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Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
Yeah, it's an excellent adaptation. Lots of stuff straight out of the manga, like scenes directly translated from panel to screen, and even lots of lines directly taken from the manga despite being corny as hell, it gives it tons of charm. It's absolutely no Dragon Ball Evolution.

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Fellis
Feb 14, 2012

Kid, don't threaten me. There are worse things than death, and uh, I can do all of them.
I went to see it last night with a friend who didnt know anything about the movie, or that it was adapted, and he liked it. I don’t remember the manga that well but there are some hamhanded emotional scenes (the bar speech especially) that could have been subverted or shortened to push the grittiness some more. Definitely inspired me to get back into the BAA manga though

E: Forgot to praise the movie myself, it’s really good and probably the best live action manga adaptation behind All You Need Is Kill (where the only major sin was making the ending happy instead of bittersweet)

Fellis fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Mar 6, 2019

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
The bar scene speech iirc is straight up word for word from the english adaptation of the manga. If you thought a line was corny in the movie, it was probably a direct line read from that, and imo gave the movie a lot more character for it. all the cheesy evil mcbadguy line reads by the expendable thugs were wonderful.

definitely give your thoughts on the manga if you really get into it again, especially Last Order. Some regard it as much goofier than the first series(honestly, they're both pretty goofy in their own ways) but it to this day still has my favorite depictions of transhumanism and also has some of the best manga artwork, period. Legit stunning stuff, especially later on. Only one that rivals it to me is Yusuke Murata's work on One Punch Man and the like.

ryonguy
Jun 27, 2013
For sure, the first series is one of the greatest sci-fi mangas of all time. However I struggle to get through Last Order, I always bog down and lose interest during the fighting competition arc. It feels so out of place in what was up to that point a good continuation of the original story. Are there highlights of it I need to read for plot that I can hit rather than slogging through all of it?

teagone
Jun 10, 2003

That was pretty intense, huh?

ryonguy posted:

For sure, the first series is one of the greatest sci-fi mangas of all time.

If this is how you feel about the OG run, you really need to see the film because I can almost guarantee you'll love it. Have you seen the two-episode OVA?

ryonguy
Jun 27, 2013

teagone posted:

If this is how you feel about the OG run, you really need to see the film because I can almost guarantee you'll love it. Have you seen the two-episode OVA?

I am pretty sure I won't considering your avatar.

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
If you're so insistent on being obstinate in not seeing it, so be it, it's your loss. It's a fantastic movie on its own, and a remarkable one as a fan.

Dreqqus
Feb 21, 2013

BAMF!
It was ok but in retrospect I wish I'd have held off on VOD.

teagone
Jun 10, 2003

That was pretty intense, huh?

ryonguy posted:

I am pretty sure I won't considering your avatar.

As big as a fan as you say you are of the books, you're definitely gonna regret not seeing it at the theater imo. All good though, it's your choice :tipshat:

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

Captain Invictus posted:

If you're so insistent on being obstinate in not seeing it, so be it, it's your loss. It's a fantastic movie on its own, and a remarkable one as a fan.

Its a pretty horrible movie filled with cliche after cliche rushing form one scene to another and an amazing death at the end that had everyone in the theatre laughing because the dumbass was finally dead.

site
Apr 6, 2007

Trans pride, Worldwide
Bitch
https://twitter.com/Iron_Spike/status/1107267131882831872?s=19

CharlestheHammer
Jun 26, 2011

YOU SAY MY POSTS ARE THE RAVINGS OF THE DUMBEST PERSON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH BUT YOU YOURSELF ARE READING THEM. CURIOUS!

Synthbuttrange posted:

Its a pretty horrible movie filled with cliche after cliche rushing form one scene to another and an amazing death at the end that had everyone in the theatre laughing because the dumbass was finally dead.

It’s not a horrible movie that’s a silly statement. It is pretty rushed because it’s trying to fit to much poo poo in a short amount of time

ryonguy
Jun 27, 2013

CharlestheHammer posted:

It’s not a horrible movie that’s a silly statement. It is pretty rushed because it’s trying to fit to much poo poo in a short amount of time

That's kinda the definition of a bad adaptation.

Personally, I would have forgiven a lot more if it had gone with an animated movie instead, but no cartoons are for kiddos so lets blow hundreds of millions on cgi and end up with

edit: You know, I'm actually kind of pissed about this; seriously you could have done an entire 12+ episode season, animated, and drat well, for what this stupid summer blockbuster cost. What a goddamn waste of money.

ryonguy fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Mar 17, 2019

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

So they're just starting to publish in addition to licensing? Weird for them to phrase it like a streaming service would.

Sounds like a good thing. "Faux anime" visual styles can be hit and miss, but what I really like about manga is the formatting. Longer-form storytelling than you'd get in something published just issue-to-issue, more focus on creator-control rather than executive mandates or complex IP-juggling, and most importantly, no crossover events or random staff changes uprooting everything in a story you were just following.

CharlestheHammer
Jun 26, 2011

YOU SAY MY POSTS ARE THE RAVINGS OF THE DUMBEST PERSON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH BUT YOU YOURSELF ARE READING THEM. CURIOUS!

ryonguy posted:

That's kinda the definition of a bad adaptation.

