{"id":4396,"date":"2010-03-21T16:39:28","date_gmt":"2010-03-21T23:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikoto.wordpress.com\/?p=4396"},"modified":"2010-03-21T16:39:28","modified_gmt":"2010-03-21T23:39:28","slug":"huge-stack-of-manga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/2010\/03\/huge-stack-of-manga\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge stack of manga"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This post is about everything that has come to mind in the past week while I’ve been reading this huge stack of manga (above image appropriately named).<\/p>\n

Negima!<\/span><\/h3>\n

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Setsuna is really cool, huh? \u00a0Yeah, she’s super duper cool. \u00a0She’s really, really super duper duper luper stupor pooper cool. \u00a0Plus she’s really pretty and cool and awesome and beautiful and cool and strong and cool and cool.<\/p>\n

Fun fact: Setsuna was my first obsession (note: not “waifu” because “waifu” sounds really stupid). \u00a0She’s the reason I spent $274.75 (not including tax) on 25 volumes of Negima!. \u00a0If Mikoto had never come along, you’d have http:\/\/setsuna.wordpress.com bookmarked instead of this site (well, not really. \u00a0Some German person took that).<\/p>\n

On another note, there are practically no good Setsuna pictures online. \u00a0After searching for an hour (not counting the random searching I’ve done over the years) on danbooru, google, deviantart, etc. (not pixiv, though, since I can’t understand that site), I finally found one good picture<\/a> which I stole for my new header.<\/p>\n

The rekindling of my interest in Setsuna has also led me to realize a very important thing: characters are everything<\/strong>. \u00a0In a previous post<\/a>, I talked about (among other things) how I rate anime according to my gut feeling. \u00a0That still stands, but now I finally understand what my gut wants. \u00a0It wants characters. \u00a0It wants pretty or cool characters that it can enjoy watching prance around on screen, regardless of how shitty the story or art is. \u00a0Heck, if Setsuna were in some sort of slice of life spinoff and still looked\/acted the same, I’d buy 25 volumes of that spinoff.<\/p>\n

But then again, if the characters are good, then the story and art are usually good as well, so it doesn’t really make a difference in the end. \u00a0Except with Bakemonogatari. \u00a0That show is a waste of perfectly good characters. \u00a0It should’ve been Nadeko Crab, Nadeko Snail, Nadeko Monkey, Nadeko Snake, and Nadeko Cat.<\/p>\n

Gintama<\/span><\/h3>\n

Yes, I bought sixteen volumes of this series. \u00a0Yes, I have seen it all via the anime. \u00a0Yes, it was still a very, very good buy.<\/span><\/p>\n

I used to read only the manga that I bought. \u00a0Then I hit One Piece. \u00a0I started buying manga that I thought was worthwhile. \u00a0Then I hit Rosario+Vampire (OOPS.) \u00a0Now I buy comedy manga that I think is worthwhile (with Negima being a notable exception).<\/span><\/p>\n

The reason for this is that comedy manga, as long as they aren’t total crap, are always worth reading again. \u00a0What’s the point in reading a comedy manga you’ve seen before? \u00a0To laugh again, of course! \u00a0What’s the point in reading an action manga you’ve read before? \u00a0To drag your feet through ten chapters before Ichigo tells you that everybody’s fucked up and hit the wrong person (HEY GUISE WUT R U DOIN??)? \u00a0No way. \u00a0Predictability may exist in both comedy and action manga, but at least one’s always funny. \u00a0The latter is just annoying.<\/span><\/p>\n

After reading Gintama for one week straight, I’ve also realized that Hideaki Sorachi is a brilliant comedian. \u00a0Gintama is funny enough, but the one-page omake things between chapters are where you see Sorachi’s real genius. \u00a0He reveals that he never makes deadlines so his editor draws up random “next chapter previews” trying to predict what he’ll draw next, asks readers for tips on treating hemorrhoids, answers a question about D.Gray-man, and comments on how all the seiyuu who tried out for Gintoki sounded the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

He’s my role model. \u00a0If I hadn’t bought Negima volume 25, I probably would’ve renamed this blog “Sorachi-senseiism.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Everything else<\/span><\/h3>\n

Bo-bobo was funny for the first two (three if you count that very first ‘test’ volume) volumes, but I found this latest volume to be very un-funny. \u00a0Maybe Gintama raised my expectations, or maybe it’s the lackluster effort the U.S. Jump team puts into this manga.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seriously, even if nobody actually buys<\/em> Bo-bobo, you might as well start at the beginning of the story! \u00a0Volume 1 of the English Bo-bobo starts in the middle of the story and we have no idea what’s going on (of course, we never do. \u00a0It’s Bo-bobo.) \u00a0The translations suck a lot, and the very first two volumes feature the same exact character, except with different names (Over and Halekulani). \u00a0The first volume shows “Halekulani” dying, yet he is consistently called “Over,” and neither “Halekulani” nor “Over” even appears in the second volume. \u00a0Who the hell is he?<\/span><\/p>\n

DMC is great, Soul Eater is great, and I’m too tired and bored to type any more. \u00a0This was a very shitty filler post. \u00a0I think it’s my way of doing a “blog update” post without actually doing a “blog update” post. \u00a0Those posts really suck.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2zM4X-18U","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}