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So round 3 of the Discord tournament was a team-up round. This didn't just cut the number of entries in half (being only a fourth of last round's entries) but the collaborations also meant the average comic quality also went way up. So from now on I'll simply post every comic in the round.
The first matchup is Barbatya and Ra'akshi versus Albedora and Lazaretti. The winning version
has some excellent choreography, several cameos from previous characters, hints of a backstory between Ra'akshi and Barbatya and Barbatya turning gold (she already became green after the end of round 2). Albedora and Lazaretti's comic didn't win but still has some really cool and nasty (and sometimes funny) visuals, as well as a twist where almost the entire fight up to that point is revealed to have been an illusion.
Next up is Ris Zakti and Kasha versus Aybeatee and Li Feitian. The latter two won the round with an absolutely stunning collaboration comic that's basically a heist story where a shitton of characters from the tournament team up to take down the asshole prince that Shining Petal was trying to woo (start with this comic and switch to this one and back when prompted). The other team's comic isn't quite as action-filled, but it does have a really cool scene of Solomon obliterating a spaceship.
I think my favourite fight in the entire contest so far is Jolly King and Effie's entry against Caustia and Masanori. It's absolutely brutal, the choreography is great and the climax has what is probably the most jaw-dropping panel in the entire tournament. Masanoria and Caustia's entry is good enough on it's own that it could have won a previous round, but I don't really think it compares to the winning entry.
The fourth and final fight in this round is Benlion and Tanri vesrus Splinter and Tux, and it ended up a lot more zany than the other matchups. Tux and Splinter's entry is basically a bunch of wacky hijinks in Benlion's mobile home, and Benlion and Tanri beat it with a bunch of wacky hijinks in Benlions mobile home that end up breaking the boundaries of reality and the medium of comics as a whole. I recommend reading it just to see how weird it gets and to spot all the references.
Finally lets have some bonus Effie comics that I missed last time. Her author does a bunch of them and I'm still a bit bummed out that Effie ended up losing in round 4. Here's a backstory comic exlapining how she got her current form, and here's an epilogue posted after her round 1 fight
◊ (which I think is where her conneciton to the Jolly King was first established).
Thanks for posting all those tournament comics by the way. There's a lot of really cool stuff in them.
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Round 4 was The Quiet Round, which means that the entries cannot feature any fighting. This means that the Holy Shit Factor has decreased quite a bit compared to round 3 (trust me, it will come back with a vengeance in round 5), and the return to 1v1 matchups means the production values don't quite reach the crazy levels of the previous round. Still, this round was a well-placed opportunity for some downtime between the craziness of round 3 and the final climaxes of the torunament, and gave some good opportunity for character development now that we've whittled the roster down to eight characters who we've followed for three rounds already.
First matchup is Aybeatee vs Ra'akshi. Weirdly enough both entries ended up having the contestants eating together. Ra'akshi's winning entry is one of my favourites of this round. It's a really somber piece going through the two contestants' motivations and backstories, accompanied by the kind of amazing art you've to expect from his artist by this point. Aybeatee's comic is a much more comedic affair, seeing the two face off against each other in an eating contest.
The second match is Jolly King vs Benlion. Once again the two comics ended up pretty similar, with Benlion fixing JK's equipment. The Jolly King won the round I have to agree that I liked his comic the most. It does the most to explore both Benlion and Jolly King, and has a pretty mindblowing twist halfway through where we see what The Jolly King's true form looks like. The best part of Benlion's comic in my opinion is the ending where Benlion and his partner adopt the Subjects as some kind of pet.
The third match is Li Feitian vs Barbatya. Both comics feature a clash of ideals between the idealistic Li and the cynical Barbatya, the main difference being the setting. Barbatya's comic takes place in a rowdy bar, while Li's comic takes place on her spaceship, and also has a pretty intense game of Ping Pong that mirrors the contestants' conversation. Ultimately the added action and narrative throughline of said game is what helped Li win this round.
The theme of cynicism versus idealism continues in the final round where we have Effie and Tanri. Effie's comic is really good and gives us her trademark creepiness, good dialogue and interesting insight into both characters, but I have to admit that I find the ending somewhat disappointing. The artist mentioned that Tanri's sister was actually Effie in disguise in an earlier draft, and it kinda still shows in how suddenly she just appears out of nowhere to wrap things up. So despite Effie being one of my absolute favourite characters in the tournament I have to admit that Tanri deserved her win. Her comic is hilarious, has a lot of cool minor details, and is even better at the character exploration, to the point where it almost reads like a response to Effie's comic.
Editor of Posts
White Chain calling Allison a Demiurge is pretty significant. I wonder if they can actually reconcile.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Remember that becoming a devilskin warrior is usually nonconsensual for one of the two parties, and Cio is White Chain's friend. If she thinks Allison forced her into it...
What's precedent ever done for us?
Oh yeah, that's a good point. Sure, White Chain is complaining about Allison's general demeanor, but what specifically caused it was putting on Cio. White Chain might be assuming the worst.
