Why do I always pick the manga no one else reads?
► GENERAL:
→ Dramatic readings of terrible fanfic porno is a great listen while I'm doing other stuff. I'm quickly running out of podcasts to listen to (and I'm terrible at finding new ones) so this was a fun bonus! I started with Chocobo Nights which was hilarious and just... w-well. NSFW. Also, a dramatic reading of Black Day by Artemis' Lover Oscar, OH SHIT YES.
→ Finally I found a bit more news on the Hotfile front: Their response to the suit, which I found interesting.
→ Ah, finally! The new Oglaf story is up! It's four pages this time and I just laughed like a maniac at that one line on the fourth page. It took me a second to get it and then just. FOREVER LOL.
► FARMVILLE:
→ LEVEL 94, WOOHOO.
→ Not my farm, but the farm of the week looks amazing! I don't usually like those blue hay bales for water features (and I still think Zynga should let us buy water pieces that work like fences, how they could connect together, people would EAT THAT UP, for real) but that looks AMAZING.
→ I haven't done much on my farm today, aside from creating one more pen, this time with a green/blue theme! Since there aren't a lot of green horses (aside from the shamrock pony foals), I decided to use some of my green and blue sheep, since they looked kind of cool together. I also have a green cow and two green calves and a handful of shamrock chicken and sheep in there. To top it off, I used clover flowers which will only last two weeks, but it'll be easy to make more.
It looks a little lonely off by itself (but at least I adjusted it to match the other rose-fence pen) and I'm not sure the pink roses look good with the green/blue theme, but I at least like the arrangement of everything else. :D
► MANGA:
→ I've been reading Bastard!! again and I'm into volume three now!
I last finished off just as Dark Schneider and Gara were finishing up their battle where Gara was like YOU SHOULD BE OUT OF SPELLS MWAHAHAHA and Darshu responded with, well, let me fling another one in your face anyway! :D
Gara is like YOU FUCKING LIED THAT YOU WERE OUT OF SPELLS, YOU DICK!
And Dark Schneider is like, MAYBE, I DID~. *TROLLFACE*
a;sdlfkja;lskjsl;kj Dark Schneider is the most amazing troll in this series, seriously.
His face when his severed arm (after Gara cut it off in their fight), oh, just happens to jump right back on his body and Gara is like, "..........ugh, one more thing to hate about you... your fucked up metabolism." GARA SPEAKS TRUTH. Dark Schneider lies, he still has more spells than any sane person should be able to cast, and his arm just hops right back onto his body even if you cut it off. It'd piss anyone off!
Also, this manga is kind of gay at times. Or at least Kall-Su is. When Gara has to be impressed with DS anyway (since Dark Schneider had time to cast a shielding spell over Sheila, Yoko, and Gara's pet dragon Lars, whom he didn't have to protect, but did anyway), Kall-Su says about his possible defection over to Dark Schneider's side, "I cannot believe it... Gara betray us? Did something happen between him and DS?" As he imagines Dark Schneider slinging a comy farm over Gara's shoulder. "Though he may be a ninja, he's still a simple warrior at heart. Was he ensnared by the charmisma and cunning of DS?"
I read that and I was just like, "....oh, Kall-Su. You are precious with your imagination there."
No one will ever sway me from my conviction that Kall-Su is as in love with Dark Schneider as he is annoyed by him! I mean, it's obviously a complicated relationship, just like Dark Schneider's relationship with Arshes Nei, which is on full display shortly after that.
I love this entire scene, it's just so... typical of Bastard!! as a manga. Dark Schneider has just defeated Gara, which means Arshes Nei is up next to go against him, but they have a ton of history. He appears to her in a dream, telling her that it's been awhile since they've seen each other, which causes her a lot of conflict, thinking that Darshu is their enemy now. But, he tells her, you'd better not go against him! He raised her, he's practically her father! Not that that means he thinks of her as a daughter, given that he was fucking her for years and he unzips her suit, sliding a hand inside to grasp at her breast, saying very directly and seriously and almost softly, "I love you. You know that."
This is what makes Dark Schneider's character work for me--he is an utter bastard who doesn't care about what others wan, he just does and says what he wants, especially with those people who he views as his. (Like Arshes Nei here.) And yet he genuinely loves her, if in his own way. He's very direct about those he loves while the narrative doesn't back down from what a complete dickbag he is as a character! He can do the right thing, he can save people, and be a cheerful dickbag!
