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Now that I'm done with game jam, I can finally start working on the Let's Read! So I've read part four up until just a bit after you first meet Okuyasu so I'm mostly approaching this from a totally fresh perspective. My plan for each chapter is to first read Duwang, write my impressions, then read the better translation, write impressions, then post both at once. Plus with art commentary! Sound agreeable to all? E: although it occurs to me that maybe I should do the split by story-arcs rather than chapters so as to prolong any confusion for the amusement of those in the know? Not sure which will be most entertaining. Got a feeling so complicated? Xibanya fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Aug 17, 2015 |
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Aug 17, 2015 19:58
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Understood. Normal translation only it is then!
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Aug 17, 2015 20:17
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Senor Candle posted:Agreed. That's a pretty good idea, particularly since Jojo can get confusing in black and white. I think I'll do that for sure.
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Aug 17, 2015 20:21
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Oh dang. See I don't know poo poo about part four, that's why I need help deciding how the hell I'm gonna let's read it. Maybe I should just do a straightforward let's read of the original in black and white (with better translation) and leave it at that. You can see my ignorance from space at this point.
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Aug 17, 2015 20:26
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Bad Seafood posted:I agree. Yep, that settles it. And really it's a relief because I can give more spontaneous impressions. Ohhh boy I can't wait to get started. I'm busy doing some additional Slam Fighter II improvement stuff (vote for Slam Fighter II, guys!) but that will be done by Friday, and then this weekend it's time for Let's Effort Read Part 4 of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure!. E: Bad Seafood, congrats on your mod-hood! I don't plan on reproing each chapter page by page, but about how much do you think I can post without it being  ?
Xibanya fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Aug 17, 2015 |
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Aug 17, 2015 20:36
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Bad Seafood posted:As Part 4 is currently unavailable in English in any legitimate capacity, and your intentions are to engage with and critique the work rather than merely reproducing it, I am inclined to be a little more generous than usual regarding posting panels and pages. I'd advise keeping that number conservative, though. Roger, going by my DB effort posts, is that level of reproduction appropriate?
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Aug 17, 2015 20:51
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CodfishCartographer posted:Are you planning on running this as a thread read-along, or are you just going to read it on your own then post analysis of each arc? Thread read-along. Er, if I'm understanding right, I post my analysis of each chunk and then we all talk about it. I mean, isn't that what people do? E: to clarify, I don't plan on doing one post per story arc, but I don't want to commit to one post per chapter either. I'd be telling everyone what chapter(s) I plan to read next and then everybody can get ready for when I actually post by reading it/them too. Xibanya fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Aug 17, 2015 |
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Aug 17, 2015 20:59
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Prison Warden posted:I agree that's probably the way to do it, af - oh wait, wait whoops looks like I dropped something, dang If anything I'd want to make it longer. I don't think I can commit to 10 chapters per week, particularly when I also plan to do art analysis. Probably more like half a volume per week. I know, that seems like a long time, right? Hey, just more to look forward to!
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Aug 17, 2015 22:07
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Forktoss posted:That was just silly. What's the point of plastering a big black cloud over Jotaro's face to hide his smoking when you can still see the cigarette and every character around him is calling attention to the fact that he's suddenly smoking? It wouldn't surprise me if Japan had a censorship system like the MPAA in the states in which they reject an episode but don't say why so it's up to the original creator to figure out just how much can be left in without getting sent back for more censorship.
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Aug 18, 2015 16:57
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Hey kids! On Sunday I am going to be starting us off right with my take on the first three chapters of part 4. I won't always do "just" three chapters, but there's a lot to digest in these three as they lay the foundation for what follows so grab your favorite version of Part 4 and get ready, because Let's Effort Read JJBA Part 4 begins now! E: and for those who don't know me, you can see my other  about manga here: https://manuelamalasanya.wordpress.com/effort-series/
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Aug 19, 2015 23:39
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I will be primarily using the b&w scans as the colored versions are not done by Araki. That said, I'll be having a peek at the colored versions just in case there are some particularly nice panels to show off.
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Aug 20, 2015 08:31
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 In this post: Part 4, Chapter One For this chapter, I’m using a scanslation by The Invincible Trio My intention is to also have chapter two and three up tonight, but I'm doing some additional work on them and I have a few other things that suddenly came up. At any rate, let's dive right in!  Josuke Meets Jotaro, Part One High school freshman (equivalent to American 10th grader) Koichi Hirose begins narrating the story to us. It's March, 1999, the start of a new school year. That technically puts this story in the near future, as this chapter was first published in Weekly Shonen Jump in May of 1992. If you were a Japanese teenager reading this story as it came out, you were probably also following Slam Dunk, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Dragonball, all of which were also being published in Weekly Shonen Jump at that time. It also bears mentioning that at this time in 1992, Japan was seeing a huge meltdown in their stock market, leading into their "lost decade."  Koichi lives in a relatively small town, and the first thing I thought when I saw the panel was "This looks just like Ueda." Here’s a photo I took while I was in Ueda.  I consider that worth mentioning because on my last trip to Japan, I spent a night in Ueda and had the opportunity to wander around. Ueda is not really that big of a town and I barely saw any buildings with more than three stories. The whole place also looked like it had seen better days - it wasn't run down by any means, but a lot of the buildings just didn't look that well maintained and I suspect it's because any kid smart enough to go to college would then find a job somewhere with more to offer. It's probably worth noting that after wandering around a bit, I immediately started thinking of Mabase from FLCL. So I'm going into this primed to think of Morioh as being this sort of town. Koichi looks like he's going to be the normal mild-mannered character who is constantly in awe of poo poo and has to have stuff explained to him all the time so that the audience can get what's going on. I'm not crazy about this kind of character because they usually don't have much else going on personality-wise. I'm reminded of Manta from Shaman King, a series I stopped reading probably less than fifty chapters in. Shaman King is this shonen manga about people who fight with ghosts or something. And I don't mean Punch Ghosts(tm) I mean like actual ghosts. Manta was this ugly short kid who was always having to have poo poo about ghost fights explained to him and/or get rescued. But let's leave Manta aside for now; we'll return to him later. We get a nice look at our protagonist, Josuke!  He's also got some fun accessories just like Jotaro. And a pompadour-mullet. Given that Slam Dunk and Yu Yu Hakusho were running at the same time he's in good company. Also, he appears to be a Super Saiyan. Distracted by his own running inner commentary perhaps, Koichi bumps into a really tall guy. Obviously it's Jotaro, not just because the title of the chapter is Jotaro meets Josuke but because belts.  No further comment. Koichi falls and all of his school supplies scatter, but then Star Platinum's arms whoosh in outta nowhere!  (I like the idea that Jotaro was like aaaahhh poo poo, gently caress, um, THE WORLD!) Koichi is surprised to find that he hasn't fallen down after all. Jotaro apologizes for looking at a map instead of paying attention to where he was going. Araki uses some forced perspective here to make Jotaro look absolutely massive.  Koichi notes that Jotaro must be over 6 feet tall. Jotaro asks Koichi where to find the Higashita residence. Koichi says he's not sure, as the town has about 53k people living in it. With that, Koichi confirms that this still a pretty small town. Via narration Koichi notes that he would later get to know Jotaro better and that Jotaro is 28 years old and a notable marine biologist. That's a fun touch - Jotaro was so closed off in Stardust Crusaders that we never really learned too much about what he was like when he wasn't on a quest to kill a fabulously sexy vampire so it's nice to see that he has interests beyond being a shonen punch fight protagonist. Koichi says that even though Jotaro was so large, he wasn't afraid of him because he seemed smart and gentle. Koichi then lays down the foreshadowing - who he will really be afraid of is "that Higashikata guy." TITLE DROPPPPP! Kinda? Close enough.  