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Soul Eater Chapter 67: My poorly-researched mystikul brown people, let me show you them.
Five weapons and two technicians versus one Clown. None of them waste any time getting down to business. "Liz, Patti, Fire, Thunder," Kirikou says, "Weapon form. Now."
(Yes, I'm trying to switch myself over to using more official name spellings here. But as the official name spellings are completely terrible I have to get myself used to it one at a time. I adopted Giricco last month; this month I'm taking on Kirikou as well. Granted, "Kirikou" makes perfect sense and is a lot more correct to its original source culture than goddamn Giricco is, but still. It takes some getting used to.)
Anyway, blah blah blah, menacing Clown is menacing. "We are the Black Clown," it says again, "Would you care to fall into insanity?"
Kim is trying to call Azusa on her bluetooth. "Azusa-san... Azusa-san... No good, I'm just getting static. The insanity wavelength must be jamming communications..."
No no no no no, let's try that again.
"The insanity wavelength must be jamming communications."
Better. Oh and wait, it can do that?
"Kim, cover me," Kirikou says. "Right," Kim agrees. Then Kirikou gets ready to make his move but
HOLY SHIT WTF
"HOLY SHIT WTF?!" Kirikous exclaims.
"It's just like the insanity attack that we experienced at Baba Yaga's castle!" Kim explains, gamely donning the Captain Exposition Hat even though her face is apparently melting. "But this attack is actually weaker compared to Arachne's wavelength."
Weaker?!
Honey, if I remember correctly, the worse thing that happened at Baba Yaga's castle was that some of you got migraines and started hallucinating that there were spiders in your brains. Here? You're hallucinating that your bodies are liquidating themselves. That seems comparatively worse to me.
But, on the other hand, at least this time around Kim is easily lucid enough to know that it's all an illusion, so maybe the Clown's wavelength really is weaker after all. That, and I think that it's safe to assume that the Clown has a much more limited sphere of influence compared to what Arachne could (and did) do with her wavelength.
So Kirikou grits his teeth and pulls out his guns, despite hallucinating that his arms are melting. Damn that's hardcore. "Let's go!"
"Looks like they won't be sucked in completely in one instant..." the Clown says.
"Looks like they won't be sucked in completely in one instant." Better.
So Kirikou shoots the Clown. A lot. Then he switches to his pots, rushes right up to the Clown, and gets busy with some close-range combat. And by "close-range combat" I mean "a punch to the face."
Only the Clown is made of black blood, so that punch to the face turns out not to be such a good idea on Kirikou's part. "Its blood turned into needles!" Kirikou exclaims. "Every time we attack that thing, its gonna send a counter-attack right back at us!"
Well, only if you punch it in the mouth again, dumbass. Did y'all already forget how the Clown totally didn't bleed and totally wasn't able to counter-attack when you were shooting him with Liz and Patti? Like, five seconds ago?
Suddenly, more blood bullets are flying toward Kirikou's face! Oh noes!
But Kim is there to save the day by throwing a giant wall of flame right in front of Kirikou. Which totally evaporates the blood bullets, somehow. Wait, are these blood bullets technically liquids or technically solids? I dunno, but they were behaving like solids a moment ago, and now they're behaving like liquids again, because that's the only reason I can think of as to why said bullets would have been evaporated in Jackie's flames. Science is fun!
"I'll take care of the counter-attacks," Kim says. "Kirikou, you can go ahead and kick that thing's ass as much as you want."
"Got it," Kirikou says.
(And somewhere out beyond the fourth wall, every character who has ever tried and failed to fight against Crona is just kicking themselves for not thinking of the whole "just set hir on fire!" solution earlier. Because the black blood certainly seems to make one immune to being sliced and diced and punched in the face, but fire?! Now there's a genuine weakness.)
Well well well, who do we have here? It's Medusa, cheerfully watching her clown getting its ass kicked in her crystal ball. She still seems pretty confident that she's about to end up with seven dead or possibly insane children in a few minutes, though. "Now it's really started," Medusa says. "Unfortunately, compared to a real Clown, my creation's power of insanity infection is still weak. So this will be a test of its combat abilities, then..."
"So this will be a test of its combat abilities, then." Better.
Kirikou punches! Kim burns shit up! I'm really not sure how Kim's flames are protecting Kirikou when he's right up in the Clown's face like that, but whatever! I'm sure that Kirikou wasn't too attached to the whole "having eyebrows" thing anyway.
"The concept behind Arachne's plan was the right idea, even if she made foolish mistakes during its execution..." Medusa says, apparently donning her own version of the Captain Exposition Hat. Seriously, who the hell is she talking to?! "If my Black Clown experiment goes well... I will have a power to induce insanity, comparable to that of the kishin himself..."
Siiiiiigh.
"If my Black Clown experiment goes well, I will have a power to induce insanity comparable to that of the kishin himself!"
Okay I know that that sentence is every bit as awkward in Japanese as it is in English, and I understand the instinctive urge to want to break it up into parts, but that's what commas are for, Ohkubo! Not ellipses!
And also-- Whoa like seriously, Medusa? Really? I mean, I know that your Clown is pretty badass and all. Apparently it already drove an entire town isane, or something like that. But the best that it could do against these punk kids was make them hallucinate for like, five seconds, and they saw through its hallucinations right away at that. So like, I'm sitting here comparing your silly Clown to the original Clown that Maka and Soul faced way the hell back in chapter 41, and really, there's just no comparison.
