Board 8 > Tom reads through the Bolo Family Manga Collection (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

bout a 30% chance of update tonight
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5% tonight
90% tomorrow
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Chi's Sweet Home, Vol. 1

By: Konami Kanata
Genres: Slice of life, animal
Whose fault: Tombolo

I have very little time to start on this before work, but let's at least get the synopsis out of the way. Wifebolo and I watched all of the sequel anime, Chii's New Address, but I don't think I've ever touched the first one. I imagine it will be mostly the same- the adventures of a cat and her(?) human family and their misadventures. It's just that they moved to a house in the second series, instead of their apartment complex that doesn't allow cats.

Few things strike me off the bat- this manga is in color! Like, all the way through. Don't often see that. It's also flopped left-to-right, which you don't often see after, like, the first couple years of manga being a mainstream thing in the States. I figured this was a relatively recent purchase, but the Borders sticker on the back indicates otherwise. RIP Borders. It also cost $14 instead of the usual (at the time) $10, but maybe that's because of the color. Also not a very big volume.

This starts off kinda depressing- Chi is very small and gets separated from her mother. A small boy (Yohei) finds Chi in the park after some scary encounters with cars and rain and dogs. The kitten is brought home, and keeps trying to leave and find her mom. Yohei's parents (I'm not sure they ever get names, actually) are remarkably patient with Chi, but can't take her on permanently because of the rules of their rental. Still, they give her a bath, and make a valiant attempt at housebreaking. Actually they haven't given her a name yet, though.

What I like about this is that I think it does a very good job of capturing the mindset of a kitten. The humans speak and stuff, but the majority of text comes from Chi's thoughts, or interpretations of her meowing. The only issue for me is that reading her localized dialogue (add W to everything!) gets on my nerves a lot more than hearing her subbed voice. That and I get kinda snobby about flopping. More later! (Presumably)
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We eventually convince the kitten that the litter box is a litter box and not a playpen. Yohei is getting potty trained at the same time, and calls it "chi"-ing. Chi hears that word enough to associate it with herself, and that's gonna wind up being her name. We're still trying to find her a permanent home, but no dice. She still has occasional flashes of remembering her mom and trying to go find her, but they're getting less frequent and more vague. Chi has a nightmare and continues bonding with Dad.

Chi learns Yohei's name, and discovers BOUNCY BALLS when Yohei is putting an armful of them away. And that right there is an entire chapter, if you're wondering about the pace of this manga. (Granted, they're short chapters) We get Chi a bunch of cat toys, but she's more excited in the plastic bag.

Chi gets in trouble for chewing up a houseplant, and flees Mom's wrath, escaping to the great outdoors. After playing with some kids, Chi realizes she's lost, but about then Mom and Yohei find her in the park and bring her home again. Yohei and Chi bond after fighting over Yohei's pillow and some other stuff.

It's time for Chi to see the vet. We have to smuggle her in a picnic basket (keeping Chi's existence a secret is one of the most frequent plot hooks up until the point where they move) and have a few close calls with the superintendent. We get to the vet, establish Chi as female, and do routine checkup stuff. Chi is NOT a fan, and goes on to distrust Dad for a while despite peace offerings of wet food.

Chi discovers WINDOWS, which is not helping with the effort towards secrecy. We try a few methods of keeping Chi off the window ledge, but the only thing that works is to fill it with stuffed animals so she blends in. The Yamadas go for a night out, and Chi gets adventurous and lonely. And that's that!

Bonus feature: floorplan of the apartment

My rating: 9/10
Exactly what I was expecting from my prior experience. It's fun and cute, with a surprising poignancy at times. Nothing really world-changing, but worth looking into if you like cats, and possibly also if you just like low-impact slice of life.
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Chikyu Misaki, Vol. 1

Genre: ...really big eyes?
By: Iwahara Yuji
Whose fault: Tombolo
BGM Unrelated:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkCZ1wCi6As" data-time="

This is an eeeearrrrrly acquisition. Literally the only thing I remember about it was confusion as to the title vs. the publisher vs. the author. Art looks kinda fun LET'S GO

Makishima Misaki arrives in the snowy town of Lake Hohoro, which she allegedly visited when she was four but barely remembers. She and her dad Kyoichi are greeted by lawyer Nishioka Aoi, who is probably secretly seeing her dad and not particularly subtle about it. Misaki has inherited the house of her grandfather, "Professor" Otori. (the blood relation was through her mom, so dad is not the heir.) His cool professor stuff was sold off, but hey it pays for the property tax! Misaki is kinda cranky.

Flashback! Not sure what I'm supposed to get out of it, but hey we get to see mom and grandpa before they (presumably) kick it. Okouchi Sanae appears to be our assigned new friend from new school. We find plushies of Hohopo, the Hohoro equivalent of Nessie or something. ...and then a bunch start falling out of the sky! Thinking that she's being hazed, Misaki runs into the forest, trips and falls down a hill (most zoomed in pantyshot I've ever seen), and runs right into Hohopo himself! She and Sanae decide to keep Hohopo's existence on the down low, but he's pretty sad when they try to leave. He sucks Misaki's face, and gains FORM OF a small naked boy! Going into the water changes him back, but then Sanae tries (giving him a shirt this time) and he transforms back to a humanoid again. We decide to give him some clothes and take him home, because nobody will be surprised by a spontaneous new little brother.

We arrive home just in time to ****block (******block?) Aoi, and Misaki decides to introduce shota!Hohopo as her dad's illegitimate son from, uh, Sarajevo. Pressed for a name, she remembers the Matrix and names him Neo, lol. We don't get to see anybody's reaction to this, but apparently Neo gets to stay, because he crawls into bed with Misaki that night. Too bad he's not housebroken.

Trying to potty train him is not going great, but we sure are trying. The girls are trying to figure out what's going on, and Kyoichi and Aoi are having a remarkably calm conversation for grownups who think they are party to a kidnapping. Neighborhood boys Ken and Taiyo attempt to play with Neo. Ken gets a smooch for his efforts. They bring him to a lumberjack's house or something, where Neo runs afoul of a big scary dog. Neo faints, but the dog doesn't hurt him, and the owner just kinda lets him be until he wakes up and goes home. Also Ken and Taiyo appear to be younger siblings of Sanae.

Also, there's a high-profile kidnapping/ransom case happening.

We get Neo a collar and leash to at least TRY to keep him out of trouble. We also have to leave him at the lake in loch ness form so we can go to school. Watching him leave, Misaki gets a flash of memory, like she had met it when she was four.
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The hostage plot continues, as yet unconnected to our main plot. One of the two victims, Asai Tokuko, is the heiress to a thing, and she is returned safely in exchange for money. Her tutor, Fujikawa Reiko, is still missing. The guy with the dog is watching the report on TV.

This is all big news. Misaki has a vague sense of memory about Tokuko, too. Turns out Reiko is actually one of the kidnappers. They're going to stick to the plan and give the money to the syndicate that hired them around Lake Hohoro, while the "Cessna" (google leads me to believe this refers to the helicopter they're taking) goes back where it came from. They can't afford to doublecross the client, but Reiko is planning to end up with the money anyway.

Misaki and Sanae are going to have a sleepover!

The helicopter is having a lot of trouble in the snowstorm. Reiko throws the money and herself into Lake Hohoro. The plane goes on to nearly wipe out Misaki and co. before crashing. The gang starts to investigate. Meanwhile, Reiko tries to fish her money out of the lake, but hypothermia gets the better of her. Neo manages to save her from drowning, and the Wolverine-lookin' Dog Having Guy shows up. One bad guy barely survives the crash, and is sent to the hospital.

Snowstorm is getting worse- looks like we're all stuck at Misaki's place, much to her chagrin. (she super doesn't like Aoi) Aoi suddenly mentions that she wants to quit being a lawyer and become a wife. Like, Kyoichi's wife. Aoi hasn't brought this up with him yet, because she wanted to get Misaki on board. This is one of those situations where a character seems nice enough but the main characters just hate their guts. At least in this case I can understand the weirdness of somebody trying to swoop in and be your new mom. Turns out Aoi went to school with Mom. (Kaoru)

Tokuko gets home, and seems relatively unfazed by the kidnapping. She discourages the police from looking into Reiko. Not sure if she's covering or if they kept up the illusion when they had her. Tokuko does archery, and Reiko knows her big secret, whatever that is.

