Kamikakushi, how things can be spirited away.

A bit of time has passed since the last post, but books have been read, games played and life happened to me whilst I was busy making other plans.
Firstly, my aunt passed away last Friday, she had been bad with her health for a while, but it still came as quite a shock. I do not think that I can express how much she meant to me in words, so I shall not try to. I will miss her dearly and hope she has gone to a better place. Her memory will be with us, always.

On to less personal matters.
Persona 3 is steadily coming along, with the in game calendar reaching the end of August before I knew it. The level grinding has become a bit less tedious as the team has been expanded with three new members, leading to a bit of variation in the party department. Nonetheless, the wipeouts have been as numerous as before, with one mid boss taking about five tries, each worth half an hour of gameplay at the least, because he kept charming my healers and thus gaining back its HP in larger quantities than I could dish out. Needless to say I saved the second I defeated it.
Pokémon Pearl has me chasing the Legendary Sprites in an attempt to complete my 'dex, so I can finally transfer my item hunters and egg hatchers from the Ruby cartridge. 7 Gyms down, only one left and after that the long and winding road to the Elite Four, which will hopefully give me time to level the current party (exempting the full HM user) into the 60+ region.
Let's see them beat that without using at least two moves.

My time spent reading books has been with the second Scrapped Princess novel and the first Missing volume. Scrapped Princess was a hoot, showcasing once more that an annoying girl like Pacifica cannot be disliked by anyone, even after they find out she is the one to bring about the destruction of the world. The ending chapters are both epic and saddening, as you know that despite their best efforts, the Casulls will still be fugitives when the day is done.
Which of course made me a bit sad when I remembered that volume three is probably the last one I'll be able to read for a long time.
Missing 1: Spirited Away did not have the same impact on me as Scrapped Princess, but the journey into the shadow realm kind of reminded me of Persona. The book tries a bit too much, setting the relationships between the main cast, trying to get in a mysterious organization, unknown benefactors, supernatural happenings and perhaps a little romance. But I think I will let it slide for this time, as it was probably meant as a setup novel for the series, so my hopes are high for the second novel, as all the time introducing characters can finally be spent doing some storytelling.
The week's end will probably see me finishing Kino no Tabi 1 and Scrapped Princess 3, with perhaps some real literature thrown in for good measure.