Manga Rant #1

This is my first rant, so I'm gonna talk about how I'm going to do these. I decided that I'll do these as Informal as I can. They'll just be numbered and I may have a title after the number but that's about it. I probably won't bother having an introduction for the rest of them. With that out of the way, I'll get to the real content:

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The Breaker: New Waves.

My goodness. I love this manga so much, but every single chapter ends with a more obnoxiously suspenseful cliffhanger than the previous chapter. If you've never heard of Breaker, it's a Korean manga with 2 different manga series under the title. Breaker and The Breaker: New Waves. Don't get me wrong. They're the same story, just one is obviously a sequel. ( If you can't tell, New Waves is the sequel) It's about a kid who gets introduced into a secret world of martial arts that functions behind the scenes of Seoul called the murim he meets the strongest martial arts master in the world and learns from him. I won't go into details about the story because this isn't some kind of review. I'm here to complain about this manga. I just have one thing to say to the writers of this manga: STOP CUTTING EVERY SINGLE VOLUME IN THE MIDDLE OF AN IMPORTANT CONVERSATION. Every single volume. It gets to the end of the volume and someone says something like: "What did you just say?" or "There's no way that's true" or "I thought you were dead." Like, for real, I just want to know what the next person says. I get that it's a ploy to make you want to read the next chapter, but it's so annoying. It makes me more irritated than it does anxious. Every single time, the first thing I want to do after reading a chapter of Breaker: New waves is kick something because it ends so abruptly. There is absolutely zero indication that the chapter is going to end until you hit the 'this was translated by..' page. Nonetheless, I still read every single chapter because I got hooked on the series from the first time I read it. Despite the ridiculous cliffhangers, the story is really good, so check it out here:

http://www.mangareader.net/the-breaker-new-waves

Thanks for reading and check out the breaker and the breaker new waves.

BTW: I'm writing this at 2:09am, so if there are any spelling errors, please ignore them.

Let's talk about Manga

I said that I would go into detail about reading manga and such, so I'm gonna break it all the way down to the basics. First thing first, manga is a Japanese term for comics. Almost all anime starts off as manga, so if there's an anime you like, chances are that there are a bunch of chapters. Popular series such as Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach all have over 600 chapters.

Manga is read from right to left. Most manga are read from the left to the right all the way down the page, but some manga, usually comedies, are 4 panel manga which are read from top to bottom on the right, and then top to bottom on the left. On the top is Lucky Star, which is a 4-Panel manga and on the bottom is Shingeki no Kyojin, a standard format manga.

So now, I ask the most important question of all: "Why would I read the manga when I can watch the anime?"
It's a dumb question that I've heard lots of times, but I will explain it because some people honestly don't understand. The reason why it's good to check out the manga is that 9.5/10 times, the story will continue in the manga and will be more detailed. Added to that, 8/10 times the manga, which is usually the original work, will be different from the anime, either by animation, or story details such as character names, event order, or just events in general. A lot of the time, producers cut scenes out of anime because they don't have enough money to put them in, or they don't think that it will reach as large of an audience. So, when you read the manga, it's like getting bonus content. Also, the manga will be a lot more detailed than the anime, including things that production companies may decide aren't appropriate for all audiences, such as extreme profanity, blood and gore, and anything of a sexual nature. I have a perfect example to show you as well. In the Rurouni Kenshin anime, there was a scene that was never brought over from the manga because the producers wanted to keep the action flowing rather than inserting a bit of comedy before a fight. Here are the pages in the manga:

  

So, what happens here is pretty obvious, but it happens right in the middle of a huge fight between the Juppongatana and the weaker half of team Kenshin (Kaoru, Misao, and Yahiko). It is hilarious and I never would have known about it had I not read the manga. Another great example of a benefit of reading the manga is with the series Koe de Oshigoto. I won't bother you with the story right now (It will probably show up in one of my rants). There are only 2 episodes in the anime, but the manga is ongoing. After reading quite a bit of it, I found that the plot of the anime ends in chapter 11, but there are well over 60 chapters to the manga, so It's great because I thought the anime was hilarious and I wanted to see more of the story, which is why I picked up the manga. The only case that I currently know of where the anime is farther along than the manga is No Game No Life, which started production when the manga was only on chapter 7. Despite that, it's one of my favorite anime of all time. Now that I have said all of that, I can be confident that you will understand me when I make comments about manga layout or anime to manga adaptation. There is one more thing that I would like to discuss, and that is the classifications of anime and manga.

