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AfroSquirrel posted:The best thing to come out of this would be Kotaru's descendant playing the role of Revolver Ocelot The Liquid or actual? ConanThe3rd fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 17:07
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Yinlock posted:Read through this recently. Tota's my favorite. Like he's just a kid trying to figure out what to do with his life but all these superpowered lunatics keep appearing and won't shut the gently caress up about his grandfather. He grew on me pretty quick with the UNBREAKABLE FRIENDSHIP CONTRACT but the kicker was telling Fate he hated his smug prick face right to his smug prick face. Also his fights are pretty fun! This post made me realize just how different the manga can feel depending on if you've read Negima.
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Mar 7, 2015 17:44
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Mar 11, 2015 03:20
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I wonder how long Akamatsu spent on Jetstream Armstrong at Revengance level.
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Mar 11, 2015 03:25
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The Salty t-shirt on Touta during the dream sequence was a nice touch.
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Mar 11, 2015 03:40
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The super-strong enemy just leaving for no real reason made me roll my eyes, though I suppose something like that was bound to happen sooner or later. (The alternative was Yukihime showing up, and she's done that multiple times already.) It's interesting to see Touta finally experiencing distrust, self-doubt, etc., though; it makes him a much less boring character. Those kind of emotions actually make Magic Erebea stronger, right?
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Mar 11, 2015 03:48
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The chapter gets funnier when you think about how many times Kirie must have died before she passed that QTE. Touta's internal struggle is also surprisingly reasonable. We already know that he was questioning why Eva was taking care of him. Kid needs to spend some quality time with his mom.
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Mar 11, 2015 04:23
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I legitimately think this would be a top-tier shonen if not for the fact you can't understand practically anything that is happening without reading all of Negima.
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Mar 11, 2015 08:11
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Then maybe you should read all of Negima
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Mar 11, 2015 13:14
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Angry Grimace posted:I legitimately think this would be a top-tier shonen if not for the fact you can't understand practically anything that is happening without reading all of Negima. If UQ Holder is top-tier shounen, then Negima is topperest-tier shounen. 
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Mar 11, 2015 13:32
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Angry Grimace posted:I legitimately think this would be a top-tier shonen if not for the fact you can't understand practically anything that is happening without reading all of Negima. Yeah, I agree with that. Maybe they should make a Negima Kai at some point to recap all the important stuff. UQ Holder is the manga I'd most want to see animated these days.
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Mar 11, 2015 16:02
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chumbler posted:The chapter gets funnier when you think about how many times Kirie must have died before she passed that QTE. She literally went full All You Need Is Kill / Edge Of Tomorrow there
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Mar 11, 2015 16:48
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I bet she finds Dark Souls easy.
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Mar 11, 2015 17:14
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Rodyle posted:Then maybe you should read all of Negima I did, I just can't recommend the series to anyone else because then I have to recommend Negima to them first. Then they read chapter 1 and see a bunch of girls getting their clothes blasted off so then they refuse to read it.
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Mar 11, 2015 18:43
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This is why you recommend it with caveats. Comedy/Harem manga that slowly turns into one of the best shonen battle mangas made in the last while. Start reading it from Eva's arc on.
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Mar 11, 2015 22:56
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BTW, for anyone else that's interested in rereading Negima - there's only going to be nine omnibuses (which are all released), which covers 27 volumes. That leaves 11 more volumes to buy to finish the entire series. In Amazon prices, that comes out to $11.50*9 + $8*11 = 103.5 + 88 = $191.50 for the whole thing in Kindle format. Not cheap, but also not bad for 38 volumes.
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Mar 12, 2015 00:01
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Do they have the glossary thing Akamatsu used to do in the back? I've been interested in reading through those but a combination of money and space has stopped me from getting the physical volumes.
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Mar 12, 2015 00:09
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Silento posted:Do they have the glossary thing Akamatsu used to do in the back? I've been interested in reading through those but a combination of money and space has stopped me from getting the physical volumes. The single volumes do, and the one omnibus volume I own has them as well.
