Annual HXH edition + others
PostPosted:Tue Jul 04, 2017 2:56 am
HXH is back from its annual break and somehow turns out to be even more disappointing than the last year's cripple fight between Hisoka and Chrollo. Yes it's true that just because our cast defeated a bunch of alien overlords doesn't mean we can't go back to having mere mortals, but it's already pretty bad with Hisoka vs Chrollo that fought with 1/10 the power of a Royal Guard. But now we've this arc about a bunch of Princes who likely wouldn't be able to pass the first stage of the Hunter Exam about how they all suddenly have powerful abilities, and it's not even like the Ants arc where ordinary people become super powerful thanks to their new alien biology. This is literally just normal guys that die in one frame against a guy that'd later die in one frame suddenly matter because they're... evil... I think. Of course no matter how much the story pretends these guys matter, you know that they don't because the ship is going to the Dark Continent that is said to house horrors that makes the earlier alien invasion look like child's play. None of the top Hunters are even directly participating because honestly whether 100K civilians died due to some power struggle on the way to Dark Continent hardly matters when any serious threat in the Dark Continent can wipe out entire humanity. Heck, in the Ant arc a Royal Guard accidentally killed half a million civilians and it's accepted as completely acceptable collateral damage (nuking the palace directly would've killed all 50 million civilians and again that was considered acceptable). HXH's pace is of course horrible, and currently it's not about anything anyone would really care about overall. Sure, all the fans are saying it's awesome because nobody is ever very sure whether Togashi actually died or not, but this is really filler stuff that wouldn't even be very good compared to Bleach, and most likely it's going to take the next 3 years or so to just finish the filler if it goes on for 3 volumes.
Right now it seems like there's a dearth of decent mid range (say, 20+ volume) manga out there. The stuff that goes on for much longer then that is pretty much just dragging on, and even if One Piece can maintain a respectable level of consistency, seeing the exact formula played out 15 times gets boring.
Other stuff of interest:
Helck - I'm beginning to think Azudora doesn't actually have a plan beyond looking cool with a pose. I realize recently things are supposed to be getting desperate, but having Vamirio being pretty much the only person on the Demon Empire that actually did anything useful is pretty lame. The Demon Empire held back Will of the World for at least millenniums, and humans are considered an insignificant threat compared to Will of the World, and that includes humans with the power of Will of the World. Maybe having Vamirio clownstomp the entire human race was kind of boring, but at least they can show other beings in the Demon Empire being able to actually do something. So far Asta the level 40ish cat girl (which is pretty average for demons) did more than anyone on the Demon Empire that isn't named Vamirio because she actually tried to stab some human guys while Vamirio was fighting every other human that currently existed in the world of Helck. I know they say Vamirio prefers to go with only a few person but that really shouldn't be 0 other demon. Yes Helck is the main character but even he is supposed to be insignificant compared to the might of the Demon Empire, so I don't see why Vamirio is relatively useless compared to Helck or even Cless. Unless Piwi turns out to be the Demon Emperor it's going to be a bit disappointing that a story that was always about the strength of the Demon Empire and especially Vamirio seems to heading to a direction where Vamirio being a damsel in distress.
Grand Blue - Still as funny as always. The two new characters add some really funny dynamics to the cast. Hopefully unlike Yotsuba the author doesn't run out of ideas. Speaking of which...
Yotsuba - I have no idea what the heck is going on here. Does the author just doesn't like money or something? I know it sells like hotcakes and this isn't someone with significant existing fame. Yes there's a decline in creativity but it's still definitely worth reading, and it's currently going at a pace as if the author is inflicted with the Togashi Disease.
Kake Gurui - The best recent arc is the new girl playing a game that involves cutting your fingers off if you lose thinking it'll totally scare her two opponents that plays Russian Roulette with 6 bullets. It's just hilarious how she's thinking people's going to panic at the thought of losing their fingers and her opponents are thinking like 'huh how come nobody died yet what kind of weak game is this?!' Maeri replacing Yumeko in the latest arc is pretty good, since seeing Yumeko getting turned on by gambling is kind of way overplayed. Speaking of Maeri, the story did a good job of recovering from someone who originally looks like completely meaningless fodder to the number two girl. Maeri gets extra points for actually ripping the mask off the ASB vice president because she got tired of talking to someone with a mask. Apparently Maeri is the only person who thought it's weird/rude that someone's wearing a mask the whole time and actually did something good about it, so good job!
Side note: I blame Liar Game for coming up with the Perfect Shuffle since I see it discussed as a possibility in the latest arc in Kake Gurui clearly by guys who recently read Liar Game. Never mind that Maeri doesn't know what order the cards started out of the box, or that Maeri's own cards is sufficient information to determine the state of all the other player's cards which makes her trying to figure out her ally's cards pointless. I actually have a Math Professor who was also a magician and it's true that if you separate cards in two even piles and put them together in exactly alternating order then the result of the shuffle is predetermined and if you shuffle it enough times you can manipulate the results in certain ways. That said, I don't remember ever seeing the Professor ever did any card trick involving that because it's simply too unreliable and his card tricks are always done with trick cards. And this is when the guy doing the shuffle is the person is trying to shuffle a certain way. In Liar Game and the current arc the person doing the shuffling is neutral and is likely to just accidentally shuffle incorrectly, and the neutral shuffler has no preference on doing an out versus an in shuffle so it's at best a 50% chance he even shuffles it the way you need him to shuffle the cards since a different method might end up placing the card you need to a completely different spot!
