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sailorstarr-chan4 · 1 year

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Some of my Favorite Manga That Deserve an Anime Adaptation

Red River (28 volumes)

😍😍😍 !!!!!!!! *gestures dramatically at the screen* I just!!! I cannot scream this enough!!!! This forgotten gem stole my heart in 2020 and I cannot get over it. In a word, this series is: passionate. Exquisite. UNDERRATED. 😭😭😭 It's a historical isekai romance that is full of political intrigue, erotica, brilliant characterization, GORGEOUS art, and great action. This manga is the reason why I wrote 3 out of the 8 non-crossover Red River fics that exist on AO3 lmaooooo. IT'S JUST SOOOOO GOOD!!!! I never finished a series longer than 7 volumes within less than 2 weeks, and completely online, no less! It's a damn shame that it's so hard finding even physical copies of the manga to own, because dammit, I NEED!!!! 😍😍😍🥺🥺🥺 I would straight up CRY from joy if an anime adaptation was ever announced skgjfdfkjgdf (but I doubt it'd ever happen 😭)

MAO (14 volumes and counting!)

I mean, it's only the legendary Rumiko Takahashi's latest work, COME ON. It has Takahashi's usual touch in the art style, themes, and motifs, but is also wonderfully refreshing, with all new memorable characters and low-key one of her BEST main ships of all time. The game's afoot, and there's mysteries to unravel with deeper conspiracies beneath them all, all with a hot immortal doctor and a feisty girl who shares his curse with a cat demon thing (a byoki, to be precise). WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE?!

FAKE (7 volumes)

Yes, there's an OVA 2-part special. No, it's not enough. This bitch is thirsty for MORE. 😍😍😍👀👀👀 Yuri on Ice may be the first "yaoi" to steal my heart (I only put quotations because there's no porn lol), but FAKE is the first "official" yaoi to make me SQUEEEE while reading. Yes, this older series is not free from some of the unfortunate trappings of older yaoi series (*cough* noncon issues! *cough cough*), but I think what makes it work is that it's never pushed too far. And honestly, the mysteries surrounding their work as private detectives was so compelling, that it was almost like they never had time for shenanigans.... until after they fell in love 👀👀👀 Or, rather, after Ryo FINALLY accepted that he's gay AF for Dee lmao. Also: points for Dee being an openly bisexual man, who constantly corrects those who call him a homosexual. For the 90's??? That's surprisingly progressive.

Angel Sanctuary (20 volumes)

Yes, there's a 3 episode OVA. But it only "covers" the first 2 volumes out of TWENTY. This series is absolutely gorgeous: the Gothic inspired art, every panel is just dripping in angst, detail, and passion. The incest takes a backseat for the REAL drama, a savage dressing down of the hypocrisy of Christian ideals in a world where even the realm of Heaven is corrupt and full of sin. Dark, angsty, deliciously sinful, and a thoughtfully cynical yet inspiring commentary on what makes us human (even if you're a devil or an angel), it is an absolute CRIME that this series was never made into a full-length anime. If other controversial anime can be made/adapted in this day and age, then why not give this classic, forgotten gem a try, anime studios?! 😤

The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross (11 volumes)

Arina Tanemura's art is simply *chef's kiss* She has such a Shoujo Style that is unparalleled. Two are of her earlier works were made into beloved early 2000's magical girl anime series: Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and Full Moon wo Sagashite. So why not THIS?! It is such a deliciously absurd Drama that is addicting and frustrating as hell. It's also just a truly touching tale of how family baggage can be so damaging to people's perceptions on love, relationships, and self-worth. It's a series that's near and dear to my heart, and I'd love to see it animated one day.

Kitchen Princess (10 volumes)

This adorable series is 90% fluff, 10% ANGST, with some of the cutest art styles imaginable. If you're itching for a series about food that doesn't go batshit like Food Wars (I love that show, but I can understand that it can be, er, overwhelming lol), Kitchen Princess invites you in for tea and cake and holds your hand as you eat delicious desserts that warm your soul. It is just a sweet, sweet story, with an abundance of fluff, but enough angst and hurt/comfort to balance out the cutesyness. Definitely a comfort food series that NEEDS AN ADORABLE, WHOLESOME ANIME AND CUTESY SOUNDTRACK, DAMMIT!!!!

Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden (12 volumes)

If the original series can get an anime, then SO CAN THE PREQUEL, DAMMIT!!!! Genbu Kaiden took what is good about Fushigi Yuugi, and made it better. The protagonist is a thousand times more likable and stronger, both physically and emotionally. The dramatic scenes are far more effective and don't rely on Soap Opera BS. And the art has improved! GENBU KAIDEN DESERVES MORE LOVE!!!

Arisa (12 volumes)

Don't let the cutesy art fool you: this is one of the darkest series I ever read that didn't kill off the entire cast. With the right soundtrack and animation studio, this could be a downright chilling show to watch, without resorting to Higurashi levels of terror and violence. I don't Do horror at all, but the psychological thrills and twists of this dark series kept me invested, frightened, alarmed, and entertained until the very end. I would love to see it animated one day.... 👀

Shinobi Life (13 volumes)

THE BODYGUARD ROMANCE BEFORE YONA OF THE DAWN MADE IT COOL!!!! 😍😍😍 Lol, but in all seriousness, this series is SO GOOD!!! Now that I finally own all of the physical copies published in English (which is only half, because this world is cruel 😭😭😭), I cannot WAIT to dive back into this world of time-traveling ninjas and reincarnated princesses and adorkable relationship shenanigans, with an added bonus of backstory ANGST.

Alice in the Country of Joker: Circus and Liar's Game (7 volumes)

Listen. LISTEN. I DEMAND AN ANIME BASED OFF THIS MIND-BOGGLING TRASH, and no, not just that joke of a "movie" that is even somehow even more incoherent than the countless manga spin-offs. Not all of us have the patience or understanding to play the games, pleeeeeease 😭😭😭

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Honorable Mentions:

Fairy Cube (3 volumes)

First of all: fairies. Second of all: this tiny 3-volume series is such a clusterfuck of chaos, lightning fast plot points, that if stretched out to even a 12 or 13 episode series would probably make it coherent AND give justice to the story.

Alice 19th (6 volumes)

Same logic to Fairy Cube: I just want someone to take this mind-fuck of a series, because, in the right studio and director's hands, it'd be soooo amazing!

Otomen (17 volumes)

Honestly, I barely remember much of this adorkable series, other than the very refreshing and honest takes on gender, gender roles, and gender identity and how all are similar and yet separate. It would be nice to see more representation in mainstream anime, even now.

RG Veda (10 volumes)

Once again: a 2-episode OVA does not an anime make. Literally I just love the art and mythologies. And it's one of CLAMP's earliest work, and is low-key their most gorgeous. Imagining this story animated to today's standards would be *chef's kiss* AMAZING!!! 😍

Kilala Princess (5 volumes)

Let me make one thing absolutely clear: this will never happen. Ever. Never ever ever. Not in my lifetime, certainly, as long as copyright laws exist. If Kingdom Hearts is never gonna get an anime/animated show adaptation, then this cutesy manga sure as hell won't. But GODS I WANT IT!!!!!! 😍😍😍🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭 It is every childhood Disnerd's self-insert dream come true sdkjgdjfgr

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sumire-no-nikki · 6 months

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To Be Here

October. My beloved October. The kotatsu blanket is back on, the indoor plants don't need as much watering, the fallen leaves in the backyard need sweeping and the Summer clothes have been put away. Funny how many friends I've recently chatted with about the bliss that comes with October. It's a burst of orange ochre and apple red in my head. When the season turned, the sun who has since made herself scarce is a warm embrace whenever she pokes her head out. The wind and clouds are constant companions. The evening is perfect for mysterious reads under candlelight. What a splendid month.

As I am typing this, however, October is nearly done. Something this good always leaves too soon, doesn't it? I love the first taste of cold after the pesky Summer heat and September’s false promises of colder days. October is where it really gets going. But it's always nearly done before I feel like I can properly savor it. How melancholy!! But isn’t that how it always goes? Love is more deeply felt after only the crater it left is the one thing you’ve got to remember it by? Love defined by the lack, the absence, the loss? There will never be enough Octobers for me. I’m a creature of want in this way, yearning is an instinct for me. I watch the days go by and the thought that there won’t be another October until next year is like quicksand for my mind.

That said I’ve spent the month working diligently and on the whole being rather productive in both work and personal matters. There’s this project I’ve started and making good progress on! Once completed I promised myself a trip where I can apply what I’ve learned and I’m so excited to reach that goal. I’ve also read a lot this month. I really surprised myself. I’ve read six books and the month isn’t over yet! I read two Agatha Christie books, all three of the Toshikazu Kawaguchi series (the fourth one is coming out next month!! And I’ll have to read the fifth one in Japanese because I don’t want to wait for the translation to come out!!!) I also read Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library as recommended by a friend and I'm so glad she brought it up! I've had a copy of it for ages but just never managed to pick it up due to associated memories (it was given to me by someone during a bad period in my life!!) I swear that book might've just saved my life. I also finished two manga volumes in Japanese this month. It's a series called Yotsuba&! which is just the most wholesome series. Maybe I'll talk about it someday on here. But that series is such a light in my life. I picked it up on one particularly tough day last week and it instantly revived hope in my heart that there's still good out there no matter what.

Other things I've been up to: I've been running a lot these days and I'm actually surprising myself with how much I enjoy it. Earlier today (I'm typing this before bed) I went on a run while it was drizzling. I felt like a kid playing in the rain. I couldn't stop smiling!

Also, the podcast show I mentioned some entries ago!! Case 63!! It has a season 2!! Actually, I found out it's originally by a Chilean writer, so the version I listened to is an English adaptation. Anyway, I'm so happy there's more of it. Season 3 is the final season in Spanish so I expect the English adaptation of that will also be made (since they went so far as to continue with season 2). Fingers crossed! I'm so intrigued as to how it will end!!

As for TV, I started and finished watching HBO's Barry in like a week. I was absorbed!! All four seasons! Mind you, each episode is only 30 mins so it wasn't really that long. It's such a funny and dark show I love it so much. I've heard good things about it through the years but I never found the time to get into it. Plus I have this terrible illness of "I-Can't-Get-Into-Things-When-It's-Super-Mainstream-I-Need-To-Wait-Until-The-Hype-Dies-Down-itis" lol. No, seriously I just didn't feel like getting into a new show until this month apparently. But I'm so glad I watched it. The show is a goldmine, the best Hollywood/LA culture satire I've seen in ages. The way it highlights the gender gap in the workplace, how a writer must compromise on truth in order to sell something, even the way a woman needs to be a "perfect victim" in order for her story to be worth anything! It's so witty!! And the central question of can people truly change--I'll be thinking about this show for a long time. It's so good. Watch it if you can.

Early this month I also managed to sneak a quick trip to Croatia and Slovenia which was so relaxing and peaceful. Trips can be quite stressful for me especially when it's a big city full of tourists due to my OCD (I'm looking at you Paris, and literally all of Italy smh... jk jk) But this trip was restorative and gave me a genuine sense of discovery and wonder, which is what I aim to travel for.

I've been listening to the new Mitski album and rethinking my home library's organisation system! I haven't decided yet but I mainly want my Classical Mythology books, both fiction and non-fiction in one area. Also wishing I bought two Caryatid statues in Athens last year instead of one! Would've been nice for her to have a buddy!!

Now, the title of this entry comes from a realisation I had this month--a very important one. As someone whose nature is to think and think and think, it's difficult to be in the present. I'm always in agony over the past, and anxious about the future. I can be quite dismissive of what's in front of me as a result. This is a chronic issue of mine. But while reading The Midnight Library, tucked in my reading chair, savoring the scent of a pumpkin pie candle, all the pieces of advice I've read both online and in person suddenly clicked.

When writing a first draft of a novel, it simply needs to exist.

When making art, it simply needs to be there.

When yearning to do something, I must attempt it

When wanting to exist, I simply am.

I just need to be here in the most literal sense. To be. Not in the past tense, not in the future tense. There's no need for qualifiers. There is no standard to fulfill. I know this is neither new nor revolutionary, but in the embrace of an October evening, digesting this advice and accepting it made me feel so brave.

