Wednesday, 11 April 2012

Bleach character book 1 and 2 - REVIEW!

Bleach Souls (Character book 1)


Bleach Masked (Character book 2)


Hey everyone!
So, the second Bleach character book has just been released in English (yay!) and as with everything related to Bleach, I just had to buy it. This post is going to compare the two books, give some opinions and generally tell you about the books! Enjoy!

Just so you know what kind of Bleach fan it is that's reviewing this, let me say, I'm a BIG fan!!!


Both books are paperback, with a shiny, almost 'metallic' style cover on the colour parts.
They're a little taller than a manga book, and both are thicker! The first book is thicker than the second, I think because it has some comic pages in too, which the second doesn't have.

There's an interview in both, as well as a fold out poster in the start of each. (I say poster, but I doubt anyone would ever actually pull this out!)
The first one has some stickers (again I doubt people like to use these as it would make the book incomplete! haha) and they both have a few coloured pages at the start which are pretty awesome.

Approximately half the colour pages in book 1 are repeats of art found in the All Colour But The Black art book, but the colour pages in book 2 are not in this art book. (Often they seem to be colour versions of chapter title pages from the manga)

Both books provide interesting charts and diagrams on a number of things - I personally think the charts in Book 2 are better as the Espadas and their Fraccions are harder to group together.

The general format of the books is to introduce the characters, give a little profile and some mentions of where they appear in the storyline. This is almost always accompanied with big art ( black and white ) and lots of information around it.
A lot of the information around the characters really are just quite obvious things though, or things I would almost describe as a personal interpretation. So it's interesting but it's sometimes just a description of what happens at a certain time.

So...
BOOK 1

Good points:
- Colour pages are good and well printed
- Interview with Tite Kubo and Ichigo's Japanese voice actor is translated and interesting
- Lots of nice black and white line work arts

Bad points:
- Not a lot of new information (I knew pretty much all of it already from being an avid fan)
- Not all pages are in colour

BOOK 2

Good points:
- Colour pages of pictures never released here in colour
- 'Event' time lines for each of the important characters is very interesting
- Gives good guide into the relationship between the Espadas etc etc
- Kon's 'Let me just say this' is hilarious

Bad points:
- No bonus comics
- Book stops coverage at volume 37 so some information is still labelled "top secret" (like Halibel's number etc)


Over all I think these are worth getting as an interesting reference guide or something to flick through! However, I wouldn't recommend these unless you are a medium to big fan!





My KPop biases




T-ara - Jiyeon

SNSD - Jessica

2NE1 - CL

Who are your biases? ^^

Friday, 6 April 2012

My Countdown of Top Ten T♔ara Songs!

My Countdown of Top Ten Tara Songs!

10
T.T.L. (Time To Love)
A catchy song with great rapping!

9
I Go Crazy Because Of You 
Another great song combining a variety of vocal styles.

8
Apple Is A
A really cute song! I also like the Japanese version.

7
Lies (Dance version)
I love this song! I would like to have the Japanese version too from Roly Poly Japanese single A.

6
Cry Cry
A slightly slower song with a great feel to it!

5
Bo Peep Bo Peep
Soooooo cute! I love this!

4
Lovey Dovey
Super fun and super catchy! Also great to sing to

3
Roly Poly
Love the old fashioned theme around Roly Poly, and this has an awesome dance!

2
I'm Really Hurt
One of my fav T-ara songs of all time, it has a unique feel and great vocals.

1
Like The First Time
Love this! Such a great song, it's my current fav!


So, what is everyone else's favourite T-ara songs? :D

In other T-ara relatedness, I so hope that the group doesn't lose any members. I like T-ara how they are!

PS. Do you have a bias? Mine is Ji Yeon because she has the exact same birthday as me, including the year! 


Tuesday, 3 April 2012

My favourite manga volumes!


Favourite manga volumes




Bleach 36 is my favourite manga volume of all time! I love the backwards time jump, and I think it is a brilliant volume, filled with action, humour and character development. Seeing Tite Kubo's art work progress so much is really great too! If you are a Bleach fan I think this is certainly a good one to own, I read it a lot, along with 37 which finishes the 'Pendulum' arc. I'm really excited for this to come out in the anime.

 (Note: it won't make much sense if you don't start from the beginning however)






The final volume of the great Full Moon! This is a really good Shoujo manga, and the final volume is probably the best one. I really liked collecting this series, especially as it was relatively short to collect. It's also got lovely art work (Arina Tanemura is very talented!) and a great storyline. I am excited to buy the art book!






This is when the story for Tegami Bachi really starts to get going, and it has quickly become one of my favourite mangas. ( Interesting fact: this was given to me as a present from  ❀Owlish Pirate☆ !)
I love Tegami Bachi all the way so far, and I think the art style is very unique. This volume has colour pages, which I wish they had kept in the later ones. 







I very much loved the first Vampire Knight, sadly I began to lose interest in the story around volume 8! But I really enjoyed the first 5 at least, and it is worth buying for the art too! The detail in the hair is really great, so inspiring!

Where to buy: all of these are available on Amazon at the moment.

So there you have some of my favourite ever volumes! What about everyone else? ^^



(Note: All the pics are not owned by me)