Is this manga gore?

There's a lot of violence and blood, and characters die, but the artist doesn't draw anything graphic or specific. There's no scenes with exposed bones or guts or horrible injuries. So I would not consider it gore.

last edited at Oct 5, 2017 3:54AM

Maybe I just take Killing Games seriously.

I mean, Battle Royale was alright, and I haven't read anything decent since then. This one was particularly bad, but in a genre chock to brim with garbage, it doesn't stand out that much.

Far be it from me to expect realism in my dumb ecchi fanservice manga, but the author seems to need a crash course in bra size mathematics. ><;

Aimi's math actually works out (28" band, 35.5" bust = 28G or 28H), although that ribcage measurement is like, impossibly thin. But Yumi is just.... 62cm is a 24in. band. That is... toothpick. Skeletal toothpick. And, technically, with a 70cm bust that makes a difference of 3-4", which translates to a 24C or 24D (if those even exist), not AA.

You can't just convert the measurements into inches and then use the UK or US systems. Japan sizes are substantially different, both in measuring and in conversion to size. A Japanese band of 60 corresponds to a US band of 28 - clearly not a direct cm to inches conversion, because the US and UK measurements add ~4 inches to the true band measure. Additionally, cup sizes increment by every two cm instead of by every inch, so they don't line up at all.

You guys are still totally missing my point. It being a girl doesn't make it not creepy. It's creepy regardless of gender. It's fine to have no issues with it because it's a lighthearted work of fiction. Just don't try and hide behind poorly thought out double standards is all.

I think you're right in a sense - what she did is obviously creepy. However, I don't think you can assume that people don't care simply because she's a woman. If you read enough manga, you see all kinds of creepy shit, committed by male characters as often as female characters (probably more often). It doesn't bother me (and I think most readers other readers are the same) because it's presented as goofy and lighthearted - the character's gender doesn't need to come into it. You're kinda assuming that everyone here would have a problem with a male character doing that, but not a female character.

already in dangerous territory

That's certainly one way of putting it.

Just like how Konami owns Metal Gear, and without Kojima they can make pachinkos and Metal Gear survive now... Disgusting.

They can make as many pachinko machines and toys and lunchboxes as they want, regardless of who the director is for the anime (or game, or whatever). They didn't need to fire the guy to accomplish that. Konami marketed pachinko machines while Kojima was the game's director, and they kept doing so after getting rid of him. It's 100% completely irrelevant.

So your "let's fire this guy so we can expand the merchandising" theory makes no sense whatsoever. They already had a monopoly on merchandising and full control over it. It has literally nothing to do with who they hire to produce the anime, game, etc. If anything, Tatsuki did a great job of increasing their ability to sell Kemono Friends-related products, by creating a show that attracted new consumers to the franchise.

I think it's a somewhat interesting question as to why they actually switched directors. Since Kadokawa is a profit-seeking, publicly-traded corporation, it's safe to assume that they saw it as a way to increase revenue or decrease costs. This is somewhat curious - by the looks of it, Kemono Friends was not an expensive show to produce, and it was wildly successful, so you'd think that keeping the same team would be an obvious decision. Clearly, something must have happened to change that calculation. Maybe they thought they could find someone else who could achieve similar results for cheaper, or maybe Tatsuki demanded more money for the second season. There are many potential reasons, since the relationship between studio and license-holder is incredibly complicated.

I'm not sure the gardener analogy is apt.

Maybe if you didn't give a shit about your garden, and hired some random person and let them do whatever they want with it. And what they did ended up turning into a world-famous attraction. And now that it's famous, you suddenly decide to force that person to do things in a certain way, completely different from what they had been doing all along.

Sure, you've got the right to do so, but it's also understandable to call it a bit unreasonable.

In my analogy, I was mainly referring to motive, which is what the post I was responding to seemed to be talking about. The desire to "taking over" a property they already own is not a motive for firing the director. I wasn't really talking about how reasonable their action may or may not be. All I meant was that this was a bizarre motive to attribute to their action.

What a disappointing and boring chapter. At least that's all out of the way and we can perhaps go back to something less painfully cliche.

Yeah, all they need was an excuse to take over ... All the merchandise, animations PACHINKOS is all for them now, s2 might be the equivalent in anime of Metal Gear Survive

An excuse to take over? What are you even talking about? They own the IP regardless of who they hire to work on the anime. There is no "taking over" by firing the studio. That's like saying they're firing the gardener in order to "take over" their front lawn - it's already theirs in the first place. Perhaps they have some unsavory or shady reason to fire the team and get a new one, but they always had complete control over the series so "taking over" is not a motive that makes sense.

It is delicious, but I feel like I would get sick if I ate an entire foie gras sandwich.

Also, I just thought of someone marketing their foie gras with "Banned in California!" stickers as proof of its sinful deliciousness, just like films and play promoters would say "Banned in Boston!" as proof of how much sexual content they contained.

I'm a big fan of Kodama Naoko. But I think things like Cocytus (and Moratorium), A World Without Freedom, and her oneshots work better than Netsuzou Trap. She relies a lot on strong emotions (especially self-hatred) and surprise revelations, which works fine in shorter formats but gets really stale if it continues chapter after chapter. I still enjoy Netsuzou, but it's hard not to laugh at how extreme it gets, and when you're laughing at a drama, you don't feel invested in the characters at all.

