The Miscellaneous Seinen Thread

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KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Is anyone else reading Yuureitou?

It's a period murder mystery (...in a sense), set in 1950s Japan. In 1952, an old woman was murdered, somewhat unusually, by the means of a clock tower; she was tied across the limbs of the clock face and eventually crushed to death when it struck midnight. The police suspect the woman's daughter, but when she goes missing the investigation grinds to a halt. Two years later, a feckless, unemployed mystery buff by the name of Amano Taichi and an odd man known only as Tetsuo team up to solve the case; not so much because they care about who did it or why, but because they want to get their hands on the treasure reputed to be hidden inside the clock tower.

It's a pretty great character piece and mystery story.

The problem I'm having with it, at the minute, is that it seems to be somewhat... unfocused. We've bounced from murder mystery to thriller to ethical calculus to transsexualism and body dysmorphia and... it's all good, all the little pieces, but I'm having trouble seeing how it's supposed to cohere. I have no idea what the story's trying to do or where it wants to go, and the original plot keeps getting further and further away.

Help?

# ¿ May 13, 2013 21:00

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 16:39

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Zandracon posted:

Looks like Nihei's Knights of Sidonia is getting an anime adaptation according to the newest Afternoon, I think?

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? :allears:

I'm a little apprehensive, given the Blame! OVAs, but I guess Sidonia might lend itself a little better to an anime than Blame! did.

# ¿ May 16, 2013 22:08

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE, AND I BRING YOU :supaburn:

a manga I read last night: Boku Dake ga Inai Machi/A Town Where Only I Am Missing (Batoto link)

I Am Missing is a monthly manga by Sanbe Kei, and follows Fujinuma Satoru, a 28-year-old, struggling mangaka and part-time pizza delivery boy. 18 years ago, Satoru was caught up in a serial kidnapping case that claimed the lives of several of his classmates, the memories of which he has struggled to forget ever since. In the present day, Satoru is plagued by "reruns", occasionally finding himself trapped in loops of time, repeating the same handful of minutes over and over, until he finds and corrects the "oddity", some small detail in his surroundings that just doesn't seem to fit, and usually presages a great tragedy.

Frustratingly, I can't discuss the specifics of the plot without getting into spoilers. Suffice to say, it puts me in mind of Purple Qualia, in that it starts off a little odd and off-kilter, and then as soon as you think you've got a handle on things and have a feel for the story, suddenly it veers off into entirely new realms.

Plot aside, I think the greatest strength of this one is how well it creates atmosphere and tone. It has a sense of genuine foreboding, all the time, and even the most innocuous and mundane details can seem to bulge with significance, simply by the context they are placed in. It's almost like reading a well-plotted mystery or thriller for the second time, where foreknowledge of what is to come freights early events with entirely new meaning.

So: go read it. Then come back here and post about it, because I desperately need someone to discuss it with.

Wall o' black bars speculation:

Alright, so, the big questions here are, who is the killer, how can Satoru prove it, and how can he save Kayo/the other children/his mother? I think the clue here is to remember the point of the reruns: to find the oddity. Satoru forgot that, here; he's so focused on addressing the symptoms of the problem, on keeping Kayo out of danger, that he's neglecting the cause, the bit that isn't quite right. So, what's going on in 1988 that isn't quite right?