We see some rear end in a top hat high schoolers bullying underclassmen, looks like they walked into the vicinity while Koichi was narrating about Jotaro. They and Jotaro notice each other but don't otherwise react. PROTAGONIST ALERT!  The assholes notice Josuke crouched at a fountain. He hasn't been introduced yet, but come on. He's on the cover and the title page, so yeah, we know this is the protagonist. The first look we get at this character will have been put together with great care in order to provide us the best picture of what we can expect from this character moving forward, so what happens next is likely to be significant in as much as it will demonstrate the kind of person Araki intends Josuke to be. The rear end in a top hat contingent asks him what he's up to with the implication he is not doing what he should be doing (kissing their asses, presumably.) Josuke answers as if the question "what are you doing?" had come from someone genuinely curious about the answer. He tells the assholes that he is trying to overcome his fear of turtles by hanging out near a turtle on the rim of the fountain. This kind of answer can indicate one of two things about a character: one, they're so stuck in their own head and goofy that they don't consider the possibility that things people say mean anything other than the literal meaning of their words (common in absent-minded professor archetypes, cute girl archetypes, wacky mascot character archetypes, etc) or two: the character knows very well what the other character meant but is pretending to misunderstand (like with wise trickster archetypes, guile heroes, manipulators, and so on.) So what's it gonna be? Josuke stands up.  2nd one. For sure. Looks like Josuke is pretending to not notice that these guys are trying to start poo poo in order to give them a way to move on while still saving face/in order to give them enough rope to hang themselves. Pretty smart for a shonen protagonist. The assholes note that Josuke is pretty tall, then start demanding that he show them proper respect. One of them waves the turtle at him, causing him to (humorously) back off from fear. Then one of the assholes slaps him hard enough to bust his lip. Josuke responds by bowing deeply and apologizing. In response, one of the assholes hurls the turtle into a concrete pillar.  Josuke reacts but his face doesn't reveal much, although you might say that the fact that his face doesn't reveal much is, itself, revealing. I mean, what kind of person doesn't go "Dude, poo poo!" when some rear end in a top hat brutalizes a turtle?  The assholes then demand that Josuke remove his school uniform (wtf) and give them his money. Josuke's response:  Delicious. There's a lot packed into that first panel of his face there. The tension is building, we just know these guys are gonna get hosed up, the only question is how -- and since this is Jojo, we know it's gonna involve punchghosts one way or another. So the real question is not "how will our nice protagonist get out of this fix?" It's "what kind of crazy power will the protagonist use to gently caress these jerkasses up?" Jotaro says that Josuke deserves what he gets for his dumb hair and outfit. (Way to blame the victim, rear end in a top hat.) He also mentions that he's pissed off that Josuke didn't even try to defend the defenseless turtle. One of the bullies asks for Josuke's name and Josuke provides -- causing Jotaro to realize that this is the guy that he was looking for all along. Josuke proceeds to disrobe per the bullies' request, but then one of them says his hair looks stupid.  Now Josuke has flipped into Jojo protagonist you-are-hosed mode. Since this is also the scene that establishes who he is as a character, I once again predict one of two things: one - for whatever reason he's insecure about his hair (does he style it that way because he promised his dead childhood friend or something?) or two - he doesn't actually give a poo poo about his hair, he just arbitrarily picked something to pretend to get pissed off over just to gently caress with these assholes -- in other words, he was never going to let them take their little game all the way to its natural conclusion, he just wanted to give them every opportunity to quit before he totally wrecks their poo poo.  And blammo, out comes the stand!  Shiiiiiit! And now that same forced perspective trick we saw with Jotaro earlier comes back, now with Josuke.  --> Hmmmm! The rear end in a top hat whose nose Josuke broke denies mocking Josuke's hair. In response, Josuke further grinds his motherfucking face into the ground! Holy gently caress!  Jotaro notes in an internal monologue that he spotted the arm of Josuke's stand. Koichi reacts with surprise as he watches Josuke pick up the turtle, which is now totally fine, and drop it back into the fountain.  The assholes then react with shock - the guy whose nose Josuke broke (?) is now also totally fine, although now his nose looks really weird.  Now looking totally Jojo badass, Josuke tells the bullies he's pissed off since they made him touch the turtle. "Now, how do you want to die?" Subsequently, the bullies gently caress off. Jotaro notes Josuke is related to Joseph and that he's the one Jotaro was looking for. Josuke looks back at Jotaro and remarks "huh, that guy looks a bit like me..." End chapter one! As far as art goes, if I unpacked this chapter like I did Dragonball Chapter 30, it would take about as long, but there was some really good flow management going on here.  A note on flow I could write shitloads of paragraphs about flow in comics, what it is, why it’s important, how it’s done, and so on, but I’m not going to because I already did and a lot of people here already read it, so if you haven’t yet, check this out and then come back: https://manuelamalasanya.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/dragonball-art-2/Anyway, that said, check out this page:  The fountain is circular, but every time it appears in the chapter, it’s never shown in full. The circle never completes on the right side. The fountain is also surrounded by square tiles. Look at how the rows of tiles form lines. Araki uses the fountain’s circular rim and the lines formed by the tiles to guide your eye to the next thing you’re supposed to read; it can’t be an accident, as there’s just no panel in the entire chapter that directs the eye to the right.    Notice how he uses the circular rim of the fountain - no matter where your eyes enter the panel, they go around the rim to rest on whatever is breaking the outline of it.     As for Josuke's stand/personality, I am reserving my comments on those for the post with Chapter Two. ETA on chapters 2 and 3 in a few hours with any luck. Xibanya fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Aug 24, 2015 |
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Aug 23, 2015 23:57
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Chapter 2 Josuke Meets Jotaro, Part 2 Translation: Invincible Trio  "What are you looking at?" Josuke sneers at Jotaro as massive sound effects zip around their heads.  LIKE. I'm a huge sucker for characters that have more running beneath the surfance than they let on, something that's disappointingly uncommon in shonen protags. What's going on here is that Araki has shown that Josuke can get just as intense and scary as Jotaro, and then he deliberately undercut the sincere tone of the scene by having Josuke act goofy again, making it unclear whether or not Josuke's sudden mood swing is actually sincere or if it's a put on. It reminds me of early-Dragonball Roshi. Come to think of it, it reminds me of something else. OK, no lie, I adore Joseph from Battle Tendency, and it's not just because he had a sexy voice in the anime (Tomokazu Sugita  ) I've bought all the Viz volumes of the manga that are out so far with actual money, that's how much I like it. Particularly I loved how Joseph in Battle Tendency could get serious but you never got the impression that he felt like he had to project a carefully curated image of himself to the world - even if Joseph's behavior was a put-on at times ("I've been working on the railroad!"), it was a put-on of some aspect of his real self. So far I'm getting that impression from Josuke as well. In comparison, I feel like Jotaro was always pretty restrained, like he was scared of not being cool!Jotaro starts rattling off Josuke's vital stats: his name, his mom's name, her age when she had him. This gets Josuke's attention. Jotaro goes on to say that Josuke has always lived in this town and that when he was four he suffered a severe fifty-day illness. (I guess his stand was killing him like what happened to Jotaro's mom.) Aaaaaand Josuke's father's name was  What a twist! Except did anybody not know this? Either way though, if this means that Josuke will be Joseph-like, I'm pumped! Josuke looks pretty shocked. Jotaro continues to spout exposition, possibly saying more in these panels than everything he ever said out loud in all of Stardust Crusaders. Joseph is 79 years old. While trying to sort out inheritance, it was discovered that Joseph had begotten an illegitimate child - Josuke. (And planned to leave some money to him! How's that for considerate!) Jotaro seems kinda mad that Joseph was unfaithful to Suzie Q, but I'm not that shocked, I mean, does Joseph seem like the kind of guy to sincerely fall in love with anybody? Anyway, Jotaro then introduces himself properly to Josuke and adds that he is technically Josuke's nephew. Josuke seems kind of shaken but takes the news gaciously.  Koichi is also still around, just chilling out and listening to these strangers talk, when, if you think about it, it would be kind of weird to follow around two strangers like that. And yeah, they have moved, since they're not near the fountain any more, they're on a little bridge.  Jotaro says he came to Morioh to tell Josuke to expect his inheritance soon. He then adds that the whole family is in turmoil right now on account of the affair coming to life. Josuke gets a pained look and apologizes while bowing deeply for causing the trouble. Jotaro asks what I'm thinking - "What's up with you? Why are you apologizing?" Josuke looks like even he isn't completely sure, but explains that his mother was seriously in love with Joseph and raised Josuke by herself; they're fine and don't need the money. Jotaro stares as he runs through his internal monologue: "What kind of guy is he? I came here in the old man's place thinking that he was going to fight me, but he's apologizing...I'm surprised. Well, he's quite mature, I guess..." Also Koichi is still hanging around these strangers while they discuss sensitive matters, mouth agape. See, that's not endearing, Koichi, you're just being weird. Cut that poo poo out.  