Quotes of November 2013, part 8

Sara K on The Celestial Zone: "In a world where gender justice was the default, it would not be remarkable if a fighting/action oriented comic book featured many female characters and consistently gave them as much substance as the male characters, where they feel like they are there for their own sake, not to accompany the male characters. We do not live in a world where gender justice is the default. Therefore it is remarkable that The Celestial Zone is a fighting/action oriented comic book with many female characters who feel like they are there for their own sake and not to accompany the male characters."

Bamboo Dong on Shingu: Secret of the Stellar Wars: "Everyone else does a reasonable job, though, and if you can turn off the little voice in your head that keep chiming in with, “Haha! Thanks Goofy!” you'll likely like the dub just fine."

Carl Kimlinger on Eastern Star: "After years of oddball licensing decisions and an increasingly ambitious spate of oddball anime releases they've become the go-to guys for old, forgotten, or plain weird and under-the-radar series. And bless them for it. Not because it's a kind thing to do for fans, especially the older ones—though it is—but because it has made this box set possible. Even if Discotek did nothing else, even if the rest of its catalog was garbage, even if it was run by Nazis, its existence would still be justified by the fact that it gave us Lovely Complex."

Jason Thompson on Kaoru Mori: "Kaoru Mori is such a good artist that I like to imagine that she'd drawn other historical-setting manga: how much better, say, Red River would be if it didn't look like each page had been whipped out in 15 minutes."

Carlo Santos: "After unearthing so many hidden treasures in the out-of-print/license-lapsed category, it's only right that I bring up certain things that deserve to stay out of print."

Lynzee Lamb on Black Butler: "Sebastian is the most handsome servant on the list, in my humble opinion, but his level of devotion is questionable since he's bound by a Faustian contract. In short, a demon butler can do almost anything a master wants but he's also after their immortal soul, which is sort of a downer."

Quotes of March , part 5 of 4 . . .

Bamboo Dong on Battle Girls - Time Paradox: "I know that I can't expect a series like Battle Girls – Time Paradox to be a beacon of intelligence and thoughtful storytelling, but one always hopes to find a few gems hidden under the layers of predictable shlock. Sadly, there is none of that in this series. It is 99.9% fluff and nonsense."

Justin Sevakis on Harbor Lights: "But anyway, Kit is really really mad, and his only recourse, clearly, is to have his motorcycle gang infiltrate the dance contest and BLOW UP THE FREAKING BUILDING IT'S IN."

Bamboo Dong on Penguindrum: "Seldom is there a series that not only captivates my interest, but also the magpie center of my brain that responds to bright colors and pretty visuals, and makes me want to sit down and seriously mull over what I've just consumed."

Michelle Smith on Red River: "Though it starts off rated for older teens, I have a distinct memory of the later volumes being shrinkwrapped, so presumably sexy times will eventually ensue."

Kate O’Neil on The Betrayal Knows My Name: "The complexities of their many past lives have left the Zweilt at odds with their sexuality, and their duties to their clan have lead to very strange relationships. I wish the author had explored this stuff sooner, as it actually gives the cast a reason to be so touchy-feely with each other without it coming off as unnatural or just fan service."

Anna N on Knights of Sidonia: "Most importantly for fans of Biomega, there is a talking bear in Knights of Sidonia. She doesn’t have a machine gun yet, but she does have an artificial arm. Seriously, a talking bear in outer space with an artificial arm is reason enough to buy this manga, and all the great mecha/alien battle scenes and Nagate’s journey are really just a bonus."

Quotes of March, Part 4

Bamboo Dong on Shangri-La: "What I don't appreciate is that towards the end, it increasingly felt like the story was just frantically waving its hands, trying to distract from the fact that it was slowly derailing."

Paul Thomas Chapman on Spriggan: "Into this heady mix of Indiana Jones by way of Ghost in the Shell, we throw our cocky protagonist, Yu Ominae, a seventeen-year-old high school student who moonlights as a Spriggan, one of ARCAM’s elite secret agents. Yu has fabulous hair, very little personality, and a Tragic Past™, so naturally he’s the hero of this tale . . ."

