Jack's Profile Review Moderator

I think she publishes daily and takes a few months break and then comes back to it, but I’m not really sure because I don’t read the source material. I think it’s the only novel she’s working on but maybe she’s doing something behind the scenes, I’m not sure.

Yeah I expect most creative classes are half there for the connections you can make which is kinda cool and tbh, you can’t exacty be taught to be creative it’s just something that you can develop slowly in on your time. Teachers can’t teach you everything about it but they can hook you in with the industry, haha. Actual shame that it’s hard to make money, what a dream to just write and draw for the rest of my life making some decent money off of it.

Oh, lol. That’s a popular fan fiction fandom. Kinda got into Mystic Messenger so I read a lot of fanfics around that time, never really wrote any though because I’m not a fan of writing canon characters, kinda scared of portraying them incorrectly.

My current version doesn’t have any guilds but it does have organizations around like the government and ragtag demon hunters and the like. Also, I have heard that from a friend I showed a bit of the synopsis to before, haha. I actually haven’t played it though but in my video game study class we actually looked at it and it’s kind of fascinating. I can see how on the surface level it can be related, but my story really has nothing about time travelling and the multiverse or anything like that. Nothing remotely like Little Sisters and Big Daddies either. It has similar religious theme and exploration though, with the false prophets and stuff.

It’s less about science, and more about the magic. Though science is important too. But it’s not like, hard sci-fi. It’s more of a soft one.

No, I hate big spiders! I can’t even stand small ones. But the only big spiders I’ve seen are like, really out into of the city’s area. Any suburbs near the hills or nature in general have big spiders but my university is right in the heart of my city so the chances of seeing any are none. My house is surrounded by possums and apparently bats(?), no spiders, haha. I have only felt really tiny earthquakes, and I slept through them. There aren’t a lot but the ones I can name off were devastating in smaller towns.

I’ve been having ideas and not writing them down for years, I can do it LOL. I can just sit here and daydream it all but never write it down. I have my characters in a folder though. Majority of my ideas aren’t fleshed out and are just premises. Don’t really want to work on them just yet until after I finish this one which will take me a few years anyway at least.

"That is definitely the case in Sangatsu's case, would you say that's the same for Kaiji/Akagi or are those purely about the game itself?"

Akagi delves quite deeply into mahjong. Kaiji is about made-up games for the purpose of the series, but they get a lot of strategy and tactics out of it.

"It sounds as though you're still enchanted by it, are you sad that you weren't able to make it a career or are you satisfied with what you do now? For myself there are a few things I wish I could go back and focus on fully but since that is the past I just try and focus on achieving what I want now."

Even with ideal study, I didn't have anywhere close to the talent to be a world top 20 player, and it's a hard professional life even for a borderline top 100 player, let alone "just" a grandmaster.

The number of super-elite players (2700+ FIDE) has increased from 8 during the late 90's to 50, and that's emblematic of how tough and competitive it is nowadays.

"That seems to be the most common reasoning I hear people liking it, was it on Adult Swim years ago or some other station? Either way I can sympathize with that feeling of nostalgia, one of the anime on my favorite lists I can admit not being too good but as it being the first anime series I completed, it means to much for me to think of it as anything but great."

Well no, it's not nostalgia. If it were, I would have hated "Gundam Wing" when I rewatched it at 20, which is a common sentiment for me with many movies and cartoons from my youth. ("How the hell could I ever have enjoyed this shit?!") I consider Gundam Wing a legitimately good show, despite its flaws.

"Yeah for what was supposed to be the "god of death" character, he didn't exhibit such qualities at all, the only thing I remember of duo was his little side story of him living with that girl, very unfortunate."

Originally, Duo WAS a "God of Death" type of character, a ruthless killer who nevertheless maintains a sense of humor and calm about his situation. Even reminds me of a Rafael Sabatini protagonist. But that lasted for a very short while until they murdered his character.

"So you would say DMC does have a core plot to itself? It isn't just watching a band go about performing? That's certainly a lot more interesting than my previous thoughts of it."