It hit me like a sucker punch. I thought, I need to untangle my sense of self and my worth from anything external. I cannot keep on doing this to myself. Because the truth is if I don’t stop this constant self-flagellation, I have simply replaced my mother in adulthood. I will have been no different from her and her constant need to criticise me. This is something I've been actively trying to improve recently and I can feel myself getting better. I feel, somewhat ironically, that by being present, I'm regaining a sense of hope that I haven't felt since childhood. Like somehow my past is healed and my future is assured.

So despite how much I've gone on about loving October at the beginning of this entry, as much as I know I will miss it, I have to be where I am. That means accepting that all things end--good or bad. That means being in November when it comes. That means understanding that what I've lost, while dearly missed, is out of my grasp now. That means what will happen to me is tomorrow's business.

This entry's song I've repeated to death (which is a very good thing) this month. It's by an artist I really enjoy. I cannot wait for new material from her and this new single is a sign of really good things to come!

I leave you with a photo of a friend I made while out on a walk. What shall I name him?

Have a wunderbaaahhh rest of Octobaaaahhh! 🐑

#diary #sumire-no-nikki #Spotify

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beneaththetangles · 1 year

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This week, Maison Ikkoku comes to an end (again); the mesmerizing A.I. story, Your Forma, receives a manga adaptation; Tomozaki-kun makes a difficult choice in the latest volume of his top-tier light novel series; and much more, including the debut reviews by our two newest reviewers, WacOtaku and Marg. Check out their reviews and the rest below!

Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki (Vol. 9) • Maison Ikkoku: Collector’s Edition (Vol. 10) • Oshi no Ko (Vol. 1) • Pandora Seven (Vol. 1) • Romantic Killer (Vol. 2) • Yakuza Fiance: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii (Vol. 1) • Your Forma (Vol. 1)

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Maison Ikkoku: Collector’s Edition, Manga Vol. 10

After a hit-or-miss middle portion that sometimes felt like Rumiko Takahashi was deliberately stalling, the final act of Maison Ikkoku gives this iconic RomCom a grand-slam home run finish. Volume nine ended on a cliffhanger, with an enraged Kyoko planning to return to her parents’ home after a miscommunication convinced her that Godai had two-timed her and proposed to his longtime sort-of girlfriend Kozue, when in fact he had deliberately broken off that relationship to tie up his loose ends. Now, with the finish line almost in sight, our luckless protagonist must overcome his lady love’s tempestuous nature, her father’s disapproval, and his own insecurities over whether Kyoko truly loves him or just sees him as the best available substitute for her late husband Soichiro. (Oh, and he still needs to find a full-time job as well.) This final volume centers around a remarkable shift in the relationship dynamic between our two main characters, and not simply in a romantic way. For so long, Godai has been an immature schmuck desperately trying to prove himself to an older and more established Kyoko. But now that Godai has grown as a man and closed the maturity gap between them, he is in a place to take the lead in their relationship, putting Kyoko into a situation where she must confront her own character flaws. I won’t spoil the details of the ending, but it forgoes bombastic displays of romantic passion in favor of a sometimes messy but incredibly tender intimacy that I’ve yet to see equaled by any other mangaka. Rumiko Takahashi finished Maison Ikkoku before I was born, and Yusaku and Kyoko would be about the same age as my parents today; but I strongly suspect that for as long as there are fans of manga, this series will remain evergreen. ~ WacOtaku Maison Ikkoku: Collector’s Edition is published by VIZ Media.

Pandora Seven, Manga Vol. 1

Lia is the lone resident human on an otherwise-utopian island where food is plentiful and strawberries come in milkshake form practically straight off the plant. She’s cheery, capable, and kind—too kind for her own good, as her mother (a very, very large dragon) intones to the audience of (humanoid) vegetables, animals, and demons—er, “village ladies”—who come to keep her company during the millennial festival. Mama dragon is too preggers to move, so they bring the party to her. That turns out to be short-lived too, as suddenly a shipful of aggressive, veiled humans led by a particularly imperious young woman rock up and ruin everything. Absolutely everything. Lia flees, leaving death and destruction in her wake—much of it of her own inadvertent doing. For amid all the turmoil, Lia accidentally opened Pandora’s Box! What strange power has she stumbled into? What identity crisis will this fateful encounter with her own kind spark? Only time, and hopefully subsequent volumes, will tell—because this volume doesn’t really. Instead, reading Pandora Seven is akin to being dropped in the middle of a Gordian knot: there is a profusion of subplots, characters, relationships, tropes, and meaningful hints branching off willy-nilly, alongside masses of world-building, both visual and dialogic, but no clear through-line—thematic or otherwise. There’s no setup for a central character arc yet either. Granted, I do suspect that things will clarify in volume two, and what we’ll have is a kind of paralleling of the tales of the two human girls, protagonist and antagonist, until they realize they have more in common than not and would be better off partnering up to overthrow the various oppressive forces in their lives. But this is just a hunch, and based more on the two pages of bonus material at the end than the four chapters that precede it. Indeed, the bonus material goes a long way to salvaging this first volume, clarifying the lore and teasing vital plot and character points that are enough to pique my interest again after it had waned halfway through. What this volume needs is one final edit. Yet even so, there is a spark of something here that could be quite epic, and so I’ll give Pandora Seven and creator Yuta Kayashima one more volume to pull themselves together and start to shine with clearer purpose and direction. ~ claire

Pandora Seven is published by Yen Press. Volume one releases on January 17th.

Yakuza Fiance: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii, Manga Vol. 1

I am beyond excited to finally have this in my hands! This is one of my most anticipated releases from 2022! Yakuza Fiance is by Asuka Konishi, who also created the one-shot Haru’s Curse. Having enjoyed that manga, I couldn’t wait to read more of her work. Konishi’s storytelling and beautifully distinct art style make her stand out above the crowd. The story opens with our lovely heroine, Yoshino, storming in on her grandfather and demanding he give her an explanation about a newspaper article. She finds out that the article is about her, and that she is to be married off to Miyama, the son of a rival yakuza gang. To keep the peace between gangs, her grandfather coaxes her into meeting Miyama in Tokyo. Yoshino reluctantly agrees, and off to Tokyo she goes. When they meet, Yoshino thinks that Miyama’s just a little “too chummy.” He doesn’t act like she’d expect a yakuza boss’s son to act, just like a regular high school guy. Then late one night, unable to sleep, she happens to see him coming home with blood all over his hands and clothes. Maybe she was wrong about her first impressions of him. Little by little, she starts seeing a different side to Miyama, a scary one. Her first instinct is to go back to her grandfather in Osaka, but she decides to stick it out for one year. She fires back at Miyama and takes him by surprise—so much so that a switch is flipped inside of him, and he becomes utterly obsessed with this strong, fiery side of her. It looks like we are witnessing the birth of a strong, independent woman. Will she be able to continue holding her own against these rivals and a love-crazed Miyama? I cannot wait to find out! The next volume is set to release this month. ~ Marg

Yakuza Fiance: Raise was Tanin ga li is published by Seven Seas Entertainment.

Your Forma, Manga Vol. 1

Echika Hieda has always been head and shoulders above the rest of the Electronic Investigation Department of Interpol. Which wouldn’t be a problem, if it weren’t for the fact that Divers like her must be paired up with equally skillful Belayers, or else risk permanent brain damage—to the Belayer, that is. After frying the brain of her latest partner in less than two seconds flat, Echika is paired with her worst nightmare—an Amicus, or a type of artificial person that Echika loathes, for reasons that are only hinted at so far through tantalizingly brief peeks at her slow-burn backstory. Writer Mareho Kikuishi offers up some ingenious world-building and genre play here, making Your Forma ideal for fans of sci-fi mixed with psychological detective story a la ID: Invaded, as Echika dives into people’s minds through the Your Forma technology implanted in their brains (now you can just think your social media posts!) and Harold, the AI, pulls her out. The story sports an edginess that recalls the more unsettling side of the genre spawned by Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics,” as seen in films such as Alex Garland’s Ex Machina. It’s also a bit of a globetrotting adventure, taking the leads from Paris to St. Petersburg, to the wilds of Sapmi (Sami territory or Lapland, and an official no-go zone for tech) and its polar opposite, Silicon Valley. The two MCs make for an interesting pair, with Echika being strangely grizzled for one so young and more emotionless than any AI ever was, while Harold is as jovial as they come, with cut-glass good looks and a flirty readiness to use them—all in the line of duty, of course. This is the first of writer Kikuishi’s novels to be adapted for manga, and boy, does artist Yoshinori Kisaragi ever do a fantastic job. I would be tempted to read the novel rather than wait for the next manga installment, but the art is so vivid and expressive that I’m going to try to resist, even if it means perching on the edge of my seat for a few months. In short, Your Forma is an absolute corker! ~ claire

Your Forma is published by Yen Press.

Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki, Light Novel Vol. 9

Fun, addictive, intriguing, and now, masterpiece? Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki reaches the heights of the romcom genre in volume nine, blowing the lid on parallel stories—Hinami’s slowly churning tale on the one hand, and on the other the romance between Tomozaki and Kikuchi, thanks to their recent decision to date and the major challenges in their new relationship. What results from Yuki Yaku’s decision to dig deep into these major storylines is heavy progression in relationships all around as Tomozaki, with the help of friends old and new, must decide how to prioritize values in his packed life. His thoughts are scattered and often puzzling, but realistic for him (and more generally to 17-year-olds). There’s also serious character growth for Tomozaki as the author dives right into the complexities of romantic relationships, jealousy, and friendships with the opposite sex. He doesn’t shy away from these issues, creating considerable depth as Tomozaki evaluates his feelings for Kikuchi and how he should treat her, as well as what he really feels for Hinami. But not only are we treated to Oregairu-level thoughtfulness, we also get tender and emotional moments—more in this volume than in the rest of the series combined. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll sometimes scratch your head—and you’ll finish volume nine feeling satisfied. This story refuses to go in circles. I can’t wait to see how all lands. One caveat, though, which I haven’t previously explored: For all the laud I’ve given Yuki Yaku, I find this author’s notes at the end of each volume strange and sometimes deplorable. He gives little insight into his wonderful work, but always focuses on the cover image, explaining in great detail why these illustrations are so sexy. I wish he’d class these notes up to match the series he’s created. ~ @animepopheart

Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki is published by Yen Press. Volume nine releases on January 17th.

Read: Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki Reviews: Vol. 3 // Vol. 5 // Vol. 6 // Vol. 6.5 // Vol. 7 // Vol. 8 // Vol. 8.5

Romantic Killer, Manga Vol. 2

Due to the ever-heated controversy on Twitter surrounding the shojo series Romantic Killer, I continued this series with just as much hesitant curiosity as I did volume one. Volume two kicks off right where the previous volume ended, as we get to know and learn more about the “childhood friend,” Junta. As Anzu becomes more acquainted with him while discovering how to survive in her “awful world” of being surrounded by hot guys, she starts to think she has a pretty good handle on things. That is, until Riri’s antics lead to another hot guy taking an interest in her! I have to confess that I was most interested in reading this second volume because of Kazuki. He and Anzu have such a wonderful and refreshing friendship that I needed to know if Riri would cause more romantic “mishaps” between these two. While I won’t say whether my expectations were well met (due to not wanting to share spoilers), I will say that I was very happy with the amount of page time he received. I also enjoyed getting to know Junta on a deeper level, even if, like Anzu, I wish that the “love spell” (as she calls it) would be broken. He is such a sweet young man! I did, however, deeply dislike the new guy that Anzu meets. I didn’t care for his actions or general attitude, regardless of how hard he tried to “change” so that he could get to know Anzu better. Despite that, though, I am curious to see where things go in volume three, even if it is specifically for more romantic mishaps between Kazuki and Anzu thanks to Riri’s relentless shenanigans. ~ Laura A. Grace

Romantic Killer is published by VIZ Media.

