I may be making a few serious posts here soon. Dunno. I also have to get away from friends (heh, irony) so I can write again.
Anyway.
Been reading several manga scans online recently. Checked into more, but if I didn't like the way the series was headed I just dropped it. The art style is often telling.
You all know about Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles, so I won't bother going into that. Notes mostly in detail shorthand—meaning it's insanely simple.
07 Ghost – random pickup, seen in the updates list and looked into from there. Current. Action series; main weapon is zaiphon, which can either be channeled through the body directly or through specially-constructed items. Two main factions: Empire and Church. Protag(onist) is Chosen One, solely able to wield the Eye of Mikhael, wherein lies a powerful deity-like Boom thing; protag unaware of abilities, awaiting 'awakening(s)' or whatever that means. Standard stuff. Major lore revolving around demonic figure sealed away by seven ghosts who exist to keep demon thing sealed; ghosts are supposedly able to wield the weapon of demon after a fashion.
So far in the series there's been a fair bit of action, but nothing to the point of endless drug-out battles where all scenery is inevitably destroyed like Godzilla going through Tokyo for the umpteenth time. Do the Japanese have a fascination with blowing up entire landscapes endlessly, or something? Anyway, several of the battles have had psychological touches as well, and executed decently, which makes me happy. Protag has the standard mountains of talent, but once taken out of his familiar environment has difficulty actually using it and needs fairly long training periods to compensate. This is also pleasing, because I'm sorry but Getsuga Tenshou spams get old after a while when the longest training period Kurosaki ever went through was one week. [/unprovoked Bleach rant] There was one point that squirreled past the training—scriptural knowledge—but that was adequately explained. For those who've read Wizard's First Rule, it's about the same as Richard being made to memorise the Book of Counted Shadows. Fair enough.
Nothing really bothering me about this series so far. Surprising lack of love interest figures . . . by which I mean none. Nothing overly contrived that can't or hasn't been explained. I think.
On that note, I've seen four series now that contain characters with razor-wire gloves: Hellsing, Black Cat, Mai HiME (shut up), and 07 Ghost. What gives?
Speaking of . . . .
Black Cat – rec. Read when the mood strikes me. Not current. Action series; main weapons are Time Guardian special editions versus Tsao, which is basically random godmod powers. But since all the Time Guardians seem to godmod themselves, there's no problem.
Protag is reclusive goofball who just so happens to be the Elite Pwnzor of Haxx. Or something. Aided and abetted (amid half-hearted protestation) by a genius of bullet haxx. I WANNA SPELL HAXX THIS WAY LEAVE ME ALONE. Joined later by various and sundry peeps. I mean homies. Not marshmallow atrocities.
Main motivation of this series seems to be basically Will X Defeat Y Before Y Uses Z To Destroy The World, While W Lurks In The Background Trying To Manipulate X And/Or Y Into Eradicating Z Or Sommat? So yeah. Fun times.
Black Lagoon – half rec, half curiosity. Current. Funky series; premise is snafu after snafu, typically solved by a combination of Rock and Revy doing their thing. Current snafu is fubar. Revy is running out of thing. Rock might be getting his second wind. We haven't seen him in a while, so who the deuce knows?
Y'all should know how I feel about this series. Solid enough story to me, location justifies massive carnage, mostly of buildings, infrequently of extras. Yadda yadda yadda. Balalaika is the most terrifying woman on the face of the earth. Obviously I adore her. PLATONICALLY, YOU UTTER NIT.
Bleach – whim. Current. Why the deuce not? It's a decent speed-read. Plus since everyone hates Ishida and I don't, well, meh. Leastaways Ulquiorria's release is freaking amazing. 'Bout time we saw someone halfway decent or intimidating besides Grimmjow and Nel Tu. Other than that, it's the standard battles-to-give-set-designers-heart-attacks-forever deal. Middle of a town? Blow it to kingdom come. Mountainside? Blow it to kingdom come. Ornate city designed by Mr. Self-Absorbed God-Man himself? Screw that, blow it to kingdom come. All this stuff's just in the way. Level it. Bring down the house. Where's blinded!Samson when you need him? Gosh.
Claymore – whim. Heard good things about it. Or maybe I just heard things about it. Turned out to be good, at any rate. Whatever. Current. Put out some more dang chapters already, people, criminy. Action/fantasy, ish. You'll see. Initial premise is white-haired, silver-eyed chicks slaying bloodthirsty monsters (which hide as normal humans until some white-haired, silver-eyed chick comes around to kill them, oddly enough) with claymores (duh) which they one-hand.
Now, I don't know about you, but I know claymores are freaking heavy ess-oh-bees. These chicks are one-handing the suckers. But that gets explained, too. So no worries.
Anyway, series paces itself really well, gradually filtering plot into the initial carnage so that right now it's basically plot with carnage on the side, when the writers remember that the reason they started the series was for chicks swinging swords the size of trees. Not really. But almost. I'm making fun of it, but seriously, read it. It's tight.
D.Gray-Man – whim. No idea why. Current. No idea why. Same as Bleach, I guess. *shrug* Action series; weapon of choice is Innocence, which binds itself to the user in various and unique and interesting ways. No razor wire here, though . . . yet. There's one mysterious mentor figure who absolutely refuses to be shown in combat. Maybe it's him. Who knows?
Another monster-slayer (hence the Innocence), with a Chosen protag. Antag is a major screwball dementia case who always reminds me of The Penguin on crack with razor teeth and hearts when he talks. Jeepers creepers. He's always grinning through his teeth, too; never parts his chompers to talk. Weirdo. Lighthearted slayer, though, so probably worth a read, if only to get away from all that blood and gore and scenery destruction. OH WAIT. There's some in this one, too. Nowhere near as much, though. Oh well.
