Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Vampires are the New Crocs

Vampires. I feel sad that I will now forever associate the word with a book that shall not be named. My childhood's screaming at me. Vampires are no longer presented as pure blood lusting creatures of the night, with an appearance cursed by God's almighty foot. No, they're now fancy Frenchmen and a five year old's craft projects.

"This is the last time I get wasted in the morgue."
The only thing that comforts me are the parodies. And okay, I don't mind so much that authors have written them as attractive people with 'otherworldly beauty'. But they've added so much high school level drama, which doesn't make any sense because these vampires are supposedly 145 years old, give or take a few decades. Makes me want to slap all the teenagers (and middle aged ladies) tattooing themselves with their favorite quotes they found on Facebook and scream, "You! This all your fault!" But hey, that's what teenagers love and I don't blame the writers for wanting to rake in some cash to pay the rent (and buy a mansion or two).

Saturday, September 22, 2012

BL and Shoujo are like Ketchup and Jam

They don't really go well together. I wouldn't know though. I've never had ketchup and jam together on anything. It's like a forbidden union between vegetable and fruit (though tomato is also a fruit).

Okay, BL (or boys' love) and Shoujo are like ketchup and a piece of bread when you're trying to make a sandwich. You've got to have some good stuff in between to make that shit work. And some authors try to sneak a hot dog in between some buns. I'm not talking about men bumping genitalia in shoujo either. That's when you know the manga's clearly mislabeled.

But usually when the author tries to write BL in Shoujo, I find the comic falls into three categories:
  • To give a character a fucked up past.
  • To write an absurd fucked up plot.
  • Lawl, there are no female love interests in here. And if there are, they stand no chance.
In my history of reading manga, I've only read one manga that blends BL and Shoujo well. When an author pulls it off, it's like drinking coffee without worrying about the jitters later. Or that somebody laced it with crack.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Tomo's Scary Story! (WTF Shojo One-shot)

(Cree, you have no idea how much this pleases me. Fucking Shojo is live. It is real. My inner nerd has just wet herself in joy. My face Cree. If only you could have seen it when I saw your post <3)

(PS. May this blog last longer than our LJs… xD)

Hello all!

Sylphalchemist here! I’m the second blogger on Fucking Shojo! 8D I will from time to time post about random wtf shojos I have encountered during my incredibly slow and frustrating journey TO LEARN JAPANESE! My contributions will usually be in the form of one-shots I’ve read that made me look up from my magazines in surprise and go, wtf is this shit!? щ(ಠ益ಠщ) What kind of life lessons is this manga-ka trying to teach the young girls of Japan!?

My dog: ಠ_ಠ *stares at me as if saying stfu and let me sleep*

I’ve read a lot of random ass oneshots as my friend Cree here will attest to. From boyfriends that move back into the apartment their dead girlfriends were murdered in (and think nothing wrong of that) to girls trapped in a time loop where every day is the same day until they're suddenly attacked by hairballs in Forever 21 designer vests to even crazy orphans who hang their friend’s corpse from a tree and walk off into the sunset singing while wearing the clothes said friend was murdered in, you’d think I’d have seen it all. But no. This is why I love reading shojo  – there’s always another one out there that’ll make you go wtf!? (especially the Korean ones)

My pathetic introductions done, it’s time we focus on the main topic of this blog – wtf shojos. My post will feature the one-shot Tomo no Kowai-Hanashi (友のこわいはなし) or "Tomo’s Scary Story" found in the September issue of "The Hana to Yume."


Now, you’d think with a title such as “Tomo’s Scary Story,” the main premise would be about a spooooooooooooky Halloween themed story aimed at audiences under 7. In fact, most would think ain’t nothing wtf gonna happen in this shojo. And also look at the cover page. What is scary about that? It’s just two chicks clinging to each other in their nighties. Because that’s totally what my friends and I do when we sleepover at each others house. Nothing could go wrong, right?

Right?

ಠ_ಠ

The one-shot starts with the following sentence:

“Tomo…do you know about ‘the man underneath the bed?’”

And I should have stopped there.