READ: Romantic Killer Vol. 1 Review

Oshi no Ko, Manga Vol. 1

What do you get when you cross the comedic cleverness of Kaguya-sama: Love is War with the unflinching stare at the seedier side of life found in Scum’s Wish and set the whole thing among teenaged entertainers in the Japanese film and music scene? You guessed it: Oshi no Ko (which can be translated many ways, the most pertinent to this story being “the children of my favorite performer”), which is co-created by Aka Akasaka of Kaguya fame, and Mengo Yakoyari, of Scum’s Wish. The results are intriguing, producing a rich thematic tapestry that both pushes and pulls, repels and compels with its various plots and punchlines. There are many moments that, if pursued a beat (or panel) longer, could make for a really uncomfortable scene. The premise alone is what my grandma would have called “near the knuckle”: Gorou is a massive idol otaku and an OB/GYN who treats—and then on the fateful day of labor, reincarnates into the child of—his favorite idol, Ai, who is a mere sixteen years of age(!). But Akasaka and Yokoyari know precisely when to cut short a particular thread before it crosses the line, and leave it up to the reader instead to wander (or not) into unsavory thought territory. If this were all this volume was—a sort of knife’s edge dance with titillation—then I’d probably pass on it and the upcoming anime adaptation (about which there’s already a fair amount of buzz). But actually, there’s a lot more on offer here. The story swiftly and unexpectedly moves into the realm of thriller, with the fate of the male lead’s soul in the balance. There are layers upon layers to the storytelling, with a clever framing device at the start of each chapter that gives the sense that the creators have planned everything out thoroughly, taking the time to refine the details and set up a potentially mind-blowing resolution, possibly years from now. The first volume concludes with two core mysteries in play: one that Gorou is aware of, and the other that has yet to dawn on him, though we already know the answer. This is a clever technique because the genuinely unknown plot hooks the reader, while the known mystery ties us to Gorou as we anticipate that moment when he finally realizes what we know to be true. Will this second mystery have lost its affective power by the time he puts things together, or will it be the missing piece that redeems him from a self-inflicted fate as ugly as any of those in Scum’s Wish? In short, an unexpected twist and skillful restraint in the writing here have piqued my interest, and I am looking forward to the next installment. ~ claire

Oshi no Ko is published by Yen Press.

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“Reader’s Corner” is our way of embracing the wonderful world of manga, light novels, and visual novels, creative works intimately related to anime but with a magic all their own. Each week, our writers provide their thoughts on the works they’re reading—both those recently released as we keep you informed of newly published works, and those older titles that you might find as magical (or in some cases, reprehensible) as we do.

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hashtagloveloses · 5 months

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Hi! I just wanted to say I love your blog, I was wondering if you had any animanga recommendations? I really enjoy anything, hope you have a good day!

aw thank you! well i mean you follow me so. you have seen my absolutely soul consuming obsessions with JJK and Trigun. For Trigun I have an optimal consumption order and content warnings for both anime and the manga in my newsletter where I wrote about it here:

For JJK, I recently showed it to a few friends + am rereading the manga rn myself and I suggest:

season 1

season 2 eps 1-7 (hidden inventory prequel arc + shibuya arc setup)

JJK 0 (the movie that takes place a year before season 1. just TRUST me with this)

season 2 eps. 8-onwards (shibuya arc onwards)

once you're caught up on the anime, catch up on the manga (including JJK 0, the original standalone story that is now a "prequel volume")

for both of these both the sub and the dub are great. for JJK you can watch the dub and switch over the subs when you get to the more recent episodes that havent been dubbed yet. (i suggest doing JJK first so you can catch up and suffer every week in the shibuya arc with us since it's currently airing). neither of these is very long.

i also wrote about GWitch, which I think was one of the best anime of this past year, and which you can enjoy without knowing anything about Gundam:

and then there's quite obviously Spy x Family, which truly is as good as everybody says it is. catch up on the anime so you can watch s2 along with us rn while it airs (the movie comes out in december!) and then you've got plenty of manga to read to keep you happy. Buddy Daddies also lives up to the hype and was phenomenal.

i have many many more suggestions but that depends on your taste and what you're looking for and have already seen. if you're interested in adaptations of chinese webnovels, you can start with the Big Hitter, MDZS which i also wrote about:

but yeah these are all very mainstream so give me some of your specifications and i can be more specific

#ask #trigun #jjk #mdzs

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ghoooooooooooooooost · 1 year

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may i ask what manga you're reading?

it's called 'my home hero' n i've been reading it on mangasee123

it got an anime adaptation that i saw a trailer for a while back n it started airing like last week but the anime is. not great so when i found out it had a manga i picked up that instead (worth it) i'll put warnings under the readmore if you wanna read it

look at this cover btw

i'm only at chapter 48 but warnings i have so far (edit! i read up to chapter 133, latest in the translation i'm using, and added more warnings (BIG ONES)):

nudity (most of it so far has been the protagonist tetsuo + there's a panel of him completely naked on full display that gets shown multiple times)

abusive relationship (early on with a character, but we only see the aftermath)

death, murder, gore, a suicide, detailed disposing of bodies, covering up murder - things of that nature

r-slur is used once in the translation i read

(the next warnings are from book 2 onwards also i'll be honest i liked book 1 better, book 3 is still in progress)*

the ages of tetsuo n kasen might feel kinda weird when you find out when they first met? at least it did for me (doesn't get revealed till wayyy later)

cult

familial abuse

((THE BIG ONE THAT CAUGHT ME OFFGUARD)) incest gets involved with the cult, SA is threatened and almost happens onscreen several times (explicitly so) and is mentioned to happen offscreen in the past. cult has sex in front of a child.....

book 2 in general is just. really fucking wild*

*i say books 1-3 but it's actually 19 volumes, the cult arc goes into full swing starting from vol 9

#asks

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beesinspades · 1 year

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heya!! im someone whos only watched the 98 version of the anime and knows its pretty different from the manga, but idk how much. what would u say the main differences between the manga, 98, and stampede are? im just trying to debate how crucial it is to read the manga lol

hi!! I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask this, because I haven't seen all of the '98 version! but the manga is definitely worth a read, since the '98 version only had notes from the author to work with once they were done adaptating the first two volumes? (basically trigun maximum wasn't out when the anime ended, I think?) I did watch a few episodes though, and the differences between manga and '98 I noticed were:

vash isn't lowkey girl-crazy in the manga at all

some subplots don't exist in the manga (like the one with rich guy 'owning' all the water and hiring vash as a bodyguard)

important elements are revealed much sooner in the manga than in the anime (wolfwood working for knives, vash's age and his connection to the plants, etc)

vash didn't kill anyone in july in the anime, but he killed the whole city in the manga

meryl doesn't spend weeks refusing to believe vash is the humanoid typhoon because she finds him too dumb lol

and differences I heard about but haven't seen for myself yet:

there's no lowkey romance (?) between wolfwood and millie nor vash and meryl

the way/place [redacted] dies is different

knives is just a bad guy in the anime, he's much more developped in the manga

the anime doesn't have characters like livio (important to wolfwood's storyline) or elendira the crimsontail, a trans woman who's the strongest of the gung-ho guns in the manga

likely many other things that develop the story and the characters better since, again, they only had notes to work with

for stampede, So Much is different from the manga too. the core is there, but the characters don't meet the same way (millie will likely show up in season 2 after a time skip), the villains don't show up for the same reasons / in the same circumstances / in the same order (like livio appears in next week's episode even though he appears fairly late in the manga) and basically the story is happening before the july disaster, which definitely shakes things up quite a bit in regards to pacing, relationship development between the characters, etc.

so I wouldn't say it's crucial to read the manga, but also i really can't not recommend it!! it feels different enough from both the '98 version and stampede to be worth a read.

I hope that helps! if anyone who's more informed than me has anything to add or correct, please feel free to do so~

#trigun stampede #trigun #ask #anon #bee answers

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saiyef · 8 months

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I have to confess something, when I saw Martial Master Asumi on the MANGA Plus app, I ignored it because I thought the art they used for its thumbnail (which is shown above) looked lame. A few weeks later, I found out that the author is Kawada Sensei, who made the successful Jump series Hinomaru Sumo (ran from 2014-2019, collected into 28 volumes and had its own anime adaptation), and I decided to check it out.

I’m reading a lot of new series on the MANGA Plus app (Demon Lord Exchange!!, Ice-Head Gill, Wild Strawberry, Mikane and The Sea Woman, and Null Shojo) and Martial Master Asumi would have to be my favourite one of the new series. The manga’s story (to put it simply and bluntly) is about high schooler Nito Asumi getting into MMA. To keep it simple, I’ll just say my two favourite things about the series: 1) I really love the art (though, for some reason the coloured art used for the series’ thumbnail did not look good to me) and 2) the biggest reason I love this series is the fight choreography which looks so good, uses real-life MMA fighting technique and is very clear in how it flows from one move to the next making it very easy to keep track of.

If you haven’t read it already and you either liked what you see, are a fan of fighting manga, a fan of sports manga and/or a fan of Hinomaru Sumo, please read Martial Master Asumi. It’s really good and deserves a chance.

Also of note, the series’ original title in Japanese is Asumi Kakeru (アスミカケル) but is localised in English as Martial Master Asumi; the reason it was given the name Martial Master Asumi was to give it the same acronym as MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), which the series is about.

#martial master asumi #asumi kakeru #kawada #hinomaru sumo #manga recommendation #manga recommendations #manga #manga plus

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mobumi · 8 hours

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Spring 2024 Anime watchlist

1. Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

I've watched all 4 episodes and it's brilliant so far! I didn't expect to like it this much. I saw the trailer a while ago and I was immediately intrigued so i waited for this to come out. I wasn't disapointed in the slightest! I'm not too keen on period drama usually, but this one is so captivating.

2. Bartender: Glass of God

A big surprise. Didn't expect much other than a slice of life about a bartender, but it has actually a very interesting plot and it's so so good! I'm on episode 4, very excited for the rest of the series!!

3. WIND BREAKER

I'm definitely biased with this one because i read the manga and i got very attached to its characters! At first i wasn't so sure, the manga didn't interest me much, but i bought the first volume to give it a try and it was better than i expected. Since it's not something i'm usually attracted to, it kinda has been my guilty pleasure ever since. The anime did it justice so far so i can't wait to see more of it adapted.

4. Oblivion Battery

I'm a huge fan of sports anime, especially when it involves baseball (i love Ace of Diamond, Ookiku Furikabutte and One Outs, to name a few) so this anime was one of my most anticipated! Well, after watching all 3 episodes, i think not everyone will be into the humor and i saw some people saying they disliked Kei, but i just love it? It's hilarious and really entertaining, there's so much potential with this show, i can't wait to see more!

5. Kaiju No. 8

Well, it's a big budget "mainstream" anime, of course it will get my attention like everyone else, but it's mostly beacuse i read the first volume of the manga that i was interested to see the anime. It's fun, the classic shonen formula, no suprises here, but i enjoyed it i guess...

6. Tadaima, Okaeri

Cute anime, though i'm not a big fan of omegaverse, it's nice to watch. I needed at least one slice of life in my list and this one was the perfect addition! I like it, it's different and sweet. Nothing extraordinary, but definitely worth a watch.

7. Viral Hit

I'm watching it, but i don't know what to think about it... It's not bad, but it's a little bit weird and ridiculous. It's kinda similar to Weak Hero Class 1 and has many themes used before in the manhwa genre, though i think it delivered what it was meant to do. I'll give it a couple more episodes to be fully engaged.

8. Demon Slayer: Hashira Training Arc

It's not out yet, but I watched the first episode at the movie theater (it was a special release in France) like two months ago i think? It wasn't enough and nothing really happened in this episode so i'm waiting to see more once it comes out!

9. Go! Go! Loser Ranger!

I've only seen one episode. It's a new concept for me, it got my attention, but the first episode bored me a little. Maybe i wasn't really in the mood. I'll watch a second episode to form a better opinion! The concept is interesting!

Anime still airing that I'm watching:

Dungeon Meshi

I'm in love with this anime to be honest! I wasn't really sure at first because i'm not into fantasy anime, but i was truly impressed by the storytelling and the characters' journey. Definitely a must watch!

Ninja Kamui

I enjoy watching this anime, but i have to admit that they lost me with the mecha stuff. I'm still going to watch it though, and i'll totally finish it when i can. It's over next week so i'm going to watch all the remaining episodes that i still haven't watched yet.