Speaking of, Reiko comes to in Dog Haver's house, following a nightmare about Neo kissing and drowning her. She was naked in the bed, so fanservicey shenanigans ensue after Dog Haver checks on her and she tries to murder him with a fire poker.

Backstory detail: Kaoru died three years ago from a bad reaction to a bee sting. Sucks. The girls head to the lake to fetch Neo (Sanae is a little too into the idea of all three of them in one bed) but Misaki winds up floating away on an iceberg somehow. Reiko is finding girl clothes and also a picture of Dog Haver and (according to the label) his little sister. Misaki can't swim, but Neo makes the save. Kyoichi and Aoi are getting tired of not knowing what's going on, so we let them in on the whole story. We resolve to keep him a secret, and release him if we find others. That probably won't be a plot point later!

Dog Haver is also Gun Haver. Reiko doesn't get anything out of him on the matter of his sister, but he wants to know why his dog helped her. Reiko remembers Neo saving her, and is super interested in him, as well as in the gold and eliminating ties to it. Dog And Gun Haver gives his name as Bando Fuyuhiko.

Bonus: quick chibi tour of the town and surrounding area

My rating: 9/10
....I actually quite liked this! Not my usual fare, but the art is cute, the fanservice is under control, (...let's keep it that way with the shota, okay?) and there are some interesting mysteries to be had. I'd read more of this, although I highly doubt that is an easy proposition in 2018.

Bonus question: What's a manga or anime you completely forgot you had?
Hint for next: The title and artwork kinda look like it's related to a beloved RPG. It's not.
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Chrono Crusade, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Genres: Gothic
By: Daisuke Moriyama
Whose fault: Tombolo
Today's BGM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veD_Q9M79bM" data-time="

I don't remember liking this much, but it's possible I made that up, since I bought a second volume and it looks relevant to my interests. Maybe it got too vampiric or weird about Christianity or something.

New York, 1928. A ship is under attack from within, and it looks like a nun and Sleepy Vincent Valentine are the only ones who can help. Sister Kate informs us by old-timey phone that stuff is going on in Boston, so there's no backup available. Protagonist McNunface wakes up Chrono (he looks like Vincent and is named Chrono. Hmmmm.) to go to work. She's an exorcist of the Magdalan order, named Rosette Christopher. She shows up and takes over right as a big monster thing comes out of the ship, continuing its rampage. She pumps him full of some sort of spirit ammo (from the box Chrono carries around) and it retreats back into the ship.

The ship has a lot of gold from England. Also, the corpses are starting to mummify, so the monster probably ate their souls and is using them to keep the ship running. It "just wants to go back," but we have to resort to a series of trump card kinda things to beat it. After hitting it with The Gospel, the monster turns into a small golden idol, which Rosette gives to Chrono to deal with. Problem solved, albeit with a lot of collateral damage.

Said collateral damage sits poorly with Sister Kate, as this is apparently a pattern. Father Remington has Rosette's back though, despite looking like somebody who is gonna turn heel at some point. It is heavily implied that Chrono is a demon or something. We're off to see the pervy old weapons engineer, from whom we swipe an experimental bullet with a demon inside it.

Shooting a demon goes about as well as you'd expect- there's a big ol' explosion and the demon gets out and attacks. Rosette takes a hit and Chrono goes a bit berserk. He apparently has some sorta seal on him, and is now in danger of breaking it. Kate is willing to sacrifice him to take out the demon and keep Chrono from breaking the seal, but Remington isn't. Chrono and Rosette have some sort of pact. She wakes up and pushes him out of the way, allowing the others to fire away.

Our next mission is undercover at a casino. Rosette is having a bit too much fun with it, but anyway our mission involves Azmaria Hendric, a 12-year-old prodigy singer. Her foster father owns this place, is an evil sorceror, and appears to need her for something. Ricardo Hendric and Lerajie are displeased with the girl's progress, and she runs away. Rosette finds Azmaria a couple of seconds before Lerajie finds them both. Meanwhile, Chrono has been caught by a gargoyle. Rosette yoinks Azmaria and they run away. Lerajie has been looking for Chrono apparently, and is probably a demon or something. Some civilians get injured while we mess with gargoyles, but Azmaria is able to heal them by singing a hymn.
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The Order takes in Azmaria, who appears to be a wholesome kid who isn't sure what the bad guys are after. Remington figures out that her missing orchestra was slaughtered by monsters, and the bad guys aren't worried about their ability to get the girl back before they need her for a ceremony.

We take Azmaria out to play at the lake where Rosette and Chrono first met. We have a nice time and Azmaria learns to be honest with her feelin-Lerajie facerolls Chrono. There is indeed bad blood there, and he takes the girl and nearly kills Chrono and Rosette.

For whatever reason, Ricardo punishes Lerajie and expositions that Lerajie is under a geas and can't disobey. We're about ready to do whatever it is we're doing with Azmaria, but the nun brigade is on the case. Chrono kept himself and Rosette alive by draining some of her soul, which apparently is the only way he can use powers. We think that Azmaria is a prophecied angel.

We finally figure out what Ricardo wants- his wife Duce Melda was killed in the war, but he can finish bringing her back through Azmaria's holy power. This will probably result in her painful death. Rosette and Chrono airdrop in and start blasting through minions. Lerajie manages to absorb the power instead of the wife! He is able to remove the geas and kill Ricardo. (maybe Azmaria too, I dunno) Time for a rematch with Chrono then! Rosette is too banged up to fight, so she gives Chrono 10 minutes of soul juice instead. This shortens Rosette's lifespan- she doesn't expect to live past thirty, but she refuses to give up. With a trick up Rosette's sleeve, powered-up Chrono is able to kill powered-up Lerajie, maybe even for good this time. We all fall out of the airship, but Azmaria grows wings and makes the save. Azmaria will stay with the Order, but has burned out her powers for a bit.

Bonus feature: the author talks about his history, and the theme of "limited time"

My rating: 8/10
I'm a bit uncomfortable with the religious themes, but I guess nothing truly blasphemous has happened yet...sorta kinda. Other than that, this is pretty fun! Artwork and characters are up my alley, even if I'm not super into demons and vampires and all that kinda stuff we're going to encounter.
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This actually sounded better than I expected seeing the title and cover. I really should start making notes on which titles to look up.
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It's fun!
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Abridged non-live writeup today!

Chrono Crusade, Vol. 2 of 2


Full color double page mass shower scene to start things up. There have been reports of a ghost lately, but it turns out Rosette's seal thingy is just glitching out and doing weird things with her, due to its usage.

Remington and Rosette have a runin with some bad guys, but they have a lead on Joshua, whom they have been seeking for a while. Rosette and Chrono go back to an important place, and then half the volume is a flashback!

Joshua is Rosette's brother, and he has healing powers but they are taking a toll on his body. They live together at an orphanage. The Order wants custody of Joshua. Anyway, they like exploring, and one day find Chrono sealed away in a crypt or something. Chrono's not sure how they were able to open the door, and is surprised when Rosette is nice to him even though he's a demon. They become friends and everything is nice and pleasant until AION shows up. Aion is some sorta demon bird who has a grudge against Chrono. Aion took Chrono's horns in the past (probably around the same time as whatever they keep vaguely referencing with Chrono killing 100 demons) and that's a demon's source of power. Chrono refuses an offer to rejoin him, so Aion goes to plan B- giving the horns to Joshua. Joshua wants to be stronger and help people instead of being a burden, so he takes the deal. powerful healy boy + powerful demon horns + series of failed Will saves = Joshua losing control and going on a time-stopping rampage through the orphanage. He's still in there somewhere, but he leaves the orphanage frozen in time and Rosette and Chrono barely escape. It's still frozen today! And now our primary mission in life is to find him and fix all this.

Related: There appears to be some sort of connection between Joshua and Azmaria. Well, in addition to the healing stuff.

