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Gologle
Apr 15, 2013

The Gologle Posting Experience.

<3
I wouldn't quite call what she's been doing "sheltering".

Anyway, I've finished Season 2. I'll come back to it in a year or two and see where Season 3 is, but right now I can already make some predictions, especially because the manhwa flat out shows you how it will end, plus the revelations revealed near the end of Season 2.

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Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

You know, the Kubera author needs to hire and work with a more skilled artist to draw what all the Sura forms of these other Nastika look like, because Gandharva's Sura form looks totally rad. Like, Sagara is supposed to be a weak Nastika but I bet she's still some planet sized monstrosity. In particular I'm curious what the Kinnara and Yaksha Nastika look like, because it's easy to imagine a bizarre sea beast or snake floating out in space, but not so easy to imagine a mammal-ish beast doing the same.

edit: I've gotten the general impression that the war between the Gods and Sura generally consists of all the Gods working together just to take down a single Nastika. There was some line that mentioned something about all the Gods congratulating themselves when they managed to take down a single Nastika, which seems to imply that they've only managed to gradually kill Nastikas through a war of attrition (since the Gods can always come back and try again).

edit2: I'm not sure how I feel about horny yandere teen Yuta. I like how his dreams for the future seem to involve him and Leez being king and queen of a bunch of chaos abominations.

Though honestly even Leez has her weird aspects. She seems entirely capable of instantly flipping between nice/laid-back to murderous anger.

edit3: Holy poo poo Yuta just french kissed Leez to death! Not cool bro. It's kind of a neat inversion of the more predictable "monster manages to become normal/good through the power of love" plot, where it turns out that nope, he actually can't control his instincts.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Apr 29, 2017

Wrist Watch
Apr 19, 2011

What?

I gave up pretending I wasn't binging the poo poo out of kubera and ended up finishing last night. It was amazing, what a ride.

Ytlaya posted:

edit3: Holy poo poo Yuta just french kissed Leez to death! Not cool bro. It's kind of a neat inversion of the more predictable "monster manages to become normal/good through the power of love" plot, where it turns out that nope, he actually can't control his instincts.

One of my favorite things about kubera is the author's use of background color around the panels, transitioning from white to black and vice versa to show time passing and such without actually having to say a single word. It's a really good use of the huge amount of blank space the webtoon format requires.

And in that chapter the background is pink like it's a love scene, but stays pink far beyond the point that things start getting hosed up. It's amazing.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

In general Kubera seems to just be getting better and better. It's interesting how the tone has shifted, but how everything has also been foreshadowed since the beginning. It's one of the most well thought out fantasy stories I've read.

gimme the GOD DAMN candy
Jul 1, 2007
it would probably be much, much better if it was a proper manwha and not a webtoon. the pacing is so incredibly slow due to the format.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

gimme the GOD drat candy posted:

it would probably be much, much better if it was a proper manwha and not a webtoon. the pacing is so incredibly slow due to the format.

Yeah, I feel like a big part of why I'm able to enjoy the current content so much is that I was able to binge through it. Relatively little has happened if you consider the amount of time the comic has existed.

edit: Jesus, apparently Asha practiced magic on halfs (which I guess means killing them and then using hoti visnu to revive them. I feel like that's sort of entering "hosed up even if it's to save the universe" territory.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:56 on May 1, 2017

Mindblast
Jun 28, 2006

Moving at the speed of death.


Ytlaya posted:

In general Kubera seems to just be getting better and better. It's interesting how the tone has shifted, but how everything has also been foreshadowed since the beginning. It's one of the most well thought out fantasy stories I've read.

This is why I like stories that have been penned down from start to finish in advance, makes it easier for the author to get things cohesive from the get go.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Man, the relationship between Kubera and Asha is really hosed up. Kubera seems to have a sort of Stockholm syndrome going on, where she puts up with a bunch of terrible poo poo and does insane things like jumping off cliffs to learn Bhavati Kubera all out of not wanting to lose Asha plus some sense of obligation from Asha saving her life. Then there's the fact that Asha is purposely encouraging this throuhg stuff like hiding the existence of that Kaz guy from her village.