Of course, they also have some fun with it, when Arshes Nei fights back because he's playing on her feelings, especially since she hasn't forgotten that he couldn't keep it in his pants (which is interesting here--even when he's in love with Yoko, he's still feeling up Arshes Nei here, and I'm looking forward to seeing how his TOTAL LACK of monogamy may or may not change over the course of the manga) and DON'T YOU DARE FORGET THAT YOU KEPT A HAREM OF WOMEN EVEN WHILE WE WERE TOGETHER and whacks him right in the face. And then lights him on fire with a thunderbolt to the face, ending the dream.
I... I love Arshes Nei kind of a lot.
I love that, yeah, sure, there are times when she seems almost like a fanservice character, but she's actually really strong and she's got some bitching new spells since the last time Dark Schneider saw her, including some ancient magics that hardly anyone has been able to unearth, aside from Dark Schneider himself. He's surprised that she's this much stronger since the last time he saw her, which makes me wonder just how much has changed while he was sealed away in Luche.
That's the weird thing about reading this manga--it's hilariously 90s with the art style, it's borderline (if not outright) ecchi at times, it's silly and completely OTT, yet I find myself genuinely drawn into it and its characters. And the fucking background world, too! The description of magics in the universe is actually kind of interesting! I knew that DS had fire magic, of course, but he's also strong with wind magic? And there are four basic categories of magic--White magic, Black magic, Elemental magic, and everything else, including the Ancient/Secret magic that includes charms and wards. Which is what Dark Schneider's golem was made of.
Seriously, he's already the strongest wizard on the planet, he's got a ridiculous load of fire magic and he's good at wind magic, too, AND he can do a lot of the secret magics? Of course he can. a;sldkfalksj I love him ridiculously.
(I probably should wait until I've read more to start developing feelings on the characters and their dynamics with each other, but, whatever. That's no fun.)
→ Speaking of manga that nobody but me is reading, I've been reading +C Sword and Cornett and it was cute during the first chapters, but then it got AMAZING and I had to recreate my journey. I can't even tell if this is shoujo, shounen, or BL anymore! The art looks so pretty, like a shoujo manga! The action scenes and plot about conspiracies and princes in hiding make me think it's shounen! And then they put the prince in a dress for half of the chapter and I'm like, I HAVE READ BL MANGA THAT IS LESS GAY THAN THIS.
I'm up to chapter 4 or 5, so I guess it's spoilery, but it's so early on in the manga that I'm not sure if it should really count.
I was hesitant to pay too much credence to the gay fanserivce early on, but eventually it became kind of clear that it's a fair ways into the set-up and there's only one female character so far... who is Belca's (the main character, the third prince born from a common woman, so he's treated almost like a second class citizen at times, even while being treated like a prince) baby sister, probably no more than ten years old or so. But, okay, they could introduce more women later or maybe it's just a male character-heavy shounen series.
But then Belca had to go on the run and was saved by a bard named Eco (who also looks like he's straight out of a shoujo manga, he's so pretty) and I swear to god, when they had to hide in a small crawlspace from the guards looking for Belca, Eco practically had him on his lap.
No, seriously, he is pretty much in Eco's lap right there. While Eco puts an arm around him. And Belca blushes. Blushes. I'm pretty sure I've read this scenario in a bunch of other BL manga, honestly.
But, all right, it's possible that I've just got BL on the brain lately, since I've been craving it and this current season is kind of gay. I can dismiss that as either just having fun with the fujoshi in the audience or just me reading too much into it. Moving on!
The guards leave and Belca's depressed because he doesn't see a way out of this situation, so maybe it would be better if he just died. Especially since his older brother (whom he loved dearly) is dead at the hands of this whole, huge, seemingly insurmountable plot that Belca just found out about and he has no idea what to do or how the real world works, which Eco agrees with.
And then he gets right up in Belca's face, practically touching their foreheads together, while he lifts the primseed in Belca's hair that shows he's the third prince and says he knows who Belca is, right? This is all very dramatic and full of eye-fucking scenes and I'm raising my eyebrows a little, but still, maybe I just have BL on the brain. Maybe maybe. Eco says that Belca's just giving up, not doing anything, like he did before. ^__^ Which sets Belca off, so Eco strikes back and shoves him down onto the bed, saying, "I can give you what you always wanted."
He's strangling Belca (to kill him, because Belca's just ready to roll over and die), but the way it's framed... seriously, I have read gay manga that's less gay than this.