Melinda Beasi on Red River: "I greet you this morning, dizzy with the particular brand of glee that can only be brought on by epic shoujo fantasy."

Kate O’Neil on The Betrayal Knows My Name: "Let this be a lesson to everyone, if you’re group of close friends is involved in terrible business and you take a group photo, your dooming yourselves. Just ask the cast of Pandora Hearts, they know."

Ash on Ai Yazawa: "Her characters come complete with flaws and are much more interesting because of it."

Justin Sevakis on Harbor Lights: "It's hard to believe now, but in the early- to mid-80s, being a dancer was pretty much the coolest thing on the planet."

"Little girls dreamed of being a famous dancer, even though basically no dancers ever became a household name. And in Japan, at a little company called Studio Pierrot, decided to make a one-shot OVA to cater to those little girls. It would have a little bit of everything those girls would like, from Cinderella to Footloose... to Die Hard."

Quotes of March 2013, Part 2

Jason Thompson on Japan as viewed by 17 creators: "It's part self-aggrandizement and part self-parody, and since these were works made for the Japanese market, obviously it entertains Japanese people too: perhaps, since he knows people will just see him as some yellow-fever weeaboo no matter what he does, he embraces it, brother."

Sean Gaffney: "Stepping on Roses has come to a close with Vol. 9. One day I will get an awesome shoujo manga series about a girl who is forced to chose between two men and shogi, and chooses shogi. This is not that day."

Lynzee Lamb on Metatron in Demonbane: "In a world of Cthulu mythos, one Jewish archangel rises up as a magical girl-nun trying to stop an evil organization from summoning The Ancient Ones."

Melinda Beasi: "I was relatively new to reading manga at the time, and I’d read a lot of shounen manga and a lot of fairly uplifting shoujo, and one of the things that nearly always happens in those series, is that characters we initially perceive as villains will turn around and become very sympathetic characters, by way of backstory or some other kind of revelation later on. The message driven home by that trope is that understanding is the key to learning to love someone, or perhaps that anyone can be granted salvation (of a sort) by way of understanding. These series are careful to always give us something to latch on to—to help us understand even the most seemingly depraved characters before the end."

Paul Thomas Chapman: "The used anime section is a cultural wasteland."

Bamboo Dong: "If one were to make a histogram of all the repeated ideas in anime every season, People with Superpowers would be somewhere in the top five, nestled between Stories about Oda Nobunaga and Girls Who Like Their Brother."

Quotes of March, Part 1

John Scalzi: "Any jerk can love a thing. It’s the sharing that makes geekdom awesome."

Jason Thompson on Barefoot Gen: "American G.I.s sleep with Japanese prostitutes (Nakazawa isn't quite as bitter about it as Yoshihiro Tatsumi is) and buy the skulls of the Japanese dead as souvenirs, thus supporting the local economy."

Sean Gaffney: "Devil and Her Love Song 7 its right in the exact middle of the series, and so things are clearly only going to get worse for our heroine."

Bamboo Dong on Shangri-La: "Another series that I'd avoided watching for a couple months was Shangri-La. . .. My main reason for delaying watching this was mostly because I never felt like I was in the right mood to watch a show about a girl with a boomerang."

Carlo Santos on A Certain Magical Index: "A Certain Magical Index is the eccentric professor of action anime: full of bright ideas, fascinating to watch ... and constantly tripping over itself when it tries to get anywhere."

Chris Beveridge on Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom: ". . . she’s gone from a short girl just before her growth spurt to a buxom hourglass of a woman with a real eye on vengeance for wrongs never truly made because both of them were idiots."

Quotes December 2012, part 1

Connie on 5 Centimeters per Second: "It doesn’t share the overly sappy or idealistic version of romance one finds in shoujo, nor the more sexualized and/or also idealistic version one might find in shounen or seinen."

Sean Gaffney on the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic panel at NYCC: "Hasbro gets premises and outlines to approve, and notes they do listen to the audience – though they will not be crossing over with Transformers."