Anime that I still have yet to start:

Black Butler: Public School Arc

The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio

GIRLS BAND CRY

Whisper Me a Love Song

#here is finally my spring watchlist #it's coming a bit late but i still wanted to share it #anime #anime watchlist #anime review #yatagarasu #the raven does not choose its master #bartender glass of god #wind breaker #oblivion battery #boukyaku battery #kaiju no. 8 #tadaima okaeri #viral hit #demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #go go loser ranger #sentai daishikkaku #dungeon meshi

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davidmariottecomics · 5 months

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Why is it so Hard to Launch a Superhero Universe?

Face front, true believers!

We're talking superhero comics! In particular, we're going to be talking a little more history this time and then, y'know, time for a bit of updates on the world and what you can maybe do to help things not totally fall apart.

I was talking with someone this week about superhero comics and it made me think about what the new superhero universe of the 2020s is going to be. Now, I hope that the person I was talking to about it is the one who cracks it because they've got a lot of good ideas, but I wanted to do a quick rundown of just how hard it is to make a new superhero universe that lands in the market and has a real staying power. Looking at the history, I think since the 1990s, there's been one major front-runner each decade, and then some other notable accomplishments. So, let's walk through 'em and see if there's anything we can discover from that.

2020s: ??? Maybe the Massive-Verse? We're still pretty early in the 2020s and I don't want to make a definite call at this point, but I will say, I think the Massive-Verse, the Image comics spinning out of Radiant Black by Kyle Higgins and cohorts is a strong front-runner. And as we move backwards in time to talk about this all, I think it'll increasingly make sense why. But, to put a brief pin in this, let me say that I think Kyle's got a good pedigree in the Direct Market, a strong and largely focused concept that allows for a fair amount of different folks to work on very complimentary stories that feel of a shared creative vision, and a history of Image superhero books doing well.

2010s: My Hero Academia

Okay, so, now with the benefit of hindsight, I think it's fair to say that the biggest new superhero universe globally in the 2010s was My Hero Academia. It was this kinda crazy crossover hit that blends a lot of tropes of shonen action/school manga with American superheroes. But what made it a success?

First and foremost, I think a lot of what would be it's competition in a US comics-based market was in a weird place. That's not to discount MHA in any way, just to say that it was able to step into a niche that had kinda been forgotten. The most direct American superhero comics comparisons to it would probably be X-Men and Legion of Superheroes (with sort of Teen Titans/Young Justice as more strained comparsions). Both X-Men and Legion focus on a large team of heroes, often told through a couple key focal characters, who have generally unique powers from each other and the rest of the world with some minor concerns about being young and having school or the responsibilities of youth, but that was almost always backburnered for the action. Both have, at various points, had their characters wrestle with being empowered in a world where not everyone is and the various sorts of prejudices therein. And both, for a while, were largely read by a younger audience, but by the 2010s, Legion was for old fogeys (like me, a huge LSH stan) and X-Men was... were they on an island? I know they were fighting the Avengers a lot (and/or joining them as one bigger superteam). And with that shift away from being for younger readers and being more continuity heavy, and without sort of other young superhero books doing a lot to replace it (Young Avengers vol. 2, a great book, was already on it's way out when the first volume of MHA came out stateside). So, there were a lot of young people who had grown up with superhero media and with anime and manga and had an option to get both in one book that was easily accessible to new readers.

Of course, it also has a pretty compelling story and visual style. MHA was swiftly bolstered by an anime adaptation and spin-off titles and anime-original stories in the movies. All of that added to make the world--the universe--feel bigger, but simulatenously, managed to remain ancillary. If you wanted to get deeper, know more, here are your options! Have at! But if you just want to read MHA or just want to watch the anime, you don't need the rest of it. It isn't tied too closely to the story. It builds, but not so structurally that you can't still see the shape of the room without it. As I've addressed here before, I get that some readers are really looking for that. Whether I personally think it's accurate or not (and, as covered, I think most American superhero comics are as easy to get into as a sitcom--though I acknowledge that maintaining a readership can be very difficult for all sorts of reasons tied to price and access), there are people who believe that superhero comics have a high barrier of entry and were really entranced by this not having that. And so, it blew up and Volume 35 is still in the top 10 manga charts as of last month and I can buy MHA stuff at Target. It's huge.

Now, I also want to give some special mentions to other big initiatives of the era. The thing I'll say about all of these is up front is even if they had hit as big as MHA ultimately has, none of them are new universes. They're building on something existing. Keep that in the back of your mind too as we talk about the 2000s.

The New 52 - DC's first big initiative of the 2010s. This was a way to reset the universe and, to what was appealing about MHA, try to build in a lot of accessibility to new readers as well as to diversify the DC line. Lots of folks have taken stock of the successes and failures of the New 52, but I will say, I personally am kinda bummed that some of the efforts to really build a universe were pretty quickly lost (though not entirely and these things have re-come-and-gone since). I would love to see superhero publishers dig deep into the non-superhero elements of their history again: War, Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Western, Romance, Humor, etc. And I'd love to see them in a way that feels of a piece with a world with superheroes, but not like superheroes applied to those genres, necessarily. Also, just noting here, one of the New 52 launch writers? Kyle Higgins on Nightwing.

Valiant (2010s) - Valiant had a shot in the arm in the 2010s when, about a year after the New 52, they did their own relaunch. Again, I'm not here to measure the exact successes and failures of that though you can surely find plenty of folks who have done that deep dive, but I do want to note it because they did aggressively position themselves as a player. After a decade of being pretty quiet, the 2010s saw some real success critically and commercially for Valiant and things like, yeah, the Bloodshot movie, but also Faith: Taking Flight , the YA novel by Julie Murphy (author of Dumplin'). In a time and space where the Big 2 were undergoing a lot of reinvention and extension into other markets/media, Valiant made a point of also diversifying in that way too.

Power Rangers - Boom's Power Rangers obviously also kinda blew up in the latter half of the 2010s and has inflated as a comics universe unto itself that is obviously borrowing from the source material, but also really expanding upon it. And, notably, it kicked off with Kyle Higgins at the helm. You can pretty directly track the success of Power Rangers (and Nightwing before it) and the way it took a licensed property and really built it out into a little universe to the later success of the Massive-Verse.

2000s: Invincible

Somehow the big superhero universe of the 2000s is also big again in the 2020s, and that's Invincible. Much like MHA, it tapped into the right vein at the right time. It came hot on the heels of Marvel's Ultimate universe and The Authority and really just combined the sensibities of Image's superhero universe, Classic Marvel, and nu-Marvel. It was a book that lived on surprising upsets and a story that felt like it was maybe aiming a little younger because it was about a young hero that then went full-bore into being for ADULTS. Like the later Massive-Verse, Invincible kind of slowly expanded, sometimes retroactively adding other Robert Kirkman books, sometimes having more tangential spin-offs, but even when other creators entered the mix, it felt like part of a unified vision.

The weird thing with Invincible, and the reason it *almost* didn't count, is that it is built off of like... a jillion other universes. Like, obviously, Invincible is in many ways a reflection of other superhero tropes. He's Superboy and Spider-Man wrapped into one and plenty of major and minor Invincible characters are pretty clearly meant to be riffs on existing characters with other publishers. But in a more literal way, Invincible is piggy-backing on and joining various other company and creator-owned superheroes. Over the course of the series, he met Spider-Man (in an issue of Marvel Team-Up), joined The Pact (with ShadowHawk, Firebreather, and Zephyr of Noble Causes), and Savage Dragon and various other Image superheroes. A lot of it did manage to be self-contained and as the series continued, it did really parse down to only Kirkman-original characters, but it was a series that got some of it's esteem from being in a pre-existing shared universe too. The Massive-Verse is, to my understanding, in a similar place where they've got like... a Spawn appearance. There is something to the even casual and official early crossovers that really helps a universe get a hold and seem more likely to both last and, I think, have an air of legitimacy.

It's a very interesting contrast to MHA in that the universe is bolstered by a sense of larger continuity, while still being presented as something that has a lot of accessibility and both are, in my opinion, actually probably best enjoyed with an understanding of the tropes they're riffing on.

The Ultimate Universe - As a special mention, again, Marvel's Ultimate Universe is not it's own unique universe, but as an experiment in rebooting an existing project and making new easier access to it, the Ultimate Universe's existence is a key influence to most attempts at shared superhero universes, both existing and "new", that followed.

IDW's Transformers - While a shared universe with TF wasn't really a thing until the 2010s and the Hasbro Shared Universe, I will note that IDW's TF run had a lot of elements of superhero comics (including also meeting Spider-Man in the New Avengers crossover) and is ultimately notable as the first attempt to take an existing property and build it into a universe of it's own. Like, earlier Marvel TF, even as it became increasingly it's own thing, did have some core DNA in the Marvel universe (same for Godzilla, Micronauts, G.I. Joe, and all the others). And a lot of the other licensed comics of the time, like the early Dark Horse Buffy and Aliens or IDW's Angel were trying to either tie to the franchise's source material or exist in sort of limited, unconnected runs. Not to say there weren't others doing it at various points before, but I do think IDW's TF really became a blueprint for how to take an existing franchise and make it into a unique comics universe that you can see in things like IDW's TMNT or Boom's Power Rangers even today.

1990s: Image

Okay, people who were not into comics in the '90s... do you know that Image started out as a third superhero publisher? Like, when you think of modern Image, which just has a couple of superhero titles, do you know that superhero comics made up the majority of early Image? Like Spawn, Savage Dragon, and a lot of the stuff coming out of Top Cow and Extreme Studios and (in my personal estimation, the best one) Wildstorm? Because superheroes are where Image started and made their first big (jeans) money. It came out of artists from the big two deciding to do their own thing with their own characters and loosely building a shared universe for their ideas. I'd personally say Wildstorm was the stand-out for superheroes in the Image Revolution--they spun-off to be their own independant thing before getting bought up by DC and while they published a variety of titles, superheroes remained core to Wildstorm's publishing. They also published consistenty. Like, no crack to Youngblood or Cyber Force or whatever, but those books released less regularly than most of the Wildstorm titles--with Youngblood's schedule being... what it was and Cyber Force, even after being pretty regular for a while, becoming less central to Top Cow's identity.

So, of the stand-outs I've mentioned, Image technically makes up 3 of them (Massive, Invincible, Image) and the exact overlapping nature of these things with each other is a bit strange, but I think speaks to the central philosophy of what has made these universes appealing. They exist at a crucial intersection of recognizability out of the Big 2 (writers and artists who had been Big 2 guys taking the central vision, even if many subsequent members of the teams were starting in the "indie" space) with this sort of loose interconnectivity of other creator-owned superhero comics and a sense of some sort of reactive commentary on the other superhero properties of the time. While full mythos have been formed, something you can't really say about any of the superhero universes that've found success after the 1970s is that they featured a wholly unique take on superheroes, rather than digging into the tropes that had already been long established.

The other big thing behind early Image is because the founders were a bunch of Big 2 movers-and-shakers, even in the early days, they had a fair amount of room for crossovers (and $$$ for the BIG TALENT). But if you look at Wildstorm, you can see Gen13 team up with Superman, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Monkeyman and O'Brien, Generation X, etc. Add in the return of a bunch of the Image heavy-hitters for Heroes Reborn over at Marvel and there's a complicated web of connections that really elevated the legitimacy of the superhero titles.

Astro City & America's Best Comics - In a truly bizarre move, two of the other major superhero universes that came out of the '90s were... also by Wildstorm! Kinda. Astro City came out of Homage and America's Best Comics was it's own imprint, both through Wildstorm. And both have weird histories that ultimately end up kinda under DC (except for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which ends up at Top Shelf, but that isn't really a superhero book). And like a lot of what has already been mentioned, these things thrive from an incredibly strong vision from the original writer (Kurt Busiek and Alan Moore, respectively) and, as Becca mentioned when I was talking with them a bit when I took a break in writing, like a lot of the above, part of the way that they are engaging with the existing superhero universes is a sleek design sensibility. I have felt bad talking about the importance of the writers in all these successes and not giving enough credit to the artists, so let this be a chance to correct that. Something all of these have in common is when they're succeeding, they've got top notch artistic talent--Brent Anderson, Alex Ross, Kevin O'Neill, Chris Sprouse, J.H. Williams III, Gene Ha, and all the ABC gang--who are creating art that pushes the medium forward. Like, here and in pretty much every other example, we're talking about people who are capturing a sense of classicism--the looks are often clean and iconic and noteworthy--but are doing so with a style that shows where comics are going to be going in the next decade. It's a really fine balance to strike, but a notable one.

