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RIGHT TURN ONLY!! - Axis of Needles


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Captain Crotchspike



Joined: 23 Mar 2005
Posts: 355
Location: Phoenix, AZ
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:17 pm Reply with quote
So, uh, not to immediately deplete the intelligence level of the comments right off the bat or anything, but when scrolling down, was anyone else thrown off by the placement of the canine in the "DOGS" logo and think it said er something else?

Also, 7 Billion Needles is one of the few manga titles to catch my eye recently and I've got to admit, it's thanks a lot to the way Vertical approaches cover art. Really stands out from the crowd when I'm just looking around.
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Wooga



Joined: 22 Jun 2007
Posts: 916
Location: Tucson
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:19 pm Reply with quote
I thought 7 billion needles was more of a ripoff of Birdy the Mighty than Parasyte. semantics
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marie-antoinette



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 4136
Location: Ottawa, Canada
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:33 pm Reply with quote
I have to admit, I'm pretty excited to finally get the chance to read Hetalia. I'm around fandom enough to know quite a bit about it (and I tried to watch some of the anime but the fansub group whose work I checked out was so horribly bad that I couldn't get through a minute of it). Definitely going to pick that one up ASAP (I know I say that about a lot of things but this one is more likely than others to actually happen).
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vashfanatic



Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 3489
Location: Back stateside
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:40 pm Reply with quote
Grrr... as someone who started reading the series in fansubs, it's bothersome to see Dogs getting a D for storytelling... because this is about where I left off once it was licensed, and if it took a nosedive into nonsensicality, that's a huge disappointment! I need to get the most recent volume in ILL, and just hope that the next one improves, I suppose. Sad

Otherwise, I saw the anime and read the first volume of Bokurano and am debating whether it should use up my ILL slot or if I should spend it on, I dunno, the next volume of Twin Spica instead... this column gives me way too many things to read.
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Unholy_Nny



Joined: 22 Jun 2005
Posts: 622
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 12:09 am Reply with quote
I looooooove Bokurano. The review is severely accurate, but I enjoy the extreme wallowing in forced depression tone. It's one note, but I think Kitoh plays that note well.

And his art is pretty much my favorite thing about his various works, but I can see why other people would think it's not that pleasant. I did a speech on him for my Intro to Public Speaking class and a good 1/3rd of it was on his unique art style. (I loved the look on people's faces when I did the intro. Set it up like I was talking about Pokemon, then jumped into "Then kids start murdering and raping each other." Shadow Star = lolwtf )
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mufurc



Joined: 09 Jun 2003
Posts: 612
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 3:52 am Reply with quote
Bah, Dogs is not about the story, it's about cool fights and people looking cool. The story is just a vehicle that makes it possible to have more of those. Very Happy

As for Hetalia, when I sawthe published manga I was a bit surprised to see the strips reproduced in the original webcomic quality (although with legible writing! hey, that must count for something). Probably the publisher just wanted to put something out pronto, because in later volumes Himaruya has remade many strips to make them look better (both art-wise and print-wise).
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omegaproxy





PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 6:05 am Reply with quote
Giving Dogs BC a grade D is a complete insult. Yeah, the storytelling isn't exactly perfect but Author has his own way of advancing-backstepping his main characters, and now this point in time, its how we are all used to. Its uniqueness and his personal touch is what makes his story, pacing intresting. Its definetly not anything similar to anything out there, and thats how we like it.
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Moonsaber



Joined: 16 Jan 2007
Posts: 342
Location: USA
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 6:29 am Reply with quote
Now I feel old.

Hal Clement is, literarily speaking, Larry Niven's daddy, Walter Jon Williams Grandpa. One of the original "hard" science fiction authors.

Needle is one of his most famous stories. I haven't read this new adaption, but if it stays reasonably close to the original you have a bit of backwardness going on. In the Manga world, this may seem like a retread of older ideas... but all those manga owe their existance to the original story that this is based on, from 1950.

From what I can tell of the synopsis, other than changing the sex of the host, and location, it is somewhat following the original piece so far.

I am curious to see if this is an adaption worthy of defense, however.
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caffeine_addict



Joined: 28 Sep 2010
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 7:21 am Reply with quote
vashfanatic wrote:
Grrr... as someone who started reading the series in fansubs, it's bothersome to see Dogs getting a D for storytelling... because this is about where I left off once it was licensed, and if it took a nosedive into nonsensicality, that's a huge disappointment! I need to get the most recent volume in ILL, and just hope that the next one improves, I suppose. Sad


That D for Dogs is rather harsh. You might want to refresh your memory about what happened in the previous volumes, including "volume 0", just to make sure you remember who is who, but the plot isn't nonsensical at all. The only frustrating part about it is that it doesn't provide a clear explanation from Bishop about his past. It's not just that it jumps to another character right before he says "something really important", it's that, as it becomes apparent later in the same volume, he never gives that explanation, and instead just leaves, saying "We'll talk when I get back." Which doesn't seem likely to happen before volume 6.

