#shows its influence on its sleeve and does it better than games about a demon made of ink anyway

[lulusoblue]

Game recommendation for BioShock enjoyers: Close to the Sun. It's like if you put all three games' aesthetics and vibes into a blender with Amnesia/Soma-style gameplay. Relatively short and the ending feels abrupt but hopeful. The atmosphere and music fills that BioShock-shaped hole in my heart temporarily until we get news on the next game.

And Nikola Tesla is there and I love me some alternate timeline shenanigans

#bioshock #close to the sun #the bioshock similarities will often hit like a sledgehammer i love it #shows its influence on its sleeve and does it better than games about a demon made of ink anyway #in my opinion at least

[recentanimenews]

RWBY

There was a moment in the early 2000s when Tokyopop slapped the “manga” label on just about anything it published, from licensed Japanese comics to comics made by aspiring American artists who were trying to break into the industry. Looking back on the heated debate over the legitimacy of OEL and Cine-Manga, I wonder how today’s readers will view RWBY, a work that meets the basic definition of manga as “comics created in Japan,” but has a more complicated history than other American properties that have been reimagined for Japanese readers.

RWBY’s path to the Shonen Jump imprint began in 2013 when Rooster Teeth, an American production studio, had a viral hit with an original, anime-influenced show about a team of girls who fight monsters. Over the next four years, interest in RWBY was strong enough to inspire a spin-off series, a video game, four soundtrack albums, and a manga illustrated by Shirow Miwa, creator of Dogs and Dogs: Bullets & Carnage. Like Miwa’s other work, RWBY ran in the pages of Ultra Jump alongside JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Bastard!!, and was billed as a prequel to the original web series. VIZ acquired the license to Miwa’s RWBY in 2017, and released it this week.

Flipping through its pages, there are hints that RWBY is a slightly different animal than Jiro Kuwata’s Bat-Manga or Kia Asamiya’s Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. RWBY reads like a skillful imitation of a battle-heavy shonen manga, a riot of flying fists, kicking legs, swinging scythes, and extreme camera angles. Almost every imaginable visual cliche is on display, from a girl with cat-ears (she’s a Faunus, or a “therianthrope”) to a school uniform that consists of a waist-nipping blazer and impossibly short skirt. And while Miwa’s artistic persona is evident in the story’s best pages, RWBY feels less like a manga adaptation of a popular American show than a compendium of things that American fans like about anime and manga.

The story follows a familiar template: four — or three, or five — special teens attend a special school where they learn how to use their special powers to defend the Earth from demons or aliens. Each teen has one unusual gift — say, teleporting or making killer bento boxes — and one well-defined personality trait that dictates the costume she wears, how much she talks, and whether she plays well with others. Though individually effective, the quartet — or trio, or quintet — is more formidable when they team up against their shared enemy, a lesson that’s reinforced early and often in the series both in the outcome of the battle scenes and in the characters’ on-the-nose conversations about friendship and cooperation. In RWBY, the principal team consists of four girls: Ruby Rose, a weapons expert, Weiss Schnee, a rich girl, Blake Belladonna, a former gang member, and Yang Xiao Long, a cheerful spazz who loves a good brawl. All four attend attend Beacon Academy, where teens train to become Hunters, skillful warriors who wield cool weapons and magical spells against the Grimm, a race of “soulless monsters” that threaten humanity’s existence.

On the screen, such a shopworn premise could still work with the addition of snazzy animation, strong voice acting, great sound design, and judicious pacing. On the page, however, RWBY falls flat. Miwa is hamstrung by the pedestrian source material, cranking out a manga whose principal characters are blandly pretty and prone to explaining things to one another. Just a few pages into chapter one, for example, Ruby blithely asks her teammates about Dust, the magical substance that powers their weapons. Without missing a beat, Schnee responds, “It’s a crystallized energy propellant that helps to power our world.” She then launches in a lengthy rumination on Dust that’s supposed to reveal something about her character — her family’s fortune is tied to Dust — but is such a poorly disguised information dump that it rings hollow.

