What Are You Reading?

[Pharass]

Did anyone buy the next Monster release yet?

I was actually going to put in on my Christmas list, but I ended up with a little more cash than usual to hold me back until I get this job, so I went for it anyway. I can't wait to dig into it!

Yes, it was one book out of several that I bought on my recent trip.

I also bought volumes 5-6 of The Unwritten. Guys, despite some serious competition, I think this might well be my favorite Vertigo series. These two volumes seem to build towards some sort of climax as Tom and his friends learn more about the conspiracy they're up against and actually start to take the fight to the enemy. We also learn the origins of the villains Frau Rausch and Mr. Pullman, both of which are interesting.

As usual, I recommend this series highly.

[Foggle]

So the latest chapter of Attack On Titan has shirtless Eren being kept in bondage by who I believe is his dad and, uh, this... scene:




I fucking hate this series.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I had to look this up because I thought it was a doujin, and those hopes were dashed.

[LumRanmaYasha]

So the latest chapter of Attack On Titan has shirtless Eren being kept in bondage by who I believe is his dad and, uh, this... scene:

...I take it you skipped the last few chapters? That's not Eren's dad...

But yeah, that was a fucking stupid scene. It's a shame that AoT has to constantly have these really fucking dumb moments that make it hard to like, because otherwise, storywise, I do think some good developments have been happening in the last few chapters, and I say that as someone who never bought into the hype of the series and fucking hate that entire stretch of chapters from the end of the Female Titan arc to the ones at the beginning of this year.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

What I can't stand is how most fans will blindly just find anything that this series does to be "mature" and "awesome" and "well-written," losing any notion of what any of that stuff even means in the process. While I never bought into the hype from the beginning, I could at least see why this series resonated with so many people up to the Female Titan arc. However, it got pretty stupid at more than just a few points after that, and to see the fan base generally accept all of that as good writing is really what ticked me off.

Like, take Death Note for example. While I do admittedly like the second arc overall, I have always fully admitted and pointed out that it has tons of problems. It's not great writing by any means, and it has several unintentionally stupid moments, but I find that I like the style and I still find enough entertaining moments in the mix to keep me interested, hence why I still enjoy it. That said, I will never deny that the series went downhill from its prime after the L arc. Now take these AoT fans, and most will not only childishly defend this series by saying that it hasn't gone way downhill. No, they'll actualky insist that it's got even better, and that if you complain about it and scenes like this, you just "can't handle the maturity of them," which is just such a load of bull.

[Foggle]

...I take it you skipped the last few chapters? That's not Eren's dad...

I did, but the end of the latest chapter seems to heavily imply that it was his dad, and the art is so nondescript that it kind of looked like him to me.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I will say, that as a non-fan of this series, I do think the last few chapters, which finally progressed the story past this whole revolution thing and revealed the origins of the Titans, why Eren can turn into a Titan, the fate of his father, among other developments, have been mostly solid and "good." However, the series time and time again has to kill my good will towards it by having ridiculously stupid scenes and moments like....that. There are well-written parts and enjoyable to this series, but as a whole, it's incredibly inconsistent, and laughably bad at it's worst. Moreover, it is not mature by any stretch of the imagination. I think that single image basically shoots down any claim you can make that it is. How it handles things is in fact often very immature, even moreso than I would expect from most battle-shonen series, but because the series presented this "dark" and "grim" tone at the beginning a lot of people eat it up as something really adult, when it's really not. I read shonen manga that are far, far more mature than AoT has ever been, in terms of handling their subject matter, characters, and in their tone, and AoT is a joke comparatively. That said, I don't hate this series. It would just be another inoffensive mediocre shonen manga to me, if not for the fact that there is a huge fanbase for this series, and it has this huge appeal, and has become basically the most popular anime/manga series worldwide, to the point where it does tick me off to see it being more praised than it really should be, especially in the face of scenes like that and others that have happened this very year.

...I take it you skipped the last few chapters? That's not Eren's dad...

I did, but the end of the latest chapter seems to heavily imply that it was his dad, and the art is so nondescript that it kind of looked like him to me.

Ah, I see. Well, looking back at it again, the way it's all depicted and the parallels drawn, it does make it look like Historia's father is actually Eren's father. Perhaps the fate shown for him in the last chapter was a lie (somehow), and the guy who's claiming to be Historia's father now is actually Eren's after all. I kind of doubt it though, since that would contradict a few things shown in the last chapter...

[Daxdiv]

What in the fucking hell did I just witness? This was published in a Shonen Magazine?

[Dr. Insomniac]

Some shonen manga like to get away with some weird shit, but I didn't realize Isayama meant it literally.

[LumRanmaYasha]

What in the fucking hell did I just witness? This was published in a Shonen Magazine?

I take it you've never read Franken Fran. 

[Pharass]

I'm way behind when it comes to Attack On Titan. Last time I read it, the protagonists were trying to bring down the government (or something like that, my memory's a bit fuzzy). The scene posted by Foggle doesn't exactly make me eager to continue reading it.

On a more positive note, I've been reading Nickelodeon by Dowman Sayman and found it to be an enjoyable read. I guess the best way to describe it would be to call it the manga-equivalent of The Twilight Zone (albeit with a few recurring characters), so I definitely recommend it if you enjoy that sort of thing.

[VLordGTZ]

Earlier this week, I finished Ashita no Joe.  This series exceeded my expectations.  Everything from the Rikiishi Tooru arc to the final fight with Jose Mendoza was absolutely amazing.  I can easily say that AnJ has become one of my favorite manga (it's pretty much tied with JoJo and Maison Ikkoku for being my all time favorite).  I'll definitely check out the anime adaptions at some point, and I hope that I can one day read Takamori's other works.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Glad to hear it!

I love this manga so much. The art style is so simple yet so fluid, but what really got me is the level of nuance and emotional depth to these characters. Sure, they start out simple ebough, but once you get to the Tooru Rikiishi arc, you really see a new layer to everyone, especially Joe.

It's not really so much that this manga does its human aspects better than any other manga, as there are others that I could compare to it which you could argue are better. The reason that it's my favorite is because it combines that with really smart writing, and almost never takes the easy way out of any given situation.

this manga has so much passion put into it that you can really see how heavily it influenced future sports manga, and shonen manga in general. It's almost hard to believe that Takamori (in collaboration with Chiba, of course) did this while simultaneously working on multiple other series at the same time.

[The Shadow Gentleman]

Nothing says the 60s quite like a man in a chain mail miniskirt and white go-go boots punching evil robots.

[The Shadow Gentleman]

I recently finished Relish, a short autobiographical comic about the odd relationships we all have with our food. As someone with a big appetite (to put it politely) who has recently began a to learn to actually cook, I related to a lot to it. Plus it's not as melodramatic like a lot of autobiographical graphic novels I've read.