What Are You Reading?

[LumRanmaYasha]

I knew what you meant. I'm just saying I actually had read gag manga series way before ever reading Bakuman and it's commentary on the subject, and those titles gave me an impression of what I think a gag manga to be like.

[Avaitor]

What's up with that ninja kid? He's awesome!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Ninja kid?

[Avaitor]

Ninja kid?

In chapters 37 and 38, the little guy who snuck his way to win the fight.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Oh, Aoyama. Yeah, I liked him too. I always like seeing characters who aren't strong in the traditional sense manage to take advantage of his personal strengths and his opponents weaknesses to become capable, and with Aoyama, I enjoyed him becoming more confident in himself and someone who couldn't be picked on anymore, and a worthy opponent for Joe. It's too bad he doesn't appear again after the Prison arc (outside of a brief cameo as a spectator of Joe's final fight), though admittedly he isn't strong enough to survive in the harsh world of professional boxing, so it was perhaps for the best.   

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Oh, you mean Aoyama. He's a pretty fun character. His fight with Joe is surprisingly entertaining.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, I hit their fight, which is also awesome.

We don't see much of Aoyama later on, huh? That's a shame. He's a cool character.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, if I have just one gripe with this manga, it's that Takamori and Chiba create these awesome one-shot characters who never get used again. That said, the excellent character development of the main characters makes up for that. Joe and Yoko especially get great development later on.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I checked out all 31 volumes of Slam Dunk from the library and was planning to marathon read them, but then I remembered I hadn't finished catching up on Kuroko no Basket, so I decided to do that today, and am now fully caught up. To be perfectly honest, I have become really tired with the series. None of the matches since the rematch with To'ou have really felt very intense to me, and a lot of that is because the handling of the character drama is not really well done. In the match against Yosen I found myself incapable of caring about Kagami and Tatsuya's promise and rivalry because not only was it put out of the spotlight for 50 chapters by that point and not explored much outside of the one flashback but also because it was being balanced with stuff regarding Kiyoshi and also Murasakibara starting to become motivated into playing seriously/realizing he likes basketball. Everything was too thinly set-up and explored and was clumped together, and as a result only a couple moments from each really made an impression on me. I feel the problem is that Fujimaki tries to incorporate too many characters and character arcs into each match without properly establishing why they need to be cared about. I can't honestly say most of the teammates of the Generation of Miracles outside of three or four really left much of an impression on me, and even on Seirun while I do care about Kuroko, Kagami, Kiyoshi, and Hyuuga, the rest of the team has little personality or are much of developed characters and while I can remember some of their names because of their design that doesn't mean I can find myself to care about them, which is a problem in the current match with Rakuzan since Fujimaki is trying to make the entire team contribute to the match in some way, and instead of finding myself caring about, say, Koga getting backstory and him missing his chance to stop Mibuchi's shot, I'm just bored reading it.

I also have to say that Akashi...well, I couldn't take him seriously the very first time he showed up. I mean, he tried to stab Kagami with scissors because he didn't show respect to him or whatever. I'm sorry, but I when I saw that I just laughed at how stupid it was. Even with the explanation that he knew Kagami would dodge, it still is such a dumb action for the main antagonist in a sports series to do. It doesn't help that Akashi's dialogue is almost completely comprised of him saying victory is everything and he is the best and everyone else is inferior, and while I get the principles of the angle break and Emperor's Eye, they just came across as too over the top to me in execution, as is the way everyone is so intimidated by him. Akashi's personality just rubs me the wrong way and I roll my eyes in a lot of his scenes before the flashback arc. Speaking of, I was hoping that arc would explain why he acts the way he does, so maybe I could take him more seriously/like him better, but while I understand the character type of the pressured high-class young child who is pressured to be first  no matter what, the way the change in Akashi happens is too sudden, and it felt like he made a 180 out of the blue. There were scenes that hinted he had two sides to him, yes, but for him to suddenly change all of a sudden in one match with Murasakibara with such a lack of focus on showing him feeling pressured beforehand and being conflicted with both of those sides of himself made it come across as too radical to feel natural. It doesn't help that he became a complete asshole afterwards, and toying with the team Kuroko's friend was on to make the scores match up was just too over the top cruel and unbelievable for me. And as far as the match with Rakuzan is going now, he doesn't really show any hint of depth or change at this point even though we're on the fourth quarter. Instead, he's become more of an unlikeable, shallow power-obsessed character through his treatment of Mayuzumi and how the way he enters the zone is by giving up on his teammates as useless and playing solo, forgoing any effort of teamwork. I must say, I've seen my share of antagonists in manga, but few have annoyed me more than Akashi.