None.
Don't get too big for your britches yet, Medusa.
Anyway-- Aw, goddammit! She's still wearing the Captain Exposition Hat. "If, in the end, I can get it to initiate a Soul Resonance with the kishin himself, then the kishin will finally belong to me..."
Okay okay okay. That sentence is a doozy, so I need to make a few points really quick:
1. There is no subject in that sentence. I inserted "it" in reference to the Clown, since that makes the most sense in my head, although Ohkubo could be writing Medusa's words as deliberately vague in order to disguise the fact that Medusa wants someone/something else to resonate with the kishin instead (herself? Crona? Ragnarok?). CLAMP pulls that sort of sneaky linguistic shit all the time, so maybe I'm just overly paranoid from having read the shitpile that was Tsubasa completely in Japanese, and maybe I'm looking too hard for Sneaky Linguistic Tricks that aren't really there, but just FYI.
2. Daaaaaaaaaamn, Asura! First Arachne wanted to swallow you whole, and now Medusa wants to own you, too? Plus, you know, Noah is also (rather ineffectively) after you as well. And possibly Justin deserves to be mentioned on this list, too. Dude, I'm sorry that I did the Mack Daddy Rankings last month, because you probably deserve a spot on the list now, man. Really.
3. Speaking of which: Oh hay there Medusa, have you given up on Stein already? Or are you planning to have two mentally imbalanced love slaves chained to your bed every night?
It's the latter option, isn't it.
I guess Medusa is only attracted to gibbering lunatics, then. Well, excruciatingly handsome gibbering lunatics. Is there some sort of actual scientific term for people who are sexually attracted to insanity? Possibly a word ending in -philia or -phile?
4. I don't understand why fifty chapters ago Medusa was all like "I'm gonna set the kishin free FOR GREAT LULZ" and now all of a sudden she's all like "I shall capture him and call him squishy and HE SHALL BE MY SQUISHY."
5. Lady, you've got some competition for your proposed Asura-snatching. Noah wants to capture him too. I wouldn't be too worried, though. So far Noah's plans to capture the kishin have amounted to attack Maka Albarn with WAFFLES!!! whereas at least your evil plan to capture the kishin has some actual teeth to it.
Edited to add: 6. So liek, Sugooi's translation of that line is "Eventually, it will resonate its soul with a demon god, and then become a demon god." I'm not sure if that's the best way to translate that line, because what Medusa literally says in Japanese is and then I will have kishin, which I interpreted to mean that she intends to capture "the" kishin (Asura), but which I can totally see another interpretation of, namely, that her clown will become "a" kishin. It's really hard to tell from the Japanese, since there's no distinguishing between "a" or "the", so kishin in that sentence could mean "and then I will have Asura" or it could mean "and then my Clown will be a kishin." I'm going to stick with the capturing theory for now, as that's basically what Arachne tried to do (well not so much "capture" as "suck in and swallow," but whatever). And it makes sense given Medusa's previous line about Arachne having the right idea, and her following line about not letting Noah beat her to the punch.
Anyway, back to Kim. Kim is think-bubbling! Insanity... Black blood... Kishin... Crona... Could this Black Clown thing also have something to do with Medusa's experiments...?
Oh my fucking god.
Yes.
The damn thing SAID that Medusa created it LIKE TWO MINUTES AGO.
Way to waste a lot of panel space and make Kim look stupid, Ohkubo. Also, five sets of ellipses in one panel? You bastard.
Back to Medusa. "I guess it's time to begin another experiment, too... Crona, get ready..."
"Understood," Crona says, from behind Medusa.
"Good," Medusa says. "I won't let that Noah to beat me to the punch..." The kishin belongs to ME, Medusa adds in a think-bubble.
Okay, then!
Back to the Clown. Kirikou is beating it up, Kim is setting the air on fire, and suddenly they both realize that the Clown has stopped counter-attacking. "The blood bullets aren't coming anymore..." Kim observes.
"He's hardening..." Kirikou says.
"Black Blood Efficiency Test," Medusa orders the Clown.
So now it's punching time, I guess. The Clown swings its arm to strike Kirikou. Kirikou and Kim hit back with Fire/Thunder and Jackie, but their attacks have no effect. "We can't even put a scratch on this thing..." Kirikou says.
"Kirikou is a reputable scholar of fire-based attacks," Medusa comments. "If my Clown can withstand his strongest attacks, then that will be some valuable data to include in the results of this experiment..."
"So that's how it's gonna be, huh," Kirikou says. "Kim... RESONANCE CHAIN!"
The Clown attacks Kirikou with a wave of arrows, but Kirikou just dances out of the way because he's awesome like that.
Now the seven kids initiate a massive resonance chain. If I can pour my witch's magic into Fire and Thunder, Kim think-bubbles, it should be enough to awaken them as earth-shamans...
Oh yeah, I totally forgot that Fire and Thunder were "shamans" (uuuuuugh at that word in this context). 'Cause they're like totally in tune with nature and they have MYSTIKUL EARTH ABILITIES and they cried when Arachne's magic hurt the poor widdle trees in the forest around her castle because they are SO TOTALLY IN TUNE WITH NATURE and thank you, Ohkubo, for inserting that little bit of Racism Fail back into this story for me, because it's not like "LOL AFRIKA" in the last chapter was bad enough, now you've got to bring this Ferngully shit back as well.