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Mar 12, 2015 03:35
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Angry Grimace posted:I did, I just can't recommend the series to anyone else because then I have to recommend Negima to them first. Really, I think you're being too harsh on UQ Holder and too nice to Negima. Negima had some interesting things, but it was buried in a heap of often completely confusing garbage. Negima had the occasional interesting fight (which was generally confusing as hell to read because Akamatsu never met a detail he couldn't shoehorn in) but quite a lot of other manga had good fights with better plots but didn't sell as well because of a lack of underage girls and a famous name sensei. I do agree that the Negima crap is probably holding UQ Holder back. If Akamatsu didn't have Negima characters, he'd actually have to give the people motivations rather than just throwing them on the page and being enigmatic. Of course, character motivation also tends to be where Akamatsu is weakest, so it's no surprise. The non-Negima characters are actually the most interesting to me, and the current arc has split 4 of them off on walkabout. Let's see if Akamatsu can actually do something interesting with them.
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Mar 12, 2015 07:32
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Hunh, I'm surprised. New chapter's out and nobody mentioned it. First page looks like they uploaded the rough draft edit.
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Mar 18, 2015 08:53
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Man, for a bunch of immortals this bunch are such kids. "I have come to a startling realization. I love my weird adoptive mom in a completely normal, non-romantic way." "Bwaaaa? That is completely shocking and it makes me blush."
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Mar 18, 2015 09:43
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Well they technically are all kids. I think Karin and Kyrie are the the oldest outta the main group, though Kyrie is technically young, she just happens to Groundhog Day through everything.
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Mar 18, 2015 10:33
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Serious Frolicking posted:Man, for a bunch of immortals this bunch are such kids. "I have come to a startling realization. I love my weird adoptive mom in a completely normal, non-romantic way." Not only is that not particularly unusual, it wouldn't have been that unusual if he had the hots for her either (he's like 16, has only known her for a couple of years and her typical form looks like a Ken Akamatsu character).
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Mar 18, 2015 18:13
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The sword theorizes that there's no grandma(s). Aww, I was hoping Tota was a Konoka/Negi clone, and new-evil-girl was a Asuna/Negi clone, and so on...
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Mar 18, 2015 18:34
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Skychrono posted:The sword theorizes that there's no grandma(s). Aww, I was hoping Tota was a Konoka/Negi clone, and new-evil-girl was a Asuna/Negi clone, and so on... Since he doesn't actually look like Negi, that's probably what it is. Either that or else a fictional usage of clones is actually taking epigenetics into account for once.
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Mar 18, 2015 19:50
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Gyges posted:Since he doesn't actually look like Negi, that's probably what it is. Either that or else a fictional usage of clones is actually taking epigenetics into account for once. Of course, the Occam's Razor solution is that he doesn't look like Negi so they could save the "he's a Negi clone" for 75 chapters in and Ken could troll us about Negi actually picking a girl for an entire year.
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Mar 18, 2015 21:04
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To be fair, saying Negi didn't pick one is probably the answer least likely to allow Ken to keep writing without fear for his life.
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Mar 18, 2015 21:24
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Gyges posted:Since he doesn't actually look like Negi, that's probably what it is. Either that or else a fictional usage of clones is actually taking epigenetics into account for once.
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Mar 18, 2015 21:29
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Given skin tone and hair color, new girl clearly should be a clone of Negi and Jack Rakan.
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Mar 18, 2015 21:33
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So would that make her Solidus?