The big problem I'm having right now though is caring about what's going on...because honestly, reading through this climatic match, I find myself utterly bored at most of what's going on. Well, yes, there have been moments I've enjoyed like when Kuroko's misdirection is completely broken, and Mayuzumi was reveled as "Phantom Player" 2.0, and the moment where Kuroko's determination revived Seirun's spirits when they had lost all hope from Rakuzan's 25-point lead on them. But I don't feel anything for this anymore. Back in the rematch against To'ou, I felt what was on the line there, and while that match felt like it was dragging for me, it was that intensity of the stakes on both sides that made it work for me and invested me. Here, though, while I know what should be on the line, and it's occasionally addressed, the stakes feel too distant to me. Whether it's because Seirun has come from behind or an intense situation multiple times now and so that schtick has finally tired me, or whether it's because the characters have lacked genuine character development for over a hundred chapters and some like Kiyoshi and Hyuuga have been put out of focus so long I can no longer feel what's at stake for them, I'm not sure, but what I do know is that outside of maybe Kuroko, I can't seem to care about what's happening to the characters on either Seirun or Rakuzan, Seirun. What characters get focused on is out of whack and all over the place and none of the characters on Rakuzan's team are much of interesting characters (I feel bad for Mayuzumi, but what do I know about him, and why should I care about him?). So, the funny thing is, while this is supposed to be KnB's climatic match, this is easily the least interesting match I've read in the manga since the first match with To'ou.

I don't want to come across like I hate the series now or anything, cause I don't. I enjoyed the series well until the Yosen match, and pieces of everything after that, and outside of how the Akashi stuff was handled I really enjoyed the Generation of Miracles flashback arc as one of the better parts of the series. But right now, I'm starting to feel about it as I did many a manga I've tired of in the past, and honestly, after thirty chapters, I'm really hoping that this match with Rakuzan ends soon, regardless of the outcome (though Akashi better change his ways or something because goddamit I don't want to endure another year of him as the antagonist). I don't know if the manga should continue after that because Kuroko's misdirection really can't work anymore and stuff so idk how Fujimaki would write around that, but I'm sick of the Winter Cup already and would rather see the series move on to something else or end.

Anyway, I'll start reading Slam Dunk soon. First I might try and finish catching up on Vinland Saga though, so I'll see if I can do that tomorrow.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That's kind of the problem with most shounen sports series that go on for too long. They begin to lose steam in one way or another. With Kuroko it's trying to balance out too many characters. With Hajime no Ippo it's repeating the same goddamn formula for over a thousand chapters. With Hikaru no Go it's losing Sai, who actually provided a lot of interesting commentary in the manga. Granted that, I did actually enjoy the semi-finals re-match with Kaijo, but I do agree about the match with Yosen being a bore. I can't comment on Akashi's match because I stopped reading after the Tekou arc to give they manga time to finish up that entire match first, as it's not fun to read that in weekly increments.

Ashita no Joe is the rare manga, as I've found, that knew just when to call it quits. The only time it began to feel extraneous was with the Harimou arc, and what happened after that? It wrapped shit up with the final battle. Takamori and Chiba knew what they were doing.

Then there's REAL, which follows no kind of formula, and could go on indefinitely, but is almost always entertaining for me to read thanks to great characters.

[LumRanmaYasha]

What about Slam Dunk? I know it ends well, but does it drag at parts too?

[Spark Of Spirit]

Only near the end. But it drags in a good way.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The second to last game is the only part of the series that I didn't enjoy, but it was more forgettable than anything else. The final match, though, more than makes up for it. I think of it as one of those legendary moments in shounen manga, equivalent to the likes of Joe vs. Rikiishi, Joe vs. Mendoza, Goku vs. Vegeta (1st fight), and so on.

I will warn you, though. Slam a Dunk has Rukawa, who is more or less the "Sasuke" of the series (though not quite as bad as that character can be).

[Dr. Insomniac]

So Foggle and I read League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2009. I have a few notes compiled from reading it.

- Alan Moore has absolutely no room to complain about people bastardizing his works when he has a skeletal Thomas the Tank Engine go to a blood-drenched Hogwarts just so a half-senile Mina Murray can fight a crazy Harry Potter who kills people with his penis.
- Alan Moore may possibly be a brony if a reference to Zap Apples means anything.
- He also appears to enjoy the recent seasons of the Simpsons enough to reference those too.
- None of the characters even look like the people they're supposed to be. M looks absolutely nothing like Judi Dench. I guess that's meant to skirt through copyright, but when even the public domain characters look nothing like their original selves...
- Some parts of the book are kind of racist with the random Golliwoggs in the background. It kind of gets balanced by the just-as random cameos from Stringer Bell. Kind of.
- The artist really loves to draw a nipple shot as often as he can. I can't tell if he's doing it himself or if Alan Moore's giving him detailed notes to add in as many nipple slips as possible.
- I'm wondering if Alan Moore's editors even look at the damn thing before publishing his stuff, or are they going for the "It's the guy who wrote Watchmen, so his work will be brilliant regardless" stance?
- There were points where Foggle's internet connection crashed and the noise of dogs barking out of nowhere. I've been cast under the idea that Alan Moore was cursing us for not liking his comic.
- I'm in love/hate with the idea of the President from 24 succeeding the President from The West Wing while being advised by Malcolm Tucker from the Thick of It.

[Avaitor]

Just hit chapter 60, and damn, Joe should've backed down. I understand that he wanted to prove his worthiness, but the match was declared over. And that was pretty rough.

Edit: Now I'm on 61, and I can't say that I'm too surprised about Joe failing his test.