Personally, I would have forgiven a lot more if it had gone with an animated movie instead, but no cartoons are for kiddos so lets blow hundreds of millions on cgi and end up with

edit: You know, I'm actually kind of pissed about this; seriously you could have done an entire 12+ episode season, animated, and drat well, for what this stupid summer blockbuster cost. What a goddamn waste of money.

Oh I think it’s a movie with massive issues but I do take issue with calling it horrible with tons of cliches because as far as criticism goes that’s lazy and ironically cliche.

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty

ryonguy posted:

That's kinda the definition of a bad adaptation.

Personally, I would have forgiven a lot more if it had gone with an animated movie instead, but no cartoons are for kiddos so lets blow hundreds of millions on cgi and end up with

edit: You know, I'm actually kind of pissed about this; seriously you could have done an entire 12+ episode season, animated, and drat well, for what this stupid summer blockbuster cost. What a goddamn waste of money.
So did you actually go see it or are you being one of those guys who complains about thing thing they never tried/watched/played

CharlestheHammer
Jun 26, 2011

YOU SAY MY POSTS ARE THE RAVINGS OF THE DUMBEST PERSON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH BUT YOU YOURSELF ARE READING THEM. CURIOUS!
I mean it feeling rushed is a common complaint even in positive reviews

teagone
Jun 10, 2003

That was pretty intense, huh?

ryonguy posted:

That's kinda the definition of a bad adaptation.

Personally, I would have forgiven a lot more if it had gone with an animated movie instead, but no cartoons are for kiddos so lets blow hundreds of millions on cgi and end up with

edit: You know, I'm actually kind of pissed about this; seriously you could have done an entire 12+ episode season, animated, and drat well, for what this stupid summer blockbuster cost. What a goddamn waste of money.

You refuse to see the movie, so saying it's the definition of a bad adaptation and that you would have forgiven the filmmakers if they made an animated movie instead doesn't mean anything really. Unless you actually saw the film, then nevermind, that's your opinion :)

Note, the film set to cross the $400 million mark worldwide this weekend, against its $170 million budget. While that's a relatively modest box office take, realize that Alita: Battle Angel isn't a sequel; to most moviegoers Alita is an unknown IP that comes equipped with zero brand recognition, unlike the Marvel/DC movies, Star Wars, etc. Having even made $400 million is a huge milestone when taking Hollywood manga/anime adaptations into consideration — especially one whose source material is an old and weird/goofy manga that had a spotty Anglophone release over the years. In that regard, the film is a success imo. Its box office performance defied expectations and proved that a good, well-received manga/anime adaptation is possible.

That said, we probably won't get a sequel, but considering just how well the film played over with audiences, Cameron could license a long-form anime series to Netflix or something to continue the story. Robert Rodriguez could be brought onboard as showrunner too, since with all the care and reverence he put into making the film, you can tell he has a soft spot for the character and her story. Whether that happens or not is on Cameron though, since he owns all adaptation rights to Battle Angel, including TV and anime. But if Avatar 2 and 3 make Disney a metric fuckton of money, maybe they'll do Cameron a solid and let him have Alita 2.

teagone fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Mar 17, 2019

ryonguy
Jun 27, 2013

teagone posted:

You refuse to see the movie, so saying it's the definition of a bad adaptation and that you would have forgiven the filmmakers if they made an animated movie instead doesn't mean anything really. Unless you actually saw the film, then nevermind, that's your opinion :)

Captain Invictus posted:

So did you actually go see it or are you being one of those guys who complains about thing thing they never tried/watched/played
It's almost as if seeing the shots from it, reading reviews of it, and hearing how the story is mashed up is enough to see it as not something that is going to be good to watch for me. Also a huge amount of money that isn't disclosed went into marketing, without even getting into the discussion over "popular =/= good". Cameron is a hack, everything he touches is bloated, bland garbage (cue joke about how nobody can remember what a billion dollar movie was even about).

You can like this film, my not wanting to see it based on the evidence that's been presented to me that isn't fanboy gushing isn't going to change your enjoyment of it. I just think the several hundred million dollars that were spent on making a mediocre big budget sci-fi popcorn flick to fellate Cameron's ego could have been far better used, and nobody who goes to see this is going to remember it past a year just like every other one like it.

teagone
Jun 10, 2003

That was pretty intense, huh?

ryonguy posted:

It's almost as if seeing the shots from it, reading reviews of it, and hearing how the story is mashed up is enough to see it as not something that is going to be good to watch for me. Also a huge amount of money that isn't disclosed went into marketing, without even getting into the discussion over "popular =/= good". Cameron is a hack, everything he touches is bloated, bland garbage (cue joke about how nobody can remember what a billion dollar movie was even about).

You can like this film, my not wanting to see it based on the evidence that's been presented to me that isn't fanboy gushing isn't going to change your enjoyment of it. I just think the several hundred million dollars that were spent on making a mediocre big budget sci-fi popcorn flick to fellate Cameron's ego could have been far better used, and nobody who goes to see this is going to remember it past a year just like every other one like it.

