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DrSunshine posted:It's weird! She goes off and does Alita stuff now and then, only to reappear for other matchups. She's there in the final match, but not as the main event. Of course, that is half the plot of the early parts of ZOTT -- that it's all a cover for her to get at her real goal, so it's not like we don't get to see what she's doing when she's put on a bus. So basically the tournament arc is a mix of crazy fighting, neat backstories, and Alita's adventures. That sounds fine to me. quote:EDIT: Also the Vampire flashback arc is great, and explains why the world is the way it is. It's great world building and sets the stage for the ending. It also has some of the best fight scenes in the series. It's just two volumes, anyway! I occasionally see people complain about the vampire arc, but they seem to forget that this is the series that has a teenage cyborg girl that looks to be between 12 and 17 (depending on the time she was drawn) defeat: *A snake-head man. *A werewolf. *A large cyborg version of the xenomorph from Alien(s) with the Blue Oyster Cult symbol on his head. *Soldiers who's heads are injected with adrenaline and screwed onto combat bodies. *A cyborg that can tear off his human-like head with ease, is wearing old American Football gear and likes to kill people. *A giant samurai centaur robot with a sword so large a crane is needed to deliver it to him. He is also the living rage of: *A bishie dude that can remember past experiences an object had simply by touching it. *A soulless robotic clone of herself thanks to the intervention of Alita's airhead operator taking a stand against the shady group that made the clone. *A fat man that looks like Mad Max bandit and has a fish-like face. *A dominatrix with an arrow on her forehead pointing to her large boobs. *An evil scientist that really likes flan, has a bizarre scientific theory about karma, and uses nanomachines to do whatever he wants. Is an arc about vampires really all that far-fetched?  I mean, BAA does a good job at portraying these characters well (esp ones like Zapan) and as serious threats, but most of them are inherently as goofy as vampires IN SPACE! I trust that Kushiro can make the concept work and be emotionally engrossing as something like Zapan's fate or Alita losing hope against her own clone.
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Jan 4, 2015 05:17
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DrSunshine posted:What are your top three, I'm curious?   
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Jan 4, 2015 05:20
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closeted republican posted:I occasionally see people complain about the vampire arc, but they seem to forget that this is the series that has a teenage cyborg girl that looks to be between 12 and 17 (depending on the time she was drawn) defeat: It was also probably boring because I can't remember a single thing that happened during it.
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Jan 4, 2015 05:26
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Vampire arc is worth it for the scene with the flute. The fight scenes are stupid and over the top and gorgeous and I loved it.
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Jan 4, 2015 05:42
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Avulsion posted:
I loved BAA's fight scenes, so any chance to see well-illustrated crazy fights sounds good to me.
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Jan 4, 2015 05:51
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One thing I'd really like to have is some kind of large artbook of BAA stuff. As far as I know it doesn't exist (or is rare enough that I'm unaware of it). I'd probably also buy the series in a large format, unless it was prohibitive.
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Jan 5, 2015 19:09
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Zenzirouj posted:One thing I'd really like to have is some kind of large artbook of BAA stuff. As far as I know it doesn't exist (or is rare enough that I'm unaware of it). I'd probably also buy the series in a large format, unless it was prohibitive. I wish there were posters because BAA's art is awesome. You can't even make your own because the art on Kushiro's site is way too low-res to be made into posters. 
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Jan 5, 2015 21:37
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Got LO Omnibus 1 and managed to complete the chapters that make up volume 1. Thoughts: I like it. So far, it feels a lot better than BAA's ending with how it handles Alita, Tiphares, and the Imaginos body. The plot makes a lot more sense and Alita's adventure in Tiphares is a lot more interesting than her being a dick and breaking poo poo. I've noticed that Alita is a bit more of an rear end than she was in BAA. She seemed pretty willing to abandon Nola and crew after saving them and didn't want any part in Jim's militia. I think it's because she's in Tiphares, a place she hates. All she wants to do is find Lou and get the gently caress out of there. It's not that she actively wishes the place to go down in flames like Den did; she just doesn't want to be a part of anything going on there. I liked Sechs and the twins as soon as they appeared. Sechs is cool because she's Alita's “I LIVE FOR VIOLENCE” phase from her life as a TUNED agent taken up humorous and entertaining levels, ridiculously cocky, and has a cool fighting style. If Sechs keeps this up, I think I won't have a problem when the story temporarily becomes “Sechs participates in a fighting tournament!” because she's very entertaining. The twins look gimmicky at first, but I think they're fun and enjoyable as well. In a story that has all sorts of bad stuff happening, it's nice to have some fun comic relief that isn't obnoxious. I get the feeling their ditzy behavior is partially an act, because it seems they really know their poo poo when things get serious. They acted a little airheaded during Alita and Sech's fight, but they seemed to have a good grasp as to what was happening and could predict what Sechs would do. I noticed that both Sechs and the twins base everything entirely on old records instead of seeing Alita for who she is in her present state. I see it as proof that, despite being badasses, they still have a lot to learn about people and life in general. You can't just base everything on the past; you gotta experience the present instead of watching some stuff from the past and thinking you have everything down pat. It's been said earlier, but Nova is such a magnificent bastard. Not only has he managed to achieve what is essentially immortality, he's also gone from antagonizing Alita to being her kinda-sorta ally because of KARMATRON DYNAMICS! Also, the twins' outfits confirm that Nova is indeed a major pimp. The twist that Tiphares is undergoing a civil war is a cool and exciting way to start the series off. I've always been fond of seeing places before and after they go to hell in fiction. LO vol. 1 Tiphares is a lot more interesting than BAA vol. 9 Tiphares is because there's poo poo actually happening and an actual plot for Alita and sub-characters to work with instead of Alita, Nova, and Lou being dicks and ripping the place apart so they can stop the brain chips. And, honestly, Alita is more at home in a place filled with chaos than she is in a nice and perfect place with no strife. The girl thrives in that poo poo, as seen during her stint in the Scrapyard. I find it pretty ironic that Tiphares, the place that was portrayed as perfect and idyllic in BAA, is actually even more brutal and violent than the Scrapyard is. At least in the Scrapyard, the violence was nothing personal and Scrapyard denizens didn't try to massacre each other. There was some sort of tenuous peace among the Scrapyard as a whole, but in Tiphares, as soon as the killbots arrive, the survivors split into different ideologies and start planning to massacre each other. Funny how the Scrapyard technically has true peace, while utopia Tiphares is only being held together because of ignorance over the brain chips. The adults assaulting