Back to the present. Azmaria wants to get stronger, so she has Kate set up some training. Rosette wants greater independence, so she trains with Remington to join the militia. The problem is that these are both semi-secret training sessions, so they both go into this training labyrinth place at the same time. Oh, and Remington added a demon to Rosette's just to spice it up for her. The demon possesses Azmaria, but Rosette is an Ar Tonelico vet and knows what to do here. She hooks up a machine and dives into Azmaria's sub-conscious to give her a "stop being possessed" pep talk. Through the power of friendship and artistic nudity, we are able to triumph.

Hey let's check in on that Joshua guy. He is no longer a berserker, and is working under Aion. He has a deadpan maid named Fiore, and slaughters fifty demons that came to fight Aion while she makes coffee. He took a small cut though so he's still got room to improve.

My rating: 9/10
Backstory! Also cute younger versions.

Overall rating: 9/10
Still kinda "eh" about throwing religious symbols and stuff in there, but it's not that prominent. Am a fan of the artwork and the characters. Would read more.

Discussion question: Best nun/priest?
Hint for next: I think this might actually be a less-serious spinoff of a comedy manga? I don't remember.

Announcement: I'm going on vacation! I'm gonna bring the next three or so manga with me for car-heavy days, so this won't be completely dead, just not updating as often and probably with "recap" writeups rather than "live" writeups. Unless there's less internet than I expect >_>
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One yesterday another later today

Write up s when I get internet on my computer
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Comic Party Party Time! and Another Round
By: Various
Genre: Doujin, comedy, harem
Whose fault: Tombolo

These are both anthologies of short stories by a variety of independent authors. (the first one touts that they are REAL indie manga artists, whatever exactly that means) As such they have a pretty wide range of how much I enjoyed them, from "okay" to "yeah this is fun." I realize now that the anthology format is not really my favorite, especially in this case since I have zero outside knowledge of Comic Party and thus these characters aren't established for me. Still, it had some cute moments.

Comic Party appears to be about a handful of young doujin artists trying to sell their stuff at cons. (apparently the titular Comic Party is the big one) The lead guy has a girlfriend but it appears that the rest of the cast is women with various levels of interest in him. And that's about all the plot I can give you, since by nature of the format nothing super canon or important happens. It's kinda funny seeing how different authors treat the same characters- sometimes I feel like the bias shows through a bit, and two different people did stories about the cute little print shop girl trying to drum up business through cosplay.

My rating: 6/10
I can't honestly say I got a ton out of this, but it did garner some interest in looking into the main fandom. I think it's a game?
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Barnes&noble run yesterday. Maybe a live update today?
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Late but that cat manga sounds adorable
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It is! :D

NEW CHALLENGER in the car today
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A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES

Assassination Classroom, Vol. 1
Genre: Comedy, drama, action?

I didn't go in blind on this one- the last time I went to a con, they had a manga library and I was able to read a few volumes. Was good enough to get a spot on my shelf, it just took me this long to get around to buying one.

It's a pretty strange premise- there's this weird superpowered non-human guy who (allegedly?) blew up the moon. He then gave humanity a year to stop him before he did the same to the Earth. He's so OP that we had to give into his demands- which for whatever reason included being allowed to teach a specific class of "no-good" kids. Therefore, the kids are trying to kill him for a 10 billion yen bounty (and, y'know, saving the world) while he casually brushes off their attacks and continues teaching. He's weak to a specific type of material that isn't harmful to humans, so they can do things like bust out machine guns in the classroom. The most badass of the kids has only managed to lightly wound him, but he has done his best to encourage and tutor his assassins. It's kinda like GTO, just weirder with more attempted murder and tentacles. Presumably this is some sorta team-building hope-building exercise for his kids, because he's using their failed attempts as life lessons for them, but it'll be interesting to see where it all ultimately goes. In the meantime you have his goofy OP shenanigans! (like flying to China for Mapo Tofu on his lunch break, then bringing back an enemy missile as a souvenier; or painting somebody's nails while they're trying to stab him)

My rating: 8/10
Interesting premise, fun execution. From what I remember, they do a pretty good job of coming up with interesting problems for him to face even though he's nigh-omnipotent. Vibes of GTO and Zetsubou Sensei and maybe One Punch Man, all of which are good things. (Don't get excited for many of those to show up, BTW)

Bonus question: What's your favorite ridiculous premise?
Hint for next: I dunno about the manga, but the anime is one of the most universally beloved. Also we're back to alphabetical order. ...Unless I miss a couple days because I have a new challenger planned for Saturday when I'm in the car for the longest.
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YOOOO I love assassination classroom.
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It's good stuff! I'll probably very slowly acquire it over the next decade >_>
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Barnes and noble is very feast or famine for me

We've now been to two on this vacation and I have bought more manga then I usually do in like a year
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Cowboy Bebop, Vol. 1

Genre: Sci-fi, action
Art: Yutaka Nanten
Story: Hajime Yatate
Whose fault: Mine I think?

We have more New Challengers in the wings but I already started this one earlier today (and one of them I'm saving for when I have a long car day because it's one-a-them three-in-one books)

Cowboy Bebop probably doesn't need an introduction- everybody likes it, even if you don't like anime. Hard-luck bounty hunters in space. I've always kinda described it as "jazz, but in anime form" because it just has that vibe to it in addition to using a good bit of jazz in the (gr8) soundtrack.

Looks like this is not just an adaptation of the anime (or vice versa, even) because I don't offhand recognize any of the stories so far, and we start with Ed and Faye as regulars. First story has Spike, Jet, and Faye all running into each other as they chase separate smallfry bounties in the same place at the same time. They find a bigger fish in the process, and bring him in....but a miscommunication causes the whole place to explode, which mostly wipes out the money they made. Next one, Spike has to get himself arrested so he can bust a target out of jail. (he gets a cavity search and you get a low-detail buttshot if that's a thing you're into) Not sure why there's a bounty on a guy who's in jail, but when we get there, the target is female, contrary to our information. A trans character (or at least somebody masquerading as such) from pre-2000 Japan- I'm sure that'll be treated sensitively! I guess the bounty is from a former lover who dumped her but always comes back, or something.

And now we're back on live updates. Marilyn/Julio/Cidne/the target and Spike take about five seconds to throw the whole place into anarchy when it's time to escape. We run afoul of Samson, a big brute with an unrequited crush on Marilyn. He bopped Spike good in a previous encounter, but this time Spike has him scouted and takes him down easily. We barely escape- Marilyn takes a leg wound and Spike has to carry her the last bit. Back on board, Marilyn gives Ed a makeover (quite a thing, that) while we discuss the actual bounty on her head. Looks like the guy posting the bounty is a bad hombre who just wants to silence her for good. Marilyn figures out what's going on, and asks to go shopping one last time...where she gets herself caught shoplifting and arrested. I guess the bad guy situation got cleaned up a bit too through some of the dirt we found. Also Spike sends a photo of himself in drag to Marilyn, if that's a thing you're into. He looks kinda good in a cheongsam, actually.

A rich weirdo calling himself "Nowhere Man" has put a huge bounty on himself for the lulz, apparently. It must be collected by a woman, so it sounds like it's time for a Faye story! The target throws a party- Faye and many others show up, just to be trapped and humiliated with sludge. Turns out "Nowhere Man" is a song, so Faye (and a lot of the same women from last time) use it to find him at a pachinko parlor called "Nowhere Land." Most of the hunters are fooled by a decoy, while Faye finds the real guy and gets his story- he got dumped by a female bounty hunter and wanted revenge. The nice bounty was all stolen money, so Faye lets him off with a pep talk and buying her drinks.
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The police are after Faye! She narrowly gets away, and they take Spike and Jet in for questioning. An old cop underling of Jet's lets them go, but now there's a 6 million bounty on Faye. She doesn't know what's going on, either- she picked a pocket but all she got was a playing card. Anyway, we're turning her in. When trying to turn her over to the police, she manages to ram the police ship with the Bebop instead. Ein chews up the card Faye stole, revealing that it is actually the Black Joker, part of an old counterfeiting scam. If combined with the White Joker, it can withdraw infinite money! But then why is it at a casino, and why are the police after it~? The Faye bounty now includes Spike and Jet, too. Jet decides to investigate the aforementioned old cop buddy Huey, and they make a deal- he'll hand over the Black Joker for removal of the bounty plus 9 million. This is obviously a trap, but we obviously have a plan. The exchange is made and Huey tries to kill Jet....but the police catch him in the act. No money as usual, but we did the right thing and the bounty was cleared.

