Forum - View topicThe Fall 2018 Manga Guide
|
Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Arale Kurashiki
Posts: 781 |
|
|||
|
On Plus-Size Elf, Silverman says, "Mostly, though, this just feels a bit tone-deaf, as if it isn't sure if it's teasing, helping, or just outright laughing at its overweight characters." I'm pretty sure the answer is none of the above. This is fetish material, yo. The diet premise is probably just an excuse to have stories that focus on weight and eating + sell that to a bigger market.
|
||||
|
||||
littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
|
|||
|
Damn, Plus Sized Elf got ripped. As a woman in her late 20s, struggling to keep a healthy weight, I found this title to be pretty damn cute with great art. If you're uptight about sexy stuff, it's not for you, but all the fanservice was done in a way I never felt offended, and that's with it obviously being an adult title. And calling all the girls "moe through helplessness" is like.. the last thing I'd call any of these women outside of their ignorance of healthy exercise. They'd rip you up. And Olga needing to have her binge drinking addressed? She wasn't asking for any advice and didn't appear at all to have anything wrong with her outside of her beer belly which was addressed in an educational manner. Saying she's a raging alcoholic is a bit much.
It's obvious that Ecchi titles aren't for any of these reviewers. Yeah, it's a fairly new genre for readers here in the west, and I love multiple viewpoints on reviews, but if you get a lot of people reviewing a title, please also get someone who enjoys the genre if they're going to be assigned to review it please. |
||||
|
||||
zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
|
|||
|
I've never successfully gotten into any Tsutomu Nihei manga, so this sounds like another easy pass for me.
I've read Frankenstein already though. I've got mixed feelings. While I think it was a pretty faithful adaptation (from what I recall from reading it in high school), Junji Ito is just.... way creepier and scarier on a regular basis. I certainly appreciate Frankenstein for its place in literary history, I'm just not personally a very big fan of it. I feel like its ideas have been done better over the past 2 centuries and by the time I got to it, it almost seemed "quaint" to me. So for me, it's not about his adaptation itself, but that I'm just not a big fan of the source material and he doesn't really spruce it up, for better or worse. Now the second half of the volume? With the Oshikiri Cycle? Now that was right up my alley! I rather wish there was more of it, as it clearly had a lot of ideas that I feel could've been explored. If you want your more typical Junji Ito creep factor, it's still worth a read for the Oshikiri Cycle alone, imo. |
||||
|
||||
|
Rosiero
Posts: 127 |
|
|||
|
I was a little confused by Plus-Sized Elf myself. I enjoyed the art and I like the educational angle it occasionally has, but apart from that it fell really flat. There were a lot of conflicting viewpoints given on the girls' weight, which made it hard to figure out where the author is actually coming from.
I also didn't find the jokes very funny, when that clearly seemed to be intended as a big selling point. I'm not opposed to mean-spirited comedy when done right (I adore KonoSuba, for example), but there were parts in this manga that just felt really uncomfortable, like the chapter with the lycanthrope who becomes somehow compelled to act like a dog for a complete stranger. It seemed like the author was more concerned with introducing a ton of different girls with surface-level gimmicks instead of fleshing anything out, so we never get any deeper insight into these girls beyond "Here's a monster girl, this is her gimmick, and she's a bit overweight." The title character was absolutely grating by the end. |
||||
|
||||
Neohybrid_kai
 Posts: 146 Location: Indonesia |
|
|||
|
I knew Plus Sized Elf since its scanlation days, then I read that the tankoubon for vol. 1 is out so I ordered the Japanese version, then I read that its got licenced so I ordered the English version. Yes, I imported (see my location) two versions of the book, that should show much I love the series.
