For some reason I thought this was the last volume… I guess I’m happy it’s not?
But I’m disappointed by the sense I’m getting that, in the long run, no shounen manga dares stand in the way of the almighty Shounen Jump formula. For one thing, the formula seems to require that the female characters either stop getting fight scenes, or make them the froofy passive-looking metaphysical kind.
For another, there seems to have been an executive decision that Soul Eater lose his hat, acquire a hairstyle somewhere between present-day-Ichigo’s* and Edward Elric’s, and completely change the shape of his face and eyes. Because it’s not okay to have a protagonist who doesn’t look exactly like every other protagonist?
Also, Black ★ Star has suddenly become the number-one angstiest member of the cast? The guy who pronounces a little star in the middle of his name to emphasize how special he is? The one who was introduced as a parody of Naruto!? Yet he is now More Special Sasuke! It’s like the manga’s IQ is progressively getting lower.
If Patty ends up getting angst, too, I’m just going to retreat into writing fanfic where everyone’s an adorable moron again.
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* Hey, remember the good old days when Kubo Tite actually had a recognizable personal style? Whatever happened to those days? THE SHOUNEN JUMP FORMULA HAPPENED TO THOSE DAYS. If Mizuno Junko ran a manga in Shounen Jump, within twelve months it would become a story about a fourteen-year-old boy overcoming his rocky relationship with his dad through montage-intensive training to become the best evil naked zombie drug dealer gigolo nurse.
** I just checked and Soul Eater actually runs in Shounen Gangan, not Shounen Jump. Close enough!
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1) When I am the villain, my minions’ uniforms will involve full-face masks of an easy-to-duplicate design, just to make it that much more convenient for the good guys to infiltrate my secret lair.
2) When I am a manga artist drawing a wacky shounen comedy series, just before the final battle I will suddenly introduce a whole bunch of new characters no one cares about. They will then proceed to have earnest romantic troubles.
3) Also, my art will get sloppy, I will decline to clear up at least two subplots, and two characters’ personalities will change completely with neither explanation nor buildup.
(The first six volumes were so great! Why does the manga want to hurt me now?)
ETA: 4) Also, my scanlators will consistently transliterate the two nerds’ names as “Ox Fold” and “Harvar,” possibly because they’re from a DC comics alternate universe where schools don’t exist because of something Lex Luthor did.
(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords manga. Four Swords is the one where Link gets split into five Links with different-colored hats, and the one in the black hat is evil! In the game, they basically just fight, but the manga felt that this situation would be improved by a little Linkslash. I guess Link/Link is officially canon now? There’s also Link/Link/Link(?)/Zelda if you own goggles.
You guys should read it, it’s pretty crazy.
Please everyone thank 
thegeekgene for pointing out to me that it had actually been licensed. For some reason I had thought the eventuality unlikely.
(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)
Not Manga
Bisexual Cinderella undergoes uninteresting torments, solves the primary plot problem too easily, and selects the sensible corner of her love triangle.
Someone named Moriarty thought it would be a good idea to cross Crystal Singer over with The Continuing Time, and they were right.
Also contains Cetagandans, physics, and a mostly non-white cast.
A funny and generally non-preachy YA novel about an Australian Muslim girl figuring out her cultural identity. There are a few clunky bits where the author’s desire to educate trumps her sense of how dialog works.
Oh, Suck Fairy, why must you visit so much of my library? I used to love these books.
Manga
Sweet, slickly-drawn short story collection. The title story, about a recently-divorced woman who finds her empty apartment invaded first by an angel, then by her ex-husband’s teenaged mistress, is the best.
Depressing, slickly-drawn story about dysfunctional people messing up each other and themselves, which Tokyopop shouldn’t really be marketing as gay-positive. None of the characters are particularly likable.
Osamu Tezuka punches you repeatedly in the stomach.
This manga follows the Shounen Jump formula so closely that, during the three years of its publication, it is written that Yoshihiro Togashi would frequently look over his shoulder in puzzlement and fear, wondering what ghost it was that he felt stepping on his heels. (If Togashi ever got out of bed then, I mean.)
Anzai’s first major work, which strays from the formula occasionally, with some good results and some bad. Compulsively readable up to the end of the tournament arc, but Anzai has major issues with women, and there’s way more fetish stuff than you want to see in a kids’ story.