My rating: 8/10
Cowboy Bebop isn't my #1 of the ever, but it was a good time, and the manga has new stories in the same vein, so it's fun. Good to see the gang again.

Discussion question: What was your "gateway" anime/manga?
Hint for next: You said you liked this one right
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A NEW (SORTA?) CHALLENGER APPROACHES

Assassination Classroom, Vol. 2

Shenanigans intensify as Irina Jelavich is brought on as a supplementary assassin. (and also foreign language teacher) She's a pro, and well versed in the use of her ample feminine wiles, but she gets a bit too cocky about ignoring the intel she has. After she botches her first attempt, Koro-sensei (did I ever actually name him the first time? It's a pun on "can't be killed.") motivates her to actually start taking the teaching portion seriously. Almost as if this was all part of his plan to educate the students!

Their mission is still a secret, but Koro-sensei's Class E is starting to disrupt the order of things. We meet the principal, who goes into more detail about his method of beating down Class E to motivate the others. Well, now Class E is getting more confident, and their grades are going up, and we can't have that. Koro-sensei redoubles his teaching efforts (he's able to create a visual clone for 1-on-1 time with each student) and gives the students an ultimatum that they need to all score in the top half on midterms, or he'll quit. The students do well, but the principal screws them over and only the one edgy kid manages the goal. Koro-sensei sticks around because of this dirty play.

School trip to Kyoto! One of the girls gets kidnapped! That'll be resolved next issue, but in the meantime there's a pretty unexpected Jesus Fresco Restoration visual gag in there.

Bonus material: Design sheets for a lot of the characters, and a crossover sidestory with Kusuo Saiki.

My rating: 8/10
Kinda more of the same, and I'm okay with this. We're seeing Koro-sensei starting to have some issues dealing with some situations, which is always nice when you have a godmode kinda guy like him.
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ANOTHER NEW-SORTA CHALLENGER APPROACHES

Cardcaptor Sakura, Big Vol. 2

If I understand correctly how these usually work, this is equivalent to volumes 4-6, with bonus color artwork and bigger print! Lotta dang stuff happened here, wrapping up what I guess is the first arc of this series (I just kinda expected it to be all one big thing, so that was kinda surprising!) We got the remaining clow cards, and Kero reached his true form. Turns out though that Yue, the moon's equivalent of Kero, was dormant inside Yukito or something like that. Yue pops out to judge Sakura, and almost has her beat until the teacher lady (who used to date oniichan) shows up with an artifact from Clow Reed himself, allowing Sakura to level up and beat Yue. Some surprisingly cool stuff throughout, and actually explained some of the "everybody has a crush on everybody" situation as like magic attracting itself. (Yukito/Yue and Syaoran and the teacher lady and I think Toya are all moon-aligned, Kero is Sun, and Sakura is BOTH) Sakura is a full-fledged Cardcaptor now, and it kinda sounds like all this was designed to get her ready for whatever is about to happen in the next arc. Also there was a pretty great sequence where the school put on Sleeping Beauty- Sakura was randomly chosen as the Prince, and Syaoran as Princess Aurora.

My rating: 9/10
Broke away both from formulas and from (focusing on) sketchy relationships, and had some pretty memorable sequences on both the light and heavy sides. I'll take more of that, sure.
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Crescent Moon
Genre: Urban fantasy?
Story: Red Company/Takamura Matsuda
Art: Haruko Iida
Whose fault: Mine, probably

I legit have only a basic grasp on what happened in this manga. The action scenes were hard to follow, speech balloons were frequently unclear, and I generally got the sense that the author just kinda assumed I knew things about the characters and story that weren't really made clear ahead of time. Maybe this is a sequel or spinoff of something?

Mahiru is a student who has terrible luck, but gives great luck to anybody who touches her. She also has a recurring dream about the sea and a princess and a demon and stuff. This will be a recurring theme- a tale/song about a princess who promised to marry a demon and then forgot and then things went poorly. Mahiru's probably descended from that in some form. One day she runs into a dude who runs away from her, and then into some detectives looking for the "Moonlight Bandits." Then she goes to the library to research that fairy tale, and runs into a different dude, and a girl.

The cranky first guy attacks and the other two protect her. A werewolf takes her to a bar or something. The four people we've met (actually I'm not sure we've met #4 before now- he may or may not have been the werewolf) and probably a few others at the bar are the Lunar Race and they need Mahiru for stuff. Their power level is based on the phase of the moon, but Mahiru can give them full moon power which is good because we need to steal the Teardrops of the Moon on a new moon night so please show up for that.

The four start stalking Mahiru to protect her even though the only one who has it out for her is the cranky one of the four. He keeps trying to kill her but his previously unmentioned electric powers don't work because it's close to the new moon. Cranky boi doesn't like humans or really anybody. Mahiru almost forgets about the heist but shows up anyway, having decided to help the aliens because ???. They have started without her, infiltrating a cruise ship disguised as a jazz band. The girl is a psychic and knocks everybody out- it's a new moon but they have an amplifier. why do we need Mahiru then But the detectives are here! We find the Teardrop (singular) of the Moon and Mahiru warns them that the police are still up and kicking. (they were in the bathroom when we did whatever offscreen psychic knockout thing we did) Some sort of chase scene transpires and Mahiru has to save Cranky Boi from drowning. The police are flummoxed by the bold "jump in the water and escape on a dinghy" plan.

So Cranky Demon Boi, Psychic Girl, Shota Werefurry, and The Vampire One are still keeping tabs on Mahiru. They ask her to come by the shop, where The Three Nice Ones rock out ("They're making music with their bodies!!") accompanied by Some Other Chick on the piano. We argue with Cranky Boi about Mahiru moving in, which I am pretty sure is not something that was brought up before now. He turns into demon form because he is unstable, but blames Mahiru for it. The owner guy from the nightclub is talking to a hologram.

oh no cranky boi went berserk demon mode and does....I'm not sure what he is doing or trying to do but it is Bad and we all have to sing at him until he gets better. The detectives show up with a news van in tow, but we have a clever disguise of teenagers randomly partying in an open field. Take that, law enforcement! That'll teach you to oppose theft.
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Bonus: the author talks about the making of the thing. There's some actual neat background info about how all the Lunar names are related to the moon and all the human names relate to the sun.

My rating: 3/10
Sometimes I have a hard time reviewing because it just doesn't translate well to a summary. This one I have a hard time reviewing because it reads like some teenage fanfic writer has a story in their head and to THEM all the stuff makes sense but they forgot to let the readers in on some key points. I run into that sometimes in my own writing, so I can understand, but I also don't get Tokyopop publishing my TEW diaries. This, combined with impenetrable actions scenes and mystery speakers, gives the whole thing an aura of amateurism. It's got some maybe cool ideas- a reverse harem of supernatural types that needs to steal stuff with the heroine's help, but the execution is just....sloppy as heck. I don't think the translation is doing them much help either- lots of "doh" and "Umn" and friends calling each other "girlfriend." Art is kinda unique and cool, albeit not really my style, but some of the posing seems nonsensical.

Discussion question: How often do you get rid of manga or anime?
Hint for next: Probably shouldn't be alphabetized under "Cr" but oh well. I came for one of my favorite artists, but stayed for....actually no he was eventually replaced and I bailed
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I don't often get rid of manga/anime because my approach has been buy only what you MUST own. So it goes through a fairly rigorous selection process on the outset. I once got rid of all my manga in a young and foolish attempt to improve my relationship with my parents. That... Did nothing but make me feel awful. I've since built the collection back up, as OP undoubtedly knows.
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Seikai Trilogy Vol. 1 (of 2): Crest of the Stars

Genre: Sci-fi
Story: Hiroyuki Morioka
Composition: Aya Yoshinaga
Art: Toshihiro Ono
Whose fault: Tombolo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yl_9JYrcf4" data-time="

Back in town, and back to mostly live updates. Here's a throwback for me- it was an immediate buy for me because my entry point to anime and manga was Pokemon, and to my knowledge this is Ono's only (SFW) work other than the first Pokemon manga to come out here. So his art style kinda established my taste! I remember it having a fairly quality waifu in it, although maybe my tastes have changed in the last.....fifteen years or so? For reasons unknown to me, the third volume has a different artist, and I didn't like him, so I wound up dropping it even though I liked the first two. Interested to see how I feel about this one in 2018!

