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That's a really good point. And as far as that's concerned, I think that native speakers who do have an interest in the media and are also older could capitalize in creating a website like MAL, or a general forum that helps make the online anime community more diverse in that way.
You know, I found that in my college, most theatre majors were men. It about 55/45, but still leaning on the male side, and I think it may have been even in the music department. I'm not all that sure about the art and literature departments, though the ones I encountered in Lit were men, and in art, women. Again though, at this point, a lot of what outsiders see as anime industry and its following is the general reason why they would never touch it. They see droves of sweaty losers vying over 12 inch figurines and arguing over whether Luffy would beat Goku in a fight, or disagreeing over the attractiveness of Horo opposed to Revy and they write the whole medium off. It's very much the same response a lot of the mainstream population has toward video games and American comic books (to bring that back). It would take something mature and antithetical of those perceptions breaking out in worldwide acclaim among the glut of cliche to get them to take notice. Who knows how far off that may be?

To go on with your comparison to clothing (and I agree faces are like clothing), rather than it being some useless necessity, I think that they are by and large an extension of people, and another of those few things that people can do to express themselves clearly. Faces can often fill in a lot of subtext in a conversation between people, and often times be the sole purpose of communication. With clothes, one can discern a lot about the character without their uttering a word: whether they're practical or outrageous, secure or insecure, good or evil, etc. etc. it's just another of those really important elements of design in any good production.
I agree. I have a similar inability to relate to characters, and if I could think of any off the top of my head, I'm sure that I would cherish them. That said, the characters that I love are provocative regardless of how much I relate to them. I'm not a psychotic killer, and could never really dream of doing many of the deeds Johan attempted, but he continuously made me think, and became wrapped in his story. I think that's what a good character does: they command my attention.

I think that is a much better definition. In the case of Aria, from an anime-viewer's perspective, it's about the external exploration of Aqua, truly, but more than that, I think it's about the characters' own internal exploration, growing, and coming of age.

We will be doomed. I know I'd rather die than spend hours creating a page with a 10 point, orange font, yellow sunset background with a boy and girl looking wistfully into a sunset, and "cleverly" changes of the titles: Watching, Completed, On-Hold, and Dropped.

That's probably where my curiosity stops: watching the whole of the Gundam series. They all feel like they're solely about the machine, and then upgrades, in the same way that other shonen shows are about power levels. Except that since they're machines, that spark of humanity is totally lost, and it begins to feel like pornography.

It all has to do with culture. In America, what I see is that a lot of people who love anime hold some very misplaced resentment on the way television and/or movies are produced here. They see the shiny flare of Japanese animation, jump onto websites like this, and immediately like to think that Japan does it all so much better, and that they are so ahead of time, not realizing the difference in production, market, etc. from either. It's very frustrating to hear people talk as though Japan's model for making televison is far superior just because it's Japanese.

I have to agree. It's not that I wasn't a fan of Bronte...I was just ambivalent, because I was very aware that I wasn't her audience, and that time definitely skews my appreciation of stories. But I've always liked the idea of Victorian Romance, because it is very oppressive, and allows for a compelling story. I think Oscar Wilde spoke to me more on that level, because there was just more flair all together. Also, because of the setting, the writing just doesn't need hugely ambitious, spectacles of character because society itself was enough to make the most normal person feel like they were stepping onto the beaten path.

Yes. That is by far, my favorite moment of the series. In all other cases it would absolutely come off as despicably misogynistic for a lead male such as Guin talk to Amnelis in such a way. It's that the show does such a good job of painting Guin's relationship with Rinda, and then contrasting her as the "princess of light" with Amnelis, while also showing off Amnelis' incompetence as a warrior in such little time, that I was so strongly rooting for Guin when scares the daylights out of her in that moment. As for Regia, I don't think they are mirror images. They're more like foils. Regia understands her feelings for Aldo Naris, while at the same time being very aware of his ambition, and doesn't allow her emotions to get herself caught up. Amnelis on the other hand is just all nerves. She's always throwing ration out of the window for her desires.

