Which is why there can never be peace between East-asia and Oceania. On a brighter note, we will always have manga. Which seems to be in larger supply as it’s getting sent in. This saves us from having to select something and forces our hand in reviews. Mostly because we’re incredibly lazy and gladly take shortcuts.
Tim reviews The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess. A manga done which appears to cover all the beats of the game. Tim finds it unsettling as Link isn’t a silent protagonist within the manga. Without having played the game, Tim has no reference on how accurate it ends up being. It gets a Borders for being readable and having good artwork.
Weltall then talks about Re-Monster. In what is quickly becoming a nauseating trend, it features a character reborn into an alternate world. Bonus trope points for being something like an MMO where the character is born as a goblin, has stats, and can gain levels. Being as he has a short lifespan as a goblin he has to quickly level up to hopefully escape dying at a few years old. It gets a Read It Now in spite of the well trod ground.
A full request episode lays ahead. This is what happens when people send us manga. We are obligated to review it even if our personal bias says there’s no way it could be good. We will do our best to give it as fair a shake as we possibly can. But it’s really, really hard to do considering that the following two are prominently bearing the Tokyo Pop label on the spine.
Tim reviews Totally Spies. It is just like any cartoon manga cash grab that was made around that time in that it’s just an episode cut and pasted into a comic. Probably using something like a pirated copy of Corel Publisher. It gets a Burn It for the low effort garbage it is.
Weltall then reviews Fairly Odd Parents. Spoiler alert, it gets a Burn It. Just like with Weltall’s last OEL comic, he was untainted by exposure to the property beforehand. Too many jokes that just don’t land along with established rules that seem to be pulled from nowhere but are probably better explained in the series itself.
In a departure from the usual review method, Tim watched an episode of the series his OEL was based on. Not the same episode which became the “cine manga” unfortunately. His opinion was that the reason these weren’t successful was the media being adapted. As many of the jokes within the cartoons are visual and rely on timing which isn’t predictable in comic form as it is in video.
Fall is coming and the pumpkin spice must flow. Even so, nothing stops the flow of manga reviews. Unless it’s something like sickness, late nights working, or a projectile vomiting dog. Other than things of that nature, nothing will stop our manga vengance.
Tim reviews Souzai Saishuka no Isekai Ryokouki. What happens when a nearly useless salary man die of mundanity in Japan? Usually their family dies of collective shame at being so pathetic. Out hero is given a chance by a goofy god to go to another planet and straighten things out. Something the local deities haven’t been able to manage on their own(they must be the incestuous offspring of the Greek pantheon). It gets a Crackers for some humorous moments.
Weltall then tackles a request sent via snail mail, Power Puff Girls. We haven’t seen the likes of this such as Ben 10. Just like that, they simply take episodes and turn them into comics, replete with dialogue cut and pasted onto crappy backgrounds. It’s completely worthless and makes Weltall glad he never watches the series so it had nothing to taint. Even should you receive this as a gift ignite it and urinate on the ashes, lest your grandchildren be cursed.
I think it may be time once more for a couple of manga. Handpicked by our inexpert staff who can barely manage to punch manga titles into the mighty oracle itself. At least they actually remember to prepare and be read by this episode. Instead of desperately attempting to catch up on the chapters required while the other mumbles their way through a review.
Tim has a request, The King’s Avatar. It’s a manhua where a man stumbles into a gaming cafe and takes over for the manager and demonstrates how awesome he is by making her win the match in a few minutes. It’s revealed he played pro in an MMO but, for reasons we have yet to see, was forced to give it up and leave. The interesting part is him trying to work his way back up while going over meta strategy of gaming. The dull part is seeing him “in the game” as his character which drops it to a Borders.
Weltall’s review, Ijousha no Ai, begins innocently enough when our main character is in elementary school receiving a confession. Elated, he offers to walk her home later. Shortly after, another girl confesses. Main finds her creepy and says he would but there’s this other girl see. So she goes off to kill the other girl. Main is still troubled seven years later when another girl becomes interested in him after he starts seeing his crazy stalker out of the corner of his eye. As with so many psychological slashers we review, it gets a Read It Now.
Something’s happened. We seem to have some sort of fever and lightheadedness. Accompanied by the smell of sulfur and an acrid smokey smell. No, Tim’s mother hasn’t appeared within a pentacle. We’ve caught the fever of Amon and he’s contagious. Continue reading Manga Pulse 384: DevilDevilDevil Man→
Another trip to the bookstore? Yes, we made it out one more time. Just in case anyone didn’t believe we take advice from out listeners. Not the parts about lighting ourselves on fire because we know that’s all in good humor. That and we did that once and it wasn’t nearly as exciting as you might assume. A pity we no longer have the video.