Ok then.

Captain Invictus posted:

So did you actually go see it or are you being one of those guys who complains about thing thing they never tried/watched/played

It's the latter.

As far as marketing budgets goes, general rule of thumb is to take the production budget and double it to get the total cost of a film including marketing. Alita technically made money, just not a lot. Still, the $400 million world wide sum is nothing to just handwaive.

RT is also a pretty crappy metric with regards to a film being good or not imo, especially the critic review score since the site is just an aggregator and a lot of the nuance in what a critic says gets overlooked in favor of a hard, numerical/data-based rating. Look at a film's CinemaScore grading instead for a more accurate representation of how enjoyable/successful a movie potentially is if you want a data-based rating — A graded films are typically good movies, B grades are likely super divisive and/or middling in quality, with C grades and below generally ranging from bad to complete trash.

teagone fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Mar 17, 2019

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty

ryonguy posted:

It's almost as if seeing the shots from it, reading reviews of it, and hearing how the story is mashed up is enough to see it as not something that is going to be good to watch for me. Also a huge amount of money that isn't disclosed went into marketing, without even getting into the discussion over "popular =/= good". Cameron is a hack, everything he touches is bloated, bland garbage (cue joke about how nobody can remember what a billion dollar movie was even about).

You can like this film, my not wanting to see it based on the evidence that's been presented to me that isn't fanboy gushing isn't going to change your enjoyment of it. I just think the several hundred million dollars that were spent on making a mediocre big budget sci-fi popcorn flick to fellate Cameron's ego could have been far better used, and nobody who goes to see this is going to remember it past a year just like every other one like it.
so you didn't see it and are just grousing into the wind, gotcha

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

I've seen the movie and my advice is: dont go see the movie.

Parasol Prophet
Aug 31, 2012

We Are Best Friends Now.
Just gonna de-lurk for a minute as another Alita fan to say that while yes, the movie did have a lot of storylines crammed into it and felt rushed at times, I 100% did not care while watching it, because everything else was so good.

If it makes any sense, I could acknowledge "Wow, this has been going on for a while" but it was always followed up with "... but I don't want it to end yet anyway, so it's fine."

But yeah if you want to decide a movie is crap without actually seeing it, go for it.

Doctor_Fruitbat
Jun 2, 2013


Saw Alita, loved it to bits, definitely buying it on release. I still found her weird CGI face distracting and would have preferred a real face, but I will say that it was one of the most well animated and expressive faces I've ever seen.

Laputanmachine
Oct 31, 2010

by Smythe
Went and checked out Alita, it was fine, I kind of liked it but didn't love it.

Too many plot lines, too much going on, Nova was barely there and the new musclehead baddie, already forgot his name, was so boring they had to underline his badness by making him kill a puppy offscreen. Makaku was way meaner and a real bastard. I would have liked them to cut off the motorball bullshit completely and just focus on bounty hunting but I guess they had to have something to cram into the trailer.

The flick was fine but it would have been better if they just focused on the first book. Also I disliked how sleek everything looked. I wish this movie was done with more 80s style sfx with maybe David Cronenberg in the helm. Iron City wasn't nearly as gritty and sick as it should have been. Now it was just slightly dusty.

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
It's the Isekai Roundup 2! Isekai literally means "Different World", and generally starts with a person in our world dying somehow(recent ones tend to have office workers die from overworking, an actual problem in japan), and waking up/reincarnating in another world, usually a fantasy-based one. It can also be the reverse where a fantasy person gets transported to our world.

There's actually far, far, farrrr too many isekai series to have read through, to be honest, and there's like a dozen new ones every day. But the sheer volume of them coming out means that some will actually wind up being good if not great, amidst the legions of trash. And boy howdy, is there trash. But since there's so many, invariably there's some really intriguing concepts too. Without further ado, here are some isekai series I have read that I've felt are a cut above the rest, or have been recommended as great but haven't gotten to yet. I've already recommended a few prior such as Bakarina, but here are some others. Some are pretty new, or at least the manga versions are, so there may not be many chapters unfortunately.

All series, licensed or not, have links to purchase the volumes on the Mangadex page for the series, it's pretty helpful!


RE:ZERO: Life in a Different World From Zero
RE:ZERO Part 2 - The Tale of "One Week"
RE:ZERO Part 3 - Truth of Zero