As for TTGL, it would normally be the type of the show that I despise--what with the monstrous levels of fanservice, talk of spirals that pierce the heaven, and and loud, brash main charactes. What I grew to love about the show is that it felt like a parody with an amount of heart that also made it feel serious within the world that the story inhabited. It's that balance that really got me. On the one hand, we have a character like Kamina who for all intents and purposes would be the main character, save the day, and get Yoko with a happy ending. He dies in episode five (I believe). That he was killed so early on completely changed my mind about the show from the point forward. It let me know that the show wasn't going to go exactly as I thought, and there was always an element of surprise, even though they were working with a story that is very old and tried. Moreover, the metaphor of the spiral was actually very well done and omnipotent both visually and narratively while not being too obvious. Something like that is very hard to come by in anime where the writing really wants to get figurative language across to the point of it not being figurative (I'll use Kaiji as an example here). From the aspect of characters, I think that there were many people who greatly carried out their part, and understood their function in the story. Just as Kamina wasn't afraid to die, many others understood their role in the war and sacrificed themselves. On top of that, I felt like every characters' death had weight and affected the living in a profound way that allowed the rest to develop. I'll once again point to the aftermath of Kamina's death, and how Simon dealt with it. It felt very honest to me, and it was only magnified by the stunning direction that began to transition to darker colors. Visually, TTGL is in the upper echelons of quality in direction, art, and animation. The robots have a tongue-in-cheek aspect to them that steers the viewer into parody territory, and once we are shown the variety in the world (Spiral King, Anti-spirals, different villages, surface and subterranean, world pre and post King) I felt like there was a cohesive world created that was magnificent in scope.

Overall, I think TTGL was just superb in the manner that it tackled its story. It's easy to get caught up in the robots and the "epicness" of it all, but I really do feel like there was a sound story and concrete world for all of the outlandishness to bounce off of.

No problem. I might be late to start, but once I do, I like to knock it out as soon as possible. I honestly think you you did most of the work, since I took much of what you said word for word. So much of my inital review was worthless since I think it was the first one I wrote and hadn't honed my style for MAL and the CnC audience. I think it's a great review.

Oh- that's not quite my point: while visual stylisation can be utilised in a manner that conveys meaning in and of itself, rarely is intrinsic meaning meant to be derived from stylistic innovations alone. My point is that, although - or maybe because - the development of unique stylistic tendencies is often accompanied by similarly original thematic material from artists (of all mediums), on occasion only the departure in superficial presentation is given due attention. However, I still think that your position on inherent meaning poses an important question as to whether subtlety or implicit meaning - the 'shown' - are as viable expedients of a work's tenor as the straightforward, more explicitly stated ideas - the told. While many of the arguments for either side are once again largely contingent of taste, there is still much to be debated about the nature of 'inherent meaning': whether implicit meaning can be assessed in the same fashion as explicit themes; whether these subtleties are necessary at all - and what they even achieve; whether implied meaning can or should be derived by a wide audience with similar results; whether that speaks well or ill of the artist's intent; &c.
I used Kato's work as an example because his work would be the anime equivalent of art film: surreal shorts featuring no dialogue and presented in distinctive brush style. I wouldn't contend that the art style 'means' anything, art is art. Similarly, the early 20th century literary stream-of-consciousness technique didn't carry any intrinsic meaning in usage, but it was a means by which an author could present and explore the more personal, unadulterated human consciousness of his or her characters, where meaning was to be found. Likewise, the visual style of Tortov Roddle, in presenting a man faced with absurd happenings, acts to more concretely convey the incongruity of the his perspective to the viewer, such that we can't help but feel that 'something might be wrong'.
Of course, the implications of 'inherent meaning' still create a cleavage of opinion in the audience of any medium that will probably come up often during spotlight discussions of series featuring more convoluted ideas - those both apparent and inherent - such as your example of Ergo Proxy and the cyberpunk genre as a whole, really. Though I'm a reader/watcher who values restrained subtlety over more meretricious displays, I can understand why one would prefer more a more straightforward style of storytelling to one that seems to ask for questions to be asked; anime and manga especially are not mediums in which one would expect to search for 'underlying meaning', so the argument may gain more validity in questioning the author's choice of medium by which to express certain ideas.
What we 'critics' would look for in a series is a clear demonstration of thoughtful writing, intelligible but comprehensive plotting, directorial/mangaka excellence, attention to aesthetics, &c. over simple viewer provocation through means of basic (and possibly shallow) 'entertainment'. Definition of terms so broad as 'thoughtful writing' and 'directorial excellence' leaves basis for personal taste, and as the medium between semantics and matters of perspective, it can precipitate productive discussions such as ours (or so I'd like to believe). How much gravity an individual places on inherent over apparent meaning is just one aspect that can spark debate between viewers.

