Have you ever wanted to get to know the more of the Elder Scrolls lore? have you ever wanted to know more about the World Eater himself, Alduin? If you answered yes then The Skyrim Library, Vol.I is just for you! It was published on June 23, 2015 by Titan Books, this book combines almost every book from the critically acclaimed video game The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim into three exciting volumes and is a must for any wandering adventurer. Anyone that is interested in the fantasy genre would enjoy the lore of The Elder Scrolls, one doesn’t need any prior knowledge about the lore of The Elder Scrolls to enjoy this book.
Official Logo for the game Kindred Spirits on the Roof
Cover for the manga of Kindred Spirits on the Roof: The Complete Collection
Kindred Spirits on the Roof is an adult yuri visual novel game, with a manga sequel titled Kindred Spirits on the Roof: The Complete Collection and a drama CD series epilogue of the game. I have personally played the entire game and read the full book of the manga, both of which had excellent story and visual elementals incorporated. Each character had their own unique and full-of-life personality that separated each one into their own story arc. The visual artwork was beautiful and captured my attention with every detail of every color. I highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys fantastic romance novels that grab hold of your feels into an emotional rollercoaster that make you want to ride again and again.
Kindred Spirits on the Roof, the visual novel, was well-developed in both creation and inspiration. I enjoyed reading through each panel and watching as I began to develop a sort of bond with each character I came to know. My personal favorite is Ano Fuji because when this was first released on Steam, I could picture myself as this character and understood her ways of thinking and such.
You know you’re in for a good game when the opening is something out of an anime, although they don’t incorporate actually anime animation, they do use some visual animation to move the artwork around to create an interesting PowerPoint-like effect. I won’t include any spoilers, but I will say I was somewhat personally disappointed in not having a choice ending despite it’s choice-based elements. But don’t let this discourage you from trying it out for yourself as many of my friends who played it enjoyed the ending regardless.
Kindred Spirits on the Roof: The Complete Collection, the manga, is a heartfelt sequel that was able to have an enjoyable epilogue of the visual novel’s previous characters incorporated with new characters and romance elements. There are even a few background winks from the drama CD series in the last parts of the manga.
So if your looking for an amazing story with fun-filled characters, great artwork, good voice acting, and continuations, then look no further than the Kindred Spirits on the Roof series, starting of course with the visual novel game and watch as we fans cheer these girls on in the name of the love of yuri! Set sights on Yuritopia!
Full Poster for Futari Monologue Live-Acton series
Futari Monologue, translated Two-Persons Monologue, is a girls’ love web-series manga by Yuu Tsunamino. A story of two girls, Hinata Omimura and Mikage Mikuriya, trying to rekindle the lost friendship they had as kids, but various misunderstandings make things very complicated and often gets the two into hilarious situations. “Manga are comics or graphic novels created in Japan or using the Japanese language and conforming to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century.” “Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation.” as stated by Wikipedia. I’ve chosen to write about Futari Monologue because I found it very interesting that despite its small audience, the fact that they made a live-action before the series was even printed says a lot more to the appeal of this comedy.
Hinata Omimura is an introverted geek girl who is quite docile and usually has negative thoughts about herself. She is described by Mikage to be “the most adorable girl in existence”, though this is most likely her own bias statement. As a child, Hinata was very outgoing and tomboyish, making friends easily and always smiling. Currently, until the series’ raws have been entirely translated, it is unknown as to what changed Hinata greatly, though it is hinted that it has something to do with losing Mikage’s friendship. Mikage Mikuriya is a gal, or gyaru, who tries her best to act cool and impress Hinata, though she comes off as extreme unintentionally. “Gyaru is a Japanese transliteration of the English slang word ‘gal’ used to define a fashion subculture in Japan.” as stated by Wikipedia. She is described by Hinata as a delinquent gal who is very cool and kind, probably another bias statement. As a child, Mikage was introverted and somewhat weird, preferring to play by herself and watch(stalk) Hinata. Her view on losing Hinata’s friendship as kids affected her growing up into becoming more cool and fashionable for Hinata’s sake, thus she became a gyaru.
Futari Monologue Chapter 39 Extra
Comparing chapter one of the manga and episode one of the live-action series gives more insight into who Hinata and Mikage are as characters, as well as gives input into how the other views each other. Hinata and Mikage’s introductions are almost exactly the same when comparing the manga and live-action, but there are a few differences, such as the manga only explaining the entire plot into ten pages, while the live-action gave a more lengthy feel of eighteen minutes(including ending theme). The art of the manga gives a more cartoonish and often cringeful feel with the over exaggerate facial features, while some of this does apply to the live-action, I must give props to the actresses who portray Hinata and Mikage for using that cringe-like feel into extreme facial features. Despite the overall cringe art, not saying that its bad or anything, the story is somewhat typical with the extreme features taking into account making this a very interesting series, even for the yuri genre!
