Posts Tagged ‘est em’
Wow. What a year.
As compared to last year, 2012 was good to me — very good to me.
However, because it was good to me, it also meant it ate my time. Lots of my time. Particularly, my champloo and manga reading time. In terms of my time for this blog, I didn’t fulfill my wonderful spotlight series monthly. Nor did I even continue the columns I wish to continue! I wish I can do more and please don’t blame my tumblr habit. ; 3; It’s easier to reblog than write. My life in tumblr is filled with likes, porn, and tons of reblogs. But yes, in general, I have nothing but my life to blame on why I didn’t get things up to speed. At the very least, I was happy that I managed to host my first MMF quite successfully.
Despite this madness, 2012 was still a great year of manga. Here’s a list of 12 mangas I read in the last year. They’re not necessarily manga released in 2012 but they are all amazing manga that I’ve discovered and love this year. In no particular order, here are my favorite mangas read from last year.
I have this horrible habit of figuring out the lives of people I see when I’m traveling. I love to do this in airports since people hold many stories in such a small space.
A woman walks by, clutching her Berkin bag. Probably a trophy wife of some Asian business magnate and she just arrived from shopping trip in New York. A tall lean guy with long legs, tattered jeans, and a Real Madrid jersey felt like a backpacker on his way home. If he had the hipster glasses, it’s either his boyfriend’s jersey or just something he wore to impress someone.
Sometimes there are people who become alive just by what they wear. A Spanish guy in a plain white shirt and fitted jeans walks to a coffeeshop. He sits cross legged, reading the newspaper he got from the plane, sipping his coffee with such elegance. God knows why my eyes are drawn to him, but in my head, that man must have been a matador once. Or a painter. Probably the hero of an Est Em novel.
Red Blinds the Foolish by Est Em
Serialized in Mellow Mellow and Gekidan
Published by Ohzora Publishing and Deux Press
There was a time when I used to dream of Spanish fiestas. La Tomatina. Hogueras de San Juan. San Isidro de Madrid. Corrida de toros.
And I did not dream of this because my country, the Philippines, used to be a Spanish colony. My fascination with it lies in the romance of the activity. There was something beautiful and romantic with the order that comes with the chaos of a fiesta. I’ve seen bits and parcels of it in my own local fiesta, but that charm extends just as much with the Spanish ones, particularly with the Corrida de toros. I find the power in controlling the bull fascinating.
It is in this same fascination that I ended up reading more through the pages of Est Em’s Red Blinds the Foolish. While I admit that I did grab it first because it was written by Est Em, I didn’t realize that she will drag me into this romantic world of toreros.
Last night, I was thinking about the first thing that I should blog about here in Champloo. I’ve had a couple of hiccups last year and this year, I made a resolve to write more for my blogs than elsewhere.
But what should I write?
Should I write a review?
Or should I talk about some handsome boys?
The idea of talking about handsome boys for the first day of the year excited me and there’s no other book that came to mind other than the collection of handsome boys that caused waves last year, Moedanshigatari.
Read more
I am shameless. Very shameless indeed.
I have been wanting to do this for the longest time but it’s only this afternoon that I actually managed to add some of my favorite mangakas over twitter. I was hesitant at first and added only those that I really really liked. And while I liked them, I realized I started to stalk their lives a little more. The way that Est Em has been wandering around Europe has been inspiring me to travel and Tagro’s crazy antics just… really proves to me on how perverted he can get.
Nonetheless, it’s an interesting glimpse on their minds and if you want to keep up on their projects, it’s nice to see whether they’re wasting their time or hasn’t seen a ray of sunshine. Sometimes, they like to post about their food and it makes me incredibly hungry. Especially Tagro. I honestly read a little of HenZemi, but I like looking at his food posts.
I got the list online from Tanbishugi and am following the following mangakas:
- @zi38 – Miwa Shirow
- @TAGRO – Tagro
- @hikakom – Hikaru Nakamura
- @wakasugi_k – Wakasugi Kiminori
- @est_em – Est Em
- @enneono – Natsume Ono
- @okamarble – Okama
- @korinntonn – Ueda Rinko
- @beef_or_beef – Yamashita Tomoko
- @Takashigee – Shigeyoshi Takagi
- @levizo – Aoi Levin
Naturally most of their tweets will be in Japanese, but for those who can read, it’d be quite interesting to see the lives and preoccupations of your favorite mangas. (And what they’re doing when they’re slacking off!!!)
Guest on 
d4rkn on 
Ash on 
