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I just finished reading a manga named B Reaction by mangaka Tsuruta Hirohisa. A rather typical Shounen story with some ecchi stuff blended in, it is something like a cross between Kenichi and Tenjou Tenge and I was hooked for all 18 chapters of it.

Yesterday, I randomly picked up a manga named M×0 as the general premise looked a little interesting: a boy is accidentally enrolled into a magic school and has to pretend that he is an all powerful magician even though he has no talent. But, unfortunately, it fizzled off after the first few chapters and all in all was a waste of my time.

Grappler Baki is generally touted to be one of the most violent animes / mangas around. While the anime (especially the Saidai Tournament Hen) was below par, I was hoping that the manga would be (as is usually is) a touch better. And it is just a touch better, no more.

Very good, but also highly overrated. Joker was great and the storyline was decent. However, Bale was average and the lack of Katie Holmes stung. I am probably one of the few who prefers the first part.

Iron Man was surprisingly good, at least for the first half. The second half was well below par, with the scriptwriter not knowing what to do with this here superhero and thereby ruining the movie. However, Robert Downey Jr. was the clincher and elevated this movie to a "good". Based on the post-credits clip from The Incredible Hulk, it looks like the next movie will be Hulk vs. Iron Man which should be interesting albeit, with the end result obvious to everybody beforehand.

aka Hulk 2, I had no idea that the actors had been changed ... Edward Norton was stereotyped as per usual and Liv Tyler wasn't half as good as Jennifer Connelly. Is it just me or is she borderline chubby now? Give it a miss unless you're a fan of the series.

Insipid hollywood-ized version with poor direction, bad editing and a lacklustre story. Stay away from it.

I reread this book by Ursula K. Le Guin—one of my favourite authors—last week. What I have always loved about the Earthsea universe has been its atmosphere. It carries a serenity that is rarely found elsewhere; the only candidate I can think of immediately are the anime, Mushishi and Kino no Tabi.

The story is simple, the characters few, and the flow excellent. Highly recommended.

Patrick Rothfuss' Name of the Wind is a pretty entertaining fantasy novel. It has all the usual ingredients for success: a young boy-hero gifted in magic, a quick thinker, and a general rags-to-riches storyline. Add in a school/university setting and more underdog-ness, and you wonder if the author made up a list of attributes in best-selling fantasy novels and decided to blend them all in for a sure-fire milkshake of success. There is also more than a little bit of Le Guin's Earthsea universe sprinkled throughout Rothfuss' effort.

I actually did not know that Prometheus is part of the Alien franchise. If I did, I would have given it a miss as such films are simply not my cup of tea. That said, the final product was reasonably entertaining. However, as with most of these horror-thriller movies, the script is marked with random bouts of unrealistic idiocy to get the plot moving, something that I really can't bear for any length of time.

I suspect that this will be a fun film to watch in 3D.