High Score Girl - Koharu tried to cheese Akira by picking Akuma versus Akira's Zangief in Street Fighter 2, but of course that turned out to be ineffective against the godlike Akira, though she did manage to take one game off. I know you can do a spinning piledriver without jumping but I'm pretty sure whatever Akira did wasn't how you're supposed to do it (she can do spinning piledriver on demand without any previous key input). After losing, Koharu said that she's got no chance against Akira if she's as strong in love as she is in Street Fighter. I mean, what kind of stupid question is this? Akira is the typical perfectionist valedictorian type girl, but it's also pretty obvious her video game skills are at least one tier above godly.
Right now it seems like there's a dearth of decent mid range (say, 20+ volume) manga out there. The stuff that goes on for much longer then that is pretty much just dragging on, and even if One Piece can maintain a respectable level of consistency, seeing the exact formula played out 15 times gets boring.
Other stuff of interest:
Helck - I'm beginning to think Azudora doesn't actually have a plan beyond looking cool with a pose. I realize recently things are supposed to be getting desperate, but having Vamirio being pretty much the only person on the Demon Empire that actually did anything useful is pretty lame. The Demon Empire held back Will of the World for at least millenniums, and humans are considered an insignificant threat compared to Will of the World, and that includes humans with the power of Will of the World. Maybe having Vamirio clownstomp the entire human race was kind of boring, but at least they can show other beings in the Demon Empire being able to actually do something. So far Asta the level 40ish cat girl (which is pretty average for demons) did more than anyone on the Demon Empire that isn't named Vamirio because she actually tried to stab some human guys while Vamirio was fighting every other human that currently existed in the world of Helck. I know they say Vamirio prefers to go with only a few person but that really shouldn't be 0 other demon. Yes Helck is the main character but even he is supposed to be insignificant compared to the might of the Demon Empire, so I don't see why Vamirio is relatively useless compared to Helck or even Cless. Unless Piwi turns out to be the Demon Emperor it's going to be a bit disappointing that a story that was always about the strength of the Demon Empire and especially Vamirio seems to heading to a direction where Vamirio being a damsel in distress.
Grand Blue - Still as funny as always. The two new characters add some really funny dynamics to the cast. Hopefully unlike Yotsuba the author doesn't run out of ideas. Speaking of which...
Yotsuba - I have no idea what the heck is going on here. Does the author just doesn't like money or something? I know it sells like hotcakes and this isn't someone with significant existing fame. Yes there's a decline in creativity but it's still definitely worth reading, and it's currently going at a pace as if the author is inflicted with the Togashi Disease.
Kake Gurui - The best recent arc is the new girl playing a game that involves cutting your fingers off if you lose thinking it'll totally scare her two opponents that plays Russian Roulette with 6 bullets. It's just hilarious how she's thinking people's going to panic at the thought of losing their fingers and her opponents are thinking like 'huh how come nobody died yet what kind of weak game is this?!' Maeri replacing Yumeko in the latest arc is pretty good, since seeing Yumeko getting turned on by gambling is kind of way overplayed. Speaking of Maeri, the story did a good job of recovering from someone who originally looks like completely meaningless fodder to the number two girl. Maeri gets extra points for actually ripping the mask off the ASB vice president because she got tired of talking to someone with a mask. Apparently Maeri is the only person who thought it's weird/rude that someone's wearing a mask the whole time and actually did something good about it, so good job!
Side note: I blame Liar Game for coming up with the Perfect Shuffle since I see it discussed as a possibility in the latest arc in Kake Gurui clearly by guys who recently read Liar Game. Never mind that Maeri doesn't know what order the cards started out of the box, or that Maeri's own cards is sufficient information to determine the state of all the other player's cards which makes her trying to figure out her ally's cards pointless. I actually have a Math Professor who was also a magician and it's true that if you separate cards in two even piles and put them together in exactly alternating order then the result of the shuffle is predetermined and if you shuffle it enough times you can manipulate the results in certain ways. That said, I don't remember ever seeing the Professor ever did any card trick involving that because it's simply too unreliable and his card tricks are always done with trick cards. And this is when the guy doing the shuffle is the person is trying to shuffle a certain way. In Liar Game and the current arc the person doing the shuffling is neutral and is likely to just accidentally shuffle incorrectly, and the neutral shuffler has no preference on doing an out versus an in shuffle so it's at best a 50% chance he even shuffles it the way you need him to shuffle the cards since a different method might end up placing the card you need to a completely different spot!
High Score Girl - Koharu tried to cheese Akira by picking Akuma versus Akira's Zangief in Street Fighter 2, but of course that turned out to be ineffective against the godlike Akira, though she did manage to take one game off. I know you can do a spinning piledriver without jumping but I'm pretty sure whatever Akira did wasn't how you're supposed to do it (she can do spinning piledriver on demand without any previous key input). After losing, Koharu said that she's got no chance against Akira if she's as strong in love as she is in Street Fighter. I mean, what kind of stupid question is this? Akira is the typical perfectionist valedictorian type girl, but it's also pretty obvious her video game skills are at least one tier above godly.