"Shunsuke" <shunsuke@mailcity.com> wrote:

{Shunsuke}
  A little more surreal and magical than the other parts, the "Spirit 
  Mother" idea against Nabiki's capitalistic real-world nature seems 
  like an attempt to compare the dichotomy of god vs. science; both 
  come from the same place, are inextricably linked, yet others try 
  to view them always as separate.

  Or maybe I'm just reading too much into things. ^_^

Maybe. :) That certainly wasn't the way I thought about it (being an
atheist and all), but it's one way of looking at it. There certainly is
a parallel in what our two heroines are doing, if not in the way in
which they went about doing it, and you'll see more of this as the
series unfolds.

  (Just for the record, I somehow get the feeling this Kaede is a
  Blue See 9 reference; the two certainly seem alike. ^_^)

Haven't seen it.

{Helen}
  The second re-writing of the HaM preludes runs much smoother....as 
  to be expected.  It brings out the possibilities of Kasumi being much 
  more than what most writers would portray her.  It's refreshing to see
  that Kasumi moves beyond the stereotypical "Oh my" conversations...

One of my biggest worries about this series was whether people would be
able to accept Kasumi's new role. I'm glad to hear that people seem to
be okay with it.

  And to be able to see Nabs in action... <grin> Mweh. Heh. Heh.  I like
  the comparison that Kleppe draws between the skills of the martial 
  artists of Nerima and Nabiki's own skills... essentially: to make the most
  money with the least effort... and she does it so well... ^_^

That she does. :) This is an admittedly unusual take on Nabby's
characterization, and readers have been split as to whether it works or
not. The question now is how far Nabz will go in the pursuit of her
dreams, and we'll get closer to an answer to it in the main HaM series.
(And yes, it is being worked on.)

As always, thanks for the reviews!


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics