What Are You Reading?

[gunswordfist]

Funny enough, I found Yahiko's fight to be the most important out of the 4. It was the 2nd time he beat someone good with no help. So his was the only fight I didn't mind even though the fight itself sucked.

[Avaitor]

This blog has been posting a solid list of Marvel stories worth reading, and I've been tweaking my queue according. I've read most of the Avengers stories on here (the last one aside), but there are other new ones to me in here that make me interested in keeping up.

[gunswordfist]

Yesteray I finally read Ironman Extremis. Between ek talking about it and my brother saying it had a movie or something, I had to get it out of the way. I see they retconned Ironman's disgusting Vietnam origin. Good. I'm still thinking over how good the interview in the story was. Ellis is such a talented writer. I wish I could see IM3 soon because this was a good warmup to it. EK and everyone else, if you haven't yet, go read Matt Fraction Invincible Ironman. It's similar to Extremis except it's less deep and more epic. The movies were smart to take elements from both.

[gunswordfist]

Finished reading JLA Year One yesterday after starting it on Saturday. That comic book is way too fucking long and it was a bit too all over the place. On the plus side, it pretty much made me a Hal Jordan fan. It sucks that his movie sucks and he got little love in the DCAU. He's the most criminally underused JLAer when it comes to mediums outside of comics.

Read JLA American Dreams today....unfortunately. Between Captain Anime Atom Superman, the nonsensical plot, the shitty art and JLA fighting an angel named ASMODEL, I could barely bare it.

[Avaitor]

Just read Avengers: X-Sanction, and... it's not so bad. I mean, it's Jeph Loeb, and the guy's literal weakness is present. Shit, he has a flashback with a flashforward in it! That's just bad writing.

But surprisingly, I found his character work passable. His Spidey quips were fair, as was his exchanges with Wolverine. He also got a lot of the other characters on well enough, although I don't think I'll ever get used to Red Hulk. But what worked the best for me is Cable, primarily the storyline with him and Hope. The story actually feels like a coda to Loeb's grief to his late son, which in its own way works. I'd say that it's one of his better books.

[gunswordfist]

Read Daredevil by Mark Waid v. 3 on Thursday. DD is going through the ringer. I wonder what'll happen next.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Ugh, I need to write up my progress reports on this manga challenge I'm doing much more often or I can't talk about what I've read well. It's been a while since my last post and I've read a lot of different manga. I won't talk about the ending of Urusei Yatsura yet since I want to watch it's movie adaption first to compare them, but as for the rest...

Rurouni Kenshin - Read 6 and 7. I think I'm sold on the series. That might be jumping the gun, but volume 7 put everything in volume 1-6 in perspective. The series has been really good so far, and I know from hearsay that it'll only get better from here.

Berserk- Read through volume 7. Honestly, my opinion on the series hasn't changed since last time, although I like Guts and Casca a lot better as characters now.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon - Read volume 6. Did not see the twist with Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, and was surprised that they were lesbians. I'm sure the anime wrote that part out huh. Anyway, story is shaping out pretty well, although it does bother me a little that the villains in this manga are kind of forgettable if they are not the main villain of the arc. Oh well.

Excel Saga - It's just not fair. I can't find a copy of volume 5 or 7 anywhere.  At least I got to read Elaga's introduction chapters in volume 8, though. Sigh... such a hilarious and unique manga. I'll move on to volume 9 for now, but at some point I really want to find 5 and 7 and read them.

School Rumble - Read volume 1. I never actually read the manga from the beginning before, I just watched the anime. But the manga is still as funny as the anime in these first few episodes, although the anime makes changes I would consider were for the better. One thing that surprised me is that Eri feels like a very different character than she does in her first few appearances in the anime. Like, she is used to overreact to the weirdness of the characters and being made fun of for being high and mighty. In the anime she was a little more down to earth in her first few episodes than she was in this volume. Anyway, it was nice to revisit these early School Rumble moments in manga form this time, and I still got lots of laughs, so really all there is to it is to just read the next volume!

Slam Dunk - Read the first three volumes. This manga is awesome. Seriously, it is hilarious off the bat and Sakuragi is really likeable even though he is so incredibly arrogant, which is a balance most manga characters cant mange at all. I'm fudging pumped to read the next volumes, so I'm just going to get to it! Yeah!

20th Century Boys Read the first volume. Since nothing major happened, I don't know exactly what to think of the characters and story yet, except that I like them. This whole Friend mystery is really interesting and I like Urasawa's art and humor styles, so I'm looking forward to reading more volumes.

Buso Renkin - Read volume 1. This was written by Watsuki? Really? After Rurouni Kenshin this was the best he could create? It's not bad or anything, but it's super disappointing coming from the creator of Rurouni Kenshin. I'm honestly not very enthusiastic about this series so far, but it's short, so unless it becomes unreadable I'll continue with it...

Psyren- Read volume one. Pretty interesting so far, even if the concept and characters feel a little familiar. I'm curious to learn more about what the Psyren world exactly is and what the game entails.

Rave Master - Read volume 1. It's okay, but like Buso Renkin, I'm not feeling it. Still, it's certainly got a nice sense of humor and a likeable enough protagonist, so I'll still continue reading it, although to be honest I'm going to go through all the manga on my to read list beginning to end regardless of how awful they are or become anyway, so I can only hope for the best.

Attack on Titan- Read volumes 1 & 2. I did not see that twist near the end of two coming. At the same time, I think this manga is going perhaps a tad bit overboard on the violence and this whole "the world is cruel" philosophy is always overdone and misused anytime its used in any work of fiction, but goddamn is the manga gorgeously drawn. You can see why the anime puts a lot of effort in making this story shine in it's fight scenes and dramatic moments. Just have to read and watch more, and hope this series keeps getting better!

Zatch Bell!- Read volumes 1-4. I'm reminded why I enjoy this series. In fact, it holds up quite well, better than I expected. Now, to be fair, there is nothing exactly different in terms of storytelling or themes that sets this manga apart from other shonen series, at least not so far. And in fact, there are a lot of flaws and formula in the story as well. But I love these characters. I love Kiyo's change from an arrogant and unsociable jerk to a true friend with a good heart, and I love Zatch Bell himself, a character embodying the innocence that only a child could have and a heart bigger than his stature. Really the kind of characters you want to root for and their relationship with each other carries this story. Folgore and Kanchome were actually fantastic and hilarious characters, much more so than what I remembered, and I know they only become better ones as the series progresses. Tia and Megumi are kind of bland though, although to be honest they never did much for me when I was a kid either so it's nothing new I suppose. Sherry and Brago, while they don't do all that much in the story until the Millennium Momodo arc, were set up all right and the brief moments they have in these early chapters hint at the sort of relationship they have with each other and Sherry's insecurities, so that was nice.  Really though, what makes this manga special though is it's great sense of humor and Raiku's unique art style. Right now the story is rather plain and formulaic, but if I remember correctly the London arc is really good and then the general encounters with other Mamodo get more interesting after that as well. So really I had a lot of fun revisiting this series and am likely to continue to have more fun reading on forwards.


So I guess I haven't made that much progress on my manga reading, but at least I have a list and plan to get myself more experienced with various manga now. Aside from the now completed but fondly remembered Urusei Yatsura, the best manga I'm going through would still be Excel Saga, but Slam Dunk and Rurouni Kenshin are now following verryy closely behind, so aside from some dud series, things are going pretty good with my manga reading so far.  I need to do a similar thing like this for novels, movies, and anime too, but one thing at a time. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, Rurouni Kenshin has very much been Watsuki's "one-hit wonder" as far as manga series go. Nothing he has written since has even been in the same league of quality as Rurouni Kenshin. Its like he took all his talent, good story ideas, and interesting characterization and dumped it all into that one series, and honestly its my personal favorite manga series (shonen or otherwise), but its also disappointing to see that Watsuki can't even come close to producing the same quality of work with any of his other series. Its a shame, because he clearly had to have been talented to write-up something like Rurouni Kenshin, ut maybe he just became one of those authors who has a really big hit and then gets lazy and writes very generic and third-rate stories for the rest of their career, and just manage to make sales off of their name recognition alone (which is only good enough thanks to their first major series being a hit). Maybe I'm looking too much into it, but that's certainly the vibe that I get from his later works.

