The Simple Beauty of Dr. Stone

We were on a bit of a holding pattern in most of the good manga last week, so instead I have a few articles that go a bit deeper into two series in particular, and first up is my new favorite, Dr. Stone.

Dr. Stone is written by Riichiro Inagaki, best known for the indescribable Japanese football manga Eyeshield 21 (which I will one day immortalize here, you can bet your coffin-cornered kickoffs on that) or, perhaps, for being the guy who makes One Punch Man readable. Eyeshield 21 is a strong manga, no doubt, but you couldn’t say it veered very far from traditional shonen sports manga. From the main character (a weak middle schooler who winds up on his sports team via random chance) to the video game style story (beat team x, y, and z to get to the goal) you wouldn’t be wrong to characterize the series as fluff. Fun fluff, but fluff nonetheless.

With Dr. Stone we have the evolution of the man’s style. He subverts expectations in small ways that add up to a truly unique experience. He almost uses what you expect out of him from his previous work (and probably some things he learned while re-drawing One Punch Man) to surprise you in fun, interesting ways each chapter. Add in that every chapter includes fun science experiments to add to a growing cast of interesting, deeper-than-expected characters, and you’ve got a stew, er, ramen, going.

How is Tokyo Ghoul so bad? Let Me Count the Ways.

Before I start listing the reasons why Tokyo Ghoul is so infuriating, a little background may be necessary. Folks, I read every single chapter of Naruto. All of them. And I never once liked that goddamned thing. Why did I keep reading it? Really I’m not sure. It was so ubiquitous I couldn’t avoid it, maybe. Perhaps I expected everything to pay off at some point and make me feel like the whole ordeal was worth it. Most likely it was the sunk cost fallacy working its way through 700 chapters of garbage.

Speaking of garbage, the same thing is happening to me now with Tokyo Ghoul (now Tokyo Ghoul: re). We’re 281 chapters deep if you count the two series’ as a whole, and you should, because re takes place directly after the original. At this point the whole thing is a tragic fucking mess of epic proportions. Let’s dive right in and deal with the most recent issue first:

What the Fuck is Even Happening

The plot is completely impossible to follow. This criticism should be particularly biting from a fan of anime, manga, and Japanese RPGs, because those types of media have a pretty high baseline for inscrutable narratives. And yet Tokyo Ghoul has somehow found a way to be at least three standard deviations above the norm of WTF set by its own genre.

It definitely used to make sense. Back when there were fewer characters (SEE BELOW) they had a pretty cohesive narrative. Kaneki Ken is turned into a ghoul (a human with special powers who has to eat humans to survive) when he ‘accidentally’ receives a ghoul organ during an emergency transplant operation. He meets some fellow ghouls, tries to find a way to live that is comfortable to him, and tries to reconcile his life as a human/ghoul hybrid. This is fine.

The cracks start to show directly after the culmination of the first arc, which is summed up in the first season of the anime quite nicely. Ken is tortured, brutally, by a ghoul known as Jason, and this wakes him up to the fact that he needs to stop being a whiny little shitbag and embrace his inner ghoul. He goes full ghoul, eats Jason, and now we can have our story about ghoul liberation, right? NO SIR.

No, instead we go elsewhere where an organization has appeared named Aogiri Tree, and they are fighting the CCG, the counter-ghoul organization, but not for the same reasons that Ken’s group is fighting them. By the end of this encounter we’ve also introduced the Clowns, a ghoul gang of… yes, clowns. So things are already getting a bit uh… messy. At this point they still had a chance to right the ship, though. Give these groups background, compelling, distinctive characters, and good motivations for what they’re doing. Also, maintain a focus on the actual story which, I think, is still Ken wanting everyone to get along…?

8/25 Today in Angry People Powering Up

So yesterday I crammed in three franchises I couldn’t possibly summarize for people who haven’t read them. If you want me to summarize One Piece, you can burn in hell, ser. HunterXHunter is hard enough to summarize chapter to chapter. And the thought of Tokyo Ghoul makes me punch things when I’m at work. So today I’ll go over this week’s releases for three manga that are either early enough on to not confuse or easy enough to summarize in a couple sentences: Dr. Stone, Shokugeki no Soma, and The Promised Neverland.

Dr. Stone Chapter 24

This has been a huge surprise for me, in that it is fantastic, and its fantasticalness, which is now a word, can be easily summarized by this image from Chapter 20:

BRUH IT’S LIKE THEY MADE CIV 5 INTO A MANGA

August 24th: Today in Angry People Powering Up

I can write about anything? Anything at all? Oh, Kyle, you’ve made a terrible mistake.

Thursday is many things to many people, but to a select, unfortunate few, it is the day Shonen Jump manga is scanlated, translated, and dropped via LEGALLY DUBIOUS METHODS onto the American populace. So here I am, on a Thursday, to discuss with you not just the chapters from this SJ, but also chapters for the other manga I’ve been keeping up with. If you have a suggestion for something I should read, well, keep it to your fucking self I don’t have all the time in the world. Unless it involves cat ladies. Japan has ruined me.

One Piece Chapter 876

Dear god, 876 chapters. I’ve been reading this for 12 years and it’s been running for 21. Somehow they only learned the conditions for acquiring the titular treasure LAST YEAR. WE ARE… never going to finish this series before Oda dies, are we?

ANYWAY, this week we start off staring at the most beautiful thing one can stare at, a giant hole.

People love this shit

This hole was made due to Nami’s master (?) plan(???) of feeding Zeus, Big Mom’s partner(?) cloud(???) power (?????!!!!!??????), way, way too many thunder eggs. Zeus got full and… well, I think he ejaculated lightning all over the place because he was so satisfied. I think that’s what happened there.

You’d think this would put the cannibalistic Yonkou down for the count (no you wouldn’t, you’ve read manga before!) but NO, she just  climbs right out of the hole and starts running rampant once more in search of her sad, lost wedding cake dessert.