WTF?? The latest Negima chapter is absolutely terrible! A long and epic arc was practically ended is a very abrupt and anticlimatic way. :( My initial reaction:
Wait, that was it? They chased away MotB with one swing, and Asuna can return things as they were just like that? WTF? That was so... anticlimatic! This is the first time Negima has let me down so.
Of course, there's still the problem of the magical world dying, and Nagi/MotB, but this part of the story is over, and I'm very disappointed with how abruptly it ended, after all that buildup. :(
Goumaden Shutendoji by Nagai Go and Natsumoto Masato
(http://i.minus.com/jzTo24jKDioAw.png) (http://min.us/mbqr5BttJj#2o)
The world of Goumaden Shutendouji is harsh, cruel and perverse. When the veil between the world of humans and Hell fails, humans are powerless against the demons that come through. Taking advantage of the ugly sides of human nature, they take control of humans, killing them, making them kill each other, and worse. The sole hope of the humans in the city where the invasion takes place is the protagonist, a demon brought up believeing he was human: the guy himself has been pretty useless so far, but he has some powerful protectors. And since the demons are mainly gunning for him, his protectors are helping humans by fighting those who attack him.
The thing I love about this manga is its art. The demons are inspired by traditional Japanese oni, their designs are butt-ugly, hell-cool, and delightfully detailed. The designs of the human characters are less spectacular, but the backgrounds are also very nice. Horror and bloodshed have rarely looked so good, without going completely overboard with the gory details.
Another thing I like is the complete lack of mercy in the story. The humans in this story are seriously in deep shit. What makes it worse is that evil isn't completely externalised: the demons were apparently originally born from human vices, and all kinds of ugly feelings are what many of the demons take sadistic pleasure in releasing in their victims. It's a dark story, but I can enjoy one as long as I don't develop too deep feelings for the characters. And I don't think there's much danger of that: none of the characters are particularly likeable, that wouldn't fit in with the theme.
So far the protagonist has been pretty useless, but he intends to change that, so I'm hoping to see him kick some ass eventually. He's been holding up well, considering what he's been through: what'd you do if you found out that
you're not a human, but a demon; that your school and the whole city is overrun by demons that are after your life; that the parents who raised you for 15 years were in reality mere shikigami; that the hundreds of humans slain right before your eyes died mainly because you happened to be on this side of the border between Hell and Earth; that your best friend hates you for liking the same girl; that your friends are forced to become demons and fight to protect you...?
I feel sorry for the heroine, she's been given nothing but the classic damsel-in-distress role. And by "distress" I mean
almost getting raped, seeing her parents get killed in a gruesome way, being a hostage (bound by tentacles, slime or such and sometimes getting cut) for about half of the story so far, frequently getting her clothes shred, and finally getting cut to pieces and fed to various demons - while still being alive...
The battles have been quite entertaining so far, I'm just waiting for the protagonist to learn some basic control over his powers - and to start swinging his newly acquired sword. The atmosphere is awesomely dark and heavy, though not competely depressing: the protagonist's guardian seems to be in sufficient control of the situation most of the time. The storyflow has some problems, but it's on acceptable level IMO. The plot... well, there are some intriguing mysteries, but other than that, there's not much of a plot to begin with.
Overall, it's an enjoyable read when you happen to be in the mood for something really dark and bloody. Mainly I'd recommend it for the art: these demons make those bishie demons you mostly see in anime look like kids in a playground.
Music: Anything heavy and dark should do. My personal favourite for this kind of manga/manhwa is Pain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHkYVERZ0F8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myhFrg18zsc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woaUvKkMtgc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkyDdTNJwlM
Just to list a few of many suitable songs in their production.
I was asked by Krozam to prepare this Manga Diary entry. Ladies and gentlemen, while my writing skills may not be as good as his, let me present Maoyuu Maou Yuusha
(http://i.minus.com/iByd1qAovoQx2.jpg)
-Become mine, Hero!
-I refuse!
Usually, whenever the Demon Queen is confronted by the Hero, it's the climax of the story. This time, however, it is just a beginning. After his probably long and cliche struggle through demon's realm, Hero arrives in front of Demon Queen willing to take her life, but instead of fierce fight or pleading for life, he hears the above request, and declines it. They agree on a compromise - Hero will hear Demon Queen out for a half-day, and after that time he is free to do whatever he wants with her.
