Chatterbox - Anime & Manga

Dived into The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. anime blind with my wife (a non-anime watcher). Man, can't believe I never picked this up sooner. And she likes it too.

I just started watching Cells at Work! on Netflix. Why the hell did I not watch this before? It's hilarious!...though I wish Red Blood Cell wasn't so useless and ditzy. Her shtick of constantly getting lost is getting grating fast.

It's cause she's a sickle cell(ahoge).

How in the name of God Almighty 20th Century Boys doesn't have an anime adaptation?

If I recall, the anime adaptation for Monster actually bombed in japan in terms of home video sales, which might be the reason why.

Philistines!

20th century boys has a series of live action movies but I don't recall how well they did.

I guess I'm not that surprised Monster bombed, but I thought it would at least do ok since Urasawa is so well-regarded in Japan. Guess that didn't translate over to anime viewers that well, which is a shame if so because it's a good adaptation of a great manga.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Jan 10th 2020 at 8:14:24 AM

I liked it too, though I personally find Urusawa to be a bit too full of himself in his work sometimes.

When you write manga this good, you deserve to let your head get a bit big.

The prologue chapters of Monster is already better than a lot of other full stories.

...I'm a bit of a fan.

I don't think Urasawa himself is particularly egotistical. If you watch his Manben (where he films and interviews other mangaka about their process) series he comes across as pretty chill actually.

I am also a huge fan, Pluto is like a top 5 manga of all time for me.

Didn't read that one, what's it about?

It's a "remake" of an Astro Boy storyline. It's a really good sci-fi story about Do Androids Dream? and probably the best story that's ever been based on Osamu Tezuka's work. My only real criticisms is that I think it can be a little heavy-handed sometimes and idealistic in a very naive way towards the end (the last two volumes or so are still good but the ending isn't as great as the build-up to it). I think you can easily make the case that 20th Century Boys or Monster is better, but I just really like the themes of Pluto personally and how concise it is. It's only like 6 volumes so it's a short read compared to his other work, but precisely because of that, it really shows how effective a writer and draftsman he is because he makes you really invested in what's going on in only a few pages.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Jan 10th 2020 at 10:36:12 AM

Now that you mention it, I wonder if it's worth reading Astro Boy now beyond the historical value of it.

How long did Astro Boy run for? I know there was an old Astro Boy show from like the 60s, was that reboot in the 2000s any good?

If someone was going to experience Astro Boy now I'd probably just recommend watching a sub of the 2003 anime since it has excellent visuals and distills the character nicely (it also has a really good videogame). I heard the 80's series was good but I've never seen it.

That said Pluto is still definitely the best version of Astro Boy overall.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Jan 10th 2020 at 10:51:28 AM

That reboot was my first contact with Astro Boy, and, irony of ironies, I liked it partly because it reminded me of Mega Man.

Of course I was way too little to really judge it, but I do remember three things: a)the scene of Astro lifting a giant robot, absobing its energy and start glowimg, 2) a Beam-O-War between Astro and a big green robot that shoots lasers out of his fingers (let's call him Mecha!Piccolo), who gets a Morality Pet in the form of Astro's, erm, little sister? And then gets pummuled by Astro getting a new power up in a way that could be classified as a Next-Tier Shounen Power Up, and 3) the Big Bad turning his robot dog into an Iron Man-esque suit of armor right after The Heavy is beaten.

So it made an impression, if nothing else, considering I can remember this much in spite of only watching it once when I was like, I dunno, seven.

I think the anime stopped airing in Brazil after Mecha!Piccolo is beaten up. I assume Globo didn't think it was drawing in enough of an audience.

The 2003 series was most people's first exposure to the character in the west I think, since it aired on Toonami. I've read some other manga by Tezuka since then but not Astro Boy's. Despite mostly being famous for writing kids' manga in the west he has a pretty diverse bibliography overall including plenty of stories for adults. I've actually heard it speculated that Skull Face from Metal Gear Solid 5 is based on the eponymous main character from Alabaster, which I'm really not sure about but it would be cool if true. (It's not a particularly great manga, by Tezuka's own admission, but it was kind of interesting in a fucked up way because I would have never thought that he would have written something that nihilistic).

Edited by Draghinazzo on Jan 10th 2020 at 11:18:58 AM

Is Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans really as newbie-friendly as people say?

I've been meaning to watch something from the Gundam franchise for a while now, but the sheer size of it is quite intimidating.

A good chunk of the Gundam series take place in their own timeline.

Iron-Blooded Orphans is the latest to fall under that category. You don't need any pre-existing information about the series.

I don't know what I hoped to gain from reading a multi-part original doujin I had known hadn't been updated since 5 years ago (as in, the story itself not the translations) and the creator has shown no signs of picking it up again I'm favour of his other works, but ultimately I've come to realize that lightnovel writers, fanfic writers, doujin writers. Content creators is the same. I will never get satisfaction from compelling stories I start huh...

And this is why I never start reading fanfiction that isn't already finished.

I finally started reading Seraph of the End thanks to my Viz subscription.

I’m at chapter 20 & it’s alright at the moment. It’s pretty anime what with foot soldiers wearing these very clean clearly officers uniforms in the field while wielding these impracfically oversized weapons. The art is also nice, I like how it has a soft feeling.

Other than that eh. None of the fights have been pretty wow worthy yet, the overuse of family is cringe-inducing, & Yūichirō is a total jackass. Ya know people gave early series Eren a lot of grief but at least Eren knew how to play ball & was willing to work with others. Yu is just a total prick who gives no fuck about the chain of command or anything his comrades say. He is a terrible fucking soldier & it’s annoying how the narrative has to repeatedly justify how noble he is for giving the finger to protocol.

I remember back when the anime came out, people accused it of being a ripoff of AOT, only with vampires instead of Titans.

Ironically they are animated by the same studio.

Though it’s clear which series worked out better for them in the long-run.

Granted, Seraph's a far less well-made adaptation.

Thank God the studio didn't go the C Gi route with Vinland Saga.