Then a bunch of schoolgirls show up calling Josuke's name with hearts in their speech bubbles! They mob him and shower him with compliments, particularly on his hair. Jotaro has had enough of this poo poo and shouts at the girls, telling them to leave them alone and stop going on about Josuke's dumb hair. Josuke grinds his foot into the ground and the girls look up in shock. "You just said something you should never say!" one of the girls helpfully explains.  Heh, the style in which these girls are drawn really dates this chapter.  OK, so I guess Josuke really does have a complex about his hair? Josuke moves in to attack Jotaro, so Jotaro pops him in the mouth with Star Platinum. Jotaro begins to explain to Josuke what a stand is, how only other stand users can see them, and that Josuke has had a stand since he was four. But it looks like Josuke gives no fucks.  Hm. That's not very Joseph-like. I guess Josuke is kind of a crazy person? He calls out his stand. It looks kinda like The World, maybe for the headgear? Its head is heart-shaped.   Josuke's stand attacks Star Platinum and breaks its guard. Jotaro is surprised by its strength. Josuke gets a clear shot at Jotaro's face and it looks like Jotaro's gonna get his poo poo wrecked, but the blow whifs -- all Josuke manages to hit is the front of Jotaro's cap. The standard shonen bystander crowd remarks "I couldn't see him move!" "What happened?" "How is this possible?"  "This is nuts!" Jotaro narrates that he hadn't stopped time in ten years (I guess since he fought DIO? But what about when he bumped into Koichi at the start of chapter one? Maybe he means he hadn't stopped time in combat since then?) Then poo poo gets pretty weird. Jotaro's cap starts mending itself...well, sort of.  Eh, good enough. Jotaro clocks Josuke in the face for his trouble. The schoolgirls scream his name, but Jotaro snarls at them so they leave. Jotaro then tells Josuke he didn't just show up on family business. Joseph took a photo with Hermit Purple that shows that something creepy is hanging out in Josuke's hometown. Something...dangerous. OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!  End Chapter 2! I think it's interesting that we get comments on how Jotaro and Josuke are incredibly tall and yet nobody comments on the fact that they're both biracial? One of my dearest friends in the world is ethnically Hakka but speaks Japanese as a first language and he says that people are constantly commenting on how "skilled" his Japanese is in the most loving obnoxious and condescending way possible, and he doesn't even have any non-East-Asian blood in him. My guess is that Jotaro and Josuke's non-Japanese heritage is basically an inconvenient detail that Shueisha would like their readers to forget ASAP lest kids go "argh, how can I possibly identify with a character that might not look like me in every possible way!" To continue the art notes, Araki continues to take care with the use of lines to direct flow:  And hopefully very very soon, Chapter 3! After Chapter Three we'll break from this let's read until next Sunday, when we'll be looking at chapters four through six. Xibanya fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Aug 24, 2015 |
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Aug 24, 2015 02:09
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chaos rhames posted:Jotaro is an extremely ripped man dressed like a rich street thug who stands about a head taller than everyone else. It's probably just overlooked but with him you can say nobody wants to get on his bad side. Yeah but nobody even comments on it in their inner monologues either.
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Aug 24, 2015 02:16
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Agreed on all counts (heh and you can see when he puts the turtle back in the fountain, he actually drops it from about half a foot above the water. Plop.) My character notes on Josuke are all crammed in the third part (it's technically written but I'm trying to put some art commentary in there too, which is what's taking up the time) so I just wanted to chime back in to say that there will be character analysis! Ha...next week won't be so disorganized, it's just that some additional Slam Fighter II stuff has been occupying more of my time than I had originally anticipated!
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Aug 24, 2015 02:20
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ascalapha odorata posted:I like your perspective on Morioh, I had something a little different in mind - a sort of tidy small town that doesn't really exist anywhere outside of the setting for a horror movie. A good template for lots of horrible stuff to go down, I guess? But yours is more realistic/interesting. Might be something that's hard to picture unless you've seen it yourself. Unlike the USA, in Japan you don't have a lot of sprawl, so you just have these smallish towns that are really dense and then nothing but farmland or forest between them. Contrast that with the states where most places you can keep driving through strip mall hell in perpetuity. And I'm saying this from firsthand experience - my last trip to Japan was an 11 day road trip in which I spent each night in a different town. It was loving awesome.  And just to help everyone see things the way I'm seeing them, here are some more photos I took in Ueda. Here's what it's like to drive in on the highway:     So we'll see if Morioh continues to remind me of Ueda.
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Aug 24, 2015 02:47
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Chapter 3: Jotaro Meets Josuke Part 3 (have I been mixing this up? Oh whatever.) Translation: Invincible Trio This chapter was originally published in Weekly Shonen Jump on May 25th, 1992. Fun facts about Japan in 1992, ripped straight from Wikipedia! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_in_Japan January 8: US President George H. W. Bush vomits in Prime Minister Miyazawa's lap during a state dinner. March 7: Sailor Moon anime series starts on TV Asahi. March 14: Nozomi services begin on the Tokaido Shinkansen. March 25: Huis ten Bosch opens in Nagasaki Prefecture. April 1 Chiba City is divided into wards. Taiyo Kobe Mitsui Bank renames itself to Sakura Bank. May 2: Civil servants are granted a two-day weekend for the first time. May 22: Japan New Party founded. Other fun stuff about 1992: Japan's bubble economy had collapsed; the velocity of money screeched to a halt, and deflation set in. Consumption and investment dropped off significantly. Street Fighter II won game of the year. The Super Scope was released for the NES. The Atari was discontinued. The Cold War was formally ended. The Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture. What a year, what a year! I remember it vividly. I was two years old for most of it. Well, anyway...  When we last left our heroes, Jotaro had warned Josuke that something SPOOKY and DANGEROUS was lurking in his town! And then forced the original readers in 1992 to wait a whole week for details.  Jotaro warns Josuke to watch his back, then tells Koichi to stay away from the creepy dude. I guess he doesn't mind that Koichi just learned a really sensitive matter? Does Jotaro just give no fucks? I'm now imagining Jotaro at a bus stop telling a stranger the story of how he fought in the Vietnam War, became a famous marine biologist, and met the president. Jotaro then peaces out, saying he'll be slumming it in some hotel until he catches the creeper from the photo. Josuke asks for more details, but Jotaro says he'll explain more tomorrow. Once on his own, Jotaro begins to exposit via internal monologue about the nasty dude from the photograph. He's "the sickest, most dangerous criminal in all of Japan," and a native son of Morioh. He's basically a serial killer/rapist/pedarast. Jotaro helpfully adds that at least one of his victims was a fourteen year old boy that he raped, murdered, then de-penised. The guy was hanged but managed to survive even after 20 minutes at the noose. The execution was then delayed and the guy escaped from prison two weeks later and is lurking somewhere in town. This has caused Jotaro to suspect that the guy is a stand user. Let's step back a moment and digest this. The laundry list of this guy's crimes (and I abbreviated it) serves a purpose other than to shock the audience or match contemporary 90s GRIMDARK trends. By showing us the horrible poo poo that can happen in this setting, Araki is telling us that this story takes place in a world of consequences. What that means is that we should expect events that happen in this story to affect characters in a realistic manner, and that requires us to read a little more closely than a shonen manga typically requires. In short - just because a character doesn't remark on something or visibly react to something doesn't mean they weren't affected by it. This is another topic I already wrote about at length, so again instead of repeating myself, I'll just link that discussion here: https://manuelamalasanya.wordpress.com/2015/06/24/db-jjba-1/ We then switch locations - hey look at the use of lines to guide flow again!  We see a dude in a convertible ride up next to some hot lady walking down the street in order to hit on her. (Note to dudes: do not do this, it is scary.) She responds by smashing the guy's face into the door.  A cop on a bike (lol) comes riding up and the assaulted dude calls for help, but the cop declines, explaining that the lady is his daughter. (Cripes, if he looks like that I guess the mother had to have been a real looker to compensate!)  And the cop calls her Tomoko. Wait, so that's Josuke's mom? Talk about a yummy mummy! Hm, seems she also has a violent streak. Can I point out that this looks really odd?  Anyhow, Tomoko remarks that she's thinking about Josuke on his first day of high school, saying that she's a little worried because he has such a short temper, but she knows he'll be OK because he's such a nice guy deep down. Her thoughts are interrupted however by her dad hearing a commotion. We then jump to...  