Chaturday: Just keep swimming

[helloladies]

At the end of every week, we gather at Lady Business HQ to share media thoughts and chat about the recent happenings in our tiny spheres of human experience. Feel free to join in, but note our comment policy if you're new! :D

As always, puns are welcome.

Has everyone got their comforting animal gifs ready?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

"High School Debut" is by the same writer as "My Love Story," and deals with some of the same themes (e.g., finding romance even if you don't conform to the local high school ideal of what an attractive person of your gender is supposed to be like), except with a girl protagonist. The heroine is a tomboyish girl who was the star of her junior high school softball team, but tends not to get noticed by guys because she's clueless about fashion and doesn't act "cute." She manages to persuade the coolest guy in school to help her in her quest to find a boyfriend and achieve the kind of dating/romance experience more often seen in her beloved shoujo manga than in real life, with often hilarious results. The entire twelve- or thirteen-volume series was published by Viz several years ago, and is now being reprinted in two-volumes-combined-into-one omnibuses.

Other possibilities include "Ouran High School Host Club," "Otomen," and "Tramps Like Us." The latter is a josei (young adult women's) series about a high-achieving female journalist frustrated by sexism at work who lets a down-on-his-luck younger guy who reminds her of her childhood pet dog move in with her, then winds up discovering that it's a lot easier to have a relationship with someone who's already seen you with your hair down (both literally and figuratively) than it is with the supposed dream guy you have to constantly strive to impress.

All the volumes of all these have already been released in English. Unfortunately, "Tramps Like Us" was published by TokyoPop, which went out of business five or six years ago. So unless you can find it at a library that still has manga series that finished appearing before 2010 in its collection, it could be pretty difficult to track down. "Ouran High School Host Club" and "Otomen," on the other hand, were both published by Viz more recently. So all the volumes should still be in print and, hopefully, available through the public library.

Marfisa (who only has a Livejournal account)

[forestofglory]

Don't know if you'll see this but thanks. I'm getting put library holds on some of these. (Looks like some libraries in my ILL system have Tramps Like Us but it is checked out and so I can't request it. boo.)

[(Anonymous)]

That's odd. If every copy in the system here is checked out, they just put your request on some kind of waiting list and notify you when the book becomes available. Maybe it's different because I've just been requesting stuff from other branches in Queens, so it's technically not a true interlibrary loan.

Marfisa