Tim reviews The Promised Neverland. From the cover, Tim assumed it was one of those slice of life mangas that make him search longingly for a hangnail to remove. It is about an orphanage where a whole herd of children live in a seemingly timeless era where no one has a computer. Except when they’re taking tests. There’s a twist to everything which earns it a Read It Now.
Weltall’s Neeko wa tsurai yo is a manga about what we can only call “millennials”. The obnoxious version of a vague generation propped up by clickbaiting articles desperate to milk a little ad revenue from hate-sharing. The main character, Niito, is educated and young but not working or doing anything. She’s boring and would be improved by being thrown face first into an emptied pool. For the crime of being so boring that we’d rather be practicing calligraphy it earns a Burn It.
After the general grumble about us not purchasing as many manga, and relying on other more lazy methods, we decided to purchase a least one more. This meant trekking all the way over to the local Barnes. We brought enough supplies to make the ten minute journey, browsed the shelves and choose a volume which hadn’t been reviewed before.
Tim purchased a copy of Devilman – Grimoire. Tim was only familiar with the original title thanks to the episodes brought over in the late nineties and his most recent review of the source material. While he wasn’t paying attention it bloomed into a couple of sequels. This time we have Amon living with Miki who believes herself to be a witch. She plays at summoning demons one night right as they’re attacked by some real ones. By accident, she summons Amon into Akira’s body and he starts killing demons around for reasons. It’s still good enough to get a Read It Now.
Weltalls physical copy of manga is Magical Girl Apocalypse. No, it’s not an apocalypse where magical girls are are driving resurrected gas contraptions along the desert of Australia. It’s an apocalypse of attacking magical girl looking things. While this does sound like yet another manga Weltall has reviewed, it gets a Crackers.
Guess who’s back, back again? Probably some random celebrity who has a long history of saying something stupid and/or inarticulate. It turns out that age doesn’t automatically make people smarter or enhance their ability to communicate. And so they repeat their folly and the news breathlessly reports on it as though this is a fresh turn of events. All the while, click click click and the ad revenue comes trickling in.
Tim’s review is for Hachimitsu ni Hatsukoi. It’s a romance about two childhood friends who discover the power of hormones now that they’ve started going to high school. Our main character, Koharu, takes until the sixth chapter to discover that the reason her heart beat is irregular around Natsuki, isn’t because he emits microwaves and screws with her pacemaker. While it’s predictable and by the numbers, it’s so inoffensive it lands squarely at Borders.
Weltalls manhwa Love Parameter. Weltall doubts whether it counts because it’s a webcomic rather than print, the oracle assures us that manhwa is generally all things comic in Korea. It’s about a sad sack who can get dates and even get to intercourse but annoys girls so much they will leave midway boning and never call again. He stumbles into a traveling magic shop that hands him a pair of glasses that allows him to view things like a dating sim including prompting his responses to girls. It’s pretty direct though not hentai, in case you need to be warned not to read it while babysitting your six year old nephew. It gets a Read It Now.
What’s the best way to make a movie that makes all the monies? Just make a sequel, of course. But what if your studio doesn’t own the rights to anything currently popular because you weren’t busy buying the rights to every comic book out there? That’s when you dig through your catalog and make an illegitimate sequel to something people still talk about. If that fails, you at least have a tax write off and the knowledge that you did everything you possibly could.
Speaking of sequels, Tim’s manga is Donten ni Warau Gaiden. It’s a sequel or perhaps an epilogue to another manga. It’s set in the meiji era, which is basically Japan’s wild west for how it’s romanticized. Some people were supposed to fight a snake thing and they won, apparently. Also there are creepy ninjas who are or were crazy in that they forced their members to kill family to join the ranks. It’s intriguing enough that Tim gives it a Borders and may read the original.
Weltall then reviews Let’s Lagoon. In in, the main character awakens on a deserted island. He was apparently in a naval accident but can’t remember what happened. He’s joined by a girl and eventually an older man who is a teacher of hers. When the main guy ends up being pulled away by a riptide into the ocean, he awakens and finds he was only gone for fifteen minutes. There’s time screwiness somehow involved with the ocean and people trying to drown themselves to end up on the island that time forgot. It gets a Read It Now.
If there’s one thing we know, it’s the pursuit of happiness. Which is just code for buying all the crap you see on late night advertisements. We’ve been pursuing happiness for quite some time. From the Ronco rotisserie, the Ginsu knives which were replaces by Chef Tony’s Miracle blade we’ve finally found the product which will actually complete your life. No, not Flex Tape. Stop suggesting that Darryl. It’s manga! Continue reading Manga Pulse 379: Booze Adam→
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