Yeah, that was me for a large portion of my university days.  A large crowd has gathered because a robber has taken a clerk hostage in the convenience store. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K! The robber emerges with the hostage.  Side note: who is this guy and why is he so excited? The robber starts making demands. Josuke's response is interesting, given that we know he's a stand user and as far as we know the robber is armed only with a knife.  And then the robber insults Josuke's hair.  Seems that getting his hair insulted is what flips the switch on Josuke's personality. If they keep this hair gag up throughout the manga it'll get old really quick since it's weirdly irrational in a manga that has been set up for characters to have fairly realistic emotional responses this far, but I'm still intrigued by the idea of a shonen character who isn't obsessed with coming off as a badass all the time and so comes off as all the more badass as a result. I'm getting the impression that Josuke doesn't act like a badass, he just is one. THAT, friends, is cool. Speaking of cool, I hope it's not if I post this entire page, because this page is ~the shiiiiiit~~! drat, that is some DYNAMISM. You can feel this incredible momentum as Josuke (sporting an aura of badassitude) seems to hurtle towards the robber with a the weighty force of a steam train (the effect accomplished through a combination of panel shape, extreme perspective, speed lines, and the way the background elements like the clouds and building guide your eye.) Koichi's pose also appears to be a deliberate allusion to Smokey from Battle Tendency. Josuke's eyes in the last panel are hidden by shadow, forming a barrier between himself and the reader -- you're no longer supposed to identify with him because his badassitude has ascended to a level beyond mortal comprehension. Josuke, standing at full height, confronts the robber. If you really pick apart the panel, the perspective here doesn't totally make sense, but realistic placement is irrelevant. Araki is going for the gut -- just as Josuke fills the panel, emotionally speaking his presence in this scene is now enormous.  The robber begins to plunge the knife into the woman, so Josuke...plunges the fist of his stand into the woman?!  Brutal. And yet moments later...   Ahaaa so Josuke's stand must have some sort of healing/matter manipulation ability. I can see this being a double edged sword. One, this is awesome since it will permit a level of brutality to fights that wouldn't previously have been possible in a story in which events are meant to have realistic consequences, but on the other hand, it could blunt the sense of suspense and danger that JJBA has cultivated up to this point. So we shall see!  The creepy stand thing from the photo comes out of the guy's mouth. Guess he was just being manipulated like how Kakyoin did at the beginning of Stardust Crusaders and then apparently forgot how to do. Josuke recognizes the stand as being the one from the photo, but the stand escapes into a drain before anything can be done about it. Before it does, though, it lets Josuke know that it'll be keeping an eye on him.  End Chapter 3 Yanno, you guys have basically said a lot of what I was gonna say, so I'll keep this brief. Josuke is a pretty interesting character, but I have to confess that at this point his personality is sort of all over the place. At some points it seems like he's got a very high EQ and is good at reading others, and then at other points his reactions/behavior seem like they would be more appropriate in a less realistic manga like Dragonball than JJBA -- unless the temper and the silliness are an act. So we will see! I'm definitely intrigued by Josuke's stand ability. That the protagonists stands in Part 3 were so punch-oriented hurt the series somewhat, so I'm extremely happy to see a protagonist with a stand ability that's more than "punch stuff a lot, maybe stop time to get some more punches in." Next Sunday: Chapters 4 through 6, hopefully in the same post! Be there or be square! I would also like to give a shoutout to my homeboy M Zetta who I know will read this thread eventually. Stop lurking and 
Xibanya fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Aug 24, 2015 |
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Aug 24, 2015 04:19
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Spoilers, dudes! Aw gently caress, now I've become THAT poster. 
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Aug 24, 2015 04:51
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Bad Seafood posted:Alright, alright, my bad. Well it's a weird thing - ordinarily I wouldn't give a poo poo, but I want my first impressions to be as authentic as possible. I know that I may end up barking up the wrong tree or focusing on stuff that ultimately isn't important, but isn't that the point of a Let's Read done by someone who has never read the manga before? Otherwise it would be far more insightful to have an expert on Diamond is Unbreakable do the Let's Read since their familiarity with the subject material would allow them to provide a deeper reading. And beyond my own reactions, I'm doing this Let's Read so that other folks here who also haven't read Part 4 can read along with me and also react in the same way. Maybe just use spoiler tags? Ugh, I haaaate people who complain about spoilers...
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Aug 24, 2015 04:59
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Hey guys! Thanks for the awesome feedback! I feel like we're off to a great start! Just reporting in to say that this evening I was talking to my fiance over dinner. He said something like "Hmm, I think I'll get some salmon from the store and cook it tomorrow night. Salmon's always pretty cheap and easy." "YOUR MOM'S CHEAP AND EASY!" I blurted out. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I just couldn't help myself," I stammered. "Don't worry about it," my fiance said. "I am reliant on that fighting spirit of yours. It was I who was wrong for giving you an opening for a yo momma joke." 
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Aug 25, 2015 04:22
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Aurain posted:If I were a talented person, I would make a soundboard so when I read ORA I could play the ORA sound to go with it. Get me the audio you want and I'll make you a little windows forms .exe that does it or I'll make you a javascript dealy if you want it on web. Edit: For those of you who like sharing without directing friends and loved ones to a den of goony goons, here's Sunday's let's read on my Effort Posts blog, now with integrated discussions, spelling errors fixed, and screenshots without my mouse cursor in them! https://manuelamalasanya.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/lets-read-jjba-01/ Xibanya fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Aug 27, 2015 |
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Aug 26, 2015 17:02
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I know I said four through six on Sunday, but this one is hugely long, so I figured I might as well post in now so that the various things discussed here don’t get lost among all the other stuff to come. So I’ll revise my update schedule - I’ll be posting the Let's Read of chapters five and six some time before the end of the day on Sunday and when they get put on my blog I’ll be sticking all three in the same entry. And if you missed the Let’s Read of Chapters 1-3, you can find themit and any future entries here (https://manuelamalasanya.wordpress.com/lets-read-jjba/) or by clicking the ? under my name. With that out of the way, welcome back to So far we have met... Josuke  Our protagonist! Josuke is Joseph Joestar’s secret love child! He has a stand with a heart-shaped head, a pompadour, and wild mood swings. It appears that his stand is more than just your run-of-the-mill punchghost; it also grants Josuke some sort of healing/matter manipulation ability. Koichi  Koichi is a teenager with serious boundary issues. Recommend counseling. Appears to be the bland audience stand-in for characters to explain poo poo about stands to. For years I never saw the OVA or read the manga, I just played the Capcom arcade game on MAME emulator, and I didn’t need to have stands explained to me in much greater detail than “they are punchghosts; they represent the user’s fighting spirit; if it gets hurt the user gets hurt and vice versa. Also, shoshite toki wa ugoki dasu!” So I’m a little disappointed to see that he...exists. Jotaro  Hey guys, you think I’m cool and trust anything I say, right? Well that Josuke guy is with me! Also, apparently I like dolphins. Tomoko  Josuke’s mom. Did sex with Joseph at least once. Appears to be willing to commit aggravated assault and battery on a whim; is allowed to escape justice due to her dad being the chief of police. Tomoko’s dad  A bicycle-riding cop who is OK with allowing the citizens of Morioh to be brutally assaulted so long as the assailant is his daughter. Man, gently caress the police. Serial Killer/Rapist/Pedarast/Stand User  This guy has a Hierophant Green-like stand that can control other people’s bodies and be used remotely. Josuke encountered him when his stand possessed a man in order to rob a convenience store. Not really sure why he was robbing a store -- couldn’t he have just possessed someone and made them drop cash or valuables somewhere? At the moment is at-large somewhere in town. Roving Pack of Assholes  Experience has taught me that these guys will never learn their lesson and will probably end up in middle management. This loving guy  Hey man, the guys didn’t want to tell you...but you’re kinda creeping us out. Chapter 4 Josuke Meets Angelo Part 1 Translation: The Invincible Trio We see a two story suburban house as someone (presumably the nasty stand user from the last chapter) remarks "What a surprise...there are other people in this town who have the same kind of powers I do..."  In the garage of the house, Tomoko, Josuke’s mom, is looking for her garden trowel. The milkman comes by and leaves two bottles of milk on the front step of the house just as Tomoko finds her trowel. She warns him to watch his step -- too late though, as the guy steps in some dog poo poo.  She steps out of the garage to banter with the milkman (an employee of Lack Y Land Milk, LLC) about whatever jerk keeps neglecting to pick up after their dog and notices that the milkman is a different guy from usual.  