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March manga reviews... And puppies!!!
I am now armed with a brand new ceramic white PS2 memory card! I am so unduly excited about this. Save for "borrowing" access to ye olde Playstation that was always more Julia's than it was mine, I haven't seriously owned or used a gaming system since... Since the days of Sonic the Hedgehog and Echo the Dolphin on my Sega Genesis. ><;; But now I have a Japanese PS2! And I can play the Ah! My Goddess game! AND I could theoretically be playing Fate/Stay Night right now if the release date hadn't been (yet again) pushed back indefinitely! AND in April I will be able to play the Ouran game which I pre-ordered today! Life is good.
Yesterday since I had to drive into Iida to get my memory card anyway, I stopped by Heiando and bought this month's batch of manga magazines. So yeah, some stuff below the cut.
Shijin Daiden Chapter 002
Well, that fell apart fast. Seriously, I... I have no idea what the writer was smoking. So we start with this really great, tightly-plotted, beautifully-drawn first chapter. The first chapter introduces three main characters. One dies, and the two survivors depart on a quest. Great set-up, right? Then we get to the second chapter, and... The two main characters spend sixty pages sitting around and doing nothing while a half dozen new character jump onscreen, announce themselves and their special moves, and proceed to battle the hell out of each other for no reason whatsoever.
It's like the first episode of the first Tenchi Muyo OAV, compared to the first episode of the third Tenchi Muyo OAV. Yep. Pretty much exactly that type of progression. Only faster. We went from "good story" to "a cast of thousands, none of whom matter!" in the space of one chapter.
Nice elephant, though.
And I am happy that the Chinese acrobat girl survived the battle royale, and will apparently be joining the cast as a major character. I hope that she's the only one. I don't want the rest.
Ah! My Goddess Chapter 222
If a camera could speak, what kind of stories would it tell?
I love this story arc, even if the conclusion to the "mystery" seems obvious from the start. (I may turn out to be totally wrong about that, though, in which case I will eat my words. Or rather, thoughts.) I'm a sucker for any sort of story where something inanimate, like a camera or a notebook or a piece of jewelry, becomes the trigger to unlock the story of someone's life. Yeah it's an old cliche, but when done well, it can be great fun to read.
This month also saw the start of a new gimmick in Afternoon. Kosuke Fujishima is publishing a new Mini-Goddess 4-panel strip... on the spine of each issue of Afternoon. That's right, one panel per month. We will have to wait until June to get to the punchline for this one. But, anyway, here's the first panel:
GAN: It's a question postcard for Urd.
URD: What's it say?
CAPTION: CONTINUED ON THE MAY ISSUE!
And no, I still haven't seen anime episodes 23 and 24. ><;; May not have time to until this weekend.
Compy Ace Volume 12
This issue of Compy Ace came with two very nicely illustrated entries in Fate Poster Collection series. It also came with a shitajiki illustrated by Takashi Takeuchi. The illustration is of Dark Saber, wearing her gothiloli dress, sitting on a chair with her legs spread apart, showing everyone a clear and disturbingly detailed view of her vagina. Well, granted, said vagina is covered by the crotch of her panties, which are exactly half a millimeter thick.
Oh yeah, and this same image is on the cover of the damn magazine.
It's not the hyper-fetishization of Saber in that image that pisses me off. I mean, that's nothing new. There are more figures and PVC sculpts of Saber in either a maid's uniform or a swimsuit than there are of her in her battle armor. And I won't even touch on the way that Saber is drawn and posed in the two-dozen doujinshi comic anthologies that I own.
But I do, however, usually take solace in the fact that as far as canon material goes, she's never degraded that way. And that's really saying something for a character who originated in an erotic visual novel. (Yes, it is possible to depict a character in a pornographic scene in a respectful, tasteful way. Especially if said character just spent 50+ hours of gameplay getting, you know, development and personality and kick-ass action scenes and such.)
But Takashi Takeuchi?! One of the two guys who created Saber?! I'd expect this sort of shit from the pervy figure designers and the porno doujinshi writers, but from Mr. Takeuchi himself?! Oh man. That's disturbing on so many levels.
Takashi Takeuchi was the guy who drew Saber in those surprisingly tasteful and very hot erotic scenes in the original game. I have no idea why he felt like drawing her with her legs spread apart and her panties (really, just a barely-censored vagina) flashing at anybody who happened to glance at the cover of Compy Ace.
