Osamu Tezuka Buddha and Chynna Clugston Scooter Girl

I read some volumes and discussed Buddha, a manga by Osamu Tezuka, with my brother. I could not find all the volumes of this manga series and knowing my brother he read them, he can give me a quick summary of the rest. We also talked about the characters and how the religion buddhism is represented throughout the series. How they include Siddharta, which is known the be the iconic buddha. He though is not really a big part in the series for that the is a newborn. The main characters seem to be the pariah Tatta, the brahmin Naradatta, the slave Chapra, and his mother. We do not actually learn her name in the series. The story focuses on their journey more then Siddharta's. Mostly Chapra's goal is to rise up from his slave caste, even though it is forbidden. The book is full of characters with interesting personalities and morality's. For example our heroes may be good. But some will kill if they feel it is needed. The General who adopts Chapra is shown to be a horrible person at times, but is also shown as a loving father who accepts Chapra, even when he learns that he is a slave. The book is very well written with a lot of drama as well as a bit of humor. The humor me and my brother both agree that it is kinda corny, so some jokes seemed not so funny. Also just to through out there is that the series to me seems like it has a lot of 80's lingo as well, making it out of date to know days. The art in the series is very clean and uses black and white correct, making it still readable even with the heavy use of black in some areas. Many little details in the clothing, characters, background and more. It is a great read that I had fun rereading.

Another quick manga I read was Scooter Girl by Chynna Clugston. This was a disappointment. Everything about it kinda was a disappointment. The art in some panels was good, but other then that the manga was bad. Super cheesy plot line, predictable, and not humorous one bit. I had to really get myself to finish it and not slam my laptop shut and walk away. It was basically a typical story of a guy trying to get a girl, like cat and mouse. The only slight twist was that bad things start to happen to the main character, the boy, and believes the girl is a curse. For example his scooter gets ruined over, his dad becomes bankrupt, and all his friends start to hate him. Even though it had this twist I kinda did not think it helped, I thought it was actually out of place in this concept. I remember reading some of Chynna Clugston's Blue Monday work and that was a whole a lot better then Scooter Girl. Maybe going into this reading I had higher hopes and that made me more disappointed in the end. Overall I would not recommend this reading.