I understand where White Chain is coming from here, but in addition to the "completely misinterpreting the prophecy" thing, there's also the simple fact that it's basically impossible for Allison to be worse than the current demiurges. White Chain should just focus on giving her what friends and support they can, while being ready to attack if things get actually bad.
"Better than the current demiurges" is way too low a bar. Allison has shown very little if any self-disipline, strategy, or long term thinking in this contest. She should be capable of showing much more than that, and I think WC is about to teach her a lesson she badly needs.
That's what I'm saying. Give her lessons and make her better, sure, that's a great idea. But that doesn't seem to be the plan here. The plan seems to be "I give up because you're not perfect. Yeah you're improving, but that's not good enough for me. Gonna beat you to hell and take your key now."
Beating her up is the lesson. This is "Kill 6 Billion Demons", not Stanford University online. Anyway, they are in the middle of a sudden death martial arts tournament. There isn't any time for subtleties.
Edited by DeMarquis on Jan 13th 2020 at 7:53:20 AM
See, the whole point is that Allison relies too heavily on sheer power to defeat enemies and get her way. That might work for the contest itself, but WC is worried about the precedent that would set for the post-contest balance of power. WC is trying to force Allison to find another way to achieve her goals, by matching her power for power.
I imagine that is she expressed remorse and asked nicely, that would do it. But this is Allison, so...
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Well, the Ring of Power tournament is officially over. Time to post the final two rounds and some bonus stuff. Notably the semifinal round 5 is the Death Round, with the added rule that your opponent's character must die.
The first semifinal is Ra'akshi versus The Jolly King, and if you know anything about these two you'd know why a deathmatch between the two is the hypest shit ever. As you can imagine, this matchup resulted in two absolutely brutal gorefests. Both writers delivered on the action, the body horror, some really good dialogue and flashbacks, as well as two spectacular endings. My favourite entry was JK's so part of me is kinda bummed that Ra'akshi ended up winning. As good as Ra'akshi's comic was I really wanted to see Li or Tanri face off agaisnt The Jolly King as an eldritch horror jrpg boss.
By contrast, the second semifinal is Li Feitian versus Tanri, and it's easy to see why the announcement of one of them having to die would immediately fill people with dread. Li's entry, as expected, is an absolute gut punch, and one of the most emotionally harrowing comics in the tournament. It also comes with part 2 in video form (that wasn't counted in the judging since it's not a comic). Tanri's entry goes in a bit of a different direction, Basically setting up Li's death just to have it be a fakeout and then using a loophole to have Li die of old age in the epilogue. In the end, Abaddon gave the win to Tanri with the reasoning that Li's comic only focused on her and barely did anything with Tanri. This is probably the judging I've disagreed with the most, because while Tanri's entry is good, Li's entry really hit me when I first read it, and it feels like the way Li's death was handled kinda undermined the point of the Death Round. Tanri would play off really well with Ra'akshi in the finals though, so I can't complain too much.
Speaking of which, it's finally time for the finals. The final matchup is Ra'akshi versus Tanri. No extra rules this time, just write the best comic that you can. Both entrants used the dichotomy between the two fighter's different motivations to great effect. In the end, the winner of the round, and the entire tournament, was Ra'akshi. Both comics ended up having a really similar ending of Tanri forfeiting the match to Ra'akshi, but the winning entry handled the execution better in my opinion, with a much more tense climax to the fight and also a better integration of Tanri's sister imo. It also explained Ra'akshi's motivations for fighting Solomon better, which is important since Ra'akshi won the fight and went to face him in both comics. Speaking of which, the final page of Ra'akshi facing Solomon was breathtaking in Ra'akshi's entry, in a way that Tanri's entry didn't quite replicate. I will say however that Tanri's writer once again wrote some really good dialogue for his comic, and just like with Effie before did a really good job of breaking down his opponent's character.
Some bonus stuff:
The two semifinalists who didn't move on also submitted their own comics during the final round, though these weren't eligible for winning. Li's writer posted a "what if" comic (including a prologue in the form of a research report), showing how he would have done his entry advanced to the final. The writer of the Jolly King also posted an epilogue for the character, but only Part 1 is out as of yet (will probably edit this post to add Part 2 when/if it comes out). Additionally, the writer behind Raksha (a character who lost to Benlion in round 1 and I didn't cover in these posts) also posted a two part epilogue of Raksha talking with the two finalists.
Editor of Posts
Can White chain actually survive a direct hit from that? The way it's been depicted in the story so far kinda makes it out to be a pretty big deal.
Edited by Druplesnubb on Jan 18th 2020 at 12:26:15 PM
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
She can dodge. She's fast and experienced. Probably still going to be taking damage, though.
What's precedent ever done for us?
Has anybody noticed how this manga attracts lot of pseudo intellectuals to its comment section? .-. You know, types who say smart/fancy sounding sentences without really elaborating and most of times are common phrases someone more famous said?
Sure, those Thorn Knights are using constant Loophole Abuse in order to try to tear down the entire multiverse and start anew, but one angel deciding they're somewhat female—that's the real threat.