First of all, let me say I had written off RE:ZERO for stupid reasons largely related to the two maid characters, Rem and Ram, looking like total stereotypical moeblob waifu-bait even though my friend told me "no, they're just really good characters". I finally decided to actually give the series a try and now I can really see why people like it so much. I'd just like to say 1: THIS SERIES IS EXTREMELY GORY, IT DOES NOT CENSOR ITS VIOLENCE. NO JOKE. KEEP THAT IN MIND. If you're okay with that, jump into the first series(the first link) right now, or here's a bit of a rundown of the premise: The story follows Subaru, a teen who was walking home from the corner store with some snacks when he's suddenly walking down a cobblestone road in front of a fruit seller in a fantasy world. Having no idea what is going on and thinking he's become an isekai protagonist, he wanders around only to IMMEDIATELY get mugged in an alley. He declares he will unleash his full power if the thugs don't flee, but...he's just a dude. He's got no powers, he's not a summoned hero or anything, just a teenager in a tracksuit with a grocery bag with some cheetos in it, and gets his rear end kicked. He's saved by a mysterious girl, whom he vows to help recover an item that was stolen from her. Some things happen, and he is led to a hideout where he is horrifically murdered alongside pretty much everyone he's met so far. Suddenly, he's standing in front of the fruit seller again, shaken. He's discovered his "power", the ability to "reload a checkpoint", it's Groundhog Day but only on death. But nobody else remembers what happened, and he viscerally remembers the feeling of being killed. The story is about a powerless person trying to be a hero in a world of monstrously powerful people, and the just nightmarish, soul-shattering aspects of the concept of "reloading a save". The series really goes places even in the parts covered in the anime/manga, and I hear the next arc, which is as long as the entire anime's multiple arcs combined, is far and away the best part, which is a high loving bar to clear. And Rem and Ram, ESPECIALLY Rem, are fantastically written characters. Rem is one of the best side characters I can think of in anime or manga, it really surprised me the depth of character she has and made me understand why people like her so much. Now, I'm only to the point of the anime/manga, so I'm not really sure what happens in the fourth arc, but the people who have read it are super excited for the anime adaptation of it coming out either late this year or 2020, so that's encouraging. But yeah, RE:ZERO is one of the best isekais I've experienced so far.

The Wrong Way To Use Healing Magic



This one is fantastic. Three teenagers are walking along one day when suddenly a magic circle appears underneath them and summons them to another world as heroes. Except, only two of them were supposed to be summoned, the third was accidentally caught in the magic circle. But when he discovers he has Green-type magic, or Healing magic, he is unceremoniously dragged off by the leader of the Kingdom Rescue Squad, Rose. This is just a really great one, I won't spoil the fun, but just say dive into it. Rose is a great character and her squad are...characters.

The Ideal Sponger Life(first page is NWS)



One day, average salaryman Yamai Zenjirou has an out-of-this-world experience—literally! He's pulled from Earth and dragged to another world where magic thrives and a gorgeous, powerful queen needs a consort. Now he's being pressured to marry that very monarch and help her bear a child. Will Zenjirou accept this life of lazy, luxurious love at the cost of leaving his home behind? It's actually a political series about the first queen in an entirely patriarchal society, and dealing with the ramifications of that. It sets it up to look like a harem with concubines and such but is actually an adorable, monogamous romance between the two main characters. I was skeptical but upon insistence kept at it and it's great. Really glad I didn't drop it immediately upon first impression. :3:

Reincarnated as a Dragon's Egg



Dude gets killed in a burglary gone wrong and wakes up as an egg with legs and a tail. He's a dragon egg, and has to figure out how to survive in a forest jam packed with things that want to murder and eat him super hard. Has a game-style layout, he can access a UI, has a "god's voice" that is basically a Hints option in a game, and can evolve if he levels up enough. It's pretty promising, only problem is there's only 8 chapters so far, I believe it updates every other month. The chapters are really dense though, each manga chapter covers 7-10 chapters of the webnovel, I believe the currently-released manga chapter, 8, is the equivalent of like chapter 75 of the WN. The artstyle is fantastic, a really dark, gritty look to it, though the characters are generally very emotive or cartoony, especially the protagonist. It definitely got me intrigued pretty quickly though, and the moment the poisonous salamander showed up, I was hooked. My one complaint is the aforementioned glacial release schedule.

Combatants Will Be Dispatched!



This is by the Konosuba guy. Do you know what Konosuba is? If not, go check it out, it's the greatest bunch of adventurer assholes ever. Combatants Will Be Dispatched is much in the same vein of "everyone is a shithead who you love and also love to see blow themselves up in increasingly hilarious ways", where the main characters are villains in a Power Rangers-esque evil organization who are sent to new worlds to see if they're worth invading or not. By doing "evil" or "mean" things, they earn villain points, which they can redeem to instantly get things like weapons, armor, etc from their superiors(who are also idiots). Not many chapters translated but it's goddamn hilarious anyways and worth checking out. Lots of fanservice and a handful of bad jokes.

I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, Max Level Witch, similar names



An office lady dies from overwork and is asked what she wants in her next life by an angel. She asks for immortality and to live a long, peaceful life on a plateau. She wakes up outside an empty house on said plateau, and in order to earn money to buy things she wants, starts killing slimes every day for pocket money. Since she is immortal, over the course of 300 years she grinded her way to max level by splatting a few slimes every day and became an insanely powerful witch by accident, and so people and monsters come by to disturb her peaceful life because they have heard of her strength in rumor. It's a very chill, cutesy slice of life series(one might say "moe~") and even with only 13ish chapters as of this post has progressed a surprising amount. It's a good, relaxing time!

A Wild Last Boss Appeared!



