I’ve been on a big manga kick lately, and have managed to suss out some I’ve quite enjoyed. Inside: Orange, Aqua/ARIA, The Gods Lie, Teppu, Pandora Hearts
Mahou Tsukai no Yome, or “The Ancient Magician’s Bride,” raises the important question: Even if you can come up with a way to justify a horrible trope, should you still write about it? I think the answer, at least as far as this manga is concerned, is no.
This single-volume manga by Moyoko Anno is the story of a woman with an eating disorder that was absolutely incredible, but also very, very difficult to read. Huge, huge trigger warning for eating disorders — it actually messed me up for a few days. But if you can get through it, I think it’s a very important work. This may be kind of disjointed, because it’s a bit hard for me to talk about, but more people should read this book.
Huge TW for this post as well.
So I’ve been really enjoying One-Punch Man (eng), a webcomic that has recently transitioned to tankobon and, apparently, anime. I hate superhero stories, but it seems to have been written by someone who has the same feelings about the genre that I do. It’s also legitimately funny and clever. I also love the shitty art.
However… (more…)
Onwards to part 2! Now, the text after the cut continues directly from the end of part 1, so I’d recommend re-reading it first.
Oh, and in addition to the previous spoiler warnings, I’m adding another one concerning an important character in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables, Inspector Javert. (more…)
Those of you with a grasp of Japanese may notice that the English title isn’t a very accurate translation. The Japanese is closer to “Advancing Titans”, and that’s also a much, much better description of what the story’s been about so far.
So. Speaking of zombie fiction, I just read a zombie manga, I am a Hero that’s surprisingly well constructed. One of my issues with zombie fiction is people failing to take into account how zombies function. They might learn some factoid (like the popular “zombies are attracted to noise”) and there might be a scenario where people even use that to their advantage, but then they forget about it again. Here, people seem to learn and carry forward those lessons. Also, these zombies are actually a lot less predictable than the standard ones, so they’re far harder to deal with.