Milestone - While Wildstorm started as part of Image, went independent, and then was acquired by DC, Milestone was an independent publisher that had their material published through DC from the beginning, and in later years would actually be folded into the larger DC universe. Milestone fits the same model we've been talking about--a strong unified vision by the founders who created the Dakotaverse, a motivation both behind-the-scenes and on the page to respond to the current state of comics, art that felt classic and iconic while also being a vision of what future comics would look like. And, similar to Invincible in some ways, or Wildstorm, it also benefitted from a bit of loose connection to a larger established universe. It took a while for Milestone to officially cross over with DC, but the marketing and distribution relationship really helped it gain legitimacy within the market.

Valiant - I'll also give a brief shout-out to the original Valiant line. To the point of later Valiant, there was a fair amount of competition in the late '80s/into the '90s of publishers trying to enter the market and disappearing. Like, bless 'em, but Eclipse, Pacific, Malibu, etc all came and went and while some of those stories and characters are still around in various capacities, none of them have had quite the revival of Valiant which is notable to the strength of those core concepts.

1980s: The Non-Superhero Okay, so, no offense to anyone: Malibu or Capital or First or any of the other publishers that brought in new superheroes. But in my estimation, the big "superhero universe" of the 1980s was the '80s not really having a new superhero universe. Like, and I'll make this quick because I'm already going long--there are a ton of comics that came out that we can debate if they're superhero narratives, we can dig deep into the creators' intentions vs. their ultimate executions, but that ultimately don't feel like they're trying to build a superhero universe. TMNT is awesome and, obviously, has in latter years crossed over with a bajillion things. Usagi Yojimbo and Concrete and Mage which is part of a universe with Grendel and The Crow and whatever else you want to throw in this pot--superhero or not--feels primarily like the later association it may have with a larger world is largely accidental or in some way in spite of it's early siloing. Again, not to say this stuff wasn't ambitious or didn't crossover with it's peers or didn't have grand designs, just that in comparison to, say Marvel's New Universe, it feels much more disconnected and organic in the growth of these things.

I'm going to make one last special mention, and that is DC Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. And the reason I bring Post-Crisis up is that it is the prime example of (what I'd also contend is DC's ultimate strength) not making a new universe, but trying to do something about already long-legacies, heavy continuities, and various acquisitions. Like, we could chart the other superhero comics competitors pre-'80s, but so many of them before (and clearly, even some since) have been purchased or otherwise acquired by the big 2 powerhouses and folded into their worlds. And Crisis was a buckwild way of being like "okay, now Fawcett and Charleton and whatever else is also just DC forever" and making a point of it.

So, why is it hard to make a new superhero universe that sticks? Well... it takes a lot of planning and a lot of money and a bold vision of what superhero comics could be. So, to all those trying to make their new universe, best of luck! A Note for the Weekend

And, as usual, I've run long and this is going out later than expected. Uhh... well, the long and short of what I wanted to get to here is if you haven't already, continue not spending money for big corps for Black Friday and all weekend long. There're certain businesses that've been specifically targeted by the Palestinian National BDS Committee. You can see those here and learn more about BDS on their site and in this article. Obviously, boycotts can be complicated because there are some that're being called for by folks who don't represent the BNC that are sort of up to how you feel about them and the legitimacy of what you can do within the confines of your community. And this year in particular, there's extra weirdness around the idea of shopping because there are plenty of other reasons to boycott various businesses (solidarity with striking workers, stands against capitalism, stands against artificial and crushing inflation that has made the "Black Friday Deals" not good, literally so many reasons to not buy shit from big corporations) BUT ALSO because costs are rising all over, it's a lot harder for small businesses. Like... man, postage is out of control. It costs so much to ship stuff. I literally can't afford to ship things internationally and to all my international folks, I'm so sorry! It'd just cost a stupid amount to do and it already costs a stupid amount to ship just within the continguous 48.

With that all said, if you're saving some money by not spending this Black Friday weekend at big business, might I suggest spending some $$$ on your friendly neighborhood artists! Today (Friday) is an itch.io Creator Day, so all proceeds actually go to the creators. Inprnt's got a sale that a ton of really cool artists are a part of. There are tons and tons and tons of artists who have shops both locally in your community and online that could really benefit from your business. So, please, if you do shop, shop responsibly.

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Joe Pera Talks with You (TV show - Finished it and I miss it), Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Anime), Three Rocks (Comic - Finished it and I miss it), Chainsaw Man (Manga), Nancy (Comic), Lego Masters (TV show), Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (Short story collection), the success of Comics for Gaza's Children, the protests made at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (and, yes, the TMNT float at the parade too because I'm a sucker for the parade even as I am critical of it as a celebration of capitalism and a bad holiday), all the money you're going to spend on my Small Business Saturday sale (hint hint)

New Releases this week (11/15/2023): Brynmore #5 (Editor)

Announcements: Do you have $10, want some cool comics, and also want to do good in the world? Adam Szym put together Comics for Gaza's Children on itch.io. When I posted about this less than a week ago in my previous blog, they were about 1/3rd of the way to their intial goal of $10K. Today, that goal has doubled to $20K and they're 98% of the way there! It'll easily meet $20K with your help and could even push to 25-30K before the drive is over. And in return, you get over 100 comics by people like Adam Szym, Reimena Yee, Blue Delliquanti, Emma Houxbois, Cam Marshall, Elaine M. Will, Duke NuCum, Rebecca Ann, and oh yeah, me too! Yeah! Get yourself Rivals and Jimmy Squarefoot and enjoy smut and monsters! And then when you've enjoyed them, buy physical copies from me or Becca!

I believe this is still going too, if you have more money to give, the Cartoonist Cooperative is doing E-Sim cards for Gaza. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists.

You can also give more directly. If you don't have money, and I get it, you can call or fax or email or show up at the offices of your representatives. There are a ton of demonstrations happening this weekend and you can see if you can put your actions in on one of those!

Thanks for reading all the way here! You deserve a reward! You can use the code "FREECOMIC" on my webshop and get a 10% discount for Small Business Saturday (11/25) through Cyber Monday (11/27) and I'll send you an extra free comic with your order! Want a bigger discount? My Patrons are getting an even better code exclusively on Patreon! Now's a great time to support so I can buy Becca these Chainsaw Manbunny figures that are on a good discount but that I still don't have $500 for. You can also get some stuff from my Kofi! Becca will be back to streaming soon, so keep an eye on their Twitch! Or if you're really ambitious, looks like some things are on discount on their Throne right now. I think Becca'll be doing something for SBS too, but can't say exactly what. And if you're a fellow hiring pro... maybe give 'em a job. Just have 'em do a comic!

Pic of the Week: Today, our physical copy of Aradia Beat, the magical girl magazine that Becca contributed to, came in, so here's the artist with their spread!

#comics #comics editorial #aradia beat #rebecca ann #superheroes #dc #marvel #idw #image #invincible #valiant #massive verse #my hero academia #buy from artists #small business saturday #comics for gaza's children #charity bundle

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inukag · 1 year

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What are your opinions on Ranma 1/2? Which do you like more, the anime or the manga?

I read the manga of Ranma 1/2 some years ago but I've never seen the anime. In fact, the only anime adaptations of Rumiko's works I've seen are Inuyasha, some episodes of Kyoukai no Rinne and now Urusei Yatsura (2022). I think the Urusei Yatsura reboot might actually be my favorite so far 😅 (But maybe that's because I haven't finished reading UY)

Ranma 1/2 is a weird series because I remember thinking it was good but.... I don't remember much about it. I don't think I can name more than 5 characters. I barely remember what happens in the story. It doesn't help that it's very episodic so there isn't an overarching plot beyond "will Ranma and Akane actually get married?". I remember getting really bored around 20 volumes in because the gags were pretty much copy and pasted at that point (the same could be said about Inuyasha but at least Inuyasha has a plot). The characters were fun, but again, not very memorable to me. If it was a shorter series like Maison Ikkoku (15 volumes) I probably would I loved it but it was stretched out for too long. Maybe reading it each week in a magazine back when it was being released was more enjoyable than trying to binge read it like I did.

That being said I think RT's art style peaked during Ranma 1/2 (and until middle of Inuyasha). Her characters are super expressive and cute and I like their designs a lot.

I can't comment on how well the anime adapted the manga obviously since I haven't watched it, but I heard the anime did Akane dirty like they did Kagome is the Inuyasha anime. That's a shame if true because I thought Akane was great!

I heard that the Ranma 1/2 anime was actually very influential and partially helped making anime mainstream outside of Japan, so that's really cool. The manga also sold better than Inuyasha by a couple millions, and I often see it being recommended. So there's clearly a lot to love about the series but personally it isn't one of my favorite from Takahashi!

#ask #Anon

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aihoshiino · 7 months

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your analysis are really interesting and are a joy to read! i wanted to ask about your thoughts on the tokyo blade arc of the manga because its really interesting and gives a lot of characters more depth

thank u so much anon! 🥺 I feel like I've said this in like every ask but it really does surprise and delight me how many people vibe with my longform takes on the series when the extent of my fandom engagement for the last few years has been talking about fate grand order in a group chat comprised of like 5 other gay people LMAO

That said, Tokyo Blade is... an arc I have mixed feelings on! It was, in fact, the arc I originally dropped the manga on back when I was first following it in 2020/2021 feeling it was poorly paced and that I wasn't able to get invested in the cast to the degree it wanted me to me. But upon revisiting the series and this arc in particular with fresh eyes, I think I was being pretty unfair to it - though I do stand by my feeling of the pacing being not the best at least when reading it week to week. It's one of those arcs that definitely works better when you can take it all in at once as opposed to having it doled out over what felt like an agonizingly slow 30+ weeks.

As for my current feelings... in isolation I think it's extremely strong and has some incredible moments that I am PUMPED for seeing animated in season 2 but the further we get away from it and see its long term effects on the cast (or I should say, the lack thereof) the more I feel like it ultimately adds up to less than the sum of its parts.

Not that it's a bad arc, mind! Like I said, it has some insanely strong individual moments and I think the character arcs it ends up serving are super interesting. Its commentary is compelling and I literally can't gush enough about the massive glowup Melt gets in this arc. Every time I have new friends get into the series and understandably react with derision towards him in Sweet Today I just sit there crying tears of blood like that's my fucking baby son you don't understand

I also just really appreciate that the arc is willing to slow down and just let us breathe in some of the emotional baggage the characters are all dealing with without needing to shackle it to Aqua's revenge quest. Even the side characters like the mangakas and the production staff feel like they have real, human lives beyond the ways they factor into the plot and again, it feels like there are real weight and stakes to ensuring the play's success beyond just whether or not it will help Aqua do a thing. So many people's careers (and by extension, their lives) are hanging in the balance and you feel the weight of that responsibility absolutely crushing everyone involved. It's great!

This is potentially a sillier point to add but can I also say that I really like how authentic Tokyo Blade feels as an in-universe piece of fiction LOL. Everything from the premise to the designs rings so fucking true to the exact sort of manga it's a pastiche of that I'm half expecting to hear about the Studio Bones Tokyo Blade anime adaptation announcement any day now because it feels so real to me.

On the less positive side, though... like I said, this arc is s l o w. I believe it's still Oshi no Ko's longest arc at three volumes's worth of chapters and change and it's such a change to the story's until-then relatively breezy pace that it can be really jarring when you go in not expecting it. Again, having the arc available in full to read as quick or slow as you like does a lot to alleviate this problem but if you aren't connecting with it, you're stuck with it for an incredibly long time. This also means that B-Komachi in general and Ruby in specific get completely side-lined for almost thirty entire chapters - Ruby basically vanishes during this entire arc and if you were invested in and excited about her as a character, it sucks to see her get so immediately and completely sidelined after what felt like a big triumphant step forward for her, which is a pattern that will unfortunately continue through the rest of the series.

And speaking of unfortunate patterns... Tokyo Blade is the arc where Akane starts taking steps towards becoming the version of herself I like the least lmao. I've said to friends elsewhere that short hair/LoveNow!Akane and long hair/post Tokyo Blade!Akane basically feel like completely different characters to me and while I really love and am invested in LoveNow!Akane, PTB!Akane is easily my least favourite member of the main cast for reasons that are not entirely her fault.