We start with a flashback, as young Jinto's father surrenders the Hyde star system to the Abh in exchange for a place in their nobility. This is a less than popular decision. Back to the present. Jinto is Abh nobility by blood, and the time has come for him to ditch commoner school and go do...whatever it is that young Abh nobility do. The Abh appear at this point to be basically blue-haired anime space elves- they are kinda arrogant and don't age over their long lifespans. Anyway, Jinto says goodbye to his buddy Dorin Ku, and is picked up by a cute female Abh. This appears to be Jinto's first interaction with an actual biological Abh. Lots of jargon gets thrown around- Jinto is biologically a Lander (commoner? landbound? human?) but is really a Voda (rules a world as an Abh) and needs to act like one. The Abh's name is Lafiel, and she can move the ship with her mind, which is normal for her. She's kinda pompous, but that's par for the course for the species/culture.

We get to the ship that is going to take Jinto to the capital. He's desperate to learn about Abh culture so he can not be the worst aristocrat, and Lafiel's kinda curious about his as well. We chat a bit with the ship's captain about hierarchy and such (I don't follow it that great) and then find out that "Lafiel" is actually a member of the Imperial Family and thus a huge deal. Jinto immediately starts treating her with proper formality, but she gets pretty cranky about it- Abh all know her as [a long string of titles and names] so he was the first to ask her name or call her Lafiel.

Something is happening in space! The gist is that the Four Nations (an alliance of the only places left that are not part of the Abh Empire) have decided to pick a fight! The captain evacuates Lafiel and Jinto (Lafiel wants to stay and fight, but she's too important and young to die here, and her noble rank is irrelevant to the military ship's chain of command) in an escape vessel, and the first shots of this war are fired. Two days after the start of the battle, Jinto and Lafiel have to stop for fuel. (and fanservice with a bathing scene and barely-dressed maids) The human guy in charge here is kinda a douche, and is detaining Lafiel for political reasons I don't quite get. He doesn't like Landers (which he considers Jinto) and only has female maids.
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Jinto has been thrown in with the guy's father, who's been locked up for years. Apparently Douche Baron/Ryuf is ashamed of his genetic Lander-ness, so that's probably why he's bein' a jerk. Lafiel talks one of the maids into helping her bust Jinto out and escaping before Lafiel can be used as a bargaining chip for the approaching Four Nation forces. We manage it, but the Ryuf blows up the refueling station, so we're still stranded on his planet/station/asteroid/???. Ryuf Leka (the jerk) pursues, but with some hacking help from Leka's dad and some sabotage from the butt maids, we're able to beat him in combat despite lacking weapons. Jinto and Lafiel get in a fight over her neutral reaction towards having killed the guy (in self-defense)

Empress Ramaj isn't taking any crap from the ambassadors of the Four Nations, so war it is.

...Unfortunately it's time for work so I guess this'll have to wait for tomorrow!
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or even the day after
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Crest of the Stars 1 continues!
Today's BGM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpitDloV-GA" data-time="

We had to land on a planet occupied by United Mankind, which means we have to disguise ourselves as Landers. Lafiel is having trouble fitting in, and not enjoying having to wear human clothes and dye her blue hair. We have a chat about heritage and birth- Abh use artificial wombs and don't really marry. Lafiel's "mother" was the captain of that ship that (presumably) was destroyed earlier on, geeze. United Mankind is not winning any friends with local law enforcement, but they've sent in Lieutenant Kyte on the trail of Lafiel, collaborating with the police.

Jinto and Lafiel are ambushed in their safe room by a group of freedom fighters that aren't OPPOSED to the Abh, but want independence from them. Their leader, Marca, proposes that they take Jinto and Lafiel hostage in exchange for protection from the occupying forces. That plan is probably not going to work out for them, but we accept anyway.

A space battle happens with characters I'm probably supposed to remember for later. The Abh win.

The army and the police show up around the same time at the group's hideout. We retreat underground and split off from our captors because this isn't really their business. Somehow, we wind up at an underground amusement park, where we're caught by local police and Lieutenant Kyte. We agree to go peacefully (it's better than being caught by the army, or dying in a firefight) but Kyte goes berserk and opens fire on Lafiel. Jinto takes a shot (several shots?) for her before the police guy gets Kyte under control....but here comes the army AND the Abh! The police guy (who gets along better with Abh "oppression" than the humans' "liberation" anyway) decides to deal with the army long enough to the Abh to engage, letting Jinto and Lafiel go on their way.

We meet back up with the guerilla group on escaping, and they launch us into space, hoping for favors later. They just now learned that Lafiel wasn't just some random minor noble. The Abh pick us back up, and the lady in charge gets a big kick out of teasing Lafiel over her hair and clothes. We get where we're going just in time for a TIME SKIP.

Three years later, that planet has blocked United Mankind's control, the randos have the ship they wanted but are being used as freighters for the Empire, and Jinto's dad is dead after his homeworld was conquered. Having completed their respective courses of study, Jinto is now serving as an officer of some sort on Lafiel's ship, as they promised each other.

Bonus content: A glossary (man that would've been handy if I'd known about it before reading) and a couple illustrations

My rating: 9/10
Some gratuitous fanservice, and some kinda hard to follow stuff (a lot of the Abh look very similar, and there are tons of things that you don't quite get if you're not using the glossary for Abh terminology), but this is otherwise right up my alley. Lafiel is still a quality waifu, and this art style still really appeals to me, basic as it tends to be. I've always considered myself much more of a fantasy guy than a sci-fi guy, but this is one of several things slowly winning me over.
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Seikai Trilogy Vol. 2 (of 2): Banner of the Stars:

Today's BGM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i0TnNI6U-w" data-time="

Naked Abh on the front inside cover. Sure. Actually she's on the back cover in color but you don't see anything there.

The war between the Abh Empire and the Triple Alliance (yes it was four but one of the groups is pacifist and isn't fighting) is at a deadlock, but the Abh have built up a wave of reinforcements that is expected to bring things to a close. Our peeps are still in training, looks like. Lafiel gets sulky after losing a simulated skirmish. Everybody on the bridge has figured out that she and Jinto have a particular bond, so it falls to him to cheer her up, as nobody else wants to face her crankiness.

Skip ahead a bit, and things are going well in the war. We finally get called up and placed under Atosuryua, who is the little sister of the jerky guy from the first volume. She doesn't seem too bent out of shape that we killed her big bro, or maaaaybe she's just biding her time for revenge.

Side note: Jinto has a cat Diaho, and Lafiel is pretty tsundere towards it. (and everything else, really, but to be fair it's weird having a cat on a combat ship) When Lafiel was little, her dad tricked her into thinking Diaho's grandmother supplied half of Lafiel's genes.

First battle goes pretty okay! Atosuryua invites us to a birthday dinner for her dead brother, which is apparently a thing with the Abh. It's awkward, but we accept. I was getting some Red Wedding vibes from the dinner, but nothing happens and Atosuryua might actually genuinely be cool with us. Maybe.

Battle the second is a bit trickier- we have to defend a gate until the main army arrives. The battle is a victory, but our ship is destroyed. Jinto gets trapped trying to help an officer abandon ship, and Lafiel comes to rescue him. OTP is progressing nicely, not that there was ever really any doubt it was gonna be a thing. We timeskip through a brief administrative stint and a small vacation, and end with a couple pages of the cat hanging out, since we'll be leaving him behind.