The idea of the artist evolving his or her style in order to adapt and bring new ideas in response to the demographic's need for change is sound in theory, but seems to be overlooked in practise. Innovation by principle seems to label artists as avante-garde or 'indie', unless he acts as a catalyst for a resulting movement (which is, of course, rare). Take - among the few mangaka whose work I have read - Asano Inio as an example: he deviates from contemporary common practise in both art and narrative, but, while he has been met with largely favourable results, he has yet to engender a following of imitators. Of course, I haven't the faintest clue where or when this unorthodoxy in panel placement was first introduced; while it seems to be in much less prevalent use in - if not absent from - manga of the 80's, modern manga sees an overuse of the technique. Being largely unversed in manga as opposed to anime, I'm missing a decade or two of manga from which to draw examples (a gap whose sad severity I hope to ameliorate by reading Cardcaptor Sakura for C&C... hopefully very soon) of trends that led to the current state of manga, but it will take some time to fully immerse myself in what was, until just some months ago, a medium with which I was largely largely unfamiliar.
I've also wondered why shoujo art as a whole carries a homogeneous style far beyond even that of shounen's. Even considering the evolution of art style over generations, it seems that shoujo art has even stayed more consistently unchanged than that of manga targeted towards other demographics. While shoujo works have developed more than shounen works as a whole (though this isn't a very major statement; at the least, shoujo incorporates new ideas every so often - a recent example would the vampires that compensate for the plethora of fresh young girls' blood) shounen art has, as you said, become much more varied in style; even the most mainstream shounen manga - even if they may follow similarly prosaic archetypes and situations - can be discerned from their discrete art styles. I don't pretend to understand why shoujo mangaka have chosen and and choose to keep their art so invariably unvaried, but as my inner aesthete seems to have taken a liking to it (for better or worse), I haven't found a reason to complain.

By definition, a story's progression is characterised by conflict: conflict with others, with an idea, with oneself, &c. My point was that shoujo tends to focus upon the conflict within by result of conflict with others; because characters' emotions must be at the centre of any shoujo story (even shoujo romantic comedies progress through character conflicts), the emotional state of a character carries much more weight in shoujo than it would in an action or comedy series - or even a drama - targeted towards a male audience.
My reference to the 'teenage soul' was used somewhat facetiously, as one does not really expect a girls' manga to accurately emulate the happenings of the life of a teenager (especially one in Japan). However, it's obvious that the average teenage girl is looking for emotional drama, shown by the large mainstream interest in both shoujo manga and in Western franchises like Twilight, Gossip Girl, &c.
I don't suppose manga targeted towards the youth of Japan is recognised for its adherence to logical development, and such examples of inconsistent (or complete lack of) viable context would fall into this. Because of the difficulty in realising a median of situational significance and encompassing relevance in fictional narration, authors struggle to adequately develop narrative while also, as you said, sufficiently portraying the 'reason' behind the narrative itself. And one of the rules of narrative that shoujo seems to disregard in its entirety is that of moderation; overuse of any technique, whether regarding panel placement, emphasis, character archetypes, &c.

I generally take a look at the profile of any user with whom I have some sort of meaningful conversation about one topic or another or whose tastes I find agree able. Profiles that seem as if effort had been put into them at the time of making seem to merit a reading more as well, meaning that yes, I have read through tehnominator's profile (more than once, actually).
Of the three languages I had been exposed to in common practise, I'm only confidently literate in French and English (though expressing confidence in my French may be a stretch), as neglect has taken its toll. I'm a fan of wordplay (as the English language allows for much of it), and it's nice to see that some derive enjoyment from my posts. Of course, it's somewhat disheartening to know that many non-native speakers like you seem to have a more competent grasp on the language than many native speakers.