the MIB base really drive home the idea that Tiphares is pretty hosed up beneath the surface. Casey and crew are a bunch of rag-tag misfits armed with sports equipment that really seem to get a kick out of murdering to the point where they want to legalize blood sports and seem to be very eager about torturing teenagers by sucking their brains out. That's pretty messed up for a bunch of people living in a utopia. Even Scrapyarders would say “whoa whoa whoa, that's nuts”, and this is coming from the place where a snake-head man preyed on people just so he could get an endorphin rush. I noticed that the MIB doesn’t seem to give a poo poo about the welfare of Tiphares' citizens and will happily wipe out the entire population. I'm guessing that the person or group who designed Tiphares and Kethres considered all of Tiphares expendable. If that's the case, what does Tiphares exist for? Brain-harvesting a small group of “superior” people over and over for some reason? Perhaps the idea is that they can wipe out the entire population, regrow a new one and continue whatever process is going on without any trouble because the whole place is self-contained. It's like Tiphares is a giant lab for some sort of bizarre experiment. It makes me wonder if it ties into the things Jim discovered that made him go from “Free Tiphares” to “Kill everyone on Earth”. I find the whole Tiphares conflict a bit sad because it's all about a distinction that is essentially meaningless. Alita has proven and understands that your humanity isn't about what bits of technology you have installed in you; it's about who you are a person and all of the intangible things that come with it, like memories. However, these idiots are murdering each other over the form of their brain and are further dragging down a place they considered “home” over it. Their whole conflict is actually a waste of lives over a stupid topic, but they're convinced that murdering some of the survivors of a brutal purge is essential because of BRAINZZZZ even though it means poo poo long-term. Speaking of Tipahres, I like Nola and how she show that Tiphares' people aren't monstrous maniacs. Despite being bigoted against cyborgs, Nola is a sympathetic and understandable character, as she seems to want to help and is curious, but tends to leap to conclusions (kinda like myself, actually). ATM, Pam is just a scared 12 year old girl, but I'm sure Kishiro will flesh her out later. As usual, the fights were great. I was able to follow the Alita vs Sechs fight without any difficulty and found it fun to read through instead of skip. One thing I want point out is how brutal the art can get. The lines are a lot cleaner than they were in early BAA, but Kushiro did a great job conveying the carnage that Tiphares went through. When I saw all of the bodies scattered throughout Tipahres, I was like "holy poo poo this place got hosed up bigtime". Then. later on, when Jim's crew were slaughtered, the art got really brutal with blood and organs everywhere. Kushiro's still got his talent for making things look horrifying. I wasn't too sure about the new way Alita is being drawn, but the more I see it, the more I like it. It makes her look tougher, more mature, and more like the type that won't take anyone's poo poo, like she did in BAA. Early BAA:LO Alita's art feels like it reflects the experiences she had in the last few volumes of BAA. I'm sure there are people that didn't because she doesn't look like their waifu anymore, but I like it. Alita's new body is awesome. It's slick, cool, and perfectly fits Alita's agile fighting style. It's my favorite out of her bodies so far. Overall, I'm quite pleased with LO so far. All of the major characters are interesting and enjoyable, the setting is still good, and it has me as hooked as BAA did. Even when the ZOTT appears and temporarily consumes the story, I think I'll still be enjoying LO.
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Jan 6, 2015 11:37
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closeted republican posted:I liked Sechs and the twins as soon as they appeared. Sechs is cool because she's Alita's “I LIVE FOR VIOLENCE” phase from her life as a TUNED agent taken up humorous and entertaining levels, ridiculously cocky, and has a cool fighting style. If Sechs keeps this up, I think I won't have a problem when the story temporarily becomes “Sechs participates in a fighting tournament!” because she's very entertaining. Oh you'll love where Sechs goes later on, in this case, because she goes through some unusual twists and turns and ends up as an all-around funny character. quote:It's been said earlier, but Nova is such a magnificent bastard. Not only has he managed to achieve what is essentially immortality, he's also gone from antagonizing Alita to being her kinda-sorta ally because of KARMATRON DYNAMICS! Also, the twins' outfits confirm that Nova is indeed a major pimp. I like that any lady that Nova hangs around with long enough apparently starts wearing some wacked-out fetish outfit. The guy is either a major perv, or that's just his type. quote:I noticed that the MIB doesn’t seem to give a poo poo about the welfare of Tiphares' citizens and will happily wipe out the entire population. I'm guessing that the person or group who designed Tiphares and Kethres considered all of Tiphares expendable. If that's the case, what does Tiphares exist for? Brain-harvesting a small group of “superior” people over and over for some reason? Perhaps the idea is that they can wipe out the entire population, regrow a new one and continue whatever process is going on without any trouble because the whole place is self-contained. It's like Tiphares is a giant lab for some sort of bizarre experiment. It makes me wonder if it ties into the things Jim discovered that made him go from “Free Tiphares” to “Kill everyone on Earth”. Ahaha! Oh my gosh, you're going to really enjoy the next few volumes, because it reveals the reason behind Tiphares, and just kind of exposes the whole irony of the entire system. The whole world of BAA/LO is just this insane, hosed-up system that's as funny as it is brutal and sad. To paraphrase someone once said in a GBS thread-- we must "accept the truth that absurdity governs our lives and God is dead." quote:I wasn't too sure about the new way Alita is being drawn, but the more I see it, the more I like it. It makes her look tougher, more mature, and more like the type that won't take anyone's poo poo, like she did in BAA. Early BAA:LO Alita's art feels like it reflects the experiences she had in the last few volumes of BAA. I'm sure there are people that didn't because she doesn't look like their waifu anymore, but I like it. I was a little weirded-out at first, going into LO, because for years, all I'd ever seen was the original style, reading the books over and over again. The shift to LO was pretty jarring for me, and I didn't like it at all. It looked weird, dry and sketchy to me, with too much white and grey compared to the gritty, luscious black inks in the original. I think the big reason for this was Kishiro's big shift into incorporating more digital elements in his drawings. If I recall correctly, Kishiro now just does the penciling and a bit of the inkwork on physical paper, and finishes the rest up -- greytones and so on -- digitally. He constantly refines his artwork, though, and really hits his stride after book 3 or 4 of LO. quote:Alita's new body is awesome. It's slick, cool, and perfectly fits Alita's agile fighting style. It's my favorite out of her bodies so far. The main difference I see is that Alita has a more realistic figure -- even as a cyborg. She has a well-defined core and fairly tough, lean and muscular arms and legs. Basically, she has the kind of physical figure that is appropriate for a strong martial artist. For that I really applaud Kishiro -- actually my main criticism going back to BAA is that Alita just looks like your standard tiny, skinny anime waif with stick-thin limbs. Whereas in LO, she has a very well-defined athletic figure, not unlike Korra in the Avatar the Last Airbender sequel series The Legend of Korra. That's a good thing! Manga and anime need more female characters like that.
