I just finished reading…

Juushin Enbu (The same artist as FMA. Nice concept of “stars”)

Lost+Brain (Amazing psychological manga)

Gamaran (Very detailed, varied and well planned fighting manga)

Piano no Mori (Touches you as Music genre manga should)

Black God (Which has an interesting concept on doppelgangers)

Knights (Neither artwork nor plot is interesting. But has good chars)

Baka To Test To Shoukanjuu (Not the most interesting of manga)

Buster Keel (I welcome clichés but this is ridiculous! –.-)

Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin (Very interesting basis!)

Oh well, might put up a couple of reviews soon. Maybe twice a week. :)

I’m currently reading Samurai Deeper Kyo which is quite cool so far.

Won’t be posting reviews

Although…

Because I’m bored AND lazy.

Ao no Exorcist: Structural Basis

Some of you may have already seen on Facebook where I constantly speak of how awesome Ao no Exorcist is- because it IS awesome.

Ao no Exorcist speaks of two brothers, one of whom is the protagonist. It so happens that both brothers were adopted by an exorcist, who raised them to become fine children. One day, the protagonist finds out that he’s the son of Satan as Satan kills the exorcist who raised him. Then he goes on to find out that his brother is already a full fledged exorcist, and he goes to exorcist school to be one in order to kill his very own father- Satan.

You must realize that I have not much interest in the plot. This is because there is a similarity amongst the top manga- what I call the structural basis of the manga. For example, you don’t read Bleach because you want to know what happens next to Ichigo, you just want to see Captains use Bankai and Espadas release their hollow form and Aizen owning everyone’s asses. You don’t read Naruto because you’re worried for Sasuke, you just want to see the Akatsuki kill people, the nine tailed fox rampaging around the Ninja world and cooler techniques to be shown. Similarly, you don’t read One Piece because you LIKE Luffy and gang, you just want to see the face off between pirates and the cool variety of Fruit Users.

My point is, what attracts Shounen readers isn’t so much about how the plot develops, but this structural basis running underneath all those storylines which gives the manga their potential to branch out to a thousand and one possibilities. For Bleach, this structure would be how the Soul Society is nicely split into different categories with different levels and ranks and how Shinigami in general can use Shikai and Bankai.

Structural Basis is what Ao no Exorcist is brimming with. Six friggin’ chapters into the manga, and the mangaka is still building a rich Structural Basis. He introduces the different types of exorcists (to the extent of what Maplestory is much like) and shows how the different exorcists complement each other to form a “party” (TOO Maplestory). However, it gives Ao no Exorcist a very, very rich Structural Basis to work on. Imagine the possibilities! Endless!

Still don’t get what I mean by Structural Basis?

Okay, in simple terms, imagine Bleach and take out Ichigo. Imagine Naruto and take out well, Naruto. Imagine One Piece and take out Luffy and gang. Whatever is left is the structural basis.

Cross Hogwarts, Maplestory and… I don’t know. Bleach? and you get Ao no Exorcist! However, there’s still a downside for Ao no Exorcist. It doesn’t make a good “first manga” due to it’s complexity. Most people who want to start off with a nice Shounen Manga, I always recommend Bleach, for it’s easier to grasp the concepts behind it and the first dozen chapters are simply Hollow-killing but still interesting. Ao no Exorcist, on the other hand, should only appeal more to readers who are already exposed to Shounen battle manga such as Bleach and Naruto who have already gotten used to that basic structure.

Oh, and I simply love the artwork. The manga’s characters have their distinct look which ensures you definitely won’t be confused between one character and the other (much unlike 07 Ghost). I like how the artwork seems extremely simple and childlike during simple comedic scenes such as pointless conversations between characters which gives a certain dreamy feel, but suddenly becomes more defined and complex when battle scenes come about. It brings about a very excellent contrast which doubtlessly gives the readers the false sense of heroism and excitement required for battle manga.

I shan’t put up any battle scene pictures to force you to read it. I just realized that many strangers who have added me on Facebook are readers of this blog. If so, please add a note when adding me, wouldn’t want misunderstandings (AKA me roasting you on the internet) to happen.

This blog is…

Bah. Lazy to post the Ao no Exorcist review.

Enjoy a girl getting struck by a huge ass arrow from a huge ass crossbow.

I’m amused,

I saw a couple of people arguing on a certain… Uh…. Forum. (Let’s just call this that for now, I’ll tell you at the end of this post) About the all time favourite topic of gender discrimination.

I won’t be delving into whether this discrimination is necessary or uncalled for, that would be wrong. ;)

But, come on. This shit is not worth arguing over.

