Invasion! Squid Girl – Chapter 180

Art imitates life.

Is anyone else annoyed by characters in comedies with only one real personality trait? All their actions are focused around something, and it can quickly get tiresome seeing them do that same thing over and over again. I actually didn’t mind Sanae at first, but after a while, it became pretty obvious that she only had one joke going for her. Not only has virtually everything she’s done focused around her love for Ika Musume, but if anything, it’s been getting more extreme over time. From everything I’ve read, her only traits unrelated to Ika are her dog Alex and, oddly, the fact that she’s constantly in possession of large sums of money (is her family rich? I’ve seen her wave cash around at least four times now, but they never address it). You almost have to wonder what she was like before she met Ika.

Kimi ni Todoke – Review

What better series to review for Halloween?

I was wondering whether to keep the “Mary Sue” section or not, but I figured it should be addressed, if only a little. The original version was longer and more in-depth, but it didn’t need to be too long to get the point across.

Hey, I actually made a video in 2 weeks. Sadly, the next one will probably take a bit longer, as school takes priority for a while. I’ll still try to work on it when I can, but I can’t make any promise on the release date.

Kimi ni Todoke – Chapter 61

Too...many...mental...images...

Ayane was always something of an oddball in this series. I always thought she belonged in a manga like NANA, or some other josei, rather than here. Not that I’m complaining about her presence, but a girl who has such an easy time going out with people makes for an odd contrast to Sawako and Chizuru. It wasn’t until two chapters ago that she really started to make sense: having such an easy time finding someone makes it so much harder to care about them. But now that she’s admitted that, I have to wonder where, exactly, her story goes from here.

Mahou Sensei Negima – Chapter 341

Eva's seen this far too many times to care.

Konoka and Setsuna have a complex relationship.

I doubt Ken Akamatsu will ever say more than that.

I mentioned in my last rant how shonen tend to use more adult themes unrealistically, but the one thing I forgot about was sexuality. I’m sure we all know enough about homosexuality in anime/manga that I don’t have to break out the Nanoha/Fate pics…or the Negi/Fate pics. I’m really not all that surprised that their relationship isn’t more out in the open, since shonen manga have a hard time displaying romantic content, straight or otherwise. Compare Chachamaru’s fantasy from a few chapters ago to Setsuna’s here and you’ll realize the implications aren’t that different. See, the way I view the scenes with Konoka and Setsuna is that they’re supposed to be scene as a romantic couple, but they can’t explicitly say it.

Toriko – Chapter 162

I tried working out the odds of winning in my head. Needed SO much Advil afterwards.

I’ve been gambling a few times, and I have a vague understanding of how it works. One of the key things to remember is that casinos are meant to award a long-term profit to the casino itself, rather than the gamblers, so any game where someone has an advantage over the casino would usually never work. Of course you can have an advantage over the other players in some games, but never over the casino itself. That’s what I found odd about the way the Gourmet Casino operates. I was expecting Coco to pull out some huge winnings, but I thought he’d do it in the card games. Someone as stoic has him would do well in a game of poker, after all. Instead, he used his ludicrous eyesight to get an equally ludicrous payout on the above slot machine.

I had a great deal of trouble accepting that Coco could win that much money. It may sound strange, considering that we’re talking about a 100 wheel slot machine where the tokens are edible, but I didn’t find the way the casino operates to be very realistic. I was able to look past that, though, when a thought occurred to me: why would a series aimed mainly at people under 18 attempt to portray gambling realistically?