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Jan 6, 2015 17:58
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DrSunshine posted:I like that any lady that Nova hangs around with long enough apparently starts wearing some wacked-out fetish outfit. The guy is either a major perv, or that's just his type. It's the power of KARMATRON DYNAMICS. Their KARMATRONS become so fast when they meet Nova and his mastery of KARMATRONS that they have to dress like that. quote:The main difference I see is that Alita has a more realistic figure -- even as a cyborg. She has a well-defined core and fairly tough, lean and muscular arms and legs. Basically, she has the kind of physical figure that is appropriate for a strong martial artist. For that I really applaud Kishiro -- actually my main criticism going back to BAA is that Alita just looks like your standard tiny, skinny anime waif with stick-thin limbs. Whereas in LO, she has a very well-defined athletic figure, not unlike Korra in the Avatar the Last Airbender sequel series The Legend of Korra. That's a good thing! Manga and anime need more female characters like that. You put it very well. Alita really looks like the athletic type you'd see performing Panzer Kunst in LO.
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Jan 6, 2015 23:32
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Done with LO volume 2: I found that Alita and Nova's definition for “living” is pretty interesting; it's not about having some specific goal, it's about being alive period. No matter what's going on, you're still succeeding as long as you're alive. Submitting to death is just plain giving up. I'm getting a lot of “life itself is a gift” vibes from Alita and Nova's speeches about living and life. For a series mired in gloom, it's surprisingly positive and upbeat. Alita's life so far is an embodiment of this; no matter what, she kept on living, no matter how bad things got. She lost almost everyone she ever cared for, her wreckless actions nearly got the Scrapyard destroyed, lost her zest for life while she was a TUNED agent, and spent ten years working for TUNED just so they could make copies of her. Only once did she truly give up and want death to consume her, but thanks to the intervention of a friend, she learned what a mistake it was to do that. In the Alitaverse, Alita is proof that you can keep on living, even if things turn to absolute poo poo. I felt that Alita was wrong about not having a specific reason to live; she does. Her reason is to protect people and do the right thing, especially when nobody else is willing to do it, like saving infant Koyami, taking down Nova once and for all, and helping the children and surviving adults in Tiphares reconcile. It's simple, but very effective for someone like her who lives and dies by the (metaphorical) sword. She even protected the people of Tiphares, despite her hate for the place. She's a hero and doesn't seem to recognize it. Some people would say that Nola was being a bitch in volume 2, but I think her behavior is easily understood and sympathetic. She's a teenage girl that's gone from living in a utopia to having one parent killed and what looks like another executed by a nutjob trying to make a point, then have said nutjob tell her that everyone with a brain chip isn't human, including her parents. The girl based her life on taking out the non-human adults in Tiphares and rebuilding, so when she sees one of her friends say “gently caress this” and hug her mom, she thought it was a betrayal because her entire life is consumed by a single conflict. Alita helps teaches her that's BS and that living, no matter how bad things are, is much better than giving up. I think Nola's struggle can also kinda sort be seen in Alita's quest for Lou. Alita based everything on finding Lou alive to the point where it drove her quest through what was basically enemy territory. Remember, the initial reason why she got involved in the civil war to see if Lou was at the adult's camp. When she saw that Lou was truly dead, as in the “spirit” of Lou was gone forever, she lost it. Alita, despite her skills and powers, couldn't save one of the very few people she considered a friend during her TUNED years. When you lose someone that personal, despite your best efforts, you're going to be in tears and very desperate. I liked the bit about Lou in volume 2 because it showed that, despite having a body that can do almost anything, Alita's not perfect and that she still has a vulnerable side. Not saving Lou hurts just as much as losing Hugo did because she's much more experienced and stronger than she was back in BAA volume 2, but was still unable to save someone. After finding Lou, Alita went from a cool badass that can defeat the bad guys and save the day to a desperate and broken person willing to do anything, including selling out her own morals, to save her friend. Alita is a hero, but she's far from perfect and definitely not a saint. That is one of the major reasons why I like her so much; she has big flaws despite her power and compassion for others. I wasn't too sure on this volume at first, but a re-reread has shown me that it's quite good.
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Jan 7, 2015 11:02
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closeted republican posted:Done with LO volume 2: I think one of the most telling moments in LO v2 was the moment when Nova offered to help Alita save Lou but messed with her mind by saying "On one condition: kill all Tipharean survivors". Alita actually seriously considered it for a moment. I wonder what you thought of that particular turn?
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Jan 7, 2015 15:06
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New chapter is out, and things are getting pretty dark again.
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Jan 7, 2015 18:54
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DrSunshine posted:I think one of the most telling moments in LO v2 was the moment when Nova offered to help Alita save Lou but messed with her mind by saying "On one condition: kill all Tipharean survivors". Alita actually seriously considered it for a moment. I wonder what you thought of that particular turn? I took it as Alita willing to abandon her morals to complete her only current goal in life. Alita was driven through TIpahres just to find Lou. When your life revolves around one thing, you will find any way to make it happen, no matter how evil the methods are. Desperate times make people do desperate things, and I'm glad to see that reflected in Alita instead of making her a goodie-two-shoes that could never think of doing something so bad. closeted republican fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Jan 8, 2015 |
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Jan 7, 2015 21:31
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Done with volume 4 (and 3 as well). Well then.  Society in the Alitaverse seems to be hosed at every level, from Earth’s upper class (both Tiphares and Ketheres) being guinea pigs for making “ideal” utopian societies to kids being considered a nuisance and made into child soldiers as a way to purge them from a space colony just so bored immortal people can get themselves killed, with even the police supporting such barbaric actions. The Scrapyard, and hell, even Tiphares, look like utopias compared to Ketheres' perfect but mind-controlled society, fat blob-men and literal brains in boxes fighting over the husk of Mars, a space station dedicated to war, and kids being hunted like prey and forced to fight to the death for a stupid flag. Back in the Scrapyard, I felt Alita was out of place because of how nice and caring she was, but god drat she's probably like one of the handful of people in the galaxy that actually does care about the welfare of others instead of either being brainwashed, spending her time scheming against her political rivals, or getting her murder on in a replica battlefield. It's telling that things are so bad in the universe that Leviathan 1, which is meant for people to just kill each other in various ways, appears to be quite busy and popular. Things just keep on sucking for Alita. She tries to do the right thing but ends up leading a child to his death, and then a dude she wasted is now haunting her as a goddamn ghost. I wasn't sure on Ghost Payne, but the way I look at it is that it's partially a manifestation of the sides Alita would prefer to forget; the powerless little girl and the selfish rear end in a top hat that only does things for herself. The issues coming from flashbacks and her self-doubt from willing to massacre the rest of Tiphares have formed themselves into Payne. Why Payne? Well, he's the opposite of Alita; he's an rear end in a top hat that sends children to his death and eagerly enjoys breaking people instead of rescuing them. However, even though he's a dick, Ghost Payne does make a good point about Alita being too chained to her past, albeit in an overly-evil way. Alita's always been judging her fighting progress based on experiences in the past, not in the present. She's realizing that she's gotten to point where she's