Dear Manga
So I am way, WAY behind on all of my manga. For various reasons I have just purposely let it all get so far ahead of me, usually because it is either being awesome and I don't want to burn it up all at once (Eyeshield) or because it is boring or disappointing me horribly and I keep hoping that maybe if I let it ride long enough it'll stop sucking (Bleach, Naruto, Dogs, Tenjou Tenge).
Since these little "letters" are based on the last time I took a look at what was going on in the story, they may be quite out of date, but I wanted to express my feelings somewhere.
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Dear Eyeshield:
You are awesome. My god am I ever glad I came back to you. I haven't caught up to the last two arcs because I know you're going to end soon and I want to stretch things out as much as possible, but I accidentally spoiled myself on fandomsecrets the other day (like an idiot) and I understand that you have brought Gaou and Marco back. I just wanted to say thank you for that. No, really.
THANK YOU.
You don't know how happy that makes me. I honestly never expected to see those two again, and while I'm making a fuss over them because they're my current favorites, it's pretty goddamn awesome all around that you decided to bring so many great characters back at all. Thank you for not forgetting them. If I see Rui again, even if it's just for five minutes because his bike broke down somewhere, you will officially be the greatest thing ever.
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Dear Bleach:
1. Stop. Wasting. My time. Either do something or GTFO.
2. STOP turning your awesome female characters into two-dimensional damsels-in-distress whose only purpose is to stand around with their hands clasped, waiting for their rescuer (it's technically rescuerS, but we all know that Ichigo is the ONLY ONE THAT'S ALLOWED TO COUNT, EVER, ZOMG) to come for them. I cannot tell you how much this fills me with RAGE and SADNESS.
and
3. A whale? Seriously?
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Dear Naruto:
Stop sucking. Please? It breaks my heart when you suck.
Also, please try to remember what an awesome ensemble cast you have. You gave the world such wonderful characters to fall in love with (male AND female!), and now you seem content to simply ignore them. Why?
PS.
Sasuke, stop sucking or GO HOME.
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Dear Reborn:
I am...not sure how I feel about you at the moment. For one thing, I don't know if I like the direction the story is going in now. I know everyone else seems pretty excited about the changes, but I honestly kind of miss the old "slice-of-life-on-crack" style of writing. It just felt more intimate. This switch to the "mission-on-the-run" format (which I get enough of from Bleach and Naruto) seems a little jarring to me, and it breaks up the characters in ways I don't like.
And the rings/box system, ehn, it just seems kind of confused and needlessly over-complicated to me. It looks kind of cool on the surface, but overall it comes off to me like the mangaka felt there needed to be a big advanced fighting/weapons system since that's what all the cool kids were doing, so she stuck it on there for the hell of it. It's like bankai + pokemon in a box. But whatever.
The art style is bothering me a little bit, too. It's not bad, and I still quite enjoy the composition and color work, but the regular weekly art is a little sparse and messy looking to me. I'm not sure if that's a stylistic choice or if it's just a result of having to adapt to getting your work out on time every week. Hrm.
Of course, if you bring Lancia back I will probably shut my piehole about ALL of this and be happy with anything I get.
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Dear Dogs:
You are very pretty. But overall - kind of boring. And admittedly, I was kind of expecting that since the art from the original Dogs manga was it's biggest selling point for me, but now the art doesn't even look the same anymore. And yeah, your plot moves slower than dial-up internet.
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Dear D.Grayman:
You jumped the shark on me somehow and I'm not exactly sure when or why. I hate to say it, but I think it was sometime way back on that damn boat; I seriously thought that whole thing was never gonna end. Even aside from that, though, there's something missing that I can't quite put my finger on.
I do know one contributing factor is the art. It looks so much messier than in the beginning, and so much more generic. One of the reasons this series first caught my eye was the unusual art and character designs, and now it looks like everything else. Sadness.
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Dear Tenjou Tenge:
What. The fuck?
Yeah, thanks for jumping the shark like a million years ago Oh! Great. I'm not even sure why this is here.
But yeah. In conclusion - thank god for Eyeshield.