And, yes, all those pages were necessary, shut up!
So, at this point I'm definitely giving this series the side-eye. But it goes back to semi-generic (if super pretty) shounen-esque manga for awhile, at least until I get to the next chapter (chapter 4) when IN COMES THE CROSSDRESSING.
They had to run away from the guards who were about to capture Belca, but Eco knew someplace to hide, which turns out to be a brothel. The guards rush in, but there are only a bunch of lovely women there, including one who has the same coloring as Belca and is wearing a dress that covers her up very well.
I STARTED LAUGHING IMMEDIATELY. THIS MANGA LOVES ME. Especially when the lead guard is like #*___*# over "Marie-Belle" and he'll definitely come back to buy that miss as a customer...! And ON THE SAME PAGE, Eco's like, well, at least it worked~ and "Surprisingly, those clothes suit you. Although, you're not prettier than me." LOL FOREVER.
Then there's a whole thing with Eco wanting to sing Belca's song (since he's a bard and he likes songs that are about the truth of events) and it's framed in this way that's just....
It's very dramatic, with Eco standing in front of Belca, holding one hand to his chest in the hint of a bow to the seated Belca, the dramatic poses, the way Eco REACHES OUT TO HOLD BELCA'S HAND AS HE SWEARS TO DO EVERYTHING FOR BELCA'S SAKE in exchange for "his song". Suddenly, I'm not just smiling at the playing with the fujoshi in the audience, I'm actually WONDERING now. Because there's no way it's not that blatant on purpose....
And then I look on Wikipedia and see that it runs in Comic Zero-Sum and SUDDENLY IT ALL MADE SENSE. I thought it might take a bit of the fun out of reading the manga to know it was josei (and therefore probably intending exactly what I was thinking) but it's still super pretty and genuinely hilarious and, hey, maybe I might actually get some Eco/Belca after all, instead of just teasing!
IF ONLY THE SCANLATORS WOULD GET IN GEAR ON IT. The last time IEM released a chapter was two months ago (which was chapter 25) and another group has done two chapters after that, but there's still at least two that haven't been translated yet! I don't want to get into a manga that's not going to get translated!! ;___;
(On the other hand, it's gotten attention from several groups, so there is interest! o/)
→ Dramatic readings of terrible fanfic porno is a great listen while I'm doing other stuff. I'm quickly running out of podcasts to listen to (and I'm terrible at finding new ones) so this was a fun bonus! I started with Chocobo Nights which was hilarious and just... w-well. NSFW. Also, a dramatic reading of Black Day by Artemis' Lover Oscar, OH SHIT YES.
→ Finally I found a bit more news on the Hotfile front: Their response to the suit, which I found interesting.
→ Ah, finally! The new Oglaf story is up! It's four pages this time and I just laughed like a maniac at that one line on the fourth page. It took me a second to get it and then just. FOREVER LOL.
► FARMVILLE:
→ LEVEL 94, WOOHOO.
→ Not my farm, but the farm of the week looks amazing! I don't usually like those blue hay bales for water features (and I still think Zynga should let us buy water pieces that work like fences, how they could connect together, people would EAT THAT UP, for real) but that looks AMAZING.
→ I haven't done much on my farm today, aside from creating one more pen, this time with a green/blue theme! Since there aren't a lot of green horses (aside from the shamrock pony foals), I decided to use some of my green and blue sheep, since they looked kind of cool together. I also have a green cow and two green calves and a handful of shamrock chicken and sheep in there. To top it off, I used clover flowers which will only last two weeks, but it'll be easy to make more.
It looks a little lonely off by itself (but at least I adjusted it to match the other rose-fence pen) and I'm not sure the pink roses look good with the green/blue theme, but I at least like the arrangement of everything else. :D
► MANGA:
→ I've been reading Bastard!! again and I'm into volume three now!
I last finished off just as Dark Schneider and Gara were finishing up their battle where Gara was like YOU SHOULD BE OUT OF SPELLS MWAHAHAHA and Darshu responded with, well, let me fling another one in your face anyway! :D
Gara is like YOU FUCKING LIED THAT YOU WERE OUT OF SPELLS, YOU DICK!
And Dark Schneider is like, MAYBE, I DID~. *TROLLFACE*
a;sdlfkja;lskjsl;kj Dark Schneider is the most amazing troll in this series, seriously.