become a slave to the past and needs to break out of it. I hope she follows through. One thing I've noticed is that the story is putting an emphasis on there being a difference between”normal” Alita and “battle” Alita. Normal Alita is a caring, but brash and occasionally immature, person that just wants to do the right thing. Battle Alita, on the other hand, is a battle-craving monster that can not only take down anyone; she loves it. Taking down a giant bastard and watching him get turned into nothing is what battle Alita wants. Battle Alita seems to come into play when she's in a really tense battle. Battle Alita might actually be Yoko, as Yoko was shown to be quite the ruthless bastard in BAA volume 9. I don't know exactly where the story is going with it, but I suspect there'll be a clash between normal and battle Alita that she'll have to resolve sometime down the line. To me, the most important thing I've seen LO so far...is the humiliation of Sechs. Mini-Sechs is not only adorable, she's also funny. She's gone from a serious threat to a cute wannabe super warrior that kills grown-rear end men with a pistol in a tiny body, uses silverware as a weapon, and serves as an announcer in an impromptu life vs death match on live TV. So far, LO has a lot more light-hearted moments than BAA had, even in BAA's last few volumes. Alita seems to be more sassy, willing to make snide comments, and be immature than she did before. Light-hearted moments like Alita telling mini-Sechs not to spit on her hair and giggling at Zazzie's shyness help flesh out Alita as a character by showing and show that there's more to her than the fighting and heroics she gets into all the time. Speaking of Zazie, she's becoming a favorite as well. I like how Kushiro tricks you into thinking she's the typical quiet solider that just follows orders, but in reality she can do her own thing and is ridiculously shy. Plus, I love her fighting style and uses guns instead of martial arts. Alita fight's are great, but sometimes you need need something different, and Zazie's gun-based fighting skills are a fresh breath of air. Seeing her outwit a cyborg hawk man that used futuristic karate with two guns, a knife, and some basic karate skills was badass. I'm surprised how much I enjoyed the fights in this volume. They're quite short, exciting, and easy to follow. It's always fun seeing Alita outsmart guys that look way more dangerous and skilled than she does at first glance. I wasn't sure about volume 4 at first, but after re-reading it and understanding Payne's “lessons”, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Even though the series is still as dark as ever, there's a bit more humor this time around compared to BAA, which is a nice relief from things like seeing child soldiers killed.
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Jan 9, 2015 13:10
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Good summary! Also, good points bringing up that it's just as dark as back in the Scrapyard. I think the main contrast that Kishiro wants us to see is that even the world up above in outer space, where people have achieved immortality through nanotechnology and so on, is a dystopia. It's different in form from the post-apocalyptic world of the Scrapyard and the surface of Earth, but it's still pervaded by the same kind of nihilism. Here, instead of human life being reduced because of cybernetics and poverty, we see the opposite: human life reduced to nothingness by immortality and ennui. The irony here is to show the message that no matter the material conditions of life, be it anarchy and poverty or material opulence, none of it is worthwhile without basic human empathy. The entire system of the world in BAA/LO is counterpoised against Alita, who stands as a force of just simple "doing good by your loved ones" -- empathy. It's interesting to see the external struggle -- the nihilistic universe vs. Alita -- reflected in Alita's internal struggle, Alita vs. Yoko, or as you put it "Nice Alita vs. Battle Alita". EDIT: Puukko naamassa posted:New chapter is out, and things are getting pretty dark again. Jesus. Trust Kishiro to suddenly remind you that poo poo Is Real by blowing off a little orphan girl's head. So far Chronicles of the Mars War has been really excellent, it feels a whole lot like the Alita Quest arc right at the end of Last Order.DrSunshine fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Jan 10, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 22:08
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I see the Alitaverse as a cynical look as what would happen if we finally got the great tech that would give us true peace and control over death. Instead of making a utopia the talking heads on future tech say, a powerful organization would instead seize power, use the tech to brainwash people, and make things we used to take for granted, like children and families, into taboos in the name of things like "population control". Death would be reduced to a plaything and merely as a tool to control population growth instead of the definite end of our lives. With death by aging impossible and violence controlled our world would actually be worse off, as it'd make us self-centered and nihilistic shitheads. Notice how the Mars Kingdom's queen seems to be the only one out of the meeting that actually cared about others, and coincidentally, was from a plant that refused the immortality tech most of the solar system uses. Unfortunately, her world is consumed by war and being a pawn of two super-powers, but even so, she is far more human and understanding than the blob-men, brains in boxes, and brainwashed humans she talks to. I see it as an argument against going for a utopia in general; our current world is flawed, but that's fine. Yeah, it sucks that there's stuff like crime of all natures and wars, but the unintended consequences of technology that could control or get rid of such things would make things actually worse for us and remove the things that make us human in favor of faceless nihilists (even though we think we're just fine and dandy).
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Jan 10, 2015 05:57
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Finished volume 5 and a little bit of 6 (up to where Alita starts getting her rear end kicked by the vampire chick). First, off, supersonic knitting rules. I know people talk poo poo about it, but it's awesome. End of story. I can see where people can complain about the fights, but reading them all in one big chunk makes them fun and enjoyable to read. They're easy to follow, and though they tend to get into "Aha! Here is my counter to your special move" "No, here is MY counter to your counter!" territory, they're still fun. It's not as if BAA didn't have the same problem occasionally. Plus, I love seeing how the Space Angels will outwit the opponents they're facing. Also, the fight against Guntroll shows how utterly outclassed Sechs is by Alita atm, even though he was kicking rear end most of the time. It puts Alita's strength into perspective. The twins' facial expressions in this volume are adorable. I like how even their pets will match their respective owner's face. It's cute.  I enjoy that Sechs is a complete meathead compared to Alita. Instead of going trough struggles like trying to balance two different sides of himself or make sense of his past, Sechs just wants to punch people until he magically learns the secrets of being a true warrior. That I can respect. Speaking of Alita, her struggles in this volume seem to reflect what I mentioned back in BAA volume 9; the only thing Alita knows is to fight. She can do things like sing, but at the end of the day, beating the crap out of everybody is the only way she really learns more about herself, "unlock" memories of her time as Yoko, and find her limits as a person. It's not the most mentally healthiest way to grow, but when you're raised in a place like the Alitaverse, you don't really have a lot of good options. At least things suck so much in the Alitaverse that she's found she can beat up a lot of assholes while saving innocent people. I feel that Alita's slowly coming to terms with the fact that she can't save everyone, but not everything is doom and gloom. Alita may defeat Guntroll and doom the kids now, but she'll use their sacrifice as a way to continue going through the ZOTT as a part of her self-discovery instead of beating them, then pissing on their sacrifice by bailing from the ZOTT as soon as she get's Lou's brain. Heck, when she wins the ZOTT (you know she will), she can use part of her reward to make a safe haven for kids, like the vampire chick wanted. The way I look at it is that bad poo poo happens, but you can't just stand around pissing yourself; like she remembered back in earlier volumes, no matter how incomprehensible something is, just accept it and go from there. She suddenly gained a good amount of doubt about herself before the start of the Guntroll match, but managed to accept the situation after some angsting and went from there instead of freezing up for two or so volumes and needing Sechs and the twins to give her a speech to make her snap out of it.