The big one is: Satoru himself. Reversed causality of this sort is hardly unusual in time travel stories (well, "reversed causality" is practically the definition of a time travel story), so we should be asking ourselves what, if anything, about Satoru's behaviour as effected by his future knowledge could precipitate Kayo's murder.
Which brings us to the second point: deja vu. Satoru is constantly besieged by the sense that he's seen this all before, somehow, even when he's convinced that he's changing things. This would suggest that this is not the first time that he's rerun this scenario. His lost memories ties into this: Satoru is not a reliable judge of what he is and is not changing, because he simply cannot remember.
Kayo. There are a few ways in which her behaviour is sketchy, some of which is pretty easily explained by her abuse and some which isn't, and here I'm thinking of the latter. Specifically, what she says in the science centre (that Satoru is a wannabe manga artist), and a few chapters before that, she refers to Satoru as an "imposter". How does she know he wants to be a mangaka? Satoru doesn't know. It could be a hint that she's been watching him in class, but... the manga thing hasn't been brought up in this time period at all. It's a plot point that belongs exclusively to 2006. Does child-Satoru have that dream yet? According to Kayo, when she calls Satoru an "imposter", what she means is that he fakes his emotions (and that they have this in common). Plausible, definitely. Probable, even. But this is coming on the heels of a stretch where Satoru is struggling to act like his child-self, he himself wonders if that is what she's noticed. Even after she explains herself, I'm not sure I want to abandon that line of thought just yet, and so what I'm wondering is: is Kayo a time-traveller as well? Does she remember Satoru's previous loops? Is she herself looping?
Another person who seems sketchy to me is Ken'ya. He's highly suspicious of Satoru, constantly questioning what he's doing and why, and does not seem to act or think much like a ten-year-old. That wouldn't say much, in most manga, but in this one the ten-year-olds do typically seem to act like ten-year-olds.
The teacher is probably the sketchiest character in the entire 1988 cast. Everything he says, especially to Satoru and about Kayo, seems incredibly slimy and untrustworthy, to me, and I am 90% certain that he is the kidnapper in 2006. They have the same face. When Satoru told him to "save Hinadzuki quickly", my face lit up like a tree.
Then there's Yuuki. Satoru is so sure he didn't do it, so sure... and then there's loli porn. Huh. Huh. So, the kidnapper's still at large in 2006, when Yuuki is in prison. Teacher guy is a dead ringer for him and sketch as hell. But the author wants to throw the suspicion back on Yuuki? It doesn't make me think the teacher isn't guilty, but now I have to consider the possibility that Yuuki isn't innocent. Suddenly, the narrative has to be a hell of a lot more convoluted to accommodate this. Is Yuuki an accomplice? Copy-cat? Is the teacher a copy-cat? If Yuuki really was given that stuff by a friend, who is the friend? The teacher, maybe?
Hitomi: doesn't fit the pattern. He's the wrong gender, and Satoru makes special note of the fact that he was the wrong age. So. But then, is two prior data points a pattern?
The second victim: who the gently caress is she? It seems weird, narratively, that one victim out of three is unimportant strikes me as odd. Five victims out of seven being filler? Fair enough. But the list here is so short and she's the only exception... could this play into the previous two points somehow? The teacher kills Kayo (on behalf on the mother? We know she's involved somehow), gets a taste for it. Finds his second victim elsewhere, doesn't want to poo poo where he eats, wisely. Yuuki is then inspired to take Hitomi, which is why he doesn't fit, and takes the fall for all three. How do the police know that these killings are connected, anyway? Simple probability?
Where the gently caress is Katagiri in 1988? She's built up to be a major character, then straight up vanishes for eight chapters. Answer: she's not born yet. As a high schooler, she can't be more than 18. Which is an interesting number. Is it coincidence that the number of years between the two time periods is the exact length of time that it takes a newborn to grow into an adult? Crazy :nanomachines: theory: she's Kayo's reincarnation, born on the day she died. This is why Kayo knows Satoru is a manga artist, this is why her words echo Kayo's in the first chapter.
Kayo's entry in the anthology is interesting: it is the exact inverse of the manga's title: a not-town where everyone is missing except for me. Kayo, we're told, thinks this is what paradise is. We're also told that this is a cry for help, that this is a product of Kayo's disease. So, the island is hell, and in reality it's the town that is paradise? Satoru would certainly agree.
But what's Satoru's entry? He makes a special note of the fact that he never read his own entry, and this is never brought up again. We never find out which of the two Ken'ya was referring to. So, what significance could it possibly have? Well, one obvious point is that it's a message from Satoru before he was possessed by future-Satoru. It could be that this highlights some discrepancy between child-Satoru and future-Satoru's impersonation of child-Satoru; possibly a clue to what I was talking about earlier, something that Satoru's done that's started all of this, or maybe it's a sly hint from Ken'ya that he knows Satoru is no longer Satoru. Boring answer: it's about Satoru's dream to be a mangaka, and that's how Kayo knows.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2013 17:55

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Munin posted:

I've been reading "Cradle of Monsters" by him which is not bad. I'll have a look at this one.

