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Forum - View topicRIGHT TURN ONLY!! - Hungry Like the Wolfsmund
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belvadeer
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You're seriously holding "anime eyes" as a mark against it? |
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LavenderMintRose
 Posts: 168 |
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oh my god... that Sabrina manga was my favorite thing when I was in middle school! I hope they release the full thing in the tankoubon editions - the comic store I went to stopped carrying the individual issues within the last 10 chapters.
I do wish they'd re-tone it, though. Those greys really are a pain. |
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pachy_boy
Posts: 1333 |
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Ooh, I must respectfully and absolutely disagree about Galaxy Angel. Well, okay, I can see what Carlo's talking about, but it's not enough against it, because to me it wasn't a lot to begin with and I've read titles that were far worse with those elements. I first became a casual fan of this title via the anime, which was definitely funny as heck but I couldn't stop wondering what kind of series it would've been like if it followed an actual story and the characters had actual backgrounds that drive them in what they do, and only in this manga do we get that. I'm not saying that this manga is "deep" per se, but I still found myself engaged with the characters in ways I never expected. I hate unfinished manga, and it's a shame they never finished Galaxy Angel 2, but at least Beta felt like it had its own ending.
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here-and-faraway
 Posts: 1528 Location: Sunny California |
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Imagine if Rin from Blade of the Immortal had eyes like Cardcaptor Sakura or Chiyo-chan from Azumanga Daioh popped up in Berserk. I've only read the first few chapters and am enjoying the story so far, but some of the character designs do stick out like a sore thumb. I'm not sure if this gets "groomed out" later or not. Still, I've already pre-ordered volumes 2 and 3, so the design was by no means a deal breaker for me. (And I don't think it was for Mr. Santo either.) Edit: I forgot to add, thanks for reminding me about Children of the Sea I got volumes 1 and 2 a few years ago and put them on the backburner. I should give them another try. Last edited by here-and-faraway on Tue Aug 13, 2013 10:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Gasero
 Posts: 939 Location: USA |
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It was really saddening when I decided to stop keeping up with Detective Conan. So many of the cases get solved the same way and Conan does the same thing to figure it out and tell everyone.
After a while I felt like I was wasting time even if the mystery was interesting. |
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JohnnySake
 Posts: 585 Location: Auburn Hills, MI |
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Now this is really interesting and ironic to see a Broccoli manga showcased on Memory Lane. In last week's RTO I lamented the fact that so many good CMX titles are out of print and apparently expensive.
Galaxy Angel was a title I picked up at Broccoli's booth San Diego Comic Con a few years ago and I was impressed how well made their books were: nice paper, a dust jacket, the whole nine yards. Then I read they went and up closed shop. A few quick purchases later on Amazon I was able to complete my Galaxy Angel collection at reasonable prices. They might not be the best stories out there but I enjoy them for what they are and they are a reminder of another manga publisher no longer with us. |
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belvadeer
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I don't necessarily agree with that. I don't have a problem with it. Lots of characters in one anime tend to have various eye designs, both big or narrow, expressive or stern. |
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victor viper
 Posts: 630 Location: The deep south |
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I wholeheartedly agree with these comments. When you pick up one of these books, you can feel that it's well made; they have some real mass to them. In addition, they have color pages, lots of interesting translation notes and information about the franchise, and best of all, those ads for the Gamers store that was open for a while here in the US (it's a shame that's no longer with us as well). I concur that the Galaxy Angel manga is an excellent companion to the anime, as it trades some of the wacky comedy for a deeper story, and its strategy/bishojo game origins are more apparent. The timing of this article is interesting, as Galaxy Angel is really quite similar to Sakura Wars, about which Mike Toole wrote an interesting article the other day. |
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here-and-faraway
Posts: 1528 Location: Sunny California |
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One of my pet peeves is when a manga artist makes their characters look too much alike. So it's not like I expect every character to have the same look. In fact, I get frustrated when it's difficult to tell them apart. But artists usually want their characters to look like they're from the same "story world". You can easily tell which character belongs in Rumiko Takahashi's world, Osamu Tezuka's world, Tite Kubo's world. Kazuya Minekura's world, Hayao Miyazaki's world, Kaoru Mori's world, etc. Even though the characters are easy to differentiate, there's a unity in their design. There are two characters in the first few chapters of Wolfsmund that don't look like they belong in the series. It doesn't ruin the story for me, but like Mr. Santo, I thought the characters looked out of place. It was jarring, that's all. |
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belvadeer
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I understand your views on it. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18285 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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In fairness about The Sacred Blacksmith, the anime version is also replete with references to Cecily's chest, so it isn't just a manga thing. Still, it sounds like the manga upgrades in an area that I agree didn't need upgrading.
