Karakuridouji Ultimo

I looked and there wasn't a thread already, so I made one.

Karakuridouji Ultimo, or just Ultimo is a manga created by the creator of Shaman King and Stan Lee. It's basically a Shonen Mecha series with a battle against good and evil...with Female Gaze permenantly turned on and plenty of Ho Yay.

Perpetual Fandom and What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids? indeed.

So, what are your thoughts? Is it good? Is it bad? What bothers you? Why do you love it? Chapter 21?

So far....the only thing interesting about this series is the fact that all the good guys have powers more befitting that of villains...while the villains have powers that are more befitting of heroes, and one of the villains who controls Lust happens to be a cute elementary school teacher.

Other than that...I wish the Shaman King mangaka would go back and finish off Shaman King first.

edited 6th Jan '11 4:01:46 PM by Signed

He did.

It's finished already? Guess I missed the news...hmm...gotta re-read quite a bit now.

All I know is that theres supposed to be some sort of spin-off manga where Len has a kid with some random girl, and Yoh and Ana has a kid as well...

edited 6th Jan '11 4:08:09 PM by Signed

As one of the people that have followed it from the beginning (which wasn't that long ago ), I can say that this manga is one of those where you either Love It or Hate It. I actually couldn't stand it for a couple of early chapters because Vice quickly got injured (Epitome of Evil? Really?), and Yamato's idiocy got on my nerves. Then Rune confessed his feelings and backstory and I didn't know what the heck I was reading anymore. You can call it a good ol' robot genre manga, but there's WAY too much talking and, uh, relationships going on.

The only problem I have with Ultimo is the amount of Ho Yay. It makes me wonder if Lee is actually reading these chapters or if he just stamped his name on it then walked away. Other than that, I'm pretty much an obsessed fan haha.

I'd care about it more if I can actually find some english scans somewhere.

Yeah... that's another problem. The best you could do is Shonen Jump USA's translation of Ultimo, but they censor literally everything related to Rune and his love for Yamato, and not to mention the masters when they combine with their doji.

Manga Fox USED to host scans...until some troll reported them.

The only problem is what will happen when Shonen Jump releases Chaper 21. As far as I know, the American maganzine never had such a scene before, and it's rated only T...

Well it's not really rape, more like just attempted...

But still, it's not a subject that is mentioned lightly in a magazine aimed at kids/teens. Rape is something that jumps around the 13/18 area.

What annoys me is that even if scanlation sites were still up, the team that was translating Ultimo (I believe they were called J.A.C.) gave up on the project. So we have to deal with Shonen Jump USA's translation of Ultimo, which like I said before censors everything. We have to deal with their censoring of Chapter 21, and we'll probably never find out what's truly going on.

They'll probably change the rape to something... like... I don't know, "Remembering our connection from 900 years ago"? No, that'll still sound weird...

Well, I think that scans are considered illegal. Right?

About Stan Lee: I think he just wrote out the concept, the basic plot (Part One will be this, Part Two will be this) and some of the characters, and then he throws it at his fellow manga-ka and let him do the rest, while checking in with Stan Lee with each chapter.

You know...I thought that since Ultimo was thought up by Stan Lee, or atleast associated with the old guy, Ultimo would atleast get some slack and remain uncensored in the West...guess not even Stan Lee have any power.

Never saw the english scans, but how was that scene where Yamato almost kissed Ultimo while naked handled in english? And then that girl walks in on them...and then giving him an email revealing she thinks Yamato likes doing it with little boys....

edited 7th Jan '11 4:06:11 PM by Signed

I think they kept that scene in, only with a towel edited on Yamato.

Yeah, that's how they censored it.

Man... rereading chapter 21... I don't think they'll just be able to draw underwear on the characters to cover up what's really happening...

: Wait, I thought he was wearing boxers, not a towel.

BUMP

I wouldn't really call adding underwear "censoring everything". I'd really like someone to verify that Vice's dialogue really is a Cluster F-Bomb and not simply the fan translator taking liberties.

That said, I'm loving this series. It's awesome how it lulls you into a false sense of security by making it look almost like a monster battle series with humanoid robots. Then it turns out that Ultimo may be the embodiment of Ultimate Good, but as it turns out, Good Is Not Nice.

In a way, this is kind of hilarious, but Karakuridouji Ultimo was just announced to be removed from Shonen Jump USA, just because of Chapter 21. I don't know whether to be happy that they're no longer censoring the chapters, or aggravated that I now have to wait at least six months to see Chapter 21.

Source, please?

...I'm surprised it took this long for them to tell us this. Did they announced it after the subscribers got their maganzine, because it didn't give anything speical about Ultimo's status.

Also, I saw the censored versions in my school's book fair a few months ago.

It was said on a page in the March 2011 issue of Jump. As a subscriber, I got it early. If I had a decent camera and/or a scanner I would link a photo of the page here.

If they're going to release the new volumes uncensored as they claim to on the said page, then I hope they re-release volumes 1-3 as such too. I'm tired of the drawn-on underwear on the doji masters. Especially... In K's situation.....

Hmph. Hopefully it's going to arrive tomarrow, and it didn't expire.

EDIT: I bet this is VIZ's Mistake of 2010: Pegging Ultimo with a T rating instead of a T+. Maybe that's one of the reason's why Viz waits to adapt some manga.

edited 27th Jan '11 3:38:03 PM by chihuahua0

In my opinion, a lot of what Viz. has been doing with Ultimo is terrible. The slow 6-month gap between volume releases (they already published the last chapter of volume 4 in the magazine before volume 2 came out), the inconsistant censoring, the awkward translating (even if the fan translator that was doing Ultimo on scanlation sites was taking liberties, many of the lines in the Viz. Translation are very awkward, especially those concerned with Rune's, ah, feelings for Yamato). Like you said, much of the problem was that they gave it a T rating and publicized Lee's connection to it way too much.

What's wrong with publishing Lee's connection to it?

And once again, I am surprised that it's someone like Stan Lee who ends up making something even Viz is afraid to touch, and not some mangaka living in Japan. Who knew he had a taste for racy humor?