You sure are harsh at rating anime ~hahaha. You seem to favor alot classic anime. :)

Such is the problem with experimental styles: while the objective isn't only to create a new sense of aesthetic but to also present ideas that deviate from that of the contemporary period's, too often is only the superficial presentation accentuated by the audience. As an anime example, take Kunio Kato's work: Tortov Roddle takes upon themes of alienation and surrealism reminiscent of Kafka while Petits Cubes espouses a perspective on the past not unlike that of Faulkner's (of course, these are just approximate Western equivalents); however, all too often the only thing viewers consider is the avant-garde drawing style, not the modernist ideas which have been left ignored for decades.
But in that regard, it may less of a hindrance to current shoujo manga. Because manga as a medium is much younger than literature or film, there hasn't been many developments beyond the initial gekiga "revolution" so to speak. Shoujo manga - and shounen, as general classifications, have evolved much less than those targeted toward an older audience largely because the audience has shown less incentive to mangaka. Whereas a 12-year old boy/girl may enjoy the same shoujo/shounen manga as a 17-year old boy/girl, a young man/woman in his/her 20's will have probably moved onto seinen/josei. As a result, manga targeted at younger audiences tend not to require any real progression at all. Because shoujo ideologies would continue to be stagnant in a world where as many new fans appear as move on, mangaka have turned to aesthetic changes to apply "new ideas" to their work.

Shoujo manga, which accentuates the worldly drama of the teenage soul, must express a certain emphasis on the emotional state of characters. Situation is similarly important, but it seems to largely serve as a means to achieve these moments of fictional (but aspiringly poignant) drama. It's probably because of this that shoujo manga has so many partial fans or detractors; if one is not interested in the encompassing idea of shoujo, it's difficult to become attached to constituent works.
Faces are an unusual experience for me as well; I generally don't really care about facial expressions unless they're particularly bad (I'm looking at you, Battle Royale), but shoujo manga uses them in all situations, whether for comedy, drama, ambience, &c. I'm actually not sure why or if the blank void often accompanies "important facial expressions", but it just seems theoretically sound that the only thing appearing in a certain panel would receive more emphasis than otherwise.

You've also had 'it's' in "I liked it in it's native environment..." under your shrine to the forgotten for some time now.

Thank you for saying so. I didn't mean it as a review; as my blogging is more along the lines of speculative and/or reflective essays on manga and anime -- I don't practice criticism to establish the merits or lack of them in the subjects I write about. That said, I do recommend Solanin, and almost any work that I write about.

I appreciate you giving feedback. Many thanks again ^_^/

I understood what you were saying, but I was mostly intimating that because anime has become more mainstream, the average age of the viewer has declined (I think by a decade from 23-25 to 13-15), and as because that is true, there is a bit of an issue with the sophistication of the viewer being taken into account. But as far as graphics and the technological advancements are concerned, while much of it is about viewers being insatiable (a little comparable to the video games industry) and wanting the advancements of technology to be reflected in the medium, part of it is about age and having an understanding/appreciation for certain things. Teenagers now aren't really accustomed to the "archaic" hand-drawn cells of movies. Everything has been digitally remastered for them. It's not always the case for those in the audience who are artistically inclined, but on a general level, that is what it has come to. On the flipside, I think the expectations coincide with demographics. Viewers who consume shoujo generally are probably less inclined to whine about resolution since that genre isn't really known to raise the bar. I think this attitude extends into other areas of production like the characters and gimmicks you were talking about. Anime viewers (more than any other art form, I think) generally don't understand the art of incorporating familiar archetypes and plots into something wonderful and new. I think that is also reflective of the lowering of the age of the average user, and also the general culture of younger generations.
To that extent, I agree with your assessment of my stylistic preferences. I'm much more interested in characters that are done well, because for me, they are the only thing that hold my attention when other factors are waning. And even if everything else is good, if character read false, I get detached from the experience. I also agree with your thoughts on Yuunagi's taste, he gravitates much more to straightforward and (I would call) simplistic. Sometimes I'll like it, and sometimes I'll just be bored with it.

I totally agree about the subbing nonsense. It's just this vicious cycle that is born of the "gimme now" culture the internet has created. And don't get me started on vote counting. I could go on for paragraphs about that. The "I don't know" votes are quite the solace for that period of time.

That was totally my mistake on the LoGH front. Somehow I didn't realize that the thread got posted and things came to a halt because of me. When I saw it, I posted immediately even though I knew I was behind on all of my comments, so please excuse the weird time disparity between this reply and that post. As far as the blog is concerned. I'd be really interested in knowing your take on a lot of classic shows. That's really where my knowledge fails, and for one reason or another, I'm also a little intimidated and skeptical about jumping in blindly to anything that was released earlier than the mid 80s.
I think I understand what you're saying, and agree that it may have more to do with specific director than the producers as a whole. In my head, I think I dump living/static backgrounds into my "atmosphere" file. It's kind of that semi-inexplicable (for me) element that can make shows that don't necessarily do what I find engaging with characters more enjoyable.