My rating: 9/10
I dunno, the space battles aren't doing much for me (having watched Legend of Galactic Heroes, I expect much longer and more strategic experiences :P) but I am just attached to the characters and artstyle. As mentioned earlier, I dropped this when they changed the artist for the final volume, but now I kinda wanna see it through if I can find a copy

Overall: 9/10
Probably a bit of this rating is nostalgia, but eh, it's fun, and like I said sci-fi has been growing on me. A race of photogenic anime space elves doesn't really hurt either I guess, and I do enjoy me a well-executed tsundere >_> Lots of fanservice, but at least everybody's of age, and it tends to be more in the realm of sexy chapter art or male gaze than contrived sequences within the actual story.

Discussion question: Favorite Sci-fi?
Hint for next: We're going particularly old-school again.
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Should be able to knock one out this afternoon
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wifebolo needed stuff
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we got invited for lunch
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School started back today wooo
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throwback to when I thought finishing this before then was a reasonable goal lol
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I skipped ahead on that hint sorry

Culdcept, Vol. 1 (of 4?)

By: Shinya Kaneko
Genre: Adventure, Children's Card Games

I dang love Culdcept. I liked it on PS2, I liked it on 360 or whatever system that was that I only had access to briefly, and I liked it a lot on 3DS even though I gave up on the final boss fight. The best summary is "Monopoly meets a TCG:" you collect and level up properties, but you can fight with monsters for control if you land on an opponent's spot. Go play it. Anyway, this manga is based on...the PS2 game, I think. IIRC that is the first American release, but not the first ever?

Exposition: the cards used come from the book of Creation, Culdcept. Cepters try to assemble all of the cards to gain the power of creation. OKAY GO IN MEDIA RES. A fortress has been wiped out by the Black Cepters, to the chargrin of an old guy who showed up too late.

Najaran is our heroine- kinda a standard issue derpy-but-filled-with-potential tomboy. She is scolded by the living staff (yes) Goligan for using the monsters to do her chores. She's in training under Master Horowitz, who is just getting back from wherever he went. Hey that's the old guy from two pages ago. He sends Naja forth to help him investigate the Black Cepters, because it's highly unusual for Cepters to work together that closely, and they're becoming a threat. And hey, Naja gets to leave the little island and see the world. And eat food. She likes food. She's sent to Desert Town Soron for a tournament.

Some big bandit guy is causing a ruckus. Naja was trying to eat, so she's not gonna allow that. Her Knight is about to shishkabob his Goblin when the fight is broken up by Owen, the glasses character who came in 2nd in last year's tournament. The people get hyped for Naja, and talk her into joining the tournament. We find out that this town worships the Water Goddess- there were a lot of rivers and lakes here until five years ago, when a drought wiped them out. Hm.

There are six entrants in the tournament, and Owen is favored to win, since last year's winner didn't show up. Our first round is against Chimino, the dude from yesterday. This is Naja's first actual fight and she's feeling rather jittery about it. Knight gets the upper hand on Chimino's Goblins, but he turns one into a kamikaze with Gem of Life. After a brief flashback about responsible card usage, Naja calls Thunderbeak and goes a bit berserk. Chimino tries to hide behind a Hobgoblin with another Gem of Life, but Naja uses a Gremlin to nullify it. Chimino's Hobgoblin shields Chimino from what might've actually been a *fatal* blow, and Chimino taps out. Goligan scolds Naja for fighting in anger, and she apologizes to Chimino. We're cool now.

In the other matches, sexy wyvern lady beats weird landmine guy, and weird mask guy is holding his own against Owen before the match is interrupted! Dragon-Eyed Zeneth wipes the floor with both of them, and tries to kill not-Owen because that's what happens to losers. Naja tries to make the save, but the master of the town shows up and settles things down, inviting Zeneth to fight tomorrow in the finale instead. There was a lot of collateral damage today, especially from Zeneth, but the town doesn't really mind- it comes with the territory and the tournament's fun.
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Wyvern lady has dropped out of the tournament, and Owen tries to talk Naja into doing the same instead of facing Zeneth and his Tempest spell. Naja ain't gonna quit though. Owen challenges Zeneth late at night in the graveyard! Chimino offers Naja his cards, because that's what happens when you lose. She only takes one weird card she doesn't even recognize. Workers find a badly wounded Owen and get him some medical attention.

It's the finals, and Naja and Zeneth are the only two even standing still. Zeneth is the heavy favorite, and quickly gets the upper hand. Flashback: Owen is The Tiger Of The South, whatever that means beyond his being a big deal or something. Naja gets some fight in her, taking out Zeneth's Golem with her Knight and smacking Zeneth upside the head with Goligan. She likes doing that. But how is she gonna withstand Tempest? She and Zeneth get in a sword fight (preventing him from drawing more cards) while Knight faces off with his Berserker. Knight gets a win because Heart of the Cards, but here comes Tempest! Naja withdraws Knight and uses her last Magic Shield to protect some of the audience. The master of the town is acting weird. Here comes Tempest....wait, Owen Shattered it last night! It doesn't work now.

Zeneth's trump card didn't work, but he's far from beaten and now he's angery. He doesn't trust people or get the whole friendship concept. He casts attack magic, but Naja senses the card she got from Chimino, and summons Cait Sith, who is unaffected by Spell cards. Cait Sith fires the spell back (wot) but Naja redirects the blast to narrowly miss Zeneth himself. He finds this SOFT AND WEAK and decides to bounce. Naja wins, sorta! Our innkeeper friend made bank as the only one to bet on her, and we are invited to eat with the master of the town. That probably will go smoothly!

oh no the master is actually Depthera the Carrion Bug of the Black Cepters! That didn't take long, but it WAS quite freaky. He casts Bind on Naja and Goligan. (it's SLIGHTLY less fanservicey than it could have been :P) He also has a weird living staff, who chides Goligan for growing soft and forgetting his true mission and not sensing him. We're gonna feed Naja to Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies! That drought was the Black Cepters finding and recovering Beelzebub's course, and they've been able to bring him back, partially by feeding him the tournament winners. Before this can turn into a vore doujin (don't google that, okay?) ZENETH makes the save.

Zeneth sends Berserker at Beelzebub, and Naja breaks free out of sheer annoyance at his ego. She only has one card, which she hid inside Goligan and made him cough up, but she is able to send Eidolon to drop a chandelier on Depthera. The bad guys don't want to risk damage to Beelzebub while he's still larval, so they teleport out. Hey, the sea rains itself back into existence! Complete with salt and fish. Raining.

Bonus feature: The author introduces himself. Also some of the chapter breaks had little info guides for the different cards.

My rating: 7/10
More accurate to the actual game than a lot of card game adaptations, I think, and Naja is a nice spunky heroine. POC too, if you're into that, or maybe she's just really tan. The story was never the compelling thing about Culdcept, but they do a good job with it. I also appreciate that they had plenty of chances to objectify Naja, and they haven't particularly done so yet. That said, it's not quite clicking with me for some reason, at least not as well as I would expect.
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Culdcept, Vol. 3 (I suspect 2 is in a box somewhere)

The part of the summary relevant to the missing volume:

In order to locate the powerful seer Grubel, Najaran ventured into the dark and dangerous forest of Bisteam! Many enter the forest to scavenge for its hordes of hidden treasure, but few ever return...for the Gates to Bisteam's loot are guarded vigilantly by Kigi, a nymph who defends the forest. Najaran and her fellow travelers--a league of tenacious treasure-hunters called Searchers--confronted Kigi and took on the challenge of the Four Gates! Meanwhile, the cutthroat arms trader Dum-Dum ruthlessly plots to plunder Bisteam for himself...

Some evil bandity types have found some treasure! Meanwhile, Naja and her friends appear to be on Gate #2 of 4. We run afoul of a Woodfolk and its baby- they're usually docile but this one sure ain't. Ganz, the tank of the party, seems to sense a familiar dark presence, but he gets biffed early on. Naja calls Thunderbeak, but pulls her punch when the baby tries to shield its mom. Ganz gets a bit of a PTSD flashback to when he was trying to defend Loca. Everybody got wiped out by flower-based zombie type shenanigans, and that seems to be what's happening here. In addition, the big monster Woodfolk has absorbed several smaller Woodfolk through the Support ability. Our plan of attack involves Cool Girl Alta distracting the monster while Naja takes an herbicide (concocted by Nerd Joaquin) and pours it directly on the flower at the top of the monster's head. Ganz also has to keep it from eating everybody, and Goligan has to extend our reach, but it works out. It appears to have been Naja's fault somehow to begin with, but oh well.