Sigh.
Anyway, Fire and Thunder do some awesome shit and look awesome. Clearly Ohkubo couldn't be arsed to research any actual indigenous South American cultures that practice any form of shamanism before he came up with these character designs, but whatever. It's sexy scantily-clad brown people covered in made-up MAGIKUL tattoos, and if it's good enough for Ohkubo, then it's good enough for us! Except that it's not.
Well, at least now we know that Fire is a dude and Thunder is a dudette. Thank you for clarifying that, Ohkubo.
Fire and Thunder aim Liz and Patti at the clown. Kim braces behind Kirikou's back. "Kim!! I need you to brace yourself and anchor me against some serious kickback!!"
"Got it!!"
"Let's do this!!" Kirikou shouts. "E-3!!! EXTREME ELEMENT EFFECT!!!"
Indeed.
I love Medusa's face when she realizes that her Clown just got blown to smithereens.
But! As the smoke slowly clears, Medusa realizes that her Clown isn't completely gone. Its head is still lying on top of the pile of ash that was once its body. Medusa's face lights up with an evil grin. It withstood the attack!
For certain limited definitions of "withstood," I guess.
"It looks like we won..." Kirikou says.
"It looks like we won." Better.
So apparently Kirikou and Kim can't see that the head of the Clown has survived. "That'll do, Clown," Medusa tells the creature. "Return to Crona's location immediately."
"Evaporating now," the Clown says. Then it vanishes.
Oh hey, Azusa is back! "Kirikou! Kim!! Respond immediately!! Kirikou! Everyone!! Can you hear me?!"
"Sounds like the jamming is gone..." Kim comments, listening to her headpiece.
I finally got through to them... "Is something wrong?" Azusa asks. "Is there some sort of problem?"
"No... There was a problem, but we already solved it..." Kirikou says.
"No. There was a problem, but we already solved it." Better.
"We were attacked by the Black Clown that Medusa had created..." Kirikou goes on. "Since the jamming has ended, I want to believe that means that we annihilated the creature, but..."
And now we cut to Black Star and Tsubaki. "Maaaaaaan, snooping around looking for Medusa's hideout sure is a boring mission..." Black Star comments. "They should've given this job to some other losers..."
Oh Black Star. It'll stop being boring the minute that you manage to find Medusa, kiddo. (Which we readers already know that you're about to do.)
"Medusa can use a Soul Protect," Tsubaki says. "Soul Perception isn't a useful ability to have on this mission. But since you're the best at using your other five senses, Black Star, we're the ones most suited for this mission."
"Blah blah blah..." Black Star says. "They should make Maka do these stupid Human Radar jobs."
"You didn't listen to a word I just said, did you...?"
"Look, Crona might be at that hideout..." Black Star says, his face growing dark. "This really is a job for Maka... This isn't my business."
Tsubaki looks sad. "......" she says.
Six. There were six sets of ellipses on that page alone. None of them needed to be there.
Suddenly, Black Star's spider senses start tingling!
"What is it?" Tsubaki asks.
"Those forlorn footsteps..."
Indeed.
"Let's go, Tsubaki!"
Thus, led by the sound of Crona's footsteps, Black Star and Tsubaki arrive at Medusa's lair. "This is it... Tsubaki... Please change into your weapon form."
"Okay."
So they're starting with her dagger form, then. Oh, that seems like a real good idea, especially when they know that they're up against a batshit crazy person with a really long reach who can generate devastating long-range sonic attacks and--
Yeah, no. Black Star, I don't know if you want to start with the close combat route right away. Didn't you just go through an entire painful character arc just so that you could, like, be able to use Tsubaki's long sword form? Or at least start with the kusagama, man!
Anyway, Crona is crazy. And has three arms. And is screaming a lot.
"What with that face?!" Black Star snarls at Crona. "If Maka could see you right now, she'd be crying! Are you gonna make Maka cry?!"
Crona doesn't answer, but hir third arms raises hir sword.
Medusa watches this, grinning. "And now the real experiment begins," she says. And then the chapter ends.
Okay, so now it looks like SERIOUS!Black Star is going to face off against Crona next month. I predict that Black Star will last about ten pages before he either a) takes a pratfall or b) suffers a catastrophic testicular injury. Because as we've seen so far, not even Mifune's CHARACTER-BUILDING SCAR OF ANGST AND WOE can stop Black Star from being, well, Black Star.
Thoughts: Well, damn.
I am sorely disappointed in one thing, and that was Liz and Patti's massive lack of involvement in this chapter.
I mean, really Ohkubo. After all that time and narrative effort you've spent building up Patti's combat abilities, in the end, she and Liz hardly participated in the battle against the Clown at all! I mean sure, they were there, and they were shooting at things, but that hardly counts. They weren't there are characters. They had exactly two word bubbles in the entire chapter. They didn't interact with Kirikou or the pots. Liz didn't even freak out about the Clown. The Clown!! This was the thing that she tricked Kid into running away from because she was so terrified of it, remember? I seriously expected the presence of the Clown in this chapter to provide some sort of catalyst for Liz and Patti to have a big character-building battle against it, possibly leading up to some sort of confront-your-fears moment for Liz. Plus, you know, Liz and Patti having a big power-up battle against a Clown would have been so deliciously ironic (considering how they ran away from it before) that I can't believe Ohkubo passed up such a golden opportunity for, you know, delicious dramatic irony.
