Category: Character Studies

The New Adventures of Samurai Deeper Ichigo

10 Comments

Haha! I am a powerful villain. I defeated Ichigo. Look at him have to run away. Now look how I take out these side characters.

Arrrg! We are defeated!

Hoho! I am back and now I have a new power!

Your new power cannot stop me Samurai Deeper Ichigo!

But you are already defeated!

What are you talking about Samurai Deeper Ichigo? Your heart is weak!

You can do it Samurai Deeper Ichigo! I believe in you!

NEW POWER!

NOOOOOO!!! Your new power is too much Samurai Deeper Ichigo!

hisuiconI have enjoyed Bleach for several years now but he problem is that I have felt that the manga’s popularity has led to some padding in the manga. Due to this padding the series has truly fell into a very familiar pattern. A pattern in the same vein of the infamous shonen Samurai Deeper Kyo. One of the main problems with Samurai Deeper Kyo was Kyo never progressed as a character. Most of the time he would simply declare that he had gotten stronger and then he would use a new attack and win. The thing is  Samurai Deeper Kyo is so bad it is entertaining but Bleach has had some grace to its fights and to Ichigo’s progresses. When he leveled up you felt like he had changed as a person as well. Ichigo had to work for it and it showed in the fights. I no longer feel this is the case. I am still entertained enough to buy graphic novels without regrets but I just wanted to use these new mini posts to get that feeling off my chest.

August’s Final Denouement: Why Risa and Otani just make sense.

1 Comment

The school romance is a staple whether you are talking about shonen or shojo but when speaking of modern girls manga alone, there is an overwhelming amount of it. It is easy to say that you’ve seen it all before, that nothing can surprise you, or that they are just plain silly and unrelatable and for the most part, even as someone who reads a lot of them, you wouldn’t be far off the mark. They are fluff but every once and a while you come across one that makes the familiar feel so very special. Maybe Lovely Complex isn’t the most original school romance you’ll ever see, but it is a pillar on how to do it justice.

Continue reading →

Paradise Kiss’s Hiroyuki: One Point on Two Triangles

4 Comments

Paradise Kiss is all about relationships. Friends. Co-workers. Family. Lovers. And Paradise Kiss goes a long way to showing that all of these relationships, minor or major, make a difference and effect your decision, consciously or not. Growing through experience plays a solid tune throughout the series. As each character goes down their paths, some having a better idea of where they are headed than others, no one is alone on their journey. Hiroyuki, the seemingly average man among men, plays pivotal roles in much of the story despite being not quite part of the group.

hisuiconI always took away the message of Paradise Kiss being that what we think we want, what we actually want, what we need, and what we get are all very separate things. No matter how much we may try to get them to be the same we discover life is about dealing with the fact that these four things may never meet up no matter how much we try to make them. All the member of Paradise Kiss kiss deal with these clashes of desires and realities both romantically and professionally throughout the series. But there is one character who on the surface seems out of place. Hiroyuki Tokumori seems to be a minor character who is both above this and apart from this. But on further analysis we see that he is not only a key player in all the lives of the main characters but also just as torn and effected by these conflicts as everyone else.

Continue reading →