This is Tomo. Our protagonist. Yeah, she's got some man hands going on but don't let them fool you. You can always tell a shojo heroine by the amount of space her eyes take up on her face :)

Tomo looks at her friend like she just shot a baby out of her mouth. The hell you talking about, best friend? ಠ_ಠ Seeing as they have time to kill before class starts, the friend tells Tomo the story behind “the man underneath the bed.” Whooooooooooo. The tale starts with two students. One left something of his at the other’s place and went to retrieve said item. I guess his friend must not believe in locking his doors because the boy goes right in without any problems (and I guess the boy himself doesn’t believe in knocking on the front door to gain entrance to his friend’s place because…why knock when the door is unlocked?). Turns out his friend had retired early for the evening so it’s all dark inside the apartment. The boy thinks to turn the lights on before he looks for his forgotten goods but decides not to because he doesn’t want to risk waking his friend (if I were that friend, I’d rather this guy turn the lights on and alert me to his presence rather than me rolling over and opening my eyes to find someone scuttling around in my fucking room). The boy finds his shit – pencil, porn, graham crackers, whatever it was that was so important he snuck into his friend’s place to get – and leaves. The next day he hears his friend was murdered (wtf ( ՞ਊ՞)). Found on the friend’s bedroom wall, written in his blood, were the words: “Thanks for not turning on the light.”


Turns out there was a psycho underneath the friend’s bed who I guess got in because THE FRIEND DOESN’T BELIEVE IN LOCKING HIS DAMN DOORS AT NIGHT and had been there when ol’ boy entered his friend’s place. Had the boy turned the lights on, he’d have seen the psycho because the psycho is like 2 feet longer than the bed or something stupid. Really, unless this guy was like, a fucking fat triangle and didn’t know how to bend his limbs, I don’t know how turning on the light would have caused the boy to see him. I can barely see anything under my own bed with the lights on.



*goes to check underneath my bed*

*fucking shojo*

Needless to say, Tomo pretty much shits herself in class. Her friend – Sayoko – laughs at her friend’s reaction. This is when Tomo starts to fangirl about how awesome Sayoko is. They met on the first day of college, when Tomo stopped to examine a blister she got from wearing her fuck me pumps (…who wears HEELS on the first day of class!?). Sayoko gave her a Band-Aid…but that’s not all she gave. She also gave Tomo the Neosporin of friendship (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚ Since then, Tomo has been in hog heaven hanging with her super cool awesome chocolate sauce topped friend. Ain’t nothing going to ruin their friendship! Specially not that stupid story from the beginning of this one-shot! That’s irrelevant!

One day, Tomo is chillin in the streets when she bumps into Sayoko and some chick. Turns out the two are getting some drinks for Sayoko to down because she broke up with her boyfriend. When the other chick invites Tomo to join them, Sayoko explodes and tells the other chick that info she just blabbed was supposed to be kept between them.


Tomo: :(

Tomo is not a happy camper. Why would her super cool awesome chocolate sauce topped friend hide something this important from her? AREN’T THEY LIKE BFFs!?

Well, thankfully Tomo doesn’t dwell on the situation too long because she has the attention span of a turd. When she hears that Sayoko was cheated on by her man, she gets all levels of pissed. In her head, she thinks, damn, I’d shank that manslut for making my friend sad if I ever found him in a dark alleyway! She’s like…super cool awesome chocolate sauce topped! How do you cheat on chocolate!?

We time skip to the evening. The drinkfest over, Tomo and Sayoko head out from that chick’s house. However, Tomo suddenly realizes she forgot her phone and returns back to whatsherface’s place. She heads back and goes into the apartment (because that chick apparently doesn’t believe in locking her doors…). I didn't notice this the first time but apparently Tomo's phone somehow literally flies across the room and skids underneath the chick’s bed. The chick herself is asleep in the bed but she hasn’t woken up because 1.) Tomo hasn’t turned on the lights and 2.) she’s passed out drunk. That’s when Tomo’s mind decides to be a jackass and remind her of the “man underneath the bed” story. Determined to prove her brain otherwise, she looks under the bed and finds this:


ヽ(๏∀๏ )ノ

…wtf!?

Needless to say, Tomo’s ass is outta that apartment. She turns into Sonic the Hedgehog and fucking floors it. She passes Sayoko at the apartment’s door but keeps on going. It’s every bitch for herself.

(wow…way to not even save that chick's or Sayoko’s ass, girl!)

