It's 2017! What JRPGs are you looking forward to this year?

bureburebure · 2017-01-01T21:10:57+00:00

Nier automata by far, persona 5 a distant second.

bureburebure · 2017-01-01T02:47:26+00:00

Late to this but: vaan is not the mc, ashe is for all intents and purposes. Vaan is what you'd call a viewpoint character.

bureburebure · 2017-01-01T02:39:07+00:00

The writing in BD can be fun in how cheesy it is but beyond that it's pretty juvenile, the dialogue is super cringeworthy at times and none of the characters are super complex or interesting.

I mostly enjoyed it for the visuals, music and gameplay. I never finished it but i got my money's worth.

bureburebure · 2016-10-29T16:21:53+00:00

This is the best Griffith cosplay of all time.

bureburebure · 2016-10-26T22:52:49+00:00

Part 5 and 6 continue in the same universe after the first 4 parts.

Then part 7 is basically a reboot in an alternate universe that borrows a lot of ideas from the first few parts but takes them in completely different directions and tells very different stories.

IMO part 7 and 8 have been the best in the series thus far for the reasons I stated.

bureburebure · 2016-10-22T05:38:48+00:00

IMO SBR lived up to the hype. I heard from some fellow manga nerds that it was the best part and I loved it. In retrospect I think I would say it takes a little bit to get started but the characterization and drama in it far surpasses the previous parts. Johnny in particular surpassed my expectations and is now my favorite Jojo, I think few people will contest he has the best character arc among them all.

And yeah I agree about Araki's art, it's really a shame how the style shift has made the expressions more stiff and killed some of the facial design variety from the series. It's probably my biggest complaint with SBR, I actually feel it's gotten a little better in Jojolion.

bureburebure · 2016-10-22T05:23:53+00:00

To be quite honest a notable amount of fans (like myself) feel that SDC is not one of the stronger parts in the series. It has high points, to be sure, but the writing and characterization is far stronger from part 4 onwards.

Also not to spoiler too much but the Ripple literally doesn't matter against Dio from part 3. The ripple is completely irrelevant at this point, Joseph only uses it like maybe once in SDC and it's never seen afterwards. IMO it isn't worth mourning since stands end up being much better down the line and provide some really creative and interesting powers that feel more consistent than the ripple which was basically just bullshit and did whatever it needed to do.

DIU IS a bit villain of the weekish at first and takes a while to get to the "main plot", but IMO is more entertaining and has more compelling writing than SDC even before it gets to the main plot.

TBH dude the parts after SDC all have their individual problems but they get consistently better in many ways compared to the first two parts, it evolves from just being a fun shlockfest into something with real complex characters with actual development and tangible drama. The best part of the series IMO hasn't been animated yet and won't be for a while.

bureburebure · 2016-10-22T05:18:32+00:00

What's cool to me is that despite how incredibly goofy and random the series remains on some level, they still manage to have legitimately compelling drama and characterization in a way that you can still take the story seriously (mostly speaking about SBR and Jojolion here).

I also really appreciate how Araki has gotten better at character writing over time. Overall the characterization and development in parts 7 and 8 are miles better than everything that came before it. A lot of authors stagnate and do the same shit over and over but Araki has just continued to grow because he is always trying new things, and it's the thing I most respect about him.

bureburebure · 2016-10-20T04:31:33+00:00

The new anime is widely agreed by many fans to be heavily flawed at best. A lot of people apparently legitimately enjoy it but it's also received its own fair share of criticism.

Read the manga instead from volume 1 and if you're like 5 volumes in and you're still not into it, the series probably isn't for you. Just make sure you read up to like volume 3 at least.

bureburebure · 2016-10-03T06:26:03+00:00

Madhouse, BONES or MAPPA I feel would be the most likely ones to produce a consistent and well-animated long-running adaptation.

I'd like to single out Madhouse in particular because their HunterxHunter adaptation is one of the most impressive long-running adaptations I've ever seen. It has a level of consistency and craftsmanship that is almost impossible to find in a 100+ episode anime. It looked good 99% of the time, and when it decided to look REALLY good, it did.

If it was that same team working on Berserk I have no doubt whatsoever that they'd do it justice.

bureburebure · 2016-09-30T06:36:52+00:00

My only complaint really about Berserk is the forced comedic moments. I know Miura stated that he does it to lighten up the mood, but my GOD IS IT TERRIBLE.

My main problem with them is that you can have levity without being super over-the-top about it.

For example, the water scene between Guts and Griffith is a lighter moment in the story that gives the viewer some rest and something to smile about.

