#dsrk manga

[specterthief]

these two make me so mentally ill

[elendsessor]

lesser known megaten spin-offs are weird: ddsat edition

ok i’ve always wanted to talk about the long history of megaten spin-offs, since not only are a ton of them japanese-exclusive and on mobile phones, there’s quite a few bits of supplementary reading.

when it comes to digital devil saga, it’s actually a bit more straightforward than other supplementary material for older atlus titles, as the plots follow events pre-dds or during dds, with quantum being a retelling based on some of the original ideas for the duology that never saw the light of day.

but i’ve straight up never heard of this one and only today discovered its existence while browsing tags on a fairly abandoned blog. in fact… i don’t know if anyone knows about it. i’ve seen some of the short stories like dogdays mentioned in the past but never this one.

i’m assuming this is mostly because it’s a separate story set in universe, is a one shot, and wasn’t written by yu godai.

this is digital devil saga: avatar turner: shinen no matou (“tower of the abyss”) written by moheji yamasaki.

i can’t find a translation of this and i’m not willing to trust ai to do the translating, and there are barely any scans out there. the only ones i could find were from the post i found the manga through, but the account is deactivated. (i reblogged it so here’s some of the scans.) congrats lemniscation for being one of maybe 5 people who know about this, i salute you and hope you are well wherever you are.

and yes the atma avatars are original designs not seen anywhere else, or so i can assume. maybe there’s a mystical other spin off that uses them. idk.

now i know fandom wikis tend to have varying levels of accuracy, but there is a page on the megami tensei fandom wiki and some info is better than none. the manga was apparently published in 2005 and there is one named character listed on the wiki. one.

give it up for kyle, the goofy blue haired dude on the cover. that’s our protagonist. the end.

yeah there’s nothing else i could find. at least the mobile game has a basic plot outline and hey it even details how sheffield’s the final boss yay????

there’s a lot of untranslated stuff from around this time period, such as the entirety of the dsrk lite novel, but this one stands out because of just how different it is. i’m not surprised at the lack of information—being japan exclusive in the early-mid-2000s back when a niche american audience was already at the most niche it could get does it no favors, but if anyone does have scans or links to scans, translated or not, please share them because this is actually cool.

[chozolady]

[raidhoe]

[himbotron]

👀 ?

[kara-knuckles]

Finally got back to my tablet, I wanted to draw or colour something for a while. So, here is my favourite spread from Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Lone Marebito!

[lambentplume]

dsrk manga going batshit right now. no cohesive thoughts only aspect raidou

[zandyin]

Ace’s Mostly MegaTen Room Tour

It’s hard to put into words how I feel about MegaTen, so… here’s my room instead.

Feel free to ask me where I got something! A ton of pictures under the readmore + optional ramblings about my set-ups.

A while ago, I moved into this room cause it’s slightly bigger than the old room I was occupying. It doesn’t have the nice minty blue my old room has, but my decorations are more than colorful enough to make up for it!

Because I planned on moving into this room for ages (it used to be my dad’s band room) I master planned the placement of all my furniture and all the wall décor I had at the time. :B

I love DSRK the most! So it got to decorate the area around the head of my bed!!

Then for the foot of my bed – obviously I had to pay tribute to my personeys, as p3 is kind of my reason for being. It’s a long story, but let’s just say p3 came into my life at a very good time and I have built my current happiness from there. I got this huge B1 size wallscroll with all the characters! The blue is very calming.

Of course, I had to add a bit more SPARKLE to it. So I put in a string of blue LEDs behind the frame. The effect is much nicer when it’s dark.

At the side of my bed is my weird shelf/desk, which I bought specifically cause it was a shelf/desk. I never put up the desk part, lol. It’s just my night stand now. My Surface Pro is right there… with like 8 doodles open in CSP that I’ll never post. :B

Remotes, controllers, a DS that has an 80% finished play through of Strange Journey, 3 tubes of chapstick cause I always misplace them… what more could I ask for? Oh yeah, some Jack Frosts are there too cause you can never have too many Jack Frosts.