I felt like avoiding showing any practice or having any songs played in previous episodes was all an attempt to build anticipation for their first performance. Top that off with the fact that it was Yui's first time playing an instrument in front of people, and I think that they created something because they decided to play everything so close to the vest previously. As such, that performance was an utter let down for me because I didn't really see them perform for the first time as a group. I had to settle for the second time which felt just as anticlimactic.

Ha! I could never buy the Guin books since there is no resolution. It would tear at my mind until the day that I die. As for Satelight's decision, it's not that there is a drop in animation quality for Guin, it's that in comparison to the other show that they did, Basquash, there was a strong preference to over-fund the latter even though the show was an utter waste of money in every aspect except for giving Nike some 25 episodes of advertising. I feel like with more money, some Guin's character design would have been more consistent in the first few episodes, and everything would have been lusher. The director definitely knew what he was doing with what he had, as opposed to the two directors of Basquash who only really thought of computer generated environments and shoes.

Hehe, its true. What I liked about history classes were the details of the event, not the event itself... I am thinking of re-assisting the Veterinary Medicine History classes this year or next, if I have time on the second semester. =p Missed all of them when I was having them and it was all so interesting... =( But, somewhat, the shallow intrigue in courts, no matter if Portuguese, French or Heian Japanese, bore me. I'm not talking about the major things, but of that usual gossip you can find even today at any given place where lots of different people work together. I feel that if nothing of value was lost, why do we bother to remember those things? In other hand, I love to read about the daily lives of people of the past... I live in a paradox!

I haven't watched LotGH yet, I'm at the middle of it... So I'm not at the part everyone dies yet (I already know everyone dies, its just like I say! Fanbois drop the hints all the time!) Back when I had to study greek tragedies - I played a tragedy with my theatre group once - I knew why the heroes had to die, but I don't remember it well anymore... But I know that it has to do with defying the gods and the fate. Since you can never defy your final fate, which is death, they die in a way to show the public what happens anyway. So, yes, the French Revolution, with its heroes and villains, is just like a setting of a tragedy. It's wonderful how a real event could copy invented stories of the past. As for the public not knowing what happened... Don't worry. It's the kind of work that, if you don't know, you feel like searching for it and learning more. Much more educative than the likes of Hetalia, that don't even include my country. /rage

Ah yes, I meant the latter. They are simply well done. How an amateur in manga story-telling did it and professionals can't do it is a mistery. The side characters that gravitate through the story seem to be there only to add detail to the environment. Even main-secondary characters like Rosalie seem to be there only for the sake of characterization of society (because, yes, I really dislike Rosalie and don't get why one would give her so much attention) As for the places one should cry when watching the anime or reading the manga, they are quite specific. I discussed with my teacher (and in Japanese, which was quite a mighty feature) what places generated tears and we agreed on the same. How wonderful. xD

I think results only come after intentions exist. =p So, I'm glad they exist. More BL! I think that, back then, fanfictioning was not as common. Also because there were not so many media to release it. Today you just have to post it on your internet and that's it, back them probably - at most - they had a magazine to send in fanworks. I think that Oscar appears as woman disguised as man precisely because of the social situation of the female at the time. I read in a magazine (hah, who needs the interwebs?) that for a strong female in manga by then would only appear attached to a man. In early shounen its precisely what happens. So, for a women truly have the lead and conduct a story, she would have to be a man. And Oscar was born. Or maybe the author had just some creepy thoughts on her mind...

Oh yeah, no way I'm ripping my pages! And if some Japanese girl stole her mother's manga, she would certainly be punished in a violent way, possibly including pointy edges. I wonder, I once ordered directly from Fnac (Sailormoon volumes) and they arrived safely... Maybe contact the editor directly to see if they can do it specially for you? Sometimes they are quite nice (but I mail companies "personally", they always answer really surprised for my contact) I had to check the map of Europe to see the geographical relations of everything (anything behind France is complicated, but I know all the states of Brazil!) but it does not seem that far from France! Portugal is the one that's far away! That's unfair. As for payment methods, I like paypal and credit card for my international transfer, they never failed me.