(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)
I spent a lot of Flame of Recca going, “Man, I would be enjoying this fight scene so much more if Nobuyuki Anzai had not spilled his sexual hang-ups all over it.” Now I know what happens when he doesn’t spill his sexual hang-ups all over things! He makes manga that is kind of perfunctory, with characters he doesn’t really seem to care about. Okay, Anzai, you can have your sexual predators and dominatrices back.
(Not the pedophiles or the thing with the peeing, though. I’m drawing a line there.)
For me the main value of this manga is the knowledge that (spoilers for chapter 107, plus the end of Flame of Recca)
( Read the rest of this entry » )(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)
Hey! Nobuyuki Anzai! Can we please go like two chapters in a row without your problems with women making themselves visible! Because that would be nice! Thank you!
Also, scanlators. Listen. You know I love you, but for the love of Christ. This guy’s name is Hamelin. You are making me very crazy.
(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)
Man, Kurei, no. You do not break the alternate dimension by punching it really hard.
I mean, there are narrative conventions that need to be observed here. When you are in the alternate dimension, you do metaphysical battle with your soul - or, you know, somebody’s soul, given as how there’s times you may not necessarily have a soul, due to reasons - while solving some kind of riddle. You don’t just punch. There’s a time and a place for punching, just like there’s a time and place for casually disposing of a complaining minion with a small gesture of one hand in the lower right-hand corner of an otherwise empty panel, and a time and place for unexpected shows of vulnerability under a tree branch or a source of thin light.
We’ve got standards in this community, Kurei. Uphold them.
<3,
Ichimaru Gin
(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)
I’m reading Flame of Recca. It’s strangely addictive! Though the art, writing, and gender issues are all unbelievably terrible.
I think the Avatar guys must have read it, because villain #1, Kurei, is (minor spoilers for both)
( Read the rest of this entry » )(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)
So there’s anime and video game merchandise and advertising all over Japan, like you’d expect, and a lot of it I recognize. There’s Pokemon, Fullmetal Alchemist, D. Grey Man, Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest, Gundam 00, Evangelion, Naruto, and Final Fantasy stuff all over the place. There’s a fair amount of Moyashimon, Phoenix Wright, and Naoki Urasawa stuff, which surprised me for some reason - I’d somehow thought those would be more niche concerns. Apparently Beyblade still exists in the public consciousness here. I haven’t seen many Vampire Knight keychains and stuff, but the new volumes and issues of its magazine are always prominently displayed.
Still, most of the stuff I’m really majorly obsessed with - say, Claymore and Kaoru Mori and Moyoco Anno - does not get out much. Today I saw a girl on the train reading Otomen, and was startled because I actually knew what that was.
( Read the rest of this entry » )(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)
Please, aid me in my endeavor, citizens of the internet!
That’s the literal Satan, now! It cannot be just a nickname for a bad dude - I am not putting the complete works of Georgette Heyer on my list! And Judeo-Christian-Islamic Satans only, please! Maohs and Enmas do not count.
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cerusee)-
I’m convinced I’m missing an incredibly obvious one, but I’ve been sitting here trying to pin it down for like ten minutes now.
(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)
All the way up to chapter 97! It is now 3:28 in the morning.
Spoilers.
( Read the rest of this entry » )(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)
Originally published at I Am Completely Serious. You can comment here or there.
What. What. TOGASHI YOU TURN THIS PLOTLINE AROUND RIGHT NOW.
This manga has crossed the acceptable pedophilia content threshold.
(Originally published at SarahPin.com. You can comment here or there.)
Originally published at I Am Completely Serious. You can comment here or there.
Wait, what? What?
( Read the rest of this entry » )Originally published at I Am Completely Serious. You can comment here or there.
Mukuro = NEW FAVORITE CHARACTER. (To the surprise of no one.)
Spoilers (including some for Hunter x Hunter up to the Greed Island arc):
( Read the rest of this entry » )Originally published at I Am Completely Serious. You can comment here or there.
Wow. Hiei and Kurama’s backstories are actually pretty hardcore.
I just want to show this to Kubo Tite and go, like, “THIS IS HOW YOU DO THE MORALLY-AMBIGUOUS DUDE’S FLASHBACK SEQUENCE.”
No, seriously, Kurama’s backstory is more badass than most of the villains in Bleach. Kurama. Do you know how sad that is? ’cause that is eight points of sad on the shindo scale. (Note: The shindo scale goes up only to seven.)
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