What Are You Reading?

[Avaitor]

I don't get why Marvel doesn't seem to realize that no one wants their events. Every time one of them receives some kind of backlash... they announce another one that's even worse.

In other news, I was hoping to start collecting Saint Seiya, and it seems like Viz still has most of it in print... aside from the first volume, of all things. I should probably focus on what I'm collecting now, anyway.

[VLordGTZ]

In other news, I was hoping to start collecting Saint Seiya, and it seems like Viz still has most of it in print... aside from the first volume, of all things. I should probably focus on what I'm collecting now, anyway.

Yeah, Saint Seiya is a bit of a pain to collect physically now days.  I think some of the volumes go for even $90 now used.  Luckily, Viz has released the entire series digitally, so it's still possible to legally read the series in English.

Speaking of slowly going out of print manga, I managed to get volumes 1 & 3-12 of Beet The Vandel Buster for $23 (which is about how much Volume 12 alone goes for now).  I'll probably buy Volume 2 sometime soon, and then give the series a proper read. 

[gunswordfist]

Spoiler

[close]

Ahahahahaha... oh, Secret Empire.

NO, YOU STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY CASTLE, YOU CLUSTERFUCK!! And it's bad enough that it also sounds like a BDSM line. 

[Dr. Insomniac]

This is why Illuminated Comics is my preferred vision of Marvel events.

[Markness]

I have been binge reading MHA and it's become one of my new favorites.  Horikoshi is one of the best current mangakas on the block and his first series, Oumagadoki Zoo, is definitely worth reading as well. I like how he reuses Sakamata for MHA. He was a cool character back in that series; truly monstrous and intimidating. He is even cooler now in MHA.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm a few arcs into Shaman King. As a fan of battle shonen manga, I can say that this one is fairly generic, but in an odd way it's kind of interesting to read if only for how I know about Takei being creatively frustrated with the lack of creative freedom he was allowed due to various mandates and restrictions by WSJ's editorial staff.

It seems very clear that he had very different intentions for the series than what it ended up being. For example, the series has a very JoJo's-esque aesthetic to its battles, but it feels oddly watered down to be more appropriate for a younger audience (despite the fact that they were both technically running in Shonen Jump at the same time). However, while it forcibly has that message of "friendship" that is present in many battle shonen, but which WSJ series in the previous decade had to beat their audience over tge head with (no doubt the image that the company was pushing at that time), it feels jarring to see some of Yoh's early opponents become his allies when literally half of them were pretty cold-blooded murderers with no redeeming qualities before. I mean, its nothing new for the genre, but it feels especially jarring and forced here. And having already read some of Nekogahara, I have a pretty good idea of the types of morally deficient characters that Takei prefers to write when he's unrestrained. This is pure speculation on my part, but I can't help but wonder if he wanted to write a battle tournament type series with less traditionally good characters similar to JJBA, but was awkwardly forced to weave that into a more black and white good and bad guy type of story that the editorial staff at Shonen Jump wanted him to make. If nothing else, it would explain the jarring disconnect between how clear villains with really skewed morals are treated as allies and get off scott-free just because "power of friendship" logic is applied.

Or, you know, it could also just be the early parts of the manga that are like this and Takei's general lack of experience as a writer at the time. But really, even though it was only a little, Nekogahara is so jarringly different, even for as many years later as it is, that I can't even draw the slightest similarities between his style for that and Shaman King other than that half the characters in SK are clearly psychotic until the main characters beats them into agreeing with his viewpoints (one of the less endearing battle shonen tropes, even for me).

[Spark Of Spirit]

A lot of it is Takei getting his feet wet. A lot of what you're talking about shows up later in the manga (and anime!) with far more devious villains and dark themes. At the beginning he was probably still trying to figure out how to work everything out.

[VLordGTZ]

A lot of it is Takei getting his feet wet. A lot of what you're talking about shows up later in the manga (and anime!) with far more devious villains and dark themes. At the beginning he was probably still trying to figure out how to work everything out.

