Forum - View topicRIGHT TURN ONLY!! - Mage in the Shell
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GATSU
Posts: 15564 |
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Oh, hell, yes. Shirow loves the techno-babble. That's why Dominion's the only series I remotely liked from him, since it relies more on his strengths in writing. The manga are better, though. But I'm surprised you didn't mention the deleted "cyber-yuri" scene. 
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I definitely do need to actually look into Monster one of these days. But, as always, there are just so many titles on my list, plus of course the ones I'm already following and far behind on.
So many mangas, not enough time/money 
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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About Negima, personally I don't care that frankly it's not unique in anything other than the sheer number of stuff he throws in. The reason is simple, someone is eventually going to copy the original things losing their originality.
The best case of this is One Piece, which has always struggled in America simply because Naruto, and pretty much every other shonen jump story has stolen the "I am going to be the best ____" so One Piece has lost any originality it has. The result is that One Piece isn't even selling better than Rosario + Vampire. |
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pachy_boy
Posts: 1339 |
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Yeah. It's for that reason I couldn't get into Orion, although it looked cool when I flipped the pages of it at the bookstore, and it's for that reason I'm not even going to check out the original Appleseed manga. But I'm glad that I have Ghost in the Shell. If this is once again the censored version as I've heard, then I'm all the more glad I got the Dark Horse edition. Here's hoping the Satoshi Kon manga gets picked up here, and the praise for Monster is well-deserved since I'm currently watching the series on SyFy. |
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1850 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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I actually special-ordered the bilingual edition of GITS a few years ago, but sold it when I saw how awful the lettering was. Seemed to be almost the same translation as the Studio Proteus version (didn't get to do a side by side comparison). The footnote overload really gets in the way whatever version you get.
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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If it's purely a matter of money, always make sure to check out your local library. I do most of my manga reading that way. You can always request for them to purchase it, or see if you can loan it from any other libraries they might be connected to. Libraries can be awesome that way. Mostly, though, just read Monster. or anything by Urasawa. Seriously. |
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hakojo
 Posts: 208 Location: NE Ohio. |
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You should give Appleseed a shot. The philosophical stuff is kept to a bare minimum - it's mostly plot and police action, with the occasional bleak moment of paranoid rambling on the part of the heroine. Incidentally, I was disappointed to hear that they re-censored Ghost in the Shell for the new release. I guess I'll have to go find one of the old Dark Horse copies now... |
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einhorn303
 Posts: 1180 |
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Seriously, how can you review a manga without mentioning its censorship issues? That's bad journalism.
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ultimafullmetal
 Posts: 70 Location: Fredericksburg, Ohio |
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This is how i read most of my manga and watch most of my anime. My library is linked with others in northeast Ohio and you can order things from other libraries and pick them up at the one closest to you. It's really quite amazing. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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When I was living in Iowa, I read Basara, with the copies ordered from a library in Arizona that had the whole collection. It really is amazing! You're paying taxes for your library, the books belong to you, so you really ought to make use of its services. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15564 |
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pachy: Appleseed's got the opposite problem, in that it's not deep enough, 'cus it wants to be that 80s cop show, but it's trapped by Shirow's inability to move a story forward, which is why that last anime movie blew, too. Plus, he suddenly decides to bring that story back into the "real world", rather than keep it post-apocalyptic. Guy can't make up his mind.
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Sophisticat
 Posts: 165 |
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Okay, this just got a big "wtf?" from me, which was just amplified by the nonsense that preceded it. If it were not for Shirow's mastery of storytelling, we would not have masterpieces out of GitS or Appleseed. That's not to say he's without fault in some instances, just that the review of the negatives are completely off-base. Human/machine interaction on the level of consciousness is complex. Shirow's mastery is being able to present his visionary philosophy in relatively simple terms (GitS is really more cut and dry than given credit for). You'd think that an artist would be praised for putting in detail in his drawings, rather than admonished for it as one of the pleasures of reading GitS is precisely this amount of detail in both story and drawings, so I don't see how anyone could complain about it. There are instances where the concepts and philosophy are more convoluted than they should be, but the Puppeteer arc is hardly one of them. I just have to conclude that most, if not all, of the "negatives" in the review are bullshit. There's a point where objective evaluation becomes opinion, not that I'd expect ANN to make the distinction. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15564 |
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Sophisticat: We'd appreciate the detail if it had anything to do with the story, and not just the set-up.
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Youkai Warrior
 Posts: 505 Location: Sarayashiki |
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The library is a good way to check out manga, and anime if they have any. I have a similiar problem, however, I found that much of the anime/manga on my list weren't worth my time or money. If I were you, I'd evaluate manga and anime titles. There could be some series on your list that really aren't that interesting after all. That's where the library comes in. You can check out a manga that is on your list to see if you like it or not, and if you don't, you didn't spend any money on buying a title you didn't like, yet read it in a legal way. And if you do, fork over the cash for the series.  Hopefully your library has manga, mine doesn't have that much at all. 
It's a shame, cause I really like One Piece, and even though it is typical shonen, the characters and the humor, (not to mention the theme of pirates) set it apart from Naruto and other Shonen Jump stories. To me, it's sad that Rosario + Vampire is selling better than One Piece. I think Rosario + Vampire sucks, I think One Piece is better. Please note I am saying "to me" and "I think", so nobody criticize me for pushing my opinions on others, because I'm not. I'm saying what I think. Not what I think everyone should think. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Rosario + Vampire is selling mainly because of perfect timing, right in the middle of this whole Twilight romantic-vampire craze. I'd bet that Karin/Chibi Vampire is also riding on the coattails of that too.
As for the Monster manga, it annoys me. Know why? It's out of print. I can't find a new copy of Volume 1 anywhere. Was it really that bad a seller? It'd be hard to tell people to go pick up a copy of Monster when Viz has stopped printing it and you can only get it used. (I've had some...negative experiences with used books. And the postal service when it comes to purchasing anything online.) |
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