I think that Mirha was correct to want to hide the information for longer. After Asha's (planned, anyways) execution, Leez would have had a chance to get closer to other people, which would give her some support and soften the blow of finding out the truth about Asha. But right now (through Asha's designs) she isn't close to anyone else, which makes this hit her a lot harder.

edit: So Leez just reunited with Yuta. I kind of hope Yuta never really overcomes his impulses, because it would be kind of unrealistic if he did (unless there's some specific reason the impulse goes away). He already seems to desperately want to resist the urges, but it just sort of happens regardless of how much he fights it. It seems like "devouring Leez's face" is sort of like the equivalent of "getting a boner" for Yuta; it just happens even if he doesn't want it to.

This whole situation is pretty much a tragedy. There are people who want to be close to Leez (like Ran, Mirha, and probably Kaz if she reunited with him) but she seems to be purposely not seeking them out because she feels she doesn't deserve true happiness due to her causing the destruction of her village. So she seeks out Yuta, who can cure her loneliness while simultaneously bringing a bunch of pain and potentially death.

It's kind of funny seeing all the comments fan-girling over their relationship, when it's clearly a very unhealthy relationship and not a good thing.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:10 on May 2, 2017

KOGAHAZAN!!
Apr 29, 2013

a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Ah, I see you've reached the "gently caress Asha" part of the story. gently caress Asha.

Ytlaya posted:

edit: So Leez just reunited with Yuta. I kind of hope Yuta never really overcomes his impulses, because it would be kind of unrealistic if he did (unless there's some specific reason the impulse goes away). He already seems to desperately want to resist the urges, but it just sort of happens regardless of how much he fights it. It seems like "devouring Leez's face" is sort of like the equivalent of "getting a boner" for Yuta; it just happens even if he doesn't want it to.

Well, a rakshasa's mental age is dependent on their stage of development. So, second stage Yuta is a sweet kid because second stage rakshasas are kids; third stage Yuta is an impulsive horny edgelord because third stage rakshasas are adolescents. I'd expect Yuta in the fourth stage to be much calmer and in control of his urges.

Of course, Yuta likely wouldn't develop again in Leez's lifetime, even if that lifetime wasn't tragically short.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

I just noticed that the Season 3 Prologue was uploaded yesterday! Looks like I found a good time to read this series, since it's apparently starting up again now.

gimme the GOD DAMN candy
Jul 1, 2007
ouch, so much for the serious high stakes battle. it sucks to be a werewolf today.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

So I just read Asha's backstory chapters. It seems like she's unequivocally a really bad person. I was expecting some sob story excusing her actions, but it turns out she literally did it all out of pursuit of power. The comic/Vishnu even go out of their way to mention that 1. if her motive was revenge, there are other ways to do that (like enlisting the aid of other magicians or letting Leez take the "main role") and 2. other people given the same choice took the higher road of not literally butching a bunch of random innocent people. Heck, even before her mom was killed and village was destroyed she was a really nasty person who treated other people poorly without them wronging her in any way. It seems like she was born with a sense of entitlement due to her high IQ and looked down on everyone else from the very beginning.

The weirdest thing is that some comments were talking about how they thought she was justified and blamed everyone else for not being as mature and intelligent as her. Some of these comments were accompanied by anecdotes about how the poster is so smart and all the kids in their class are jealous of them, lol.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 07:43 on May 2, 2017

Mindblast
Jun 28, 2006

Moving at the speed of death.


yup. Her entire reason for revenge is that they made it dificult for her to reach the life that she wanted... which was to chill in the echelons of society with a lot of money, looking down on others. Vengeance for that took priority to the death of her loving mother.