Bamboo Dong on Freezing: "While I was mostly accepting of the fanservice in Freezing, there were a few scenes that I thought really could have tried harder. "

Lianne Sentar on Vampire Knight: "Don’t believe everything the media tells you – some teenage girls have sex, but lots are just interested in sex in theory. They want boys, and they want sex, but not actually. That’s exactly what Vampire Knight gives them – boys, and sex, but not actually."

Katherine Dacey on Vampire Knight: "Vampire Knight — like a lot of literature for teenagers — offers thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls a safe outlet for imagining what adult relationships are like, minus the mundane stuff comes after the forbidden sexy biting: arguing about dirty dishes, paying the mortgage, attending parent-teacher conferences."

Karen Peck on Canon: "The names crack me up, too. “Rod” just doesn’t sound… menacing. Rod and Glenn sound like they’d be assistant managers at an Office Depot, not powerful vampires."

"I think it’s a little hypocritical of a vampire to wear turtlenecks anyway."

Quotes November 2012, part 4

Sean Gaffney on a new license rescue: "I was pleased to see Gakuen Prince, as I wonder just how low it can go after the first three volumes."

Connie on Black Bird: "I know this is pretty much Shoujo Manga 101, and I can’t really blame Black Bird for the fact that I’m becoming a cranky old woman, but man. It can still be headache-inducing."

Bamboo Dong on Freezing: "Freezing is the kind of show that you buy online, not at Best Buy, because no one wants to walk up to the counter with a boxset featuring a girl with her clothes exploding off her tits."

Jason Thompson on Junko Mizuno: "THE MAIN CHARACTER OF LITTLE FLUFFY GIGOLO PELU IS AN ANTHROPOMORPHIC TESTICLE. (Or maybe ovary.) And you thought the love interest in Ceres: Celestial Legend was Freudian. "

Lynzee Lamb: "Zetsu, like a lot of entries on this list, has an unfortunate past rooted in science experiments, clones, and death that a little psychotherapy could help. It might help squash his off-putting habit of consuming dead human corpses as well. Maybe venison would be a viable alternative?"

Lori Henderson on Blood Alone: "This is a great title for readers who want more from their vampires than just killing things or moping."

Quotes November 2012, part 1

Connie on The Tyrant Falls in Love: "Souichi’s emotional moments are a thing of angry, completely affectionless beauty. They are what they are, though, and it makes Morinaga happy."

Katherine Dacey on A Devil and Her Love Song: "Tomori nails her characters’ body language and their fitful conversations, which unfold not in eloquent declarations but incomplete sentences, painful silences, and sudden bursts of honesty. I don’t know about you, but that’s how I remember high school, as a time when I had flashes of insight and bravery, but a lot more moments of cringe-inducing stupidity, cowardice, or tongue-tied helplessness."

Jessi on Sword Art Online: "That kind of material is bad enough when it's actually expected, but when the series could operate perfectly well on its own merits yet chooses to indulge in something cheap, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth."

Lissa Pattillo on The Tyrant Falls in Love: "The relationship between Morinaga and Tatsumi continues to crawl forward at an entertainingly agonizing pace."

Joseph Luster on Humanity Has Declined: "What they find inside is a virtual maze of mass-production, a suicidal bread loaf and, ultimately, cluckin' cooked chickens with some lofty, sinister aspirations."

Carl Kimlinger on Texhnolyze: "Texhnolyze is possibly the least enjoyable series ever. Not in a bad way.. . . Watching Texhnolyze is akin to being beaten with a gloom hammer for eight hours."

Quotes October 2012, part IV

Connie on A Devil and Her Love Song: "But I can’t get over how much I love this series! It’s really quite different from your usual shoujo manga, depressing and uplifting at the same time." 

