Brain... where's my brain...??

Glancing through my f-list earlier today, I happened to see umadoshi's post mention Hoshi wa Utau and realised I haven't bothered trying reading that series after a couple of failed attempts when it first started. The first time it didn't grab me much, and the second time I couldn't get the oomph up to bother reading it. So, this time, I DLed as many raw scans as I could find and went with online scanlations for the chapters I couldn't. And yes, I read all 31 chapters + the special. @_@;;

Sadly, I had to read scanlations from ch 12-16 as I couldn't find raws during my brief hunt. My general reaction was as follows:


1-2 fun ending for the first chapter and neat little lure, but
3-7ish things get weirdly confuzzled presumably in an attempt to further the mystery, but I found it more annoying
8-16ish some interesting bits, some annoying bits. Not really caring for the characters as much as I'd want for a manga series; they're too... lacking in depth maybe?
17-20 hmm, things are getting interesting here?
21-28 never mind, apparently I was mistaken. It has interesting bits but it's also decidedly annoying at times
29-31 You did what? ......

Granted there's a lot more happening in the story than can really be described in this manner, and certainly I blitz read through everything very quickly, but... Over all, my reaction has swung from 'this is getting interesting' to 'oh, come on, you've got to be kidding *gag*'.

There are some questions that came very quickly to mind including why was Chihiro carrying that present in the first place, who was the girl in his flashbacks all the time that he was overlapping with Saku, what's with Saku's MIL bothering to see her like that, and what's with Kanade (who is he, one more year, etc.). Earlier parts I found too forced and as things started to develop more, it became an issue of 'what, everyone's either psycho, or from broken families etc. etc??'


Quite frankly, despite having given it a decent shot this time round in terms of reading a fair amount, I doubt the latest developments are enough to get me to bother reading it in HtY when we get our copy here. I *might*, but... I sure wouldn't bet on it. The good thing about reading through it as much as I have? I can finally say I truly gave it a shot and that it's definitely not for me. *nods*

That said, I'm looking forward to Mar 3 when Cobalt's March books come out. One book mentioned in their newsletter was a bit too odd, so I want to read the preview once it's out. :P I'm hoping my brain short-circuited or something and I misread things. ^^;

Tomorrow's reading: Kuroshitsuji vol 1-6... Well, I guess it's good to start looking around in the world again. :P