She constantly lives just for the future, thinking it is worth going through everything to get there. They pointed out correctly that such a life is miserable. If you only work for the future, you never get to live in the present.

One thing that IS interesting though is that someone pointed out(Yuta I think?) that Asha had changed, suggesting that acquiring all that divine magic knowledge/power just isn't meant to be held by a mortal and she's losing her mind as a result? I'd have to reread everything to conclude whether or not that adds up though.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

I was actually kind of surprised by Asha's motivation/backstory, since I was fully expecting her to have selflessly taken on the unenviable task of doing a bunch of evil actions in order to save the universe or something. When she was mean, I thought it was because she had been forcing herself to be hard-hearted to deal with the burden of having to murder all the Kuberas. But nope - it turns out she's really just a bad person. While I don't think she enjoys murdering people, she values her own personal success/power over them. It was very....un-cliche for lack of a better description. Normally I would have expected her to be an Itachi-esque character.

I'm still not writing off the possibility that her actions might save the universe or whatever (since there's obviously some reason Yuta has been helping her and sided with her*), but at the very least her backstory makes it clear that it wasn't her motivation from the beginning and that she was willing to do a bunch of terrible things for the primary reason of wanting to attain power.

Speaking of Asha's goals, my current prediction is that someone needs to take Ananta's name/power in order to prevent it from running wild and destroying the universe. Asha wants it to be her, but her reasons are more "because I want to be the most powerful" rather than wanting to save the universe, and she is willing to actively prevent others accomplishing the same goal, even if they might be better suited to it than her (like Leez, who was more or less explicitly stated to be the best option if she was allowed to grow up with her father). It seems like Vishnu is backing Asha in this regard, while God Kubera may be backing Leez.


*If I had to guess, I think that Yuta is helping her because he believes her future knowledge from Vishnu (and her success up until that point) gives her the highest chance of succeeding at the task she's undertaken. I think that's why her losing her poo poo after being smacked by Lorraine's car made Yuta begin to lose faith that she was really that most reliable option.

Gologle
Apr 15, 2013

The Gologle Posting Experience.

<3
My interpretation over the deal with Kubera the series at the moment is that the four primeval gods have kind of taken on a big wager between themselves over the fate of the universe after the Cataclysm. Each of the major players in their interpersonal war have chosen certain champions to represent themselves and their interests. Asha is Vishnu's, Yuta is Kali's, who knows who Brahma's champion is, maybe Claude, and I don't know who Shiva might have chosen. Kubera is in on this too, because his actions in the Cataclysm have directly lead to this conflict.

I'm pretty sure Ananta was never supposed to die, and his death means his immeasurable power is up for grabs to whoever wants it, so all these factions are vying against each other to get it for themselves. Kubera seems like he's trying to right his wrong and hand the power to Kubera Leez, who is probably the only person in the series right now, other than maybe Agni but I don't think Agni is interested, who can use that power for a purely beneficial purpose.

There are still some major questions going on though, like Vishnu's whole motivations. Why is he doing the things he's doing? And I'm sure Kalavinka is tied up in his schemes, but in what way?

And as for more short term predictions for Season 3, I fully expect Kasak to be dead at this point. It doesn't seem possible for him to be alive in the sura realm unless his dad came in to save him.

KOGAHAZAN!!
Apr 29, 2013

a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Gologle posted:

And as for more short term predictions for Season 3, I fully expect Kasak to be dead at this point. It doesn't seem possible for him to be alive in the sura realm unless his dad came in to save him.

Well, we're now four chapters deep in Season 3 and he turns up alive in the first after the preview. Also: Leez got hot.

Anyway, I think we can stop spoilering translated stuff now. It seems everyone is caught up and this page is starting to get a little black bar heavy.