With Shaman King being his first major series, it likely took Takei a while to get his barrings.  Takei's writing style has certainly changed from his early Shaman King days, but I think that's mainly due to his increased experience.  By the time Nekogahara came out, Takei already had four major series under his belt, including Ultimo which focuses a lot on moral ambiguity.  It's not too surprising that the implementation of his ideas has become a lot better after nearly two decades of manga publication.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

After it having been sitting on my shelf for months, I finally read through both volumes of The Black Museum by Kazuhiro Fujita. As expected it was a really great story, and it further displays what a talented and varied storyteller Fujita is. I'm especially impressed by how he handles the themes of despair and bonding, and I like how this story clearly takes a lot of inspiration from classic English plays, and not just in the fact that it quotes and references them a bunch of times, but also in how its narrative unfolds, touching on the classic elements of drama, tragedy, and even comedy. It really says a lot about Fujita's ability to write compelling characters that, despite being such a short story, I really cared a lot about the two main characters by the end of it all. And also, as random as it was, including a cameo from Watsuki's characters from Embalming at the end was a nice surprise. I didn't realize that Fujita and Watsuki knew each other.

It really bums me out that Ushio and Tora didn't get more recognition than it did. The people who have seen it mostly seem to have liked it, yet it hardly ever got discussed that much when it was airing, and now it seems like almost everyone has moved on and forgotten about it, meaning that it was probably not much of a hit or at best a modest success, so the chances of another of Fujita's manga (such as Karakuri Circus) being adapted into an anime are rather slim. Even so, I sitll plan to check out his other works when I get a chance.

Now I'll be moving onto Blade of the Immortal, which I have the first two omnibi for, and I will also be starting Ed Brubaker's Batman run, which I also have two volumes for. I still have a huge backlog of comics and manga that I bought from last year which I just haven't gotten to yet.

[Avaitor]

Now that I've been reading a lot more manga, one of the key differences I've noticed between manga and comics is that the Japanese don't really do individual chapters, aside from some gag comics I guess. Obviously western comics have plenty of serialization, but a lot of these books can take an issue or two off to focus on a side character or just go away from the action. Oftentimes these do contribute to the story at core, but I find that off chapters like that are a rarity in manga. Everything is generally connected to the bigger picture.

There's obviously plenty of other differences between eastern and western comics, but a lot of it is cultural. And I am enjoying my time reading both.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, there are a lot of older non-gag manga that have plenty of one-off stories between the main arcs, but yeah, generally most stuff in the action genre these days tends to be focused on the bigger picture right from the get-go.

[Spark Of Spirit]

As for Ushio & Tora's popularity, the anime did increase manga sales, it did introduce every other place in the world to Fujita on a larger scale, and said anime has been dubbed and has not yet been released here yet. The only haters have been manga purists who will admit you can't tell anything is missing (because the way it was done, nothing actually was skipped--it happened off-screen) and those who gave up by episode 3 or so. I'd say it was a success all the way around.

All I'm hoping is that Sentai is planning to court Toonami with their dub. The series really deserves the exposure, and the should give it the attention it needs to fully break out.

I'm still introducing this series to people, by the way. I've yet to meet any who dislike it.

[Avaitor]

Sakuragi losing his father due to being surrounded by a group of gang members wanting payback is pretty sad, but also pretty true to his character.

And it also feels like something that would have happened to Kuwabara.

[Dreamer2]

Because of a Barnes & Noble buy 2 get 1 free deal, I have volumes 1 and 2 of My Hero Academia on the way!!!!

I'm not gonna lie, I haven't been this hyped to read/watch something since Magi. And that's one of my favorite anime/manga of all time. So, I'm excited. I just feel like I'm gonna love it and I really hope I do.

And hopefully Toonami will air it soon.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Careful of hype, though. I love MHA, but just don't expect it to be an instant classic from the get-go. It starts out pretty strong, IMO, even if it's a set up that has been done before, but like most shonen it takes a few volumes before it really hits its stride.