Erementar Gerad Blue 8 finally came in
PostPosted:Fri Feb 13, 2015 1:57 am
At my local Chinese bookstore and I'm reminded why this is something you can't even find pirated online. The art is really great, though!
Other stuff I've been following:
Himouto Umaruchan - Still keeping up its excellent quality, though I can't find a store that carries this here.
Hadoken Z - Recently sued a manga serial in Malaysia for copyright infringement because they've a page telling people this Hadoken Z stuff is great. Obviously nobody would ever suspect something titled "Hadoken Z" itself to be infringing on some other copyright. Being an obvious Street Fighter ripoff aside, it's surprisingly good. Ryu got eaten by Blanka so far and from the author's notes I guess he actually thought there might be readers who don't know Ryu is like um, the main character of Street Fighter so he needs to assure everyone that Ryu indeed did not die immediately in his first fight. Actually, that'd be pretty cool as a different take on the Street Fighter universe.
Screaming Class - Apparently ending sometime next month, so no more wrath of Chuck Norris smiting random victims. This probably dragged on a lot longer than it should but it's one of the few manga I bought recently (had to order it from Taiwan) because it's at least pretty consistent even if it gets old.
108 Fighters - Unfortunately this is going to end early because the author went to work on Hadoken Z. A considerably better take on Suikoden compared to a certain game series even if some of the changes are totally hilarious (like the guy who was the pimp in Suikoden is gay). Note that 108 here refers to the stars of destiny.
Gambling Legend thingy - I'm pretty convinced the guy who wrote this has no idea how gambling works. Right now they're playing this game where you just pick a card and see who has the bigger card and they're playing 2 million a hand minimum with the usual call/raise/fold options. There's a utility Austin Power eyepatch thing that lets you see the range value of your opponent's card that both players can use. So Keiji, the main character, had a 6 when he knows the opponent's card is between 2-7 and then he folded. Later, he had a K and wasted a month worth of manga on trying to figure out if his opponent has an A. Look, if you're thinking about folding a K in a game of war, you shouldn't even be gambling in the first place. Same with folding a 6 when your opponent's card has to be between 2-7. I know the author is trying to make it sound like if you're betting $2 million a hand you'll panic or something, but honestly, that just makes no sense whatsoever.
In a different gambling series by the same guy the main character is playing from a bad position and he decided he had to use the Phantom Royal Flush (well, it's a Mahjong term, but the idea is the same). What's a Phantom Royal Flush? It'd be like if I show you an Ace of Hearts and 10 of Hearts and say you better fold because I really have a Royal Flush, and obviously his opponent gets scared and immediately folded a straight flush. I mean, seriously, all this guy ever does is he has these hand where the main character's opponent just assumes he has exactly every card he needs no matter how improbable and then beats himself from panicing. And the guy doing the panicing always has at least 10 times the chips compared to the main character and there will be this huge nonsense about how having a lot of money is a weakness in gambling. This is despite the fact that having more chips is overwhelmingly advantageous in real life, and in this manga, there are some unusually bogus rules like the guy with more money can get more hole cards if they played Texas Hold 'Em. An extremely hilarious example is in one game if someone raised you for more money than you have, you automatically lose the game regardless of what cards you have, and yes, the main character won that game too despite having a lot less money than his opponent.
Great Warlords - In a clear violation of manga norms, Ping An-chan used her time pausing/rewinding powers to defeat The President instead of, say, walk up to everyone and explain to everyone what her power is and then get owned. She even uses her ability in a perfectly logical way by throwing lighting a grenade and then pause time before it blows up and then move the grenade to where she needs it, which is clearly illegal because you're not supposed to be able to use godlike powers in a useful way! Of course, Ping An-chan's 'Miracle Fragment' is way higher class then the Devil Fruit like powers of Great Warlords, though by defeating The President and thus changing the most likely outcome of history she somehow fell victim to the Butterfly Effect and decided to abandon her nation and/or was abducted by a mysterious entity while she was unable to pause time due to exhausation. It's not clear what happened to Ping An-chan at this point but obviously she's not going to be in the good guy's camp anymore because there's literally nothing anyone can do against her powers. Oh and she rewinds time whenever anyone found out what her power is to make sure they wouldn't find out, so that nobody in the story besides the reader knows that she has the power to unwind time.
Cross Country Soldier - It seems like Thundergod is finally going to die after being rescued from certain death due to his sheer popularity. Cross Country (the main character) came back from his time traveling adventure and informed everyone that it was foretold in the stars 300 years ago that he's going to save China from the resurrected Emperor and the Ultimate Kirin so therefore he also already knows that Thundergod and Blaze are going to lose fighting the resurrected Emperor because otherwise he wouldn't be the chosen one to save China. It's pretty easy to talk tough when you've already seen the outcome of your heroic deeds in the future!