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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I was surprised to read a good review of The Sacred Blacksmith (Or The Scraced Blacksmith as an Anime Castle advertisement that ran on ANN for many months used to call it). The anime was among the first things that I watched when I returned to anime in 2011 and while it didn't give me any urge to walk back out (that was rewatching the whole of the Saber Marionette franchise), it was an inauspicious early choice. Besides undermining Celty for the sake of fanservice more times than I could forgive, including once seemingly implying that she wore nothing between her skin and armor (else we couldn't see her tits when breastplate *snigger* got torn open), it generally portrayed her as damned near incompetent. A walking boob joke and peep show playing ineptly at heroine isn't what I want from anything. I went in expecting much the opposite of that, which happens to be what I like.
Carlo makes it sound like Celty might be more effective in the manga, as I'd read was true of the light novels. If that's so, then I'm intrigued. I think that this has the bones of a solid fantasy story, it just got too caught up in softer tissues. The series also wasted some time faffing about with inanities. Those are evidently out in force even in the manga, but if Celty is a better character in this version, then I'm interested. Even though Carlo drizzled some cold water on Wolfsmund, it clearly has enough going for it to be worth a look. When Ed Chavez presented this title at Otakon, he mentioned that the mangaka had worked as an assistant for Kaoru Mori and that guy who draws Berserk (I think, I could be wrong). If I've remember right, then the influences fit. The medievalism is redolent of Berserk guy and the rich, accurate historical detail of Mori. I admit that I have some trouble getting a good sense of just what Wolfsmund is about, but it has enough cool going for it that I'll charge past that. I am disappointed that it purportedly doesn't give the politics of the era their due. Switzerland's and interesting place with a history to match and it feels a shame if you set something there, but mostly use it as a pretense for castles and knights. The use of a style suggestive of traditional woodcuts sounds like a good choice both as practical aesthetics and to tie into the setting. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 2625 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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I had a similar reaction to The Sacred Blacksmith as you, Surrender Artist, and I found it to be equally as annoying in the manga to the point where I stopped reading halfway through the first volume. Possibly this was a mistake on my part, but I couldn't stand seeing Cecily, a supposedly competent knight, swanning around simply "trying her hardest" and yet being pretty ineffective. Carlo's clearly able to see beyond that, though, so maybe I just had my buttons pushed and didn't give it a fair shake.
As for Wolfsmund, I did just write a full-length review, but basically I'm in agreement with Carlo on that one. True, not much of the political stuff in the first volume, but the rest of the book more than makes up for it. If I had to give it a plot sum up (which you may have noticed is not my strong suit  ), I'd say that it's about people rebelling against the Austrian Empire's takeover of three Swiss cantons (districts, more or less), which were previously autonomous. (And I agree with Carlo and Here-and-Faraway about the sparkly eyes that show up on a couple of characters - Liese and Walter are the most jarring, I think.)
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9897 Location: Virginia |
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@Princess Irene
I think you are being a bit hard on the manga version of The Sacred Blacksmith. spoiler[While Cecily is a knight and city guard, it is shown that she is not experienced. In the initial fight with the madman with an ax, she thinks "s-so this is what it's like to be in a real fight..." In spite of this she does not need a rescue until her sword breaks.] spoiler[In chapter one when she asks Luke for a katana, she says "I know I'm acting very confident about all this, but to be honest, I've only been a knight for a month."] spoiler[In chapter 2 she is initially beaten down by monsters that are doing the same to the other city guardsmen. However she rallies and attacks aggressively (noting that she has to make up for lack of technique by sheer emotion) and rallies the rest of the city guardsmen. Towards the end of the chapter when Luke's initial katana breaks and he has to create another she attacks the ice monster with nothing but guts and the hilt of her broken family sword. This allows Luke time to finish the spell.] While very foolhardy at times she is hardly shown as a typical damsel in distress. @ Surrender Artist You will be happy to hear that in the manga it is clearly shown that when her breast plate is lost in chapter 2 that she has a dark body suit under it. That isn't shredded until later. The boob humor while still present is much more restrained in the manga version. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 2625 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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You're probably right. Like I said, I suspect that it just pushed some button for me, innocuous as the story seems. (Well, as innocuous as a story about knights fighting demons can be.) I should give it another try one of these days. |
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