Blog Archive

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

The State of Manga:

Of the six manga that ended in 2019, how did English speakers get to enjoy them?

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha -- we got to see the ending to the Reflection and Vivid manga, but Nanoha Force, the sequel to this content, is still on permanent hiatus.  So nothing is really resolved.

To Love-ru -- a very ecchi chapter was released this year, but there's still no resolution to the central drama, whether Rito can live with Haruna alone or not.  Any ending that doesn't answer this central question is totally worthless.

Freezing -- this manga didn't really end, it just went on permanent hiatus, so of course it wasn't satisfactory.  It was in fact in the middle of a titanic battle with the fate of multiple worlds on the line when the authors up and quit.  Ridiculous.

Kimi ni Todoke -- some bonus chapters were released in Japan describing Sawako and Ume's college life, but none of them were ever translated, so English speakers got nothing out of it.

Dimension W -- in Japan this series ended in June, but for English speakers there's no telling when the final volume will come out.  If we're lucky sometime this year?  If not, who knows. . .

Omoi, Omoware, Furi, Furare -- The scanlators have fallen extremely far behind in this series.  Despite it ending in Japan long ago, we're still multiple volumes away from the ending.  Progress is so slow I wonder if we'll even get to see what happens by 2020.

Okay, but surely some manga that ended in 2018 are finally being translated now?  We can at least look forward to those, right?

Btooom! -- We get to see the ending in late November, which sadly is still a long ways away.

Mujaki no Rakuen -- This series was admittedly canceled by the author as he anticipated tighter censorship laws heading into the 2020 Olympics.  Of course the ending wasn't satisfactory.

Well then, at least we can enjoy the manga that ended in 2017, right?

Sakura Trick --  We finally got the last chapters of this series in early 2019.  They weren't very good, but at least they provided a closure of sorts.  Like Kimi ni Todoke, the main couple decided to have a long distance relationship upon graduating from high school, which is an incredibly terrible idea.

Kyoukai no Rinne -- It's possible that we'll actually get to see the ending of this series translated sometime this year.  There are only six chapters left to translate, and the team working on it has been pretty diligent.  Still, it's almost 2020, so we're talking three years here just to catch up with the Japanese.

Hayate no Gotoku -- The one shining star in this entire mess.  The ending wrapped everything up and scanlators rapidly delivered it to the English speaking fandom.  If every manga experience were like this I wouldn't be complaining.

Well, what about the manga that ended in 2016?

Bleach -- The author got sick and cancelled the series with a deus ex machina ending, well before answering all the questions the story had posed.  It was a disaster.

Alien Nine Next -- After a desultory attempt to write this series, it eventually dried up after a mere three chapters.  We'll never see the ending now.

Kiwaguro no Brynhildr --  At some point the author lost control of this series and events starting cascading into rapids of endless absurdity.  The ending was a blessing simply because the trainwreck could finally come to a halt.

Ad Astra per Aspera -- This series 'ended' before it had even begun.  Nothing was resolved.

Shinryaku! Ika Musume -- They never answered the mystery of the other sentient sea life.  Instead the jokes just got progressively worse until the series was finally put out of its misery.

Err, so maybe 2015?

Strobe Edge -- This manga by Io Sakisaka was about breaking up with an old flame in order to get with a new one.  Very NTR.

Ao Haru Ride -- This manga by Io Sakisaka was about breaking up with a new flame in order to get with an old one.  Very NTR.

Nichijou -- The humor of this series was always debatable (I feel it was Kyoto Animation's magic touch that actually made this series great, not the original author), but in any case the later volumes were even weaker than the beginning.

In truth we've been in a 'satisfactory manga ending' drought since 2014.  I only pray that Btooom!, Kyoukai no Rinne and Dimension W can turn things around. . .

No comments: