Fresh news (with a 6-day delay): Glass Mask's resurrection!

Oh My God.

I wonder if those guys in the New Testament who met Jesus after he resurrected were as shocked and excited as I am right now. After all, they only had to wait 3 days.
I (we) had to wait 4 years, for God's sake!

Glass Mask is out in Hana to Yume magazine again!
18 pages of Volume 50 are out in Japan!

I knew I could count on you, Miuchi sensei. You couldn't betray us, right?
Good things come to those who wait...

Okay I'm going to have a good dinner tonight because this cannot go without a proper celebration.

If anyone can read Japanese, and wants to read just a review of the mentioned 18 pages, head here (a manga blog by Hebitaro-san).

Hallelujah!

The Season of the Daffodils - Candy Candy fanfic

The Season of the Daffodils is a fan fiction of Candy Candy written by Josephine Hymes.

I read it after I read the manga (I had watched the anime long before), which had revived my annoyance at the ending. I needed any writing that could provide me with a satisfactory "after story", and for a while I entertained myself with writing my own fan fiction. However, I have to admit that I'm worse at writing fan fiction than I am at original stories, so I gave up midway. It was by chance that I googled and found The Season of the Daffodils. Back then, it felt as a healing oasis, and now that I speed-read the whole thing again, it felt like visiting an old friend.

As the writers say, it truly is a "prosaic love tale full of clichés", and perhaps there are details in characterization that don't agree with my perception of the characters (especially Terrence), but over all I believe it was a very well written story that provided me with a chance to detox the accumulated stress from the ending of the original story.

If you watched Candy Candy in your childhood and were depressed, or want a good read about what happened afterwards - 40 years since the publication of the first manga volume - then go ahead to this link, and enjoy the story!

Fan art by Rosemary555

Forecast for Glass Mask Vol. 50

Many people know that I am a manga fanatic (in other words, otaku), but not everybody knows what manga I read. Well, that is not so much of an essential information so I will abridge the list, but I'd like to share that one of my top 5 is Glass Mask (Garasu no Kamen) by Suzue Miuchi.

This manga has been going on since 1976, and has reached till volume 49 so far. The problem is (and it's not like I am criticizing the mangaka, because that is not my style) that Miuchi sensei tends to stop writing the manga sometimes. For instance, apparently there was a 6 year gap between the 41st and 42nd volume, and so far I've been waiting for vol. 50 for more than 1 year. Yeah kind of tragic.

For some reason I felt like rereading some of my favorite parts in the manga these past days, and was inspired to write a mini fan-fic about at least the beginning of vol. 50. I wish I could draw it out, but well.

***THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS, DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ UP TO VOL.49***