You are not a 14 year gil living in the 00s (what should we call this decade anyway?) It's so odd to see how the vision of the world changed from when I was 14 to today. I watched the remake of Fame and was impressed, it used to be such a cool thing with so amazing social components, and now it is simply vulgar. That's why today's fans are so afraid of watching old anime, even if it comes to be a masterpiece. Because they are not used to such things anymore and they will either find it exageratted or stupid. My sister is 17 (with the mind of a 12 year old, at most =.=) and she thinks everything from the past except Abba is like sooooo stupid and soooo not close to the reality. As for normal shoujo, they are supposed to transmit the ideal of a love event to a girl, with its ups and downs. I don't really know because I haven't read much of it. If you see my read manga and on-hold (those I have but don't own all the volumes) you'll see that I only own a pure shoujo besides RoV. That I haven't read yet. Only bought because the art was pretty and because I wanted to annoy the Naruto fans that were screaming around the manga shelves. Besides that, Sailormoon is shoujo but it's a magical girl. As well as Card Captor Sakura that, anyway, I read too long ago to remember it well. And everything by Kaori Yuki also falls under shoujo but its gothic horror as well. I think I'll read that shoujo tonight so I discover what is the big deal about them (they are made for girls, since I'm one I should be able to get it x3). Though I still have a BL on my list that I must read because it was so highly recommended and I love the author. ;-; Omg, I will spend so much money in manga with this new thing of wanting to buy all the works of a specific author...

Is it? Truly, that section of history only interested me after Rose of Versailles, browsed the whole wikipedia (back in the time I still used wikipedia). I think the manga gave a bit more attention to Austria, but it was more in the sense of "family", not politically. The author was, herself, a student of history. So I want to think that she chose to do it that way for some reason. =p Maybe not to bore the 14 year old girls that would read it after? Btw, it remembers me the epic moment at my Japanese class, when my teacher revealed - after hearing that Versailles no Bara was one of my fav manga and anime - that she and the other girls of teh class would read this manga during classes, behind the books like they do in anime. But the teacher always caught them because they started crying. xD Much of the emotion, for me, was also provoked by the sparkles (spaaarkles!) and the depiction of the characters as integrants of a Greek tragedy. I really lvoed in the manga that everything was narrated in such a classic way. But yes, the second part of the anime was much better, but that may also be because of the change of environment. The consumation scenes, both manga and anime, were superb in every way and generated much tears from my part (really, this is good). It's fun that, so far, we can only discuss the details of the personalities and development of the characters, and not their flaws. Even if they have any, I don't want to think they have, they are so solid that they can be real. Even more than what they ever were. Antoinette, usually portrayed as the idiot that wasted all the money, was turned into an almost completely innocent creature (which she probably was), while the usually rated dumb Louis was simply unaware, but kind and honest. I started watching this for the first time when I was 16, and for these years I've rewatched it countless times. The historical characters are so vivid that if I ever go to Versailles I'll probably be able to see them as they were in the anime. =p

Irk, no that's not the objective, take it away, take it away! So far, the author considers it just a simple shoujo, not a pioneer on its own genre much less the motor force for a whole new thing. However, taking the time it appeared and the sexual pressure under it, I give full support to the theory that this manga appeared because the author felt that the role of the female on manga and, overall, at the Japanese artistic scene was ridiculous and needed to be recycled. And fans, fans never know anything. From the first sentence of the first chapter we already knew that it was going to have a bad end and that the "hexagons" would never come to be.

Oh, I did not know such a classic was not scanlated. I'll try to pressure at aarin just for "history purposes". >.< In some way, it's a manga from a different generation. While every girl of that generation (vide my teacher) knows and loves it for the girl of today or of 10 years ago it is outdated, too tragic and too sparkly. =( Anyway, I usualyl order my books throught Fnac, the megastore. Since they are originally French, they just send the orders in the same plane together with new stocking. It's cheaper and safer. If you don't have it, browse some other generalist store or even a book shop (I've ordered books from normal bookstores and they arrive safe). Through Fnac it takes them from one week to two months to get my books, usually because they are out of stock in France itself. I'm still waiting for my last volume of Count Cain because it's out of print and they are negotiating it with Tonkam (just for me! Joking, probably some other French creepzoids also want to read it) The only time I ordered through an online shop, together with some figures, they revealed incompetent. The box they sent me was returned to them. T^T I will ask my stepbrother to call them, because my spoken French is less than basic, he will call them and yell at them and they will give me my 7th volume of Loveless! T^T I think that ordering through the publishers themselves is also easy, at least they make it look fairly easy.