Links: Party Like It's X/1999

Like many folks who discovered manga in the early-to-mid 2000s, one of my gateway titles was CLAMP's X/1999. I hated myself for loving it as much as I did; the ridiculous costumes and purple dialogue alone were reason enough for my inner snob to dismiss it as angstful trash. For all its silliness, however, X won me over: I reveled in its gory action scenes, mourned the loss of several favorite characters, giggled at the dream sequences, and rued the day that CLAMP abandoned the project.

I never loved another CLAMP title the way I loved X; with each new series, I found myself less and less enamored with CLAMP's stories and characters. I was relieved to learn that I'm not the only one who felt this way about CLAMP. Robin Brenner recently steered me towards Party Like It's 1999, a Tumblr account written by another recovering CLAMP fan:

When I was about 20, I read the manga X (X/1999 in U.S. release) for several years. But I got older. I got less interested. I got fed up with CLAMP's bullshit. I walked away. I'm 30 now. I've learned to like things that are good. I've learned to drink to forget. But now it's time to remember.

The panel-by-panel analysis of X is pure genius, so add Party Like It's 1999 to your RSS/Tumblr feed, stat.

Elsewhere in the mangasphere'

Good news for fans of Animal Academy, The Good Witch of the West, Monochrome Factor, Tactics, and Your & My Secret: JManga will be releasing the second volumes of all the TOKYOPOP titles it rescued from licensing purgatory. Look for new volumes on Thursday, May 17th. (N.B. JManga announces new arrivals via email before posting them at the site, so the new volumes won't be listed until Thursday.) [JManga]

Prepare to be schooled! Manga scholar Ryan Holmberg examines the Japanese love affair with Walt Disney, focusing on the proliferation of akahon (rental manga) stories starring Mickey and friends. [The Comics Journal]

Evan Krell takes a trip in the WABAC machine to review Katsuhiro Otomo's other masterpiece, Domu: A Child's Dream. [ani-gamers]

The spring rain has yielded a bumper crop of flowers ' Flowers of Evil, to be exact. Serdar Yegulalp's review of is one of the best to date, acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of this oddly compelling book. 'Shuzo Oshimi keeps this story focused on the mechanics of psychological manipulation and bullying, not the panopoly of perversities explored by any characters in it,' he notes. [Genji Press]