But no, I guess it was the pots' turn to power up instead.
Oh well. Since Noah is still in play, that means that there is further opportunity for Liz and Patti's character development further down the line. But still. This chapter should have been, like, the perfect dramatic moment for Liz and Patti to have some character development. But instead, they got nothing. Absolutely nothing.
On the other hand, however, YAY CRONA IS BACK. I am happy. The end.
Postscript: Those of you who downloaded the raw chapter from a certain manga piracy site may have noticed that an anonymous internet pirate uploaded a set of scans from the old (as in, last year's!) Soul Eater postcard calendar immediately after uploading this month's chapter. Actually, ladies and gentleman, the scans that were just uploaded to said certain manga piracy site are actually the exact same scans that I posted a year ago in my journal, only resized to be smaller and blurrier, for some reason. Anyway, if you don't want to deal with downloading (resized, blurred) calendar scans from said certain manga piracy site, you can still find all or my original scans here. Enjoy!
(Yes, I'm trying to switch myself over to using more official name spellings here. But as the official name spellings are completely terrible I have to get myself used to it one at a time. I adopted Giricco last month; this month I'm taking on Kirikou as well. Granted, "Kirikou" makes perfect sense and is a lot more correct to its original source culture than goddamn Giricco is, but still. It takes some getting used to.)
Anyway, blah blah blah, menacing Clown is menacing. "We are the Black Clown," it says again, "Would you care to fall into insanity?"
Kim is trying to call Azusa on her bluetooth. "Azusa-san... Azusa-san... No good, I'm just getting static. The insanity wavelength must be jamming communications..."
No no no no no, let's try that again.
"The insanity wavelength must be jamming communications."
Better. Oh and wait, it can do that?
"Kim, cover me," Kirikou says. "Right," Kim agrees. Then Kirikou gets ready to make his move but
HOLY SHIT WTF
"HOLY SHIT WTF?!" Kirikous exclaims.
"It's just like the insanity attack that we experienced at Baba Yaga's castle!" Kim explains, gamely donning the Captain Exposition Hat even though her face is apparently melting. "But this attack is actually weaker compared to Arachne's wavelength."
Weaker?!
Honey, if I remember correctly, the worse thing that happened at Baba Yaga's castle was that some of you got migraines and started hallucinating that there were spiders in your brains. Here? You're hallucinating that your bodies are liquidating themselves. That seems comparatively worse to me.
But, on the other hand, at least this time around Kim is easily lucid enough to know that it's all an illusion, so maybe the Clown's wavelength really is weaker after all. That, and I think that it's safe to assume that the Clown has a much more limited sphere of influence compared to what Arachne could (and did) do with her wavelength.
So Kirikou grits his teeth and pulls out his guns, despite hallucinating that his arms are melting. Damn that's hardcore. "Let's go!"
"Looks like they won't be sucked in completely in one instant..." the Clown says.
"Looks like they won't be sucked in completely in one instant." Better.
So Kirikou shoots the Clown. A lot. Then he switches to his pots, rushes right up to the Clown, and gets busy with some close-range combat. And by "close-range combat" I mean "a punch to the face."
Only the Clown is made of black blood, so that punch to the face turns out not to be such a good idea on Kirikou's part. "Its blood turned into needles!" Kirikou exclaims. "Every time we attack that thing, its gonna send a counter-attack right back at us!"
Well, only if you punch it in the mouth again, dumbass. Did y'all already forget how the Clown totally didn't bleed and totally wasn't able to counter-attack when you were shooting him with Liz and Patti? Like, five seconds ago?
Suddenly, more blood bullets are flying toward Kirikou's face! Oh noes!
But Kim is there to save the day by throwing a giant wall of flame right in front of Kirikou. Which totally evaporates the blood bullets, somehow. Wait, are these blood bullets technically liquids or technically solids? I dunno, but they were behaving like solids a moment ago, and now they're behaving like liquids again, because that's the only reason I can think of as to why said bullets would have been evaporated in Jackie's flames. Science is fun!
"I'll take care of the counter-attacks," Kim says. "Kirikou, you can go ahead and kick that thing's ass as much as you want."
"Got it," Kirikou says.
(And somewhere out beyond the fourth wall, every character who has ever tried and failed to fight against Crona is just kicking themselves for not thinking of the whole "just set hir on fire!" solution earlier. Because the black blood certainly seems to make one immune to being sliced and diced and punched in the face, but fire?! Now there's a genuine weakness.)
Well well well, who do we have here? It's Medusa, cheerfully watching her clown getting its ass kicked in her crystal ball. She still seems pretty confident that she's about to end up with seven dead or possibly insane children in a few minutes, though. "Now it's really started," Medusa says. "Unfortunately, compared to a real Clown, my creation's power of insanity infection is still weak. So this will be a test of its combat abilities, then..."
"So this will be a test of its combat abilities, then." Better.