Kigi shows up. She's p cute, and gives us tsundere encouragement to keep up the pace because Dum-Dum and company are catching up. The challenge of the second gate is to catch a Dryad. Gatz and Alta find out the hard way that they have to catch a specific Dryad out of the several running around, and get turned into trees. They all look identical, but Naja is able to pick out the right one using her experience picking out the best veggies at the grocer. Unfortunately, she still has to CATCH it, and when her The Hand grabs the wrong target, Naja gets turned into a flower. Time for Joaquin to get some character development, then! He has to get his nose out of his book and learn to people. He scares them off with paper (it's DEAD TREES D: ) but the target is still too fast....but the Woodfolk from earlier show back up to repay the favor of saving them! They trick the Dryad and trap her for him, and we win yay.

Meanwhile the bad guys are just burning their way through the forest while the gatekeepers are all distracted administering tests. Alta flashback! She wants to find Leu, who was dropped into a pit when they were raiding a tomb. She has trust issues, because immediately before that they were backstabbed by their teammates. Dragon Zombie attack! It has been guarding this battlefield for 1000 years, not realizing he's dead. This is the third Gate, and nobody's ever passed it. Its regen powers are proving tough, and we're going to have to use Spells even though Naja sucks at them. The Dragon Zombie tanks her first attack, and her followup freezes to his head without opening. Alta has to use her last bullet to free it up, and with it she has to let go of Leu's memory. That still doesn't keep it down, but Naja talks it into passing on, and helps him to the skies with Fly.
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We just might be the prophesied Mistrals! Meanwhile, a group of the bandits splinters off. Their Captain is tired of fighting dirty and letting Naja's group do their dirty work, so he forges ahead with the more honorable faction of the bandits. A monster is probably going to wipe out the remnant. We're finally to Bisteam! And Zeneth is....somewhere!

Bonus: Promos and summaries of IRL Culdcept events, and a page from the next book

My rating: 8/10
We've got more characters to care about now, which is nice. Artwork is fairly good, actually.
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Culdcept, Vol. 4


Flashback! Kigi's big sister (I'm guessing) Chiki has to be sacrificed to the Old Willow because marks are appearing on her body. If that process finishes, she will become a being of evil, so folks get sacrificed before that happens. In the present day, Kigi is starting to get the marks too, but she's gotta hold out to oversee Naja's progress and stop the bad guys. She runs across the splinter group and it probably doesn't end well for them.

Naja can sense that she's going to wind up fighting Kigi, but she doesn't see a means by which Knight can beat her Gargoyle. Kigi wipes out the splinter group, but Naja shows up for the save before she can kill the leader. Naja is turning into a dark nymph, but she needs to find somebody who can confront the Dark Force. That appears to be her true job as a gatekeeper or whatever. Kigi quickly gets the upper hand, but Naja has her FRIENDS. Still, this is gonna be rough. I guess the rest of this civilization got wiped out by demons, and nobody thinks humans are up to being the last hope of the world. Naja wins from behind by pumping up Knight's defense to withstand Gargoyle, then converting all that to attack with Changing Salve. The win makes Naja the Mistral, we go through the last Gate, and we're gonna be friends now.

So now it's time for the real bad guy to show up! Black Cepter #2, Nepenthes of the Mire...along with Mochigan the Staff, and I think a weird plant-mecha-golem-zombie thing, which I guess ate Dum-Dum's group. Anything Black Cepter-related has been super creepy and Eldritch so far, but it makes it kiiiinda hard to follow action sequences. The plan was for the humans and Nymphs to wipe each other out so we could harvest a lot of souls, but Naja messed that up by passing the tests. Bad Guy PlantMan kidnaps Naja and takes her to the much hyped "treasure" of the Nymphs- the Old Willow, which has sealed away Dark Master, Foul Lord of the Earth. That's who has been cursing the Nymphs, and why we need to sacrifice them to keep him at bay. So we weren't guarding treasure from the outside- we were guarding the outside from this thing! Bad Guy fries the Priestess, the last surviving Nymph other than Kigi, but she seems hopeful about Naja's presence.

Time for Zeneth! He shows up for a rematch, riding a Juggernaut and waking the Dark Master up with collateral damage. Everybody has to FIGHT AS A TEAM because **** JUST GOT REAL. We get some good hits in and maybe? kill Plantface, but Dark Master is still kickin, and he's able to drain everybody but Naja and Zeneth, taking them out of the fight. Zeneth is forced to unseal his cursed left arm because chuunibyou, but Naja has to keep him busy while it charges so he can (hopefully) keep control. Kigi sacrifices herself to Old Willow to do some entanglin'. Zeneth hits...Flame Master! That's it for Dark Master, and Plantface McBadguy beats a tactical retreat. RIP Kigi- the spirits of the Nymphs can be at peace now, and we get Wind of Hope and Kigi's cards.
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We wrap up all the character arcs- Ganz and the surviving mercs are joining forces to fight the Black Cepters; Alta was able to make some coin after all by selling a mithril arrow that was shot at her; Joaquin is better at people now; Zeneth is still angery and beating people up. Meanwhile, our heroine is lost in the forest, where she runs into a guy named Tare. Hey, he won the tournament from last volume's omake! They DID mention they'd be writing him into the story. He guides them to Miss Grubel's manor, which is in fact where we were trying to go. She is a remarkably prescient fortune teller. A letter from Naja's master Horowitz implores her to find the Black Cepters, and offers Naja's services in exchange. Time for vague dom overtones, but on the plus side we stuff Naja into a cornfolk costume and dress Goligan up as a maid.

Grubel looks kinda like the goddess Culdra, actually. May or may not be intentional. We find a painting of Grubel, Horowitz, and a third guy. Grubel is bored of the world since she can "read" the world like a book because something something culdcept. She wagers that Naja can't do anything to surprise her....and is immediately surprised by how badly she screwed up making tea. Naja can go off script! It's probably due to Goligan, who probably came from outside the world. Okay fine we'll do the reading.

We have to use the Ban-Ri-Gan, which was created by the three people in the painting (Salvadore is the other dude) during one of the periods where the rivals decided to cooperate. She mentions a Dragon Eye in the middle of exposition. Gee, wonder if that has anything to do with "Dragon Eye" Zeneth! Anyway, this baby can even see into other worlds, like other Culdcept games and books! (If I remember my lore correctly, when you assemble all the cards, you get to make a new world, with its own cards, and then it's culdcepts all the way down) We get the info on the Black Cepters' whereabouts, but their leader senses our scrying and breaks our thingy. Grubel sends Naja on her way with a crystal ball with info and her Living Spear. Meanwhile, Tare and Horowitz are looking into some stuff.

Unfortunately, the manga is over! Bonus material: Naja beating down Zeneth one more time for good measure

then why do I have a volume 5
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I read today but had to leave before I coulddo the write up
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Culdcept, Vol. 5


Our travels bring us at last to Endaness Isle, home of the Cepter Guild, and a safe haven for Cepters everywhere. We meet the 4th, 5th, and 6th ranked Cepters, who will be somewhat important later. This issue has lots of backstory and lots of fighting. Turns out that Horowitz, in addition to being one of the three Great Sages, is the co-founder and chairman of the Guild. The idea was to promote unity and resist persecution, but now we're all just in-fighting over how to deal with the Black Cepters. Speaking of whom, we get to see one of their big names, the Dark Priest Belkhayr. I guess he's human and that makes him weird for that group. He's also about the only one taking Naja seriously as a threat. She's not that fantastic a fighter by any means, but she can bring people together and make things work.

Speaking of our intrepid heroine, she's called on to tell the assembled Cepters what she's learned from her brushes with the enemy. Previously met #4 ranked Cepter (two of the top three are out of town, and the other one is Tare the Insert Wonder) Karin the Circus Master chooses this point to start being kind of a *****. This culminates in a 16-man battle royal in which everybody is looking to take out the rookie for an easy rankings boost. A shadowy associate gives Karin an Igneous Fatui to use, but Karin is not sure she is up to using something quite so evil and lethal.