Glimpses of Miwa’s signature style — his sharp-featured characters and spidery linework — emerge most clearly in the battle sequences, when Ruby and friends face off with the Grimm. Here, Miwa pulls out all the stops, framing the action in panels whose diagonal boundaries mimic the combatants’ slashing motions and flying leaps. In one of the manga’s most striking sequences, Miwa traces a bullet from the barrel of Ruby’s gun towards its target. This kind of tracking shot is a hackneyed gesture to be sure, but Miwa does something playful and surprising with it: he breaks the frame to create the illusion that the bullet is emerging from the page and whizzing past the reader:

The rest of the sequence, however, is a hot mess. Miwa’s relentless shift in perspective makes the fight as incomprehensible as a badly edited car chase; it’s never clear how many monsters are involved, or what makes the Grimm so lethal.

Miwa’s indifference to the material also manifests itself in the almost total absence of background detail. Though he introduces the fight sequences with an establishing shot or two — a glimpse of trees, an aerial view of a railroad track — the action unfolds in blank space. Plenty of manga-ka take similar shortcuts, but when a manga is 70% combat and 30% character-building, the effect is like looking at a scene from The Last Jedi or Avatar before the special effects were added; in the absence of any objects, buildings, or landmarks that would contextualize their actions and words, the characters look downright silly.

Part of me wishes RWBY were better, as it’s fascinating to see an American program get the manga treatment, especially one that wears its Bleach and Magic Knight Rayearth influences on its sleeve. Ten years ago, fans would have derided such a program as inauthentic; today, it seems, such trans-Pacific exchanges seem less remarkable. Too bad RWBY never escapes the prison of Overused Anime and Manga Tropes to become something more original, compelling, or entertaining.

RWBY • MANGA BY SHIROW MIWA • BASED ON THE ROOSTER TEETH SERIES CREATED BY MONTY OUM • TRANSLATED BY JOE YAMAZAKI, ADAPTED BY JEREMY HAUN & JASON HURLEY • VIZ MEDIA • 260 pp. • RATED T, FOR TEENS (Fantasy violence, mild fanservice)

By: Katherine Dacey

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

[devildove-blog]

The Path of Passion (Poem)

Let me state the obvious in the name of being clear that Star Wars is just some movies inspired by a muse. So I'm not unveiling some secret conspiracy here. My inspiration just connects to the metaphors I use. The Sith are back, and misunderstanding us breeds fear.

Now most Star Wars movie fans don't know what Star Wars is. From movies to institutions to this poem I write the same words have different meanings so connect the dots word whiz. On the dark side we've got free cookies.  C'mon, take a bite. Nobody knows what I'm talking about, because it's Nobody's Biz.

Find the light through the dark side; it's more fun that way. From movie metaphors to religious references I present this wordplay. A God in one religion's a devil in another, the dark ages say. It's all fun and games until TPTB show up wanting to join in and play. Who joins the warcraft dance in the name of harmony this day? Reality collides with fantasty as we dance the night away.

If The Force is real then Jedi aren't.  This is sith philosophy. Study the 5 forms of telepathy and take up Yoga Kuji Kiri style. My heart, mind, will, spirit and soul make 5 crafting this theology. Let the doubters and mockers say what they will and keep up denial. Hide these lessons from the folly folk.  The Force will set you free.

What's said in that meme take literally as beyond this I shew. The Sith are the only part of Star Wars that's real, I guess. Yea, my anti-establishment philosophies tend to burn bridges too. Be cool, I'm some weird Sith janitor cleaning up someone's mess. I've got my own motives and ambitions wilt beyond all that I do.

Lust is not always sexual and means any desire when strong enough. The first rule of this path is to lust for the result. If your life is boring for years, be cool and stay tough. Kundalini rise with your power for tantra birthed a left handed insult. Don't make chaos out of anger.  Keep calm even when life is rough.

