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You can't be inspired 24/7, and working on a single piece of work for a long time will not help it much.
That's the catch 22 of the quality of japanese and asain media is that they are mostly consistently better than western media because a single author has the writing control (obviously publishers and studios interfere but it's less polluted) but the authors get burnt out working overtime by themselves which is why longer media benefits in the west from multiple writers keeping the energy fresher
 
Started reading Dungeon Meshi from a recommendation of a guy I used to play DnD with and it's pretty alright although I did get a little whiplash in the first chapter with the characters almost being whipped out by a dragon (and one being outright eaten) to suddenly start cooking monster bits.
Aside from that it's pretty funny but most most of the jokes seem to revolve around this over and over so I'm a bit worried it'll get a bit stale.

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I'm gonna give another dozen or so chapters and decide if its worth reading.
An important thing to remember about DM is it was released monthly and not meant to be read all in one go.
 
I generally agree with the notion that very busy work schedules dilutes creativity. You need to absorb experiences, stories and thoughts to produce good art. There is an overall trend of decline in long running manga/anime, where the author eventually, due to the required weekly output, produces story lines of lesser quality in comparison to earlier efforts. Naruto and Bleach are good examples. Both were exuding creative energy early on, especially in the art work, and settled for a more restrained and "mature" style in the last few arcs.

You can't be inspired 24/7, and working on a single piece of work for a long time will not help it much.
It seems like it’s now more acceptable for manga to just end instead of being milked for profit for decades as the story continues to degrade. A story that ends in 2-5 years with a fully complete narrative also allows for mangaka to take a fucking break in between stories - Chainsawman was supposed to start back up again last December but the author’s still on a well-deserved hiatus, presumably living off the volume sales and anime licensing money.

IMO, an industry that promotes stories that are at least roughly planned out in advance with a definite ending in mind will on average create more good stories than an industry that forbids its best sellers from wrapping up and demands more content. It’s better for the fans (who get better stories) and for the creators (who aren’t stuck having to keep stretching a story they’ve clearly lost the passion for half a decade ago, and can actually take a break after a series ends) and even for the big publishers, because they’re no longer dependent on the existence and success of a few big names.
 
That's the catch 22 of the quality of japanese and asain media is that they are mostly consistently better than western media because a single author has the writing control (obviously publishers and studios interfere but it's less polluted) but the authors get burnt out working overtime by themselves which is why longer media benefits in the west from multiple writers keeping the energy fresher
True, though I think there is an overall decline in creativity as far as mainstream media goes, both in the west and east. It's a little too insular and self-referential.
 
It seems like it’s now more acceptable for manga to just end instead of being milked for profit for decades as the story continues to degrade. A story that ends in 2-5 years with a fully complete narrative also allows for mangaka to take a fucking break in between stories - Chainsawman was supposed to start back up again last December but the author’s still on a well-deserved hiatus, presumably living off the volume sales and anime licensing money.

IMO, an industry that promotes stories that are at least roughly planned out in advance with a definite ending in mind will on average create more good stories than an industry that forbids its best sellers from wrapping up and demands more content. It’s better for the fans (who get better stories) and for the creators (who aren’t stuck having to keep stretching a story they’ve clearly lost the passion for half a decade ago, and can actually take a break after a series ends) and even for the big publishers, because they’re no longer dependent on the existence and success of a few big names.
I think they delayed it until after the anime to hype the manga up more.
 
now's the perfect time to start watching gundam
I'm still working my way through the original series, and if there's any advice I can give a newcomer, it's this: if your version has them, do not watch the episode previews. They'll usually flat-out spoil major developments in the very next episode. Worse, the previews come before the ED, not after, so you'll need to skip over them instead of jumping to the next episode (unless you're fine with skipping the ED, you monster).

As an example, I just watched episode 24. The rest of this is going in a spoiler tag, so if you haven't watched already and don't want to be spoiled, don't take a peek. Just take my word for it, you want to skip the previews.
So for those who have already watched MSG, episode 24 is the one where Matilda dies. Surprised the hell out of me, it really came out of the blue. In retrospect, there were a lot of deathflags, but eh.

Anyway, I went back to episode 23 and took a look at the preview just to see if they spoiled it. No shit, the very first line out of the narrator was "Matilda dies protecting the White Base." I actually laughed when I saw that, just bam, there it is, hope you didn't like her too much.
I dunno if this keeps up in later series or not, though I do know that G Gundam's previews are considerably less spoilery. It's baffling to me why they'd be that blatant.
 
Like I said, I am extremely divided in terms of my feelings for it (G Gundam is awesome btw).

For me at least, when the show focused on Hiro and Zero Two, that was when it was at its strongest, and heck, the whole love and friendship angle I also felt worked when it came to those two, as we got to see how their connection allowed their characters to grow and find purpose. Unfortunately, when it tried to shift its view to other characters, and also when it hit the last four episodes with the main villain, it all started to fall apart. Especially since the ultimate bad guy had very little to do with the two main characters' plight.