Unfinished garage kit of nendoroid Raidou smh. I will start and finish it one day. After my grad degree. I have Raidou’s manga despite not being able to read it, and also the dsrk2 fan book? I used google translate to look at it a bit and laughed at how it calls Louis beautiful/handsome.

Upper half! Some mish mash, another untouched garage kit of Raidou, a Dahn standee that got the top of his hair chopped off when the printer decided to offset the picture, IGNIS, and the Baron! My old prints are behind on the wall along with some free stickers I got way back when from an artist who saw me in my Raidou cosplay, lol. The paper luck locust box is gonna be replaced EVENTUALLY with a really cool 3d printed version my friend modeled!!

A view from my bed. So colorful. Don’t laugh at my shiny drawer paper plastered over the backside of my shelves. >:v Notice P5 doesn’t have a frame yet. It will once I decide I feel like spending money on getting it one. It’s my least favorte personey game, tbqh. I’m actually indifferent to it, but I did buy the CE for collecting’s sake. :p

Another view from my bed. My closet! Funny story about the “DEVIL SUMMONER” over my door – my brother and I went to Home Depot to get some stuff and I wanted some cheap letters to spell it out. My brother goes, “Imagine when we get to the register and the cashier scans them to spell out DEVIL SUMMONER, lol” I shuffled them up to avoid that, but did a shit job so it read, “DEVSIL UMMONER” :x

It’s hard to see but on the coat rack there I have a Raidou-esque cape and hat hung on the third rack. It’s so fun to wear out. ‘ p ‘ I can’t wait til it’s cold enough to wear again!

That curtain rod wouldn’t normally be there, but I discovered it’s a nice way to have some privacy while keeping my door open. I hung up my own prints smh, tho that was kinda the point of ordering them, haha. Katsuya there, ah, he’s like a “good vibes” board where I post good things that have happened with the date on them. I haven’t added to him in a looong time, mostly because I stopped needing to? Everyday’s a good day now. It is nice to look back sometimes if I’m feeling down. I even used cupcake sticky notes since it was Katsuya. I just remembered I even photoshopped him to be smiling, lol.

Also – the fact he’s on the back of my door means as long as I keep my door open then ppl can’t ask me why I have a bigger than life size Katsuya on the back of my door.

An idea I carried forward from my old room. Clear files have art on them and need to be displayed!! The top ones are a paint to keep from peeling off the wall. I’m using an ineffective method that needs changing – I’m just tooooo laaazyyy to get the big ladder upstairs to fix it.

My Yasogami High letterman is on display forever since IT’S NEVER COLD ENOUGH TO WEAR IT IN THIS GODFORSAKEN STATE, at least not yet. I have a lot of jackets to choose from. Maybe I should do a jacket tour.

The thing that divides my room between sleep & play + my little “office”. Raidou, my best boy, is displayed here! I got a light up moon to put behind him. I am a SUCKER for things that light up. You can see Demifiend and Lucifer behind him, then of course Satan there acting as an impromptu jewelry holder. So spiny.

Jack Frost photobombs Satan.

Back to the other things in my room… here’s a poster of Demifiend I absolutely love and a Strange Journey poster I recently acquired! Fun fact, I had a chance to obtain a SIGNED Kaneko SJ poster but hadn’t played it at the time so I didn’t bid. No one bid and it went off the market. This was before the SJ remake was announced too so demand/popularity was nil. Ah, well, at least I got a nice original SJ poster. I wholly prefer it over the remake’s poster. >_> It’s very soothing to walk by… the pictures don’t do it justice!

I plan on buying a blacklight to hang above Demifiend’s poster later. Later.

On the ottoman below the SJ poster is my school backpack (with a small P3/P4 tarot card keychain) and then my general bag I take everywhere. A slightly professionally looking cat bag that I take to work. The “Don’t quit your daydream” pillow was an indirect purchase cause my mom wanted to buy a cushion to put between some huge pots we bought from a home goods store and I got to choose the pillow.