I’m not sure how it’s possible but the next panel shows Tomo and Sayoko are outside together despite the fact Tomo left Sayoko in her dust to deal with the dude under the bed . They’re in a park I believe. Kind of hard to tell. Basically, they’re in a desolate isolated area. Where screams cannot be heard…

Sayoko is trying to get Tomo to tell her what’s up but all Tomo can get out is OAUTAOJGVIUAHT;AJKHATOIJATGHAGH!!!! After blabbering for several moment, Tomo suddenly has a grasp on her English...er, Japanese again and asks for Sayoko’s phone (for she dropped hers in her haste to get her sweet ass outta the apartment). Then she starts to explain what is freaking her out as she claws at Sayoko’s bag for Sayoko’s phone – basically, there was a dude under whatsherface’s bed and they need to call the cops now because THERE’S A DUDE UNDER HER FUCKING BED! (like how it never crosses Tomo’s mind that she left her friend in a room with a strange man underneath her bed…) Sayoko doesn’t see the urgency. Rather, instead of joining the freak out, she tells Tomo to calm her tits.

Tomo: LIKE HELL I WILL! NOW GIVE ME THAT PHONE!

Again, Sayoko tells Tomo to calm down. It’s just her boyfriend down there.

( ꒪Д꒪)ノ what?

Geezus, Tomo. It's just my boyfriend sleeping underneath the bed of my female friend. What's so wrong about that?

See, it turns out that earlier, Sayoko followed her bf to whatsherface’s house and began to strangle him.

( ꒪Д꒪)ノ what?

In the midst of cutting off his oxygen supply, she tells him not to leave her ~ He dies but in Sayoko's mind he just fell asleep so she decided to let him nap under what'sherface's bed because she's crazy. Which would have been all good except for the fact Tomo found him…

Tomo – oblivious to her predicament – realizes Sayoko wanted to get whatsherface alone…thus the shit fit when whatsherface invited Tomo along. But what was Sayoko planning on doing once the two were alone? (・<>・) (really? You’re going to ask that when your friend just confessed to strangling her boyfriend and hiding his body under his new woman’s bed!?).
 
The rapist smile...you know shit's about to hit the fan when the rapist smile makes its appearance

Sayoko smiles and kicks Tomo in the chest. Then she pulls out a hatchet. Welp, bitch. I think you have bigger problems to worry about than whatsherface. Sayoko asks Tomo why she looked under the bed. Tomo responds that she bumped her phone (bumped!? Lady, that think FLEW) because it was dark and the phone went under the bed.

As Tomo stares at her friend, she thinks: “Sayoko…meeting you brought great joy to my life.”

Too bad she’s about to kill you. Really, Tomo? I think screaming and moving your ass outta there is probably a better strategic move than sitting on the ground and remembering about the good ol’ days you had with your murderer friend!

The story ends with Sayoko bringing her hatchet down on the paralyzed Tomo.



“Had you turned on the lights, you would have lived.”


THE END!

Anddddd, yeah...that's it. Not sure what the life lesson I was supposed to get out of this oneshot. Must have missed it because I was too busy going WTF!?

Seriously, ◉◞◟◉‵) the fuq did I just read?

Fucking shojo xD

Models are people too. They just entice more peeping. (Oh gawd, my lame notevenapuns are a curse.)

I admit I'm shallow. I even have the saying, "If he ain't cute, he get the boot." Though to my credit, I'm not as shallow as I used to be. I'm starting to see people for their inner beauty, and realizing I'm aging at an alarming rate--but mostly for the inner beauty.

When it comes manga though, it better have some damn awesome art. Or at least tolerable art with damn awesome writing.

But I'm a "what the fuck" aficionado. And thus, my standards change sporadically. Sometimes, I like forcing myself to read, "Oh mah gawd, I love you even though we met five seconds ago when you saved me from falling into a train track," and "Okay, because you're the splitting image of my dead lover."

It's like doing homework. For entertainment. But not learning anything besides new ways I can lower my I.Q.

So here's to okay art and weird writing.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Fucking Shoujo Launches!

Hi there, fellow Shoujo reader! It has taken many years of ranting about all the crap Shoujo has to offer for my best friend to finally say, "Cree, you're fucking hilarious. Why don't you go blog it? [And STFU while you're at it.]" To which I said, "Haha, we should make a list of Shoujo then. TOGETHER."

And if I could see my dear friend's face then, I'd picture it would be a mixture of finding out you fathered (or in this case mothered) a one-legged horse and owning glue factory. What's a horse going to do with glue other than be stuck with it? (Terrible pun, I apologize.)

Anyway, allow me and my friend (who may or may not post some entries) to help wade through the crap with this blessed little blog facepalm'd into existence. Whether you're frustrated or curious (or some other feeling too strong to comprehend with mere adjectives), I do hope these entries amuse you almost as much as it pains me to create.

Without further ado, I will start off with the Shoujo responsible for it all, Steel Rose.