KittyEmpress
Dec 30, 2012

Jam Buddies

So, without spoiling specific things, does Kubera ever get less... mean spirited about Leez? I don't mean like, avoiding tragedy, because while I've been avoiding the black bars I know it turns pretty dark... but like... I'm 30 chapters into it. Every single comedy moment so far has been "Wow Leez is so dumb/childish/ill mannered/disgusting/ugly/useless/powerless", with constant references to "She's super ugly actually, just drawn pretty looking' and generally bagging on her at every single moment. It's not even just in character with Asha telling her she's dumb - the narration itself and the out of universe explanation for things constantly bags on her for being ugly and fat and dumb and useless and having no skill or power or anything redeeming about her.

I don't really know if I wanna read the story if this is how its jokes are gonna be throughout it.

Jose
Jul 24, 2007

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer
I need to catch up but so long as someone says they're posting about kubera and not noblesse or gohs I'll just skip over it

KOGAHAZAN!!
Apr 29, 2013

a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Forget what I said about everyone being caught up, I guess. :v:

KittyEmpress posted:

So, without spoiling specific things, does Kubera ever get less... mean spirited about Leez? I don't mean like, avoiding tragedy, because while I've been avoiding the black bars I know it turns pretty dark... but like... I'm 30 chapters into it. Every single comedy moment so far has been "Wow Leez is so dumb/childish/ill mannered/disgusting/ugly/useless/powerless", with constant references to "She's super ugly actually, just drawn pretty looking' and generally bagging on her at every single moment. It's not even just in character with Asha telling her she's dumb - the narration itself and the out of universe explanation for things constantly bags on her for being ugly and fat and dumb and useless and having no skill or power or anything redeeming about her.

I don't really know if I wanna read the story if this is how its jokes are gonna be throughout it.

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: so the thing is, characters in Kubera tend to have a lot of layers, and the comic likes to take its time unpicking them. So, you start off and Leez is presented as this crude, ignorant yokel from bumfuck nowhere. Because she is, pretty much. And the comic gets some easy laughs from her not knowing what anything is or what's going on. But the comic also knows there's a real person under all of that, and eventually it starts digging into it.

And I think it is a lot more down to Asha's viewpoint than you think- the narration's more third-person limited than omniscient, and the comic gets progressively more and more sympathetic to Leez the more we see her in the company of people who aren't Asha.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

It seems pretty clear for most of the comic that the author thinks Leez is fundamentally a good person and that her ability to always maintain a sunny disposition despite her experiences is representative of her emotional strength. I don't remember her appearance being ugly coming up that frequently, and it's quickly established that she's actually one of the strongest humans on the planet (who just happens to be overshadowed because she's traveling with a couple of the strongest magicians and a high rank sura).

Wrist Watch
Apr 19, 2011

What?

KittyEmpress posted:

So, without spoiling specific things, does Kubera ever get less... mean spirited about Leez? I don't mean like, avoiding tragedy, because while I've been avoiding the black bars I know it turns pretty dark... but like... I'm 30 chapters into it. Every single comedy moment so far has been "Wow Leez is so dumb/childish/ill mannered/disgusting/ugly/useless/powerless", with constant references to "She's super ugly actually, just drawn pretty looking' and generally bagging on her at every single moment. It's not even just in character with Asha telling her she's dumb - the narration itself and the out of universe explanation for things constantly bags on her for being ugly and fat and dumb and useless and having no skill or power or anything redeeming about her.

I don't really know if I wanna read the story if this is how its jokes are gonna be throughout it.

Kubera is a very well written story that's obviously been planned out beforehand (as opposed to just getting winged on the fly).

If you think Leez is getting poo poo on, it's intentional and part of the story. It's part of her character.

Lyon
Apr 17, 2003
Excited for the Lord to join the Rai's Knights or whatever RK stands for haha.

gimme the GOD DAMN candy
Jul 1, 2007
sooner or later the rk will include every important noble, werewolf and modified human, leaving tao as the most influential man on the planet.

Gologle
Apr 15, 2013

The Gologle Posting Experience.

