Make Mine Manga!

We close the book (for now) on Death Note - the manga so good we keep calling it One Piece for no apparent reason. As Light and L’s rivalry comes to an end, how are the boys feeling? And is The Emperor and I an adequate palate cleanser?

That’s a series wrap on All You Need is Kill - a first for this podcast adventure. Which, considering the length of the popular shonen manga series, isn’t all that surprising.

We talk about AYNIK - the good, the bad, and how it compares to the Yotsuba arc of Death Note.

Join us for an hour where the boys editorialize about current events, sexiness in comics, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of black and white vs. color art. Also, we talk about Death Note and All You Need Is Kill in there, too.

Well, the boys have committed to Death Note for the long haul, but it’s time to commit to a new series as well. There stories are on the ballot: The Emperor and Me, All You Need is Kill, and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Can a cute penguin stand up against the ultraviolence of an alien invasion or a violent social climber?

After meeting Usopp and getting into… a whole lot of discourse, we say goodbye to One Piece (for now?). But we can’t quite bring ourselves to quit Death Note yet, especially now that things are getting so… interesting.

Aaaaaaand cue Ryuk eating an apple.

Well, poor Aldo came down ill over the Thanksgiving holiday, so John and Stephen take a moment to reminisce over their history with the current hottest pastime: tabletop roleplaying games!

In episode 3, we continue our exploration of One Piece and Death Note. We continue to marvel at the surprises and moral complexities of the latter, and we laugh as the former shows us how one man can kick another in the sensitives in new and exciting ways. Also, we try to avoid getting flagged by the DOJ. If there’s an episode 4, you’ll know we succeeded.

We continue our journeys through the worlds of One Piece and Death Note. We contemplate the morality of murder and the practicality of holding a sword in your mouth. You know, deep philosophical stuff.

I’d like to say we workshopped a better title than this, but we clearly didn’t.

John, Aldo, and Stephen embark on a new journey into the world of manga! This week: we trial three chapters of four different stories to get a feel for the landscape, and we select two to stick with for an additional seven chapters apiece. The readings are:

One Piece

Death Note

Cipher Academy 

Dragon Ball

All good things…

In light of the highly disappointing (and frankly cowardly) behavior of Marvel’s parent company Disney in the face of government pressure, we’re… done? After this episode, no more Marvel comics. We’ll be back next month, twice monthly reviewing manga instead.

But before we go, we’ve got one last round of ranking, including the ragtag Legion of Monsters and the… anticapitalist(?) Iron Man(?!?).

What a way to end!