2chan.us

Throughout the series, he tries to live his life normally while still facing against the many adversaries from the worlds of science and magic and the conflicts that follow. Despite his very bad luck, he has managed to get the interests and hearts of many ladies who are infatuated with him, which Aisa jokes about, that his life is like a dating sim where he is bound to unlock more paths to more girls.

When Mikoto was young, she was tricked into giving the city’s scientist her DNA under the pretense of finding the cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy; their actual goal to create military-grade combat clones of her. When it was discovered that the clones didn’t have the same power level as Mikoto, they were instead used in an Project called ” Level 6 Shift”, intended to make Accelerator the first level 6 esper by having him kill 20,000 clones.

Accelerator’s unique ability make him the subject of an experiment attempting to create the first Level 6 psychic; according to the city’s best supercomputer, Tree Diagram (which was unprecedentedly destroyed by Index’s Dragon Breath)

However, on the same day he became the new leader, his gang was hired to kill Mikoto’s mother, Misuzu but were defeated by Tōma and Accelerator. Humiliated, he left the gang to his friend Hattori Hanzo

While she may seem normal, she is also known as “Deep Blood” and has the ability to kill vampires when they approach her, as her blood’s smell attracts them. However, it made her miserable because it killed her family and friends that were turned into vampires.

Gunha is one of the Level 5s in the city. He is also known as “Attack Crash”, he is commonly shown wearing a white headband, coat, and a white shirt with the Japanese sun on it

The Misaka Worst are a group of specially designed 2nd generation clones of Mikoto that appear in volume 20.

Komoe Tsukuyomi (月詠 小萌 Tsukuyomi Komoe) – Her name is an aptronym as the character “小” means “small” and the character “萌” means “moe”.

It is later revealed that her full name is Telestina Kihara Lifeline

Thomas Platinumburg (トマス・プラチナバーグ Tomasu Purachinabūgu)

Underground organizations
GROUP
SCHOOL
ITEM
MEMBER
BLOCK

Anieze Forces
A group of over 250 Catholic Battle Nuns who are proficient in magic and combat.

He also uses a guillotine made of flour, a byproduct of the “Execution of Light” spell.

Elizarina (エリザリーナ Erizariina)
A blond, blue eye sorceress who rules Elizarina, a country named after herself that has recently gained independence from Russia

Aurrelus wields the power of the Northern Throne, and his power Hliðskjálf has been described as “imcomprehenisble and inexplicable”.

Why don’t I have my own JC Staff anime!?

In case you still remember kransom’s posts, you might think this is some kind of insightful and highly detailed blog. Unfortunately, you’re actually thinking of all the other ones on the sidebar.

Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei vol. 2 is a cool manga, you should read it. If you’ve already watched it, it pretty much covers all the same jokes, but personally I don’t care about that.

Faust vol. 2 doesn’t have Kara no Kyoukai in it. I guess everyone hated it so much in the last one that it’s gone now? I haven’t actually read this one yet, but Omo covered vol1 pretty well.

Gakuen Alice has a really unfortunate DVD cover but you should watch it if you like that kind of thing.

I haven’t done anything recently except play Umineko (which is more or less brilliant) so maybe this blog and that other blog will stay dead for a while.

So remember that list of unsourced rumors i posted about earlier from 2ch that just happens to be incredibly accurate? Welp, guess what showed up on the 2ch thread that everyone gets their news from?

I mean there is definitely a good chance that 10,000 hours, pixels, etc, but honestly, even if this is fabricated, Railgun anime almost seems like a given at this point, no?

(This link is old, but it’s new to me!!)

Now, I know a lot of folks aren’t the biggest fans around of Seven Seas Entertainment, after all that KnJ unpleasantness and whatnot, but between trying to break into the US market with a whole bunch of light novels, trying to bring stuff done by Closet Child over here, and on top of that sending me a free copy of Shinigami no Ballad just so that it could be subjected to the verbal diarrhea better known as “me reviewing things”, they’ve got a place in my heart.

With that in mind, after reading this thread on their forums, I want to go to their offices and give them all (especially this Adam Arnold feller) a great big hug. Or maybe a big pat on the back or something, that seems less creepy but unfortunately more patronizing. I mean sure, 2channelers might burn multiple volumes of your manga, but any sort of entitlement complex that “nagi is a slut” betrays pales in comparison to the average American message board poster if this thread is any indication. After that thread I feel like I need to go spend all my holiday Amazon gift certs on light novels, yeesh.

Hi, everyone. I’ve decided to do my MA thesis on Manga being a form of literature and the cultural impact it has had on the west. There are a few questions that I should be asking, apart from these two but I have no idea what.
The books that I have chosen to do my study in are Death Note, Count Cain, Kino’s Journey and Fullmetal Alchemist. Can you tell me if there are any secondary sources on these books? Also, where can I find the links to similar scholarly works on my topic? Thanks!