Kirikou punches! Kim burns shit up! I'm really not sure how Kim's flames are protecting Kirikou when he's right up in the Clown's face like that, but whatever! I'm sure that Kirikou wasn't too attached to the whole "having eyebrows" thing anyway.
"The concept behind Arachne's plan was the right idea, even if she made foolish mistakes during its execution..." Medusa says, apparently donning her own version of the Captain Exposition Hat. Seriously, who the hell is she talking to?! "If my Black Clown experiment goes well... I will have a power to induce insanity, comparable to that of the kishin himself..."
Siiiiiigh.
"If my Black Clown experiment goes well, I will have a power to induce insanity comparable to that of the kishin himself!"
Okay I know that that sentence is every bit as awkward in Japanese as it is in English, and I understand the instinctive urge to want to break it up into parts, but that's what commas are for, Ohkubo! Not ellipses!
And also-- Whoa like seriously, Medusa? Really? I mean, I know that your Clown is pretty badass and all. Apparently it already drove an entire town isane, or something like that. But the best that it could do against these punk kids was make them hallucinate for like, five seconds, and they saw through its hallucinations right away at that. So like, I'm sitting here comparing your silly Clown to the original Clown that Maka and Soul faced way the hell back in chapter 41, and really, there's just no comparison.
None.
Don't get too big for your britches yet, Medusa.
Anyway-- Aw, goddammit! She's still wearing the Captain Exposition Hat. "If, in the end, I can get it to initiate a Soul Resonance with the kishin himself, then the kishin will finally belong to me..."
Okay okay okay. That sentence is a doozy, so I need to make a few points really quick:
1. There is no subject in that sentence. I inserted "it" in reference to the Clown, since that makes the most sense in my head, although Ohkubo could be writing Medusa's words as deliberately vague in order to disguise the fact that Medusa wants someone/something else to resonate with the kishin instead (herself? Crona? Ragnarok?). CLAMP pulls that sort of sneaky linguistic shit all the time, so maybe I'm just overly paranoid from having read the shitpile that was Tsubasa completely in Japanese, and maybe I'm looking too hard for Sneaky Linguistic Tricks that aren't really there, but just FYI.
2. Daaaaaaaaaamn, Asura! First Arachne wanted to swallow you whole, and now Medusa wants to own you, too? Plus, you know, Noah is also (rather ineffectively) after you as well. And possibly Justin deserves to be mentioned on this list, too. Dude, I'm sorry that I did the Mack Daddy Rankings last month, because you probably deserve a spot on the list now, man. Really.
3. Speaking of which: Oh hay there Medusa, have you given up on Stein already? Or are you planning to have two mentally imbalanced love slaves chained to your bed every night?
It's the latter option, isn't it.
I guess Medusa is only attracted to gibbering lunatics, then. Well, excruciatingly handsome gibbering lunatics. Is there some sort of actual scientific term for people who are sexually attracted to insanity? Possibly a word ending in -philia or -phile?
4. I don't understand why fifty chapters ago Medusa was all like "I'm gonna set the kishin free FOR GREAT LULZ" and now all of a sudden she's all like "I shall capture him and call him squishy and HE SHALL BE MY SQUISHY."
5. Lady, you've got some competition for your proposed Asura-snatching. Noah wants to capture him too. I wouldn't be too worried, though. So far Noah's plans to capture the kishin have amounted to attack Maka Albarn with WAFFLES!!! whereas at least your evil plan to capture the kishin has some actual teeth to it.
Edited to add: 6. So liek, Sugooi's translation of that line is "Eventually, it will resonate its soul with a demon god, and then become a demon god." I'm not sure if that's the best way to translate that line, because what Medusa literally says in Japanese is and then I will have kishin, which I interpreted to mean that she intends to capture "the" kishin (Asura), but which I can totally see another interpretation of, namely, that her clown will become "a" kishin. It's really hard to tell from the Japanese, since there's no distinguishing between "a" or "the", so kishin in that sentence could mean "and then I will have Asura" or it could mean "and then my Clown will be a kishin." I'm going to stick with the capturing theory for now, as that's basically what Arachne tried to do (well not so much "capture" as "suck in and swallow," but whatever). And it makes sense given Medusa's previous line about Arachne having the right idea, and her following line about not letting Noah beat her to the punch.
Anyway, back to Kim. Kim is think-bubbling! Insanity... Black blood... Kishin... Crona... Could this Black Clown thing also have something to do with Medusa's experiments...?
Oh my fucking god.
Yes.
The damn thing SAID that Medusa created it LIKE TWO MINUTES AGO.
Way to waste a lot of panel space and make Kim look stupid, Ohkubo. Also, five sets of ellipses in one panel? You bastard.
Back to Medusa. "I guess it's time to begin another experiment, too... Crona, get ready..."
"Understood," Crona says, from behind Medusa.
"Good," Medusa says. "I won't let that Noah to beat me to the punch..." The kishin belongs to ME, Medusa adds in a think-bubble.
Okay, then!
Back to the Clown. Kirikou is beating it up, Kim is setting the air on fire, and suddenly they both realize that the Clown has stopped counter-attacking. "The blood bullets aren't coming anymore..." Kim observes.
"He's hardening..." Kirikou says.
"Black Blood Efficiency Test," Medusa orders the Clown.