Two sticky points to me so far. First is the dad-gum love interest. Sorry, but I don't buy love at first sight, and I especially don't buy it when it attempts to manifest in big-sister dere-dere something-or-other crud. AND ALSO I CAN'T STAND REVEALING OUTFITS. Or hip boots. Except these are more like ear boots. Holy crap. (Seriously, can you even move in hip boots? My gosh.) Second is a spoiler, but let's just say people were ranting about it in connection with Naruto and sage chackra or sommat like that. Resurrection/Christ metaphor. Agh.
Eternal Sabbath — random pickup. Seen while browsing. Completed. Psychological; one of the better ones I've seen. Definitely worth looking into.
Protag is female who breaks all sorts of stereotypes by being a ridiculously intelligent introvert without any sort of grouchiness at all. Series revolves around her relationship with a man under the name "Akiba Ryosuke", which is only his because he stepped into the life of that names actual owner. "Ryosuke" has the uncanny ability to enter the mind and manipulate the memories/willpower of the everyday person, excepting occasional interesting cases where he is limited to mere perception-tinkering at the cost of great effort and concentration.
Great pacing, couple of average plot turns, many more well-played plot turns that balance out the average ones, and no bad ones. Ending is superb. Read this manga.
FullMetal Alchemist – whim. Not current. Read when mood strikes me. I need neither explain myself nor the series.
Metroid – whim. Completed (series was abandoned, I think). I wanted to laugh. I laughed. Groaned once or twice, too. The Chozo looked absolutely retarded.
Rurouni Kenshin – first actual manga I read; English version, no less. Completed (scans; hush, I'm poor). I don't need to explain this one, either.
Vandread – . . . no bloody idea. Seriously. I just am. Current—all ten chapters so far. =P Really, I have no idea what I'm doing this for. My gosh.
So. Action/harem. Yes, I am AWARE of this. I made it through Fate/stay-night, okay? Okay. Main deal is (apparently) Vanguards (mecha) and Dreads (one-man fighters), and various combinations of the two, appropriately nicknamed Vandreads. Cockpits of Vandreads are . . . tandem. Awkward. Basic premise is weird. Male species versus female species for God only knows why—literally, I kid you not. Men pilot Vanguards, femmes hit the Dreads. Stuff happens. Madre del Dío, why am I reading this?
Maybe the same reason I started AND FINISHED Mai HiMe. I . . . don't even know.
xxxHolic – deliberate choice. Current.
Companion series to Tsubasa:RC. What can I say, CLAMP is very addicting. And I bow to their storytelling methods. If you want this series to make sense, though, read it at the same time as Tsubasa. That is all.
Zero – random pickup seen in the updates. Current. Action series, though really manwha (Korean, for those not in the know); main weapon is psychic energy, manipulated by will power. Eraser beams, mind and body breaks, so on, so forth. Interesting concept. Also . . . another harem. I don't know why I do this. HOWEVER. Caveat is that so far there's been nothing terribly stupid. Main character is the hot-headed protectorate and a bit of a dunce about women, but THANK HEAVEN he doesn't do all the stupid bumbling crap. Also thankfully there are only three 'contenders' so far, and one of them doesn't even know she is one. (Distinguished because of her 'Osaka' dialect.) I count her merely because she's been in stasis for fifty-odd years and is also a bit socially moronic. Girlfriend = female friend. Causes tension, yes, but whatevers. Ain't like she's gunning for the guy's side.
Yet. Oi.
Other than that, there's a bit of sister weirdness and possible brother+sister=little-sister ultra-weirdness, but . . . I'm kind of ignoring that so long as the author does the same. Also a bit of a tsundere deal on one side, but she seems to be the Born Loser in this situation—and given the sister weirdness and the crazy Osaka girl, I'm oddly pulling for Loser. And I DON'T KNOW WHY. *scratches head* At least I'm not trying to insert myself in Protag's place. And if I ever start doing that kind of crap, someone fly out to Tennessee and beat me with a pool noodle.
Sam, I'm delegating to you because you're most likely to enjoy it. Also I'm still picking on you, and will continue to do so probably so long as we know each other, so this is kind of a mercy turnabout as well. I dunno. I mean, I'd have Kimmeh do it just for kicks and giggles, but soon as she got here she'd go all nutty and be like "I can't hut juuu" or something silly.
ANYWAY. Where was I?
Oh, right. Me cursing myself for reading anything related to harem genres. Criminiddly.
Also, protag is another Chosen. Go figure. =P
Zetman – random pickup seen in updates. Not current. Getting there, though. Action/psychological thingummy, I think. This one's hard to explain. Sci-fi touch, but I count it setting at best, since the action and psychological sides dominate.
Uhm. This one's really hard to explain. Two protags. Both are . . . special, ish. Best I can think of right now is a kind of Batmnan/Superman relationship between the specialness. Other than that . . . stuff happens. Things get killed, people get killed, emotions go screwy, plot is revealed, and basically everything is a spoiler. I kid you not. I'm enjoying it, though. Not quite as much as I enjoyed Eternal Sabbath, but then again I'm enjoying this one in a way I didn't enjoy ES. I'd almost suggest looking into Zetman as well. Warning for some nudity.
Which reminds me.
WHY IS THERE USUALLY NUDITY IN THE GOOD SERIES??? Agh. I think I might make myself a little set of black censor bars. Jeepers.
Anyway, long post is long, and once again has nothing to do with the title. SO HA HA.
I SHOUTED A LOT.
I SHOULD GO TO SLEEP.
I PROBABLY WILL IN A HALF HOUR.
OR SO.
