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to be updated if needed

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale season 1 ends with such a big cliffhanger for everyone, and there are not many people knowing about this series since it was more than 10 years ago. As an old reader, I hope to offer some clarification for those who need it.

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale was originally a light novel series and got picked up by Aquascans, translated by Icarus Bride, unfortunately the project was dropped with only 2 volumes finished: https://aquascans.wordpress.com/novels/sugar-apple-fairy-tale-novel/

On Aquascans tumblr, if you search using “sugar apple fairy tale” tag, you can still find the illustrated pictures used in the novel. The illustrator and character design is Aki-sensei. Back then I fancied this novel for the illustration since I’ve liked her drawing style for a long time ago.

Then the novel was promoted with one-volume manga drawn by Yukimura Alto. She is the author of the shoujo-manga: Colette wa Shinu Koto ni Shita (Colette and Hades)

It also got 2 drama CDs with Shall voiced by Sakurai Takahiro and Ann by Okubo Rumi. I personally like this version better than the anime. Shall is more mischievous and Ann is calmer in the novel and drama CD.

Spoilers:

Shall will come back to Ann in the next volume (or in season 2 anime). Later in the series he declares his love for her and they kiss. One fun fact is Ann keeps counting the number of kiss they share, but when she is asleep, Shall still kisses her without her being aware of. So he finds it amusing as she incorrectly counts the number later on.

There are two other fairies who are stone-brothers to Shall. Shall Fen Shall was born from obsidian, Raphal Fen Raphal from opal, and Eril Fen Eril from diamond. Shall, Raphal and Eril were from three stones inlaid in the late fairy king’s sword by himself. They are the candidates for the next fairy king.

Mythril will be dying because of his short life span (born from water) but saved by Eril, though he loses his water-control ability. Ann was stabbed by Raphal and saved by Eril, however she loses all her confections making skill and has to start training again.

Raphal fights Shall; they both go missing and lose memory. However, Shall retrieves his memory and comes back to Ann. They get married and the series ends here. The recently published volume is after their marriage.

(all pictures credit: from Aquascans Tumblr)

It’s a pity that at the time I knew about this series, half of them had been published and I missed most of the extra short stories sold exclusively and limitedly. TT_TT

On the subject of team books and friendships/teams in superhero comics in general…

So, I just read the latest issue (#5) of Mark Waid and Emanuela Lupacchino’s World’s Finest: Teen Titans series and I gotta say it has made me realize what I’ve been missing for a while in comics:

I. need. more. STRIFE!!!

I need more characters fighting and tearing into each other in the meanest ways! And NOT because they hate each other or are on opposite ends of the good/evil spectrum, but because people fight! They disagree! They get frustrated and they take it out on the people around them! And then when the pain of changing FINALLY becomes outweighed by the pain of staying the same: people GROW. They become better. They see how the ways that they were acting and the things they were thinking were tearing them apart and they come together against and despite that strife. And no, that doesn’t make things perfect, there will (and should) still be inner conflict and butting of heads, but that only guarantees more change and more growth because no one is constant and no one should be. The only constants are change, and, with a good team, each other.

And by God, this issue, and this series really, has shown that perfectly. Over the past few issues, we’ve seen the perfect dynamics of the team getting ever so slowly chipped away. Starting with Roy very understandably getting mad at Dick for not sharing his secret identity with the team which was promptly “fixed” in a way that we all knew wouldn’t last. Then we’ve seen Garth and Donna’s relationship on the rocks almost from the get-go because unfortunately shared circumstances just isn’t always enough for two people to base an entire relationship on when their similarities and compatibility basically stop there. We also have Karen bringing in a new guy and not really having too many close relationships with the already established team. And finally, we have Roy’s personal struggles with his father figure being aired out and almost ridiculed by the other kids who just don’t know how to help him. Oh, and of course we also have Wally who comes from an almost perfect superhero sidekick background (special thanks to my guy, Barry Allen, no doubt 😜) which unfortunately makes him a little too loving and lighthearted in the eyes of some of the team and is also seemingly pretty unequipped for dealing with their levels of dysfunction (can we really blame him? No, we can’t, and we really shouldn’t, he’s literally the most functional member of the team outside of maybe some of his judgement of Roy). And all these problems have (inevitably) finally resulted in a lot of in-fighting. In-fighting that has now utterly crippled them, but hopefully not for long as the final page shows Dick’s willingness to change when he goes against Bruce’s rules of secrecy and finally reveals his true identity to the team. I’m hoping this means that they’ll set aside their differences and start working as a team again, rallied around their now unmasked-to-them leader, but I have a feeling that waiting so long to finally reveal himself to the team may carry some consequences of its own for Dick.