Cradle of Monsters I read as well, and was not terribly impressed. It's High School of the Dead in a capsized boat with generous ladlings of urolagnia :stare:

This is another thing entirely; I don't know if there's a single panel of fanservice in the entire thing. The difference is like night and day.

I don't know if that makes I Am Missing more or less appealing to you. :cheeky:

# ¿ Jul 16, 2013 23:43

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

DrSunshine posted:

Crossposting with the "Convince Someone To Read A Manga With One Image" thread.

Thermae Romae

It's the story of a 2nd century Roman architect who is one day transported while bathing to a bathhouse in modern Japan.

It's pretty hilarious, despite the somewhat rough art!

Yeah, that one got a movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOmFSflNiQU

# ¿ Aug 9, 2013 00:36

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

HenryEx posted:

By the way, I Am Missing (geez the original title is so long) has had, i think, two new updates since the last time it was discussed in the thread.

We're back to the present! And the Girl decides to falcon punch someone right in the face.

It was a great punch. I'm not sure how it's supposed to accomplish anything other than making the evil manager dude even more likely to go to the police, though.

I am hoping for another time leap, soon; I don't see how Satoru is anything other than totally hosed without one, and I want him to save the girl.

The name: is probably the most awkward awkward-long-form-Japanese-title I have ever seen, after "Sora O Miageru Shoujo No Hitomi Ni Utsuru Sekai".

No Wave posted:

I am a hero finally picks up at around chapter 70 or so. I was extremely disappointed in it until then, as I'm a huge fan of the author's other work (Boys on the Run and Ressentiment).

It's kinda funny, in that I love I Am A Hero like little else, but Ressentiment left me so cold I got halfway through and just skipped to the end.

codeorange posted:

I am a Hero isn't a serious take on the zombie genre at all, and you shouldn't treat it as such. Not until it starts getting meta at least.

Yeah, IAAH is a comedy. I would have thought that'd be obvious, because, well

but I guess I've missed more obvious and more important things before.

The world's blinkered obliviousness to what's going on is one long, glorious running gag.

KOGAHAZAN!! fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Aug 31, 2013

# ¿ Aug 30, 2013 19:10

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Captain Invictus posted:

It'll be interesting if it doesn't go a Biscuit Hammer direction, based on the second chapter. There's really too little to say either way at this point, the next few chapters will give a better feel for whether it's worth following or not.

I think it feels a little more like Mirai Nikki, actually, with the god-like being going around handing out superpowers and having people compete to destroy the world.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2013 11:04

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

TheFallenEvincar posted:

New chapter of Jiro Matsumoto's current series Jigoku no Alice. Shuu sorta snaps.

Shuu's dad used him the same way Shuu used Alice, do we think?

# ¿ Oct 14, 2013 03:06

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Anatharon posted:

Is Kimi No Knife still ongoing?

Sloooooooooooooooooooooowly. It's updated within the last week.

EDIT: Or do you mean in Japan? It's complete there.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2013 01:17

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

I Am Missing c17 - "A Very Small Clue"

Despite the title, I think this one actually made a lot of progress. So, naturally, something is going to go horribly wrong next chapter. :ohdear:

I think Satoru's getting ahead of himself, here; Hiromi being killed to throw off suspicion works, but we can't be sure that the killer did it because he knew he was on the list- he could just have done it as a precautionary measure. There's a missing step here, somewhere. I think Satoru is thinking that the killer was a police officer. That's not implausible, given how keen they were to throw out Satoru's testimony, and now Airi's- the seem to be fitting the facts to the narrative and not the other way round.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2013 23:08

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

So. Kimi no Knife is fully scanned. And the ending was... okay?

