Danmei Society for the Egregious Misuse of Chinese Poetry and Literature

As the title says I've actually read some of the pile of graphic novels that I got from the library! Things have been busy and I've been sick so progress has still been slow.

The Worst Ronin by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Faith Schaffer — A graphic novel about a teen girl who wants to be a samurai and an older jaded ronin. The tech level is handwavy feudal Japan but with cell phones, which I found distracting. I didn’t think the cell phones added enough to the book to be worth it. Content note: gore, grief and dying

Anzu and the Realm of Darkness by Mai K. Nguyen and Diana Tsai Santos— Graphic novel about a Japanese American girl named Anzu who has just moved to a new town and get accidentally swept into the underworld. I thought it was pushing a little hard on we can solve systematic problems like bullying with individual choices but it was mostly sweet. I liked the kind of cartoony art style and all the different mystical critters.

Dragon of the Lost Sea by Laurence Yep —I read this Chinese mythology inspired MG fantasy novel to the kid at bed time. I had read these books myself as a kid and I was a little worried that they wouldn’t hold up, but the suck fairy has not gotten them! It’s maybe a little weird that the dragons all have wings. Chinese inspired stuff written in English these days tends to be very strict about not mixing in more western elements like that but actually the mixing is fun. Anyways this is a fun adventure story with lots of characters with big personalities.

Navigating With You by Jeremy Whitley,Casio Ribeiro, and Nikki Fox —A graphic novel about two girls who are both new at their high school. They decide to go on a quest to find all 7 volumes of an out of print manga they both never finished reading. I loved this! Both girls are charming and quirky in a geeky way, the manga story within the story was lovely. One of them does have a dead mom, something I generally avoid but by the time that was revealed I was hooked. It was super fun and charming!

Himawari House by Harmony Becker —A graphic novel about three young women from different places who move to Japan and end up living in the same house. It's a very slice of life with lots of food and friendship but also some sad moments. The author has a heartfelt note at the end explaining that she wrote on the accents because she wants to destigmatise having an accent. I have mixed feelings about it though because I find written accents way harder to parse than spoken accents.