There are 3 basic classifications as far as anime and manga go:

Seinen-Adult, usually has intense violence, language or sexual content.

Shounen-'Boys', Action stuff like Bleach and Naruto as well as most slice-of-life comedies.

Shoujo- 'Girls', Romantic stuff like vampire knight or Uta no Prince-sama

I'm not being sexist, these are the three main classifications. Shounen actually means boys and Shoujo actually means girls. It's really easy to remember. Seinen is adult. Shoujo is romance. Shounen is action. Shounen is the easiest to remember because of Shounen Jump, the magazine that collects the most popular shounen manga releases of the month. 

So, here you go. I've equipped you with some elementary knowledge of manga so that you can understand easier when I do reviews. In the future I might do some kind of spotlight on a show without reviewing it, and this will help you understand what I'm saying a bit more. Thanks for reading and have a great day!

-K.G.

Big update about the upcoming months! -New content coming soon!

I wanted to let you guys know what I plan to do in the next few months. As of right now, I'm watching three anime that are premiering:

RWBY

Akame ga Kill!

Sword art Online II

I plan to do reviews on all three of these in addition to the fall anime:

Psycho-pass RE:start

Attack on Titan: Crimson bow and Arrow (Still only a rumor at this point)

No game no life- season 2

Log horizon- season 2 (Rumored)

However, with college starting back soon, I doubt I'll have time to watch and review every single anime that's coming out in the fall, so I decided that it would be easier in the fall to start including manga in this blog. I read manga all of the time and I love to share manga with people. As of right now, my list isn't super long like my anime list, but I'm reading quite a few ongoing manga series. Here is the list of manga that I have read or am currently reading:

Rurouni Kenshin

Ga-rei

**Akame ga Kiru!

*Yuyushiki

K-on

*Say I love you

**The Breaker

**The Breaker: New waves

Shingeki no kyojin

Azumangah Daioh

***Seitokai Yakuindomo

*Sungeki no Kyojin

*Dengeki Daisy

*Acchi Kocchi

Lucky Star

*Lucky Star: Comic a la Carte

Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna

The Gamer

Kill me Baby

***Koe de Oshigoto

**Black Lagoon

***Game No Life

*The disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan

**Negima

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Since I will be at school most of the time, I won't be able to watch as much anime as I want, so i'll be reading lots of manga. I'm going to start posting what I call 'Rants' starting within the next few days. These will be me just talking about random parts in manga, games, anime or maybe even events in my life that freaked me out or made me laugh or made me uncomfortable. I will describe a lot about certain manga and such. In addition to that, I will also post manga reviews every now and then to mix things up. What I'm trying to do with the rants is give myself a reason to post 3 or 4 times a week like I planned to do when I started this blog. If you don't fancy yourself a manga reader, just check out one of the one or two-star manga and you will definitely get sucked in. Some of these manga do have violent or "sexual" content (I use the term sexual loosely) so don't be surprised if you see skin tight clothes, tons of blood, swearing, extremely sexual language, etc...  Lucky star and is a really good manga to start out with if you're just getting into manga and Acchi Kocchi is another one. If you want something romantic, you can read Dengeki Daisy or Say I love you, and if you want some action, You can read Black Lagoon or Akame ga Kiru. All of the others, I would recommend that you get used to the format of manga first before you read them. I'll get into details about reading manga and such in a later post. Of course, I'll be making a lot more gaming posts once school starts. Probably a lot of pokemon or other gba/nintendo ds games. ( I use emulators when I get bored). I swear that I will eventually get to that Dragon Age 2 review, but as of right now, It's not getting anywhere (pretty sure it's just writer's block). Pretty soon, I will also make a post about Titanfall (Because I love that game so much) i'll probably include a few pictures of my scores, maybe a few pictures of the titans and weapons, and probably a description of the story. So, if there's a manga that you think I should read, an anime you think I should review, or a game you think I should play (Always open to trying different versions of pokemon), leave a comment or send me an email at animeandgames4@gmail.com. Thanks for reading!

-K.G.

P.S. I decided to put two stars by the mangas that contain violence, and three stars by the ones that have sexual content (again, I use sexual loosely), just so you know. No-star means that you should probably get used to the feel of reading manga before you read it.

