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Forum - View topicThe Fall 2020 Manga Guide
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5935 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Well, the "The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent" and the "By the Grace of the Gods" sound interesting. But the reviews seem to indicate blandness. I'll probably try them, but hope they get a little more exciting in future volumes.
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Seagloom
Posts: 298 |
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The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent is a primarily slice of life series with a touch of romance. Conflict is usually easily resolved and not in a particularly arduous way either. I find that to be its main appeal. Particularly with how Sei and Aira are handled. The sole exception usually being whenever the story explores Sei and Aira's feelings about what they lost by being plucked from their lives in Japan.
By the Grace of the Gods veers closer to being a standard isekai series with more over-the-top action scenes as the story advances. It can also be surprisingly sad and dark when it explores the protagonist's history on Earth. However, it is still mostly slice of life. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 2654 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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I mean, yeah, more or less. Like seagloom said, they're both takes on the slice-of-life story, so if that's not something you like, I'd probably steer clear. For what it's worth, I liked the novel of The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent much better than the manga, and I found that both versions dragged less than the two iterations of By the Grace of the Gods I've experienced. A good way to (at this point) distinguish them is that Saint is more about the characters while Gods has more of a focus on the world. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10019 Location: Virginia |
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Blade of the Immortal Wow that is a blast from the past. Dark Horse started releasing that title in 1996 a bit more than a year before I started reading manga. One advantage of the comic book (floppy) format is that the large page size really allowed Samura's art to shine. His artwork also made for some really great posters.
While it was coming out I fell a bit behind in reading it. When the last volume was issued, I sat down and read the entire series in consecutive sessions. It manages to maintain its excitement and thoughtfulness right to the end. While there are a few truly evil characters, most are a mix of good and bad. At times it is hard to know just who to root for. It is more interesting that way. |
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TarsTarkas
Posts: 5935 Location: Virginia, United States |
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I loved the comic book size Akira, Drakkun, Caravan Kidd, and Outlanders. Dreaded when everything shrank to the current manga size. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10019 Location: Virginia |
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Yes, our comic book size was close to the original magazine size in Japan. Unfortunately the publishers opted for the digest size common for compilation volumes there. It saved money I guess.
Dark Horse continued to issue Blade of the Immortal in comic book format until November 2007. That made it the last series to be issued like that in the US (as far as I remember). Oh! My Goddess had switched to all trades in 2004 and Ranma 1/2 a year earlier. |
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LegitPancake
 Posts: 1311 Location: Texas, USA |
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Really disappointed Dark Horse continues to publish Blade of the Immortal left to right, even if the art itself isn't flipped. It just seems laziness from them at this point. If I'm gonna pay $50 for a hardcover collector's edition, I want it in the original orientation.
Next to the pristine Berserk and Hellsing Deluxe Editions, this one is just a botched cash grab. |
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blahmoomoo
Posts: 504 |
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As stated in the first review, the author requested the reordered artwork to remain. So it wasn't Dark Horse's decision. This is similar to Ghost Reaper Girl, which is currently being published in the Shonen Jump and Manga Plus apps, where the author requested the reading order to be left to right in the Western release. The Carole & Tuesday review's link is currently broken. |
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2372 |
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capnspooz
Posts: 3 |
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That shit is so annoying. It just looks like Samura and Ikeda don't understand the current landscape of english manga. Most people I know don't want to buy or read flipped manga anymore. |
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VampireNaomi
 Posts: 146 |
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I wonder what the author's reasoning is because Blade of the Immortal recently started in Germany and these pictures make it look like their version is right to left. |
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LegitPancake
Posts: 1311 Location: Texas, USA |
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I’ve read the author info pages on previous Dark Horse releases of the manga, and from what I could tell, it seems like back in the 90s, Dark Horse wanted to flip the art to make it more appealing to comic readers, but the author refused, so the author and Dark Horse made a compromise by having the panels cut and paste left and right to get by without mirroring. If the author is actively making them release it left to right, then that certainly is unfortunate and I hope DH has contacted them ahead of this printing (if that mandate was from the 90s and never brought back up again, that doesn’t really count in my mind). This could be verified if other western countries’ manga are the same (like Germany, France, Spain, Italy, etc). But from what I could tell, it seemed like the author wants it in its original format but reluctantly allowed them to do the cut and paste method, and DH has never gone through the effort of fixing that. Either way, I’m still not supporting such an expensive edition that isn’t definitively for collectors. |
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blahmoomoo
Posts: 504 |
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I see. It makes sense for an author to be against the idea of changing the art (even if Dark Horse took the extra effort to rearrange the panels, instead of simply mirroring them). Maybe it proved to be a popular series regardless, and the author now thinks keeping the format the same would keep that appeal. I agree that printing the art in its original form is preferable though, especially in a collector's edition. I also don't understand why the author asked Ghost Reaper Girl to be mirrored when that is now the exception, not the rule, and Rosairo + Vampire never was released that way as far as I can tell. Notably, it seems the Manga Plus app was not designed to support left to right, so it's presented as vertical scrolling instead, which breaks two page spreads. As far as art alterations go, I do appreciate art localizations when they're done well and aren't replacing something iconic. For example, I noticed that The Way of the Househusband's releases appear to localize paper fliers and other important signs in a way that matches the original intent while being fully readable in English, instead of using a margin TL note to get the point across (potentially missing a joke or two). |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18447 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Based on my familiarity with the novel side of 86, I'm going to guess that the first manga volume doesn't cover a big chunk of the first novel, because over the course of the first novel the perspective split is much closer to even (maybe 55-45 in favor of Shin). Lena doesn't ultimately prove to be the only Alba who "hasn't drunk the government kook-aid," but she's definitely a small minority.
And yes, the Republic of San Magnolia's treatment of the 86s is heavily modeled on Nazi Germany and its treatment of Jews and other minority groups. (Historically, it was not unusual for common German citizens to be wholly unaware of what went on at the concentration camps.) I don't doubt that it will be uncomfortable reading for those for whom the Holocaust was personal, and you may not have even seen the worst of it yet depending on where the first manga volume stops. As for Lena as a character, she starts out pretty bland but evolves more than Shin does over the course of the story as she realizes that this isn't just a matter of racial injustice; her country is dooming itself in a practical sense by what it's doing. The source novels are among the better-written LN series out there, so I have high hopes for the manga. I am curious, though; does the manga prominently feature garters when depicting Lena? The original author admits that he has a fetish for them. |
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HannoX
Posts: 200 |
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I haven't read The Apothecary Diaries manga, but I have read the first two parts of the LN posted on J-Novel and I highly recommend it in either version. As always, your mileage may vary.
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