All In

Whenever I get into a new franchise, I have to go ALL IN.

I don’t feel like I’m getting a well-rounded understanding of a series unless I know everything about it from every medium that it is available in.

Crazy Rich Asians? Read all the books just in time for the blockbuster film.

Shadow & Bone? I made sure to add the entire Grishverse to my collection when I heard that they were making it into a Netflix original. I was a huge fan of Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, so it was totally appropriate.

Harry Potter? Read it a million times. Seen it a million times. Was even lucky enough to see the play. It’s still never enough.

What? There are comics collections that further immerse me into the worlds of Steven Universe, Over the Garden Wall, Bee and Puppycat, and beyond? I hope I have room on my shelf.

“Another Junji Ito manga?” – My partner.
“I WANT TO READ THEM ALL!” – Me

I’ve seen and read all of the Japanese Ringu and I’m a huuuuuge fan of the American versions, too. Naomi Watts, you’re still my favorite scream queen.

Battle Royale? Novel, film… now I must read the manga.

Currently attacking American Gods, as you already know from my previous post, in which I whined for the entire 20-minute time allotment about how I could barely force myself to put in the time to work on my blog or doodle. I’m up to Anasi Boys… Then the graphic novels… then the television show…

Don’t get my started on His Dark Materials. I’ve read them all (so far… waiting to see how Lyra and Pantalaimon fair in that third novel in the second set of the trilogy!) 😭

My sister told me that she was going to see the Demon Slayer movie with her friends, and I couldn’t stand the idea of being so far behind on all my franchises. I have been so far behind on television shows and books and films and graphic novels because my partner always wants to watch everything together! Some things just need to be power watched otherwise you’ll drown in the lists and you’ll run into your friends are being out-of-touch for a long time and they’ll be like, “OMG! You’ve never seen/read/heard of ______” and as someone who likes to know everything, this causes me physical pains.

I’m not usually a huge fan of action anime, but I am a sucker for fantasy, kawaii female characters, glamorous special effects, and multimedia art direction. These next few weeks are going to be hellish, of my own choice, because of applying to grad school, visiting my friends down in Florida, getting off my butt to spring clean (I just decided that I want to do this,) exercising until I can fit into my pre-quarantine clothing, and practicing, practicing, practicing.

Reading, writing, language, guitar, drawing… Nonstop practice and discipline until I have the kind of strive that keeps Tillie Walden publishing the graphic novels that I love so so much.

Yes, I’m pretty sure I have them all. And her tarot card pack… 🙂

Okay, I get it. I get obsessive over things.

The best part is meeting someone who is so obsessed that you can gab about how much you love a series together, who your favorite characters are, and show each other up by interpreting symbolism, or one-upping each other about facts.

Or introducing a new franchise to someone and have them fall in love with it, even when they never expected to get sucked in.

Ahem… Degrassi, for example. 😉

Demon Slayer is different, because I was trying to meet a very strict deadline that I set for myself: see the movie on Sunday while it’s playing in theaters, before you have to start working on the missing components of your grad school applications and pack for Florida and do a million chores so the apartment will be nice when you return and spend a lot of time with the cats because they are probably going to miss you and spend a lot of time with my partner because he is probably going to miss me too and buy a bunch of nice goodies for the people that I am visiting and exercise and eat properly and keep up that damn practicing…

I digress…

The second dose of my Covid vaccine was last Thursday, and with enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that the second dose was going to do me in a bit, I made a plan to have “sick days” on Friday and Saturday, when I would fully binge watch all 26 episodes of the first season of Demon Slayer.

As a half-joke, my partner even asked if I was going to try and fit the manga in before the 2pm showtime.

Would if I could, my love.

Somehow, I managed to do this all the while pretending that my second dose wasn’t actually as bad as everyone else made it seem.

Not going to lie, it really wasn’t as bad as the experiences that my friends told me…

The muscle fatigue is what got me.

Your gal, however, didn’t feel any other symptoms, and the fatigue came at night after many hours of watching adorable Tanjiro train and decapitate a number of demons with equally as complicated backstories.

And I loves me a complicated backstory.

Take a break to put in 13 hours of Demon Slayer (so good) and then watch the movie in theaters, if you feel safe and healthy enough. You can wear your mask the whole time!

Now… onto the manga. 😹