You were a good and kinda gender-neutral geek-oriented magazine, and then most of the comics I liked moved into the new, more female-audience-oriented Comics Blade Avarus. I kept buying you because you had that old-timey fox demon comic, and Mother Keeper (which is about cyborgs; Mother is the name of a computer), and someday I am totally going to catch up on Elemental – I’m sorry, Eremental Gerad. But then you kept introducing annoying comics about spunky heroines getting humiliated by nasty men, or else playing sports, which strike me as designed for a male demographic, and more importantly, which I find annoying. And then Mother Keeper got onto this plotline where Female Lead is enslaved and forced to fight to the death all the time, which is much more creepy and less cool than when she was doing things like impaling Male Lead with bladed weapons, and speaking of that, whatever happened to Male Lead anyway? Seeing as how he is the protagonist and all. I think I will try some tachiyomi, and maybe I will buy you again if you have a nice color page for one of those comics.
Other comics I am disappointed in lately: Jump. It has a lot of comics I find disgusting (the one that is entirely about oozing dripping meat; the one about the preschooler who wears neither pants nor underpants; the usual boob-and-crotch one; and I still hate Bakuman for its early spiel about how girls should not get good grades because their purpose in life is to be cute, whereas boys should because they might need to actually do something with their lives), and D. Gray-man is on vacation again. I’m still going to read it for Bleach and Naruto though, because my girl comics do not have enough ninja and shinigami fighting action. Meanwhile Sunday has new comics by renowned artists Takahashi Rumiko and Watase Yuu, and their bishoujo harem comics are the relatively inoffensive and visually cute Kami nomi zo shiru sekai and Hayate the Combat Butler – and maybe Zettai Karen Children, which I don’t read, but at least it’s not saturated with fan service. Now if only they would stop putting photos of models on the cover, because they have nothing to do with comics.
While I am being negative (it’s easier to find flaws in things than demonstrate that they are good), here are two plots I am feeling totally sick of right now: 1. The one where the protagonist undertakes a completely impossible goal but is rashly, illogically convinced they will succeed; at first they fail and everyone makes fun of them, but then they discover their miraculous hidden one-in-a-million power/talent that they just happen to have and then eventually succeed beyond anyone’s expectations, thus justifying their initial completely unjustifiable optimism. 2. The one where the protagonist tells an outrageous lie and then wacky hijinks ensue as they try not to get caught, but finally they get caught just as they were about to come clean anyway and eventually everyone forgives them and they realize that there was no need for the outrageous lie in the first place. We get it! Honesty preferable to outrageous lie requiring untenable and elaborate deception!
Cicadas in May 