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D. Gray-man! Optimism high
And then there's D. Gray-man. A lot of people have been talking about it going downhill. Mostly they're complaining about the "rushing", but it hasn't felt rushed to me. I do think the pacing started off really, really awkward in this last arc...
...But Hoshino is a fallible human being like everyone else. She went from a 15-page weekly format to a monthly format that ranges up to three times that length. It's natural that she needed a few months to get the hang of it: to figure out how to pace things so that she packed in enough information/action to satisfy her readers for a month, without just cramming things in there all in a rush. She obviously was flailing at the beginning of the arc when the switch went into effect.
We're all sad that she hasn't gotten to Lavi, and we're all sad that the artstyle has gotten kind of wonky and unpredictable and suddenly everyone has the same face. And she's contradicted herself once or twice in minor ways.
But it doesn't feel like Hoshino has said, "Okay, I'm just going to trash the following plot points." The rushing isn't that kind of rushing. We suddenly cram in all this stuff about Alma Karma only as soon as he became significant, for instance. But on the other hand, she's been foreshadowing this storyline for as long as we've known Kanda: we've always known there was a special person, we've always known the name "Yu" bothers him, etc. And she's gone to great lengths to delicately craft Kanda's backstory with a lot of attention and detail.
She rearranged her story plans, probably. But is she rushing the way KT is? Not really. Are we at the big climax and going to end the series? Absolutely not -- this is an incident of scaled-up tension that might make Kanda go crystal-type -- that's all.
Chapter 198 was kind of amazing on a lot of levels, but some thoughts that stand out to me:
First, Timcanpy flipping out. I take this as a sign that Cross is still alive. Think of it this way... Timcanpy being pre-programmed to do this is next to impossible. So, Allen going Noah -- triggers Timcanpy -- to break a barrier -- around the North American Headquarters -- which happens to make Allen's eye trigger and wake him from his pain-induced stupor? The odds of that are unbelievably slim. On the other hand, if Cross is monitoring and aware of the situation from afar, then he could have done this knowing that these two completely unrelated actions would produce the desired result. And of course, the chanting that we heard while Tim was breaking the barrier was Cross's sorcery, so... Signs point to alive?? Bwahaha.
Secondly, the barrier is broken. The Earl knows he isn't going to get his little brother back, and his minion Alma is self-destructing, so he said, "Later! ♥" Which indicates to me that he's leaving. We have a very narrow window left in which Alma Karma can be saved -- but then it seems like this arc will be ending. Crystal-type Kanda? Allen does as everyone foreshadowed he'd do and saves him? He tries but fails and then angsts for a while? Either way, the arc is ending, and then we get Lenalee and Lavi back yayyyyy!!!
Neah, and Alma Karma's soul, are also really awesome and confusing things. But I am excited!!
...so, on that note, is anyone up for doing the scan-manipulating part of scanslations of Gray Ark, or should I just publish the text without worrying about the scans?
...But Hoshino is a fallible human being like everyone else. She went from a 15-page weekly format to a monthly format that ranges up to three times that length. It's natural that she needed a few months to get the hang of it: to figure out how to pace things so that she packed in enough information/action to satisfy her readers for a month, without just cramming things in there all in a rush. She obviously was flailing at the beginning of the arc when the switch went into effect.
We're all sad that she hasn't gotten to Lavi, and we're all sad that the artstyle has gotten kind of wonky and unpredictable and suddenly everyone has the same face. And she's contradicted herself once or twice in minor ways.
But it doesn't feel like Hoshino has said, "Okay, I'm just going to trash the following plot points." The rushing isn't that kind of rushing. We suddenly cram in all this stuff about Alma Karma only as soon as he became significant, for instance. But on the other hand, she's been foreshadowing this storyline for as long as we've known Kanda: we've always known there was a special person, we've always known the name "Yu" bothers him, etc. And she's gone to great lengths to delicately craft Kanda's backstory with a lot of attention and detail.
She rearranged her story plans, probably. But is she rushing the way KT is? Not really. Are we at the big climax and going to end the series? Absolutely not -- this is an incident of scaled-up tension that might make Kanda go crystal-type -- that's all.
Chapter 198 was kind of amazing on a lot of levels, but some thoughts that stand out to me:
First, Timcanpy flipping out. I take this as a sign that Cross is still alive. Think of it this way... Timcanpy being pre-programmed to do this is next to impossible. So, Allen going Noah -- triggers Timcanpy -- to break a barrier -- around the North American Headquarters -- which happens to make Allen's eye trigger and wake him from his pain-induced stupor? The odds of that are unbelievably slim. On the other hand, if Cross is monitoring and aware of the situation from afar, then he could have done this knowing that these two completely unrelated actions would produce the desired result. And of course, the chanting that we heard while Tim was breaking the barrier was Cross's sorcery, so... Signs point to alive?? Bwahaha.
Secondly, the barrier is broken. The Earl knows he isn't going to get his little brother back, and his minion Alma is self-destructing, so he said, "Later! ♥" Which indicates to me that he's leaving. We have a very narrow window left in which Alma Karma can be saved -- but then it seems like this arc will be ending. Crystal-type Kanda? Allen does as everyone foreshadowed he'd do and saves him? He tries but fails and then angsts for a while? Either way, the arc is ending, and then we get Lenalee and Lavi back yayyyyy!!!
Neah, and Alma Karma's soul, are also really awesome and confusing things. But I am excited!!
...so, on that note, is anyone up for doing the scan-manipulating part of scanslations of Gray Ark, or should I just publish the text without worrying about the scans?
no subject
I pretty much saw the whole Alma soul thing coming from a while back, it's what I would have done if I was writing DGM, another reason I adore Hoshino, more than once I've felt that she's been in my brain. :D