The guy turns around slowly and flashes a sneer! Oh no! Must be the stand user/someone possessed by the stand user! The milkman then smiles pleasantly and explains he’s just a substitute. Tomoko asks him to replace one of the bottles that he delivered as the seal is torn.  He does so then takes off in his milk-delivery bike. As he turns away from Tomoko, we see that he is a BAD GUY.  Also is drooling. “drat that bitch!” he shouts while continuing to drool. The stand we saw escape into the drain in the last chapter bursts out of the bottle that Tomoko made him take back. “What a clever woman!” the baddie explains to us. “My stand [AQUA NECKLACE] could have taken over their bodies!” (According to the Jojo wiki, this name is an allusion to the album Aqua by Asia.)  The baddie rounds the block to observe Josuke’s house from another angle and to try to puzzle out which bedroom is that of Josuke. He comments that he’s jealous of Josuke for having such a sexy mother and says that he wants to kill Josuke for attacking him when he was trying to rob the convenience store. “I simply adore killing wealthy arrogant brats like you…” he says wistfully. See the problem with this guy is that nobody has directed his talents in a productive way that might benefit society.   Bad Guy spots a dude walking his dog. Ahh! It must be the inconsiderate douchebag who doesn’t pick up his dog’s poo poo! He even drops a cigarette butt on the ground, so you know he’s a selfish dickbag. The leash strains and is yanked hard. The guy looks up and whatever he sees must be something...awful?  OK and this next page is so balls-out insane that I have to share the whole thing.  The Bad Guy lets this guy know that not cleaning up after your dog and littering are things that only assholes do. Then he kills the guy by using his punchghost, which he presumably forced into the guy’s mouth in the previous page, to punch holes in the dude’s head from the inside! Bad Guy poses to congratulate himself on a job well done.  Aqua Necklace, which we can see can move/merge with liquid, then enters the local water supply. We cut to a running tap in Josuke’s house and we see Tomoko pour tap water into a coffee machine. Our perspective then leaves the kitchen and we travel into the next room. Josuke is in front of a mirror fixing his hair while talking to Jotaro on the phone. Before we continue, I want to discuss how skillfully the transitions here are handled. When it comes to sequential art, this is about as good as it gets. I’ve covered the topic of clarity vs. intensity in panel transitions in detail before, in fact, I’ve covered that topic in the other Jojo thread, so yeah, once again, instead of repeating myself, please read this if you haven’t already! Dragonball vs. Jojo: The Point of Panels.  We get the shot of the hose and spigot from medium distance so that we understand what we’re looking at - also note how the top of the panel is slanted, both achieving a dutch angle effect (makes reader feel off-kilter) but also adding a sense of movement as the eye is directed downward. The next panel is less clear overall, but because of the clear medium shot of the spigot that came previously, we understand this is the same hose. Lots of speed lines make us feel like Aqua Necklace is whooshing up the stream of water.  And here is where the magic of sequential art is really put on display. In the first panel we see the stand being slurped up the hose, with various visual indicators showing that it’s going at high speed. The next panel is different in almost every way. You’ll immediately notice it’s feels like it shows a longer duration of time despite the fact that it’s not that much longer than the panel that preceded it. It seems calm, still. Notice how it’s full of horizontal lines while the other one had vertical lines. I also want to point out that this panel also heightens tension (and therefore the “interestingness” of the comic, as covered in the panels discussion in the linked post.) It would be more clear to just show Aqua Necklace immediately emerging from the tap, but this panel requires the reader to make the inference that there’s a connection between the extremely normal-looking running tap and the action we just saw. Because this panel isn’t explicitly showing Aqua Necklace coming out of the tap, it raises the question “Is the bad guy going to get in this way?” Since earlier in the chapter the bad guy was also casing Josuke’s house, through inferences the reader will also feel the tension coming from the question “Is this Josuke’s house?” then “Will Josuke’s mom be OK?” Similar to flow in comics, the reader generally isn’t noticing these things in a deliberate way (and in fact when you read the comic this all flies by pretty quickly,) but the quality of tension management in a comic has a cumulative effect and if that cumulative effect is bad, you sure as hell are going to notice.  The first panel has no border, which makes it seem to depict a longer period of time than a panel with a border -- done here to draw out the tension from the implicit “aaaaaaa is the bad guy’s stand hiding in the water???” Also notice how the linework in that panel suggests mainly horizontal and vertical lines rather than diagonal ones. From the nails, clearly a woman’s hand, “ohh nooo Josuke’s mom!” would be what Araki hopes your brain is thinking right now. And yep, it is indeed Josuke’s mom -- the bad guy has probably infiltrated the Higashikata residence. And once again, check out how almost all of the lines here are horizontal or vertical. The angle of the diagonal lines on the floor is pretty slight, and everything here is pointing to Josuke’s mom. Not only is she “framed” by the lines made by the kitchen stuff behind her, her black sweater is the only solidly black object in the panel. This entire panel is screaming “ohhh nooooooooo what’s gonna happen to Josuke’s moooooommm???”  Now this one here, this is masterful. Instead of just showing a panel of Josuke in another room, we get this panel. Because of the way we read comics, this panel does not function quite the same way a similar such composition would work in cinema. In a film, we would take everything in this panel at once, but because we’re reading this panel on a page with other panels, our eyes sweep down it from top to bottom. Functionally it’s a pan. It’s like we’re being pulled slowly backwards from the kitchen into the next room. The framing here still puts a strong pull on the eye towards Josuke’s mom, which makes Josuke’s apparent obliviousness raise even more tension. “AAAAA JOSUKE, YOUR MOM!!!!” your brain might be screaming at this point. Even his hair points to the kitchen floor whose lines then point back to Tomoko.  Then we are fully in the room with Josuke, scene transition complete. Heh, Josuke is fixing up his hair. Well I do love a fella who knows how to groom himself. I want to point out that story-wise, nothing would have changed if the sequence had gone like this: Everything that happens after would still make sense, but by doing the transition that way, the pages that follow have more tension, and are therefore more interesting. Ohh what a nail-biter! Oh, so the bad guy has a name, it’s Angelo. Um, should have guessed that from the title. Oh well. Jotaro explains to Josuke that Angelo’s stand can be controlled from a distance. Jotaro then says he’ll come over to Josuke’s immediately and until then Josuke should avoid eating or drinking anything and all sources of water. Josuke reacts with shock.  Josuke explains that Tomoko is still holding a candle for Joseph and that if she sees Jotaro she’ll know that Jotaro is his grandson right away. A 15-year-old who considers the feelings of others? gently caress this, I quit. This manga is too unrealistic. OK sorry but I have to reproduce this page in full. It’s just TOO GOOD.  drat! We’re basically getting a peek in Josuke’s brain here, as the wheels turn until he realize that poo poo’s about to go down. The top half of the page basically follows his line of sight. The bottom encapsulates that moment of “OH poo poo.” We then get confirmation that Angelo’s stand is inside Tomoko. Oh shiiiiiiiit!  Once again Araki is making good use of gross poo poo in people’s mouths to get a good creepy mood going. I’m reminded of when the Kakyoin impostor from Part 3 was spotted eating bugs (although in hindsight that little story had a disappointing resolution to the mystery of wtf was up with Kakyoin. On the other hand, that story did give us rero rero rero so I can’t be too bummed out. But I digress…) Josuke lets Jotaro know what just happened, then drops the phone. He pockets a bottle then approaches Tomoko. Clearly he has a plan. Uh, punch his mom until the stand comes out? Worked before...Tomoko (?) offers Josuke some coffee. What mom does that? My folks didn’t let me drink coffee when I was a teen because apparently it ~stunts your growth~. I’m making up for it now though by sucking down as many cups of it as I can.  Er...I might drink too much coffee, guys. Araki keeps Josuke’s eyes covered or partially covered in these panels to show that Josuke has a barrier between himself and Tomoko; it’s a visual representation of Josuke’s insincerity.   Boom! Called it! Er but then the bottle breaks? Well poo poo.  Then we get this:  Huh? No reaction? What kinda David Cronenberg kinda poo poo is this?  Wait what? I know Josuke can fix stuff, but does he have time stop too? Or is he just faster than human perception? Tomoko’s acting like she has no idea what just went down, but even the hostage from the Circle K knew that she got punched. And then he wanders off like nothing happened. I guess he thinks there’s no reason to let her in on what’s going on. Does that mean she doesn’t know that he has a stand? Well that’s sad. I’m remembering Kakyoin’s little flashback about how lonely he was when he was a kid. Aww.  I see, so Josuke broke the bottle then reformed it around Aqua Necklace. That’s pretty clever! I dig it. I’m looking forward to seeing what other “puzzles” Josuke can solve with this ability. Hmm, must read up on the exploits of Kitty Pryde to see if any of them show up here.  “Hey Jotaro? I caught the stand,” Josuke tells Jotaro. “What should I...do with it…?” Press Down + B, Josuke! To be posted by the end of the day Sunday: chapters 5 and 6!
