I'm under such pivoting stress right now all I want to do is write.



ANIME REVIEWS.

SO BADLY. But I haven't finished watching stuff yet so, lol, nothing to review.


Ah...I should be writing my essay.
Say, for those who read, why do you guys like manga? What makes manga your choice of reading material? Do you prefer it over American comics, and if so, why?

It's kind of what my essay is on, so...haha, and my brain is fried right now.

Thats what I get for drinking and reading Death Note at 2 am. I procrastinated reading the end of Death Note after L died because it just got so damn boring, but now since my friend gave the manga to me, I might as well read it.

It's not bad. I just don't like anyone anymore (well, I never did in the first place but...). Kira still looks very hot on certain angles though.

Here's the lesson of the day:
Don't Drink and Read (Death Note).

I dreamt I met a Shinigami last night.





And..And..I have such a craving for Houshin Engi (anything!).
I finished the series years ago, and I've re-read all 23 volumes seven times now. And when I'm lying on my bed, I just shuffle through the volumes over and over again.

And my poor essay, I went from describing the qualities of manga to just how awesome Fujisaki Ryu/Engi is X_Xlll

IT'S FILTERING MY ROOM.

Thankfully there's little to nothing left of Engi in terms of merchandise, otherwise I'd be splurging.

Engi, Shiki, Fujisaku Ryu? Head to Onemanga.Com for your enjoyment.

But damnnnn. Fujisaki his SOOO GOOD WITH WHAT HE DOES. I love how serious and creepy Shiki is, but how subtle Fujiryu's humor is. LIKE. The priest getting off the motorcycle in the side story and there's shiny P.O.V. fluttering everywhere. I just thought that was so amusing.

I'm still a little pissed that Omi killed off a character I liked. He' only appeared in 2.5 chapters and I adored him (T-chan, for the non-spoilerage).

Masao, you're one creepy guy.
"Have you come to console, or be consoled?"

Yuuki is so good looking XD [link]
And even if he doesn't know it, he's rather good at automatically reading situations.

But, at the end of Chapter 4.5, the story finally pumps up the heat and the horror aspect leaks in.
I'm so excited for the next chapter, I'm clawing at the screen.





By the way in,
A lot of people were just off ranting how MUCH Yugioh GX sucks. And quite a few were like, "Nuuoo not another one, it's going to be gay". (in more than one way *laugh*)

But I think what people don't seem to notice nowadays is the "purpose" of the Anime. Because an anime is made for marketing, and the people who make it won't just make anything (well, give or take) because they need it to sell. And because of all the free anime on the web, they're losing money.

Everything is money money money now.
(haha, Media Studies is quite enlightening)

And when people say: OH YGO GX SUCKS!!!
What they don't get is that (not that I like it either but)

YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE.

YGO GX was made for little kids, really (ok, moving aside the fact that some don't know the stupidly weird rules).

I hear my little brother and his friends go (he's six by the way), "YGO GX IS ON!!! SO COOL YEAHHH! I"M GONNA KICK YOUR BUTT WITH MY CARDS"
and then he starts throwing cards at me haha.

Pokemon, Digimon, etc. Those are all names that are being picked up by American enterprises in order to sell the brand.

It's not made for your enjoyment (not entirely so), it's made to leech your wallet. (Ie. Beyblades)

Which is why every time I see my little brother, he's got his little Bakugan Brawler thingy. And the whole stadium set and everything and he goes: "Hah! I bet I'm better than you at Bakugan!"

*eyeroll*

So to put it basically, it's like a 20-year-old guy who's watching Onegai My Melody and saying "it's boring". Well of course it's boring, OMM's target audience are preschoolers.


Second point,

IT'S IN SHOUNEN JUMP, SO IT MUST BE GOOD!
THE CHARACTERS MUST BE AWESOME.
IT NEEDS TO HAVE AN AMAZING PLOT~
IT MUST HAVE A SPIKY HAIRED MAIN CHARACTER!
EW AFTER A WHILE IT NEEDS TO SUCK!
(I was being sarcastic, btw)


A great example to jump into this one would be Nougami Neuro.

For someone like me, who's picky beyond belief about the qualities of an anime, I enjoyed Neuro.

[The Not-So-Great-Parts]
- Not much of a plot
- Characters are a little dry and overdone
- Neuro is like..Hiruma from ES21 (LOL)
- There's not much of a mystery, and it's not complex at all like Death Note for example

It's just an overall B-Grade average-joe anime.
And the manga isn't much different, really. (I'm at chp. 145 now, though)

It's something you watch when you're lax and you've got time.