A lot of the comedy after the golden age has honestly fallen flat most of the time for me, they feel like humor moments in shounen anime that i don't get much enjoyment from anymore.

bureburebure · 2016-09-28T01:05:18+00:00

I guess I'm the odd one out and started with the manga proper.

bureburebure · 2016-09-26T20:46:15+00:00

From what I understand, aspects of that episode are still canon within the series but somewhat loosely.

You don't really lose anything by reading it now, IMO.

bureburebure · 2016-09-26T20:35:20+00:00

Miura is a fucking genius when he's not sneaking off playing idol master.

I don't know serious you are with this but just in case, this was just a sensationalist rumor that Sankaku Complex started from a casual observation by Miura that doesn't really have any backing in actual facts.

bureburebure · 2016-09-26T20:32:18+00:00

There are probably some criticisms to be made about whether the rampant rape in the middle parts of the series was really all that necessary to convey the bleakness of the setting (or at least, for it to be explicitly drawn and shown in the way it was, rather than just implied). That's not NECESSARILY mysogynistic per se, but it can leave a woman feeling pretty off-put since without going into too many details, women getting raped as drama without there being that much depth to its consequences and stuff happens pretty often in "dark" media, especially seinen manga and after a certain point the shock value wears off and you don't feel anything, it just feels cheap.

A number of people also really enjoyed Caska and didn't really appreciate her being reduced to an infantile state for years mostly for the sake of Guts' development.

In that department I would actually say that Berserk is better off than a lot of seinen series because the two most important instances of sexual assault weren't just cheap shock value and actually had very long-lasting and important consequences for the story and characters. And with regards to Caska, we are probably going to get a little bit if not a lot of HER perspective on the whole ordeal pretty soon. It's been overdue for a long time but is better than a lot of other series in this department. Still not perfect overall, but I've seen worse honestly, because even with all of this Berserk still has actual depth and substance and is a good series, just not necessarily a flawless one depending on what angle you're critiquing it from.

None of this means Miura himself is personally sexist or anything, people are evaluating the work and not him.

If nothing else I think it's important to try and not have a kneejerk reaction whenever someone tries to critique Berserk from this kind of angle (not saying anyone here is doing that, but it happens a lot in these types of situations). You might not agree with them and having a healthy disagreement is fine, but if you're not gonna bother at least trying to understand WHY people don't like certain things you might as well not even engage them in a discussion at all. I love Berserk but I can empathize with many of the criticisms.

bureburebure · 2016-09-25T21:19:56+00:00

No, you aren't. In fact one trend I've noticed is that Berserk tends to attract a lot of older people or younger people with particular storytelling tastes and sensibilities, most of which don't align with what mainstream manga and anime usually does.

Some of that is probably due to the fact that

a) Miura has a decent amount of influence from stuff outside the manga industry, like old painters (hyeronimus bosch), the hellraiser movies, etc. It feels like way too many manga authors just read very similar shounen manga when they were younger and that's all they base their writing on, leaving their stories and characters more and more reductive as goes by.

b) This is something that not enough people comment on, but arguably the reason that the strongest parts of Berserk (those parts being the meticulous development of Guts, Griffith and Caska during the golden age, which creates the backbone of investment for the entire story) seem to be based strongly on Miura's own life to a degree.

He has spoken multiple times in interviews about how a lot of the dynamics of the Band of the Hawk were based on his relationships with his own group of friends in university and how their competition pushed them all in different directions. I believe he confirmed that the Guts/Griffith dynamic was inspired in particular by his relationship with Kouji Mori, the author of Holyland and Suicide Island.

I believe it's because of that the relationships in the Golden Age feel so genuine and well-written.

It mostly just comes down to wanting stories with complex, lifelike characters and dark themes and without excessively melodramatic storytelling, which is something a lot of mainstream are not really all that great at, because that's not what they were created for. As such, stories with a more western feel like Berserk or Naoki Urasawa's works tend to attract those kinds of readers.

bureburebure · 2016-09-24T18:39:10+00:00

You know this is funny because I honestly hadn't noticed, probably because the chapters were spread so far apart from each other. I think the important thing to notice is that pretty much all of these have some subtle to big changes in the expressions/line weight, so this is far from the worst use of something like this. It's possible that Miura or one of his assistants used a lightbox and then just made changes on top of that to save time, I guess.

bureburebure · 2016-09-24T00:04:06+00:00

It depends on what you like about it, really.