Despite all this, I still can't say I disliked the show, and I would honestly like to see the creators make more of it, perhaps as a way to fix what was broken. It's just a shame it has so many flaws.
That's like asking some critic if Weathering With You or World of Tanks is salvageable in the heap of crap flaws that negate any pros of the product. To put it simply, Franxx is and was always shit and you should feel shame for liking it. The fact that it has so many flaws to even warrant a "fix" is like asking how to fix Southeast Asia. The answer is simple.

You don't. Just burn it in the ashes and never speak of it again.
 
That's like asking some critic if Weathering With You or World of Tanks is salvageable in the heap of crap flaws that negate any pros of the product. To put it simply, Franxx is and was always shit and you should feel shame for liking it. The fact that it has so many flaws to even warrant a "fix" is like asking how to fix Southeast Asia. The answer is simple.

You don't. Just burn it in the ashes and never speak of it again.
Someone sure doesn't like it it seems.

Meh, to each their own. Frankly, I think that it had enough moments that I loved that prevent me from fully disliking it, even though I acknowledge that it is heavily flawed.
 
I dunno if this keeps up in later series or not, though I do know that G Gundam's previews are considerably less spoilery. It's baffling to me why they'd be that blatant.
IIRC everything before Gundam SEED can be counted to have at least some spoilers at times in the previews, and I can't remember if SEED did or not. It's VERY common in older shows to spoil things in the preview, I think it was to keep the audience guessing on the "how does that happen then?" and make sure they didn't miss a week as a way of building hype.

The past 15 years of Gundam shows are free of preview spoilers though.
 
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I'm still working my way through the original series, and if there's any advice I can give a newcomer, it's this: if your version has them, do not watch the episode previews. They'll usually flat-out spoil major developments in the very next episode. Worse, the previews come before the ED, not after, so you'll need to skip over them instead of jumping to the next episode (unless you're fine with skipping the ED, you monster).

As an example, I just watched episode 24. The rest of this is going in a spoiler tag, so if you haven't watched already and don't want to be spoiled, don't take a peek. Just take my word for it, you want to skip the previews.
So for those who have already watched MSG, episode 24 is the one where Matilda dies. Surprised the hell out of me, it really came out of the blue. In retrospect, there were a lot of deathflags, but eh.

Anyway, I went back to episode 23 and took a look at the preview just to see if they spoiled it. No shit, the very first line out of the narrator was "Matilda dies protecting the White Base." I actually laughed when I saw that, just bam, there it is, hope you didn't like her too much.
I dunno if this keeps up in later series or not, though I do know that G Gundam's previews are considerably less spoilery. It's baffling to me why they'd be that blatant.
I would have just told you to skip the series and watch the movies.

In almost every single circumstance, the UC mantra is as follows; OVA/ Film > TV series. The only time where this isn't the case for a UC series is Zeta Gundam.
 
I would have just told you to skip the series and watch the movies.

In almost every single circumstance, the UC mantra is as follows; OVA/ Film > TV series. The only time where this isn't the case for a UC series is Zeta Gundam.
I would say it's also agreeable to skip most of ZZ and simply wki the plot. It starts out as a solid comedy, but that the snap back to war drama was too sudden and jarring. Very hard to take a bunch of kids piloting a carrier without adult supervision seriously.
 
There's been barely any talk about Getter Robo Arc in the sites I go to, so there hasn't been much commentary, not even in how the online watching was a bit of a shitshow; it took half a day for fansites to have the first episode at all, and it wasn't until a few hours later that the episode was actually released with a sub.

But well, it worked out in the end, even if I feel subs that literally use the word "jank" are not great. Still, although some of the faces were ridiculous and silly, there was a pretty big classic energy, you know? I think that for a show that relied a lot on CG robots, the animation worked out fine.
 
Okay...whats the general consensus on Cross Ange? Aside from the incredibly unrealistic outfits and rape I was thinking of watching it. I've had Yoko Takahashi's theme song on my iPod forever.

I know ANN threw a fit about episode 1. I have heard that despite the show being fanservice central (the villain spanks the rival girl on his lap for some reason?) Ange actually, through all intents and purposes, develops as a character.
I saw it and I ended up really liking it. Don't listen to ANN, it's a great show and some of the music is really good.

Pre-ordered the Slayers hardcover novel coming this week.

I have all the Slayers series on DVD. I highly doubt we'd be getting a bluray remaster of the show.
Unironically based. You are my new favorite person on this thread.
 
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Episode 1 is still rather rough in what it does, nonetheless.
 
Megumi Hayashibaras book is also coming stateside :)
Phillice wasn't even that old. Damn...cancer sucks.

I found out the Slayers dub is a bit of a mess. Apparently Crispin wasn't first actor to play one of the characters. Same with the little girl. I think I read she's voiced by Veronica Taylor?

For some reason in the mid nineties there was some long break period between shows (?) and they lost contact with the guy so Crispin replaced him.
 
Well it looks like manga sales in the US finally surpassed its former 2007 peak
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Article doesn't give an exact number but guessing from the graph its around $240-245 million

Still nothing compared to the japanese market which made 612.6 Billion Yen (around $5.5 billion) in the same year.
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