My keychain board! Plus some memories. Look at that good Raidou/Dahn my friend drew me. ‘ p ‘ I love it! There’s also an old xmas/bday card my long time friend sent me a few years ago. I’m sentimental.

Oh yeah, I moved the smt4 wallscroll that used to be in the SJ frame to here. I haven’t played smt4 yet and no idea when, but bought the wallscroll cause it was hella cheap. Maybe there was a reason for that, lol.

Other side of my desk. Catch a glimpse of my Sky High butt mousepad. Hunting that one down was fun.

I bought that blue double frame to put P3 art cards in, smh. Nick Valentine watches over me while I work. He was a gift from my long time friend and was delivered on Valentine’s day!!

Then these next few pictures are just close ups of the collections I have on my tall shelves.

My reason for being… there’s not much else I want for it. I don’t collect EVERYTHING, I collect until it feels “complete”!

Ah, yes, T&B! The otp for life. Those 1/6 scales were not cheap, man. I seriously got my first job at the bux just to start collecting P3 and T&B merch, y’know.

More T&B. I’ve been meaning to get Rock Bison and Blue Rose for a long time, it’s just not so pressing that I’m going to do it any time SOON however. Of course I had money to drop for my best boy Ryan, tho. :B The background thingys are displays I swiped from the bux before they were tossed out.

For someone who’s least favorite Persona game is 5, they have a shelf anyway cause dammit it looks nice. Mostly flash and little substance, as I tend to say when the subject gets brought up. I put Morgana in a shopping cart I picked up at a Daiso for no good reason.

AND THAT’S IT……………… That’s my room. This was an accumulation over 4 years of collecting. I’ve slowed down CONSIDERABLY and don’t buy as much these days simply cause they don’t make what I want. Which is good for my wallet lmao.

I hope you enjoyed whatever this was! And maybe understand how much I enjoy MegaTens, even if I don’t really draw it much.

[shishka]

Where are you finding the DSRK manga? I can only seem to find up to chapter 10. Also, your edits and caps are lovely!

ayy here are all the volumes. they’re not translated tho:https://www.mediafire.com/?byn95db52wxio and many thanks ( ･ᴗ･ )b

[capitalsguardian-blog]

Jouhei doesn’t take pride in a lot of things, for the most part he’s pretty modest and will actively downplay his importance when it comes to how much he helps around the city.  I think this is shown really well in the first chapter of the DSRK manga, where he silently sits off to the side as a client assumes Narumi is the devil summoner of the office and doesn’t interject at all.

But I do think he.is proud of his title, the fact that he earned the right to be called Raidou Kuzunoha XIV.  It’s one of the few things that will trigger a form of selfish anger in him if talked down upon; he was selected by the divine to protect the capital, and in his eyes, no human is worthy of telling him he wasn’t up to the task.

[elendsessor]

was quickly skimming over some parts of dsrk vs the lone marebito to double check something for a fic (that hopefully won’t be another unfinished draft) and remembered that, in the demon list/compendium bonus at the end of a couple volumes, there’s a lot of cool concept sketches and i wanna show them off.

of course here’s some of the boy himself and his demons, plus shiragiku in nekomata form. these are mostly manga panels before being cleaned up, inked, etc.

this sketch especially interests me since it appears to have either been heavily altered or cut out entirely. inugami, despite also being in one of the official manga illustrations, doesn’t appear at all in the story. that illustration and this sketch are the only appearances noodle dog makes.

here’s some with narumi and kurahashi.

also some seimei with a couple very important expressions.

also there’s a kyouji sketch at the end of the last volume. he does make a small cameo in the epilogue. a lot of the epilogue hints at some stuff involving narumi that hasn’t been followed up on, which hints at some planned sequel or prequel. maybe kyouji was meant to appear at some point. until atlus gives the ok for another dsrk manga (which i hope they do) i don’t think we’ll get an answer. though personally i like the idea of a manga adaptation of the prequel novel.

there are a few other sketches that aren’t shown here, though these are just the ones that stood out to me.