A website banner and the Moonphase unsourced rumors blog say that SHAFT/Akiyuki Shinbo’s newest upcoming anime is a Nisio Oishin novel named Bakemonogatari. I read Zaregoto pretty recently and was only a little impressed, mainly because it had the exact same writing gimmick as every other Japanese book I’ve ever read, so it’s just as well this is just going to be more otaku jokes. I think SZS is their only other recent series not based on a bad manga, so it might be interesting, I guess? This genre is getting really overcrowded now, though, they should animate something else from Kodansha Box. Like Megatokyo.

Light novels are the hottest new thing from Japan–a close sibling to manga that’s the basis for many popular franchises! These bite-sized novels include both black-and-white and color illustrations, and bring fans the most authentic reading experience short of learning Japanese!

Thanks, dust cover blurb. Thdurb.

So I got sent this book from the nice folks at Seven Seas, and part of the deal was that I write something about it on my internet web log by the end of the month. Unfortunately, I resubscribed to WoW at the beginning of the month, so the review got held up by the eternal quest for purpz and epic mountz.

Anyway, K-Ske Hasegawa’s Ballad of a Shinigami (Shinigami no Ballad for the folks at home) is part of Seven Seas’ recent rollout of a number of light novels, full of literary masterpieces of Staggering Genius such as Pita-Ten, and, um, strawberry panic. To be fair, these are all light novels, and while some releases like Boogiepop Phantom might break the mold, at least some of the stuff has to be aptly named. Here, let me quote you an example from an upcoming release:

“A love triangle comedy in the vein of Fruits Basket about a boy named Kouta and the fox and wolf girls that love him! On the very first day that innocent country boy, Oyamada Kouta, transfers to a city high school, the prettiest girl in school asks him to meet her alone. They meet in the music room, all alone. Her shining hair and entreating eyes! Her flushed cheeks! Her sweet lips! Her…fox tail?!! Who is this mysterious and alluring girl and just what does she want with unsuspecting Kouta? Winner of the First Annual Media Factory Japan Best Newcomer for Light Novel Award!”

That aside, I had higher hopes for Ballad, since I vaguely remember enjoying the anime a while ago, even though I think I got episodes of that and Hantsuki mixed up in my head. In fact, I actually own the novel in Japanese, but since I’m lazy, I never bothered reading it. Good thing that I’m getting the most authentic reading experience short of Japanese! Once I started digging into it, I was a little less than satisfied.

The basic premise of Ballad is pretty simple, as most light novel stories are. Each chapter is a nearly-independent story of a character who is in proximity to death in some way or another, and Momo, a shinigami, appears and generally talks some sense into them, catharsis ensues. Volume 1 has 3 longer stories followed by one short one. The stories all have pretty standard themes, especially for fiction aimed towards younger readers: Depressed artist-boy paints not for himself, but for his seemingly uncaring but deep-down loving father; boy and girl’s relationship is tested by stray cat they secretly take care of; emotionally-scarred orphan boy finds true love in even more-scarred girl. I wasn’t struck by many of the characters here, other than Momo, who seems to have an interesting character, but doesn’t get much exposition. I assume that the exposition gets spread out over the stories, but the concept of the bureaucratic administration of death and a loli LOOSE CANNON shinigami interests me more than teary vignettes. Guess I’m just a cynical jerk who read too much Yuu Yuu Hakusho as a child. Unfortunately, I didn’t think that the demi-parables offered up here were as rad as the novelized Kino stories, but I never really got bored while reading through. Also, all of the stories have a pretty strong “death sucks, yo” message to them, which is probably more suited towards hormone-filled teens than a far superior 20-year-old such as myself. Anyway, the stories are all interesting enough, and might make you tear up if you’re a wimp. I guess one of the biggest differences for me between the anime and the novelization is that the emotion and mood of the work comes across a lot easier in the anime, where you have the pretty pictures and music that help with that stuff, while this is not only just a chunk of text, but one that’s gone through the process of (a fairly literal) translation, adding another barrier to a reader accessing that side of the work.

A couple of more technical notes, while we’re talking about translation: one thing that bothered me was the transparency of the translation. Within 3 pages I read the jarring “The air that never changed”, “The unchanging scenery”, “his target destination”, use of a fairly awkward passive voice, etc. Honestly, this probably isn’t a problem for most people that don’t know much Japanese, but either way it seems a little stiff. It seemed to get better for most of the remainder of the book (except for a “the absolute worst” on page 18x), possibly because I got acclimated to the style, or possibly because I wasn’t being as critical. Either way, I think a little more care could have been taken in terms of translation. (side note to seven seas staff who may or may not be reading this: the author of this article has JLPT-2 and will work for dirt cheap rates!!)

In terms of physical quality of the book, I have to say I prefer the Japanese version. The color on the color illustrations is a little warmer, the paper overall feels a little more weighty and solid while the product is thinner, and we get a proper dustcover. I honestly don’t think anyone would actually care about that, especially for a book that costs less and will entertain you longer than an average volume of manga. ($7.95, ymmv on time but I think I took about 2-2.5 hours.) Overall, I’d recommend Ballad, but really, don’t come into it expecting much more than material for a fairly quick read on the train/between classes/on the toilet/etc.