[The qualities of Nougami Neuro]
- It's straight-forward
- It's fairly enjoyable / Pretty funny at times
- Yako is VERY good main heroine for several reasons. But namely, for being one of the few Jump female lead heroine role WHO ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDS her position in the story and can actually understand/articulate with other characters. And I like hearing her positions on the values of humans.

The author stated himself that N. Neuro is and was just meant to be straight-forward entertainment. Nothing else.

And why is that? Because I think people are asking too much out of a JUMP series sometimes without really understanding the goals of the series. I mean, it's pretty hard to make 892371 awesome series like One Piece.

An even better example is Gintama.

Plot?
WHAT PLOT. There is NO PLOT WHATSOEVER.
150+ Chapters and 150+ Anime Episodes. Where is the plot? There is no plot. There will probably not be a plot for a very long time.

And why? Because that's not really the goal of Gintama.

If I rated Gintama,

Music: 5
Characters: 5
Story: 2
Enjoyment: 5
Animation: standard

Gintama is meant to poke fun at the stupid thoughts and ideals we have of life, pokes fun of the niches of Japan, and occasionally some of the faults of humans; then Gintama takes it gently, and meshes it with some kind of shrewed, stupid humor. Also, occasionally breaking the 4th wall.

And in a sense, that's reflective of Gintoki's/Sorakichi's personal standards. Like the ridiculous titles for the episodes. [link]

It really appeals to people's hearts, I find. Which is how the anime is staying alive. Simply because it's enjoyable and gut-wrenchingly funny.


However, Bleach/Naruto/Dgreyman/OnePiece ARE aiming for the amazing plot/characters/story/etc. thing.

Well so is Reborn, but not so much.
I'm dead serious when I say that reborn's fandom is not based on the qualities of it's stories(not that it's not decent), but more the bishounen aspects of the characters.


Annd oops, back to Yugioh.

I said it a lot before but I really, really do like Yugioh 5d's. It's going in a different direction from the previous series. And as long as there isn't a tournament, I'm okay with it. It's much more reflective of Yugioh 0 than Duel Monsters or GX. Well even though it's not about games so much.

I think...I don't know enough about the series yet but, I think this time, it's target audience isn't just kids, but more general like the original Yugioh with some kind of plot. And with action, because the companies complained about too much card games and not enough action.

Btw. We will not be riding motorcycles and dueling in real life. The Speed-cards are counter-based tactics so it's fine.

So far the storyline is interesting. Minus the gay characters. And plus with the gay action. (hahaha JackxYuusei, OH RAPAN, YOU!)

AND YOU KNOW WHAT???

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF YUGIOH THAT I'VE SEEN THE MAIN CHARACTER PHYSICALLY KNOCK DOWN SOMEBODY. (who was bigger than them to top it off!)

Infact, they played it three times.

Except I replayed and watched it about 87748162837 because it just shocked me.

HAHAAA I LIKE YOU EVEN MORE NOW, YUUSEI.
Who knows. Maybe you'll punch someone next time instead of duel them.

[link]
(21.00 into the video!)




Yami-Yugi was pretty evil in season 0, and just basically a loner in DM. Moutou Yugi was the dork shota.
Judai Yuuki was the Jounouchi (Joey) clone but smaller and more bratty.
Fudou Yusei is well..18. He reminds me of Yami, but after what Jack said, I realized it too. Yuusei is much more bolder than the previous protagonists, and he's much more of a hot-head. So I guess he's like a well-balanced mix of Yami, Yugi and Yuuki. I like that.


Who am I kidding. I just like the evil good guys.



And no annoying female lead so far. (so far, dear god I hope forever!) (as in, I hope Aki doesn't bring in romance to this series =_ but hehe, I like Ruka and Rua already (the loli/shota twins)

I like Stardust dragon, too. It's so pretty. *A*
I don't like dragons much, I think they all look the same, but this one is really gorgeous.

...And I thought Rally was a little girl...but he's a DUDE. Woah. I mean..the voice..the hair...A BOY OwO...Japan's trying to gender confuse me.

And there's a lot of characters from the Original Yugioh 0 who appears, too. Like Ushio and Aoyama.


And...holycrap my essay.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.


T____T omg. I chattered for too long.

Holycow, how long have I been typing..
C_C *DEADMAN*




Media test tommorrow.


</overandout>

Sorry if you read through all of this.