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Jan 11, 2015 12:00
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I like that you've just completely switched from "her" to "he" for Sechs. I personally felt that was an interesting transition for the character. Sechs's growth as a character is probably my favorite out of all of them even if he's a total moron.
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Jan 11, 2015 12:22
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What did you think of Sechs's sex change? Personally, I think it seemed to fit, and be appropriate to Sechs's personality to have a male body. It was cool seeing a female character do all the traditionally "male character" things, like being brash and aggressive, and so on, but it's also nice to see that in this universe people accept sex changes without batting an eye. You know, that's an interesting thing-- Sechs has always looked slightly masculine, while the twins always looked distinctively different from Alita. Why is that? Weren't they all originally TUNED Alita clones? They should all look just like her, right? I suppose they have some innate internal control over their appearance, which manifested as changes to their facial appearances and bodies over the year or so after Tiphares disbanded them, as their personalities diverged and evolved. Oh, also Volume 5 (or was it 6?) was great for having this badass freaking panel.  EDIT: Another thing -- I think that Alita's emotional struggle here seems kind of forced. Like she spends half the volume cringing in the locker room because she doesn't wanna fight the nursery school teachers, and then she comes to her senses and decides to win ZOTT to help them anyway. I didn't really get how that was supposed to be compelling, it mostly seems like she realizes after a lot of hand-wringing something that the readers should have half a volume earlier. DrSunshine fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Jan 11, 2015 |
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Jan 11, 2015 15:07
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I understood Alita's reasons for not wanting to fight because she's basically stuck between a rock and a hard place; win and doom the kids, or lose and forget about saving someone that died because of a past fuckup you had. A small crisis of faith like that is completely understandable for someone who's previously been engaged in only clearly black-and-white situations. It's easy for us to say "You'll find a way", but when you're trapped in cyborg murder universe, taken up the mantle of "MUST PROTECT EVERYONE", and still mentally a teenager, you probably don't have the experience to really deal with poo poo like that. Actually, I think she tends to get a bit too weepy in LO compared to BAA. I understand that Alita's in a completely foreign place compared to the familiar Scrapyard and wasteland outside of the Scrapyard and that she's uncovering her bad past, but the girl seems to turn on the waterworks for just about anything. Maybe it's trying to show that Alita isn't as mature as she lets on and that the badass secret agent thing we saw in the second part of BAA was all just a mask for her to hide being lonely, depressed, and desperate. I'll see where the story goes with it. quote:I suppose they have some innate internal control over their appearance, which manifested as changes to their facial appearances and bodies over the year or so after Tiphares disbanded them, as their personalities diverged and evolved. That's what I took it as. Without TUNED telling them what to do, the surviving Alita copies start finding their own niches and purposes. The twins became pop singers in a wasteland city and found it was fun to be flirty and sexy, while Sechs got pissed off about being a copy and decided to wipe out the AR series as proof that he's an individual. By the time we first see him in volume 1, Sechs' body is basically a wreck, so a rough-looking face with messy hair fits. Is it ever explained why the twins survived Sechs' rampage? Even though their wire skills are pretty drat powerful and they can knit at supersonic speed, I don't see two androids that seem more willing to feel each other up that fight surviving a maniac like Sechs. quote:What did you think of Sechs's sex change? Personally, I think it seemed to fit, and be appropriate to Sechs's personality to have a male body. It was cool seeing a female character do all the traditionally "male character" things, like being brash and aggressive, and so on, but it's also nice to see that in this universe people accept sex changes without batting an eye. I thought it worked just fine. Sechs looked and behaved way more masculine than Alita ever has, so why not just be a dude? It's easy as pie as a cyborg/android anywho; just mount your head on a new body and maybe get your voice changed, which I'm sure a cyberdoc can do easily.
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Jan 11, 2015 21:55
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Alita's mission drives the plot, but Sechs is the real star of LO. I like how everyone (Sechs included) thinks he's an idiot, but he wins most of his fights by doing something clever. On the other hand, Alita is a powerhouse who punches people so hard they explode, and her fights are actually kind of boring in comparison.
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Jan 12, 2015 00:36
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Avulsion posted:Alita's mission drives the plot, but Sechs is the real star of LO. I like how everyone (Sechs included) thinks he's an idiot, but he wins most of his fights by doing something clever. On the other hand, Alita is a powerhouse who punches people so hard they explode, and her fights are actually kind of boring in comparison. Yeah this is one of the real problems with LO in its later chapters, as Alita starts to become this invincible nanotech space goddess of infinite might. Alita's fights kind of lose their compellingness once the element of physical danger subsides. On the other hand, her opponents, and the side characters like Sechs start to become quite interesting. I actually kind of enjoyed Toji's arc and the development of space karate and so on.
