Negima ch. 264 is out. No great shakes. Evangeline is getting together with some other heavy hitters on Earth. In the Magic World, Negi’s getting his meeting with the jackass-in-chief,
Other stuff I’ve read lately below the fold:
Absolute Boyfriend: C+ Cute & sweet, but the ending is a mess and there’s so much unexplained, it’s not funny. Take the old “lonely otaku who gets a naked girl in a box from a shady website” gag. Add the secretly-in-love childhood friend next door. Now flip everyone’s sex… Mildly to very ecchi at times.
Baka and Boing: D- Stupid, ecchi, and stupid. Lonely otaku falls for minor idol, offers his life to the shinigami when she dies in a fall. Shingami says, “what the hell” and ties their souls together; now they both have six months to live – unless they can find and free every ghost in the city. There’s hundreds of them.
Future Diary (Mirai Nikki): B- Not for the weak. Schoolboy discovers that he’s a part of a 12-player deathmatch to determine who will be the next god of space and time. His only advantages are his cellphone, which becomes a diary of events up to 90 minutes in his future, and a murderously insane girlfriend that makes the Sonozaki twins from Higurashi look mildly maladjusted. His disadvantages? All the other players have similar diaries, including his girlfriend. Huge logic gaps at times, and some serious “WTH? No Way!” moments, but fun for its overthe top moments and tricks involving causality. (One trap involved multiple cement trucks burying everyone alive in concrete–on the 21st floor of a hotel?!?!) “Just a moment. I’m making a slight adjustment to Cause and Effect.” — Deus X. Machina, God of Space and Time. Very bloody; headed for a “rocks fall, everyone dies” ending.
Hakoiri Devil Princess: D. Um. The devil in question is cute and ditzy. That is all.
Jack Frost: D. The main girl survives being decapitated, although she’s dead now. But she’s ok with it, because the guy who killed her killer is a really cool monster. Next, please….
Mysterious Girlfriend X: C Um. Moral of the story? If a cute girl falls asleep on the desk next to you, don’t lick her drool off it afterwards. Quite ecchi, but 40+ chapters and no nearer an explanation of what the hell is going on than at the start. But it’s finger-licking good… (Ow. I’m going to hell for that one…)
Ume no Misaki: B Teen Goto Nagai moves alone to a remote island, hours away from the main Japanese archipelago. He meets three girls who show a varying amount of interest or hostility to him… or both. With the help of his sensei, he begins to unwrap the mystery around the girls, the old religion, and island’s ancient traditions. All three girls are “shrine maidens,” worshiped by the islanders who follow the old ways, and in turn they are consecrated to worship the Dragon God. (note: “worship,” not “the worship of”). No mere boy can have anything to do with them — which might have been a problem if the old priestess hadn’t declared that Goto is the reincarnated Dragon God! The description doesn’t do it justice; it sounds like a comedy but it’s played (almost) absolutely straight. Goto has to pick one to “receive his favor” but matters are complicated as he finds himself falling in love with all three, and they with him. Another sweet romantic story, with fanservice.
Rappi Rangai C Raizou, a 15-year-old is a normal boy, living alone — normal that is, except for small the horn on his head. He rescues a beautiful ninja girl who then hails him as her lord…. it seems he’s the last descendant of the Katana clan, an illegitimate son and heir to… nothing. Their last retainers, a clan of beautiful female ninja warriors (well, one is a guy, but it’s hard to tell), all with exceptional powers, have found him and want to restore the clan. The fanservice is good and plentiful, but the series starts to suffer from “status quo is God” after a bit.
I’ve got a few more, but I’ll save them for a later post.
I just followed some of your links and looked at a few pages. Maybe the story in “Baka and Boing” is stupid (and I believe you) but the artist sure as hell knows how to draw a pretty girl in a bikini!
She’s stacked like Bricklayer’s Local 36-24-36, isn’t she? But for some reason, she just annoys me, or the story does, or something. I’m not sure what. Actually, the most attractive female I’ve seen drawn (with clothes on) in a manga lately is probably in Student and Teacher over at Fakku. Meaning it’s hentai, but it’s actually worth reading for the story (so far). Or maybe she’s just that cute. (No sense though; even the student in question refers to having her around as being like keeping a pet.) Rappai Rangai is another one with a curvaceous main girl. Fortunately, the trap isn’t featured much after his intro story.
The funny thing about Absolute Boyfriend is that I got the feeling the author read your TMW about Hand Maid May, where you and J tried to retcon it — but still didn’t think it through.
Ah, dammit, spoilers show up in the feedreader clear as day. Still waiting for Enigma scans, though. The ones you read are reliable, I take it? Been wary of dubious scanlators that keep on sprouting time and again–much like the proverbial mushrooms after rain (you don’t know if they’re safe for consumption!)
Mirai Nikki… I need to catch up with it again but it didn’t captivate me emotionally, sadly. Mostly due to it being a plot-driven thing. Can’t help but share your sentiments, but then again I’ve always been a character-before-plot guy.
I’m using OneManga to read online, which is basically a compilation site; the actual scanlations are done by a variety of groups and therefore some may be suspect — especially the less popular series. It’s obvious that some of the series have been abandoned, which is why I mostly went for the longer collections. I tried a few other sites, but they tended to have pop-ups or other problems.
If anything, the sheer number of TL notes is a bit off-putting; I’d rather they just pick something and go with it. There’s obviously a lot of back and forth between translators and a lot seem to be translated from Chinese.
If you’re looking for another character-filled (not sure I should say “driven”) horror story, try Aflame Inferno, though its got a heavy dose of fighting, and the character stuff develops in the latter half (it’s also left-to-right, being Korean and I had a hell of a time adjusting back!). If you prefer romance, I’d suggest Absolute Boyfriend, or Umi no Misaki, both of which are heavily character driven.
Yeah, TL notes bug me no end too (like a fly in the soup kinda thing), but I’ve heard of OneManga. Thanks. Will venture there if I ever need my fix.