The actual climax I have no problem with, though admittedly it's been so long since I started reading this I couldn't tell you if it's a good capstone to what's come before.

The denouement, though, that I have a problem with. It's too fast; far too fast. It moves at roughly ten hundred thousand miles per second, and the events it covers really need about two or even three times as much space to do them justice. It lacks weight, emotionally.

Still, everything up to that is pure gold, and I'm not generally the sort of person who thinks that a poo poo ending completely devalues everything that's gone before. A-?

# ¿ Nov 20, 2013 00:26

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

What the gently caress is going on in Alice in Hell? :stare:

I can't tell if post-blood-replacement Alice is fully compos mentis and just acting out because she's sick of the way Shuu treats her, or if she's juuust compos mentis enough to be non compos mentis. Was she trying to drown herself in milk there?

# ¿ Feb 12, 2014 16:41

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

MadHat posted:

That is promising. Wonder if they tone some stuff down, it can get pretty graphic at times.

Ahahahahahahaha no, that is never going to happen. Never ever.

That cold open where noble girl in the carriage was introduced, for all the world as if she;s going to be a recurring character, and then all of ten seconds later some dude comes along and cuts her face off, that was the moment I just gave and decided to roll with it.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 04:07

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Hey guys, remember this?

Silento posted:

This has a pretty interesting first (and second?) chapter: http://kissmanga.com/Manga/ib-Instant-Bullet/Ch-001a--Hero-and-Villian?id=174870 I'm curious where it will go from here.

TheFallenEvincar posted:

I tried giving that a chance, but once I read the first chapter and realized it was the millionth "magical girl shows up out of nowhere to enlist guy in her battle against a dark force" manga, I was just like "NO MORE!". I'm not sure I can handle any more of those, only like .01% of them end up being Hoshi no Samidare quality (and I'm not even sure that fits since it's a lizard that shows up).

Captain Invictus posted:

It'll be interesting if it doesn't go a Biscuit Hammer direction, based on the second chapter. There's really too little to say either way at this point, the next few chapters will give a better feel for whether it's worth following or not.

Yeah, this:

It's updating again! Regularly, even _{by some random dude on a forum somewhere who will probably throw in the towel in a week's time}. We're up to chapter 5!

Do you remember how, when The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer was first starting out, the premise seemed to be "dude is given magic powers and inducted into generic anime conspiracy to save the world but actually he's a jaded misanthrope who would prefer the world be destroyed instead"? But then it morphed into a quite a story instead? And were you ever, regardless of how much you enjoyed it or how well it actually turned out, a little disappointed that you never got to see what happened in that story?

Well, good news! This is that story! And it shows no signs of stopping, reversing, or even slowing down. I think it might be accelerating, in fact. :shepface:

Check it out.

Witch-hat-girl's little blush when the MC praised her for wanting to gently euthanise the world instead of brutally savaging it slew me. I could not stop laughing.

What a hell of thing to be praised for.

EDIT:

Kleptobot posted:

Stumbled across this one called Sensen Spike Hills: The story of a pickpocket, a math prodigy, and a girl planning to steal the questions to the college entrance exams before they happen.

Oh, is that updating again? I thought it had stalled out. :unsmith:

EDIT2: NO IT HASN'T YOU DICK :argh:

# ¿ Apr 27, 2014 15:29

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Personal_Nirvana posted:

The guy

The guys, plural. Tabata Yoshiaki (writer) and Yugo Yuuki (artist) work as a team. No way to tell if the creepy poo poo is the one or the other or both of them.

Though, checking Baka-Updates, it looks like that Yugo is paired up with somebody else for his latest work, so if anyone wants to take the chance that it was just Tabata you could check that out.

