedia mentions she was responsible for long running manga and anime まもって守護月天! (Guardian Angel Getten). Not that I know of it, huh. Wait a minute. After reading the description of GAG, I see that this FG has many similar elements such as "strange girl", "lost mother", and "science parent". Maybe I should look into GAG as well? Then again I'm thinking that Sakurano may not be good at storytelling.

And the other fairy thing this weekend was my purchase of the U.S. English version of Bottle Fairy (瓶詰妖精) the DVD series. Puki puki payo. I'm now reviewing this series in voiced English, which is pretty decent. I forgot the entire content and even the names of the fairies but I love watching it again this time. I acutally LOL, jeez. I want to remember the Japanese holidays through memory association with Bottle Fairy, but despite the absurdity of the plot, it just does not stick in my mind.