When I finished reading the first chapter of Futari Monologue, I thought, “Dude, this is seriously a weird and freaking cringetasic work!”, and laughed so hard my sides hurt. Although I figured a manga with only four-pages per chapter wouldn’t be that popular, I was honestly shocked when I found out there was a live-action in the works, even the creator was surprised as well. Only a year after the series was created in 2016, was it announced about the production and creation of the live-action series, which was then released in 2017, also around the time the English translations were being released. I’ve watched the first episode of Futari Monologue and found it to be hiliariously cringy to the point of looking away several times because I just couldn’t take the cringe. Not saying it was bad or anything, in fact, I very much enjoyed watching the entire episode from the opening theme to the ending credits. I usually don’t give cringe manga that much credit because I look for either a good story or good artwork, but Futari Monologue was able to meet and dismiss both of those criteria!
In conclusion, Futari Monologue is a very good work for anyone who wants to binge watch the live-action or read through the translated pages. There are a few problems in the fact that neither the live-action nor the manga have been fully translated into English, but I would still recommend others to give it a try. In my personal pursuit of quality girls’ love(yuri) stories and artwork, I have found a simple but very interesting comedic work in Futari Monologue and highly recommend for anyone else that needs a good laugh or loves yuri as much as I do.
One of my favorite video game franchises is the Pokemon franchise. I grew up with the games and still play them to this day. However, in about the 6th grade, I found a manga series called Pokemon Adventures that follows the story of the games, but with a couple twists. The manga is a bit darker, changes some relationship dynamics, connects all the generations into an overarching story, and many other things. This was a story that my younger self would have loved dearly. I remember reading a couple based off of Pokemon: Yellow Version when I first came across them, but I could not find anymore because the only books I had access to at the time were the ones in my public library and I had read them all (more than once.) Years later, around my freshman year of high school, I saw a post about them on the internet and decided to look them up. That was when they took over my life. I spent all of my time reading those mangas, and nothing else. They are still one of my favorite series to this day. I check on them every once in a while and see if they have been updated, and if they are, I spend the next couple hours getting caught up. I hope these book never stop being produced because they are phenomenal pieces of literature.
While sitting in class today we discussed how comics have/had restrictions and policies that must be followed. Due to some parents believing that these children that read these comics, will be deeply influenced on some sort of level. A censorship if you will. When did this all happened you ask? Well this happened in the 1930’s, thankfully we have been able to move past some of these censorships. And it’s even crazy to think that it can be different from different countries such as Japan, America and even in Europe. My fascination will all be more directed to the Japanese comic culture.
My honest opinion on this is that a lot of parents to me seem over protective with their children. Like, these children will be exposed to all of these components in life either later on or soon. So, I think its best if parents wouldn’t shelter their children but be the first hand to educate these kids the right way rather than either just hoping they get it or hope someone will come around to teach these kids these things.
I believe that when we incorporate these life lessons whether they be positive or negative it is important to for these kids to understand the situation, know why it’s either wrong or right, and help educate these kids the right way. It is always best to be taught from a parent because, in that case we are able to encourage children to have their imaginations. Because even when these comics may seem gruesome, dark or “not for children’s eyes” but it does obtain a lesson in each comic which I believe most parents look past.
As someone who enjoys the games, and loves reading discussions about them, there is one part of the Resident Evil series that is never mentioned, the Novels written by S.D Perry. She also wrote about Aliens and Star Trek, and the Resident Evil franchise. She directly wrote about Resident Evils, 1, 2, 3, Code: Veronica, and 0. But she made original content about Resident Evil, about what happened in between the games. What makes the novels so exciting is the story that we never get in the video games. Like Jill Valentines lock picking skills and why she became so good at it. In the book, it gives details about how her father was a criminal and she simply learned from him. Perry added more depth to the characters and one detail that no one often thinks about, the smell of rotting flesh the characters are surrounded by. There are a total of seven books and if you want to get out of your comfort zone and read something scary, I recommend reading the novels.