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Aug 27, 2015 04:21
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As a supplement, my fiance (Ziggy Starfucker) and I decided to go into Duwang chapter one totally cold and read it out loud. You can see the result here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNVVowo5_IA I'm sure someone out there has done exactly this but with actually good performances, but I think our lovely cold readings have a certain amusing quality just because they literally capture the first time we're seeing Duwang. (Also my fiance had never read any of part 4 before period.)
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Aug 27, 2015 07:34
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Not to backseat mod here but while I appreciate the share, you might wanna edit out the link.
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Aug 28, 2015 13:53
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:It's possible that Araki simply didn't think we needed another panel reflecting a character's confusion at what the gently caress happened to them, but maybe Josuke does this all the time. Like if his mom eats something that upsets her stomach, he just rips the food out and tosses it in the trash. God I hope not. "Sure, female character, I'll do things to you without your knowledge! Don't worry, I know best what's good for you." is a lovely message, one that is sadly perpetuated in a lot of comics, and not just Japanese ones. I suppose part of it is inherent to the "superhero" genre (which JJBA part 4 is somewhat inhabiting at the moment) but it's a terrible message for people (particularly teenage boys) to internalize. It just reminds me of the time at work a new dev hosed up my test environment database. When asked to revert, response was "Oh I thought you had it set up that way by mistake so I fixed it!" Or maybe there's a reason it was set up that way, try asking first, dipshit! Returning to JJBA it just seems so nightmarish that things would have gotten to the point that Tomoko is SO used to getting brutalized then magically patched up that an incident of that happening isn't even worth remarking upon and she assumes she just has scary delusions and she just goes about pretending they don't exist -- after all, it seems that she doesn't yet know that Josuke has a stand given that Josuke didn't tell his mom what was going on. The only other situation I can think of in which a person gets so used to denying the truth of their own perceptions is an abusive relationship and it seems extremely clear that that's not the intention here. My guess is that Araki is just trying to say everything went down faster than ordinary human perception. In other words, JJBA protagonist stands move at the speed of plot expediency. Xibanya fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Aug 28, 2015 |
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Aug 28, 2015 16:08
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Kaiser Mazoku posted:I'm...not quite sure that's what Lumberjack Bonanza was implying. I'm sure it's not, and as I said at the bottom of the post where the bit you quoted is from, I know it's not Araki's intention either. In the sort of nebulous world of the meta-effect of comics, it's a common narrative tool that the hero has special knowledge that other characters don't have -- in fact that's one of the characteristics named in Joseph Campbell's hero of a thousand faces. As a result, the main character often "knows better" than non-hero characters. I was basically trying to say that, while one-off instances of a character doing something to a character with a lower social status (wrt their identity, as in, women below men, educated above uneducated, professionals above tradesmen, etc) without their ever finding out is not intrinsically bad, I believe that this narrative device has a bad effect on society in aggregate. Going by the Lajos Egri school of thought (I will never stop singing praises for that lovely Hungarian) part of the deal with fiction is that whether the author intends it to be read that way or not, stories are basically like scientific proofs - if conditions are x and y, then z is result. (Example: King Lear - "blind trust leads to destruction.") So every time this sort of thing goes down in a superhero comic, there's a tacit endorsement of the theme "it's OK to mess with people without their knowledge as long as everything turns out OK." (Visit Superdickery for lots of examples of Superman doing this to Lois and Jimmy.) I do feel conflicted about saying this is a bad thing because you're gonna have this happen in any story with a superhero who has a secret identity regardless of sex but I think it's a bad theme for readers to internalize because way too many people overestimate their own awareness of any given situation leading to the sort of annoying incidents I described in my previous post. Don't get me wrong, this is a really minor nitpick and I'm not going to let it stand in the way of my enjoyment of some  punchghost comics!
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Aug 28, 2015 19:22
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Aurain posted:This is a lot of over-analysing a cool as gently caress scene where Josuke punches a hole through his mom.  It wasn't the scene itself that prompted the , it was the (jokingly suggested) idea that this is fairly routine in the Higashikata household, (and at the risk of repeating myself, I don't believe it is.)You thought someone who doesn't perform literary criticism of comics for 12 to 16-year old boys did the Let's Read, but it was actually I, Xibanya!
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Aug 28, 2015 19:49
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ascalapha odorata posted:Fuckers! Your friends are dead! I know this comment was written as a joke, but I don't find the events as depicted wholly unrealistic. Grief does not follow a schedule or checklist.  ascalapha odorata posted:But - I think Josuke's Stand is honestly just straight up fast enough to have done that without Tomoko having registered it. I think that was part of the point of that whole thing; to show its speed, Josuke's problem solving abilities, and the fact that he is clearly so well-versed in his own abilities that doing such a thing to a loved one doesn't even merit a second thought. Doing it to knife-tummy was different. I liked starting out with a guy who knows his abilities, more or less.  ascalapha odorata posted:What happens when you KNOW your friend/relative can do that, too? Traveling magic show! Hm, but seriously, that would be super handy to have at parties 'cause folks be always breaking glasses n' poo poo.
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Aug 28, 2015 21:31
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Moltrey posted:Maybe you're keeping this mind when you say this and I'm dense, but I'm pretty sure the reason that happened is explained at the end of the Aqua Necklace fight. Please put anything about stuff that happens later than the latest Let's Read chapter in spoiler tags, including remarks about what will or will not be important going forward. And it's a little too late for this one in this instance, but I'd also appreciate stuff like "this will/won't be explained" also be put in spoiler tags. Thanks for abiding by these admittedly inconvenient guidelines!