Rachael in How to Be a Fan of Problematic Things which you should go read (R-rated language in that article, FYI):

"Liking problematic things doesn’t make you an asshole. In fact, you can like really problematic things and still be not only a good person, but a good social justice activist (TM)! After all, most texts have some problematic elements in them, because they’re produced by humans, who are well-known to be imperfect."
...
"Especially do not ever suggest that people not take media “so seriously”, or argue that it’s “just” a tv show. The narratives that we surround ourselves with can subtly, subconsciously influence how we think about ourselves and others. That’s why creating imaginary fantasy and sci fi worlds that have more equal societies can be a powerful thing for marginalised people, who mainstream media rarely acknowledges as heroes."
...
"As fans, sometimes we need to remember that the things we like don’t define our worth as people. So there’s no need to defend them from every single criticism or pretend they are perfect. Really loving something means seeing it as it really is, not as you wish it were. You can still be a good fan while acknowledging the problematic elements of the things you love. In fact, that’s the only way to be a good fan of problematic things. "

There were some bits in this article I wasn't sure I agreed with, but it sure was thought-provoking.  (Several of my friends have found themselves giving certain works another try and liking them after I explained what I liked about them, so that experience in particular rang true.)

Paul Thomas Chapman on Char's Counterattack: "One of the things that attracted me to anime in the first place was its essential foreignness, its ability to weave a narrative that operated outside of what I traditionally encountered in Western animation."

Sean Gaffney on The Earl and the Fairy: "I’m afraid that Edgar and Lydia are not helping their causes when it comes to making me not want to strangle them."

Quotes October 2012, part 3

est em on her work: "But I really like drawing men. When I was in junior high, high school, I loved Michelangelo, and there was a period where I copied him obsessively. I just adored the human body that he drew. I really love drawing the male body, the muscles. Simply in terms of the lines, there’s a tremendous amount that interests me. And also, the fact that you don’t have to protect yourself makes things really easy for me. With female protagonists, you really have to put in a lot for the psychological portrayal. Monologues, what the character is thinking at that time, you really need that stuff for josei manga. It’s a world where feelings need to be made clear, and drawing it is a good bit of work."

Connie on Black Butler: "As a necessary act of good faith to the crown after his last disastrous mission (where Ciel wound up roasting children alive) . . ."

Jessi on Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero: "Within the first five minutes of this series, the main character steals the bras and panties of several battle-maids who have been sent to capture him. This really sets the tone for the remainder of the episode."

Katherine Dacey on A Devil and Her Love Song: "Ayu’s subsequent behavior, however, points to one of the series’ weaknesses: characters have epiphanies with whiplash-inducing frequency. (Saul would never have made it to Damascus if he fell off his donkey as many times as Maria’s classmates do.)"

JRB on not simple: "Ian is indeed very passive; the protagonist-victims in these stories usually are, since the point of the exercise is essentially to watch them suffer and and thereby experience Aristotelian “pity and terror”. (This is a type of story that has gone out of fashion in the West; nowadays we feel uncomfortable with pity and those who suffer beautifully and prefer stories where victims rise up and murder their oppressors.) Not Simple is shorter and more, well, simple than some of the more celebrated examples, but I think it ends up successful in being a feel-bad book."

Jason Thompson at JRB: "Call me someone who was an adolescent in ’90s America, but I prefer my suffering protagonists to be more aware & present in their own emo, masturbatory (self-)torment."

Quotes October 2012, part 2

est em on her work: "I like the drama there, so I do relationships between men. It doesn’t matter if it’s love or not. That closeness, a closeness that’s not there with women, well, I guess it’s a kind of human relationship. And I really love that part."

Connie on Dawn of the Arcana: "He’s strangely calm. Such calmness, outside of shoujo manga, would make one suspect that Loki is merely biding his time until he murders Caesar." [I am not convinced that is not what he is doing.]

Jessi Silver on Gankutsuou: "Even The Count plays this game, and in fact he seems to play it with the sort of finesse that the others can only dream about. He toes a very thin line between charming the pants off of his acquaintances and scaring the life out of them, his coolly-calculated moves hiding behind a fine-but-convincing layer of sincerity."

