Spoilers are unmarked.
- Why do the characters act like it's wrong for Yamato to have his crush on Sayama in the present? It is revealed that she is the reincarnation of one of bandit Yamato's followers Saya, who was about 6-8 years old at the time, so about half or even a third of his age. They act like Yamato still being madly in love with her even after knowing that makes him a lolicon, but in the present they're within a year or two of each other, so what's the problem? They seem to be ignoring present day differences simply for the sake of the joke panel where bandit Yamato is creepily reaching for child Saya. Present day Yamato isn't the same person as bandit Yamato. He has his own thoughts and likes, just like bandit Yamato loved Princess Gekko, but present day Yamato doesn't love Rune because he's straight.
- Tell me if I'm wrong, but so far, on the side of good there's Ultimo and the Six Perfections, and on the side of bad, there's Vice and the Seven Deadly Sins. They're outnumbered!
- Well, there are/supposed to be 100 doji. Hopefully it's divided equally. It's more of the idea of good and evil anyway. There are more evil doji because people can easily fall to evil. Meanwhile, the good side is smaller, but as Sophia notes, they fight with "love" meaning that they will always be strong, no matter what.
- Apparently one good doji is a little stronger than one evil doji, making the seven and six difference even out. At least, according to Service.
- Is it me, or Hiroyuki Takei seems gay? I mean, there's the fact that everyone sheds their clothes in Icon Mode, and then there's Rune...
- This troper wondered that too. At first I thought it was all right but then Chapter 21 came. Actually, every person I've introduced Ultimo to has asked me -usually around Chapter 10, or 21 if they haven't given up- "What was the author thinking when he writes out the plot?" It's weird how the simple plot of Good Vs. Evil turned into this. I've noticed even some reviewers of Ultimo have acknowledged this direction into shounen-ai. Maybe you're right - Takei is gay, or he just couldn't think up another way for the plot to move along.
- It's more a case of different values. In Japan, homosexuality isn't nearly as serious as it is here. A lot of kids shows and manga have homosexuality in them, just as long as it isn't explicit. There is quite a few works by female artists that have lesbians in them. Fanservice is also just Fanservice. It's not like he's drawn anything in detail. There is quite a few Shoujo with far more graphic female nudity than anything we've seen of the guys here. He also seems to be putting in a bit of Fanservice for males in the recent chapters as well. I mean, what other possible reason could he have for making Machi go from "above average" to massive. The reason for the vast difference in types of Fanservice may be that Takei isn't comfortable with sexualizing the female characters. Most of them are techinacally underage. Not all male manga artists want to put ridiculous big breatsted 14 year olds in their works. Although I have no idea if Takei is really uncomfortable with it or not.
- True, but Takei could have easily found another way for Rune to become Jealous' master. He could have made Rune Yamato's warlord rival in the past, or a member of his bandit group who was secretly jealous of Yamato having Ultimo. Instead, he had Rune be a princess. I think people are more bothered that it had to go this way, instead of other countless backstories Rune could have had.
- Takei probably wanted to shock us, and makes us wonder what will happen next. I mean, I'm pretty sure nobody was expecting princess. I will agree, he did start to take it too far. His backstory tends to fall into "were drugs/alcohol involved" for some people by the sounds of it. (Including myself when I first heard it.)
- Question: If Takei were gay... Why would that be a problem?
- No. It would just be a little strange, considering the norm. How many uncloseted, gay, shonen manga-ka can you name?
- Different, somewhat related question: why is the homosexuality in Ultimo treated so differently from the homosexuality in Shaman King? Is it because it's integral to the plot, or am I just so old that I'm the only person who remembers Shaman King when it came out, or what?
- This troper wondered that too. At first I thought it was all right but then Chapter 21 came. Actually, every person I've introduced Ultimo to has asked me -usually around Chapter 10, or 21 if they haven't given up- "What was the author thinking when he writes out the plot?" It's weird how the simple plot of Good Vs. Evil turned into this. I've noticed even some reviewers of Ultimo have acknowledged this direction into shounen-ai. Maybe you're right - Takei is gay, or he just couldn't think up another way for the plot to move along.
- How will the transistion team deal with Chapter 21?
- They took the easy way out and decided not to. Ultimo was just announced to be removed from Shonen Jump's USA magazine. Hopefully this means that they will no longer censor the English releases of the volumes.
- Even so, the volumes didn't go off without a hitch. They actually had to change the rating in the middle of the manga's publication when volume 6 came out, most likely because of that chapter.