It was in the year 2800 of the Midgard calendar. Back then, there was a Overlord who once reigned supreme and had reached the very brink of subduing the world. Her name was Lufasu Mafaalu, a great woman dreaded as the Black-Winged Overlord. She was too strong, too fast, and too beautiful. However, she was defeated by Heroes who opposed her ferocity, and her ambition was brought to an end. Or so went the story of our protagonist’s in-game character, whose body he now possesses for some reason in a world 200 years after Lufasu’s downfall. Follow our protagonist as he becomes unnecessarily feared by his surroundings and unnecessarily worshiped by his former subordinates as he―or now she―cheerfully travels around this fantasy world.

This one's pretty fun and the artwork is great. Lufasu's fun and them trying to play their character straight reminds me of Overlord, but I like this one a lot more than that to be honest, and this one feels like it progresses more than what I read of Overlord.

Sword Dad (I Was a Sword When I Reincarnated!)



This is about a dude who dies and reincarnates as a legendary sword in a game-type world, kind of a Master Sword-type. He's able to use magic to move himself around and fight, but as all swords, is much more suited to be held by someone. Enter Fran, a beastman slave of the Black Cat Tribe, who is fleeing from her slavers and discovers the sword embedded in the ground, where he'd accidentally gotten himself stuck a while ago. After dispatching the slavers, he basically adopts her as his daughter and wielder and they go on adventures. It's a mostly fun series but does have issues, some fanservice problems, some problematic characters, and I'm told later on in the light novels a particularly awful character shows up, so I'm hoping that is one thing that gets left out of the manga adaptation. But mostly it's fun to read Fran go on adventures with Sword Dad, just, the series has caveats. Though I do appreciate it is in no way sympathetic to slavery, at least, which is...a problem, in too many isekais.

Handyman Saitou In Another World



Handyman Saitou got transported to another world, and discovered his general purpose skills with fixing things, handling locks, that sort of thing, is actually pretty desirable in adventuring parties. He joins a wizard whose mind is starting to go with age, a mysterious warrior, and a greedy fairy. The chapters are short but great, and the humor is just top loving notch most of the time.

The Misfortunes of Local Knight Hans



Hans was one of the greatest knights of the realm, but he wanted to spend his days in a nice, quiet town in the countryside, so he transferred to one. Life was good, he kept the town safe, until one day a weird person with mysterious powers and black hair showed up, claiming to be "Japanese". Then, another one. And another one. More and more Japanese people with superpowers started appearing, making Han's quiet life quite a bit more hectic than it was supposed to be! I like this one a lot, it's focused not on the isekai people, but rather the guy in the world the people are being summoned to, who has to wrangle them and their weird powers. Ken'ichi and Mitsuba in particular are the best.

Isekai Transporter



This is a short, fun one. So, in Isekai series, and frankly a ton of anime in general, there is a cliche now known as "Truck-kun", where a character is minding their own business and crossing a road, and an out-of-control truck kills the poo poo outta them. This has happened in literally hundreds of anime/manga and is a primary starting point for many isekai stories. So, a fellow in Thailand decided to start a series about what if all those unfortunate isekai truckings were actually on purpose, and a business was hired by various fantasy worlds to get the "correct" summon targets for them. It's very silly but entertaining.

I'm a Spider, So What?



When a mysterious explosion killed an entire class full of high school students, the souls of everyone in class were transported into a fantasy world and reincarnated. While some students were reincarnated as princes or prodigies, others were not as blessed. Our heroine, who was the lowest in the class, discovered that she was reincarnated as a spider! Now at the bottom of the food chain, she needs to adapt to the current situation with willpower in order to live. Stuck in a dangerous labyrinth filled with monsters, it's eat or be eaten! This is the story of a spider doing whatever she can in order to survive! This one is likely what inspired the Dragon Egg one above. It's a very popular series and is getting a (terrible-looking) anime soon. It's of the game-type isekai, where she has the status window, number stats, etc, and in this one in particular, it just goes loving nuts with it. Like eventually literally entire pages full of stat windows. But it's still pretty entertaining despite that, she's quite an amusing character on her own.

Saving 80,000 Gold Coins for my Retirement in Another World



An 18-year-old girl who lost her family in an accident, Yamano Mitsuwa falls off a cliff one day and transferred to a different world with a civilization level of medieval Europe. Mitsuwa who discovered it was possible to go and return to Earth after a deadly fight with wolves decided to live in both worlds.

I will try not to let strange things circulate to not distort the progress of the world, but I won’t hold back for the sake of my easy life and safety!
While wearing three handguns along with words and deeds that appear decent, in her head Yamano Mitsuwa is a sly girl. Making an effort to make money even with a small body that looks like a child to Westerners!

Both this and the below Potion Isekai are by the same author, who seems to like to make isekais that are all about gaming the system super loving hard. To say they Go Places is an understatement. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Places go to Them. :v:

I Shall Survive Using Potions



Kaoru Nagase got caught up in a mysterious phenomenon and died on her way home from work. She skillfully convinced the higher-being that caused the "Degradation Mode" accident into giving her "The ability to create any potion with any effect I can think of", and to be revived in the other world with her younger-self's body!
Kaoru, who’s now a rather sharp-eyed 15 year old girl, will work hard for a peaceful life in another world!

The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious!