Katherine Dacey on Library Wars 8: "Volume eight has almost made me into a convert, as it strikes a better balance between Ray Bradburian intrigue and shojo romance, introducing a subplot with a radical anti-censorship group and a possible court martial for Kasahara. What prevents it from being a slam dunk is Kasahara’s impenetrable cluelessness . . . "

Kristie on A Drunken Dream: "The age group of the manga magazines Hagio’s comics originally appeared in is interesting not because her stories deal with suicide, parental abuse, and intense self loathing. The shock isn’t in the plot of her comics, the shock is in how terribly effective these comics are. Because here is something that sometimes people forget: Suicide, parental abuse, and intense self loathing are not “rated R” themes. CONTENT isn’t the ideas found in a piece, it is the execution of the ideas found in a piece and Moto Hagio’s execution is as precise as a surgeon."

Paul Thomas Chapman on Char's Counterattack: "Now I’m older and wiser and quite a bit more cynical, and my experience with Gundam isn’t limited to a single bootleg tape borrowed from an equally enthusiastic friend. And I can still say that, despite years of experience, Char’s Counterattack still doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but damn does it still look cool."

Quotes October 2012, Part I

Melinda Beasi: "I’d read a lot of shounen manga and a lot of fairly uplifting shoujo, and one of the things that nearly always happens in those series, is that characters we initially perceive as villains will turn around and become very sympathetic characters, by way of backstory or some other kind of revelation later on. The message driven home by that trope is that understanding is the key to learning to love someone, or perhaps that anyone can be granted salvation (of a sort) by way of understanding. These series are careful to always give us something to latch on to—to help us understand even the most seemingly depraved characters before the end."

Connie on the Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese: "They’re both flawed, and their flaws keep them from growing closer."

Arwen Spicer on Banana Fish: "I’ve heard him called a Mary Sue, yet I disagree–because, although he’s a bit of a superhero, he carries deep psychological scars that fit coherently with his experiences and contribute to the self-marring of his life and relationships.  He is not perfect or even a “pretty sufferer” in Mary Sue fashion.  He is a brilliant but damaged young man who will carry some form of that dysfunctionality for life.  Thus, he wins my suspension of disbelief for his magic, and he wins my sympathy."

Sean Gaffney: "Now admittedly the three series have flaws. Library Wars doesn’t have enough war for some people; Otomen continues to be a BL series with no BL; and Oresama Teacher is written by Izumi Tsubaki, who is the ‘oooooh, shiny thing!’ of Beat authors. This does not make the series less awesome."

Jessi Silver on reviewing anime first episodes: "Despite arguments to the contrary, I cannot name a series that I've seen which has a terrible opening episode and which has somehow improved itself sufficiently to crawl back into my good-graces."

TV Tropes on Zoids CC: "Zoids. The first series (Chaotic Century) in particular. The entire script is so laughably bad it's amazing that everyone keeps a straight face. (Van and Raven's exchange in episode 33 is a personal favorite example) But that's the reason it works. The whole universe speaks in narm and once you get used to it you realize that it's the language of the universe and it's a much more entertaining universe as a result. "

Quotes of awesome September 2012, part 3

Jason Thompson on Flower of Life:

"Most school manga have love triangles, but Flower of Life is the only manga I've read that has a "friend triangle"."
. . .
"Meanwhile, Harutaro's father is the world's toughest-looking chicken-sexer. ("Yeah, I examine baby chicks to determine whether they're male or female--that's my job. Japan leads the world in this skill of chicken-sexing…this skill is worthy of national pride!")"
. . .
"Will Sumiko turn out to be the only girl who can stand Maijima? Thankfully, no. She's got much too much self-esteem."

Brain vs. Book in an interview with artist/author est em:

Brain: I find your work to be very different from the standard fare, more nuanced and less focused on the sexual aspects of relationships.
est em: Yes, that’s not really the important part.

Michelle Smith on Tokyo Babylon: "Of course, another theme that begins (I think) in Tokyo Babylon and proceeds to permeate CLAMP’s other works is the idea of “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” Seishiro loses his eye to protect Subaru, and then suddenly eyes are lost or swapping all over the place."

Sean Gaffney: "Bunny Drop 6 is out for what will I’m sure be a smaller but just as dedicated audience of fans who didn’t drop it cold after Volume 5."