By the way, Naja has been having trouble using her cards, lately. Horowitz expositions that it's a side effect of acquiring so much power so quickly, and he agreed to this battle royal to push her past that barrier. Indeed, Naja eventually gets mad and starts using her monsters just fine. She's fighting for the honor of her friends- Karin has drawn the obvious parallel between Goligan and the Black Cepters' staff sidekicks, and also talked smack about some of the people Naja has fought. But they're her FRIENDS and she FIGHTS FOR THEM and she has learned things from all of them that she is able to employ in beating fourteen shmucks in a row. It sounds cheesy when I put it like that, but it is pretty well done for what it is. She comes up with some cool tricks to (semi) believably toast everybody two or three at a time in their own elements.

Comes down to Naja and Karin. Karin explains her super tragic backstory and resultant trust issues, and Naja explains that she only takes one card from defeated opponents because that represents their dreams and they become her dreams too. Comes down to whose last card summons faster. Karin's last card is Igneous Fatui, but she decides to face turn and concede instead of using it. Karin implicates a Junior Chairman of the Guild, who was plotting to use this to get rid of Horowitz and take over. They're both goin' to jail I guess.

Naja's wholesomeness and that big fight has reignited everybody's spark and now we're all on the same page. Time to meet the secretive Guild Master! Turns out that's the Lord of Water, who has free will even though she's a card. She's entered an agreement with the Sages- she *is* Endaness Isle (which provides the Guild with a movable, well-protected base) and they let her siphon off some of the Cepters' residual energy. The big guns are going to launch a two-pronged attack on the Black Cepters, while Naja and Horowitz are off to find Zeneth.
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Backstory time, finally. Flame Master is one of the last remaining cards the Black Cepters don't have, so Zeneth is a bit of a McGuffin at this point. He's also the reason for the falling out with Salvadore! Salvadore and Horowitz trained together under a dragon master, who bequeathed them each an eye when he died. They're super powerful, but Salvadore wanted to use it to save the life of a young boy they rescued. Horowitz wanted to do more important things with the Eye, but Salvadore stuck it in- you guessed it!- Zeneth, and adiosed to Shantenion. Later on, Zeneth would accidentally(?) nuke that whole town with Flame Master, and now they hate Cepters. Guess where we're going~~~~

My rating: 8/10
Naja did some Cena-level overcoming of the odds here, but like I said it kinda worked. They're doing a good job of presenting her as somebody who isn't that strong on paper, but has a good heart, a quickness to learn and adapt, a fighting spirit, resilience, and all that good intangible stuff that can cover her relative weakness. Also, backstory!

Overall: 8/10
I'd read more of this! The characters are surprisingly enjoyable and memorable, the fights are interesting, and the plot is....standard shonen fare, but it's executed just fine. I also appreciate that we passed up several opportunities to objectify our underaged lead heroine. (we didn't pass up those opportunities with other characters, but those are adults and it still wasn't super in-your-face)

Bonus question: Favorite video game adaptation?
Hint for next, for real this time probably: We're going particularly old-school again.
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no dice today :|
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Cyborg 009
Genre: Sci-fi
By: Shotaro Ishinomori
Whose fault: Tombolo


Y'know, this looks a lot like Astro Boy. We open with an editor's note about how some of the characters look racist, but were progressive for the time and subvert stereotypes and stuff.

It's the cold war! The arms race has continued to escalate under the direction of those who stand to profit from war, and now a masked figure has assembled a gathering of "death merchants" to announce that the next step is fighting in SPACE with CYBORG SOLDIERS.

It's Russia! Dr. Gamo has been experimenting on his son Ivan. His wife is unhappy about this, and he clocks her over the head with a wrench. Some suits show up and express interest in his work. He is taken to a secret lab in the Pacific Ocean. Our eeeevil team of scientists is now complete, but now we need human subjects! We're instructed to go kidnap some people quietly.

It's too many scene changes to keep up this gag! The suits go around picking up people for their nefarious, cyborgy purposes. Jet from NY joins after an overt West Side Story parody. (his buddies have a dance number going before rumbling with the Sharks) Red the big Native American joins after telling off a guy who tries to recruit him for his folk dance troupe. A starving Chinese guy who doesn't look much like he's starving is stopped in the act of committing suicide. Albert from Germany is trying to smuggle his wife somewhere, but it goes awry. She's killed and he's unconscious, so the suits claim to be taking him to the hospital. Francoise from France is just straight up abducted with chloroform and the whole bit, despite the best efforts of her pilot brother Jean. Great Britain is a washed out drunk of an actor who is lured with a flask tossed into the car. An escaped slave in Africa is rescued and then brought in at gunpoint.

Time skip! The enhancements have been going well. 001 (Ivan, maybe?) has a super brain, 002 (Jet) can now fly at up to Mach 5, 003 (Francoise) has heightened senses, 004 (Albert) has a bunch of built-in weaponry, 005 (Red) has super strength and armored skin, 006 (Chinese guy) can breath fire and burrow through rock, 007 (Great Britain) can shapeshift, and we're working on giving 008 (African guy) the ability to breathe and wreck stuff underwater.

This manga ain't called Cyborg 008 though, so it's off to Japan for the last guy. There's a jailbreak, and Joe and one buddy are the last people not to get caught. The suits gas them both, and just happen to grab Joe. He wakes up with a telepathic link with 001, super speed, and a giant robot trying to kill him. (We also find out that we are now in the testing phase for the cyborgs before we move to mass production) Joe beats the robot (I'm not exactly sure HOW, but it involves tanking machine gun fire to the back) and escapes, only to be attacked by a tank (which he tricks into driving off a cliff) and a plane. (which he piledrives into the ocean, where he can breathe)

With that, 009 has passed the test with flying colors! He is introduced to the other 008 cyborgs....who immediately rebel against their creators and leave, with Dr. Gilmore as a hostage! After some back and forth, they convince 009 to accompany them. 004 wipes out the other scientists with non-lethal force, and it turns out this was Gilmore's idea anyway! We make our getaway in some nifty planes, but there's a dogfight with pursuing drone fighters.

(Break for actual work)
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BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8MzzVoSA8U&list=PL02E8D3D6DE63EE3A

The gang successfully escapes to their hideout on Island X, where several of the borgs procure food with their talents. 009 is the pinnacle of them all, allegedly having ALL of their abilities. We also get some backstory on 009 Joe- he was an orphan, ostracized for his half-Japanese (we don't know the other half! future plot point!) ethnicity.

Uhoh, the bad guys found us, and they're throwing the dang works at the island. Good news is that they're trying to take us alive. We split into pairs for inadequately explained strategic reasons. 009 Joe and 003 are paired up. Joe takes down a fighter jet just to see if he can, as well as a mecha. He's learning how to use all his stuff, but 001 "Brain" and Gilmore are in trouble.

009 Joe shows up in time for the save against some small robots with tranquilizing attacks, but 002 Jet is KO'd. We've repelled the first wave, but it's just gonna get worse. The bad guys have robot spies and robot bugs and spy dolphins, so stealth isn't really an option. Also now there are rocket launching dinosaurs attacking from submarines. This is a good manga. We beat the dinos, but more stuff is incoming and our planes were destroyed I guess, so it's time to beat a naval retreat. 007 "Chameleon" misdirects the enemy dolphins and troops, allowing 008 "Mr. Popo Sr." and 009 Joe to commandeer a couple of subs. 001 Brain hypnotizes the crews, sends them off in one of the subs, and reports THAT sub as being taken over. Meanwhile we're all on the other sub, and following the others back to the enemy base!

My rating: 8/10
This was more interesting than I remember! The Astro Boy parallels (down to the pacificst message and even a bit of the art style) amuse me, and there's potential for some interesting stuff with this scenario and these powers.

Discussion question: What's your favorite instance of fighting for the sake of peace?
Up next: I forgot to check, but if it's what I think it is, I don't know enough about it to give a better hint than "hey we're on letter D now"
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Won't be many Wed updates as they are currently my long days
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