Top 10: Action anime

I meant to post this yesterday, but I got distracted and was playing Titanfall from 2:30 in the afternoon until 2:30 in the morning. (That's not a joke. It's kind of creepy actually.) Anyway, thanks to the people who are checking out my blog, I really appreciate it. If you like my posts, please spread the word. So, here was one of the hardest countdowns to come up with,  my top ten action anime series. I'm actually trying to introduce people to anime that isn't super-mainstream, so things like Bleach, One Piece, Naruto, Soul Eater, and Attack on Titan won't be in the countdown. I'd like you to keep in mind that those shows are very good though.

10: Freezing 

Freezing is a show that has lots of blood and nudity, so I wouldn't go around watching it with little kids. (That would be a tad bit creepy if you did...) Nonetheless, this show is about girls with special abilities who fight against giant creatures called the Nova. Each girl is paired with a guy who can use a special ability called 'freezing' that is designed to impede or stop the nova's movements. Freezing has 2 seasons each with 12 episodes, and almost every episode is packed with action, suspense, and a little comic relief from time to time. Although, the comic relief is mostly limited to the first three or four episodes of each season.

9: Coppelion

This show is based in the year 2016 . A nuclear meltdown killed off lots of people and now Tokyo is almost completely abandoned. Coppelion follows the lives of three girls who were 'born' with an immunity to the radiation that killed most of the population of Tokyo. In actuality, they're test-tube babies made by the government in order to search the radioactive area and rescue people who were stranded in the city when the meltdown occurred. Later on you learn more about the past of these three girls and you also learn about the other kids like them. Coppelion has only 1 season so far and even though there are only 13 episodes, there's so much action, you'll wish there were more ( Which there might be in the future)


8: Ghost in the shell- Standalone complex

I said that I would keep mainstream stuff off of the countdown, but this is one of the shows that's just unpopular enough to make me angry. The movies that released first were extremely popular, but when the show came out, barely half of that audience even decided to watch it. Ghost in the shell is about a special arm of the Japanese government called Public security section 9. They use high tech weapons and equipment to take down terrorists and their leader is the fearless and powerful Motoko Kusanagi, who also happens to be a genius super-hacker. This show has more plot twists than anything else I have ever seen, so it will keep you on your toes, and with two seasons of 26 episodes, there's plenty of action to keep you interested.

7: Murder Princess

I wanted to put this show in the number one slot, but with only 7 episodes, it's more of an OVA than an actual series. However, don't let the length of the show fool you. These 7 episodes feel like the have more action than the entire original Naruto series. (Of course i'm exaggerating a bit, but over half of the show was filler. By percentage, Murder princess has more action). This show is about a master swords-woman named Falis who, under strange circumstances, ends up switching bodies with a princess who wanted Falis' help to save her kingdom. So, with the help of Falis the kingdom is saved, but with Falis in the princess' body, now she has to live the life of a princess, which is almost the opposite of her previous life as a bounty hunter. It's hard to synopsis a show like this without spoilers, so I'll just say that there's a reason the show is called murder princess.

6: Air Master

Air master follows the life of Maki Aikawa, a street fighter who used to be a gymnast, and shows her progression to being the best street fighter around. Her fighting style makes the show extremely different from any other fighting shows because she practically flies through the air, delivering powerful kicks to the opponent. However, as the show progresses, she learns from and defeats people who have very different fighting styles, Air master has 27 episodes and is extremely action-packed. Every single episode has at least part of a fight in it. I want to say that I recommend it for everyone to watch, but, I can't because in one episode, Maki almost get's raped, and added to that there is one running joke in the show that's about one girl's boobs, so I can't say that it's exactly kid-friendly.

5: Mekaku City Actors

This show is another show from the makers of the Monogatari series, which if you didn't know, IS MY FAVORITE ANIME SERIES OF ALL TIME. The reason I love this series is because of the signature animation style. It's kind of choppy and cuts in and out and changes focus randomly, the best way to describe it is ADHD. That's my point. I love how random the animation is. It will cut from a pure black screen to a few seconds of walking, to a bright red screen, and then back to the characters right as the begin speaking. It makes very good use of the time when the characters wouldn't be saying anything, plus it cuts out conversations that aren't interesting or aren't related to the story at all. I love it. If you don't understand what I'm saying, watch this 12 episode series and see how ridiculously amazing it is. Despite having my favorite animation style however, it's this show doesn't have the story strength of the Monogatari series or the shows higher on the list. It's about 9 Kids who all have strange powers tied to a strange event that happened hundreds of years in the past. There's not much else I can describe about the story without spoiling it, so go watch it.

