The Old School Otaku Lounge

Oh man, soooo true on the Shounen Jump titles...esp lately! They stretch stories out for as long as they can once they get popular.

Lol speaking of Shounen Jump, I'm sloooowly making my way through the new Viz JJBA re-release. Just started on Battle Tendency!

I mean, if you structure it like One Piece where the ultimate goal is merely a macguffin for the characters to have an endless number of adventures, fine, I can see justification for a never-ending manga. But if you make a tightly plotted serial thriller where all the elements add up to a unified whole, it can get tiresome when you start seeing the mangaka spinning his wheels to stretch things out.

llj wrote:Oh yeah, I was into that for a while. As with a lot of initially great manga series, it just goes on way too long. Naoki Urasawa's stuff comes to mind. Monster, Yawara!, 20th Century Boys were brilliant for the first 7 or so volumes, but did they really need to go 20+ volumes? No.

So true. Lately I'm trying to stay away from any manga that's over 10 volumes. The Battle Royale manga was another recent disappointment. It had a fantastic start but began limping along at volume 9.

Funny thing about Video Girl Ai is that the story actually ends at volume 13, but then volumes 14 and 15 are just a side-story sequel. If they omitted the additional story and eliminated some of the repetitiveness, it could've easily fit into a good 8-10 volumes.

I've got Satoshi Kon's 'Opus' on my reading pile. Flipping through it, it does look more like an animation storyboard than a manga. I do on some level wish Kon was a little wilder and more "Garo" when it comes to his approach to page layouts, though, given how much of an iconoclast he is (sorry, was ) as an anime director.

llj wrote:I've got Satoshi Kon's 'Opus' on my reading pile. Flipping through it, it does look more like an animation storyboard than a manga. I do on some level wish Kon was a little wilder and more "Garo" when it comes to his approach to page layouts, though, given how much of an iconoclast he is (sorry, was ) as an anime director.

I def agree. I think his strength was directing more than being a manga artist, which is probably why he ended up masking way more anime than he did manga (and 2 of them being unfinished at that!). Opus was pretty good though, I enjoyed it much more than Seraphim & the "ending" was a bit more satisfying than the abrupt one Seraphim got.

Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin. I normally wouldn't pick a mecha manga up, but Yasuhiko is just a stupendous artist, unlike any other manga artist on the shelves. For one thing, he liberally uses brushes, while 95% of most other manga artists use boring, static technical pens for all their artwork. Yaz is also one of the best users of zipatone. Right up there with Wally Wood. In fact his artwork actually seems to bear some similarities to Wood's, in terms of his figure work and the variety of classical camera angles.

Still reading Gundam Origin. This is pretty fascinating. I'm not big on remakes or retellings because I hate treading on familiar ground, but the craft on display here is undeniable, and there's a lot here that feels new to me.

For one thing, the little kids get FAR LESS face time in the manga than in the anime. Yas is clearly aiming this at adults, those who KNOW Gundam. Secondly, there's a larger emphasis on character dialogue, and tactical conversations. It "feels" like a war comic, moreso than just a space adventure.

Stories move a lot quicker than I remember. I guess when there are less "fillers" this happens, but Garma dies a lot earlier in Origin than what it felt like in the TV anime, or even the movies. Same with Ramba Ral. Events just move briskly in Origin and is a denser read than both the TV and movie anime.

Just finished volume 1 of One-Punch Man. I'm pretty late getting into the series, but I'm enjoying it so far. I will definitely be picking up volume 2!

I'm also about to start reading The Birth of Kitaro; I'm so glad that Drawn & Quarterly is releasing this!

I'm almost finished MSG: Origin, just 1 more volume to go. This is probably one of the best manga released in North America. It's right up there with Akira and Nausicaa as "must reads" for those who "generally don't read manga". Great art, very accessible for new readers, and cleanly told.

I'm reading Hideo Yamamoto new manga, Adam to Eve.

I have Gunnm: Last Order on hold and maybe this summer i'll begin to read again, if I get the cyberpunk mood again.
I'm reading Violence Jack too, but I only read when a chapter is out in english, which takes months or even years, but it's already great to have a scanlator doing that work.