I'm sure there are lots of great fantasy series. Many of them have pretty dark tone, and many of them deal with wars and politics. Maoyuu however is very unique and I don't mean characters with no actual names, only their occupations. This series is probably the most realistic one, since it deals with all aspects of war and its impact. Demon Queen doesn't want to end the war because humans have to lose - she wants to end the war since it's wrong, and she'd like to do it without completely destroying her opponents, trying to find the most peaceful way instead. With that thought, she visits the human world in disguise and starts the education.
Among numerous manga adaptations of original novels, I find drawing style of Maoyuu Maou Yuusha (without any suffixes) the best of them all. Maou is definitely as cute as she should be, wihtout focusing too much on her shamelessly useless meat. Hero goes from being a rather dumb, but powerful warrior to educated (and dedicated) paladin (of sorts), and because his struggles (and battles in general) aren't the main problem of the story, they are resolved in epic way. While battles remain quick, they're not chaotic. And whenever he wears armor, he looks cool - just as Hero should. Fortunately, the main pair (clumsy in most things apart from politics and economy Demon Queen, and mostly oblivious to that stuff Hero) manages not to overshadow the rest of cast, which includes many interesting and colourful characters, such as Head Maid, Grandpa Archer, Female Knight, Winter Prince... most of them has their own set of values, and still avoid being one- or two-dimensional.
Long story short: Maoyuu Maou Yuusha in general tells about various problems and aspects of war, as well as ways of dealing with them. Not-so-frequent cute encounters between Demon Queen and Hero mostly serve as intervals between mountains of dialogues (which are also enjoyable). If I were to grade Maoyuu at this point, I'd probably give it about 4/5, because of story's steady level during the 8 translated (and loaded with text) chapters.
Figured I might as well just go and post it here, in the middle of being utterly frustrated with homework.
Amidst all kinds of manga I read, I enjoy absurd comedies about the most (second only to yuri). At some point, however, they tend to lose their freshness - jokes seem repetitive, new characters (heck, old ones usually too) are one-dimensional and overused running gags are overused, not to mention the fact that majority of those (as it is usually the case with gag series) are 4komas.
But there are exceptions. One of them is Fujimura-kun Mates by Shiki Seiichi.
(http://cdn.myanimelist.net/images/manga/3/66005l.jpg)
Fujimura Haru Is a delinquent (kind of). Having no friends to enjoy the school with (and being feared in general), he skips classes until he is found by class representative Usami Eriko. She claims to be sent by a teacher to find out why is Fujimura skipping, and she tries to convince him to go back to school. All is fine, until... let's just say that Eriko has a few (hundred) screws loose. And she's not the only one. Through a series of unexpected events, Fujimura ends with three school-sanctioned (with a grand ceremony-slash-election) girlfriends - aforementioned Usami Eriko, who seems to enjoy sexual innuendos with Fujimura (and has slight yandere tendencies, sans jealous fits), Yumizuka Subaru, who was once harassing a girl who then got saved by Fujimura, and Urabe Shizuru, both the most and the least crazy of the bunch, total airhead who fell in love with Fujimura due to a misunderstanding. All three, as well as rest of the cast, do their best to drive the Only Sane Man Fujimura crazy.
This is one of the few gag mangas that manage to stay fresh and hilarious (and completely unpredictable) even after 74 chapters. With new chapters of SYD or Working!! the best I can muster is a smirk, while every new release of Fujimura-kun Mates has me dying of laughter. For the art, it's very pleasant to the eye - girls are very cute, while the level of detail is quite high. It's not in yonkoma format, which makes it even more interesting for a gag series.
I can definitely recommend this manga to anyone who likes to have a good laugh. It's been enjoyable so far and it seems it will be for a long time. My score is 10/10 - I might even consider re-scoring several top titles on my MAL, since this is one heck of an amazing read.
Thanks, Hax, I was getting lonely all alone here.
Angel Densetsu by Yagi Norihiro
(http://i.minus.com/jYRRSN30Nbq5W.jpg) (http://minus.com/lYRRSN30Nbq5W)
Angel Densetsu is one of my early manga experiences, I think it's been 5-6 years since I read it for the first time. No wonder I'd forgotten just how good it is. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking, rating it merely 3.5 stars when I put it on my (far from complete) manga list. So, yeah, a supremely nostalgic manga for me, a classic and must read of its genre, and a real pleasure to re-read especially after so long, having forgotten so much.