From reading her author's afterwords in various works, it's clear she's very self-aware regarding the stories she likes to tell. From the Moratorium note:

I drew this while thinking, "I wonder what's the difference between feelings of love and strong friendship?" I've been on the topic lately, but I still want to see if I can draw this theme from a different angle. Women like Mao really bring "troublesome" to a new level. I love that kind of character! haha

no point in blackmailing if they're gonna make out in class

That's why she gave them the quiz, so their heads will all be down.

last edited at Sep 18, 2017 8:46AM

Hope we'll finally get to know which of the daughters (or mother) kissed the fifth over the course of that series XD

It's gonna be one of those typical hotel murder mysteries, where they spend a few chapters introducing all of the characters and establishing the setting, before a storm arrives. There's a blackout and all contact with the mainland is cut off. The proprietress calls all the guests and staff to the banquet hall and gives a speech:
"I've called you all here because something terrible has happened. This poor girl was kissed. And the one who did it is currently in this room!" [ominous thunder and lightning]

What an aggressive nakai. The power to make yuri where none existed before.

Considering the Sex, I guess this would be a very, very awkward talk to the creators. But if they can creat AI advanced enough to recreat love, I guess an artifical vagina wouldn't be very hard? Awkward, but probably not very hard. I mean, I would love all this scene. Imagine the awkwardness when they want to go intimate and Hiro asks for updates that makes er able to have sex. I mean, I don't even think they would have to creat something new, realisticly a sexbot would be the second or third use of advanced robot-technology commercialized.

I agree. We can kind of already see that these scientists have some absurd level of resources at their disposal and are perfectly happy to use that for research of very questionable utility (like Chika-chan2.0, which seems like quite a large investment for a pretty flimsy justification). They seem hell-bent on making android robots blend into human society perfectly, so I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have some robots capable of sex already.

With short chapters and really long release times, Im scared its going to be Citrus 2.0. Really dam good but really dam long and take 3 years to get plot movement.

My guess is that this won't ever get as long as Citrus, and will end after two or three volume's worth. But then again, this is a quarterly magazine, so it won't take too many chapters to get to three years.

This "mysteriously meeting someone who seems to know you" plotline makes me think of Watashi no Muchi na Watashi no Michi, which I found pretty disappointing. But I guess with Momono Moto just doing the art on this one, there's no reason to expect the plot will be similar to what she wrote before.

That brings up the question... what are they gonna do with the false Chika now that the real one's back?

kumichou is the best at everything.

But from an ethical standpoint it's incredibly dubious especially when you start asking the question "Is a sapient AI a person or an object?" because to anyone who views her as a person there's little moral difference between Hiro's situation and a child being raised under laboratory conditions.

I don't really agree with you here. Though Hiro may be "a person", she is absolutely not "a human person". Her needs are different than a human's, and there's nothing wrong with her being treated in accordance with those differences.

One thing is obvious that she needs the lab's resources to survive and grow, considering how often they talk about replacing parts or updating her programming. A human child doesn't need a team of trained engineers to keep it alive and raise it. Another is that, for the most part, she seems perfectly happy in the lab - she lives a relatively normal life, and she considers the team her family, which they each seem to reciprocate.

A better analogy might be a human child with a developmental disorder and an illness that requires her to receive regular surgery and continued care from a team of specialists. Also, she's an orphan. If any human were in that position, and lived a life similar to Hiro's, I think most people would consider her rather well taken care of.

My favorite part is that even to the end, Hiro feels like a robot. Oftentimes these robot romances are way too human - we just have to take the author's word for her being a robot. But here, her "love" feels like a robot's love.

Haha. The biggest asshole in the world has giant asshole friends too. I hope someone gets kicked in the face next chapter.

What I don't understand is the whole "Ok, I will be your lover, but only when I like it". I means she is not calling Miyabi as 'just an acquaintance', but 'today/ at that moment, an acquaintance'. I means it is at least understandable if Kuro was just stringing and jumping between different girls. But clearly it was not the case.

My hazard guess is her mother was (one of) her father's mistress or something. And the above is her parents reasoning to continue their bizarre relationship. And it just warped Kuro's mind. Or something. Maybe that's why Uta's devoting love interested Kuro so much

I started to like Miyabi a fair bit now through. Mature and devoting kouhai with unrequited love. And a filthy rich twin-tailed cat-eyes loli with fragile heart needed to be cured. Sorry Uta, but I am on Miyabi x Kuro ship now

That whole story you made up about her father's mistress seems a bit far-fetched. There's basically no reason to think that, and there are a million different other possible explanations that are more likely. Maybe she doesn't get along with her parents. Maybe her parents are divorced. Maybe she's uncertain about her feelings and masking that via an affectation of apathy. Or maybe there's no "reason" - she's cynical just because that's how she is.

I'd be interested to read more 社会人百合, as it says in the anthology subtitle. Nice break from school girls.

Well, this is fucking amazing, as always. I'm trying to think about what comes next. I assume we're going to be finding out more about Ding Yi's family situation. About the visiting scholar invitation, I had thought at first that Wei-Wei would decline, but then when Lu said she wouldn't be going at the same time, I started wondering about it. Symbolically, it might make sense for her to accept and bring Ding Yi along, since the author seems to put a heavy focus on this kind of narrative poetry with lots of juxtaposition. Still, it seems like it'd be pretty impractical.