Souichi and the band have various adventures, some of which are long and cover multiple volumes. The onstage performances are only one aspect of it, and they're never repetitive.

"Both of those works seem vastly different, I wonder how he goes from a crass story from one that at the outset reads incredibly bleak. Just from reading the mal entries for both pulls me more towards Himizu but the "turtle incident" listed under Ping Pong's is oddly transfixing."

Certainly, "Himizu" was written a number of years later, but the difference in quality is still staggering. It's like if the Farrelly Brothers came out with a movie on par with "Blade Runner", only from an original script.

Speaking of which, getting back into anime and manga, I've noticed that webcomics are now a frequent source for the latter. Back in the day, I dismissed almost all the funny webcomics, and absolutely all the dramatic ones as trash. But "One Punch Man" started out as a webcomic, and that was great.

So I decided to go ahead and read a webcomic that is highly rated, a manwha called "Bastard", and to my surprise...it's quite good. This must be what people experienced in the early years of rock n' roll, as the nascent sub-medium took a number of years to finally churn out quality works.

The novel usually stays on Maomao's perspective. Occasionally it switches to Jinshi's to see behind the scenes but because he's a very spoilery character with a vague background, his perspective is just as vague and doesn't answer many questions. It does reveal things that Maomao doesn't know but we, as the audience, do. And the translations are pretty good, they read a bit weird sometimes but the translator does a good job of them. She(?) releases about 2 chapters a week/every four days and she's quite a few volumes behind so...

Nope, not fantasy in particular. There is a novel writing elective but I don't think I'm going to take it next year onward ; ;. I'd rather just focus on the writing that I have to do for media and communication, which is more like editorial English and blog stuff.

I wrote my first 'real' stories on paper LOL. Trust me, they were horrendous. So cliche, it hurt me when I read them again. They went to the trash immediately LOL. What fandom did you write fanfiction for? :o

Hm, I don't really have an opinion of Fruits Basket tbh. It's a pretty good shoujo manga, a bit cliche but definitely a product of its time and a decent one.

And yeah, the forum I was on had mainly American users and I live in Australia so our time zones didn't match at all. Couldn't even align with one-on-one roleplaying much less big group ones. I did join a group and I had a lot of fun there too. But there was a lot of internal drama and with the people I cared about leaving + non-matching time zones I left.

Yup, the first time I've used those characters since. But to be honest they have changed so much I can't even say they are the same. I also added a lot of new characters that I care about a lot.

Like, for example, their original world was more of a fantasy world (think Narnia sort of hidden portal to a Lord of the Rings big as fuck land) and the Chinese Zodiacs were in a very Fairy Tail-esque guild situation, taking on missions and stuff. In this story they were the literal children of gods, who took the form of humans.

In the new version this world is a secondary world to our world. It's less of a world, more like a country that is floating in the sky. It's a religious utopia, where the Zodiacs (now renamed Aspects) are no longer the blood children of gods but just chosen by them (think Virgin Mary and her son JESUSMAN?). The gods aren't even people anymore, but like, mechanical creatures.

The characters have been overhauled a shit ton. My main female lead went from a very cliche Mary Sue character to a voluntary unemotional freak. My secondary male lead went from an edgelord to a slightly less edgy boy with a stronger sense of duty. My primary male lead which I use now didn't exist at all.

The older work also didn't really have an aesthetic theme. This one is more a Victorian steampunk.

Not really LOL. I wouldn't mind going there on holiday but like, I wouldn't want to live there. Because work culture there is intense as hell, and not to mention I'm Chinese, so I'm presume there would be some prejudice. I was born here so I just like it here, haha. I live in a big suburban city so big spiders are actually a rare sight here. Not many earthquakes cus we're not near any plate lines :P

omgggg yes, isn't it fun? Making stories and stuff aaa. I have two set in the past, and like four-five stories set in the future.

The manga isn’t that bad either, it only covers about the first 20 chapters of the first volume but the art is fantastic, I heard that’s been delayed though, so don’t know what’s up with that. The novel is good. A lot of female leads in ancient chinese settings tend to go from cool and independent to sobbing messes that cannot act as a competent human being without the presence of their love interest. Maomao has a few screws loose but she’s a reliable narrator, funny, too. It’s a very enjoyable novel and it’s pretty long as well, plenty to enjoy.