This one's fun but only has a handful of chapters so far. The artwork is downright hilarious, too. It's about a goddess who's tasked with summoning the right hero to handle an S-rank hardmode fantasy world, the type where the final boss is waiting for you right outside the starting town, completely unfair type. She finds the perfect candidate who could feasibly stand a chance, but...he's very careful. Maybe TOO careful?




That's about it for now, I think. Not all of them are stellar but I think they're at least enjoyable, and not total trash fires like Shield Hero or something.

Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Apr 8, 2019

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"
I'd written off RE:Zero for the same reasons, but I think I'll have to check it out now.

Samuringa
Mar 27, 2017

Best advice I was ever given?

"Ticker, you'll be a lot happier once you stop caring about the opinions of a culture that is beneath you."

I learned my worth, learned the places and people that matter.

Opened my eyes.
RE:Zero was one of the most disappointing animes I've watched after the second half just decides to entirely squander the fact that Subaru was a massive rear end in a top hat who tried to "game" the world and it's people, only to get his due, until Rem spends one entire episode cheering him and basically flipping a switch from the series criticizing "the big hero protagonist who everybody loves for no reason" to just playing it straight.

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
I only watched the last few episodes of the anime(the stuff after where the manga scanlations currently are) so I don't know if it changed a lot, but it really didn't feel like Subaru hadn't earned his way back into being heroic. he tried to brute force his way and it blew up in his face incredibly hard, especially when he went full Nice Guy towards Emilia, and she reacted in exactly the way he deserved. I feel for Subaru having to relive these terrible alternate existences, and it totally breaks him at one point, but it is also really great to see him learn and struggle and persevere through the mistakes. the white whale army gathering failure was particularly good, where he tried to exploit the other throne competitors but got shot the gently caress down every time and had to change tactics if he was going to get their support. I've seen a fair amount of people criticize the white whale arc but I felt it really gave Subaru a chance to shine even if he hosed up badly a few times, and the main goal was to get reinforcements to take on the witch cult, which worked. Also one of my favorite aspects of the series is how the curse works and prevents him from telling anyone about it, and how he abuses that detriment as a pretty loving dangerous offensive ability

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
Just started reading this one today and it's super great from the handful of chapters I've read so far, and comes highly recommended already, so figured I'd add it to the pile.

The Observation Record of my Fiancee, the Self-Proclaimed Villainess



I hadn't wanted to post it since I hadn't read it yet, but it's real great. It's in the run of "otome game villainess reincarnation" style with the almost sociopathic perfect-in-every-way blond-haired blue-eyed prince engagement angle that most otome games have, except...it doesn't follow the isekai protagonist. It instead follows the prince, who is amused by the girl's insane rambling about "flags", "plot points", "capture routes", and her absolute obsession with growing up to be a villainess and to fall at the pivotal story moment so the prince can have a happy ending with the heroine. She's fairly similar to Bakarina in a lot of ways. But when she mentions a plague that runs wildly out of control due to a shortage of medicine to treat it, leading to her mother's death in one year shortly before her 9th birthday, he decides to start preparing for it, just in case her babbling is meaningful, and if not, at least he learned something about medicine, which results in the plague being prevented altogether. It's pretty interesting in how she is dead set on keeping the plot of the game itself on track, even though it is fairly significantly derailed by chapter 3 already. I've only read up to chapter 4 of the 8 translated so far but this seems like a rock solid series so far, and is genuinely pretty hilarious with the occasional fourth wall breaking between the butler and the prince.

Edit: okay, the heroine has appeared and it's pretty much the best

Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Apr 9, 2019

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


As if anyone needed more reason to sign up for the Shonen Jump service they've just recently added parts 1-3 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty

muscles like this! posted:

As if anyone needed more reason to sign up for the Shonen Jump service they've just recently added parts 1-3 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
I really hope it's doing well and encourages other companies to follow suit. Being able to get ahold of a bunch of properly translated stuff instead of stuff translated by nazis and racists would be just great. Is there any word on how well it's doing? Any internal numbers given out, probably not?

Here's an insanely good series I recently started(and rapidly caught up with, as there's only 13 chapters as of this post), called Heterogeneous Linguistics.



A linguist travels among the world of monsters, learning how each species communicates, how their societies and beliefs work, languages, behaviors etc and documents it. He is accompanied by various monsters going the same direction as him, as well as his mentor's daughter, a werewolf-human hybrid and the best character in the series by far. The way it deals with various typical JRPG/fantasy monsters like slimes and werewolves and lizardmen is staggeringly good, I seriously can't say enough good things about it. Like, slimes? they have no sense of self. each slime can split into multiple pieces and have varied intelligence based on the size of the slime, and carry memories along with that fragment. they communicate via touch, and if they communicate with another slime, they merge and become one being, as if they had always been those two slimes as one creature with all the memories. It's such a loving good concept for a slime creature and it makes me giddy just recalling it. The series is hilarious, it's really nice looking, it's really frank in its depiction of things and doesn't worry whether you can understand what's going on or not, you're just carried along for the ride. Seriously, seriously good series, like rivals Dungeon Meshi for my second favorite series spot especially if it continues on with this level of quality. One of the latest chapters has the linguist encountering another linguist, a minotaur, and they both try to suss out each other's language without being able to directly communicate. Just stellar. I am really sad it's not licensed yet, as I immediately went to try and order the first volume off amazon only to find nobody's picked it up yet.

Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 16:12 on May 5, 2019

How Wonderful!
Jul 18, 2006


I only have excellent ideas

Captain Invictus posted:

I really hope it's doing well and encourages other companies to follow suit. Being able to get ahold of a bunch of properly translated stuff instead of stuff translated by nazis and racists would be just great. Is there any word on how well it's doing? Any internal numbers given out, probably not?

Here's an insanely good series I recently started(and rapidly caught up with, as there's only 13 chapters as of this post), called Heterogeneous Linguistics.



A linguist travels among the world of monsters, learning how each species communicates, how their societies and beliefs work, languages, behaviors etc and documents it. He is accompanied by various monsters going the same direction as him, as well as his mentor's daughter, a werewolf-human hybrid and the best character in the series by far. The way it deals with various typical JRPG/fantasy monsters like slimes and werewolves and lizardmen is staggeringly good, I seriously can't say enough good things about it. Like, slimes? they have no sense of self. each slime can split into multiple pieces and have varied intelligence based on the size of the slime, and carry memories along with that fragment. they communicate via touch, and if they communicate with another slime, they merge and become one being, as if they had always been those two slimes as one creature with all the memories. It's such a loving good concept for a slime creature and it makes me giddy just recalling it. The series is hilarious, it's really nice looking, it's really frank in its depiction of things and doesn't worry whether you can understand what's going on or not, you're just carried along for the ride. Seriously, seriously good series, like rivals Dungeon Meshi for my second favorite series spot especially if it continues on with this level of quality. One of the latest chapters has the linguist encountering another linguist, a minotaur, and they both try to suss out each other's language without being able to directly communicate. Just stellar. I am really sad it's not licensed yet, as I immediately went to try and order the first volume off amazon only to find nobody's picked it up yet.

I started reading this and it's wonderful-- very charming. Thanks!

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
Some more stuff that I've read or started reading.

Franken Fran :siren:BIG OL' WARNING BELOW:siren:



"There is a Gothic-style mansion in a distant, rarely-visited part of Japan. There, the world's greatest surgeon, Naomitsu Madaraki, once lived but he hasn't come home in ages.

Instead, the professor's "daughter," Fran Madaraki, lives there with a large amount of her own ghoulish creations and her "younger sister" Veronica. She's a very unusual girl, what with the stitch patterns on her face and the giant bolts on either side of her head. Just as skilled at surgery as her father, and if you're willing to pay her price, she can do everything up to and including raising the dead. Fran believes that a life should be saved no matter the cost, and keep that in mind, since the results of her surgeries are rarely (if ever) pretty.

Fran can make anyone into anything, raise the dead, switch heads and bodies, and give you those eyes that you've always wanted. But do you actually want them? Is it a good thing to raise the dead? Do the ends justify the means? And does Fran care?"

Just a heads up: Franken Fran is INTENSELY violent and gory in uncomfortable ways, and will likely deal with subject matter that will at one point or another make your skin loving crawl. Franken Fran is black comedy a lot of the time, and can be just downright excruciatingly depressing with its worldview and takes on human nature. But it is also great, and recently the author has decided to continue it after ending it years ago! I can't wait to see what new hosed up stories they come up with!

Extremely Straightforward Boyfriend and Girlfriend



"Meet Shinichi Honda and Mako Wakamiya. One’s a boy, and the other’s a girl.
But both don’t hesitate to say exactly what’s on their mind."

This series is so far hilarious, quick, lewd, and very, very stupid. But that's what makes it fun. Mako and Honda are great together and their friends are mostly entertaining as hell too. Plus, they start going out pretty quickly, and honestly pretty naturally. The straightforwardness of both characters eradicates most typical romcom hangups, or spins them into their own fun take at a breakneck pace. A fun, silly series!

Her Appetite is Too Big for Me Alone!



Also a rather lewd one, but a cute, weird romantic comedy. Funatsugi can see these strange creatures, some really just solid cosmic horror poo poo, and thinks he's just hallucinating and tries to just ignore them. But then...his classmate that he likes sees one, too. And then things get REALLY strange.

Living With My Brother's Wife



"Since the death of her brother, seventeen year-old Shino Kishibe has been living with her sister-in-law Nozomi. Nozomi wants to be a person Shino can lean on, while Shino is determined not to be a burden. Together the orphaned high-schooler and young widow try to support one another while carrying on with their everyday lives."

A very funny slice of life comedy that also deals with significant trauma and grief issues in pretty appropriate and serious ways. Shino losing her parents early in life and then her brother recently, and nozomi, her brother's wife, clinging to shino as a touchstone to her lost husband, is an extremely relatable and well-handled topic. But the series is also extremely fluffy, goofy, and funny.

Gyaru and Dinosaur



Just the story of a gyaru who picks up a dinosaur and lets it live at her place.

Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Jun 6, 2019

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
apologies for the double post, but Humble Bundle has just released another fantastic manga bundle of manga that have become anime. Included at the highest tier is(numbers after series names are volumes included):

Attack on Titan 1-20
Cells At Work 1-5
Vinland Saga 1-10
Quintessential Quintuplets 1-3
Fire Force 1-15
Domestic Girlfriend 1-18
Blame! 1-6 + Movie Edition
Attack on Titan: Before the Fall
APOSIMZ 1-2
an artbook of stuff

and it supports the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU, two very worthy causes. As for the contents, well:

-Attack on Titan is excellent, the current arc that's been going for the last few years is probably the best it's ever been and it's approaching the climactic finale, I believe.
-AoT: Before the Fall is not good, also not canon, and not by the original AoT author, it's by some other rando.
-Vinland Saga is outstanding and is almost entirely one single character arc, that of Thorfinn, son of Thors, in the age of vikings. The artwork is incredible, the story is top shelf, and the characters are legit some of my favorites as a cast in any manga. Askeladd is a brilliant bastard, Thorkell is a mad giant, and other characters introduced later completely change the landscape of the story. The humor is genuinely great too, when it wants to be funny, but it's absolutely ready to show what vikings are really known for without shying away.

These others I have not read/watched yet, but some I have at least heard about :

-Quintessential Quintuplets I've heard great things about, it's about five twin sisters who need tutoring by some guy, maybe they all get married??? I dunno, but I hear it's actually really good, charming, and funny despite being a harem series.
-Fire Force is about "firefighters" who, uh, fight fire with fire, literally? Here's the summary:

quote:

Year 198 of the Solar Era in Tokyo, special fire brigades are fighting against a phenomenon called spontaneous human combustion where humans beings are turned into living infernos called "Infernals". While the Infernals are first generation cases of spontaneous human combustion, later generations possess the ability to manipulate flames while retaining human form.
-Cells at Work is kinda a cleaner Osmosis Jones type I believe. Every cell type is a cute/tough/scary anime person and they all do their respective jobs. Platelets, the cells that form scabs, are toddlers who build sand castles(the scabs), etc. Another series I've been meaning to get into.
-Blame! is by the guy who made Knights of Sidonia. I hear it's ridiculous but couldn't tell you a thing about it beyond that.
-Domestic Girlfriend is a trainwreck given anime romdrama form. It is the soapiest of soap operas, or so I've heard.
-I have no idea what APOSIMZ is.

But yeah, bundle is absolutely worth it for AoT and Vinland Saga alone, the rest is a bonus.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"
APOSIMZ is Tsutomu Nihei's new work. It's pretty decent.

Also it should be noted that BLAME! is the Masterwork Edition, so those six volumes are in fact its entire run (the original manga run being 10 volumes and WELL out of print). The Movie Edition is an adaptation of the standalone CGI anime film on Netflix. It's based on the Electrofisher arc, and a decent way to kill 90-odd minutes.

mithrin
Aug 13, 2007

Basara

Pretty much a review of the entire series:

“I wish there is a world where any one can know the truth and speak there mind with freedom without having to fear for their lives
(Rinko, Basara, Vol. 13)”

"After an apocalypse sends Japan into a pretechnological desert wasteland, the only hope for the country is when Tatara, the 'Child of Destiny' is born."

Also won the Shogakukan Manga Award for shoujo in 1992.

Probably one of my favorite shoujo mangas that I've read in awhile. Also, by the same mangaka that did 7 seeds, which is awesome and still ongoing. Not all people dig the art, but I personally love it (it also gets better as the series progresses). There was an obscure anime adaption around 1998 that was pretty horrible, considering they tried to condense 27 volumes into 13 episodes and call it quits.



Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
It is not manga, but rather anime, but I feel this is still relevant to it.

Thursday, an arsonist charged into Kyoto Animations Studio(Kyoani), poured multiple gallons of gasoline all over and on any employees he could reach, screamed "YOU DIE!" and set it ablaze. 34 people died in the fire as all of the main fire exits were blocked, combined with the accelerants and so much flammable material in the building, it went up in very little time. It is the worst post-war mass murder in Japan, and in addition, the entirety of the contents of the studio were lost, as there were no backups. Sentai Filmworks has started a GoFundMe to donate to the victims and their families, and many who survived are still afflicted with serious injuries and burns.

https://www.gofundme.com/help-kyoani-heal

this really, really loving sucks. Kyoani is one of the better animation studios in a country notorious for treating animators horribly, too. The only good thing is that the first floor nursery for the employee's kids was empty at the time of the attack.

DaveKap
Feb 5, 2006

Pickle: Inspected.



I was at Japantown last night and wandered into a manga store. One of the endcaps had an omnibus for Knights of Sidonia, which I was a huge fan of, and directly below it was an omnibus for Blame!, which is older and has the same artist. I know nothing about it as a series. Is it a recommended read or no?

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Sage Grimm
Feb 18, 2013

Let's go explorin' little dude!
Blame! definitely is worth reading because it's a gigantic science-fiction trek of a world rarely explored with an understanding of how to tell a story through action rather than pure exposition.

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