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Mar 18, 2015 21:47
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I've just read through the first 4 Omnibus volumes of Negima (up to the semifinals of the tournament). My thoughts on it are kind of complicated. The bad: * The element of teenage girls sexually harassing a prepubescent boy is uncomfortable as hell. I realize that the girls who push it the farthest, like Makie, are meant to be seen as immature and thoughtless rather than cool, but it's still treated as a joke. * I guess I can take a somewhat more forgiving view of the girls who are in love with Negi but aren't so pushy about it, like Nodoka, but the age gap is still big enough to keep it in somewhat uncomfortable territory. That the girls who are most seriously in love with him are specifically impressed by his emotional maturity does help, I guess. * I don't particularly object to fanservice per se, but here it's just so pervasive it becomes tedious, even for a while after the transition to battle manga. (This has surprisingly little inherent connection to the above points, since the fanservice almost always involves the girls, not Negi.) I think part of the reason it's so annoying is that it feels like Akamatsu doesn't just want readers to get aroused, he wants them to find it funny too, and it just isn't funny. * The way the loser in half the fights may or may not have been holding back gets silly after a while. The good: * Akamatsu manages a large cast remarkably well. Some of the girls get very little focus, but Akamatsu still remembers they exist and lets them stick around in the background, and most of them have individualized personalities. * There's interesting fights involving even characters with pretty simple power sets. Part of the trick of it is establishing the emotional stakes well, part of it is making the situations more complex than straightforward one-on-one fights (even during the tournament), and part of it is drawing action clearly. * The villains are generally established as not really being that bad before they're beaten, which is much better than the common shonen trope (like many bad shonen tropes, Reborn is an obvious example, but Dragon Ball also did it) of establishing villains are irredeemable and then redeeming them anyway. Thoughts on specific characters: * Being spoiled on the facts that Konoka ends up with Setsuna and Asuna is Negi's aunt makes the way Konoka and Asuna interact with Negi early on kind of odd, and makes me wonder how much was planned in advance. The appendix to the first or second volume does say something along the lines of "They're kind of like brother and sister, so the love comedy in their interactions is a bit odd" about Negi and Asuna, which makes me lean towards it being planned in advance after all. In Konoka's case, the nature of her affection for Negi might have been deliberately ambiguous. * Not counting Asuna and Konoka, Nodoka is clearly the "main" love interest (to the point where I'm surprised there's even a debate about it); almost every girl in the class is attracted to Negi, but most of them clearly aren't serious about it the way Nodoka is. She's a somewhat cliched character but a likable one. * It's funny how little connection genetics seems to have to intelligence in this series; Negi is a super genius but Nagi and Asuna (and Touta, although Touta is at least a quick learner) are idiots. * Negi himself has a pretty unusual personality for the protagonist of a series like this; he's very book-smart, his harem-lead obliviousness is clearly mostly willful (and he has a good reason for it), and he doubts himself a lot (and not just when he loses a fight). He undergoes some interesting character development early on; he starts out with an immature tendency to seek magical quick fixes for his and other people's emotional/interpersonal problems, but he gradually gets over it. He's brave as opposed to merely lacking fear, but still actually brave as opposed to an Usopp-type character who only finds his courage when it's almost too late. It's kind of disappointing that he was replaced by someone as generic as Touta, although Touta has gotten more interesting lately. * Asuna was one of the less interesting major characters for a while; she was dumb and tsundere and that was pretty much it. Her fight against Setsuna gives her some unexpected depth, though; arguably this shows that Akamatsu's decision to actually randomize the tournament bracket was good for storytelling, although a less skilled shonen writer might still have written a fight like that with no emotional stakes at all. * Konoka isn't very fleshed out at this point; she's a nice person and that's about it. Yue is far more complex and interesting but clearly intended to be a much more minor character. There's still several interesting directions Konoka's character could go in, though (How comfortable would she with fighting an antagonist on her own? How comfortable would Eishun and her parents be with her relationship with Setsuna?). * Evangeline is a good example of what I meant about establishing a villain as somewhat sympathetic before they're defeated; the first thing we're told about her is Takamichi's suggestion that Negi talk to her if he really needs help. We actually see her at her worst during the tournament rather than the blackout, since during the blackout Evangeline didn't come across as particularly sadistic. She's clearly changed a lot by the time of UQ Holder, but I can still definitely buy her as the same character. * I love Takamichi's Iai Fist. It takes a silly trope (re-sheathing your sword to make it cut better) to its (il)logical conclusion, but the tactical implications of it are treated completely seriously. Thoughts on specific arcs: * The introductory arc was the weakest, since it was so focused