Melinda Beasi on Nana: "She’s relevant to my life. Not the life I maybe wish I had, but my actual life."

September Quotes of Awesome 2

Jason Thompson on Hoshin Engi: "The high-tech sci-fi theme of the whole series actually starts to make a little sense in retrospect, and it's total aliens-vs.-martial-arts-gods craziness."

David Brothers on Cyborg 009: "Ishinomori’s exploring the idea of weapons run rampant and what it’ll take to put the world on the brink of war. It’s about money, and how chasing money can make people evil. He brings in an international cast, like Hideo Kojima did in Metal Gear Solid 4, because he wants to illustrate that war ruins everyone and everything. No one is safe, no matter whether you’re a rich ballerina in Paris or a poor farmer out in China."

Melinda Beasi on Tokyo Babylon: "One personal philosophy that is stated over and over again in this series (expressed by both Subaru and Hokuto at various times) is that no person can ever truly understand another person’s pain."

Sean Gaffney on Book Girl and the Wayfarer's Lamentation: "It’s a good book. Frustrating at times, but that’s the frustration of a reader towards the characters doing dumb things, not the author."

Kristin on Dengeki Daisy 10: "There can be romance without the guy spending his time trying to get into the girl’s pants. Where they are emotionally is far more important, and frankly is leagues ahead of most manga relationships I’ve seen (and real ones) where the focus is on the physical aspects. So that’s a nice change of pace."

 Dr. M on Spice and Wolf: "It needed something...more oompf, more direction, less discussion of medieval guild practices, more burning pagans at the stake...something, anything."

Quotes of Awesome September 2012, Part 1

Jason Thompson on Hoshin Engi: "The heroes are trapped in a room playing puzzles with a giant capybara, and if they solve a puzzle incorrectly, they're turned into dolls. It's just like that video-game-playing doll guy in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Or does this just mean I've read too much manga, and everything reminds me of something else?"

David Brothers on racism in Cyborg 009: "But 008 is a little strange. For one, even though Ishinomori is using explicitly racist iconography, he isn’t bringing the same baggage to it that Eisner or others did. 008 isn’t a Stepin Fetchit type, and there’s not a hint of the “yassuh boss, we’s sick!” garbage that makes Ebony White such a Strong Black Character. He’s just a regular dude, and he acts like it. It’s like Ishinomori adopted the art style but missed out on the baggage that goes along with it."

William George in comments about racism in Cyborg 009: "For some idiotic reason, people tend to equate “Folks were pretty ignorant back then so you gotta accept it’ll be there” with “I fully support racism in all it’s forms”."

Melinda Beasi on Tokyo Babylon: "Two things will remain consistent; Seishiro will express his love and admiration for Subaru’s selfless spirit, while Hokuto will wish desperately for him to abandon that selflessness just long enough to want something for himself—a wish that will ultimately have consequences far beyond her expectations."
Katherine Dacey on Suki: "when was the last time you read a story about a sweet, innocent person that didn’t make you feel horribly manipulated or horribly jaded?"

Anna on Legal Drug: "Legal Drug is a story about a group of men who work at a drug store who have mysterious powers and often experience angst about how pretty they all are."

Quotes of August, Part III

Jason Thompson on Hoshin Engi: "(Also, if Dakki's evil plan is just to have a good time and bankrupt the country with her expensive lavish parties, won't everyone just rebel or stop paying their taxes and leave? Then again, I guess it's nice to have a villain who doesn't want to just destroy the world for once.)"

Feriket in comments: "Aka, objectify responsibly. People are people before they are objects in fantasy."

Foxy Lady Ayame in comments: "Objectification is part of normal fantasy. Respect should be part of every day life."

Rij in comments: "But it is a fantasy, and as long as I acknowledge the fantasy and do not imagine that it resembles the real world or try to involve actual living people in the fantasy, I don’t think that I’m doing anyone wrong. Every bit of fiction is offensive to someone and if we weren’t allowed to enjoy problematic stuff, our world would be much too boring."