His face when his severed arm (after Gara cut it off in their fight), oh, just happens to jump right back on his body and Gara is like, "..........ugh, one more thing to hate about you... your fucked up metabolism." GARA SPEAKS TRUTH. Dark Schneider lies, he still has more spells than any sane person should be able to cast, and his arm just hops right back onto his body even if you cut it off. It'd piss anyone off!
Also, this manga is kind of gay at times. Or at least Kall-Su is. When Gara has to be impressed with DS anyway (since Dark Schneider had time to cast a shielding spell over Sheila, Yoko, and Gara's pet dragon Lars, whom he didn't have to protect, but did anyway), Kall-Su says about his possible defection over to Dark Schneider's side, "I cannot believe it... Gara betray us? Did something happen between him and DS?" As he imagines Dark Schneider slinging a comy farm over Gara's shoulder. "Though he may be a ninja, he's still a simple warrior at heart. Was he ensnared by the charmisma and cunning of DS?"
I read that and I was just like, "....oh, Kall-Su. You are precious with your imagination there."
No one will ever sway me from my conviction that Kall-Su is as in love with Dark Schneider as he is annoyed by him! I mean, it's obviously a complicated relationship, just like Dark Schneider's relationship with Arshes Nei, which is on full display shortly after that.
I love this entire scene, it's just so... typical of Bastard!! as a manga. Dark Schneider has just defeated Gara, which means Arshes Nei is up next to go against him, but they have a ton of history. He appears to her in a dream, telling her that it's been awhile since they've seen each other, which causes her a lot of conflict, thinking that Darshu is their enemy now. But, he tells her, you'd better not go against him! He raised her, he's practically her father! Not that that means he thinks of her as a daughter, given that he was fucking her for years and he unzips her suit, sliding a hand inside to grasp at her breast, saying very directly and seriously and almost softly, "I love you. You know that."
This is what makes Dark Schneider's character work for me--he is an utter bastard who doesn't care about what others wan, he just does and says what he wants, especially with those people who he views as his. (Like Arshes Nei here.) And yet he genuinely loves her, if in his own way. He's very direct about those he loves while the narrative doesn't back down from what a complete dickbag he is as a character! He can do the right thing, he can save people, and be a cheerful dickbag!
Of course, they also have some fun with it, when Arshes Nei fights back because he's playing on her feelings, especially since she hasn't forgotten that he couldn't keep it in his pants (which is interesting here--even when he's in love with Yoko, he's still feeling up Arshes Nei here, and I'm looking forward to seeing how his TOTAL LACK of monogamy may or may not change over the course of the manga) and DON'T YOU DARE FORGET THAT YOU KEPT A HAREM OF WOMEN EVEN WHILE WE WERE TOGETHER and whacks him right in the face. And then lights him on fire with a thunderbolt to the face, ending the dream.
I... I love Arshes Nei kind of a lot.
I love that, yeah, sure, there are times when she seems almost like a fanservice character, but she's actually really strong and she's got some bitching new spells since the last time Dark Schneider saw her, including some ancient magics that hardly anyone has been able to unearth, aside from Dark Schneider himself. He's surprised that she's this much stronger since the last time he saw her, which makes me wonder just how much has changed while he was sealed away in Luche.
That's the weird thing about reading this manga--it's hilariously 90s with the art style, it's borderline (if not outright) ecchi at times, it's silly and completely OTT, yet I find myself genuinely drawn into it and its characters. And the fucking background world, too! The description of magics in the universe is actually kind of interesting! I knew that DS had fire magic, of course, but he's also strong with wind magic? And there are four basic categories of magic--White magic, Black magic, Elemental magic, and everything else, including the Ancient/Secret magic that includes charms and wards. Which is what Dark Schneider's golem was made of.
Seriously, he's already the strongest wizard on the planet, he's got a ridiculous load of fire magic and he's good at wind magic, too, AND he can do a lot of the secret magics? Of course he can. a;sldkfalksj I love him ridiculously.
(I probably should wait until I've read more to start developing feelings on the characters and their dynamics with each other, but, whatever. That's no fun.)
→ Speaking of manga that nobody but me is reading, I've been reading +C Sword and Cornett and it was cute during the first chapters, but then it got AMAZING and I had to recreate my journey. I can't even tell if this is shoujo, shounen, or BL anymore! The art looks so pretty, like a shoujo manga! The action scenes and plot about conspiracies and princes in hiding make me think it's shounen! And then they put the prince in a dress for half of the chapter and I'm like, I HAVE READ BL MANGA THAT IS LESS GAY THAN THIS.
