We have a few loose ends to tie up before the story is done.

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Manga

Manga Review: 21st Century Boys

20th Century Boys was a manga about the power and danger of nostalgia. It was a story about a group of childhood friends who grew up in 60s and 70s (late Showa) Japan, who basically had their childhoods literally weaponized not just against them, but the world as a whole, and who ultimately had to go into conflict with their childhoods to save the world and themselves. 21st Century Boys serves as an epilogue to answer one last lingering question – why?

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Manga

Manga Review: Men Who Created Gundam

I’d heard about the manga The Men Who Created Gundam a while ago from an article on TVTropes – and later had heard that the manga had been licensed by Denpa, though I found it was only available in a physical release, so that ended up serving as something of a hold-up on my picking up the series. However, at long last I’ve picked up up the omnibus release of the series.

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Manga

Manga Review: We Started A Threesome Vol. 3

Volume 2 of We Started a Threesome put a lot of time into developing Emito and his backstory, along with the setting up that Emito was bisexual and also loved Suisei – who so far hadn’t shown any signs of being bi, and was also dealing with some of his own jealousy. So, theoretically, the ending that has been established for the final volume was – “What’s Suisei’s own backstory, how will he handle his own jealousy, and is he closeted bi, or is he heterosexual and this volume will be about how nested polycules handle situations where two members have incompatible sexual orientations, where one of those members is into the other, and both have a common person who they’re both compatible and romantically into?” The question becomes – how do they handle that topic (if they do), and will they have enough time to do it justice?

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comics

Book Review: Making Comics

When I was in college at Clackamas Community College (where I also met David, one of my co-hosts of the Anime Explorations Podcast) – one of my campus jobs I worked was in the library, where I worked the check-out counter. As one of the classes that was thought (occasionally) was Comics as Literature, a selection of graphic novels were on reserve at the front desk, and during terms where the class was not offered, I would help myself to read them during downtime. One of the books I read during this time was Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, and this inspired me to go on later to check out Reinventing Comics from my local library. It wasn’t until this year that I found out there was a third book in the series – Making Comics – and having found out about it, I checked that out from my local library as well.

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Manga

Manga Review: We Started a Threesome – Vol. 2

It feels weird to be reviewing not just softcore erotica, but a manga series that is softcore erotica, but here I am. I attribute this to the fact that other series by Katsu Aki have gotten releases here, but undoubtedly his biggest work, in terms of length, and the one that he will most likely be remembered for after his passing – like Toriyama with Dragonball & Dr. Slump – is Futari Ecchi, a series that seeks to both educate and arouse. So, when the first volume of We Started A Threesome ended on a cliffhanger related to the risk of sexual assault, I felt a little hesitant to recommend it. I feel a little better about a recommendation now, though it’s still one with some caveats.

Also, no cover excerpt this time, it’s very NSFW.

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Manga

Manga Review: We Started A Threesome Vol. 1

Recently I dabbled a little in reviewing some more adult materials with a review of the first Emmanuelle novel. Well, recently I learned that the new adult manga from Katsu Aki, the creator of Futari Ecchi (along with the manga version of Vision of Escaflowne & Psychic Academy) involved discussing polyamory, and had been licensed, I decided to pick up the first volume of that manga – We Started a Threesome.

There will be some spoilers.

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Manga

Manga Review: Cipher Academy

Nisioisn, the creator of the Monogatari series, recently ran a new manga in Shonen Jump, and which ran in on the app in the US – Cipher Academy. The series gained a degree of infamy due to a level of wordplay that lead to a change in translators partway through the run. Well, I’ve read the whole thing, following its conclusion, and I have a few thoughts.

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Manga

Manga Review: Record of Lodoss War: Crown of the Covenant

I was excited to see a new Record of Lodoss War… anything really come out, both in terms of the Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth game (which I’ve just finished Let’s Playing – I’ll have a review of that in November) and when I learned that a new manga was coming out set after the events of Chronicles of the Heroic Knight. I had wondered if it was going to be an adaptation of Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth – but Crown of the Covenant being its own story (albeit one that Wonder Labyrinth led directly into) was something of a pleasant surprise.

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It’s time for the conclusion of The Search, as Bruce catches up with Benedict Asp & Dr. Shondra Kinsolving once and for all.

‘Solecism’ by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au

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