Some Dude Named Evan: "Furthermore, I really enjoy marathoning anime which go for raw emotional manipulation. As such, I love to marathon the Key/Visual Arts adaptations which Kyoto Animation produced back in the day, though, for obvious reasons, not all of them at once. However, I will say that such melodramatic marathons are more enjoyable to me when combined with copious amounts of hard liquor."

Brian Hanson: "Steve makes a Ghost in the Shell pun SO BAD it has put me in a Tachi-coma . . ."

Quotes of August 2012 II

Jason Thompson on reading manga from your library: "I'm proud to say that over the years, I've supported our public libraries with hundreds and hundreds of dollars of late fees."

Melinda Beasi on Olympos: "Despite a strong beginning, featuring a newly captured human (Heinz), charged by Apollo with the daunting task of convincing Ganymede—after years of Apollo’s goading—that escape from the garden is possible after all, the series soon loses focus, devolving into a kind of distractedly philosophical pudding that never quite gels."

Erin Finnegan on Dream Eater Merry: "She acts like the caring younger-older-sister, which is a type and not a real character. “Nurturing” is not a personality, let alone a well-rounded character.  Yumeji is also relatively personality-free, which comes through in Blake Shepard's generic (yet spirited) performance as An Anime Protagonist."

Sean Gaffney on The Disappearance of Yuki Nagato: "Funny in a cute way, angsty in a cute way, and romantic in a very cute way, this is for everyone who thought that Haruhi’s story would be great if only everyone was simply nice to each other."

Jessi: "It’s also problematic in that it presents only one type of “strength” as having any validity, and it’s one that’s taken wholesale from stereotypical images of masculinity – it can be interpreted as suggesting that only a traditionally male form of power has any validity, when both women and men of many different temperaments and physical skill levels could be seen as having a certain strength. (This is not to suggest that women who do battle are somehow invalidated as characters, only that they are not the only type of “strong” character deserving of respect)."

Jason Thompson on Hoshin Engi: "I love manga that are set in ancient times but the main characters' costumes are just, like, whatever. Skintight spandex leotards, men wearing high heels, enormous Mickey Mouse gloves, crazy clown suits for everyone! If someone's actually wearing period-appropriate clothing, you know they're not important."

Quotes of August, Part I

Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith on Moon Child:

"MELINDA: I feel that adolescent mermaid sex is one of those things we’re just better off not really thinking about.
MICHELLE: I cannot help but concur."

Derek Bown on Naruto: "Rather than focus on two muscley men punching each other to death, Naruto had the audacity to focus on preteen children punching each other to death. With magic! And as anyone who has spent an extended amount of time around children can attest, this is an incredibly cathartic experience."

Melinda Beasi on Fullmetal Alchemist: "Though it was published in Square Enix’s Monthly Shonen Gangan, which is aimed at elementary school and teen-aged boys, it is filled with awesome female characters (in appropriately practical clothing) and addresses topics like religion, ethnic genocide, and the nature of humanity, alongside standard shounen themes like loyalty and friendship."

Michael Toole on Sailor Moon: "Now tell me, readers: who's YOUR favorite Sailor Scout? I've long heard that Sailor Mercury, with her expressive eyes and sharp mind was the favorite, but I'm more of a Sailor Venus guy. That's not because I find the character cute, although I kinda like her infectious smile, but because she kills bad guys with a fucking laser. If you have that, who the hell needs the power of love?!"

Erin Finnegan on Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine: "(This is a series for mature audiences where “mature” means you're old.)"

Sean Gaffney on Skip Beat: "As for Kyoko, it seems to finally be dawning on her what her feelings for Ren are, and she’s none too happy about it. That said, things seem to finally be moving forward for those two, so no doubt Vol. 29 will be filled with hideous complications that will screw everything up. Just as we like it."