Ooh, that sounds interesting. Yeah, my elective clsss also focuses on fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction. It wasn’t really enjoyable for me because it was so contemporary. Lots of exploration on modern problems, especially issues like homosexuality. I’m a fantasy writer, so it’s not really my forte and it’s been kinda eh so far.

I plan to major in media and communications. If I decide to pursue it further then a masters of publishing and communication. On the side though, I want to write a book and have a small art thing for fun. If that gains traction I wouldn’t mind switching to do creative things full time.

Haha, yes, anime and manga was what pushed me to write. My first ever batch of characters (and their world) was actually very inspired by one of the first few manga that I read which was Fruits Basket. My characters were based off the Chinese zodiac and it was fun to work on that as a kid. I still have some papers of that around and reading it now, it’s actually so cringey.

I no longer role play, no. My motivation to write spikes a lot and working with a partner would make that hell and stressful for me. Especially since I don’t have much time these days.

I actually started brainstorming this year. I’m on my first draft tight now so it’s not much. Actually, the story I’m working on now is based off the Zodiac characters I made when I was 10! I gave them a complete makeover, new names and new looks and a new world, the whole works. Humble beginnings indeed LOL. Now the world and the story itself is a bit more mature and deals with themes like racism and religion. I mean that I’ve written a big chunk of the world and details regarding that, I also have the framework of the general story done but not the finer details.

That’s true, but moving to Japan would be too MENDOKUSAI. I’m really happy in Australia and I can’t even leave the house without getting tired much less move to a whole new country LOL. I do want to reach a semi-client level in Japanese though.

Not the story I’m working on now, but spin offs and stuff probably. I have a whole timeline set up :P

"Only one I can think of is Senyuu although that is a web manga, such a shame others haven't but why would you when all the light novels have it covered? Sigh"

Thanks for the heads-up. I will definitely read Senyuu at some point soon. Even when parodies aren't great, like "Even a Monkey can Draw Manga", they're at least amusing and memorable.

"Ah that's really embarrassing, my bad. Although with the differences in the way the two are depicted, shogi for the large part being much more of a slow wave where majong for the large part seems much more apparent in its intensity."

No worries. Unless a series accurately and deeply delves into the endeavor, it's often just window dressing for a story about perseverance, struggle, growing up, etc.

"One of the best you say? How did that come about, did it capture your interest from a young age or was it something you picked up on a whim in your teens? And how has your skill and interest changed since then?"

I learned the moves when I was 8, but only became serious about studying and improving when I was 10. I haven't played in a tournament since I was 19, but am actually stronger than ever now, based on the games I play online and tactical puzzles I solve. I still love the game as much as ever, but if you don't make grandmaster by the age of 18 or earlier, you have no chance to be a professional with a comfortable living. And that's not to say you have a great chance even if you become a grandmaster at 15 or so!

But professionalism aside, it's a wonderful, magical game.

"Gundam Wing was such a bore unfortunately, they didn't take advantage of any strengths that it showed around the beginning, the large ignorance of Relena as a character and the huge sections spent on backstory that was as tasteless as a piece of burnt bread really soured my experience with the whole thing, thankfully the rest of the franchise is not nearly as bad as it, although I have yet to see some that people might consider terrible."

I loved Gundam Wing when I was a kid, and when I rewatched it in undergrad, around the age of 20, it largely held up. Now, I won't pretend there aren't numerous flaws, including those that you mentioned above. But it does enough things well or correctly, and at its best evokes a truly unique feeling from its grandiose, larger-than-life duels in space, all with a dash of poignant loneliness.

On the negative side, Relena was certainly bad, but I was far more annoyed by what they did with Duo Maxwell's character. He started off as one of the coolest, most interesting anime characters of that era, much better than Heroo Yuy, and ended as a comic relief buffoon.

