Recent manga thoughts
PostPosted:Sun Jun 05, 2022 12:15 pm
It seems like there's a been a drought in manga land for quite a while now but finally there's enough stuff to at least worth mentioning for better or worse.
Spy X Family
Undisputedly king of the current available new stuff. It might be the first manga since Demon Slayer that's actually noteworthy from a historical point of view. It reminds me of what Yostuba! could have become if the author didn't just decide that he's got no need for money and just flake out, not to mention Spy X Family actually has a plot and Yotsuba! doesn't. There's not much to complain about and it's been consistently good. Only weakness might be that Donovan Desmond not live up to the status of final boss but it's way too early to tell that. I think Spy X Family does need to move the main plot a bit more since you can't do the slice of life thing forever, but I guess with the star/lightning system things have to be moving somewhere because you can't have less stars/lightnings no matter what.
HXH/Yotsuba!
Speaking of lazy authors, I'll group them both together. I don't even know what happened to Yotsuba! and it looks like it's just forgotten except whenever the author feels like drawing something. HXH is in the same boat but Togashi recently came back from the dead and I'm guessing he's ending HXH in 4 chapters to put it out of its misery. The funny thing is that while fan of either series lament how One Piece is keeping their series down from the best manga of all time, it's unlikely either will be even historically notable, which I'd say something with the sales/fame of Bleach. Not that Bleach was any good, but it is certainly notable. Togashi's twitter went to #1 followers amongst manga artist, though, beating One Piece handily. I guess if you're a controversial person you get a lot of followers, since One Piece is actually pretty boring and the author produces stuff like clockwork so there isn't actually much motivation to follow the author even if you're a big fan.
On a tangent, I always find the whole 'why you should read X' to be pretty dubious, and that's pretty commonly associated with series that feel like neglected like this one, except neither HXH nor Yotsuba! is completely neglected. HXH is only slightly less sales than Bleach overall and technically it could make up that gap. Unless you're talking about things that serialize on things nobody ever heard of, the fact you've to explain to someone why something that is readily available is good basically indicates tremendous weakness. You'll hear people say like 'why The Last Jedi was actually good' but you won't hear people say 'why The Empire Strikes Back is good' because the latter is supposed to be self-evident.
Ya Boy Kongming/Paripi Kongming
Some people were hyping it up as the next big thing before Spy X Family went to Anime. It's kind of a cute premise but it's really only something a hardcore Three Kingdoms guy could live, and it's not even that funny after like 10 chapters. If you want to see dumb Three Kingdom events relived elsewhere there's like 50 volumes of this stuff in The Ravage of Time. I think the problem with this series is that it's neither unrealistic nor realistic enough. The source material is based on ROTK as opposed to the actual historical document, which means Zhuge Liang is someone who should be able to conjure lightning bolts at people. If you do that, it might be pretty funny, but Paripi Kongming's take is that Kongming is actually just a normal guy that's just super smart. But if you go with 'just a normal guy that owns everyone', well, that's pretty common genre that assumes your readers are idiots and the author generally finds out the only idiot is himself. It also misses the point that if you want to go the realistic route, Zhuge Liang is a very smart person who pretty much never does the fundamental wrong. The reason why the Shu Kingdom was able to wage war against Wei that has vastly greater resources was because Zhuge Liang never misses the small details when it comes to internal politics/domestic policy that he was able to afford to have an army just as strong or possibly stronger than a much bigger neighbor. That's also why he died at a relatively early age because he worked way too hard, and that could've been an interesting in the sense that such a person in modern world obviously could delegate a lot of responsibilities to underlings.
Kaguya Love is War
This series has been going garbage for quite a while. The only notable thing is that a lot of people actually think it's good. To be fair the Anime part is very slow so they haven't got to the garbage part yet. I still don't understand why people consider the arc where Miyuki finally was able to confess his love for Kaguya to be good. It literally tears apart the entire premise that it is impossible to do anything romantic unless Chika is physically removed from the scene. I'm also beginning to question whether the author actually thinks Kaguya is a good person or not. At least throughout most of the story you're under the impression that Kaguya is a dirtbag that has basically no redeeming quality as a girl and she's the only person who's not aware of it, but at the end it turns into something like 'maybe Kaguya was misunderstood'. Manga has its share of unrealistically overqualified girls, but Kaguya is on the opposite end. Kaguya never even offers to pay for anything despite having 3 zillion dollars to her name, and it's not even because she' s cheap but that she's never thought offering financial help, even to her love Miyuki who is working like 5 part time jobs to make ends meet because he's dirt poor.