Regardless, I’m excited to see some more deliciously grounded, well-written, and much-needed personal conflict in comics again. Not to artificially further a plot or build fluff drama, but to evolve characters and relationships alike.

[I’m kidding ofc, we all know he’s a great guy, but bear with me for the sake of this post hahaha]

⚠️ Spoilers for Green Lantern #5 ⚠️

I get it, y’all, I really do. Hal can be pushy when it comes to love. And pretty undeserving of the love he pushes for because I mean how good is a guy that keeps professing his love to the same girl only to ditch her for long and unspecified stretches of time. Like of course, Carol keeps moving on, Hal, there’s absolutely no reason why she should wait around for some guy that loves her, but still leaves her! But hear me out…

Maybe Hal being pushy doesn’t actually change the fact that he’s a good guy. Maybe his pushiness is sincere. And maybe, just maybe, he’s a big enough person to set the whole “all is fair in love and war” thing aside to do what’s right and that’s what makes him so dang hard to resist.

So, this all stems from the latest issue of Green Lantern by Jeremy Adams and Xermánico which features Hal setting out to put a stop to Sinestro’s reign of terror across the earth. Hal’s first stop is Ferris Air as Sinestro has taken over all their unmanned drones to enact his plan. Carol catches Hal up on the situation and as he’s leaving to do his superheroics Carol hands him some nifty new communicators designed by her new fiance, Nate, y’know, the guy that Hal has been at one-sided odds with since the first issue of this new run. Hal, predictably, makes a snide little Hal-comment about Nate being smart and Carol, predictably, gives him no rope when she shortly replies that he’s “very” smart. I’ll always love these terse little exchanges between them.

Hal later runs into the problem of the last two drones being too far away from each other, and too close to their intended targets, for him to reach them in time. This leads to him coming up with the idea of putting his piloting skills, and indomitable will, to the test by simultaneously sending two constructs in opposite directions to catch the last two drones. Carol puts Nate on the line, and this is where my admiration for Hal, and Adams as a writer, grows considerably, as rather than getting another typical Hal remark we get a man on a mission.

Hal doesn’t care who’s guiding him in, he doesn’t care that he’s lost the love of his life (for no reason other than his own hubris) and that the one who has earned her love is now talking to him one-on-one. Rather than taking the easy drama route of giving Hal yet another opportunity to undercut his latest rival, Adams instead opts for the much more in-character route of having Hal just be the hero that he is. Hal’s only care is that there are people in trouble and Nate is the only person who can help him. And man, do they make a great team.

And this is a fact that neither gets nor needs any particular highlighting from the story itself. No remarks about Nate being the one to guide Hal in are made. Nothing is said about how well Hal followed directions from his rival-in-love. And that’s kinda my favorite part of all of this, the conclusion that I’ve come to, that Hal is not in the least bit petty and is a wholly honorable person, is not a conclusion that the story busies itself with proving. It just is. Hal just is a hero. He just is a good guy. He just does the right thing because that’s the right thing to do and, man, does that make it hard to say no to him.

ryan: *gets philosophical* 

Monsta X members giving Jooheon kisses after #Alligator2ndWin on Show Champion + his cute reaction 

Monsta x: breathes...