I'm up to chapter 4 or 5, so I guess it's spoilery, but it's so early on in the manga that I'm not sure if it should really count.
I was hesitant to pay too much credence to the gay fanserivce early on, but eventually it became kind of clear that it's a fair ways into the set-up and there's only one female character so far... who is Belca's (the main character, the third prince born from a common woman, so he's treated almost like a second class citizen at times, even while being treated like a prince) baby sister, probably no more than ten years old or so. But, okay, they could introduce more women later or maybe it's just a male character-heavy shounen series.
But then Belca had to go on the run and was saved by a bard named Eco (who also looks like he's straight out of a shoujo manga, he's so pretty) and I swear to god, when they had to hide in a small crawlspace from the guards looking for Belca, Eco practically had him on his lap.
No, seriously, he is pretty much in Eco's lap right there. While Eco puts an arm around him. And Belca blushes. Blushes. I'm pretty sure I've read this scenario in a bunch of other BL manga, honestly.
But, all right, it's possible that I've just got BL on the brain lately, since I've been craving it and this current season is kind of gay. I can dismiss that as either just having fun with the fujoshi in the audience or just me reading too much into it. Moving on!
The guards leave and Belca's depressed because he doesn't see a way out of this situation, so maybe it would be better if he just died. Especially since his older brother (whom he loved dearly) is dead at the hands of this whole, huge, seemingly insurmountable plot that Belca just found out about and he has no idea what to do or how the real world works, which Eco agrees with.
And then he gets right up in Belca's face, practically touching their foreheads together, while he lifts the primseed in Belca's hair that shows he's the third prince and says he knows who Belca is, right? This is all very dramatic and full of eye-fucking scenes and I'm raising my eyebrows a little, but still, maybe I just have BL on the brain. Maybe maybe. Eco says that Belca's just giving up, not doing anything, like he did before. ^__^ Which sets Belca off, so Eco strikes back and shoves him down onto the bed, saying, "I can give you what you always wanted."
He's strangling Belca (to kill him, because Belca's just ready to roll over and die), but the way it's framed... seriously, I have read gay manga that's less gay than this.
And, yes, all those pages were necessary, shut up!
So, at this point I'm definitely giving this series the side-eye. But it goes back to semi-generic (if super pretty) shounen-esque manga for awhile, at least until I get to the next chapter (chapter 4) when IN COMES THE CROSSDRESSING.
They had to run away from the guards who were about to capture Belca, but Eco knew someplace to hide, which turns out to be a brothel. The guards rush in, but there are only a bunch of lovely women there, including one who has the same coloring as Belca and is wearing a dress that covers her up very well.
I STARTED LAUGHING IMMEDIATELY. THIS MANGA LOVES ME. Especially when the lead guard is like #*___*# over "Marie-Belle" and he'll definitely come back to buy that miss as a customer...! And ON THE SAME PAGE, Eco's like, well, at least it worked~ and "Surprisingly, those clothes suit you. Although, you're not prettier than me." LOL FOREVER.
Then there's a whole thing with Eco wanting to sing Belca's song (since he's a bard and he likes songs that are about the truth of events) and it's framed in this way that's just....
It's very dramatic, with Eco standing in front of Belca, holding one hand to his chest in the hint of a bow to the seated Belca, the dramatic poses, the way Eco REACHES OUT TO HOLD BELCA'S HAND AS HE SWEARS TO DO EVERYTHING FOR BELCA'S SAKE in exchange for "his song". Suddenly, I'm not just smiling at the playing with the fujoshi in the audience, I'm actually WONDERING now. Because there's no way it's not that blatant on purpose....
And then I look on Wikipedia and see that it runs in Comic Zero-Sum and SUDDENLY IT ALL MADE SENSE. I thought it might take a bit of the fun out of reading the manga to know it was josei (and therefore probably intending exactly what I was thinking) but it's still super pretty and genuinely hilarious and, hey, maybe I might actually get some Eco/Belca after all, instead of just teasing!
IF ONLY THE SCANLATORS WOULD GET IN GEAR ON IT. The last time IEM released a chapter was two months ago (which was chapter 25) and another group has done two chapters after that, but there's still at least two that haven't been translated yet! I don't want to get into a manga that's not going to get translated!! ;___;
(On the other hand, it's gotten attention from several groups, so there is interest! o/)