Anime/Manga Aficionado's Lounge! II

[Nik Hasta]

Kongou Banchou continues to raise it's game and we're finally going to see Gokurou go into action.

Yeah! So damn pumped!

[Eternal Torment]

Well, I've never followed Oh My Goddess! (or however you spell it). I only know the basics of the plot.

But this latest plot twist has caught my attention, because it paints Belldandy in a pretty bad light.

[FarBeyondC]

I swear, Kuroko has to be a super-magician or something, with the way he's completely invisible to most people most of the time.

Also, Killua is badass. That is all.

[Pong]

Meanwhile in Id, Ashirizen proves to be more gullible than a child and Gray is forgotten. Now will Id get to palace before Percer kills everyone? Tune in next time.

[Nik Hasta]

Okay, so a fair bit of news today:

First up, I picked up two new series today Yankee-kun to Megane-chan and Nisekoi. I am halfway through the former and totally up to date on the latter. Both are fine reminders of why I love slice-of-life stories. YtM is particularly strong, very funny and extremely engaging. It's blessed with a really positive and endearing atmosphere that has made the first 100 chapters simply fly by. I would recommend both if you're looking for a slice-of-life romantic comedy, both should do you just fine.

Second, I also caught up with Arakawa (Of FMA fame)'s Gin no Saiji. It is a pleasant little piece that is a love letter to the farming community as well providing likeable characters and soft, if evocative, overarching plot that has me quite engaged. Definitely worth a look if you've ever been interested in farming in any capacity.

The third and bigges thing is Air Gear ended. So... here's a bit of a retrospective on that.

Air Gear is pretty fantastic. Let me just get the art bit out of the way and say simply; it's Oh!Great, fantastic artwork and stupendous visual design are just par for the course now. Over the last ten years his art has gone from "Pretty cool standard shonen," looking to outright "Gobsmackingly gorgeous and unique artwork," I stand by my usual assertion that Oh!Great is probably one of the finest mangakas working today in terms of sheer artistic skill.

So, the art is great, let's get into the story. Air Gear is a bit off the standard Shonen plotline and I think that really aids it. The characters are a lot more obviously flawed than in other stories of the genre but Oh!Great manages to pull together the cast of misfits and makes them very likeable. Particular stand-out is Ikki, the protagonist, because his development from simple gang hoodlum, to up-and-coming AT user, to skating messiah, to a mere pawn in a greater game and then all the way up to an actual hero is really rather excellent. Ikki remains true to himself but also manages to achieve that interesting maturity and strength that makes really believe that is the inspiring figure that the narrative purports him as.

The plot itself is great fun, there are some excellent plot twists scattered throughout the story and it moves along at a very respectable clip as well so it never seems to drag. There are some bits that you are expected to just go with and are subsequently never really explained but they, for the most part, minor enough that I can forgive them.

For criticisms; I will say that Oh!Great has a real problem with working philosophical pretensions into his pieces that aren't actually that grounded in anything logical or reasonable and the whole series can get a little "style-over-substance," at times but I can think of some titles that are much worse offenders on these points so I can easily forgive it.

So yeah.

If you want a gripping and extremely visually stunning shonen series about a group of likeable misfits on rollerblades fighting to save the world then Air Gear is the series for you. If you don't have such a precise criteria for reading material as that, I would still recommend checking the series out - the art is stunning, the characters are fun and writing is pretty consistently solid.

[Yun Lao]

After a small hiatus on my manga reading, I decided to get to it.

Continued where I was off in JoJo Part Six, and I have to say, Limp Bizkit is a pretty dangerous stand. Who knew that making invisible zombies would pose a problem to girls who have powers like controlling strings, duplicating and destroying objects with stickers, and living plankton?

[blackpariah]

After a long time of only reading the volumes as they released in stores, I decided to get current with all chapters of Rosario+Vampire. Wow! Tsukune has increased his badassitude a huge amount in the in-story time since this series started. He went from a normal dude with no powers to nearly an eldritch abomination in less than one school term!

[Hazard]

Gundam Age:

Yeah this show needs Asemu back. I mean Kio is cool and all, but his run is hindered by pretty much being forced into piloting the gundam by his grandpa (sure he is cool with it but that's no the point). You don't tell you thirteen year old grandson to go to war! That's just wrong.

That and Asemu is a super pilot which is cooler than being an X-Rounder/Newtype.

Aquarion Evol:

At this point I just feel bad for Zessica. Seriously.

I'm also shipping Mikono/Kagura at this point. "We'l kill each other. All night long."

With lines like that how can I not?

DxD:



I know Raiser is kind of an ass and the antagonist of the arc and all, but I can't help but like him here.

[master of read]

New sket dance out.


Um can any one tell me what 4 quadrillon yen is in US money?

[Hazard]

New sket dance out.


Um can any one tell me what 4 quadrillon yen is in US money?

Entirely too much money.

Likely in the low trillions.

[master of read]

Entirely too much money.

Likely in the low trillions.

Well, that's how much one of the character's family makes. So much so that a 10 story office building is their front door, their house is entirely underground with a a street that takes 40 minutes to get to the main house.

[Dark Soul # 7]

Toriko: Woah. Is is just me or does this series have one of the fastest rising power curves when compared to its contemporaries?

Beelzebub: I don't know if this is the greatest show of its kind or the dumbest. Either way, there is so much funny with this chapter. Futaba and Hajime steal the chapte for me though.

[Robotech Master]

So it looks like Shit got really real in recent chapters of Omamori Himari.

spoilers:

Kuesu might be dead or dying, she appears to have taken Shuten Doji down with her, and Yuuto is punching Kyuubi in the face for it

end of spoilers

[Dark Soul # 7]

So it looks like Shit got really real in recent chapters of Omamori Himari.

spoilers:

Kuesu might be dead or dying, she appears to have taken Shuten Doji down with her, and Yuuto is punching Kyuubi in the face for it

end of spoilers

Is she in chibi-form or hottie-form while getting face-punched?

[Robotech Master]

Is she in chibi-form or hottie-form while getting face-punched?

Chibi-form by the looks of it; and on closer inspection it looks more like he's facepalming her into the ground or something.