“Oh, this woman/man won me in an online debate and therefore I should, must and will change my view points on gender discrimination.” Yeah, sure.

The truth is, almost no one will be won over by these arguments no matter how strong a case you present. Theoretically, men who do not discriminate against women are:

1. Aware and respectful of the strengths of women in today’s society. (As brought up by advocates of gender equality)

2. Supportive of the view that gender should not be a measure of one’s capability and instead ought to be individualistic.

3. Gay.

4. Not bothered.

I’m case number 4. I could kick the asses of some feminists in a debate but will they follow me home and join my harem? I don’t think so. I could literally kick the asses of some feminists but then I wouldn’t want them to join my harem anymore. Hey, wait, I wasn’t intending to talk about asses….

Oh YES, not bothered. I’m not bothered. Why? Gender discrimination is a human created factor which, in my opinion, has neither philosophical nor social value. You may argue that this discrimination may cause women/men to lose out in their jobs and careers, and employers would not be able to recruit the people with the maximum talent and thus the workforce will not be as effective as can be… For example… Yadayadayada… I DON’T CARE. And I’ve had enough of Social Studies format essays.

Rather than argue and fight for one’s rights in a virtual environment which would bring upon no impact to others, thus neither bringing pride nor benefit into the picture, why not just work your ass off and prove to people that you, as an individual, are capable enough to remove your shackles of discrimination?

After you’ve succeeded, you can say you’ve been working your ass off, you can say you’re representing your gender in proving that you all really aren’t weaker, you can say you want to join my harem. YET AGAIN, I DON’T CARE. Not because it won’t affect the outcome of people’s perceptions on your gender/personality/desperation-to-join-my-harem, but JUST THE OPPOSITE. As long as you’re successful, it’s a given that people will believe you. As long as you can kick ass in your field, it’s a given that people will listen to you. As long as you hold power, it’s a given people will start to see your cause. You WILL be able to change people’s views so long you’re successful. You notice I mention the word people a lot here. Because this is all about other people.

Open your minds a bit more.

Delve deeper into your hearts a bit more.

Use your common sense a bit more.

Stop posting arguments on racial discrimination under the Comments section of a Mulan Music Video. Yeah, can you believe it?

On the lighter note, I still love I Will Make a Man Out of You from the Disney movie Mulan. :)

Won’t be updating for awhile.

Meanwhile, enjoy the reason why I love bears.

And enjoy a Youtube video which (hopefully) has no relevance to bears which my friend posted on Facebook.

kthanksbye!

Shiki Review: Screw Twilight already

I’ve been rather busy these few days and I’m predicting this would be my last post for the coming week.

For today, Shiki!

Well, a little background information about this obscure manga…

This series is about village with a population of about 1300 people, and during one fiercely hot summer, many mysterious incidents happened one after another...

There you go! Ripped right from the Onemanga page! To be honest, don’t expect this manga to be one with tale after tale of supernatural happenings, it’s a continuous manga with one sole storyline running. To cut it short, this manga is about vampires. Yeah, I know, a bloody cliché.

But what I like about Shiki is it’s execution. Instead of presenting itself as the usual vampire invasion, it follows more of a mystery format, where you follow the main characters (the village doctor, the village priest and a teenager who just moved into the village) as they unveil one thing after another about the vampires. They go by trial and error to see which of the myths about vampires hold true, like how they tried driving a stake through a vampire’s heart as an experiment. (In case you’re wondering, that one worked)

However, this manga has a serious downside to it- because of its mystery-like premise, the manga moves really slowly. After all, if you’re Shiki’s mangaka, there’s really not much you can hide from the readers when it’s just about vampires going around sucking people’s blood. To make up for this, the mangaka makes the plot move at a snail’s pace, which is good/bad depending on how you see things.

The starting phase of the manga was, to me, the most exciting. Especially since the manga doesn’t explicitly tell you it’s vampires at work, you start to speculate exactly what is going on in the village, where villagers present initial symptoms of lethargy, before slipping into Anaemia then sudden death. It was amazing really. I mean, how many manga can scare the shit out of you?!

This one surely did.

If you’re weak hearted/minded, and manga like Detective Conan somehow scares you, please read this. I take great pleasure in imagining people squirm in their beds at night.

PS: Oh, I just realized I have a draft of a review for Ao no Exorcist. I have to add a couple of pictures to that one before posting it. Looks like this won’t be the last post of the coming week after all~!

Manga I’ve read up to now…

 

The list isn’t exhaustive, and I didn’t include those which I just read for the first few chapters and decided it was trash.