4: Durarara

This show is crazy and I can't begin to describe it properly. There's a psychopath who deals in information, a guy with superhuman strength and a horrible temper, a black Russian who sells sushi, and if that wasn't crazy enough, three kids who are all somehow tied in to a massive gang war that's happening behind the scenes. It's a gritty show with gritty animation and monstrous plot twists. I loved every second of this show and I would love to see a second season, but that won't happen anytime soon. It's 26 episodes and every single one is packed full of suspense and action. Check it out and you won't be disappointed.

3: K

This show is super cool and super smooth. The animation is beautiful, and the characters all develop fully during the series. The fight scenes are super-charged battles between energy wielding fighters who server under different 'Kings'. I can't go into too much detail because of spoilers, but if you like Naruto, or Bleach, definitely give this show a try. There are 13 episodes in both sub and dub if you want to watch it.

2: Ikki Tousen

This is another one of those shows with tons of fan-service, but not nearly to the excessively sexualized level of Freezing. It's all about fighting in this anime. Every fighter wears a sacred bead that has the soul of an ancient warrior in it, the main characters all carry the fate of the masters of fighting and the generals. The story of this show is an old tale that is played out over and over again with different people. Don't understand what i'm saying? Watch the first season. It's in both dub and sub and there are 13 episodes in the first season and countless more in the next three. To top it off, there's an hour-long OVA that closes the whole series.

1: Log Horizon

This show is a gamer's fantasy. The world gets turned into your favorite mmorpg. In this show, these kids don't get stuck inside a game, the world literally becomes the game. Every aspect of the game is now real life. There are 25 episodes, and a second season may be coming soon. I really love this show, and I know you're thinking: "It's just sword art online with different characters" That's where you are wrong. The idea from this show is similar to that of sword art online, but it's completely different aside from that. The game becomes real rather than the characters being trapped inside. When someone dies, they actually respawn in a city, and the characters are completely different with completely different personalities. If an actual MMO was created based off of elder tale, the game in this show, I would pay subscription fees or whatever I had to do to play that game because it is ridiculously intense. With 8 races, 12 classes and more than 20 subclasses, this game would be fun just for the character creation. 

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Honorable Mentions 

-Sword art online II:

-RWBY

-Black Bullet

-High School of the Dead

-Blood+

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Thanks for reading and be sure to check out at least one of these shows. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email at animeandgames4@gmail.com. I really love doing these anime countdowns because they bring back feelings and thoughts from when I watched these shows, so if you want to suggest an anime that I should review, or a countdown that I should do, feel free to contact me. Again, thanks for reading and be sure to spread the news.

-K.G.

Top 5: Video Game Characters

It's been a while since I posted, and I think that in the last post, I mentioned how I have been feeling pretty sickly as of late. I haven't been able to finish my Dragon age 2 review yet, so I wanted to let you know that I'm still committed to writing posts, so I'm going to make two consecutive posts. One about gaming and one about anime. So without further delay, here are 5 of my favorite video game characters.

5: Viktor Reznov- Call of Duty: World at War

The best character from the best call of duty game. He was such an icon that they couldn't kill him off. Instead, he returns several times in both call of duty black ops games. However, if you were a fan of world at war, you probably agree with me when you say that was Reznov at his finest.






4: Link-Legend of Zelda

How can you not love this adventurer? The world is getting destroyed by monsters and what's Link doing? Fishing. Despite that, his over all slacker demeanor makes the game hilarious.










3: Ezio Auditore- Assassin's Creed 2/Brotherhood/Revelations

Let's be completely serious on this one. That accent. That's all I have to say. Listening to Ezio speak was totally worth the 80 or 90 hours I spent beating the Assassin's Creed games.But, for real, I think that the whole game was more interesting when you get to see how Ezio grows up over the course of the three games.









2: Faith Connors- Mirror's Edge

This is possibly one of the most mysterious of all game characters. It's been a while since I've played this game, but as far as I remember, they don't really tell you that much about Faith. You discover quite a bit as the game progresses, but not enough to satisfy my desire to know about the environment in this game.







1: Hawke- Dragon age 2

There hasn't been anything as satisfying as completing Dragon age 2. Almost half of the events in the game are decided by choices you make, starting with what class you pick. Nonetheless, Hawke represents one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time, so I have to say that I am a bit partial to this character. Over every thing else, the your own choices decide how enjoyable the game is and also how Hawke behaves and speaks, which makes the character closer to you in this game than in any other that I have played.