"Would you say DMC benefits more as an anime, and thus the manga should be ignored? I see you gave high scores to both but which one would you say is a better experience? I'd like to avoid watching and then reading, if anything I'd want to just consume one of the two in its entirety instead of having to pick up wherever the anime ends."

DMC is unquestionably better in manga form, even if the anime adaptation is good. Not to mention that the latter only contains a small portion of the adventures found in the original series.

"Any recommendations by Murakami? Are most of his works translated to english as that would be much preferred."

All his works are translated into English and every other major language, so no worries on that score. Norwegian Wood is a stand-alone masterpiece and required reading, but a little different than the rest of his novels, since it lacks science fiction and fantasy elements. Dance Dance Dance is my favorite work of his if you put a gun to my head, but also the 4th in a loosely connected series, although reading the previous three works isn't required. Kafka on the Shore and Sputnik Sweetheart are other pieces of required reading. I've yet to read a Murakami book that was less than "all-time great", though.

"Ping Pong Club, from the outset looks like some sort of "Adult-Swim" type show, would you say that's an apt guess or, as you said, is there nothing like that in the America?"

Haha, I had a good laugh thinking of the fortune in FCC fines a faithful adaptation of the manga would rack up. Frankly, it wouldn't even be as good as some of the middling Adult Swim shows, either.

What blows my mind is that the same author who wrote that dreck also penned the outstanding, unique, horrifying "Himizu".

Yeah, I know right? But the manhua ended at the end of an arc so there wasn't really a cliffhanger. Still upset about the hiatus though. She's currently working on a prequel though, it looks really pretty, but no translation thus far > <.

I stumbled across this in search for something similar and it's been amazing, a fav of mine definitely: https://myanimelist.net/manga/86769/Kusuriya_no_Hitorigoto

Ah, what degree? I'm currently in uni and I do creative writing as an elective but it hasn't been very fun.

Uh, I've been worldbuilding since I was at least 10 years old. I started chat roleplaying around that time too. Then about 14-17 I roleplayed in forums and wrote in paragraphs. And ever since mid-last year I've been writing solo and worldbuilding. I'm working on a novel right now, it's hard but aaaaaaaaaaaa, I'm excited. I've already built a huge chunk of the world, just need to write out the details. Now it's just me working on my skills and my level of writing to match up to my ideas.

On the side I'm working on my drawing skills, since I neglected them in favour for writing. I like the idea of bringing my children to life. I wouldn't mind webcomic-ing a book idea either.

!! I agree he is unusually attractive. I recommend reading Song of the Long March, that's where he's from, haha.

https://myanimelist.net/character/90805/Sun_Ashina - A very beautiful specimen indeed.

Are you a writer as well? :o

Thanks for the FR :o, love the Bastion art.

Thanks for the recommendations. I will check out "The Perfect Insider", although I can't help noting that the director Kanbe was responsible for "Elfen Lied".

"I'd love to find some well-written rpg parodies to read but it seems that all are adaptations of light novels and all I really want is an original manga, not some half-hearted adaptation of novel that I would much rather read."

There is apparently an entire genre of JRPG parodies, but in the medium of light novels (Western as well as Japanese). That would indeed be fertile ground for a manga; strange that I can't think of a title that has done it.

And yes, Akagi and Kaiji are wholly distinct, with no overlap, aside from both being Fukumoto masterpieces.

Sangatsu no Lion is about shogi, not mahjong. I don't mind that it's not centered around the game, though, since I have only played shogi a few times in my life and am thus nowhere near strong enough to appreciate its unique strategy and beauty.

Of course, the opposite would be much worse! I was one of the best chess players in the US for my age in my teens and know a lot about the game's history. As a result, any depiction of the game in popular media is usually terrible.

"Well such a movie does warrant a watch, and I do like to finish, or at least try to finish everything related to a franchise if it is all available, so if I get back to watching that shall go on the list."

Looking at your list, I realized there was a new Gundam Wing property released a few years ago, one of the first anime I watched in English. Apparently, it was awful.

"From what I have seen of the show, it seems like DMC's humor is very similar to America's own crass humor that resides in its adult cartoons, would you agree or is it different enough from our own humor to be considered "japanese humor"?"