[Foggle]

Berserk is really weird. It starts out excellent and consistently gets better and better, but then the quality just drops off suddenly. The latest volumes aren't even worth reading IMO. Hopefully Miura gets back on track soon.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Berserk is really weird. It starts out excellent and consistently gets better and better, but then the quality just drops off suddenly.

So it's like The Simpsons? 

Eh, I'm being strict on myself and reading through entire manga series even if I find they are or become awful, so I'll have to deal with that when it comes I suppose. I just hope that the best parts are so excellent they can outweigh the bad. And I especially hope that Berserk doesn't become shit like how Bleach did after it's peak at the Soul Society arc. But like that's going to happen....

R-Right?.....

As for Buso Renkin, Watsuki's notes about how he came up with the series and his thought process in creating the characters indicates to me that he was actually trying and enthusiastic about the series. I guess somehow Rurouni Kenshin was simply a story that he really understood how to make work, and ultimately as he went on it progressed naturally for him. Some storytellers really do just have one story they really want to tell and make work like magic, while straining to create a work that can rival the first. Not everybody can be Toriyama or Tezuka, I suppose, and effortlessly create fun and entertaining stories again and again even if they are just winging it (in Toriyama's case, of course).

[Foggle]

Berserk never really becomes bad, but the newer chapters are... odd. Let's just say that going straight from the earliest volumes to the newest ones is like following up The Dark Knight with Batman: The Movie (starring Adam West).

Also, I'm glad to see you're enjoying Excel Saga so much! It really is a special manga.

Apparently Watsuki recently rebooted Kenshin. What are your thoughts on that, E-K?

[LumRanmaYasha]

Berserk never really becomes bad, but the newer chapters are... odd. Let's just say that going straight from the earliest volumes to the newest ones is like following up The Dark Knight with Batman: The Movie (starring Adam West).

Phew. At least it's not Bleach terrible. That would have sucked. I'll see what's up with those chapters when I get to them.

Also, I'm glad to see you're enjoying Excel Saga so much! It really is a special manga.

Apparently Watsuki recently rebooted Kenshin. What are your thoughts on that, E-K?

I don't know about how Ensatsu-ken feels about it, but personally I checked out the first two chapters and thought they were all right, but also just a re-tread of what I had already read of the story that really didn't offer much new. Then again, I only read two chapters, so after I finish Rurouni Kenshin the original I might try to give it another shot. Although, I would much rather read Sawaii's new Bobobo spinoff starring Don Patch as the main character (which no doubt he's happy about  ), but not only will the series never be localized in the U.S., no one is doing scans of it at all either. Sigh...

[gunswordfist]

Berserk is really weird. It starts out excellent and consistently gets better and better, but then the quality just drops off suddenly.

So it's like The Simpsons? 

Eh, I'm being strict on myself and reading through entire manga series even if I find they are or become awful, so I'll have to deal with that when it comes I suppose. I just hope that the best parts are so excellent they can outweigh the bad. And I especially hope that Berserk doesn't become shit like how Bleach did after it's peak at the Soul Society arc. But like that's going to happen....

R-Right?.....

As for Buso Renkin, Watsuki's notes about how he came up with the series and his thought process in creating the characters indicates to me that he was actually trying and enthusiastic about the series. I guess somehow Rurouni Kenshin was simply a story that he really understood how to make work, and ultimately as he went on it progressed naturally for him. Some storytellers really do just have one story they really want to tell and make work like magic, while straining to create a work that can rival the first. Not everybody can be Toriyama or Tezuka, I suppose, and effortlessly create fun and entertaining stories again and again even if they are just winging it (in Toriyama's case, of course).

Yeah, that's how I suspect it is with Watsuki. He probably had one great idea that turned into a great series and probably could only do watered down versions of it afterwards instead of something unique.

[gunswordfist]

Reboot, huh? Now I'm going to have to stop holding off v. 28 to give that a quick peek. But I don't wanna finish this great series

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Watsuki didn't reboot the series, or at least not in the sense that you think. He just wrote up a few chapters for a movie tie-in last year when the live-action movie was being hyped up, in order to help market it. Its basically just a very brief mish-mash of characters from the series having their roles slightly changed and having fights and stuff. Its nothing as big as a full-on reboot, and as for its quality, its pretty much on par with all of Watsuki's post-RK work, meaning that its mostly just mediocre and forgettable.