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I hope you liked the countdown. If you didn't agree with my choices or if you have suggestions for games I should play or countdowns you would like to see, feel free to tell me by leaving a comment or sending me an e-mail at animeandgames4@gmail.com. Thanks for reading, and be sure to check back tomorrow to see my top 10 action anime countdown.
-K.G.

I'M NOT A LIAR

Yesterday, I had planned to do my Dragon Age 2 review, when I realized that there were a few options that I hadn't tried in the game (Such as letting Carver become a Templar), so I need more time to do another playthrough. Please be a bit patient with me because at the moment i've been pretty sickly. It's hard for me to get into gaming or even anime when I feel like this, but I'll try to post some countdowns or manga reviews or anime recommendations. Thank you for your patience, and please continue to read my posts. If you haven't been reading all along, check out some of my other posts. Again, thanks for being patient and thanks for reading.
-K.G.

Anime Review #2- No Game No Life

As promised, here is my review of No Game No Life. Everything I have to say will be stated in the review and closing remarks so, let's get started. (MINOR SPOILER ALERT)

First Impression-This show started off right up my alley when 4 people took on 1200 in an online game. When the battle ends, it cuts to the main characters, Sora and Shiro. Each of them was controlling two characters, yet they still outfought 1200 individual people (some of which were hackers). Sora, the older brother, is charismatic and is eerily good at reading people and shiro, the younger sister, is almost like a computer program. She speaks in monotone and can do complex calculations almost instantaneously. I love the way that they introduce the personalities of these two because they are apparently these gaming legends, and they're actually just two shut-ins with social disorders. However, the set up doesn't prepare you for what happens afterward.

Animation- The animation contains one of my main complaints about this show. Every single frame of this show is super-saturated, which made my eyes hurt until I could adjust. If you don't know what  super-saturated means, basically, every color is extremely vivid and bright, which is not what I was ready for, considering I've been watching a lot of demon-hunter type shows. However, once my eyes adjusted (which was about half of the way through the first episode), I loved the animation, and actually came to appreciate the vivid colors and extremely bright landscapes.

Music- The soundtrack of this show is pretty solid, but like I usually do, I have a bone to pick with the opening and closing songs being related in the slightest. Just like with a lot of shounen anime, the closing song is a slow-paced, kind of ballad, which doesn't fit the show's mood or theme at all. The opening song is really good, but again, it could match the show a little better. The in-show music matches the mood so amazingly that I had to go back and listen to the songs because they just flowed with the show.

Content- The show throws a lot of crazy things at you out of the blue, like an extremely clueless heiress, and a girl who practically gets turned on by the thought of learning anything, as well as a little girl with cat ears and a tail. It's pretty wild, but when any kind of action starts, you won't be able to stop watching. (Since I was watching on crunchyroll, I had to wait one week to see the last two episodes. One thing that you should be aware of is that some time during the production of this show, the manga stopped releasing, so the manga is only up to about episode 2 or 3. Nonetheless, the show follows the manga dead-on until it reaches that point. 

Final impression- After watching the last episode of season one, the only thing I could think about was season 2. After doing some research, I found out that season 2 is rumored to launch sometime in the fall or winter of this year, which would be awesome. After watching this show, I've definitely added it to the list of season 2's that I am waiting for. I loved every second of the show, and the action scenes were edge-of-your-seat intense. I loved how the show transitioned between episodes, but I could tell that watching it one episode at a time must have sucked for all of the people who watched the tv release. In the end, I was actually glad I caught it two months after release, because I would have exploded from the anticipation had I been watching one episode at a time.

Rating- This show is rated TV-MA just like every other anime on the internet, however I would give this an 8th grade and up rating (excluding special circumstances) there's mild nudity in this show and it also has hidden themes that you have to be at least a little mature to catch. Added to that, I would recommend that only seasoned anime watchers check out this show, because despite being extremely awesome, unless you know a lot about anime and dating sims, you won't be able to enjoy the jokes in this show to the fullest.

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I just want to remind you that my Dragon age 2 review will be coming as soon as I finish the campaign as a mage, (which might be a while because I'm gonna be playing Titanfall a lot when I get off of vacation), just kidding, but being truthful it will probably take me until next Friday to finish the game and write my review.

With all of that said, Thanks for Reading and come back in a few days for another video game top ten.