Let's compare now:
Very tasteful furoku poster of Saber.
Very tasteless furoku shitajiki of Dark Saber.
From the same issue of the same magazine. Yeah.
Finally, the reason that reading Tales of Mimia-Hime makes me happy.
That is all.
Yesterday since I had to drive into Iida to get my memory card anyway, I stopped by Heiando and bought this month's batch of manga magazines. So yeah, some stuff below the cut.
Shijin Daiden Chapter 002
Well, that fell apart fast. Seriously, I... I have no idea what the writer was smoking. So we start with this really great, tightly-plotted, beautifully-drawn first chapter. The first chapter introduces three main characters. One dies, and the two survivors depart on a quest. Great set-up, right? Then we get to the second chapter, and... The two main characters spend sixty pages sitting around and doing nothing while a half dozen new character jump onscreen, announce themselves and their special moves, and proceed to battle the hell out of each other for no reason whatsoever.
It's like the first episode of the first Tenchi Muyo OAV, compared to the first episode of the third Tenchi Muyo OAV. Yep. Pretty much exactly that type of progression. Only faster. We went from "good story" to "a cast of thousands, none of whom matter!" in the space of one chapter.
Nice elephant, though.
And I am happy that the Chinese acrobat girl survived the battle royale, and will apparently be joining the cast as a major character. I hope that she's the only one. I don't want the rest.
Ah! My Goddess Chapter 222
If a camera could speak, what kind of stories would it tell?
I love this story arc, even if the conclusion to the "mystery" seems obvious from the start. (I may turn out to be totally wrong about that, though, in which case I will eat my words. Or rather, thoughts.) I'm a sucker for any sort of story where something inanimate, like a camera or a notebook or a piece of jewelry, becomes the trigger to unlock the story of someone's life. Yeah it's an old cliche, but when done well, it can be great fun to read.
This month also saw the start of a new gimmick in Afternoon. Kosuke Fujishima is publishing a new Mini-Goddess 4-panel strip... on the spine of each issue of Afternoon. That's right, one panel per month. We will have to wait until June to get to the punchline for this one. But, anyway, here's the first panel:
GAN: It's a question postcard for Urd.
URD: What's it say?
CAPTION: CONTINUED ON THE MAY ISSUE!
And no, I still haven't seen anime episodes 23 and 24. ><;; May not have time to until this weekend.
Compy Ace Volume 12
This issue of Compy Ace came with two very nicely illustrated entries in Fate Poster Collection series. It also came with a shitajiki illustrated by Takashi Takeuchi. The illustration is of Dark Saber, wearing her gothiloli dress, sitting on a chair with her legs spread apart, showing everyone a clear and disturbingly detailed view of her vagina. Well, granted, said vagina is covered by the crotch of her panties, which are exactly half a millimeter thick.
Oh yeah, and this same image is on the cover of the damn magazine.
It's not the hyper-fetishization of Saber in that image that pisses me off. I mean, that's nothing new. There are more figures and PVC sculpts of Saber in either a maid's uniform or a swimsuit than there are of her in her battle armor. And I won't even touch on the way that Saber is drawn and posed in the two-dozen doujinshi comic anthologies that I own.
But I do, however, usually take solace in the fact that as far as canon material goes, she's never degraded that way. And that's really saying something for a character who originated in an erotic visual novel. (Yes, it is possible to depict a character in a pornographic scene in a respectful, tasteful way. Especially if said character just spent 50+ hours of gameplay getting, you know, development and personality and kick-ass action scenes and such.)
But Takashi Takeuchi?! One of the two guys who created Saber?! I'd expect this sort of shit from the pervy figure designers and the porno doujinshi writers, but from Mr. Takeuchi himself?! Oh man. That's disturbing on so many levels.
Takashi Takeuchi was the guy who drew Saber in those surprisingly tasteful and very hot erotic scenes in the original game. I have no idea why he felt like drawing her with her legs spread apart and her panties (really, just a barely-censored vagina) flashing at anybody who happened to glance at the cover of Compy Ace.
Let's compare now:
Very tasteful furoku poster of Saber.
Very tasteless furoku shitajiki of Dark Saber.
From the same issue of the same magazine. Yeah.
Finally, the reason that reading Tales of Mimia-Hime makes me happy.
That is all.