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Jan 12, 2015 01:03
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Toji loving rules and he looks super awesome Which is saying something in a series that is jam-packed with super awesome looking characters
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Jan 12, 2015 01:27
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At first glace, Toji looks kinda dumb but he's actually pretty neat. I like the mech spinning top guy on the Guntroll team more atm though. 
closeted republican fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jan 12, 2015 |
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Jan 12, 2015 01:47
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Done with LO volume 6. Caerula's outfit is awesome. It looks sleek, is very cool, and fits a mysterious badass like her perfectly. It's currently my favorite character design in LO so far. Caerula herself is pretty neat. She seems to be pretty Mary Sue-ish at first glance, but I get the feeling that there's a lot more to her than what meets the eye. It looks like she has a very interesting past and might not be the perfect character she appears to be, which makes me excited to read about what happened to her in volumes 8 and 9. Based on Caerula's little talk during their match and Alita's memories, I get the feeling that Yoko was a heartless living weapon. She had the skills to kill just about anyone, but lacks emotions and experiences that a human being would feel. Caerula wasn't kidding when she said that Yoko and Alita's eyes are different; Yoko's irises are dull and her eyes are often partially closed, but Alita's irises are light and her eyes are always open. Hell, even Yoko's expressions shown so far have been dull and muted compared to all the faces Alita makes. I suspect that Alita is going go through a rude awakening when she really starts getting a grasp on who Yoko really was and that the heartless assassin that made something very bad happen is now a heroic and nice, but cocky and childish woman that has survived the worst and the best of life. A while back, I noted that, despite being in an endless civil war, the Mars Kingdom is actually the most human out of all the factions shown in LO. The queen accepting Guntroll in this volume confirms it; they're the only group in the solar system that is willing to let Guntroll and their kids live somewhere. All of the other factions either want to kill kids or tells Guntroll to gently caress off, but strife-riddled Mars is the only place that'll give kids a home. To me, the message seems to be that things like adversity are part of what makes us human; Mars is riddled with fighting, but it's helped some parts of Mars remember things like compassion and kindness because of how brutal things are there. Meanwhile, the utopian Ketheres, Venus, and Jupiter have forgotten how important kindness and the like are and have doen things like see children as a resource and pests instead of something we should cherish. Even Alita reflects this lesson; she was raised in a brutal lands where almost everyone is a self-interested rear end, but she turned out to be kind and caring. On the other hand, Bigott, who lived in a pseudo-utopia, treated Alita like a tool instead of a person, to the point where his entire plan was to record her combat powers, make a clone black ops team out of the data, then kill Alita. There are certainly exceptions, like Lou and the Tiphareans in LO's early volumes, but overall, the theme stands. I like how half of Sech's appearance in volume 6 was him being humiliated. Even when he's got a badass body, he just can't get a break. I haven't seen a lot people talk about this, but I've noticed that Alita can be quite underhanded and sly when she wants to be. She's been playing Ping Wu like a fiddle nearly ever since she met him to the point where she managed to extort him with something he's been seeking for 100 or so years even though he's been established as a scoundrel, tricked Nova into thinking she completely bought the fake life with Ido and Nova in Ouroboros to the point where Nova became the victim of Ouroboros instead of Alita, and made a fake Alita to trick Berserker Zapan. I feel that it ties into Alita's overall characterization; while Alita is one of the few truly nice and kind people in the series, she's not a saint. Using underhanded tricks to get ahead ain't exactly what a boy scout hero would do. Overall, I liked the chapter for revealing a bit about who Yoko was and Caerula being cool. I want to see how Alita's mission pans out because it seems like a lot more people know about Alita's past that one would think.
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Jan 12, 2015 12:59
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closeted republican posted:It looks like she has a very interesting past
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Jan 12, 2015 13:59
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The evil clown's flashback was in this one, wasn't it? What did you think of that? For me, I liked the fact that here was a character that actually pointed out and realized how absurd and cruel the Alitaverse is. "I looked into the eyes of a dying clown, and beheld the face of God." What a motto! A clown with a submachine gun, slowly dying of blood loss, seems like the perfect metaphor for the Alitaverse -- her world is cruel, and arbitrary, and is in many ways dying. You get the sense that humanity has lost some of its vitality, despite the technological advancement, as it relishes in cruel games and blood sports, from top to bottom. It's in a state of decadence and decay, where madness governs the lives of every human being caught in its system. I think it's an altogether interesting sort of dystopia: one resulting from anomie and nausea (in the Sartrean sense) rather than imposed artificially from a police-state government. I almost get the feeling that, rather than James Cameron, it's Jean-Claude Jeunet+Marc Caro who should do the Alita movie. One gets the same sense of dark madness, tempered with moments of heart, from Alita that one does from a movie like La Cite Des Enfants Perdus or Delicatessen.
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Jan 12, 2015 15:26
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DrSunshine posted:Another thing -- I think that Alita's emotional struggle here seems kind of forced. Like she spends half the volume cringing in the locker room because she doesn't wanna fight the nursery school teachers, and then she comes to her senses and decides to win ZOTT to help them anyway. I didn't really get how that was supposed to be compelling, it mostly seems like she realizes after a lot of hand-wringing something that the readers should have half a volume earlier. Captain Invictus posted:Toji loving rules and he looks super awesome Ch 55: Caerula's orphanage crew: http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Battle-Angel-Alita-Last-Order/Vol-009-Ch-055-Read-Online?id=153418 Ch 84: Zazie's team (and their subsequent panels scattered through future chapters): http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Battle-Angel-Alita-Last-Order/Vol-014-Ch-084-Read-Online?id=153450 Plus I would read an entire series about Zekka, Don Fua, and their master.
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Jan 12, 2015 18:46
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Zenzirouj posted:The series is more or less a constant pendulum swing between "Alita is conflicted" and "Alita is resolute", so it's not exactly unusual to see it. But at that point in the series, they were only in the tournament to provide a cover and some degree of immunity to prosecution for their heist of Lou's brain. So beating the Guntrolls meant knocking them out of the running just to stall for time, up until she decided to try and win the whole thing. When Alita's story finally ends, I'd love for Kurshiro to wrap up the world with a series of one-shots featuring characters other than Alita. Comics like "A day in the life of Guntroll", "Elf and Zwolf's pop music career", "Sechs tries to interact with normal people", and "Doc Ido's adventures in Farm 21" and "Misadventures in rebuilding Tiphares" would be fun to read. I know Kushiro did some set during the BAA era, but more would be cool. DrSunshine posted:Evil clown stuff. Volume 6 ends with Zwolf getting grabbed by the evil snake charmer.
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Jan 12, 2015 23:36
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closeted republican posted:Volume 6 ends with Zwolf getting grabbed by the evil snake charmer. Ohh! I thought you said you'd read 7 as well! My mistake. Well, that's coming up.
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Jan 13, 2015 02:35
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closeted republican posted:I haven't seen a lot people talk about this, but I've noticed that Alita can be quite underhanded and sly when she wants to be. She's been playing Ping Wu like a fiddle nearly ever since she met him to the point where she managed to extort him with something he's been seeking for 100 or so years even though he's been established as a scoundrel, tricked Nova into thinking she completely bought the fake life with Ido and Nova in Ouroboros to the point where Nova became the victim of Ouroboros instead of Alita, and made a fake Alita to trick Berserker Zapan. I feel that it ties into Alita's overall characterization; while Alita is one of the few truly nice and kind people in the series, she's not a saint. Using underhanded tricks to get ahead ain't exactly what a boy scout hero would do. Her being rather sly and deceitful at times, and willful, proud, and petty at others, ties perfectly into the occasional comparisons people have made in the story with her to a cat. Alita's very catlike, and that really comes to fore in later chapters of LO.
