Forum - View topicRIGHT TURN ONLY!! - Alice in the Country of Ninjas
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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Oh hell yeah! Sorry,I just finished reading After School Nightmare a few months ago, I really enjoyed that series. The ending is utterly trippy, it's really thought-provoking, it's really angsty, it's really dark for a shoujo series.
Otherwise... got to at least check out Ax, and yes, I need to finally get on Twin Spica. But my list of interlibrary loans is already so long...! Wait, never mind, my library just got Twin Spica 1 and has Ax on order. I love small-scale socialism! 
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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On Naruto: that is possibly the best Naruto cover ever! I love the symbolism: Jiraiya, then and "now", standing back-to-back with former student Pain (Nagato) and later student Naruto, against a backround of Jiraiya's novel. It's quite beautiful for a shonen series. Of course, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and this volume has way too many rationalization flashbacks from the villan for my tastes. spoiler[Seriously, does anyone care about Pain's dog?!] One-two-many flashbacks aside, that scene you described is truly heartwarming and significant, plus it's a rare case in which the reset button doesn't bother me too much. Maybe 'because I was totally spoiled for it!*
On Ax: Sounds weird. Is it just me, or did they pick that cover just to be provacative. If I didn't know better, I'd think Ax was full of Ecchi or even outright hentai. I'm still on the fence about it: is it art, or artistic justification for drawing naked women spread-eagled in a field of flowers? Are any of the contributers women (that might even out Tatsumi's stuff, which I usually find misogynistic)? Also, reguardless of sexual imagery, how many of the 400 pages actually have a plot to them? Rambling dialog by incomprhensible characters in strangely drawn settings rarely hold water. But that Fuedal-scifi-horror story sounds good! Gintama is basically fuedal-scifi-comedy, and it's tons of fun, so I see nothing wrong with the combo at all!
Twin Spica: I got vol. 1. I love the characters, intense test sequences, and realistic, Planetes-esque take on space exploration. I disliked the overly sentimental flashbacks and spoiler[lion-headed ghost guardian, heck I *hated* the lion-headed ghost guardian!]. How much of which elements get developed later on? I think I'll wait 'till vol. 3 or 4 before I continue... If that was a review of After School Nightmare in it's entirety, I think it's a little misleading. ASN is good, but it has a fare share of sex and violence, no? Glad you're enjoying con season, Carlo! I'm really impressed you didn't skip a column! (I would've been dissapointed: RTO! is my favorite!  )
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maaya
Posts: 976 |
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mmh, I don't think so. It is just a mature shojo title, as explicit as f.ex. Nana. And the violence is always "unreal" and never very much if you consider how violent a typical shonen manga (f.ex. Naruto) or even typical dark mature shojo manga (f.ex. Kaori Yuki's or even CLAMP's works are much more violent than ASN) can get. ASN is just very dark. |
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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It's not as violent as say, X or Angel Sanctuary but it is rated 16+ with good reason. As for the sex, it's mostly implied apart from 1 scene which isn't detailed at all (I think, been a while since I read it). I think ASN is a good mature shoujo title, because I found that you don't tend to really notice the sex and violence as they're actually part of the story, not just fanservice. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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I'm really confused about how a hermaphodite doesn't have male genitalia. I thought the thing about hermaphrodites is that they have both male and female genitalia? Did the writer mean to write eunuch or something?
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maaya
Posts: 976 |
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That's not the only possibility (f.ex. a woman who has XY-chromosome etc.), but everything is explained at the end. So, just read it, you won't regret it ^^ |
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Yes, a number of the contributors are women - including Akino Kondo who did the cover. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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Uh, yeah, if it strikes you as unusual and potentially biologically nonsensical.... read the whole series. It makes sense in the end. I truly do not want to tell you even under spoiler marks. It's rather a huge twist, but one that thankfully makes a LOT of sense in hindsight. As for sex and violence, there's nothing particularly graphic. There is some real nightmare fuel in it, though, like the girl spoiler[with a hole in her head where her face should be]. And some of the psychological twistedness in the characters is, well, there's a reason that they decided to switch out "infirmary" in the Japanese title with "nightmare." |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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Aw darn, I looked up some other reviews of After School Nightmare and it sounds pretty cool but since Go Comi is out of print I'm a little worried about hunting all the books down. Crud, why did Go Comi and CMX have to fail so close together, my list is getting kinda long.
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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I managed to find it all pretty easily through my library, so you might want to start there; and at least the Borders in my town still has quite a few copies in stock, since this wasn't a huge seller. |
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Agent355
Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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I know the ending, but the fact that the hermaphrodite protagonist has sex with both a girl and a boy and the girl definately thinks of the protagonist as a boy...well, they were both virgins at the time, I guess.
I guess I confused grahic imagery with "violence." My bad. That hand-thing, grabbing people and trying to choke them *shivers*. The manga is freaky! As for it's availability, don't give up before you start! I have some CMX titles on my wish list which I don't have the money for atm, but as long as Amazon lists them, I keep up hope! Also, never underestimate the power of small-scale socialism! (I *love* that phrase, Vashfanatic!) I have 4 library cards from 3 different states (I've moved a lot  ) and some states are better at interlibrary loans, holds, reservations, aquisition suggestions, etc. Always check the website catalogs of libraries around you, and if you ever happen to be in Brookline, MA take a trip to the main branch! It's like a con dealer room, except everything is free! They have box sets of even rare anime that you can check out, and a huge selection of manga in both the teen and grown up sections downstairs. Librarian Robin Brenner (I believe she's the head librarian of the YA section) is an outspoken manga/manwha/graphic novel/sequential art advocate, and that library is an otaku's heaven. Viva la libraries!
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Bell02
 Posts: 168 |
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I just want to say that this is the first time I saw it, but World Magna of the month is a genius idea from you guys, and I really love that feature to expose more non-Japanese artist to their targeted Japanese Manga loving demograph (wither it is a positive rating or not)
I absolutely love it!
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Keichitsu0305
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Agent355 wrote:
I'm quite slow but exactly which manga are you referring to 
Is it the AX manga or something different? |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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After School Nightmare. And Agent355, I always assumed that she preferred the kind of sex she'd be having with "him" because of, you know, the massive childhood trauma. |
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Agent355
Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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@Vash: yeah, I thought of that, too. But I remember when the movie "Boys Don't Cry" came out. It's based on a true (and very tragic) story of a young transgender female-to-male individual, who ran away from home and managed to convince almost everyone that (s)he was biologically male, including a girlfriend, even after (or despite the fact that) they had sex.
A lot of people were baffled as to how the girlfriend couldn't figure out the biological gender of her boyfriend, even after they had sex, but it happened. (Disclaimer: I never saw the movie, I just remember the discussions about it). If I'm squicking anyone out, let me know! 
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