She doesn't quite achieve her final form in Tokyo Blade arc but the seeds of my worst future annoyances with her (lack of meaningful connection to the extended cast, largely just orbiting Aqua, the overly convenient nature of her deductions, etc) start to take root here. There are some teases of interesting ideas and I particularly enjoy the build up, development and reveal of the true nature of her rivalry with and animosity for Kana but I don't feel like these bear any long term fruit.

That's probably my biggest problem with Tokyo Blade - it feels like an arc that should massively advance the story and the arcs of all the characters associated with it. In some ways it does and we get some tasty crumbs about the central mystery but when you take a step back and really look, the broad strokes status quo of the plot and the character relationships really don't get much of a shakeup and even the things that do feel like they should lead to big changes (Akane figuring out Ai's secret, Aqua finding his half-brother, Kana getting her shine back and Akane's reaction) just kind of... don't? Or at least not in ways that are as impactful as they feel they should be.

Kana and Akane's rivalry is probably the worst example of this. It's built up across the whole arc to the point of their on-stage confrontation basically being the arc's climactic high point. Kana finally stepping into the spotlight again and outshining Akane so beautifully really feels like it should have served as a gigantic change to their dynamic but not only have they barely interacted in any meaningful capacity since it happened, but the times they have it's just been the same old shit of hostility and sniping at each other with the tiny flavour difference of "oh gosh, akane is just such a tsundere tee hee <3". It just doesn't feel like the meaningful, impactful change it should have been based on how hard the end of that arc made me FEEL it.

I've said elsewhere before that a lot of the characters feel sort of like they've been stuck in holding patterns since Tokyo Blade and I'm hoping that in the Movie arc, with the cast being crunched together into a single, extremely emotionally taxing and relevant project, it might shake a bit of life back into the proceedings, especially given that Aka has said that he thinks the manga's ending is probably within sight - though that could be anything from fifty to a hundred more chapters depending on what he's got planned so who knows how things might shake out.

I do ultimately feel more positively about the arc than negative, though! I feel like I rambled a lot more about the things I dislike here than the things I enjoyed but that's because I feel like the arc's strengths speak for themselves while the stuff I don't like as much needed a bit more explaining. At the end of the day, I think Tokyo Blade is a really solid arc that I'm beyond excited to see animated - it has one of my favourite scenes in the whole manga (given that I am an Ai enjoyer you can uh, probably guess which one it is) and I'm really hopeful that we might get a sneaky peek at a certain someone if season 2 ends at the point I suspect it might...

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #onk spoilers #sorry to akane enjoyers that i never have anything nice to say about her i promise i am not a hater lMDKFJSKDND

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xbuster · 7 months

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Pardon me if this is jumping the gun and you planned to do this after your cutie honey viewing, but what's your general opinion/take on the tone of the series as a whole? I've heard a lot of mixed stuff, ranging from it being sexual in a tasteless and often concerning way to it being a fun, cute erotica series. From your gifs especially a-go-go it's making me want to watch it and to me itooks like a fun time, but I wanted a little insight form someone who's viewed the series a whole and recently too

Well, I haven't viewed the series as a whole yet since I haven't finished the original anime (though I'm around halfway through so my opinion on it is pretty decided), Flash (and it's movie), or The Live, (and a couple manga like the seemingly unimportant sequel written by Go Nagai and some spin-offs) but my opinion on the franchise from all that I've seen has been all over the place and I simultaneously loathe and love it. This is because that both of what you've heard about it is right. It is tasteless and gross and it is cute ecchi (I can't say it ever really becomes erotica but Re: Cutie Honey got very close). It really depends on what you read and watch. I'll tell you my opinion on each entry of the Cutie Honey franchise I've consumed so far and whether I think it's worth checking out.

Go Nagai's original Cutie Honey manga: This is where it all started. It's also the worst part of Cutie Honey and it's not even close. My opinion of Go Nagai is very low. Of his big hits, I've read Cutie Honey and Devilman, but I've also read a few of his other works and of all of them, I've only enjoyed Devilman (I am planning on reading Mazinger Z eventually too though). The rest is all atrocious. Go Nagai is a terrible mangaka. It's actually amazing that I really loved Devilman because I had bought Cutie Honey thinking that I would love a magical girl manga written by the man who could create something as unique an experience as Devilman and it ended up being one of the worst things I've read. Almost all the fan service comes from sexually assaulting Honey, it's very uncomfortable to read. The plot isn't very interesting until like halfway through volume 2, but by that point the story is already almost over. There's a reason it was cancelled. No, it's not worth reading, but unfortunately it did shape how most Cutie Honey adaptations were structured so reading it does set you up to understand the many references the other manga and anime will make to it. It's up to you if you want to actually read that, but it's only 2 volumes long so it's a quick read at least.

The first Cutie Honey anime from 1973: This is what made Cutie Honey into an icon. It ignored almost everything from the manga to make it into something enjoyable, mostly just borrowing characters, enemies, and abilities from the manga while focusing on making an enjoyable monster of the week show. Fan service is often, but fairly light, so it's not as uncomfortable as it was in the manga. Honey actually has a personality in the anime. In the manga, she was kind of incompetent and whiny with nothing really interesting about her. In the anime, she's witty, funny, and really skilled at dealing with her enemies. This means she's fun to watch when she's posing as a civilian because she'll charm you with her personality and she's fun to watch as a fighter because the action scenes are well composed and she has many ways to fight Panther Claw. The manga didn't feel like it took advantage of her ability to transform at all, despite that being her main draw. The anime introduces a ton of different forms, with new ones being introduced each episode. The first episode introduced her main 5 forms outside of her identity as Honey Kisaragi and Cutie Honey and has a fight scene with every single transformation. This was a great way of showcasing her abilities as a fighter. It was honestly really impressive. This anime is a must-watch, it lays the foundation for what other good adaptations would borrow from.

Hideaki Anno's live action Cutie Honey movie: This was the first thing I had seen with the name Cutie Honey on it that I actually enjoyed. Its relationship to previous versions of Cutie Honey is thin, really just using the general idea of the character of Cutie Honey and the names of some other characters from the manga. The roles these characters fill are almost completely different from their original incarnations except for maybe on or two surface level similarities. This actually works in its favor because of how bad the original manga was. Anno's vision is fresh and the plot is engaging. It has some problems, like Honey's characterization not being very good, and some of the lighter moments being a bit boring, but whenever Panther Claw appears it becomes very fun with really unique fight choreography and special effects you could only see from a team that worked on Gainax anime. There's some fan service, but it wasn't as ecchi as the manga and anime. It's not a must-watch, but it is worth your time and serves as the groundwork for the next two entries.

Cutie Honey a Go Go!: This manga is very loosely based on the screenplay for Hideaki Anno's movie. There are common elements that both share, but it's ultimately a very original story when compared to the movie. It's also pretty fun. It's a lot more focused on the character of Natsuko Aki, with Honey not even being involved much until a few chapters in. It's a fresh idea to follow a character who isn't Honey, but I really like how Honey was portrayed in this manga and while I did like Natsuko, I still probably would have preferred to see more of Honey. But like Go Nagai's original, this manga was sadly cancelled with volume 2 and ends on a cliffhanger reminiscent of the original. It's a fun read, but you won't get a complete story. The art breathes new life into Honey and while I wished there was more, I still enjoyed my time with it. It was also the closest to being as ecchi as the original manga, but it's actually fun with it and it never made me uncomfortable to see Honey suddenly get naked.

Re: Cutie Honey: This is the horniest Cutie Honey anime I have seen and it's amazing for it. Gainax knew how to do fan service and since this was an OVA and not a TV anime, they were allowed to go all out with it. Instead of feeling like Honey was constantly getting assaulted, the scenes where her clothes are shredded or characters are suddenly naked feels more playful, and at times erotic (especially episode 2 when she has an intimate moment with a certain character). This anime is very clearly based off Hideaki Anno's movie. Like all the characters from the movie appear in the OVA, they have similar roles and similar design philosophies, but most of their characterization and arcs are different and that helps elevate it over the movie. Honey isn't as naive and annoying, she's more like the Honey from the original anime. Witty and funny, playful and sexy. She's a competent fighter and fun to watch in any situation. It's not at all like Nagai's original vision and that's what makes it so good. Definitely a must-watch.

Cutie Honey Universe: Probably the most disappointing entry on this list. It's started off interesting. It looked to be the closest adaptation of Nagai's manga while distancing itself from the main elements of what made the manga so bad. It was a TV anime, so it wasn't very explicit, but the Blu-ray release uncensored it. But it still wasn't on the level of ecchi you would see in Re or even a Go Go. Unfortunately, it was still trying to somewhat adapt Nagai's manga and that really held it back when Universe would decide to recreate scenes from the manga. While they weren't as bad as the original, these scenes still weren't very good most of the time. The characters of Junpei and Danbei were dialed back in the 1973 anime, but they're far more annoying in this. Even the original parts of the plot (of which there are a LOT) weren't good. Like at all. By the midpoint I had gotten so bored that I put it on hold for half a year and when I got back to watching it, it was just bad. It was not a good anime and I wouldn't recommend it unless you really just want to watch everything Cutie Honey. The character designs were so 2010's anime with barely any originality, it would get really bright sometimes and wash out the details in the art for no reason, and most of the actual animation wasn't very good. And not in a charming way like the 1973 anime. I don't know, there were some things I liked but they would usually go to waste. It was just really disappointing because I think there was potential. It was also the only series to not use the iconic theme song.

tl;dr definitely watch 1973 and Re: Cute Honey, they're fantastic. Watch the Anno movie before Re if you want to see what Re borrows from it, but you don't need to. Read a Go Go if you like any of the three I just mentioned because it's also fun. If you really want to know what Cutie Honey was intended to be, read the original manga first, but definitely avoid it if you don't care. Universe isn't as bad as the original manga, but it's also not really worth watching for any reason besides just wanting to watch all Cutie Honey anime because it was honestly pretty boring.

Hope that helps!

#i didn't proofread this so i hope this didn't sound like nonsense

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silvertsundere · 1 year

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Silver Talks AniManga (21/05/23)

no mashle this week cause there was no ep (it was a recap so lol)

forgot there was a 30 pic limit per post woops, had to remove one and combine the series list to make do, something for me to keep in mind for the future, tho I don't expect this to happen super often, it just happened that a buncha non weekly stuff lined up all together

blue - finale/completed

Anime

Megumin Ep7

no wonder aqua is so useless when her followers act like this I know last week I said it coulda ended on ep 5 or 6 but this ep got one (1) "chuckle" out of me (when yunyun showed up) so I'll give it this one

Imas CG: U149 Ep7

great episode, like always. koharu is one of the cast members I knew the least about (only really "she's that goofy girl with the lizard") so it was nice to learn more. the insert song in the middle was her character song so I was wondering what the hell they were gonna do for the ed but it was a solo version of onegai cinderella which is extremely fitting

Pokemon Horizons Ep7

not much happened in the episode other than riko and roy learning how to actually battle and some stuff with bocchi dot. I had my hopes up when the cook said she's his niece so I was hoping she'd have dark skin too but I forgot I'd already seen a cap from the next ep preview and she's white so rip. I do hope she becomes more part of the cast, other than her gurumin appearance, after she gets revealed to the kids so yoppii can show off her talent more. it's a super cool opportunity for her to do a show like pokemon after blowing up with bocchi so would be a shame if she didn't get more screen time, even if gurumin shows up every ep, her performance as dot will be different since it's basically a whole different chara

Jigokuraku Ep8

this episode added a LOT of scenes from tenza's backstory that just straight up weren't in the manga which was extremely cool to see, ofc you can say that was just to inflate the episodes lenght and make this fight/flashbacks sequence last a whole episode, and you'd probably be right, but it was still good. I know the anime has been a pretty cookie cutter loyal adaptation, without any real eye popping scenes of note, but at least with consistent quality since it's mappa, but seeing them do some original content like this actually gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, this adaptation can be a bit more than what it has been so far, I really hope so because Kaku deserves it

anyway next episode is guaranteed to be gabimaru at The Door, there's no episode next week so I'm hoping that means the fight there will have some sakuga but I know it's foolish to think so considering how the anime has been so far but a man can dream