<3
I feel kind of dumb, up until now I never questioned how and why Frankenstein was so strong. His Dark Spear literally absorbs the strength of what it devours to grow stronger. This means Frankenstein probably has a severely hosed up backstory beyond the little we've seen and know of.

Shugojin
Sep 6, 2007

THE TAIL THAT BURNS TWICE AS BRIGHT...


IIRC it was created by the Union with the Black Plague and similar large-scale catastrophes as covers for all the death it required, he just stole it from them

It still is a terrible thing to have be part of you though!

Everything Burrito
Jun 2, 2011

I Failed At Anime 2022

Shugojin posted:

IIRC it was created by the Union with the Black Plague and similar large-scale catastrophes as covers for all the death it required, he just stole it from them

It still is a terrible thing to have be part of you though!

yeah and rather than a normal weapon it's more like a big mess of sentient evil that's pissed off at him all the time, which considering how powerful he is works as a decent check on him by giving him a time limit and consequences for pushing past it

Jose
Jul 24, 2007

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer
i liked how he casually killed someone by giving it to them

Coffee Mugshot
Jun 26, 2010

by Lowtax
Jin, Hui, and Dan. Is that what we're going with here?

Jose
Jul 24, 2007

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer
Magician has finally caught up with the scans for anyone who reads it

Everything Burrito
Jun 2, 2011

I Failed At Anime 2022
I've been reading some of the various BL webtoons that have been getting translations recently, not all of these are Korean in origin but they're all webtoon format fyi. Most are generally mild on the NSFW content but just in general you probably don't need to be reading them on your main screen at work because some do have a few racy chapters.

The two main ones I'd recommend are also complete so you can read the entire main story without waiting so that's nice.

Out of Control/Never Understand
Popular hot guy x small ugly tenacious guy, this one reminds me a lot of His Favorite but more grounded. Bullying is a big theme, and there are a couple of side couples that have their own issues the main guys get pulled into as well. The art in general is loose but consistent and the faces are great, and there are some really nice panels where they spend some time. You can read a good chunk of it for free on Lezhin.

Raising a Bat
Guy with a blood disorder causing him to have excess blood meets a half-vamp guy. This one is more drama-heavy, and I read it as it was translated so waiting for updates was excruciating lol. Main story is complete but it has a zillion extras that are still coming out, a lot of them are short side stories or back stories like the one about how the vamp guy's parents met which is really cute. The art is pretty clean and consistent overall, not quite as heavy on funny faces but there are moments plus some nice spreads that are super pretty. Foxtoon doesn't have an official English page IIRC so you'll have to find it where you generally find translations.

*NOTE* for simplicity's sake I'm just gonna link to mangago pages from here, so proceed with caution :nws:

Obligatory ref - 19 Days
Guy has a crush and hits on his best friend relentlessly, everyone suffers in comedic fashion. The early chapters are mostly just single image scenes or 1 page things, and it might be a little confusing at first but the first part is present time and when it starts to look like an actual comic is a flashback working towards the present. As for the art....oh my god the art :stare: Old Xian is a master of drawing sexy guys. They're on the Mosspaca team with the artist of Tamen De Gushi fyi, which is why the 19 Days cover image is a TDG nod.

Some others I've picked up to follow, most of these don't have as many chapters translated but are interesting enough I'm keeping up with them for now.

Because of You
*age gap warning*
Middle-aged guy was in love with his best friend in school, they meet years later when the friend moves next door with his family; the guy ends up spending time with the friend's son and things advance from there. FYI on the age gap -- there is a significant time skip that ages the kid out of high school (he goes to college & does his military service then comes back), gap is still significant but nothing happens to an underage kid. The art is initially what got me interested in this one, it is super nice -- very clean and detailed, some moody scenes and nice effects. Not much out yet but each chapter is long enough to have some substance.