[specterthief]

Raido Kuzunoha and Akira Kurusu!

send me the rarest pair you can think of and I'll tell you if I ship it and how I think it can work

(assuming you mean raidou rather than the AU raido because... i don't know how to characterize that guy asdhjfk) i actually did a version of this in a crosscanon rp once and it was a delight, so i can say i ship this one! :D

raidou and joker are really fascinating mirrors of each others as protagonists - they have a ton of really interesting commonalities, from aesthetics to plot beats to small characterization quirks (to raidou and seimei in the unfortunately poorly fan-translated manga i swear i will get back to redoing it someday basically being proto-shuake) and are simultaneously incredibly similar and totally different in where they come from. raidou is, even when chaos-aligned, still functionally serving as an instrument of peace and not a rebel fighting for social upheaval - but could joker's been a pawn in a game beyond his understanding himself, and could certainly have a lot of compassion for someone only a couple years older than him who knows and struggles with being raised to be a weapon. and with raidou defying the expectations for him to be an emotionless tool and using the strength of his bonds with the people he loves being such a core beat of the manga, i think joker's ability to form and draw on those bonds so easily would be really admirable to raidou. and he's even technically a detective to joker's phantom thief! he lives with a guy who's super passionate about coffee and curry! they have not-cats in common! i think they're neat and if the dsrk-typical timeline shenanigans allowed them to coexist in a story they could definitely develop a really interesting relationship.

also they're my two favorite megaten protags so the thought of them interacting just makes me happy

[elendsessor]

hi welcome back to me talking about megaten demon designs and if you follow me or have went through the megaten tags you probably noticed i’ve been on a dsrk kick, specifically with the lone marebito since i unintentionally gave it a reread. i’m sorry if you’ve seen nothing but that shit from me i swear i’m almost done rambling about it.

first time i read it was before i finished dsrk2 so i held off on talking about different designs of reappearing demons since i thought maybe they’d appear in 2 but. nah they didn’t.

a lot of these designs are really cool, redesigns or otherwise.

BRW THIS POST IS LONG I’M SORRY-

i’m gonna toss out a spoiler warning since it’s not likely many people in the megaten community has given the lone marebito a read. there’s an english fan translation here if you’re interested!

quick shoutout to @/eirikrjs since they and @/yamayuandadu made a couple of posts a few years back about the origins of jatou ouhanshin aka this badass motherfucker.

i love giant reptiles in any media and goddamn i love this and yes i want ouhanshin to be included in a future megaten game :D

of course there’s likely some demons i missed/forgot to include so don’t expect every instance.

first up are some redesigns since they mostly appear at the beginning.

now with gremlins! they’re definitely a lot different than any of the previous variations, being a lot more goblin-like + a fat fuck one for good measure. it does more closely represent the pre-soul hackers gremlin design (which is a lot better in my opinion). as silly goofy as they are they do much better fit the general idea of what a gremlin is. this was likely a choice based on the overall tone of the manga, which gets really fucking depressing and a bit more body horror-y/gory than most megaten material, but the smaller gremlins should’ve been the silly goofy with the big boi being the gross monstrosity. idk gremlins are popular enough that having such a vast deviation used in this way doesn’t work.

i think the manticore is actually a complete upgrade from the og designs and is a prime example of the more horror part of tlm improving the original.

idk man i really do not like the og manticore designs. given how the beast itself’s name means man-eater and the fact that it has the body of a lion, the thinner body doesn’t really give that same fear (and the sickly green kinda worsens it). nor does the head??? yeah it’s supposed to be ugly but it looks like a last minute decision and not part of the beast itself. the second one is a bit better but neither of them look that good or scary. (i think they’re more heavily based around a certain latin bestiary depiction but that one sucks too sorry 13th century latin guy.)