Manga

ST✰R: Strike it Rich Ch 2

since I couldn't end up finding a scanlation or the like I ended up paying for it, to be fair it's only 2 bucks for 6 chaps (basically a whole volume) so it's pretty decently priced (lmao at kmanga's 3 bucks per CHAP the hell are they smoking over there). anyway, not a bad chap, expected the fight to be longer but tbf hina IS a monster so ofc it ended after just 1 shot or nozomi coulda actually died. I was expecting her to just break the cuffs she was put in, but what she did was even scarier tbh

Dandadan Ch106

vamola's flashback is finally over, it's been going for so long I kinda forgot everyone else was experiencing it too tehe. like I said last time, it was good, albeit perhaps a bit too long. hype to get back into the current fight tho, especially with upgraded okarun arriving soon

Blooming Love Ch4

damn this is the fastest moving romance series ever, it's only ch4 and they're already going on a date let's go

Kindergarten WARS Ch4 - 6

they ARE indeed doing 3 chaps a week to catch up, that's very good it'll help expedite catching up quite a bit. my buddy mega said some spoilers for one the newest chaps so some of the scenes in 4 and 5 were p funny with that info

Saihate Quartet Ch12

not much to say about this chap, it was a continuation of the previous but not much happened

JOJOLands Ch4

rohan taking out 3 stand users on his own was nice to show off the skill difference between them since he's a veteran, tho 2 of them didn't even use their stands. anyway, curious about the diamond, I don't think it'll be a major plot thing like the rokaka fruit BUT I do think it'll be tied to whatever the equivalent to that may end up being

Jojo: Hol Horse/Josuke Spinoff Ch16 (Finale)

the spinoff wasn't bad, I wasn't sure about it at first since hol horse and josuke seems like such a weird combination but it was nice seeing these familiar characters again. the art wasn't anything crazy but I think it was serviceable, unlike mega who seemed to dislike it. the story was pretty simple, hol horse goes to morioh to find a parrot, meets josuke cause "stand users are attracted to each other" and jojo stuff happens. my favourite bits of the spin off was all the looks at dio we got from the perspective of his goons from part 3. ofc this spinoff isn't canon or anything but it was still neat seeing that. if you like jojo, you'll most likely like this spinoff and it's only 16 chaps so doesn't even take that long to read.

Pension Life Vampire Ch6

I knew I was right to trust the author and expect some yuri considering their previous series 🙏

Tokyo Underworld Ch41

alright chap, it's nice to see the rest of the cast do something for once other than just running around, leonidas fight should be done next time too

The Ichinose Family's Deadly Sins Ch25

man I thought it'd be going towards the finale but more stuff keeps popping up, annoying. I've said it a billion times but I just want it to end already (no pic for this cause there's a 30 pic limit per post so I had to get rid of something)

Fabricant 100 Ch22

yeah and that's the problem with the whole series from the start since she's supposed to be so OP so there's no stakes

Jiangshi X Ch15

not much to say, just some backstory for the girl and the overall plot and for one of the protags. tho I guess the X in the title is for these 10 super strong ones

Nue's Exorcist Ch2

another weak chap, it has no chance of lasting on jump like this, it's sad but I'll enjoy how cute nue is while it's still around

Do Retry Ch3

good chap, some very good matsui style panels in here too, really showing who he learned under, and finally some real boxing which is what the series is supposed to be about

Kill Blue Ch5

hey this chap was actually p good, instead of just doing the "oh he's an old man in middle school joke" they actually talked about the difference in values between someone his age and the new generation and had him overcome those preconceptions, the scene with his kid was cute too. ending's very HUH tho

Witch Watch Ch109

it was mostly another kengo bullying chapter for the most part but the ending gag made it all worth it

Blue Box Ch101

AMAZING chapter, 100 was already good but I didn't expect to get something similar for natsu. all the little details were so good and then the final page was just *chef's kiss* incredibly good chap, really gives me hope the confession will ACTUALLY happen cmon miura I believe in you

Cipher Academy Ch24

nice chap, was cool seeing iroha mad for once and this is an interesting unusual trio to take the spotlight in the coming arc, looking forward to it

Tenmaku Cinema Ch6

very good chap, got exactly what I said I wanted out of it last week and it's good to see that they're moving onto actually filming it already not wasting any time

Mashle Ch156

I always like the "old villains become allies and help defeating the final boss" trope so it's nice to see it here too

Undead Unluck Ch159

good chap, fuuko's plan may have gone off the rails but things are still working out somehow

Sakamoto Days Ch119

considering how long we've been in this flashback sequence it's kinda weird to just suddenly zoom to the end of it like this but I don't mind it. it did it's job of explaining what it was supposed to it and now we can move on with the current story, tho next chap will still be the flashback (prob the last one)

The Elusive Samurai Ch110

nice chaps, the ending gave it very "ending of a series that got canceled" vibes but ofc that isn't the case. interest to see where it's going from here now that tokiyuki has lost all his armies and only has his handful of retainers

Akane-banashi Ch62

good chap, the journalist girl made a good point at the start of "isn't this just gonna be a popularity contest if the audience and people online can vote for performances" which is something us the readers would think too but they had a good way of going around that, fully expecting akane to be the last to perform so I can't wait for that

Ayakashi Triangle Ch130

it's pretty funny to see matsuri on the attack for once tho it led to a very unexpected development, guess guy matsuri is gonna stick around for a while longer after all

#kinda miffed about the 30 pic limit thing but I can work around it in the future #I just completely forgot about it since I've never hit it before #silver talks animanga

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beneaththetangles · 1 year

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Are villains destined to die? Is Chitose really inside that Ramune bottle? Can a rooster be a shonen hero? Will our reviews answers this week any of these questions? No, no they won’t, but they give you a sense of the diverse group of titles we’re covering this week, which also include sci-fi, a beloved webtoon, and the first chapter in a new Shonen Jump series!

Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle (Vol. 2) • The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins (Chp. 1) • The Remarried Empress (Vol. 1) • Rooster Fighter (Vol. 2) • Tower of God (Vol. 1) • Villains Are Destined to Die (Vol. 1) • Witch Watch (Vol. 3) • Yashiro’s Guide to Going Solo • Your Forma (Vol. 2)

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Yashiro’s Guide to Going Solo, One-Shot Light Novel

Shigeaki Yashiro is a loner and is completely fine with that. He would rather enjoy doing what he wants than try to fit into a social group. It helps that the popular kids in his class leave him alone, at least until Kanon Hanamizawa asks him one day for some advice. Turns out, being a social butterfly has been wearing her down, and she wants to learn how to spend time by herself. As Yashiro shows her how to enjoy doing things on her own, he begins to interact more with the popular kids. How will his lone-wolf lifestyle adapt to this? This romcom from the author of Realist Hero is a nice single-volume story (though there is technically an “after story” volume too) about someone who has no problems spending time on his own. I really like how this story portrays Yashiro not as a struggling anti-social person, but someone who is willing to lend a hand. At the same time, the popular kids he interacts with are cool with him being him, and the novel goes a bit into how this should be the new norm for social interactions. As for the romance, the novel does take a different approach that is not only neat on its own but also makes a second read-through more interesting. Overall, this is a very solid rom-com light novel for anyone looking for a quick read. ~ stardf29

Yashiro’s Guide to Going Solo is published by J-Novel Club.

The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins, Manga Chapter 1

The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins, Taizan5’s brand new manga series, premiered on Shonen Jump this past weekend. The first chapter opens to a teenage boy named Tsubasa waking up in a hospital bed. He’s surrounded by loved ones, but doesn’t recognize any of them. At all. Tsubasa is struck by long-term amnesia and he doesn’t recall a thing. Then the family all turn to him and exclaim, “Me too!” The rest of the chapter follows the Ichinose family as they try to adapt in the hospital while not knowing anything about who they are. But they’re a family, they say, so they will figure it out together. The rest of the chapter follows them trying to just adjust to a life without a history of themselves. But when they leave and arrive at home, not knowing who they are may be…problematic. What a fascinating setup for a new series. Taizan really draws you in, first into the drama about the family losing their memories, then through an end-of-chapter flip. I have no idea where the manga will go next and how this family will regain their memories. The mystery of it had me hooked by chapter one, and for now, I’m in. ~ MDMRN

The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins is published by Shonen Jump.

Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle, Manga Vol. 2

I can’t quite put my finger on this series. Is it about an arrogant, popular boy who learns to become a better person, or is it trying to humanize these kids as they are, making us like them even though they’re superficial? It’s hard to say. Maybe you can help me decide. In volume two, Chitose has finally talked Kenta into leaving his shut-in life behind. Chitose will even give him a jump start on his return to school by advising him and temporarily bringing him into his group of popular friends (“Chitose’s harem”), but to what end? There’s a dichotomy in the characters’ actions and thoughts that makes it hard to really be pulled fully into the story. For instance, a chapter is spent on Chitose and one of his girl friends (which one, I would have a hard time telling you, as I can’t really distinguish any of them based on their personalities) picking out clothing and glasses for Kenta, who comes to the conclusion that normies aren’t that bad after all; this is followed by one of Chitose’s friends telling him that Kenta won’t ever be a part of the popular kids’ group and isn’t even interesting enough to hang with them temporarily. It’s hard to enjoy the banter between Chitose, the girls, and Kenta when scenes like that make it feel disingenuous. There are signs that Chitose wants to be more than who he is—but just like how the original light novels save this for the last 30 pages of each volume, the manga only briefly touches upon these feelings, which leads me to wonder if there really is character change on the horizon or if we as readers are supposed to just enjoy the discomforting duality to the “harem.” Until I know which, I can’t really fully buy into this series—and I can’t recommend it either. ~ Twwk

Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle is published by Yen Press.

READ: Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle (Manga) Vol.1 Review

Villains Are Destined to Die, Manhwa Vol. 1

This is the first time I’ve read a villainess/otome game isekai story where I genuinely felt extremely nervous that the heroine could actually die. There have definitely been points in other stories where I felt that’s a possibility, but in Villians Are Destined to Die, it honestly seemed like a real reality for this young woman who falls asleep and then wakes up in the body of a villainess in an otome game she played called Daughter of the Duke Love Project! Before she woke up in this world, she had played on easy mode as the heroine, Ivonne, who is the long-lost daughter of a grand duke and is now trying to win the affection of the men around her. On hard mode, she played Penelope, the villainess, who is the duke’s fake daughter and has negative “affection” points with the men around her. When this young woman wakes up as Penelope, she has to do everything she can to keep the affection points low because otherwise, it would lead to her own death! This young woman who is now Penelope is an epic heroine, and I admire her attitude given her circumstances. I think her previous real-life struggles and relatability to Penelope’s story make this story much more meaningful and convincing. I’m desperately hoping that she can avoid all her death flags; this is probably the first time reading this kind of story where I’m at a loss of which guy I want to be the “end game.” I know Penelope is feeling one guy is the one, but I really don’t think it’s going to be that simple. Overall, this story completely surprised me! I thought it would be your “typical” villainess isekai and I was extremely wrong. Definitely looking forward to the next volume as this is going to be a fantastic series to keep reading! ~ Laura A. Grace

Villains Are Destined to Die is published by IZE PRESS.

Your Forma, Light Novel Vol. 2

Volume two of Your Forma attempts to be three types of stories at once, and accomplishes each with varying degrees of success. First, it’s a detective story. Echika has returned to her profession as an Electronic Investigator, diving into the minds and memories of others with the assistance of Harold, her android (amicus) partner. But in an unexpected turn, Harold is suspected of breaking the “Laws of Respect” by injuring engineers and others connected to him, including the one person most intimate to him. Clearing Harold’s name will require finding the actual perpetrator and also untangling the mystery of the RF Model Amicus, the particularly intelligent and thoughtful type that now seems to be going haywire. Appropriately twisting and unexpectedly gruesome, the story turns toward a conclusion that unfortunately feels significantly less smart than its android characters, casting a pall over the volume. The science fiction element is somewhat better (and getting better): the author incorporates thought-provoking philosophy about the nature of artificial intelligence and uses settings that are realistic for a world that started to rely on A.I. technology in a divergent timeline from ours—though I would call it moderate-to-strong sci-fi for an anime-influenced work and not comparable to harder sci-fi in western (and non-anime eastern) literature. The best story in volume two, though, is the “human” one between Echika, who is now awkwardly opening her heart to others after overcoming the trauma of her past in volume one, and Harold, who is too human for Echika to treat him as a robot and too much a robot for Echika to treat him as human. There’s a lot of subtlety and depth to their relationship and to Harold’s character development, opening a myriad of doors for future volumes that could lead to paths as disparate as complete betrayal or romantic love, and possibly both. Thus, despite some of the issues with the series, I’m on pins and needles (or gears and cogs) to find out where Echika and Harold go next. ~ Twwk

Your Forma is published by Yen Press.