I'd compare AD to Yankee-kun to Megane-chan and Mx0. Like YK&MC, it's a school manga with comedy, delinquent stuff and romance. The difference is, AD has a bit more action and much better comedy, while YK&MC has more variation in its elements, like the student council stuff and, well, actual studying (what's up with all these school manga where the students are barely ever shown studying?). Like Mx0, the basic concept of AD is that a student comes to a school, stuff happens, and suddenly everyone thinks he's some kind of a monster. The difference is, in Mx0 the protagonist keeps up the illusion on purpose, while in AD it's entirely unintentional, held up by his devilish appearance, inability to express himself when agitated, and a bunch of coincidences. God I love that concept, it makes for such hilarious comedy.
You might be turned off by the art at first, but it's the guy's first long manga, and he develops his art a lot during the story. It never gets amazing, but IMO it's pretty good by the end. Everything else in the manga is great from the start to the end, there's no real rise or drop in the quality of the manga.
The characters are generally likeable, and although I can't say they're particularly deep, I still grew very attached to them and I'd love to read more about their life. In a way, AD reads like a good slice of life: it's an episodic story which never really feels complete, because it's a story about the ordinary life of these characters. Like the author says at least twice, he just created the characters and let them live their lives, without confining them into a pre-determined plotline. In this case, it works extremely well.
There's no particular depth or intelligence to the plot, but it's fairly interesting anyway. It's a good mix of hilarious comedy, (extra)ordinary school life, cute romance and nice fights. It's a heartwarming story about how a boy with the face of a devil and the heart of an angel overcomes prejudice, gets himself a handful of good friends and a cute girlfriend. The theme of overcoming prejudice is very strong throughout the story, the main character isn't the only one whose looks don't match his personality. But it's usually handled in either comedic or heartwarming manner which doesn't feel preachy at all.
So, where did I raise my rating from the initial 3.5/5? To 4.5. I was contemplating 4, because the ending is a bit unsatisfactory: although there's a very romantic scene and a badass battle in the last two chapters, there's something I didn't like in both of them: The most romantic scene in the whole manga was interrupted, and when they finally kissed later, it wasn't even shown, just implied! And the strike that defeted the enemy boss wasn't shown, either. :(
Also, there's the matter of the art at the beginning, and the lack of any particular depth in the story or the characters... But in the end, nostalgia and sheer reading pleasure won, I decided on the higher rating. Angel Densetsu is, in the end, one of the most enjoyable and re-readable manga for me, it deserves my second-highest recommendations.
Music: I tried a lot of different songs with this, too many to list them all. Most of the time I listened to Poets of the Fall - Shallow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dYk_9R8yPs), it has a nice tone that fits especailly the heartwarming scenes. For some of the more actionful or comedic scenes I used Save Me, also by PotF. I also listened to Powerman 5000 - Super Villain a lot, because I thought the subject of the song's lyrics is kinda fitting - in a perverse way - to the multitude of scenes where the protagonist is portrayed through the eyes of the people who see him as a devil... and it fits the fights well. In the last fight I listened to Recless Youth by Pillar, a pretty badass song for youth gang fights. For the few kinda sad scenes, Someone Who Cares by Three Days Grace is great. A lot of others, but those are the best fits.
So I've kinda been asked to write a post about a rather unique manga, and it was about four months ago. But, well, better late than never, right?
Bonnouji
by Aki Eda
(http://i.imgur.com/ILJlAlcl.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/ILJlAlc.jpg)
In an unspecified condo somewhere in Japan lives Oyamada Zenji, a bespectacled programmer whose brother is travelling around the world and sending various interesting (and most often bizarre) gifts. A few floors above lives Ozawa Michiyo, an OL in her twenties, who happens to meet Zenji on the day she broke up with her boyfriend. One thing led to another and they start hanging out together, along with Oyamada's childhood friend Shimamoto, a mahjong addict.
The story isn't very dynamic, far from it. It's a slow (but not too slow) and relaxed love story about two adults who by chance managed to find their soulmates in one another, who try to make it all work out, maybe a bit clumsily. There's no big drama, just a simple and soothing story, where almost nothing goes wrong.
This is a rather unique story. Many are likely to find it plain boring and uninteresting, but for me it was a welcome change - it was nice to see everything working out in the end, I was even under an impression that their problems were more real(istic?) than in many others... Aki Eda's drawing style is both a little rough and a bit cute, striking a near-perfect balance. Her other stories are very similar too - the volume of her original stories titled "Itou-san" and all the Touhou doujins released as the circle Rocket Fuel 21/Rocket Nenryou ★ 21 (warning: they are mainly gay).
I guess the post turned out a bit short, but there isn't really a lot to say about this manga. It's cute, lovely, mature, relaxed, predictable and finished, and I will gladly recommend it to about anyone, having given it 9 out of 10.