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Convention Report: Sakura-Con 2010

Crowd - Sakuracon 2010

Sakuracon2010-CosplayContest-8810

Sakura-Con 2010

by Tom Good

This year’s Sakura-Con was the largest ever, with an attendance of just over 18,000 people at the Seattle Convention Center. The convention provides an amazing variety of things to do, combining educational and cultural events with pure fun and entertainment. Fans can learn how to waltz or learn to dance ParaPara, learn to sew costumes or learn to draw comics, go to a martial arts demonstration or a video game tournament. And just walking around between events is enjoyable in itself, because there are so many great costumes to see.

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Book review: The Hunger Games Review

The Hunger Games
Written by: Suzanne Collins
Published by: Scholastic Press
ISBN13: 978-0-439-02348-1
ISBN10: 0-439-02348-3

Reviewed By: Lauren Lapinski

With constant predictions of the human race and the world coming to an end in the year 2012, many of us fear what the near and distant future hold. Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games takes place sometime in the distant future in the ruins of North America, now known as Panem. In this dystopia future, an event is held each year known as the Hunger Games, where children from age 12 to 18 are selected by lottery to compete in a televised fight to the death with only one surviving victor. The heroine, Katniss Everdeen , enters the Hunger Games after her younger sister’s name is selected from the lottery and she volunteers to take her place.
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Book review: The Narrows

The Narrows
By Alexander C. Irvine
Published by Del Rey, a division of Random House Publishing Group, 2005, released in paperback 2010
ISBN: 9780345466983
Advance review copy provided by the publisher.

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

This book should have been a delightful revisionist historic fantasy. Set during World War II in Detroit, the protagonist, Jared Cleaves, is a young man working in one of Henry Ford’s factories (Building G, near the center of the Ford River Rouge factory complex) manufacturing golems for the war effort. So why did I find it such a long, tedious read? Well, first there’s Jared’s rah-rah attitude about the war; he’s deferred from the draft because of a childhood injury to his hand that left him unable to hold a gun. He’s depressed because he actually wants to be at the front, shooting Nazis and getting shot at, to prove his manhood.
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Yaoi Review: Ciao Ciao Bambino

Ciao Ciao Bambino
Story and Art: Momoko Tenzen
Published by the Juné Imprint of Digital Manga, Inc.
Copy supplied by Publisher
ISBN-10: -156970-077-x
ISBN-13: 978-1-56970-077-8

Review by Kris

On Kaname Imai’s first day at work is somewhat jazzed up when he saves young Yuuta Fujimoto from some aggressive men. Initially Kaname thinks Yuuta is an adorable young girl but Yuuta is all male. Kaname is a cram school teacher and a year after he saved Yuuta; Yuuta attends his cram school. It seems that Yuuta has developed a crush on Kaname, but there are some objects in the way. Kaname is a college student and kind of clueless and Yuuta is a middle school student and likes to look out for Kaname’s best interest. A relationship at this juncture is not in the cards but Yuuta is determined that one day he’ll seduce Kaname.
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