READ: Your Forma Vol.1 Review

Rooster Fighter, Manga Vol. 2

The chicken whose comb burns with rage is back, and he is still in search of the demon that attacked his sister. Volume 2 opens with a dark feathered hen named Elizabeth using an electrical pole to strike Keiji, but he dodges it. Why is she fighting him? He had a one-night stand with her, and she is ticked off about it! Keiji is cold and isn’t in the mood to argue with her, but there isn’t any time either as another demon shows up to ruin their lovers’ spat. Even as over the top as this manga is, I felt that it was slower than the first one in terms of progressing the plot. The jokes didn’t hit as hard either, so what I suspect is that volume 1 is the standard and the rest won’t follow as strongly. Introducing a new character was helpful but I hope volume 3 moves things along, or maybe I’m looking too much into this and it’s a purely gag manga and it will stay that way. If you enjoyed volume 1, don’t expect the same going into volume 2, as I feel the gas that fueled its start has been used up. ~ Samuru

Rooster Fighter is published by VIZ Media

READ: Rooster Fighter Vol.1 Review

The Remarried Empress, Manhwa Vol. 1

I will say from the start that I am not a huge fan of politics in fiction, but I am calling The Remarried Empress one of my favorite reads this year! I binge-read all the available episodes on Webtoon within two days–a first for me ever!–and knew I had to read it all over again with its physical release! Navier is the empress of the Eastern Empire who is married to one of the most frustrating heroes I have ever read, Sovieshu. He is the emperor of the Eastern Empire and becomes absolutely captivated by a woman he accidentally caught in one of his hunting traps. He soon makes her his mistress and, as the opening of this story shows, will want a divorce with our heroine because of it. There are no other words to describe Navier except that truly she is a queen. There are also no other words to describe Sovieshu and his mistress, Rashta, than what the webcomic community has called them: Trash. I have never been so angry at two characters as these too, but if they stir deep anger in me, then Navier stirs deep compassion and love for her character. She is such a befitting and wonderful empress! It is truly hard and almost overwhelming to see how dirty she is treated as the story goes on. Thankfully, there is another character who knows the true value and respect she deserves! I will not go on more due to possible spoilers, but this is a story I would highly recommend! Interesting politics, intriguing fantasy elements, and a fantastic heroine who deserves so much more. ~ Laura A. Grace [Editor’s Note: I highly recommend this series, too!]

The Remarried Empress is published by IZE PRESS and releases on November 22nd.

Witch Watch, Manga Vol. 3

I recently discovered that Witch Watch is the 25,417th-ranked manga on Anime Planet—25,417th! Are there truly more than 25,000 series better than Witch Watch? I’ve found this manga, which covers the adventures of the clumsy witch Nico and her familiar/crush/ogre Morihito, to be utterly charming through the first two volumes. Volume three mostly keeps the cutesy, friendly tone intact, especially as Nico and her other familiar, Kan, start a YouTube channel and the entire trio encounters rival Nemu again in her kitten form. But the series turns more toward mystery and action in this volume—and not to its benefit. While the proceedings feature an interesting twist, the main story about the entity that seeks to capture Nico and her powers, and the way it unfolds, is so blah, a retread of similar storylines in countless other series. It all leads me to think that this is the reason this series is ranked so low. This is unfortunate because when it focuses on romcom and friendship, Witch Watch is a delightful manga. I don’t want to see Nemu and the gang fighting other supernatural beings and their hopped-up classmates—and it seems that countless others agree. ~ Twwk

Witch Watch is published by VIZ Media.

READ: Witch Watch Reviews (Vol. 1 // Vol. 2)

Tower of God, Manga Vol. 1

When the Tower of God anime premiered several years ago, it arrived with much fanfare. Now, the popular webtoon on which that adaptation was based is finally bound and released in manga format by Wattpad. I can tell that as well-regarded as it is, Tower of God is going to take a lot of patience, particularly when it comes to the artwork. I remember hearing the chatter from fans saying off-handedly, almost jokingly, that they stuck with the series despite the artwork of the early chapters. That critique came rushing back to me as I read volume one, which offers some interesting ideas, but is nearly unreadable due to the amateurish art. It has a self-published air to it, and not the kind of self-published where an amazing artist later lands a huge contract, but rather the type created by one with a lot of passion but without the skill to match it. Yet, as I mentioned, there are interesting elements to Tower of God. The story of a boy (Bam) who seeks to enter a mysterious tower to follow after Rachel, the girl who has gone to the tower to find fulfillment and left him behind, features fun characters and touches in the artwork that reveal its Korean roots. It reminds me of RWBY, another series that gathered a huge fandom and critical acclaim but started off with awkward animation. I dropped that series, and despite all the praise, I don’t regret doing so. It was too ugly to watch. Tower of God is just the same—it’s too ugly to read. I won’t be continuing the webtoon, though I’m inclined to watch a second season of the anime if it ever gets greenlit. The artwork for that was passable enough; I wasn’t so distracted that I couldn’t focus on the story. I wish I could say the same for the original. ~ Twwk

Tower of God is published by Wattpad and releases on November 22nd.

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megaboy335 · 1 year

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Mega’s Top 2022 Anime (and Manga)

Another year comes and goes, and with it another year of anime comes to a close. The number of shows I watched continues to decline. While at the same time I’m spending more time reading manga. There was a strong mix of anime originals and creative adaptations this year. Without further ado, here’s my annual top 5 anime of the year (and manga) list:

1) Mob Psycho 100 Season 3 Mob Psycho 100 has joined the short list of manga that got completely adapted into anime. While I wasn’t as into the season due to the passage of time, it ended on a very high note for me. The remaining plotlines landed in a good place, character arcs reached their resolution, and its message remained on point to the very end. I don’t have much more to add compared to what I wrote in 2016 and 2019. I hope it will be remembered as a classic from this time period. 2) Bocchi the Rock This was the most creative anime visually for me this year. Every single interaction is a struggle for Bocchi, and that is conveyed through each incident being depicted differently. It brings a lot of life to Bocchi’s personality as no two situations are quite the same for her. It’s also an uplifting show as she grows closer to her new found band friends. Bocchi the Rock was definitely the surprise hit of the year.

3) Spy x Family

As someone who has been reading the manga since it began, I had a feeling it would become a hit someday. The dynamic between Twilight (the spy with a thousand faces), Yor (assassin by night, office worker by day), and Anya (the all knowing psychic) makes for comedic and wholesome situations as they live together under the same roof. Next season will have the much anticipated Yor boat arc. There’s also a movie to look forward to. 4) Made in Abyss Season 2 If you thought season 1 and the movie was the most emotional it could be, well, the series still had more tricks up its sleeve. This season took us down another layer into the legendary Golden City. The story began with a previously unseen group of explorers who descended down to this level. I can’t even begin to describe the horrors they experienced. It was some of the cruelest material yet in the series and a stark reminder how the abyss is a place that rejects outsiders. Unfortunately it might be a long time before another season or movie gets made. 5) Chainsaw Man

This was one of the most anticipated anime of the year for a good reason. Tatsuki Fujimoto draws manga like nobody else in the shonen genre. I was worried how his cinematic yet deliberate panel work would translate to screen, and I can say Mappa did a respectable job. The content from here is where the series had me on the edge of my seat every week. I can’t wait to see Reze, the Gun Devil, and basically the entire second half animated.

Other series worth mentioning: Call of the Night, Dress Up Darling, Lycoris Recoil, Kaguya-Sama: Love is War Season 3 and Bleach The Thousand Year Blood War Part 1

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Biggest Disappointments of the Year: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 6 - Turns out when you just adapt the manga panels to tv, it loses a lot of visual personality. Thankfully the story alone was enough to make it watchable. My greatest fear going into 2023 is a poor adaptation of Steel Ball Run on Netflix

Devil is a Part Timer season 2 - This was a long overdue sequel. In the time between seasons, I was able to read the entire light novel series. The books are a nice read. The anime however, looked terrible. Perhaps it was best to not adapt it again if that’s the best they could do. Save yourself and read the novels instead. It’s highly unlikely the anime will be able to adapt all 21 volumes anyways. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best Openings/Ending of 2022: 1) Urusei Yatsura (2022) Opening - Fun opening and catchy song makes for a perfect match to a reboot of the classic manga 2) Spy x Family Ending 2 - It perfectly captures the peaceful life they enjoy during the day vs. their personal struggles in the shadows. 3) Call of the Night Opening - A simple yet stylized opening to convey how meeting the Vampire Nazuna is changing his life. 4) One Piece Opening 24 - Upbeat song and visuals to showcase the battles against the Tobi Roppo in this section of the story. I hope for a gear 5 animation update when the anime gets there. 5) Chainsaw Man Ending 4 - Among all of Chainsaw Man’s endings, #4 was my personal favorite. Who knew it was possible to show the chaotic yet fun energy of Power in 90 seconds. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next up, I’m adding a manga section for the first time. I read a lot of current titles and sometimes I try to check out older series that I missed. The number of legal manga services have started to take off in recent years. Weekly Shonen Jump and Jump+ have a ton of anime on the schedule for 2023. Undead Unluck is one to watch for big hit potential (don’t let the early crudeness deter you, it matures very quickly), and maybe Mashle if the fights are well animated. Among new serializations, Akane Banashi is without a doubt the best new title of 2022. Its a Rakugo-battle manga that addresses both long standing sexism and the modernization vs. traditional debate within the art form. Takamasa Moue draws well detailed spreads to immerse readers in the world of the stories being told. This will be a big hit when it is eventually animated. Also a big shoutout to Ruri Dragon. I look forward to the day it comes back from hiatus. Speaking of hiatuses, Hunter x Hunter came back for another 10 chapter run this year. This time it devoted nearly every page to the Spiders and mafia plot on the lower levels of the ship. But overall, not a lot actually happened. The Phantom Troupe backstory was a nice treat for long time fans at least. I still don’t expect to ever see the end of this arc. Outside of Jump, Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister is a harem rom-com that I find very enjoyable with a good mix of supernatural antics and fun moments you’d expect in the genre. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is probably going to be one of the biggest anime in 2023. The manga tells the story of Ef who outlived her party. She now seeks to make new memories while learning the meaning of the little things in her previous journey. Its a story that puts everyday life moments into perspective.

Lastly for a few older titles I read this year:

Negima and UQ Holder - This is the kind of series that I would have been immensely into if I read it during its run. The rom-com elements are nice and all, but what truly sold me on the series is the fantasy adventure they have during the entire second half. Negima is one of the best at blending harem and battle troupes together. Unfortunately the sequel UQ Holder isn’t nearly as good. Poor pacing and incoherent plot held it down. At least it provided the final arc that Negima skipped at the end. I think it’s a series that has aged surprisingly well in this modern isekai era. Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer - I heard this was a fantastic title and... I thought it was boring. It’s not drawn particularly well, the story is a bit formulaic, and everything falls flat for me. It simply didn’t feel ambitious enough for the story it wanted to tell (and let us not go into the bland anime adaptation it received). I’ll get around to Satoshi Mizukami’s other titles eventually. Sun Ken Rock - Since Dr. Stone finished this year, I went back to read another Boichi work. I was really impressed by the Yazuka drama mixed with a non-Japan setting. I quickly learned Boichi sure tamed himself before coming to Jump while still always striving to improve his art. His already impressive spreads during Sun Ken Rock only become more detailed over time and throughout Dr. Stone. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I look forward to the anime adaptations for several of my favorite manga in 2023 and can’t wait to discover new manga series. The year seems like it will be off to a promising start with JoJo Part 9 coming in February. A few big hitters from Weekly Shonen Jump are also likely to end. There are plenty of things to look forward to in the coming year.

See you all next time!

#Mega's Words

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