TeeArctic1 wrote:
Oh shit, well here's a small assortment of series or manga I remember as varying degrees of decent
Great Pretender
Houseki no Kuni
Pluto
Konosuba
Banana Fish
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Houseki No KuniThis is probably one of the most original mangas ever written and probably among one of the best modern manga or manga in general
HNK is about this little planet surrounded by many moons, in the small planet there is a species of humanoid, sentient gemstones, all of the characters are different rocks, phosphophyllite, antarcticite, padparadscha, etc. no, this has nothing to do with steven universe). They are very small in number, and the moon people wants to hunt them
This manga tackles many interesting topics, for one, the biology of the gemstones is very different to our biology, they don't have vital organs. Every single part of their body can be replaced if they have the right material. However, their memories are spread evenly across their body, so, if you were to lose an arm, and replace it with a new one, in the process, you have also lost memories.
That really reminds me of the ship of Theseus, how many body parts can you replace, how much can you forget, before you start being a different person?. HNK doesn't really aim to answer that question, if the reader wants to answer that themselves, they're welcome, but HNK focuses more on the consequences of that. Let's say I help you in the past, then, I lose an arm, and completely lose all my memories of that event, not only that, but I also lose the memories that made me act that way in that situation to begin with, in fact, if I was now in the same situation, I probably would have acted in a different way, yet, you still trust me, you know I have lost an arm yet you still trust me, that relationship, that friendship, is now unfounded, it's closer to blind faith than anything
The emotional arc of phos is based on that, in many ways, this allows phos to do many things that we would consider horrible, but, we can't blame phos for it. Because we recognize she doesn't have the same information, and we can't expect someone to walk in eggshells their entire life, she doesn't know how much she has forgotten, she doesn't know how many times she has lost body parts, for her, the only reality, the only thing that she can trust is what she can see with her own eyes right now.Now, that isn't the only really fucking cool thing that HNK does, i'm pretty sure this doesn't appear on the anime as of yet but we also have
the praying machine, which i'm not going into because i'm not smart enough, I haven't studied enough, to really understand and communicate all of the themes and intention of that part of the plot outside a very superficial level, you can probably make a 20 page essay just on the praying machine aloneOutside that, the art is also peak. As I said many times, having good art isn't just being really good at drawing, you need to give space for the art to flourish, to connect the plot to the art in a way that you have really memorable panels, HNK nails this, HNK probably has some of the best art pieces i've ever seen, the drawing style is very unique
HNK LOVES using negative space, this is when instead of just painting what you wish to picture, you paint everything BUT that, so the space that doesn't have ink on it, is the actual drawing, here is an example

This is a full page panel, using a technique that almost no other manga uses, really well drawn, where the context of the history makes that panel HIT, so like, what the fuck more do you wish
A lot of other mangas, when they have a big panel, they don't really include dialogue, this is understandable, as often having too much text can be visually unappealing, this is actually something american comics suffers a lot from, this is an example from the fantastic four comic

HNK does include text in some of their big moments, but, they often only include a single sentence, which honestly is so fucking cool, (this is a panel from very late in the manga, should not spoil anything, but i'm boxing it anyways)
Also, this manga probably has one of the greatest flexes of all time?,
, the last volume had many delays, and the very last chapter, featured this panel
and well, I will let this other image explain why this is crazy
like what the actual fuck
Easy S rank
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Plutomy dad likes this anime
Pluto is probably my least favourite work from urusawa naoki (from what I have read), but, come on, it's still naoki, that guy shits gold
Pluto is a science fiction manga directly inspired by Osamu Tezuka Astroboy, one of the first ever anime, just, with more adult themes and topics, the original manga was released in 2003, the anime, in 2023, this is important, because it's amazing how well pluto predicts certain things, for a science fiction story to stay relevant this much time, that is impressive
There isn't much of the influence of tezuka in this manga, they just take the general idea of astroboy and runs with it. The plot follows a detective that is investigating some murders which they believe were caused by a robot, pluto
A large part of the manga focuses on well, robots and artificial intelligence, about robot rights and how humanity perceives them, and about the politics involved in all of that. The way naoki tackles this is very grounded unlike some other science fiction, one of my favourite scenes involves a guy that has a robot that plays the piano, and the robot tries to play a song for the guy, the guy gets angry, talks about he's profaning the piano, about how those melodies are empty, and that a robot will never be able to compose real music
This is exactly the situation we are right now LMAO, the only real difference is that, in pluto, robots don't operate like search engines, they operate like humans, while they likely aren't conscious, they do act like if they had one, so in the end of that scene, the man accepts the robot, and starts coexisting with it
In many ways, that is the defining factor. Currently, we can't get attached to an AI because they're all digital, but here, they're physical and smarter. They move and aren't scary, so, humans will end up developing an attachment to them.
I would say more about it but like I watched it 2 years ago and I don't remember exact details but I enjoyed it and I think it's cool placed in A rank
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Konosuba:
this sucks big dicks
konosuba is a fantasy isekai comedy anime that aims to be a parody of the genre, this fails. When you're parodying something, you have an intention behind it, it's a critique, you aim to say something, in many ways, konosuba doesn't seem like it's really shitting on the isekai genre, rather, it's embracing it, all of the tropes most isekai has, konosuba does it times 100
the anime doesn't have any real plot, it's all based on the comedy
let me showcase some of the jokes of season 1
The loli character talking about she likes big strong sticks (Their staff)
The protagonist sexually harassing the rest of the party by using their "steal" ability to take peoples panties
The whole character of darkness just bases on her being a masochist and getting sexually aroused by being hurt
all of the jokes are sex
I do not vibe with this type of comedy, I just fucking hate every single character in konosuba and wish they burn in hell
this would go on how could you do this to me if I hadn't watched it already, but since I have, just placed in D tier
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Banana FishBanana Fish is the OG fujoshi manga, the plot itself is about gangs and conspiracies and that sort of stuff, but like, this is still a shoujo
I don't really know what to say about this manga?, like, it's just pretty standard, it's very old for a manga, it's from 1985, I don't really have strong opinions about banana fish, I enjoyed it, I know people go crazy shipping characters, I don't really engage with that, so like have fun I guess
placed in B tier
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Jangsoodlor wrote:
watch Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo
sure