# ¿ May 7, 2014 17:54

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

What in the name of God is going on with the Brynhildr scans? Forty chapters in the past week! Eight hundred pages! Are these people even stopping to sleep?

Couldn't you at least spend that energy on a series that actually deserves it? :psyduck:

# ¿ May 29, 2014 01:12

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Cynic Jester posted:

Just caught myself up on Tokyo ghoul after not reading it for a few months. It really went off the deep end. That is some character development.

I discovered yesterday that it is, apparently, getting an anime this summer. Interesting to see how well it'll adapt, I guess.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 09:50

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

RatHat posted:

So a translation group has picked up Nanika Mochigattemasu Ka. It's by the Bokurano/Narutaru guy and it's basically the same plot as Destroy and Revolution but worse. The main character goes from 0 to murder hilariously quick and their way to improve society is so dumb. I guess maybe that's the point? The authors other works are usually pretty self-aware.

Ja, it definitely feels like it's supposed to be "Everyone Is An Idiot/Psycopath: The Manga".

It's also been picked up and dropped, uh, two? Three? Times now, so I wouldn't get too invested if I were you.

Bad Seafood posted:

Stopped reading here.

Well hey, we got a loving great OP out of Narutaru at least

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIF5BLyh3Mk

Bokurano too, now that I think about it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIVXmoRaiqM

# ¿ Jan 25, 2016 23:04

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

It's a pretty good ending, I think :3:

# ¿ Mar 2, 2016 14:21

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

I've been wondering this for a while, but... is it me, or is Shibito no Koe wo Kiku ga Yoi just absolutely loving flawless?

I'm struggling to think of another manga that knocks it out of the park as consistently.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2019 16:17

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

So it looks like Shibito no Koe wo Kiku ga Yoi/You Shall Hear the Voice of the Dead author Uguisu Sachiko has a new manga by the name of "Heartthrob Sacrifice": https://mangadex.org/title/49386/tokimeki-no-ikenie

Jingyouji Mari is a plain, unpopular high school girl with a love of manga and a crush on the hottest guy in her class. She's also the heir apparent of the creepy family on the hill, who perform regular human sacrifice to propitiate the dread gods that threaten to destroy the world.

Very much in line with Uguisu's previous works, but more strongly serialised. I dunno if it's going to run for long but I think it's pretty neat!

# ¿ Jun 14, 2020 23:08

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Sindai posted:

Under Ninja 68: holy gently caress https://mangadex.org/chapter/89f23693-362e-4bb7-b94c-f47cd76648f5

That's right :cool:

I really want this arc to be what the anime ends on, it would be the funniest thing in the world.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2023 14:18

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Tosk posted:

I actually stumbled into an interesting one this morning totally by accident: Tower Dungeon, the latest by Nihei that started in October 2023. I kept thinking it was very similar, especially the mild body horror, until at the end of the current chapter I read the scanlators' notes and saw them mention Nihei. In hindsight it was pretty obvious lol.

Very interested to see his take on the fantasy setting he appears to be devising, now that I know who's writing it I'm sure it's going to get extremely weird and hosed up.

I was kind of ambivalent on this for, like, the first half of the first chapter, just because of how generic the basic premise is, and how smoothed-out Nihei's art has become over the years. But once I realised that this was basically sword-and-sorcery Blame! and Nihei's essential, y'know, Nihei-ness began to bleed in from the edges I was 100% on board.

Also: I was going to say a lot of Blame! influence in the design of these guys- but then I noticed they have the Safeguard symbol on them. Are they... literal Safeguard??

# ¿ Feb 8, 2024 15:16

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 16:39

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

On the one hand, there's something of a loss in mood and energy. On the other hand, you can tell what's going on in action scenes and people's faces are mostly distinguishable now.

The artstyle giveth, the artstyle taketh.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2024 00:56

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > The Miscellaneous Seinen Thread