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Aug 28, 2015 22:14
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Chapter Five Josuke Higashikata meets Angelo Part 2 I wasn't able to find black and white scans in English so I decided to use a color English scanslation for this chapter. A terrible disappointment, I know! This scanslation didn't say who translated it, but I assume it's using the Invincible Trio's translation. Jotaro warns Josuke that Angelo, the bad guy stand user, is lurking somewhere near Josuke's house. Jotaro tells Josuke to sit tight until he arrives and to keep a close watch on the bottle in which Angelo's stand Aqua Necklace is currently imprisoned. Some indeterminate amount of time later, Josuke is playing Super NES. He takes the opportunity provided by a game over to check on the bottle. (Game over...foreshadowing???) The bottle itself appears to hold only water, so Josuke agitates it vigorously, which causes Aqua Necklace to show its true form. Aqua Necklace snarls impotently at Josuke from the confines of the bottle.  We cut to Angelo, lurking in some bushes some hundred feet from the front of Josuke's house sweating profusely. "That son of a bitch!" he growls as he rips up the grass he's kneeling on. Yeah I could imagine how having your stand shaken up like that might make your inner ear get hella shook up. Angelo desperately tries to think of a way to break Aqua Necklace out of the bottle so that he can kill Josuke and "his babe of a mom!"  Then he spots Tomoko's dad (the bike-riding cop) pull up to the driveway and enter the house. "That's the cop...he's the one..." Angelo, sweaty as a motherfucker, says. Tomoko's dad yawns and enters the house - he just finished working the graveyard shift. Angelo let's use know that it was Sergeant Ryohei Higashikata who first sent him to jail when he was 12. "Ryohei Higashikata, I know everything about you!"  Ryohei pulls a gun on Josuke to ask why he isn't at school. It's obviously as a joke, but... trigger discipline man! Well, I guess this means the trigger discipline of your average Japanese LEO is no worse than your average American one Josuke seems to not think that Ryohei is joking though! He stammers out that he's just waiting for somebody (which is true.) This is apparently fine with Ryohei. Huh. See if my high-school-age brother told me that's why he wasn't at school, I'd probably ask him for more details, but w/e let's not forget that the other adult in this household appears to be regularly caffeinating the 15-year-old. "I'm just kidding, this is a fake gun!" OK fine, I'll take back what I said about trigger discipline. At any rate, for Josuke to actually be concerned about his grandpa waving a gun, he would have to believe at that moment that his grandpa would actually point a loaded gun at his head. I'm not saying he thinks his grandpa would shoot him, but plenty of people have died from dumb pranks that went down exactly like this one, so even if it were my own mother pointing a gun at me as a joke I would be as concerned as Josuke is here. So perhaps Ryohei has a history of ill-thought-out behavior. Because of the look of their house, I'm just imagining wacky hijinks in which he attempts to rig up elaborate Christmas lights and ends up shorting out the electrical grid for every building in a three-block radius. Oh cripes, did I just write a fanfic?  The TV has somehow switched from AUX to the local news! "The police reported a serial killing involving 7 people. All of the bodies were found with fatal internal injuries on their eyes and ears. These murders have only happened in the area of Morioh as of now, and are still being investigated." Josuke gives the bottle of Aqua Necklace the side-eye. "7 deaths...this many already?" Ryohei gets serious. He says that he can sense the killer lurking somewhere nearby.  A loud sound from a car sounds from outside (guess Jotaro drives stick!) and Josuke goes to the window to greet Josuke. While his back is turned, Aqua Necklace begins forming itself to look like cognac, going so far as to create a branded label. "I know you too well, Higashikata! After your nightly shift you just love having yourself a nice class of brandy, don'tcha?" Angelo says from the bushes. I guess he knows this from casing the house? Ohhh so he's going to try to trick Ryohei into opening the bottle. The bottle that has a label on the inside of the glass? ....oh poo poo, I'm not even that into cognac and if I saw a bottle with a wax seal stuck on the inside I would open it just to see what was up too!   Josuke greets Jotaro at the window. Jotaro tells him to get in the car.  Josuke is now in front of the door and turns around to notice...  OK sorry time for a nitpick, but yeah, Josuke either teleported from the window to the door OR he walked to the door without noticing the ensuing scene then did a double take (and remember, he couldn't have just done a sideways crab-walk to the door because he would have had to go around the window pane.)  The pacing implies that his turning around happens immediately after Jotaro tells him that they should go somewhere else, but you can clearly see that the spot where Josuke stands in front of the window and the spot where he stands in front of the door are about ten feet apart! Buuut honestly in terms of storytelling it's irrelevant and the rest of this page has some really excellent time and tension management. (It's possible also that Araki stuck Josuke in front of the door so that he wouldn't have to clutter up the panel with background elements showing stuff from out the window.) The panels here are paced in a nice staccato sort of way (you could imagine a dramatic chord playing for each of these) as we jump closer and closer to Josuke's eyes. This sequence here is very horror-movie like in the best way as each panel ratchets up the tension higher and higher until the payoff. Whenever we jump to a closeup of a character's eyes, we're supposed to notice the character's mental state. So clearly Josuke saw something bad! But what?  The next two panels jump from a medium shot of the sidetable -- the bottle is open and empty -- to a close-up of the empty open bottle. Oh poo poo, that means...  oh nooo Ryohei's hand on the floor! Jotaro draws nearer and sees Ryohei lying on the floor, bleeding from his eyes, mouth, and ears, just like Dogshit Man from the last chapter! Aqua Necklace giggles and taunts Josuke! Here's the whole sequence, because now it's Pontificating About Art Time!  You could absolutely just have these panels and keep going:    But drawing this moment out ratchets up the tension to the point where even the reader starts to feel that horrible pit-in-your-stomach feeling you get when you realize you just hosed up big time. To recap on tension, in a narrative tension is created by raising a question that has high stakes riding on the answer -- the higher the stakes, the greater the tension. A standard fiction-writing technique is to make the answer to a question raised by the narrative raise a question that has even higher stakes riding on the answer. And of course the reader should be able to anticipate what the "bad answer" is, if they couldn't there wouldn't be tension! This is done excellently on this page, even if the whole sequence can be read in a matter of seconds. The narrative questions go: "what is Josuke looking at?" -- The open bottle. "Did Ryohei fall for Angelo's trick?" -- Yes. "Is Ryohei OK?" -- No. "Where's Aqua Necklace?" -- THERE! Not only that, but the framing of the shots here, with these jumping zooms, wordlessly narrate Josuke's mental processing of what happened, heartbeat by heartbeat. Even if you didn't care much for Ryohei (we hardly knew ya) you can almost feel that sickening pit in your stomach as Josuke's eyes frantically jump around the room, taking everything in. You can almost imagine him replaying the last few seconds in his brain as he pieces together what has happened. Josuke's stand punches Aqua Necklace but it, being liquid, escapes through the crack between the bottom of the front door and the ground.  Jotaro, apparently tired of waiting for Josuke to walk out to the car, walks in (or maybe he heard the DORADORADORA.) Josuke is already at Ryohei's side. "My old man opened the bottle...but no worries, small wounds like these are nothing! My stand'll fix him up in no time!"  Ryohei's wounds are patched up, but he doesn't move. Jotaro watches the scene uncomfortably.  Josuke is incredulous. "How could this be...he should...he should be up by now...my stand can heal anything..." Josuke shakes Ryohei telling him the joke isn't funny (this whole bit is so )   Jotaro puts a stop to this by laying a hand on Josuke's shoulder. Jotaro tells it to him straight - Josuke can't bring people back from the dead. Gramps was already a goner by the time Josuke got to him.  Josuke clenches his fist and briefly eulogizes Ryohei. "He never got promoted." Possibly due to a history of bone-headed shenanigans? "But he's been working hard to protect people in this town every day. When he heard about the news about Angelo earlier...he had the eyes of the guardian of this town!"  Jotaro tells Josuke to pull it together since Angelo is going to go after Josuke and his mom next.  Jotaro puts his serious face on and resolves to fill his grandpa's shoes by acting as the guardian of his town. OK to be honest I am not really that bummed out that Ryohei bought it, but I really really want to give Josuke a hug! It's interesting to note here that at the end he's not boiling over with rage. He doesn't seem furious in the slightest. In fact he seems pretty calm - pretty ready to go kick some rear end in a level-headed way. After seeing what Josuke did to the turtle-smashing jerk from the Roving Pack of Assholes, I'm looking forward to seeing what he does to somebody who's actually really hosed with him, although it seems that he doesn't have quite the energy he had during that particular encounter. Maybe Angelo will end up dissing his hair. Hmm, looks overall though that Josuke knows how to keep his poo poo together when things get real. It also looks like this is the first time Josuke's failed to "fix" a person. I hope they return to that idea because there's probably a lot of emotional drama to be had from exploring that. You can tell from his shaking knees that Josuke's upset, but the moment isn't dwelled on, at least not in this chapter. On the other hand, if they do continue to explore Josuke's feelings about what just happened, I hope it doesn't become some big overwrought "MY ONE BIG MISTAKE" like what happens in a lot of other comics where the hero then ends up angsting about that poo poo long past the point the reader is capable of feeling any sympathy. I'm thinking this will be fine though, Araki doesn't strike me to be the kind of writer that's that interested in making excessively self-flagellating heroes. ....oh no, how's Tomoko gonna take all this? Next: to be posted some time by the end of the day on Sunday, chapter 6!
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Aug 29, 2015 00:58
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Hey folks, if you have links to scans, please just pm me or email me at Manuela.Malasanya@gmx.com, would hate to have everyone getting in trouble for ! Had been using a  torrent tracker of all things, but thanks for the heads up!And agreed, I like how Josuke comes off as rather relatable after Jotaro, who had me for the duration of Part 3 thinking "this guy would never give me the time of day IRL."