I won't deny that part of what makes me love the manga is the way the author draw the characters (always been a fan of thicc characters) but there are also other factors as well, like how useful the information and tips on work out (it motivates me to stay in shape), how it maintain to keeps the story from falling into monster girl harem/romance plot (I have enough of this), and the humor (and the pun!) is enjoyable. So yeah, this is the manga where I can ogle my eyes while reading some lesson about exercise, perfect combination I'd say 
|
||||
|
||||
harminia
 Posts: 2064 Location: australia |
|
|||
|
I'm still upset about MachiMaho because I have a character (that I've had but not done much with for years) who is a delinquent and becomes a magical girl (not accidentally though) and now I feel like I can't do anything with her............... loud sigh
anyway I'm glad the manga guide is back! |
||||
|
||||
BodaciousSpacePirate
 Subscriber Posts: 3019 |
|
|||
Reading Fairy Tail often feels like I'm watching an artist develop his own distinct style. |
||||
|
||||
|
Sailor Sedna
|
|
|||
|
I would get the "Eternal Edition" of the Sailor Moon manga, though I still don't like the "Guardian" term, I don't care if it's a new official term, "Soldier" sounds better.
|
||||
|
kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
|
|||
Or lower body, apparently. On the cover art, Lyule(?)'s knees appear to be pointed in opposite directions. Levitating-legs-in-skirt is common in anime-girl art for whatever reason, but that's some pretty impressive contortion. |
||||
|
||||
Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4634 Location: Gainesville, FL |
|
|||
|
Is "That Time I Got Reincarnated As..." now a sort of template name?
Is it a bad English translation or does the Japanese phrase also connotate a temporary/ passing situation in what is a permanent condition? It's not an episode of Friends (That One where I got reincarnated as Chandler), presumably our Yamcha or the eponymous Slime doesn't later get reincarnated again. ...although that might be an interesting tale. A sort of Quantum Leap of Isekai situations. |
||||
|
||||
msgundam2
 Posts: 271 Location: Indiana USA |
|
|||
|
Out of all of them Plus-Sized Elf is the only one I bought.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Scalfin
Posts: 249 |
|
|||
|
And now Silverman is knocking a book because it disagrees with her delusions about her pet cats.
I know that true objectivity is probably impossible, but it's really annoying how all of her reviews are and say more about her than the work she's reviewing. |
||||
|
||||
|
pharmboy23
Posts: 198 |
|
|||
|
If it’s objective, it’s not a review. Objective is ‘this book is a manga by blank called ‘title’ of x pages published by y’. How incredibly helpful.
Reviews are opinions and they aren’t yours, sorry. Having been a published film reviewer for several years many moons ago I am well aware that most people would love for reviews to do nothing but confirm what you believe but that’s not what they’re actually for. They are subjective takes based on the experiences and perceptions of the author. If you don’t like it, guess what? It’s okay! It really is. You can actually enjoy what you like without taking a dump on somebody for the way they took something or how they felt about it. And if it bugs you that much, don’t follow that reviewer. |
||||
|
||||
|
lys
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 1017 Location: mitten-state |
|
|||
(first, I want to say that it'd be great if people can note which review/series they're talking about when they make these comments. It's not always obvious, since the talkback thread is for the whole bunch of titles.) As a cat-fan and owner of three of them, I appreciated the warning, because I don't really want to read a story about cats turning on their now-tiny owners. (also, curling up with a giant-to-me cat sounds absolutely dreamy, so if I ever shrink I really do hope mine will recognize me! :) ) Maybe it is a little delusional of us, but I do think that fair representation of pet-and-owner relationships can be an important factor for some readers if it's a significant part of the plot. That aside, I'm also generally a fan of her reviews because of how she brings her own perspective and her literary background into the analysis of what she reads. I'm pretty good at figuring out for myself what series I'll enjoy (so I'm not that dependent on reviews to tell me), but these extra tidbits or different ways of thinking about elements of a story can be fascinating! Fortunately, with this guide we get to read 4 different reviewers' thoughts, so having one we favour less shouldn't be a big deal. |
||||
|
||||
CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
|
|||
This is a very specific fetish, but now I want to see it. It probably wouldn't manage to get licensed here. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group