DMC's humor is very different from adult American cartoons specifically, but has more of a generally Western feel to it, with comedic beats, set-ups, punchlines, and jokes. So it's like a mix of more Western humor with a Japanese sensibility.

Of course, when Western and Japanese influences are combined, the result can be absolutely magical. One of my absolute favorite writers of all time, Haruki Murakami, is a gorgeous example when it comes to literature.

As for crass humor, it's up for debate who wins between America and Japan! I have yet to come across anything as utterly puerile as the manga "Ping Pong Club" among American media, and that's before one ventures into the various ecchi works. Even something like "Panty and Stocking", which I very much enjoyed, is very earthy.

Since 2010 I haven't watched much anime from any era, so the number of post-2010 series on my list will necessary be limited, as is my familiarity with those years. I'm sure I missed plenty of gems, though. For instance, "One Punch Man" was excellent. If there is anything you consider required viewing, I would love to read it.

"Yeah, Bikini Warriors, yeah-uh that's moe, qualifies as some other things as well but moe is in there."

Since the episodes were 4 minutes long, I watched it on a lark. To my shock, the series was an amusing parody of JRPGs and similar story tropes.

Kaiji and Akagi are very fast-paced and thrilling. In fact, the latter series encapsulates one of the most impressive aspects of manga. Namely, that a random activity I had no knowledge of or interest in, like mahjong, can nevertheless be presented in a manner that is both mesmerizing and thrilling.

The Cowboy Bebop movie is unrelated to the main story of Spike's past, although it's also 90+ minutes spent on a single tale, as opposed to 25.

I generally have a very low opinion of Japanese humor, whether in the form of anime, live action, manga, or novel. Very often, most of their wildly popular comedic works don't strike me as funny in the least. One of the few exceptions, and by far the biggest one, is DMC, which is hysterically funny. You may disagree, but it's certainly worth checking out.

Ah, thanks a bunch. Looks very nifty.

"That is quite restrictive, what causes you to focus on (almost solely) shows before the 2010's?"

That I largely stopped watching anime around 2010 or so. It's not some bias against modern works, heh.

"Sword Art Online's character designs could be heavily considered as moe."

I haven't seen Sword Art Online, only heard about it. However, I did watch something called "Bikini Warriors", which probably qualifies as moe.

As for recommendations that don't appear on your list, I would suggest Kaiji, Akagi, both Vampire Hunter D movies (but especially the one from 2000), and the 1997 version of Berserk. I would note the Cowboy Bebop movie, which is my single favorite piece of anime ever, but you didn't like the series, so there is a good chance you wouldn't like the side story. Humor is tricky, and I think anime are generally quite poor at it, but "Detroit Metal City" is a shining exception, and well worth a shot.

Incidentally, how did you get that neat style where each entry appears as a large cover image with a number on it?

"What falls underneath the "big show" umbrella? Madhouse, Trigger, Bones shows? Possibly Kyoani as well and Yuasa's few hits. I'd throw Rakugo as well in there."

Oh, far more restrictive than that! "Big show" meaning Attack on Titan, One Punch Man, Sword Art Online, and maybe one or two other hits that aren't immediately coming to mind. Looking at my list, I've only seen 7 anime from 2011 onwards, including ONAs and OVAs. The moe trend was very big circa 2010, and judging by a quick glance at random new series, is still doing well.

Ah, thanks for the heads-up. The "Preliminary" tag is relatively new; it wasn't around back in 2008 on here, and probably not even in 2014. I only noticed it a few days ago on an old review of mine. An interesting attempt to counter the deluge of reviews of a popular anime after its premiere episode!

Yeah, there are only a few anime series I really want to watch, and Texhnolyze is at the top of that list. Then again, I don't know much about post-2010 anime beyond the really big shows.

Say, is there a way to change the status of a "Preliminary" review after one has completed a work short of deleting it and submitting a new one? Thanks in advance.

Also, your profile is a reminder that I still haven't gotten around to watching Texhnolyze and Kemonozume.

you're so fucking weird what the hell