Quotes of Awesome for July

Melinda Beasi on Moon Child: "I would have loved for the sister to have been proven wrong for real. You know. Not just because her brother’s body got taken over by the soul of a vengeful alien mermaid. "

Katherine Dacey on X/1999: "Yet these moments of narrative clumsiness are overpowered by the sheer force of the imagery. The battle scenes are kinetic and violent, as characters leap across rooftops, level buildings, and plunge their swords into one another; few licensed shojo or shonen titles can match the gory zest with which CLAMP executes these moments of hand-to-hand combat. " . . . "I hesitate to suggest that X's body count is an achievement, but it is sharp and welcome rebuke to the idea that female readers strongly prefer conversation and character development to butt-kicking and carnage."

Connie on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: "It may or may not also contain the decapitated head of an Aztec master vampire loading itself onto a crossbow, bending the nigh unbendable strings with its hair, and then taking out, like, ten minion vampires by using its head as a bullet and a long unicorn horn it sprouted as a weapon."

Brian Hanson: "Note to self: call my dad and see if I still have that plastic Skull Gundam toy from the G-Gundam figures Bandai made for North America in a box with all the rest of my old toys. It was the ugliest, cheapest-looking thing and it always gave me pleasure to look at."

Shaenon K. Garrity on Ultimate Muscle: "The violence is more gruesome, too, with limbs and heads ripped off and blood spraying the ring willy-nilly.  The mix of slapstick comedy, cheerful tastelessness, melodrama, and graphic gore is jarring—unless you're a fan of pro wrestling, in which case it's comfortably familiar."

Jason Thompson on Berserk: "At first, in fact, it seems less like a fantasy manga than an ultraviolent manga like Fist of the North Star or Riki-Oh—a series about an angry tough guy who kills things really good."

Quotes of Awesome June 2012, Part II

Michelle Smith on Moon Child: "The ending is very interesting, indeed! I will say, though, that leading up to it is a lot of stuff that doesn’t make a lot of sense, and for me, once you’ve reached the critical mass for “wtf” it spills over into “whatever,” so there were certain aspects of the conclusion that didn’t affect me as much as they might’ve, though there were a few subplots I liked very much."

Jason Thompson on Antique Bakery: "After this opening, it might be hard to believe it, but Fumi Yoshinaga's Antique Bakery is a manga that makes me happy to be alive. Unlike some manga, it doesn't try too hard to make me happy by being super-cheerful; it just makes me happy because it feels real, and it reminds me that life can be beautiful, even if it's also difficult . . ."

Brian Hanson on creepy things: "But! Can't we agree on something? Something that's been bothering me lately? Can't we just agree that even in our most disposable and forgettable of mindless entertainment, TV shows and movies and manga and comic books that are just meant to be a quick brainless jaunt through our most basest desires, that MAYBE, JUST MAYBE... we don't need to be so gross about women? Or, uh, girls, even? Young girls, too? I know Sex Sells, but wouldn't it be nice if it didn't as much?"

Michelle Smith on Moon Child: "Of course, one can have genuine feelings for shitty people, but I got so irked at various times that my capacity for being thoughtful was impacted."

Jason Thompson on Cromartie High: "When Akira first shows up, his core trait is that he wishes he had a tough nickname. ("If your name is, say, 'The Black Panther of the North Sea,' or 'The Ultimate Weapon of Kinshi Town,' you have a lot more impact.") Eventually he settles on "The Dragon of Razors," but no one but himself ever calls him that. Hayashida's chief traits are that he's a total moron (although a nice guy), he looks middle-aged, and he has a very weak mohawk. In the grand tradition of comedy characters such as Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson, he's basically a formless blob of dumbness who can fit into almost any situation. Hayashida is so stupid that he is unable to do basic math; in one chapter, the other characters try vainly to teach him to subtract two from five so he can pass an upcoming test, then finally decide that the only way to teach him is by ACTION, by going to Bass High School and beating up five guys one-two-three-four-five so that Hayashida can learn to count!!! Of course, the chapter ends with them missing the test because they're suspended for fighting."

Carlo Santos on Kids on the Slope: "Kids on the Slope may be billed as a jazz-centric coming-of-age drama, but the way the story takes off, it's more like a Baroque fugue. First comes a simple melody of unrequited love, which is soon overlapped by another pairing, and then another, and another, until we have a counterpoint of storylines where everyone is in love with everyone else."