X Never Marks the Spot

A few years back I got into the manga Eyeshield 21, which was unexpected because I've never been into sports of any kind, much less American football, and I'd never read a sports manga (to this day I've managed to miss Prince of Tennis). But ES21 has Hiruma, you see, and once you know Hiruma there's no going back.

The series finished last year, but I wasn't reading manga then, so missed the end. Recently, however, I watched Oofuri (anime based on an award-winning seinen manga about high school baseball. If you like ADORABLE high school boys being ADORABLE (and teamy and slashy and sweet and learning how to make friends and believe in themselves and did I mention ADORABLE?) I highly recommend it. Even if you don't give a fig about baseball) and that got me back in the sports manga mood (if by sports one means intense and ridiculous and cute team stories that just happen to revolve around playing a game rather than saving the world, but same difference, really.)

So I went back to Eyeshield 21, and not remembering the story well I went and read it from the beginning. And ended up falling in love all over again - unlike Oofuri's beautifully low-key, realistic characters and games, ES21 is totally OTT and zany and absurd and so much fun. It's got fantastically lovable characters and great art, and really, what more do you want out of a series? Even if it is about football...

( bit more nattering, some spoilers )

Now I've found some GetBackers scanlations, so am going to be actually reading the bug arc for the first time, rather than just skimming it and enjoying the aaaaangst (I have it in Japanese, but GetBackers is ha~rd to read, between the slang and the pseudoscience...) BanGin forever! *_*

(and a quick personal note, am leaving tomorrow to visit gnine in England for a couple of weeks (\o/\o/\o/), so if I'm slow to comment or reply, that's why!)

Argh, I need to be writing! The words, she are not coming... >_>

The Jeeves & Wooster TV series is much fun. Wodehouse's original stories are much fun +1000. Though they're dangerous to read on breaks at work because I start choking trying to keep from laughing out loud. I can see how Douglas Adams was inspired by him. (And yep, slashy as Fry & Laurie's J&W are, the books...heh. Bertie is "essentially one of nature's bachelors". Yes, Jeeves, you would know.)(Speaking of nature's bachelors, must remember to rec Biological Exuberance, for all your gay animal rights needs.)

Also am getting back into the manga, J-dramas, etc.! For the language practice, of course. And the cute boys playing football - Eyeshield 21 is still love. Even though this last chapter (245) was a terrible place to be stopped. Hiruma will always be my demonic darling and the Devil Bats are too cute for words. The Shinryuuji match is still my favorite (not just because of Vegeta-clone Ikkyu! They're one of the few teams one wants to see go down & go down hard, unlike the others where you sympathize enough to be a mite melancholy when they lose) but Deimon vs Oujou was plenty exciting once it got going. And that silent communication in the last second? Oh shounen, you bring on the squee like nothing else.

And in the category of: technically Shounen manga but which god did they sacrifice puppies to manage that? there's xxxHolic. ( more on that, with possible spoilers through the latest chapter (141) )

( now with Holic d/ls! )

And now...I must catch up with OP!

Fic, because I adore the original Devil Bats trio, and Kurita doesn't get enough love.

I should start a team practice series, so no one notices that this is the exact same ES21 fic I already wrote with a different main character. (But it's gotta be either practice or a game itself; where else do you see Hiruma?) This was intended as a drabble to open a longer story, a few snapshot moments of the Maoh Devil Bats. But I've been having a hell of a time writing anything lately and it felt so good that I let it go where it would. Luckily I can blame any OOC on them being younger.

Warnings for hypothetical pasts which future canon might disavow (the eternal problem with writing flashbacks) and as always for Hiruma's language. And a distressingly lack of firearms. Oops. Next time.

Read it on AO3

Okay, yes. I am weak. Move along, move along, nothing to see here.

This isn't the start of anything. Just a character piece set sometime before the Shinryuuji game, concerning Yukimitsu, because I luffs him muchly; and featuring Hiruma's squishy side (...it's a very short fic.) Warning only for such language as befits Hiruma. (Oh, and a complete lack of understanding of proper practice techniques, because, dude, football. Usually I'm a stickler for accuracy but I'd be embarrassed to know 'em. Besides, Hiruma's practices are hardly standard anyway.)

Read it on AO3

I thought I was safe. I thought I was immune; I thought I was taking the necessary precautions, abstaining from the fangirl-decimating plague that is Prince of Tennis--only to go and come down with a bad case of an entirely different sports shounen.

The irony is, I don't even like sports. And of all the sports in all the arenas - American Football?? The most mind-numbingly boring sport in the world, as pretty much all the world except America agrees. And yet.

My Eyeshield 21 infection can be attributed to the following vectors:

--Hiruma
--The rest of the Deimon Devil Bats, every damn adorable one of them
--immicolia (fine, fine, we're even for GetBackers)
--Hiruma
--Blatant emotional manipulation, not limited to moments including: ice cubes, cream puffs, Death Marches, football games
--Distractingly sexy boys, even allowing that football has the ugliest uniforms known to mankind.
--Laudable levels of slashiness in the rival teams (see: the Shin/Sakuraba/Takami affair, Akaba/Koutarou, Kakei/the stripping ex-swim-team sweetie whose name I never remember, the Kid/Tetsuma (What? Oh, come on, they totally love each other.), Banba/Harao ("We've been doing it together for three years already." Haw.) Edit: can't forget Panther/Homer!)
--Hiruma
--"We're going to the Christmas Bowl!"
--"You're thirteen thousand, two hundred and ninety-seven hours and forty-nine minutes late."
--Hiruma
--Hiruma
--Hiruma

Eyeshield 21 isn't the easiest manga to pimp out. Oh, it's funny, and pretty, and exciting for sure. But the slashy bits are mostly in the other teams; the Devil Bats are fun as anything, but while they certainly can be hot, and they could be doing each other, it's not handed to you on a PoT-shaped silver platter. But. There's Hiruma. Who's worth reading the manga for all on his own, if you go for obscene, evilly brilliant blond demons with an unhealthy penchant for firearms, unnaturally sharp teeth, and an unholy obsession with football. And while Hiruma is distracting you, his teammates sneak up, whack you over the head with a cute stick and drag you into their cavern of laughter and friendship and sportly team antics.

Knowing Hiruma? This is his wicked plan all along. Damn it.

Warning: Highly contagious. Click at your own risk: Torrent for ch.1-160

And before certain people start panicking/chewing me out - no, I'm not writing fic. Yet. Now, doujinshi, that's another story....5 and counting.