So now it's punching time, I guess. The Clown swings its arm to strike Kirikou. Kirikou and Kim hit back with Fire/Thunder and Jackie, but their attacks have no effect. "We can't even put a scratch on this thing..." Kirikou says.
"Kirikou is a reputable scholar of fire-based attacks," Medusa comments. "If my Clown can withstand his strongest attacks, then that will be some valuable data to include in the results of this experiment..."
"So that's how it's gonna be, huh," Kirikou says. "Kim... RESONANCE CHAIN!"
The Clown attacks Kirikou with a wave of arrows, but Kirikou just dances out of the way because he's awesome like that.
Now the seven kids initiate a massive resonance chain. If I can pour my witch's magic into Fire and Thunder, Kim think-bubbles, it should be enough to awaken them as earth-shamans...
Oh yeah, I totally forgot that Fire and Thunder were "shamans" (uuuuuugh at that word in this context). 'Cause they're like totally in tune with nature and they have MYSTIKUL EARTH ABILITIES and they cried when Arachne's magic hurt the poor widdle trees in the forest around her castle because they are SO TOTALLY IN TUNE WITH NATURE and thank you, Ohkubo, for inserting that little bit of Racism Fail back into this story for me, because it's not like "LOL AFRIKA" in the last chapter was bad enough, now you've got to bring this Ferngully shit back as well.
Sigh.
Anyway, Fire and Thunder do some awesome shit and look awesome. Clearly Ohkubo couldn't be arsed to research any actual indigenous South American cultures that practice any form of shamanism before he came up with these character designs, but whatever. It's sexy scantily-clad brown people covered in made-up MAGIKUL tattoos, and if it's good enough for Ohkubo, then it's good enough for us! Except that it's not.
Well, at least now we know that Fire is a dude and Thunder is a dudette. Thank you for clarifying that, Ohkubo.
Fire and Thunder aim Liz and Patti at the clown. Kim braces behind Kirikou's back. "Kim!! I need you to brace yourself and anchor me against some serious kickback!!"
"Got it!!"
"Let's do this!!" Kirikou shouts. "E-3!!! EXTREME ELEMENT EFFECT!!!"
Indeed.
I love Medusa's face when she realizes that her Clown just got blown to smithereens.
But! As the smoke slowly clears, Medusa realizes that her Clown isn't completely gone. Its head is still lying on top of the pile of ash that was once its body. Medusa's face lights up with an evil grin. It withstood the attack!
For certain limited definitions of "withstood," I guess.
"It looks like we won..." Kirikou says.
"It looks like we won." Better.
So apparently Kirikou and Kim can't see that the head of the Clown has survived. "That'll do, Clown," Medusa tells the creature. "Return to Crona's location immediately."
"Evaporating now," the Clown says. Then it vanishes.
Oh hey, Azusa is back! "Kirikou! Kim!! Respond immediately!! Kirikou! Everyone!! Can you hear me?!"
"Sounds like the jamming is gone..." Kim comments, listening to her headpiece.
I finally got through to them... "Is something wrong?" Azusa asks. "Is there some sort of problem?"
"No... There was a problem, but we already solved it..." Kirikou says.
"No. There was a problem, but we already solved it." Better.
"We were attacked by the Black Clown that Medusa had created..." Kirikou goes on. "Since the jamming has ended, I want to believe that means that we annihilated the creature, but..."
And now we cut to Black Star and Tsubaki. "Maaaaaaan, snooping around looking for Medusa's hideout sure is a boring mission..." Black Star comments. "They should've given this job to some other losers..."
Oh Black Star. It'll stop being boring the minute that you manage to find Medusa, kiddo. (Which we readers already know that you're about to do.)
"Medusa can use a Soul Protect," Tsubaki says. "Soul Perception isn't a useful ability to have on this mission. But since you're the best at using your other five senses, Black Star, we're the ones most suited for this mission."
"Blah blah blah..." Black Star says. "They should make Maka do these stupid Human Radar jobs."
"You didn't listen to a word I just said, did you...?"
"Look, Crona might be at that hideout..." Black Star says, his face growing dark. "This really is a job for Maka... This isn't my business."
Tsubaki looks sad. "......" she says.
Six. There were six sets of ellipses on that page alone. None of them needed to be there.
Suddenly, Black Star's spider senses start tingling!
"What is it?" Tsubaki asks.
"Those forlorn footsteps..."
Indeed.
"Let's go, Tsubaki!"
Thus, led by the sound of Crona's footsteps, Black Star and Tsubaki arrive at Medusa's lair. "This is it... Tsubaki... Please change into your weapon form."
"Okay."
So they're starting with her dagger form, then. Oh, that seems like a real good idea, especially when they know that they're up against a batshit crazy person with a really long reach who can generate devastating long-range sonic attacks and--
Yeah, no. Black Star, I don't know if you want to start with the close combat route right away. Didn't you just go through an entire painful character arc just so that you could, like, be able to use Tsubaki's long sword form? Or at least start with the kusagama, man!
Anyway, Crona is crazy. And has three arms. And is screaming a lot.
"What with that face?!" Black Star snarls at Crona. "If Maka could see you right now, she'd be crying! Are you gonna make Maka cry?!"
Crona doesn't answer, but hir third arms raises hir sword.
Medusa watches this, grinning. "And now the real experiment begins," she says. And then the chapter ends.