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Jan 13, 2015 08:10
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DrSunshine posted:Her being rather sly and deceitful at times, and willful, proud, and petty at others, ties perfectly into the occasional comparisons people have made in the story with her to a cat. Alita's very catlike, and that really comes to fore in later chapters of LO. It's come up before in the thread, but a recurring theme is how Alita's personality tends to change with/be changed by the type of body she has.
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Jan 13, 2015 18:26
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After reading LO for a bit, I like how Kushiro draws Alita in LO more now than in BAA. Late BAA Alita's eye placement often felt a bit off for some reason, while LO Alita's eyes seem to be better placed. LO Alita's messy (by anime standards) and thin hair fits the brawler she is better than the 80s-style poofy hair she had in early BAA and her smaller than early BAA but still kinda largeish hair in later BAA. The way Alita is drawn in LO makes her a lot more believable as a rough-and-tumble kinda gal that looks like the type that tends to solve her problems with her fists, no matter if it's someone that needs to be saved or she doesn't like how someone is looking down on her. I like Alita's BAA bodies and art styles, but LO just fits her character more.
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Jan 14, 2015 10:14
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Done with LO volume 7. Well, I was not expecting Yoko to have caused so much death. I would say she's a complete bastard, but even she didn't know what was going to happen until the deed was done. She's more of a victim of circumstances and powers beyond her than anything. Also, Alita accidentally made her own monster, as Yoko's actions lead to the formation of LADDER, who have been the ones that are making her stay in Ketheres hell, along with leading to the rise of Mbadi, and giving him a platform to be a “benevolent” dictator, as seen with his utopia, Ketheres. Whoopsie. Based on Alita's talk with Yoko, I get the feeling that Yoko was actually a broken and sad young woman desperate for someone to care about her. Her dark eyes and muted emotions in flashbacks weren't just because she was dedicated to slaughter; it was because she was a wreck emotionally. Yoko's rebirth as Alita showed her that others do love and care for her, something Yoko was blind to. Alita used her experiences to remind Yoko that others did love her; it's just that she couldn't see it. I loved how Alita not only came to terms with what she did as Yoko, she accepted Yoko, and by extension, her past, as a part of her instead running away. Other authors would've given Alita an arc where Alita tries to run away from her past, but Alita says “gently caress that”. She's brave enough to accept her past, no matter the mistakes, and gives the girl who thought she was unloved someone that she knows cares about her. However, even though she accepted Yoko as a part of her, she is not bound to the past. Her reasons for fighting the evil Panzer Kunst guy are still rooted in her views of the world as Alita; he was an evil and cowardly bastard. Some would say that her being afraid of accidentally committing an act of evil when accessing the central computer is her being stuck in her past, but I think it's more driven by a fear of accidentally committing evil, like Yoko did, which is a very Alitaish thing to worry about. I found the scene were Alita reconciled with Yoko touching for several reasons. Seeing Alita make amends with her past felt good, even though Yoko had done a horrific act. I liked the presentation as well, showing the end of Yoko, how Alita came to be, and all of the people she's experienced (even if one of them was Sechs calling Alita a bitch ), the finally telling lost and lonely Yoko that she was wrong about being unloved and accepting her not only as a person, but as a part of who she is. And honestly, it got me a little sad because I know some people that have never come to accept their past and act like their old self was akin to a different person. However, I have a question: did Yoko know how to self-destruct, but didn't, or did she just not know period? I like how the Starship Cult became more creepy as the fight went on. I always like it when an author tricks the reader into thinking something, then goes in the opposite direction the reader was expect it. They went from a silly gimmick to a legit threat that easily could've caused chaos across the galaxy. I wasn't so sure on Spring-Heeled Jack's backstory on my first read, but after a re-read, I like it. He's a guy that was promised the stars, but instead ended up with bad luck and feeling like he amounted to nothing. Instead of trying to find some hope and succeeding in his own way, he gave up, deluded himself into thinking he was hearing messages from a god, and became bent on making sure others would feel his pain as part of some sacred movement to show everyone that life is meaningless. He's a complete bastard that helped unleash Whophon onto the universe, but you can't but help feel some pity for him and how he gave up on life. I thought it was nice how his motivations and backstory were told via engaging flashbacks instead of the usual infodump straight from him while fighting, as you'd probably see in other series. I'm surprised that, with all the talk about being human, the series never touched dealing with the human psyche until now. The Alitaverse has a ton of crazy tech, but it took until LO volume 7 until it was shown that someone was trying to actually trying to map the psyche with all the whiz-bang tech the Alitaverse has. Of course, it turned out to gently caress up badly, but hey, they tried. It's pretty hard to say exactly what would be my favorite part of the volume. I loved Alita coming to terms with being Yoko, Elf giddily blowing her head off with a .500 S&W Magnum revolver, Sechs taking out Whophon's double with a cool mirror trick, or Mbadi chumping Whophon equally.
