Fairy Tail 172 - Um alright more mysteries and stuff I guess, some silly scenes, some fun times. Good to see that Lucy is still a relevant character, both of them. I hope he does a good job of explaining all of this because right now he's just piling up more and more things that need explaining. Oh well. This arc looks like it'll be pretty fun anyways. 7/10
Beelzebub 49 - OK this is an arc I can get behind: comedic premise, fighting, not worrying about stuff like mythos or whatever. This is the sort of manga I want from this. Fun times ahead! 7/10
Naruto 483 - Better than it has been recently, I guess. Still a lot of things that I don't like but nothing rage-inducing. Just bland and boring and mostly pointless. Sakura thinks she can kill Sasuke? Karin's still going to hang around and be annoying? And now we have Kakashi vs. Sasuke, a fight that will probably ruin the character of Kakashi by having him do all sorts of stupid techniques. Oh wait, he was already ruined when they had that emotional death scene and then he was just revived. Oh god, this manga has been dumb recently. This chapter is remarkably good because most of the things that happen in it are somewhat halfway logical and because there weren't any stupid gimmicks. That should not be an accomplishment. 5/10
Bakuman 74 - I like all the tension and such, party scenes were funny, recluse guy scene was funny and the new assistant looks like he will be an interesting character. I guess that's about it. Shujin's writer's block looks like it'll probably be a more important plot point soon, not sure what I feel about that. So yeah, fun chapter, funny art, typical Bakuman. 7/10
One Piece 575 - And once again One Piece is the main attraction this week. This chapter was very, very exciting. Although it obviously didn't have the power of last chapter, it still was pretty emotional. Little touches like the unnamed Whitebeard pirate attacking Akainu and having his sword disintegrate were nice. Oda's strategy for this whole thing i.e. attempt to make a really likable character (Ace) and have him get killed by another character, essentially making Akainu as hated as Ace was liked, and then have Whitebeard punch Akainu, essentially transferring such ridiculous awe into him, is pretty simple. But it's effective. Oh god, I hate that Akainu bastard. And when Whitebeard dies (and it's looking like he definitely will now, dammit, probably killed by Blackbeard) I'm going to bawl my eyes out just because Oda's done such a great job of making me respect him. So good. Other little things: I like how Akainu's attacks all seem to be about building up pressure within himself and letting it "erupt". Pretty nice contrast to other logias. Also someone on AP posted about how his personal name had to do with sharing cups in brotherhood. That's neat.
Hm so Blackbeard's new crew, that was the really exciting twist here. Going into Impel Down to get allies is sort of boring compared to going into Impel Down to find the Poseidon or something geez I dunno but these guys will obviously be really strong. Like look at San Juan Wolf. This image I found on AP: http://nsa12.casimages.com/img/2010/02/19/100219061847934473.jpg - that's ridiculous. So it does make sense for Blackbeard to go all that way just to get some tougher people, plus, I think he might have a history with some of these guys. I think him and Catarina Devon are related, Oda's too good to draw a face that similar just out of laziness. So yeah, they all look pretty awesome, but I'm actually having to rely on some Oda-faith to not get discouraged by the fact that he did something that I consider a cardinal sin in shonen: have the dramatic scene be the introduction of characters without context. NOW we're in sort of a different spot since we do have the story on some of these guys, and we know by the company they keep that they'll be cool, but it's still just people posing at the end and we don't know who they are or what they're going to do. That's not really generating suspense. When Luffy's ship crashed off the frozen wave, we knew the personalities of all those involved and could get really hyped up thinking about how they'll interact with the established scene. With these new guys, we can only just assume that they'll do something cool without actually building that belief on existing evidence. It is a minor difference, yeah, but like, if Kishimoto had done this, or even worse, Kubo, I would just think "Oh lord this is gonna get stupider". So the fact that Oda is Oda and all the characters look cool counts for a lot. Anyways yeah. Great chapter, not as mindbreakingly godawesome as last week. 9/10
oh yeah edit some things:
-I really liked the cover this week, usually I don't mention it, but this one I thought was exceptionally well done. Usopp already has a history with camels, it smoking also references the joke that Eyelashes was essentially Sanji, and Usopp's aiming at the stars thing is just heartwarming. I was hoping for a new cover story, yeah, but these double Strawhat ones are great.
also
finished reading gravity's rainbow, will write things about it soon.
and
now i am reading this book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Know-It-All
it is pretty neat.
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