Manga/ Record of Ragnarok

Also, I think, one way or another, the Shiva-Raiden fight is about to end. Raiden's last strike really left the god in a bad situation.

one arm man

One of the impressive feats yet, Raiden straight up mauling a God through pure refined brute force. Even Adam never went this far against Zeus.

Zeus Technically lost the fist fight due to collapsing after it finished, but Adam died mid punch rush.

I'm guessing that Shiva is going to pull out an infinite armed form and clinch it once Raiden has shown everything he has.

Oh right he should be able to do something like that.

Okay so I haven't kept up because the good scanlators didn't, but shouldn't Shiva have, you know, a laser beam on his third eye?

spoilers for Chapter 40 and 41 (Its a double chapter this month) : Shiva wins. He has a special Mode that makes him the Agni to his best friends Rudra

Yeah, Raiden gets his head destroyed clean off his shoulders.

But he died standing, something his mom thought he'd never be able to do on his own without his seals.

THRUD NOOOOOOOOO!

So who're the best scanlators working on this manga?

Arangscans, I believe.

Because its double chapter, it will take a little longer.

At this point you just take what comes first

I'd rather not ruin a perfectly good story with subpar scans.

Both 40 and 41 have come out now in scans:

RIP Raiden. Hope this shuts up the "Japanese Bias" bullshit arguments against the series.

Ehh, when 3 out of 13 of the representatives of the entire human race come from the same country when there's hundreds to choose from, I don't blame the readers for calling out Japanese overpresentation regardless of the outcome.

There's plenty of Greek reps to be fair.

Overrepresentation, or the creators writing what they know?

As the villains/antagonists, so that doesn't really count, unless one's Rooting for the Empire (which I sort of am, but that's besides the point).

Given the amount of Artistic License given to the characters, "lack of familiarity" isn't really an excuse, IMO. It looks like they wrote Raiden's backstory out of a whole cloth anyway, so I don't see why they can't do a quick Google search on Western heroes/legends and come up with something.

While I'm not too bothered with the line-up, I'm sure many fans have their own "gladiator wish list" they want to see depicted in the manga. Unfortunately, since the line-up is capped at 13 in this setting, the more those slots are filled with unfamiliar (to the readers) Japanese reps, the less slots there are left for the heroes they'd prefer.

For comparison, Epic Rap Battles of History fans complain when there's too much fictional characters/modern celebrities (rather than historical figures) featured in the line-up, so this sort of reaction is to be expected.

Edited by Adept on Dec 31st 2020 at 10:05:22 PM

Admitably I do find Okita somewhat redundant when we already had Sasaki as the samurai rep.

I have also seen complaints that the overall line-up is too Western centric.

Okita being there is probably due to the author literally transplanting him from his other lesser known in the west work, Requiem of the Shinsengumi.

Also Raiden's arm literally splitting in half like a Microwaved Hot dog is one of the grossest visuals in the series to date, In my opinion.

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Dec 31st 2020 at 6:31:17 AM

In that case, then why include Sasaki? Even if he actually lost that bout, I personally didn't think that match-up wasn't really good. Especially since the "greatest winner vs. greatest loser" aspect of that fight wasn't really based on the original sources, so you could literally replace Poseidon and Sasaki with literally anoyone else, and it probably wouldn't have made a difference, thematically.

Characterization for the deities is made up whole-cloth, so that ain't an argument.

As for Sasaki, his greatest claim to fame is losing a fight to Musashi, so I'd say, of the better known East Asian figures in the world, the only other who's "worthy" of the title "Greatest Loser" is Jing Ke, who was an assassin and therefore doesn't have the whole "self-improvement/search for enlightenment" generally inherent to most martial arts.

This is the first time I've seen him portrayed as a Memetic Loser though. In most other fictional depictions of Kojiro, he's a proper rival and Worthy Opponent to Musashi.

And given that the Einherjar doesn't actually have be fighter/warriors/martial artists IRL (there's apparently Nikola Tesla and Nostradamus included in the line-up, of all people), I think we do have a good Western contender for the "History's Greatest Loser" title in the form of Prince/King John of England (lost most of his land to France, lost his sovereign power to rebellious barons and forced to sign the Magna Carta, frequently portrayed in fiction as a failed usurper to his brother Richard, and frequently humiliated by Robin Hood...)

That aside, does anyone here actually have some sort of wish-list for who the fighters and match-up could or should have been?

Edited by Adept on Dec 31st 2020 at 10:15:41 PM