August 2021 - deus ex magical girl

‘Creamy Mami’ on Amazon Prime

Long-time readers know I have a “no pirating” rule, so a lot of classic anime has been closed to me. Some years ago, it came to my attention that a fan-funded DVD of the classic Magical Angel Creamy Mami had been released. Alas, I missed the window of opportunity to purchase it, so this title quickly sank back into unavailability.

I recently discovered that it has cropped up on Amazon Prime Video. This was likely announced somewhere, but I missed it. I am reminded of the odd event from some years ago in which the long-lost Harmony Gold localization of Minky Momo quietly and mysteriously appeared on Amazon streaming and then disappeared again just as mysteriously and quietly. Some other magical girls, such as Lyrical Nanoha, have also disappeared from Amazon without explanation.

That being said, I think it’s a good idea to watch Creamy Mami while it’s available. There’s no telling when it might not be.

Magical Angel Creamy Mami is probably the most famous and best-loved magical-girl title from the Studio Pierrot era. It was the first “mixed-media” magical-girl franchise and introduced the concept of the “magical girl idol,” the heroine who lives a double life as both an ordinary girl and as a pop star, a concept that has been recycled in everything from Jem and the Holograms to Hannah Montana. The show launched the musical career of its main voice actress.

First thing I’ll note about the show is that Amazon wants a hefty chunk of change for it. Since this was made in the days when anime was a more robust medium, it runs to a full fifty-two episodes, which is gigantic by today’s standards (but not even enough for syndication in the U.S. when it orginally aired). Amazon wants a cool eighty-four bucks for the “HD version,” which you don’t even get to own and keep. We must note that this is an obvious ripoff: Having been made in the early 1980s, this show cannot be in high-definition, and no amount of tweaking can make it into genuine high-definition. The SD version, however, is half the price of the HD version. Since the “HD” version shouldn’t even exist, buy the SD version instead. The price is still too high, but it’s at least not obscene.

One Week Left to Pre-order ‘Dead 2 Rites’

ORDER HERE

Only one week left to get your eBook of Dead 2 Rites, the second volume of Jake and Dana’s misadventures, for 99 cents. Bigger and better even than the first book, Dead 2 Rites features mystery, action, lots of girls, and, of course, lots of laughs.

Dana Volt, eleven-year-old powerhouse, and Jake Blatowski, befuddled teenager, are back for more in the action-packed sequel to Jake and the Dynamo!

Just when Jake thinks he might finally get a break, he has to face down a murderous kaiju with a skin condition and join the city’s hardest-rocking magical girl in an underground battle against an army of bloodthirsty pastry chefs. As if that weren’t enough, he also has to deal with Pretty Dynamo’s newest rival, a human Swiss Army knife who revels in rule-breaking.

But behind the chaos of these latest threats to mankind’s existence looms a greater evil, for Lord Shadow’s baleful eye has again fallen upon the Earth. Now a conspiracy of monsters may awaken a mad god from the sea of uncreation outside the cosmos—and the only girl who could unite humanity’s defenders for a final stand is slowly succumbing to madness.

Seeking Book Covers

I’m currently hunting, bewilderdly, for a cover designer for Rags and Muffin. Everything else is ready to go on that book (I have a guy making a few extra interior illustrations, but it’s otherwise complete). Although I certainly considered using the same guys who did Jake and the Dynamo, and whom I’m more than happy with, I think this particular novel needs a different design style.

But this is all new to me still, so I’m hunting around, stumbling and wandering. I’m also limited by price range: I am not a bestselling author and don’t expect to be in the foreseeable future, even if I’m turning them out at a reasonably good rate (for the moment). Some guys do some really, really cool stuff … for $1500. Quite reasonable if you can reasonably expect to move a lot of copies.

Realistically, this will probably delay the release.

Also, it doesn’t help that we are in a cover-design dark age right now. For “literary” fiction, minimalism is all the rage. And in fantasy, almost every cover is a slight variation on the “attractive woman stares at reader with glowy lighting effects” motif. This is one time I can’t even favorably compare Japanese publications to American ones since manga and light-novel covers nowadays are all slight variations on the “cute girl stares at reader with legs up in the air” motif.

Comments on ‘My-HiME’

I think it may have been over a year ago that I said I was going to review My-HiME (2004). I haven’t watched it for a while and just now picked it up again; but in my defense, I have, in the last few years, gone back to school, changed careers, got married, had a baby, bought a house, and got three books ready for publication. I have not had as much time as I’d like to watch anime.

I still have a few episodes left to get through, so this is an off-the-cuff musing rather than a full review. It’s been an interesting series, drawing heavily from the magical-girl genre but veering into more shonen action-story territory.

It’s been extremely confusing, and though that may in part be because I’ve watched it sporadically, I don’t think that’s the only problem. It suffers from character glut, often introducing characters so abruptly that I’ve paused episodes to check the epsisode list and make sure I didn’t skip something.

A Mai-HiME character poses menacingly. — I don’t even remember who this character is.

The story focuses on these mysterious girls, all of whom happen to congregate at the same elite boarding school, who have the ability to conjur high-tech weapons and biomechanical monsters out of thin air. They’re known as HiME, which stands for “Highly-advanced Materializing Equipment,” complete with the ungrammatical hyphen. Why aren’t they called HAME, you ask? Because, of course, hime means “princess” in Japanese, so these girls are “battle princesses.”