even if the manga manticore’s body wasn’t buffer the face is fucking amazing. first it has an actual mane like a couple other depictions do, but turning the normally “ugly” face into a skull is sick as hell. oh and the teeth help it a lot. fantastic demon design all around.

this one is less of a total redesign since it’s character specific. there have been minor alterations made to demons throughout the devil summoner franchise especially with dsrk in order to fit that imperial japan vibe, such as high pixie basically being a pixie wearing a kimono. shiragiku’s design is more based in the soul hackers nekomata design though without being a calico. i wanted to give her a bit of attention on the design part for at least one thing because it’s pretty interesting to me and that’s having a normal cat form. yes because of shiragiku’s backstory it makes sense that she regained her pre-furryfication body. however, when it comes to looking at it from a folklore angle it’s pretty interesting.

all nekomata start off as bakeneko, aka monster cats. they can shape-shift to look either more house cat-like, human-like, and everything in-between. they can also mimic voices. nekomata are basically just stronger bakeneko, symbolized by the split tail (which is how they get their name). in megaten, we don’t really see that often, some of which is understandable. what i find so interesting is that it’s kinda defied in some ways? as in, normal bakeneko are glossed over, unless morgana counts since he pretty much is one. the most commonly used nekomata design in smt is the one from nocturne who only has one tail despite being in a non normal cat state. i’m guessing for the sake of simplicity both bakeneko and nekomata are one in the same due to the heavy similarities. idk it’s pretty confusing but basically this was all an excuse to include cat girls and shiragiku is the closest we’re getting to a truly accurate nekomata.

what if i told you though that behemoth is technically original.

gonna be quick about this since basically aside from devil children behemoth has no original design. it’s mostly just recolors of other demons, mainly elephant/hippo/rhino-like ones. in fairness, behemoth is a warped shouten but it’s so different it’s basically its own demon that goes bye bye before getting any real action. still looks cool af but i’m sorry behemoth.

here’s a weird one. despite maintaining the horn, yato no kami is completely different from the game counterpart and is another much better design (wasted on a character that was pretty underutilized despite the potential). in actual japanese folklore, yato no kami are snake deities (and also some hot anime dude from a game i never heard of thanks google). pointing that out because, while cool on its own, yeah looks too much like a parasite and not what it’s supposed to be.

now for a side note on a couple more demons exclusive to the manga

clarion is interesting to me for one reason and one reason only: it heavily resembles the great will aka the universal will aka existence itself.

this one’s a bit of a stretch but i still find it interesting.

this guy was only in last bible, specifically the game gear version, but is referenced and named dropped a ton. every yhvh avatar is something this thing popped into existence. an equivalent exists in the 4 duology aka the axiom but since both games were a bit of a soft reboot of the traditional mainline style plus is pretty much the exact same thing this counts the axiom. it’s important to note that, as it’s technically a concept and not a physical being, it relies on avatars to get shit done. aside from that, there’s not much info on the great will but it’s considered either equal to or potentially the creator of yhvh.

most of the big time avatars that relate to the great will and yhvh, including yhvh himself, are either a big human face or a circle. while it’s stated in the manga that clarion is a goddamn alien the fact that it keeps so many of the design motifs of the great will, yhvh, and all their ocs, i honestly think it just might be another avatar. i mean it also knows shit like god’s wrath so that has to count for something. it’s just so fucking interesting i love it.

on a final, simpler note, touda is cool. i’m 99% sure it just morphs into ouhanshin but still i love snakes. there are so many serpents n noodly things in tlm it’s cool they’re attached to badass imagery even if they’ll likely never show up in any other official material ever again.

[chozolady]

[lambentplume]

dsrk manga available online free DON’T MIND IF I DO

raidou and narumi did mob and reigen before mp100 adhsiodhfiwohwd

[lambentplume]

oh (implied dsrk manga spoilers)

apparently this came out in ‘09 (and only got translated years later) so it’s funny to imagine akechi being the seimei clone LOL

or well. i guess the smt tone just makes traitor arcs very interesting