Naruto

Bleach

One Piece

Fairy Tail

Full Metal Alchemist

Eyeshield 21

Hajime no Ippo

Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Shaman King

Claymore

Detective Conan

Ouran High School Host Club

Rave

AIKI

Bakuman

Beelzebub

Dragon Ball

Ai Kora

Veritas

Zatch Bell

New Prince of Tennis

Death Note

Absolute Boyfriend

Liar Game

Fruits Basket

666 Satan

Mirai Nikki

Psyren

Special A

Kampfer

Defense Devil

Zero no Tsukaima

Rosario+Vampire

Prince of Tennis

Nurarihyon no Mago

Akumetsu

Ga-Rei

Black Cat

K-ON!

Nodame Cantabile

Addicted to Curry

Ao no Exorcist

Rurouni Kenshin

Team Medical Dragon

Yakitate!! Japan

Pokemon Special

Toriko

Deadman Wonderland

Vinland Saga

ULTIMO

Gintama

Gantz

Tenjou Tenge

Otaku no Musume-san

Psycho Buster

Fate/Stay Night

Zombie Powder

Tegami Bachi

Fairy Cube

MAR

Doubt

Hakoiri Devil Princess

Sket Dance

Chrno Crusade

Yaiba

Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

MAR Omega

REC

Doraemon

Bartender

Shakugan no Shana

Camelot Garden

Tantei Gakuen Q

Bowling King

Magic Ban Removal!! Hyde and Closer

M.C. Law

Q.E.D.

Glass Mask 

I painstakingly copied and pasted the links in order of popularity on the OneManga website (apart from Glass Mask, which can’t be found on OM). I noticed how some really good manga are actually right at the bottom of the popularity list, like how Sket Dance is ranked 500! This ought to give you a hint that ranking isn’t everything. ;)

Oh, and I’ll be on a short hiatus from now due to exams and a certain hobby I’ve taken up, so do visit the above links and see which of the Manga I’ve read are the ones you like!

But for now,

I will give you a…

If you tell me Manga sucks.

Sometimes I read crappy manga and I go…

A little dirty joke never hurts

Bakuman Review: Vague

If you haven’t heard about this manga before, quit coming to my blog, tell your parents you let them down, and shoot yourself in the foot, stomach and brains. (Not necessarily in that order)

This manga is the second brainchild of writer Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata. You ought to have heard of them before, especially when they are the ones behind your Death Note.

However, this manga is nothing like Death Note, and hopefully will remain that way.

It’s about two aspiring teenagers who wish to become mangaka and actually succeed. I’ll be vague here because I’m lazy.

Apart from the usual “I’ll meet you, my love, once I have completed my life goal.” and the “We are real men. We will do whatever it takes!” this manga really doesn’t have much depth to it. But that’s what fascinates me! It might be superficial, but it covers a lot of ground in terms of introducing manga terms to you, how mangaka live and so on.

It’s amazing how the mangaka of Bakuman actually manage to draw the line between “We just have to show you the pride of us mangaka by throwing all sorts of complicated manga terms at you and putting up a false front to how hardworking all mangaka are” and “We will give you the truth, and throw in a bit of a plot”. If you don’t get my point, great. Because I’m being vague here. And you’re plain dumb.

I’ve read a couple of reviews (manga reviews are really, really scarce) of Bakuman when it first came out and almost none of them said anything positive- for good reason. At the beginning, it seemed as if Bakuman didn’t hold any ground at all. It had no foundation and its reasons for reaching a point of climax seemed exaggerated and nothing to be excited about.

HOWEVER.

If one were to have the foresight (like myself) to actually persist and read on, he/she would realize that what the mangaka has delivered is but the plain truth of the difficulties one would face if he chose to become a mangaka in high school. Slowly but surely, Bakuman captivates its readers with nothing but raw truth and a bit of humour. I would have been satisfied with that, but recently in the latest few chapters, Bakuman has simply outdone itself. It has managed to create a definitely unexpected network between all the mangaka within the manga and possessing this interesting potential to rise from the dead in terms of plot with so many factors. I cannot imagine how the mangaka of Bakuman actually came up with such a dynamic plot, where multiple unrelated things happen at the same time, which is life, but never happens in most manga.

To end off, I remembered this quote by Alfred Hitchcock- “Drama is life with the boring bits cut out.” Then I say manga is life too, but please, leave some boring parts for us. While a play cannot afford a minute of irrelevant ramblings, Manga can afford a page which absolutely has nothing to do with the plot. Please, bore us sometimes.