The show follows a standard Japanese storytelling formula in which there are two arcs with a major plot change in the middle; at first, the HiME have to battle monsters called “Orphans” but later are forced to fight in a Battle Royale-type scenario, though the show fails to give them adequate motivation to turn on one another. Through it all, several powerful forces jostle to dominate the HiME, including a shadow government, a multinational corporation, the Catholic Church maybe, and a couple of reincarnated powers. It’s all very confusing.

Nun posing with an apple. — The Catholic Church is involved, maybe.

Unless it really turns things around in the next few episodes, my overall impression, which I’ll discuss at greater length in my review, will be that this has a great concept and impressive production values but doesn’t quite nail the landing. Too much to keep track of and too little explanation make this a bewildering, if pretty, spectacle. Incidentally, there is a spinoff series called My-Otome, which uses similar ideas but is not a sequel. After poking around on the Internet, I get the impression taht My-Otome is a more popular show, and I speculate that it’s probably because it’s less confusing.

Mai and that one dude. — I don’t know what’s happening in this scene, but it’s kinda hot.

All that being said, I have to add that My-HiME has one of the strongest opening episodes I’ve ever seen. I was really excited after episode one, in which several mysteries get introduced and a knock-down, drag-out battle takes place on a ferry, fully utilizing the unusual environment.

Unfortunately, the show immediately fritters away that built-up good will with several filler episodes, including one in which the girls have to track down an Orphan that steals panties (yes, really). Never have I seen a show that starts so good and goes downhill so fast. It picks back up later, but nothing else in this series has, so far, managed to equal that flawless first episode.

‘Dead 2 Rites’ Is Ready to Launch

p class=”has-drop-caps”>I just finished some last-minute alterations to Dead 2 Rites, which will improve the flow of some of the jokes. Remember, this DRM-free eBook is on sale for 99 cents only until September 1^st, when it becomes available.

Final Edits to ‘Dead 2 Rites’

It’s been hectic in my neck of the woods. Right now, I’m finishing up some last-minute improvements to Dead 2 Rites. As of this writing, it’s still on sale for 99 cents and will be until it releases for Kindle and paperback on September 1. So if you’ve read Jake and the Dynamo and found it amusing, reserve your copy of the sequel now while it’s cheap.

I’m also working at getting the art for Rags and Muffin. I’m still hoping for an October 1^st release date for that one but don’t want to pin it down yet. I really like the guys who did the covers for the Jake and the Dynamo books, but I think something a little different would be appropriate for Rags, so I’m hunting around.

I’m also currently at work on a planetary romance, a bit of a departure from my usual “theme.” I’ll discuss the details later. I have my fingers crossed for a release date before the end of the year. I really want four books out this year.

‘Jake and the Dynamo,’ the Paperback

We have here the paperback edition of Jake and the Dynamo, currently available both at Amazon and at Barnes & Noble, with additional buying options forthcoming.

Jake and the Dynamo paperback spine. — A view of the spine.

As you can see, this edition has a wraparound cover. Amazon, for whatever reason, requires an upload of the cover as a single image even though other print-on-demand services will allow you to upload the cover piecemeal. So a wraparound works best anyway.

Comparison of the two covers of Jake and the Dynamo. — The first and second versions.

Here you can see a side-by-side comparison of the two versions. The first is the original from Superversive Press, now sadly defunct, and the second is the new, currently available edition from Girls at Work. Both cover illustrations have points to commend them, but I’m particularly fond of the second one because it captures the iconic image of Jake and Dana I’ve always had in my head. I think I’ve described that picture to three artists, and this guy finally got it right.

Comparison of the book interiors. — A comparison of the interiors.

Although we might weigh the pros and cons of the covers, the interior of the new version is unquestionably superior, as you can see in the image above if you will excuse my photography. I have provided a slightly larger font and a larger line height for improved readability. The font and line spacing are both bigger than the standard recommendations for Amazon print-on-demand paperbacks, similar to what you might expect in a traditionally published hardcover.

Jake and the Dynamo interior. — A full view of the interior.

Because this edition has gone through a final and thorough revision, the text is considerably shorter, but because of the improved layout, the page count is considerably larger. The original Jake and the Dynamo ran to 382 pages, but the new version is 412 pages. No material has been removed, only improved.

All of the interior illustrations from Roffles Lowell, including chapter headings and sections breaks, are present in the new version. I have no control over their final quality, of course, but they look to me to be comparable to, perhaps even slightly improved on, the original version. I have added captions to the full-page illustrations, something I always wanted them to have. I have also moved all of them to the chapter ends simply because it is next to impossible to prevent them from cutting the text off in odd places otherwise. The eBook version, of course, has full-color images.

Writing

Tonight for me is another writing night. I’m hoping to have a workable rough draft of my next project within a month, and I’ll let you know what it is when it’s complete. I do have reviews and other discussions coming in the near future, but for now I’d best be off to bed or I’ll be useless tomorrow.

Goals

I got a lot going on these days, so it’s getting harder to post regularly. But we are still on track with the books. Two more novels are coming out soon, the first being Dead 2 Rites, which will release on the first of September. I also met today’s writing goals for my next project.

I need to update this site’s info about my book projects, but I’ll let you know exactly what I’m up to soon.