Hate You, Love You
Childhood friends have a somewhat antagonistic? relationship that turns into more. One kid is dealing with some big time trauma from past sexual abuse, so I expect lots of drama in this one. The initial translation was pretty terrible and it was very confusing to read, the chapters have been redone for the most part but it still can be a little hard to follow. Art doesn't stand out but it's solid. I'm not super excited for this one but am following it for now since the translations have improved.

The Priest's Chart
Fantasy-setting, a priest starts looking after a retired knight who is suffering from a curse. TBH since updates on this one were kinda slow I only read the first 10 chapter or so and have been letting it build up more before catching up, but it seems pretty interesting and has nice art.

School Life
This one is cute and low-key, a guy has a crush and is trying to spend time with his crush. Possible drama lurking but it's not really far enough along for much yet. I actually forgot what it was and was really confused last time it came up in my update list so it is possibly TOO low-key lmao.

Vampire and Hunter
I just started reading this one and there are only a few chapters so I'm not 100% sure I'll keep up with it but it might be decent. It also has a gag spinoff that I read a little of but was mostly confused by.

Finally, this one isn't BL but is very bromancy:
Ake no Tobari
Fantasy action with a super-strong demon who befriends a priest, their goal is to create a world where humans and demons can peacefully co-exist but they have a very nasty villain working against them. The art is super nice and it's just a very fun manga in general! Also Tobari and Reimei need to kiss! I think this would make a fantastic anime, kinda hoping it might get the ReLife treatment someday.

DisDisDis
Dec 22, 2013
The priest one could be good but man those are short chapters. Cute cat.

I read whatever was free of Never Understand a while ago and it seemed good? I'll need to catch up on it and maybe I'll remember more impressions

I'm really into Raising a Bat so far.

Everything Burrito
Jun 2, 2011

I Failed At Anime 2022
Raising a Bat is one of the first ones I read and it set a pretty high bar, I'm glad it kept going with the extras after the story ended because I've really enjoyed reading it and will be sad when there's no more.

DisDisDis
Dec 22, 2013


Elysiume
Aug 13, 2009

Alone, she fights.
I really hope the current GoHS storyline picks up the pace. I'm not finding this new crop of characters to be particularly engaging.

khy
Aug 15, 2005

The more I read webtoons the more I enjoy the layout. I disliked it a lot at first but it's grown on me, mainly because I just navigate each update with page up/page down or the scroll wheel. Far, far less clicking than other webcomics.

It might also be because they're free and easily available, but I've been enjoying them much more than Manga as well.

How does Webtoons actually make money though? There's no advertisements I have seen, and no 'store' where I can buy like books or merch of any kind. Not that I have a craving to but I got curious how they keep afloat.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

khy posted:

The more I read webtoons the more I enjoy the layout. I disliked it a lot at first but it's grown on me, mainly because I just navigate each update with page up/page down or the scroll wheel. Far, far less clicking than other webcomics.

It might also be because they're free and easily available, but I've been enjoying them much more than Manga as well.

Overall there are waaaay more high quality manga than there are high quality Korean webtoons*, though this shouldn't be that surprising given how much larger and older the manga industry is in Japan compared with Korean webtoons. If you find yourself thinking webtoons are generally better than manga, it means you probably need to seek out different/better manga. That being said, I agree that the webtoon format is cool and very well suited to being read on their intended device (smart phones). I wouldn't say either format is better or worse; they're just different.

Speaking of webtoons, 4 Cut Hero (that I think I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread) is a lot of fun and has some very well-done action scenes. It has a certain degree of Dumb Anime poo poo (though a lot of it is tongue in cheek), but I think the good offsets the bad. The first few chapters aren't that great, but once the plot starts up it gets pretty enjoyable.

*The number of translated Korean webtoons I've encountered that are good at a level beyond just being "entertaining" could probably be counted on two hands, while there are countless great manga. The one genre that I find Korean webtoons to be generally better at, though, is romantic dramas. For whatever reason they tend to be more interesting on average than Japanese romantic dramas, though there are obviously exceptions.

khy
Aug 15, 2005

Ytlaya posted:

If you find yourself thinking webtoons are generally better than manga, it means you probably need to seek out different/better manga.