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Jan 15, 2015 12:27
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Finished with the vampire arc. The start was a little rough, but I loved it once Arthur appeared on the scene. I understand that the first part with Colin was necessary to establish Caerula wanting to trust humans and Victor being a complete bastard, but compared to all the major stuff that happens after Arthur appears that has ties directly to the Alitaverse, it feels pretty quaint. If I were reading it when it came out per chapter back in the mid 2000s, I'd be annoyed by how slow the first part of the vampire arc was. The whole scenario is actually a bit tragic; Arthur hoped that going to the stars would save humanity, but instead its ensnared them into endless wars, driven the creation of behavior, like killing kids, we would consider inhuman, caused the deaths of hundreds of millions, and given a platform for dictators like Mbadi to “help”. Arthur's dream to reach the stars and and give humanity new homes cost humanity a lot more, making one wonder if it really was worth it. The deterioration of Star City into the Scrapyard is a good visual metaphor for what happened to Arthur's dream. At first glace, Caerula is a Mary Sue; she's got perfect skills, can live forever, is eternally beautiful, and single-handily created the Alitaverse. However, when you look at what actually happened because of her actions, things are a bit different; yes, she kickstarted the Alitaverse, but at the cost of hardening Arthur and teaching him the completely wrong lessons about power and progress. Her actions caused Haruka to die and told Arthur that throwing your loved ones to the wolves is acceptable for the price of progress, which lead to him being a dictator. And, considering the sad state the Alitaverse has become, it makes one wonder if she really was the good guy by enabling humanity to split, become almost monstrous in behavior far more than ever before, consume an entire planet in an endless civil war, and turn humanity. Helping enable a series of events that would turn space, a land of endless possibilities, into one giant dystopia isn't something a Mary Sue would do. After reading over the vampire act, I'm starting to get the feeling that one of the themes in LO is that things are not as they seem. The utopian Tiphares that hung above a giant and oppressed slum became consumed in a civil war, replaces people's brains with chips as part of some experiment, and in itself is a giant experiment regarding space colonization that got cut off from the rest of the world and now exists for no reason. Ketheres looks to be even better than Tiphares seemed, but is actually even more dystopic than Tiphares was, as people are completely mind-controlled. Space has turned into a giant political battleground between two superpowers, and the council meant to help control space politics has turned into a platform for a wannabe dictator. I liked how Victor went from the typical pretty and perfect vampire boyfriend into a total bastard throughout the story. Mr. Sexy Vampire is actually a nihilistic monster that thinks he has some sort of god-given right to exterminate humanity because of his experiences in the Crusades. Even though he existed long before the rise of places like the Scrapyard, the way he behaves is quite similar to a Scraplander; he only cares for himself and his personal crusade. He's even willing to put himself above his relationship with his wife when push comes to shove and continue his crusade after the goddamn apocalypse happens. There are even signs that Victor is quite controlling in an abusive ways, as he states that everything about Caerula will be his forever while she's impaled on his sword and seems to consider her little more than his property instead of an actual person. Victor is a bitter, selfish, and pathetic, man with the looks of a sexy male Hollywood actor. I found that the techniques Caerula used in the vampire arc are pretty cool. She uses a man's body as a lever to rip his head off, turns a sword into a goddamn whip and manages to ensnare a super powerful vampire with it and shoots his head with bullets fired by floating cartridges, jams a pin into someone's neck so hard he gets slammed through a wall, uses a sword like a drill, then finishes off the fight by putting her feet on Byron's sword and forcing his sword into him. Caerula knows how to gently caress your poo poo up and look awesome while doing it. It's pretty cool that Kushiro made a ridiculous concept, a vampire with a blonde hair and blue eyes that's a huge China fangirl and used to moonlight as a superhero to protect a dictator, into a compelling and interesting character. She's badass, has a good heart, wears really cool outfits, and, most importantly, can surf on a goddamn sword. Caerula's a bit Mary Sueish on paper, but she still makes mistakes and is enjoyable. Overall, I'd say that the vampire arc was really good. It's got the cynicism that the series has, but shows that everything about the current Alitaverse is a giant perversion of a well-intentioned dream. Hell, I'd say it's probably one of the most tragic parts of the story, as it shows that everything happening in the Alitaverse, form the Mad Max bandits on Earth's surface to realpolitik IN SPACE! goes completely against the dream that drove humanity to the stars.
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Jan 17, 2015 09:54
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Vampire arc is a nice mix of stupid fun violence and horrible tragedy, like most of the Alitaverse. It would have been better received if it had been published as a limited series alongside of LO, instead of interrupting the plot for a year long detour. I doubt Kushiro realized how long it was going to be when he started it. The original BAA was a mostly linear story about Alita, with brief glimpses into the lives of others. LO is an anthology that becomes less about Alita's story and more about the people and the world around her. It's hard to say that any character in LO is a mary sue when the entire cast is made up of superhuman bad-asses who are the best of the best in one field or another. You've got to be stupidly overpowered with a tragic backstory just to get noticed, let alone to survive. And everyone fucks up in one way or another. Avulsion fucked around with this message at 10:22 on Jan 17, 2015 |
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Jan 17, 2015 10:20
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Avulsion posted:Vampire arc is a nice mix of stupid fun violence and horrible tragedy, like most of the Alitaverse. It would have been better received if it had been published as a limited series alongside of LO, instead of interrupting the plot for a year long detour. I doubt Kushiro realized how long it was going to be when he started it. LO is one of those series where it would suck to read per chapter, but if read as a whole, it's actually very enjoyable. Like, I can see how even something like the Guntroll fight could be a slog if you only got one chapter a month, but since I'm able to read all of chapters that made up the Guntroll fight at my leisure, I found it to be fun, enjoyable, and not very long. I like how LO really expands the universe and shows that things are just as poo poo in space as they are on Earth. When reading LO, you get the feeling that Alita was a big fish in a really small pond in BAA when you see all the crazy fighting techniques in LO. I love reading about Alita's exploits, but changing the pace once in a while and focusing on characters like Caerula gives you more characters to enjoy and appreciate and makes the universe bigger at the same time. Even in a land where being a super-cyborg that can tern a batallion into mush by themselves, Caerula is pretty drat important. She's a complete master of martial arts in a story where every Tom, Dick and Harry can do martial arts like a pro and the entire universe exists because of a choice she made. At worse, if Altia hosed up, the Scrpayard and Tiphares would've been destroyed, not "every human dies horribly".
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Jan 17, 2015 11:54
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closeted republican posted:LO is one of those series where it would suck to read per chapter, but if read as a whole, it's actually very enjoyable. Like, I can see how even something like the Guntroll fight could be a slog if you only got one chapter a month, but since I'm able to read all of chapters that made up the Guntroll fight at my leisure, I found it to be fun, enjoyable, and not very long. Also I realised when I read it I couldn't name a single main/supporting character I didn't like in some way. There were definitely characters that were less fun than others but looking back over the entire run I can't ever recall someone showing up and me going "get the focus off this rear end in a top hat". Even the weirdo sex-freak karate guy was kinda fun because it was clear literally nobody else could stand him either and were cheering for his death. KInda sad we have to go back to staggered releases of the new series.
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Jan 17, 2015 13:28
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Pierson posted:I read through LO again this week and this this this. It's like Hunter x Hunter it works way better as collected volumes. Rakan is goddamn hilarious. (Spoilered for closeted republican)  Anyway, yes! Good summary for the Vampire Arc, closeted republican! It's actually one of my favorite vignettes in LO, just because it's so completely different in setting and characters. I think it stands alone quite nicely, and provides a good break from OMG TOURNAMENT TOURNAMENT  "Nothing is as it seems" is a really good way to characterize the series in general -- even down to cute, happy characters like Queen Limeria of Mars. She's this gentle, bubbly girl that even makes a guy like Mbadi get some serious ~moe~ going on, but is also an astute politician who manifests her internal monologue through ventriloquism. What other series has such strange, quirky characters? I also pointed out that you were spot-on in your guess about Tiphares being an experiment on a higher level -- good guess and close reading there!
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Jan 17, 2015 16:18
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