Okay, so now it looks like SERIOUS!Black Star is going to face off against Crona next month. I predict that Black Star will last about ten pages before he either a) takes a pratfall or b) suffers a catastrophic testicular injury. Because as we've seen so far, not even Mifune's CHARACTER-BUILDING SCAR OF ANGST AND WOE can stop Black Star from being, well, Black Star.
Thoughts: Well, damn.
I am sorely disappointed in one thing, and that was Liz and Patti's massive lack of involvement in this chapter.
I mean, really Ohkubo. After all that time and narrative effort you've spent building up Patti's combat abilities, in the end, she and Liz hardly participated in the battle against the Clown at all! I mean sure, they were there, and they were shooting at things, but that hardly counts. They weren't there are characters. They had exactly two word bubbles in the entire chapter. They didn't interact with Kirikou or the pots. Liz didn't even freak out about the Clown. The Clown!! This was the thing that she tricked Kid into running away from because she was so terrified of it, remember? I seriously expected the presence of the Clown in this chapter to provide some sort of catalyst for Liz and Patti to have a big character-building battle against it, possibly leading up to some sort of confront-your-fears moment for Liz. Plus, you know, Liz and Patti having a big power-up battle against a Clown would have been so deliciously ironic (considering how they ran away from it before) that I can't believe Ohkubo passed up such a golden opportunity for, you know, delicious dramatic irony.
But no, I guess it was the pots' turn to power up instead.
Oh well. Since Noah is still in play, that means that there is further opportunity for Liz and Patti's character development further down the line. But still. This chapter should have been, like, the perfect dramatic moment for Liz and Patti to have some character development. But instead, they got nothing. Absolutely nothing.
On the other hand, however, YAY CRONA IS BACK. I am happy. The end.
Postscript: Those of you who downloaded the raw chapter from a certain manga piracy site may have noticed that an anonymous internet pirate uploaded a set of scans from the old (as in, last year's!) Soul Eater postcard calendar immediately after uploading this month's chapter. Actually, ladies and gentleman, the scans that were just uploaded to said certain manga piracy site are actually the exact same scans that I posted a year ago in my journal, only resized to be smaller and blurrier, for some reason. Anyway, if you don't want to deal with downloading (resized, blurred) calendar scans from said certain manga piracy site, you can still find all or my original scans here. Enjoy!
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I'm not really one to talk since I fail on the failboat in every sense when writing plots myself, but this guy is getting paid for it. C'mon.
Finally, Chrona! \o/ At least that might help to counteract the horrible agony of another Black*Star chapter. Maybe he'll get his ass kicked so I can laugh at him. IDK. I'm a terrible person or something.
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I guess this is what I get for praying like crazy that s/he'd be in this chapter. S-Sob.
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duuude! My thoughts exactly though "at least we figured fire is a dude and thunder a dudette" hahaha
physics tell me that liquid gives a solidic feel based on the velocity of the blackblood. Perhaps the black erm... Dark clown was weaker or perhaps jackie's flames were super effective that she can evaporate them. OR you can think of Kim shooting magical beams into Jackie to make them evaporate :)
lol I never took physics.
Well, in any case, I am looking forward to this Crona/Black*Star smackdown; wishfully thinking Patti would be used as a meister soon (wishfully hoping ookubo is saving all that hype for something better); wondering if Kid hasn't been *^%#*+ by Noah or waffles; and really wondering if all this clown insanity, Kishin, and medusa would come into affect with Soul being contaminated
Who knows! Thanks again for the awesome summary! They always make me smile!
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/End of story
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FOR GREAT SCIENCE!
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Your drawing made me laugh though. Your graph looks
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Aw, I liked it too, when I was eight years old. It's not a terrible film or anything, it's just highly problematic on a lot of levels.
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No excuse for Black Star to have Tsubaki start with her dagger form - incongruous considering he's in 'serious mode' and so one'd think he's paying attention. But, no, he's being a twit already. He'll last long.
That said, I do wonder how he'll fare against Crona. Maka succeeded because she could get through to them with random violence and understanding. To date, Black Star can certainly manage the latter. But 'understanding' isn't quite in his repertoire unless some notion of 'honour' is involved. Can't quite see Crona going for that.
The only good thing I can get out of the lack of Liz and Patti in this chapter, is the hope that when Okubo decides to write them properly, it'll be epic.
Thanks for the recap. :)
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you made me crack up in the middle of the library pffffft~
oh Ohkubo. and yay, Crona!
I've never really noticed the ellipses until you started noting them in your recaps, and now I can't stop noticing them ahahaha why ;;
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Witches? Bad.
Wizards? Bad.
That one fail!Enchanter? Bad.
But by linking Shamans with the inherent goodness of nature Ookubo was able to make good magical characters without delving back into 'lulz backwards healing witch'.
Otherwise Iunno. I enjoyed the pwnage in this chapter :D
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Oh god dammit that's gonna take some getting used to. Killik is cemented in my head like things that can't be unseen. Except not painful.
YAY CRONA! FINALLY. Though s/he's kinda scaring me right now. Lots of TEH FEAR.
I hope there's a badass battle before severe ownage '-' I can then squee and fanfic. Probably gonna do that already though...