Other stuff I've been following:
Himouto Umaruchan - Still keeping up its excellent quality, though I can't find a store that carries this here.
Hadoken Z - Recently sued a manga serial in Malaysia for copyright infringement because they've a page telling people this Hadoken Z stuff is great. Obviously nobody would ever suspect something titled "Hadoken Z" itself to be infringing on some other copyright. Being an obvious Street Fighter ripoff aside, it's surprisingly good. Ryu got eaten by Blanka so far and from the author's notes I guess he actually thought there might be readers who don't know Ryu is like um, the main character of Street Fighter so he needs to assure everyone that Ryu indeed did not die immediately in his first fight. Actually, that'd be pretty cool as a different take on the Street Fighter universe.
Screaming Class - Apparently ending sometime next month, so no more wrath of Chuck Norris smiting random victims. This probably dragged on a lot longer than it should but it's one of the few manga I bought recently (had to order it from Taiwan) because it's at least pretty consistent even if it gets old.
108 Fighters - Unfortunately this is going to end early because the author went to work on Hadoken Z. A considerably better take on Suikoden compared to a certain game series even if some of the changes are totally hilarious (like the guy who was the pimp in Suikoden is gay). Note that 108 here refers to the stars of destiny.
Gambling Legend thingy - I'm pretty convinced the guy who wrote this has no idea how gambling works. Right now they're playing this game where you just pick a card and see who has the bigger card and they're playing 2 million a hand minimum with the usual call/raise/fold options. There's a utility Austin Power eyepatch thing that lets you see the range value of your opponent's card that both players can use. So Keiji, the main character, had a 6 when he knows the opponent's card is between 2-7 and then he folded. Later, he had a K and wasted a month worth of manga on trying to figure out if his opponent has an A. Look, if you're thinking about folding a K in a game of war, you shouldn't even be gambling in the first place. Same with folding a 6 when your opponent's card has to be between 2-7. I know the author is trying to make it sound like if you're betting $2 million a hand you'll panic or something, but honestly, that just makes no sense whatsoever.
In a different gambling series by the same guy the main character is playing from a bad position and he decided he had to use the Phantom Royal Flush (well, it's a Mahjong term, but the idea is the same). What's a Phantom Royal Flush? It'd be like if I show you an Ace of Hearts and 10 of Hearts and say you better fold because I really have a Royal Flush, and obviously his opponent gets scared and immediately folded a straight flush. I mean, seriously, all this guy ever does is he has these hand where the main character's opponent just assumes he has exactly every card he needs no matter how improbable and then beats himself from panicing. And the guy doing the panicing always has at least 10 times the chips compared to the main character and there will be this huge nonsense about how having a lot of money is a weakness in gambling. This is despite the fact that having more chips is overwhelmingly advantageous in real life, and in this manga, there are some unusually bogus rules like the guy with more money can get more hole cards if they played Texas Hold 'Em. An extremely hilarious example is in one game if someone raised you for more money than you have, you automatically lose the game regardless of what cards you have, and yes, the main character won that game too despite having a lot less money than his opponent.
Great Warlords - In a clear violation of manga norms, Ping An-chan used her time pausing/rewinding powers to defeat The President instead of, say, walk up to everyone and explain to everyone what her power is and then get owned. She even uses her ability in a perfectly logical way by throwing lighting a grenade and then pause time before it blows up and then move the grenade to where she needs it, which is clearly illegal because you're not supposed to be able to use godlike powers in a useful way! Of course, Ping An-chan's 'Miracle Fragment' is way higher class then the Devil Fruit like powers of Great Warlords, though by defeating The President and thus changing the most likely outcome of history she somehow fell victim to the Butterfly Effect and decided to abandon her nation and/or was abducted by a mysterious entity while she was unable to pause time due to exhausation. It's not clear what happened to Ping An-chan at this point but obviously she's not going to be in the good guy's camp anymore because there's literally nothing anyone can do against her powers. Oh and she rewinds time whenever anyone found out what her power is to make sure they wouldn't find out, so that nobody in the story besides the reader knows that she has the power to unwind time.
Cross Country Soldier - It seems like Thundergod is finally going to die after being rescued from certain death due to his sheer popularity. Cross Country (the main character) came back from his time traveling adventure and informed everyone that it was foretold in the stars 300 years ago that he's going to save China from the resurrected Emperor and the Ultimate Kirin so therefore he also already knows that Thundergod and Blaze are going to lose fighting the resurrected Emperor because otherwise he wouldn't be the chosen one to save China. It's pretty easy to talk tough when you've already seen the outcome of your heroic deeds in the future!