The story does jump around a lot, but this ensures that all main characters get some attention. The back story is shown in glimpses, rather than long explanations, and it gives rise to new questions while answering some of the old ones. This isn't like the end of a murder case where you get all the answers nice and neat, and an explanation of all that happened from the beginning given by an all-knowing detective who was never there to see it happen in the first place. It's a volume in the middle of a series, and as such it makes references to the train incident from the previous volume and to characters and situations that should already be known to the reader, and it leaves plenty of things to be revealed in future volumes. If you are a fan of the series already – and by volume 4 chances are you aren't reading it unless you are a fan, with the only exception of unfortunate professional reviewers – you are likely to know who the supporting characters are and to be used to Miwa's way of leaving some questions unanswered.

Volume 4 does have less action, more drama, and not really more answers than previous volumes. It also has Badou brooding, Mimi pretending not to care, Mihai and Kiri acting like an old married couple, Nill looking cute, Giovanni reminiscing about his childhood, the return of a certain bad guy from volume 0, gangsters having a bad day (don't they always have a bad day when they run into Badou and Heine?), the epic fight scene at the opera, and Heine and Naoto going through their usual love-hate double-tsundere routine. And, of course, the same wonderful art, stylish gunfights and cool-looking characters as any other Dogs volume.
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rabrek



Joined: 06 Apr 2009
Posts: 188
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 9:21 am Reply with quote
I'm enjoying Dogs, but I'm in it for the art and the character moments. I like it enough to import the Japanese volumes, which I can't read, because as a whole it satisfies me in some meaningful way. I'm not even sure I'm much interested in the storyline (I lose track in the wait between English releases), though I expect Miwa will pull the knotted threads together eventually. (Ahem. He'd better.) Definitely not for those who need a solid narrative line to pull them along from fight scene to fight scene, but until the story gels more, I'm content rating it as the most stylish guilty pleasure I've ever had.
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Oronae



Joined: 05 Oct 2006
Posts: 165
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 9:45 am Reply with quote
Does anyone know if they censored the material towards the end of Nakama's arc in Bokurano for the paperback release like they did on the Ikki website?

I don't know what the page numbers will be for the English version, but the scene where Nakama saves the classmate who's engaged in... err... intimate activities with an older man during the battle. It was pages 184-186 in the Japanese release. For the online version they lopped the bottom half off of a number of panels.

Anyone care to check?
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Yorozuya



Joined: 11 Mar 2009
Posts: 332
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 10:54 am Reply with quote
Not hate, it just gets a bit irritating (especially when maison Ikkoku, my favourite of hers is one of the worst offenders).
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sepherest





PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 3:00 pm Reply with quote
I'm glad to see Bokurano getting another good review, but did the second volume seriously come out this month? The first was released back in like, February! I really hope it doesn't wind up getting the Jojo release treatment.

As for Dogs, I completely agree with how you feel on the series. A while back I read the original one-shot manga and loved it, so when the series started it's english release I started buying it. But each volume after 0 seemed to get worse and worse when it came to the plot. Sometimes it is cool to have some style over substance, but it can only go so far and Dogs is definitely off the deep end.
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 5113
Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 3:58 pm Reply with quote
7 Billion Needles sounds great and comparing it to Parasyte is a compliment. I'm unfortunatelty not familiar with the original story either, but I think I will try to find it after tasting the manga update. Go Vertical! (I don't think Black Jack would appreciate being called "fusty and old" Razz).

Hetalia...I'm glad we can finally read the print version in English. The fandom has been a while, but it's almost scary in how they treat the title as if its a yaoi romance. The anime is cute, but too short to be engaging. The original web comic seems to be the best place to find out if the concept of learning history through humorous gags told with personifications of various countries really works. I hope it does, because history rocks!

Once again, I'd like to register my dissapointment that Peepo Choo gets placed in the "World Manga" section. It was written in Tokyo and published in a Japanese manga mag. What more does someone need to do to be considered a legitimate manga-ka?!

Dear Del Rey,
If you have the funds to publish mediocre carp like "Pink Innocence," then you have the funds to continue publishing the hysterical "My Heavenly Hockey Club" and the engaging "Alive: The Final Evolution"! Get back to the good stuff!
Thanks,
A manga fan and consumer (you publish it, I buy it. Usually.) Very Happy
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RestLessone



Joined: 02 Aug 2009
Posts: 1426
Location: New York
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 4:04 pm Reply with quote
Glad that Hetalia got a nice enough grade. The fandom can be scary, so I limit myself to enjoying the series and talking with my (sane) friends. It can be a bit difficult for some to get through the more sloppy webcomic bits, but it's nice that newer volumes have redrawn material.

Agent355 wrote:

Once again, I'd like to register my dissapointment that Peepo Choo gets placed in the "World Manga" section. It was written in Tokyo and published in a Japanese manga mag. What more does someone need to do to be considered a legitimate manga-ka?!

Agreed. I don't get how it can be "world manga". What are the chances that it would have even been published outside Japan had Vertical not gotten it? It was primarily intended for a Japanese audience and first published in Japan, so...Is it just that the author wasn't born in Japan? I mean, tons of American books (such as the Ratha series!) are written by people who were from different countries...
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