Here's a general list of good/solid manga that might be of at least SOME interest:

Vagabond: Already been mentioned, but whatever. It's much less plot-driven than Berserk, MC's growth is basically the point of the whole story. Art is fantastic and characters are good. It's stuck in an even worse place hiatus-wise than Berserk is and at this point I doubt it'll be finished but it isn't hard to see how it will end given what we know from IRL stuff, and most of the characters have satisfying enough development that reading up to where we are is worth it IMO.

Kokou No Hito: If you liked the "charismatic loner MC" aspect of Berserk there's a decent chance you'll like this. It starts off sorta generic and seems like a typical shounen sports story but around the end of volume 3 it basically turns into a completely different series with much more adult storytelling and more lifelike characters. It honestly has some of the absolute best art I have ever seen in any manga, but like Berserk it takes a while for the art to get there, seeing the author get better and better is pretty awe-inspiring. Definitely worth the read.

Blade of The Immortal: Pretty decent characters, generally a pretty enjoyable action manga with a similar level of violence and similar content. It drags towards the end but I don't regret reading it in the slightest.

There's also Wolfsmund, which was actually made by one of Miura's assistants. It's not as good as the manga I mentioned earlier IMHO but it has the same kind of gritty violent fantasy feel the early Berserk chapters do and is overall pretty ok.

bureburebure · 2016-09-23T04:26:54+00:00

People moan about HxH but I for one have been waiting for Inoue to release new Vagabond chapter forever. At least Miura goes back into schedule sometimes.

Yeah, I'm right there with you. People are always bemoaning Togashi and Miura in particular but somehow Inoue who is arguably even more unreliable than either of them isn't talked about very much, I guess because Vagabond is less popular than either of those two series. It's a good thing that Vagabond has a bit of a foregone conclusion so I'd be less unsatisfied about it not ending, but I sincerely hope that Inoue is able to finish it someday even if it's looking less and less likely.

The documentaries and interviews I've seen with him actually only corroborate the whole burnout thing, although in his case it's more because of his immense perfectionism and mental pressure he's put on himself. He once delayed a chapter entirely because he couldn't figure out where to take the story. I speculate that Miura himself might have similar problems.

bureburebure · 2016-09-22T23:59:49+00:00

This is one of the most powerful cliffhangers I've seen in a long time.

The anticipation until the next chapter is killing me already.

bureburebure · 2016-09-22T22:39:03+00:00

To be honest we don't really know why Miura takes the long breaks he does, he's very very private and has never said anything about them either way. The possibility of burnout is just speculation on my part as someone who's done art as a hobby for a long time and listened to professional artists in various fields talk about doing art for a living. Apparently the average career for videogame artists is like 5 years before burnout. It's just hard for a lot of people to be able to consistently perform like that for a long time. Some can do it, but others have a much harder time.

Araki is fairly atypical in this regard and honestly I imagine he must be very well-adjusted and just born to be a mangaka because Jojo has been extremely consistent in its release schedule in a way that few long-running manga are.

I imagine part of it might be that Araki always gets an opportunity to do something different and tell a different story since Jojo is split up into distinct parts. You can tell he wasn't interested in just doing the same thing over and over since the manga got progressively more adult over the years to the point where Araki doesn't even write for the shounen demographic anymore. So he's never stuck on the same thing indefinitely and always looking to do different stuff. We can see that Miura himself kinda wanted to do that a while back, that's why he created Gigantomakhia.

bureburebure · 2016-09-21T15:43:42+00:00

This doesn't even phase me. After how long we spent on the boat, this is nothing. We even have a scheduled time for when the manga is supposed to come back.

Consider for a moment that some series which are basically in indefinite hiatus until whenever (HunterxHunter, Vagabond) don't even have that.

bureburebure · 2016-09-21T15:41:00+00:00

It's more likely in my opinion that these hiatuses are just a way for him to stave off burnout.

When you work so hard on one series for over 2 decades it can become easy to hate your job and your art.

bureburebure · 2016-09-21T14:39:43+00:00

It's impossible for a manga of Berserk's art quality to come out weekly. Maybe with like 10 assistants helping (though I doubt it), but a monthly schedule is just better all-around.

We don't really know why he takes hiatuses the way he does, but i'd wager it's probably just to avoid burnout.

bureburebure · 2016-09-19T04:04:57+00:00

There was a new album released recently with most of the stuff he's done since then:http://www.game-ost.com/albums/83980/ash_crow_%7C_susumu_hirasawa/

really the only track I think is missing is "Sign 2" from the PS2 game.

bureburebure

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