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Aug 29, 2015 01:38
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Bad Seafood posted:My official policy in this case would be that it's better to ask forgiveness than seek permission. Cool, I am down with this! I just don't want Lowtax to get a takedown or whatever poo poo, but if that's the policy then I no longer give any fucks. 
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Aug 29, 2015 02:05
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And, once again as a supplement, Ziggy Starfucker and I did a cold reading of the last half of Chapter 5, Duwang edition while somewhat inebriated just for shits and giggles. This chapter wasn't that funny but gently caress it, it's awkward goon content, so here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SVsco0bzbI
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Aug 29, 2015 07:30
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I recently got in a disagreement with a friend on whether Sugita or Ishizuka was a better Joseph. After a circular discussion I pretended to agree so things wouldn't escalate, but in fact anyone who doesn't think Sugita was a better Joseph has terrible taste. 
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Aug 30, 2015 18:57
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Baal posted:Hochu Otsuka was the best Joseph, actually 
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Aug 30, 2015 19:48
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littleorv posted:Ben Diskin I actually haven't had a chance to watch BT dubbed yet outside of a few clips so I'm actually pretty curious to see how he does. Also need to know how sore his jaw got after chewing on so much scenery.
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Aug 30, 2015 19:55
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Don't nerd me, buddy.
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Aug 30, 2015 20:05
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I'm not your guy, friend. just watched some clips on YouTube. Liking Diskin but Caesar ain't rully doin it for me.
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Aug 30, 2015 20:09
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Jeez I don't even let my parents know that I watch Japanese cartoons. Don't you want your folks to go to bed at night without crying their eyes out from the knowledge that they begat a weeb?
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Aug 30, 2015 20:28
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And now the "I'm not your buddy, pal!" edition of Let's Read Diamond is Unbreakable! Chapter 6 Josuke Meets Angelo Part 3 Translation: Invincible Trio Reminder: if you've missed a previous part, you can find it on my blog dealy here https://manuelamalasanya.wordpress.com/lets-read-jjba/ or by clicking the ? under my name. Josuke narrates: "After the funeral...we kept his uniforms in the closet. And the back was packed with old but shiny shoes, shirts and pants all neatly stacked. My old man would always wear them, no matter how much we made fun of his looks. But, they will be thrown away someday...Even though mom doesn't want to do it because they remind her of her father...there isn't anybody left to put them on..."  Dang, that's pretty...that's pretty Also look at how in that panel showing the open closet doors how there is "too much" white space. The negative space of the dark closet doesn't quite balance out the positive space of the empty room. Like something is...missing...? rly makes u think dosnt it  We jump to Jotaro in the kitchen drinking some bottled water.  Jotaro tells Josuke not to ingest anything except bottled water and canned food. So they're holed up in Josuke's house? Then did Josuke not go to Ryohei's funeral? Or was the first part of the chapter a sort of framing thing, like the funeral happened after this story arc?  Well anyway, Josuke seems a bit depressed but otherwise calm.  Oh. Or not! Heh, it appears in a touch out of a more humorous manga Josuke's hair doesn't cooperate when he's upset. Jotaro shoots him a freaked out look but Josuke dodges eye contact and glumly fixes his hair.  "Don't worry, I'm not gonna go berserk. I'm just a little ticked off. I'm cool...really!" His face looks calm, but he's shaking.  Want to point out that this is an interesting character moment for Josuke. He's upset but he's trying to hide it. Seems like a pretty realistic touch for the child of a single mother. Josuke has learned earlier than most people that his emotions affect the emotions of the people around him. You also see this trait in kids who have had to step up and become a parental figure for their younger siblings for whatever reason (holler). IRL this trait has sent a lot of people to therapy as adults so I'll be interested to see how it continues to manifest in Josuke.  Whoa, holy poo poo, are we sure that this manga takes place in Morioh, Japan and not Figueres, Spain? Looks like Josuke's been destroying various objects around the house then repairing them -- badly. (btw duuuutch angleeeeee) Seems that when Josuke is upset he has a hard time making things return to their original state. Hmmm...so perhaps his inner calm is borne partially out of necessity? So if he had been really rattled by his mom getting infiltrated by Aqua Necklace would he have not been able to put her insides back right? YIKES. Could see this as being a major weakness in future stories. "Well it's your furniture after all, and you're free to choose what you want to take your anger out on...not that I care anyway..." Jotaro says partly for the benefit of the audience. "By the way, what's with the cut on your lower lip," Jotaro asks, indicating where he busted Josuke's lip when they first met. "Can't you heal yourself with your stand?"  "No, I can't heal myself with it." says Josuke. Oohhhhhhh interesting~! Jotaro asks what will happen if Angelo manages to get inside Josuke's body and tear him up from the inside.  Pictured above: a 15-year-old considering the very real possibility of his imminent demise.  "Then I don't have any choice. If he gets inside me, it's game over." Daaaaaaaaang! Meanwhile, some 500 feet away from Josuke's house, Brat Pitt, err, Angelo is spying on the Jojos with binoculars. "Heheh...you still think you can shove me into a bottle? Josuke, now that I know about your ability...you won't be able to catch me again!!"  Angelo states his intention to take over Josuke's body no matter how long it takes and then to "have fun" with Tomoko. I'm sure there's a doujin about that somewhere. -- THREE DAYS LATER -- Jotaro is scouting around outside and notices Angelo's footprints. HEY, where's Tomoko anyway? We haven't even seen how she reacted to news of her dad's death.  It starts to rain. Oooohhh poo poo!  Aqua Necklace starts entering Jotaro's body but Star Platinum punches it away.  Aqua Necklace then sneaks into the house through the window. The place where Aqua Necklace touched Jotaro's face suddenly bursts and Jotaro begins bleeding. Huh, does Aqua Necklace have some kind of acid attack?  We see Josuke in the kitchen - all the taps are now running and all the water in the house is now boiling. Not sure how Aqua Necklace did this but I guess his power somehow made this happen.  Aqua Necklace begins to form out of a steam cloud behind Josuke.  Aqua Necklace begins entering the various orifices in Josuke's head, but Josuke uses his stand to smash a bottle and reform it - but it looks like he can't capture Aqua Necklace when he's in a gaseous form.  Water begins leaking from the ceiling. "Leaks...Angelo made holes on the roof!" Josuke says. When did Angelo have time to do that? Jotaro, you hosed up watch duty! Looks like the entire house is a danger zone now, with water dripping in upstairs and steam swirling around downstairs. Aqua Necklace can attack from any angle.  Josuke begins to laugh. "What's so funny?" Jotaro asks. "Let me remind you that we're trapped like rats!"  "I know that, Mr. Jotaro," Josuke says with a smirk that seems somewhat uncharacteristic. "But think of it this way. That murderer's so close by...I'll be able to avenge Grandpa real soon! This is great!"  Ooooooooohhhh very nice Araki, you have my full attention now! It seems that when Josuke gets pushed too far, something flips in him and he gets something of a cruel streak. I'm really interested to see how this goes because in most shonen stories where this happens, it's because the character is literally being influenced by some external force, like The Other Yugi in Yu-Gi-Oh! or Demon Eyes Kyo in Samurai Deeper Kyo. It appears that in this case though, unless I'm wrong (if I am please only say so in spoiler tags) that this is a genuine component to Josuke's identity. Kid of single mother, forced to shoulder some responsibility for caregiving adult's emotional state, feels obligated to moderate outward-facing emotions for the sake of loved ones? Repressed rage ahoy! I'd like to point out here that Josuke and Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho have a rather similar background - both are children of young single mothers and are known for being tough guys and troublemakers, but their personalities couldn't be more different. (It also bears mentioning that Yusuke is a working-class boy while Josuke is middle-class.) It's kind of interesting that both of these characters appeared together at the same time in Weekly Shonen Jump. Coincidence or was it previously taboo to have a character of this background in a shonen manga? I'll have to ask my Japanese pals and get back to everyone. Coming up next! Josuke Meets Angelo part 4 and 5! Some time before next Sunday, whenever the hell I feel like it! And then I will evaluate the next story arc and see how I want to pace myself because in fact before I started this let's read, mid-Nijimura Brothers arc was as far as I'd gotten! Will be reposting to my blog for folks to share with their non-goon friends after a few days so that I can incorporate any interesting discussions that come up. Xibanya fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 21:17
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