Thanks for another recap 8D They're fun to read |D
I have
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I even thought that we would have a dramatic!flash-back or something like thatand I look all this 67 chapters and these two had 0 character development .-.or very littleand they're part of the main characters...Ok, ok, moving on! the chapter was awesome, Kilik and Kim were incredible, Crona and Medusa are back again and we will have an epic Black Star VS Crona battle probably next month.
Thank you very much for your recap! awesome as always.
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I have faith that Ohkubo will give them both a proper moment to shine, probably when they end up rescuing Kid. I still think that *this* chapter, however, would have been a perfect opportunity to do that. I guess Ohkubo is just going to make us wait a bit longer.
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A part of me was actually hoping Killik would get owned just so Ohkubo would have no choice but to have Liz and Patti step in and, you know, actually do something rather then fading into the background like what theyve been doing since the beginning of the series.
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On that note asdfghjkl FIRE AND THUNDER. Fire is so sexy. ;3
but omfg Chrona. ;; You're scaring me. I still love you though.
Crona's back huh?
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You VS Ellipses.
Other than that, Crona YAY! And I totally agree with your comments on Liz and Patti. The chapter would've been so much cooler with them fighting instead of other characters who seem like main characters because their students and were in the Baba Yaga arc, but are still quite secondary and if their development in this chapter doesn't come into play late in the series, then POO ON YOU, OHKUBO. Uh, sorry about that rambling-sentence there. Yeah...
But agreed. XD
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I wanna see Patti wielding Liz when they go to save Kid and I want them to be all determined and I want plenty of OT3 moments and it will be fluffy and awesome. <3
Other than that, I really liked the chapter. It's amazing how tall BlackāStar has gotten, he's almost as tall as Tsubaki. You see that from ch. 62 when Patti kicks him, but you see it a lot better here.
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(It's where I get my Ippo and ZKC fixes myself)
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Doesn't mean that's what happened, but it's the closest sciencey thing I could think of offhand.
I need a FOR SCIENCE! icon. Hmm.
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But Ohkubo, be serious. Did you fail your laungage class with a few points? Because even I know when to use '...' and when the comma. But NOO~~~ just shit it already. Just do it.
Hmm...the only kind of thing in RL that is a little bit like black blood would be Mercury. I suposse fire would work OK, when it's really, really, REALLY hot.
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The problem is that we are all assuming that the black blood is one substance. For example, you start with the word 'blood'. As blood carries out many features, it seems that the black blood does as well.
In my humble opinion, what we are trying to assess is not the chemical that the black blood may be, but rather what properties the blood has. If Medusa were being facetious about this being blood, she would not have risked leaving Soul in Shibusen. As she has proved, when it comes to the school, she always finds a way.
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Soul Eater was the first manga I ever read.
I...
It is the only manga I follow on its publication basi -- OH FML I PUT ELLIPSES UP THERE
I feel like I've reached a cross-roads where you realize your first love may not exactly be what you thought. (randdom segue: is Crona's dress oh just a little shorter? Do we take this as the degregation of her morality? I am imagining Medusa in a room with grammy glasses and a dim light, cutting just one inch off the bottom of Crona's clothing. A little Shinigami-sama as her needlestick. Crona is off in a corner, horrified, but:
"This is for your own good, Crona! You don't want to have to put the red light on!"
Ellipses removed for your sake.)
...that segue was longer than my actual comment, wasn't it? Also cooled my physics rage entirely.
Carry on.
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...someday, I really ought to explain why I think the final battle will have Soul/Crona (heehee), instead of just throwing the idea all around.
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Also, the connection between Liz & Patty's previous not-quite-encounter with the Clown hadn't occurred to me. I was under the impression that it was the factory's atmosphere that freaked Liz out, not the Clown itself, so I didn't see this as a turning point.
And I was just wondering, are ellipses common in most mangas? I've seen Detective Conan and Gintama raws a few time, and I remember being dismayed by how many ellipses were in those, too.
Anyway, as always, thanks for making this post! It's always enjoyable. :)
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1. Yes, I know that the headsets aren't actually Bluetooth, I was just making fun of them by calling them that. ;) Also, the previous chapter never mentioned anything explicitly about the things working via soul resonance, just that they were demon tools. So: magic! I don't think we've yet seen any evidence that an insanity wavelength can disrupt soul resonance. But on the other hand, at this point in the story, the insanity wavelength can still do whatever the heck Ohkubo wants it to do, so there you go.
2. I always assumed that the factory's atmosphere (i.e. it actually sprouting facial features) was a direct result of the Clown's presence there. On the other hand, now that you mention it, that might have been because of the presence of the Flying Dutchman instead; the factory certainly ended up looking a lot like the Black Dragon in the end.
3. Ellipses are common in manga, certainly a lot more common in Japanese writing in general than they are in English writing, but Soul Eater still has a lot *more* ellipses than any other manga I've ever read. Also, Ohkubo has a tendency to stick his ellipses in strange and unnecessary places, even when compared to other ellipses-loving manga writers.
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3. A previously unknown (to me) fact. Cool. Or not, since misuse of ellipses can be really annoying. I imagine that Gosho Aoyama gives Ohkubo a run for his money with the ellipses, though. I don't think I've ever seen him actually end a sentence with a simple period.
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3. Obviously... Ohkubo is... the William... Shatner of... manga.
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