There's an emptiness in weak joys, and The Force can fill those holes. Don't fight your inner demons.  Tame them.  Self?  Embrace it. When times are tough have happy thoughts focused on your goals. When your happy thoughts are destroyed focus on the pain and face it. This gospel of passion is teaching strength not saving souls. Fools speak of passion inaccurately.  Their teachings?  Erase it.

It's all fantasty until TPTB show up finding under the sun things new. Well I'm some kinda New School Sith here in the name of reason to advance and explain this path.  Morality implied here I shew. Better call your boys when sith show up in any time or season. Find many interpretations to this wordplay, and apply wisely to skew.

Many meanings to passion's path are revealed here. This isn't all exclusively sithcraft being described. Sith are monsters, I guess, something humanity can fear. Is that good or bad?  Read a book, man.  It's all been transribed. Passion's path has a peril when your joy is far not near.

When your happy thoughts' failure brings pain, embrace how you feel. Let passion guide you and motivate you to gain strength and power. Don't complain if you're too weak and your karma paid got too real. Learn a lesson, but don't take it personally; let this be our method to the madness with secrets hidden in the sith's deal.

This path's not for everyone, a truth important enough to say twice. Yea, Nobody cares how you feel.  Grin and bear it like a man. Compassion earned from wearing your heart on your sleeve has its price. The path of passion is a proccess not a phase or a flash in the pan. Can't handle a path?  Don't walk it.  Wisdom on this path says be nice. Those who practice meditation on this path when asked to keep calm can.

Now the real price of passion is the joy you can earn from reachings those goals all your happy thoughts focused on. This strong joy others know not is the lesson to learn about fufillment and pride as old as the sun's golden dawn. It's the path of time and energy spent on results for which you yearn.

Here I wilt the laws of passion's lust that I'll make up as I go. From laws of self to laws to enforce to result in harmony. These are passion's only laws beyond do what thou wilt to follow. Call this The Force if you will, but not if you wilt differently. Lust means strong desire of all kinds here showing what we know.

Time is on my side, and are these timeless words that you see? The law of lust is that no lust is forbidden, for better or worse. Self awareness and self control guide you to use The Force properly. If the result of your lust harms the innocent face my passion's curse. Judge a tree by it's fruit to see a Sith's true nature accurately.

Which lust is forbidden depends on the time and place of society. Find those who embrace any such lust shunned like a left hand fate. Harm no man or woman for their lusts if they follow laws accordingly applicable by which they are goverened harming none.  I forbid debate. When chains bind passion's will remember The Force shall set you free. In humanity's New World education does society's beliefs' create.

The word of sin means restriction.  We explained clear enough before. Lust tainted with obsession restricts the purity of free will. Am I being clear enough here?  Explaining passion is my chore. Victory over self and vices requires love so take your fill. The Force frees no one if passion is restricted; A lesson fools ignore.

Welcome to planet earth, a world at war where life's not fair. The Sith path's for warriors, people who seek to create change. This poem's metaphors shows shows a reality to those who are aware. Open The Doors, and tell a tale of how people are strange. With great power comes great responsibility; use The Force if you dare.

The Force can be an imposition of will, so use it responsibly. You can't cast any spell that influences the material plane without altering free will in some way, don't you see? Yet walking the path of passion means accepting more of life's pain. Sith ain't thelemites, Baby, we do as we wilt and will conditionally.

Sith can break chains to earn grattitude from the fish who got away. Give a sith a chain to break and he'll eat for a day. Teach a sith to break chains and find a dangerous game you play. Mastering others is easier than mastering self, a Fool's lesson I say. Haters hate when The Force frees a man or woman's pride for being gay. Fishers of men hate Sith for freeing the slaves shown in my wordplay.

Like Lil Wayne's Fireman Sith are hot even when keeping their cools. I must be filled with passion teaching this gospel of warcraft. The bridges I'm burning and hatred building is hidden from the Fools. I've got a one fingered victory salute for the Fucks now sith wrathed. The hidden historical reference I just made hides my occult tools.

#poem #poetry #passion #occult #magic #magick #sith #symbolism #illuminous