Spy X Family
Undisputedly king of the current available new stuff. It might be the first manga since Demon Slayer that's actually noteworthy from a historical point of view. It reminds me of what Yostuba! could have become if the author didn't just decide that he's got no need for money and just flake out, not to mention Spy X Family actually has a plot and Yotsuba! doesn't. There's not much to complain about and it's been consistently good. Only weakness might be that Donovan Desmond not live up to the status of final boss but it's way too early to tell that. I think Spy X Family does need to move the main plot a bit more since you can't do the slice of life thing forever, but I guess with the star/lightning system things have to be moving somewhere because you can't have less stars/lightnings no matter what.
HXH/Yotsuba!
Speaking of lazy authors, I'll group them both together. I don't even know what happened to Yotsuba! and it looks like it's just forgotten except whenever the author feels like drawing something. HXH is in the same boat but Togashi recently came back from the dead and I'm guessing he's ending HXH in 4 chapters to put it out of its misery. The funny thing is that while fan of either series lament how One Piece is keeping their series down from the best manga of all time, it's unlikely either will be even historically notable, which I'd say something with the sales/fame of Bleach. Not that Bleach was any good, but it is certainly notable. Togashi's twitter went to #1 followers amongst manga artist, though, beating One Piece handily. I guess if you're a controversial person you get a lot of followers, since One Piece is actually pretty boring and the author produces stuff like clockwork so there isn't actually much motivation to follow the author even if you're a big fan.
On a tangent, I always find the whole 'why you should read X' to be pretty dubious, and that's pretty commonly associated with series that feel like neglected like this one, except neither HXH nor Yotsuba! is completely neglected. HXH is only slightly less sales than Bleach overall and technically it could make up that gap. Unless you're talking about things that serialize on things nobody ever heard of, the fact you've to explain to someone why something that is readily available is good basically indicates tremendous weakness. You'll hear people say like 'why The Last Jedi was actually good' but you won't hear people say 'why The Empire Strikes Back is good' because the latter is supposed to be self-evident.
Ya Boy Kongming/Paripi Kongming
Some people were hyping it up as the next big thing before Spy X Family went to Anime. It's kind of a cute premise but it's really only something a hardcore Three Kingdoms guy could live, and it's not even that funny after like 10 chapters. If you want to see dumb Three Kingdom events relived elsewhere there's like 50 volumes of this stuff in The Ravage of Time. I think the problem with this series is that it's neither unrealistic nor realistic enough. The source material is based on ROTK as opposed to the actual historical document, which means Zhuge Liang is someone who should be able to conjure lightning bolts at people. If you do that, it might be pretty funny, but Paripi Kongming's take is that Kongming is actually just a normal guy that's just super smart. But if you go with 'just a normal guy that owns everyone', well, that's pretty common genre that assumes your readers are idiots and the author generally finds out the only idiot is himself. It also misses the point that if you want to go the realistic route, Zhuge Liang is a very smart person who pretty much never does the fundamental wrong. The reason why the Shu Kingdom was able to wage war against Wei that has vastly greater resources was because Zhuge Liang never misses the small details when it comes to internal politics/domestic policy that he was able to afford to have an army just as strong or possibly stronger than a much bigger neighbor. That's also why he died at a relatively early age because he worked way too hard, and that could've been an interesting in the sense that such a person in modern world obviously could delegate a lot of responsibilities to underlings.
Kaguya Love is War
This series has been going garbage for quite a while. The only notable thing is that a lot of people actually think it's good. To be fair the Anime part is very slow so they haven't got to the garbage part yet. I still don't understand why people consider the arc where Miyuki finally was able to confess his love for Kaguya to be good. It literally tears apart the entire premise that it is impossible to do anything romantic unless Chika is physically removed from the scene. I'm also beginning to question whether the author actually thinks Kaguya is a good person or not. At least throughout most of the story you're under the impression that Kaguya is a dirtbag that has basically no redeeming quality as a girl and she's the only person who's not aware of it, but at the end it turns into something like 'maybe Kaguya was misunderstood'. Manga has its share of unrealistically overqualified girls, but Kaguya is on the opposite end. Kaguya never even offers to pay for anything despite having 3 zillion dollars to her name, and it's not even because she' s cheap but that she's never thought offering financial help, even to her love Miyuki who is working like 5 part time jobs to make ends meet because he's dirt poor.