on fanservice, unfunny slapstick comedy, and so forth. It nevertheless did a good job of establishing a lot of characters. I do think that, while Akamatsu intended to transition to a battle manga from the beginning, he wasn't quite sure which characters would be important; Ayaka was probably supposed to be more important than she ended up being and Setsuna less so, for example. If so, the change in direction was a wise one. * The Evangeline arc features the first major fights of the series, and they're OK but nothing special. * The Kyoto arc had better fights and introduced some characters from outside Negi's class. I think this is the real transition to a battle manga. * The Wilhelm arc is somewhat weaker. Seeing everyone work together to deal with the villains' tricks was nice, although seeing how reliant the villains were on surprise, hijacking Asuna's power, etc. makes them oddly unthreatening in retrospect. * Some interesting stuff happened at the festival (the scenes with Yue, for example), but a lot of the festival storyline felt like a return to the first arc and made me impatient for the tournament. I think Akamatsu was stalling a little to plan out the tournament and Chao storylines. * The tournament is probably the strongest arc so far. Akamatsu's famous decision to actually randomize the bracket paid off pretty well, leading to some tense fights and character development, although it probably also contributed to the overreliance on "maybe he/she was holding back." Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Mar 24, 2015 |
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Mar 24, 2015 07:05
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No mention of Chisame being the best (though that mostly comes from the festival and magic world arcs, which you haven't finished/gotten to yet if I'm counting right), so all of your opinions are wrong . But seriously though, it's good to see someone approaching Negima with an open mind and giving impressions on it. I can't really disagree with anything in your post and can only offer that the festival arc is really where it becomes clear that Akamatsu is finding his shounen legs. The Kaede vs. Colonel Sanders fight is probably my favorite in the series, followed very closely by (spoilering since it's not clear whether you've finished the tournament) Negi vs. Nagi, which is perfect in how completely one-sided it is. The fanservice obviously never disappears completely, but it gets downplayed more and more as the series goes on, and the magic world arc is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge part of the story that addresses a lot of your issues. Eva's development in UQ is also really great. She's still a firebrand when she needs to be, but her mellowing out is great and believable, and her not really knowing how to be a good guardian is fun.
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Mar 24, 2015 07:27
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I don't think the fanservice got downplayed, it just had to compete with action for screen time and people's memory and people chose to remember the latter. There were still a ton of fanservice scenes.
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Mar 24, 2015 11:37
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Kyte posted:I don't think the fanservice got downplayed, it just had to compete with action for screen time and people's memory and people chose to remember the latter. There were still a ton of fanservice scenes. Jack Rakan fan service is the only fan service you need to remember.  Edit: RIP tables, can't TIMG spoilered pics. UchihaHirou fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Mar 24, 2015 |
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Mar 24, 2015 17:10
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That's not fan service, it's narrative necessity.
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Mar 24, 2015 18:01
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The Best Jack Rakan related incident is when he used Eternal Negi Fever on Negi in the tournament.
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Mar 24, 2015 20:23
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i flunked out posted:The Best Jack Rakan related incident is when he used Eternal Negi Fever on Negi in the tournament. This is a rare thing in a manga which rather than making me smile, made me laugh out loud.
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Mar 24, 2015 20:51
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i flunked out posted:The Best Jack Rakan related incident is when he used Eternal Negi Fever on Negi in the tournament. I love how he's like "It's a good thing I fought the ultimate spirit of lightning in the Magic World's bonus dungeon, otherwise I'd be in trouble!", because he's just so nonchalant about it.
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Mar 25, 2015 01:16
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Chapter's out. I don't think I'll ever get tired of Kirie save-state hacking everything, regardless of the fact it's broken as hell and it kind of negates consequences. On the one hand, it does prevent Touta from falling into melodrama and potential character development, but on the other hand, it does make those moments when he does have to deal with those consequences more meaningful, like with the Santa arc when the whole Earth got zombified.
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Mar 25, 2015 02:24
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No Touta, you can't cry blood with that hair. You're giving me Sasuke flashbacks. This mysterious girl is truly the most devious of all villains.
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Mar 25, 2015 02:50
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