I Would’ve love to show an image from the graphic novel Im talking about today but unfortunately I cannot upload files because I am not a publisher. Please take it upon yourselves to search for the images from the book I am talking about so you can understand when I reference the art style. This graphic novel is titled Laura Dean keeps breaking up with me. It’s a very dreamlike coming of age story about a girl in high school who has an on and off again relationship with another girl named Laura Dean. The author Mariko Tamaki uses color to her advantage in this book as all of the drawings are done in only pink, black and white. Pink is a running theme throughout the artwork of the novel and although I’m not sure what the color is exactly meant to represent I think it is the main characters Freddy’s feelings of passion or strong emotion. I think it is a strong use of color as a device to express tone in the scene as pink is very bright and often seen as delicate which can be expressive of the strong yet fragile feelings that Freddy feels towards Laura and Laura at times feels for Freddy or other characters emoting this way throughout the book. I think this use of color works to the books advantage in that it establishes a unique style to the entire novel and is representative as a theme in the novel. If you have the chance to read this book look carefully at what objects or people the pink tone is placed on or around and you will be able to tell the focus and passion behind each scene the way Tamaki intended. This novel is also just a nice easy way to approach a possible new age type of youth novel in that it represents romance in ways not as commonly seen and outcomes that are not idealistic which I personally enjoy. My only complaint about the book is about the character Laura Dean herself in that she is a good character to keep the plot moving but just a crappy person as a character. She makes the book interesting and its definitely worth a read. If you are able to read it let me know what you think!
So, here me out on this one… Dinosaurs and World War II. I know it sounds crazy but this actually was a thing! “The War That Time Forgot” was a comic book feature that was published by DC Comics in 1960 in the “Star Spangled War Stories”, it was created by by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. the series ran for a total of eight years and ended in 1968, the series was later revisited as a limited series in 2008. the series’ genres consisted of science fiction, fantasy, and World War II. The plot of “The War That Time Forgot” was a group of American soldiers, stranded on an uncharted island during the Pacific War which they discover is populated by dinosaurs.
I personally think “The War That Time Forgot” is a fun read because it’s something that seems so wild, but a really cool concept. The concept of Dinosaurs in WWII never would’ve crossed my mind until I stumbled upon this comic, I applaud the writers and illustrators that gave this crazy idea life. That’s the beauty of Comic Books, anyone can express themselves and share their ideas with the world.
One often overlooked detail in the movie of Watchmen is the beginning when the comedian watches the news. It shows Nixon’s announcement and the tensions between the U.S and the Russians. Showing the period of the Cold War.
Then it cuts to some show talking about if the Soviets would attack the U.S and Pat Buchanan is asked: “What are the chances the Russians will actually attack the United States?” And he says zero because they are too scared of Dr.Manhattan, a literal walking nuclear weapon himself is on the side of the U.S.
Eleanor Cliff’s response is, “Maybe the reason the Soviets are doing these bomb tests is because they feel threatened by Dr. Manhattan. Maybe the whole world feels like that.”
Which is some subtle foreshadowing that is probably often underappreciated by fans of the movie, comics, and show.
I enjoyed the movie and how Zack Snyder (The director) added this just to quickly show people who haven’t read the comic, how threatening Dr.Manhattan is to the general public, and globally.
It’s always a given when you want to view manga and anime series you are not going to receive the full storyline from one or the other. Both give you a different kind of interaction and experience. Yet, there are always some components that lack in one area where the other can succeed in. When you view one from the other it tends to make you wish you could link the two together that way in the areas that are lacking are filled. From my own experience I have always heard people say that the book is much better than the anime series. Coming from a person who struggles with finding subjects and topics to read about I always find myself enjoying mangas. But one thing that always weighs heavy on my mind, is when I watch the anime series I would wish that they could input more of the storyline from the manga and put it into the anime series. Sometimes as well these directors of these anime series leave out the tiny details that matter.
One of the big favorites of mine that I like to read and watch now is the series Fruits Basket. I have yet not finished reading the manga series but I have read enough of it where I’d rather read this series than watch it. Because there are more in depth details of each character and their relationships. The manga series was released July 1998 and ended November 2006. There are a total of 23 volumes.
Throughout the series there are so many more interesting side stories that each character deals with. I’ll save the in depth details for those who are interested in this series. As for the anime series, it’s great that you can receive the audio and visual satisfaction in the anime series. Personalities are able to be pulled through more with the anime series. But I will have to mention there are two anime series of Fruits Basket, the first one was released on July 5, 2001 and the last
episode ended May 27, 2003. As for the second one was released November 19, 2019 which is still continuing and next season will be released in spring 2020.
This series is more for people who enjoy Shoujo Manga/Anime which is a genre for this type of series. This series is more based on your feminine side in my opinion. Though, not restricted to one gender. This type of genre was aimed toward young female audiences. So if you’re ok with touching into your feminine side then I’d definitely recommend this show for you. This show will have you in tears, whether it’s happy or sad tears.