- Wait - so if the masters receive memories of their past, present, and future from their doji, then why don't they just use that to help their team win the One Hundred Machine Funeral? Or at least, why does Yamato seem so surprised about everything's going on, when he's already seen vague images of certain events from Ultimo during the pledge? He distinctly sees Musashi in his future visions, yet is completely blown away when Akira reveals that Musashi's from the future in chapter 12. Yamato even sees Dunstan step out of his car (which just happened in chapter 25) in his present visions. Or maybe this is all just Yamato.
- Remember that Ultimo didn't reveal all of the memories.
- I think the implication is that they're given the memories, but the ones shown to them are often out of context, and so it's difficult to discern what actually happened even though they see all of the events individually. So Yamato saw it, he just couldn't make sense of all of it. And it is Yamato...
- Nonn history related, but my hair is going white just to think about this (and im nine-teen) WHERE THE *** DO YOU PEOPLE READ THE MANGA?? Im up to chapter 15 and thats it, nothing more, absolutely nothing more >.<!!
- I've only read the first issue, and it was a while ago, but I remember being really annoyed at the fact that there were long paragraphs describing the Ultimo character's appearances.....in a manga. I don't mind description, really, but it seems both pointless to describe something in a visual medium, and also I thought it was a little...what's the word I'm looking for? Not quite rude, but like saying that the art isn't good enough. Belittling, maybe? Belittling to the art of the comic. Of course, I may just be insane and easily bugged, and it may not have been as irritating as I remember. It's been at least six months since I last had that issue of Shonen Jump in my possession, after all.
- Um...WHAT THE HELL...IS A SHURA?(What Jealousy accuses Ultimo to be in their fight in their fight outside Yamato's apartment.)
- Shura means killing, or scene of carnage. It was probably just a different way of saying Ultimo will become the kind of person who causes death and destruction.
- The plot-given justification for there being more evil doji than good ones (at least, thus far) is that each good doji is slightly stronger than each evil doji... but this only causes me to wonder. If Dunstan wants a completely fair conflict between good and evil, than why even do this? Why not just make exactly the same amount of good and evil doji of the same general power levels and go from there? Even if each of the good doji are slightly stronger than each individual evil doji, that still doesn't change the fact that in a situation where each of the good doji is fighting just one of the evil doji, there's still one more evil one free to do anything and help anyone! That's not a fair fight.
- That... actually makes a lot more sense than it seems. If the good guys stand alone, each one fighting a single opponent, then there'll still be at least one evil doji free to attack whoever they want, at any time mid-fight. Thus, the good doji have to stick by each other to protect themselves and capitalise on their strength, while the evil doji will want to separate everyone. The good guys thus have to be on good terms with each other to operate at their fullest potential, while the villains have no need to care about each other, and work best as an alliance of convenience that'll throw each other away at the drop of a hat if it'll help them win, who each have a single specific target they're focused on. Or in other words, it means that good must be selflessnote , while evil must be selfishnote . Especially with the revelation that Vice can steal the other doujis' Noh, which means he works best when picking off weakened targets while they're fighting someone else and can't stop him from taking their powers. He's literally designed to have Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
- Aside from the above question, I have two other reasons to question why a larger number of evil doji is necessary:
- First, there's Avaro. Why do the evil doji need to be more numerous if one of them can literally create more of himself at will?
- There's your answer - he can create more of himself at will. Let me put it this way: If you had a choice between a small band of heroes with each member skilled in different things, with none of them overlapping, and a large band of heroes, but each member of the latter band is only skilled in a few things (and they all have the same things they're skilled in), you're going to choose the former because they can handle more situations.
- Second, we've now found out that Vice's noh allows him to steal the noh of other doji. Theoretically, this means that Vice can have the powers of all the good and evil doji if he plays his cards right. What's stopping him from taking each of the evil doji's powers and then picking off the good doji one by one while taking their powers as well? He could legitimately become as strong as Milieu if Dunstan allowed it! And considering that he's already taken one of the strongest noh powers available without Dunstan intervening, who's to say he couldn't? What does he need anyone's help for?
- Because if Vice really just wanted every power, it would be more efficient to just take Milieu's powers than steal them individually. As for why he needs anyone's help, no matter how powerful you are, you are eventually going to be overwhelmed if multiple opponents attack you. The evil doji would probably be willing to temporarily put aside their differences with the good doji if it meant that Vice would get taken out of the picture if the was a threat to them.
- First, there's Avaro. Why do the evil doji need to be more numerous if one of them can literally create more of himself at will?