Oh, I didn't mean it like that. I meant that I've been enjoying webtoons more than Manga, not that they're higher quality.

The reasons I've enjoyed Webtoons more is because 1) A very large amount of Manga generally relies on 3rd party websites loaded with ads and often load inconsistently, 2) Those same websites are constantly being threatened with takedown notices so that a series can disappear at any moment, 3) translation quality can be all over the place and frequently causes delayed releases as groups pick up or drop series.

Meanwhile Webtoons is ad-free and subscription-free, has no delays I'm aware of (Barring, of course, author/artist health concerns which would affect worldwide releases and not just localized ones), loads fast as hell and without issue for me, and I never have to worry about content being posted or hosted illegally and thus suddenly disappearing while I'm mid-binge. I've gotten quite used to the interface and don't mind the long style as opposed to 'pages' in the slightest, though I definitely see how others might feel this spreads things out too much or encourages wasted space between panels.

I know there's some legal and legit manga sites out there but the ones I've tried either have a subscription cost (IE: Crunchyroll), have a very limited selection that lacks mangas I'm interested in, are horrendously bloated with ads and slow servers, etc.

khy fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Jun 14, 2017

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

khy posted:

Oh, I didn't mean it like that. I meant that I've been enjoying webtoons more than Manga, not that they're higher quality.

The reasons I've enjoyed Webtoons more is because 1) A very large amount of Manga generally relies on 3rd party websites loaded with ads and often load inconsistently, 2) Those same websites are constantly being threatened with takedown notices so that a series can disappear at any moment, 3) translation quality can be all over the place and frequently causes delayed releases as groups pick up or drop series.

Meanwhile Webtoons is ad-free and subscription-free, has no delays I'm aware of (Barring, of course, author/artist health concerns which would affect worldwide releases and not just localized ones), loads fast as hell and without issue for me, and I never have to worry about content being posted or hosted illegally and thus suddenly disappearing while I'm mid-binge. I've gotten quite used to the interface and don't mind the long style as opposed to 'pages' in the slightest, though I definitely see how others might feel this spreads things out too much or encourages wasted space between panels.

I know there's some legal and legit manga sites out there but the ones I've tried either have a subscription cost (IE: Crunchyroll), have a very limited selection that lacks mangas I'm interested in, are horrendously bloated with ads and slow servers, etc.

Ah, I definitely agree. It's nice to be able to read them legally for free (though it's only partially free in the case of Lezhin).

There are some webtoons that even do stuff like integrate music and sound that is timed with how far you've scrolled down. It's neat to see how they've tried to tailor comics specifically to the medium of smart phones. From what I can tell webtoons aren't as common in Japan, though they still exist (Re:Life for example).

ZepiaEltnamOberon
Oct 25, 2010

I Failed At Anime 2022

khy posted:

The more I read webtoons the more I enjoy the layout. I disliked it a lot at first but it's grown on me, mainly because I just navigate each update with page up/page down or the scroll wheel. Far, far less clicking than other webcomics.

It might also be because they're free and easily available, but I've been enjoying them much more than Manga as well.

How does Webtoons actually make money though? There's no advertisements I have seen, and no 'store' where I can buy like books or merch of any kind. Not that I have a craving to but I got curious how they keep afloat.

Uh, I found this.

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-webtoons-2016-2

quote:

Kim has been able to keep comics on the site free through a total of 16 different revenue models which include purchasing native advertisements from other app services, selling IPs and creator IPs to different markets, featuring comic characters in ads, and turning some of their characters into licensed products.

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ZepiaEltnamOberon
Oct 25, 2010

I Failed At Anime 2022
Also I binge read Gosu (The Master) over the course of two days and it is simply amazing.

The action scenes are stunning, the story is engaging, and the visuals are spectacular.

http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Gosu-The-Master

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