#inagaki i just wanna TALK.

[courtesanofdeath]

The Five Wise Generals

[doorbloggr]

Sunday 25/9/21 - Media Recommendations #19

Contents:

Twilight Princess (Manga)

Dr Stone (manga/anime)

Lately, I have had a lot I want to write about on this blog, but lack that activation energy to actually start writing an article. Ideally I will at least word vomit more onto the blog in the coming week or so, because I have the topics in mind, just unsure how to start any of it.

Media Consumption has also slowed to a crawl, but I'm getting back into it. This week I wanna discuss a manga series I've been reading slowly as it has released, and an anime I have long been reading the manga for.

The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess (Manga)

Akira Himekawa

Zelda fans have a unique schism between their fans that many other longer running series may not experience. Because most games star a relatively unique cast of characters, a unique spin on the world, gameplay, and even artistic style, what your favourite in the series is will throw you into a hard debate against fans of other games. There's this post i saw somewhere(?) once where it was said your favourite Zelda game is the one that came out when you were 12, presumably because this is the one you experience first, or at least earlier in your Zelda journey, and I can completely relate to that.

The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess was the first Zelda game I played, and it has been my number 1 or 2 in the series consistently. Compared to the games that came before it, it was darker, had a richer world, and just a grander scope. But today I'm not here to explain the game, I'm here to talk about the manga.

Akira Himekawa is a pseudonym for a pair of female manga artists that have been writing manga together since the early 90s, and I know them well for their Legend of Zelda adaptations. They have covered most of the main games everyone knows, Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask, A Link to the Past, and even a couple volumes of Four Swords Adventures. Their most recent work has also been the most long and in depth adaptation, my first Zelda game, Twilight Princess.

Like all of their Zelda adaptations, Akira Himekawa's Twilight Princess follows all the same plot beats as the main games. The order places are visited, the main characters Link encounters, the dungeons and their bosses, but the mangaka add... more to the world. Link has a deeper back story explaining what led to the start of the adventure. What in the games are essentially blank slate NPCs become characters in their own rights with personalities and arcs and motivations. The Twilight Realm, which is essentially just a dungeon in the game, is fleshed out as its entire world, with society, and lore.

In the game, Link is cool, and a bit of a himbo, but the manga's take on him is so much more interesting. He's a brooding edge lord, with a damaged past. He's a do-gooder, but he's also flawed and suffers from caring too much. Link is a character full of regrets who constantly bounces between "become a hero to prevent the atrocities of the past coming back" and "give up so that you don't make things worse". I understand that the games leave Link as a blank slate so that players can fill in their own ideals, but seeing Link as a fully fleshed character with his own motivations is cool as hell.

The supporting cast is similarly fleshed out compared to the game's take. Zelda, Illia, and Midna have complex motivations and evolving personalities. Midna was already a great character, but the manga truly does not skip out on making her deep and interesting. The "Resistance", for those who've played the game, are all multilayered characters now, all with arcs that are actively explored as they actually go help Link on his adventures, instead of just telling him info and leaving him to it. The dungeons do not take nearly as much plot time as they do in the games, essentially minimal theme building and then boss, but this works better for the format in my opinion.

If you like high fantasy manga, or are just a Zelda fan, I highly recommend this series. I haven't finished reading it, but Book 9, which I think is the final in the series, has recently been released in English. Obviously playing the game first is a good background, but I think you could 100% enjoy the series without it.

Edit: Finished book 9 and there's definitely at least one more book to go.

Dr Stone (anime/manga)

Inagaki, Boichi; TMS Entertainment

Ok so must I remember wrong because I thought I recommended this one, but apparently I never talked about Dr Stone before, which is a complete travesty. But now I am both up to date with the manga and most of a season deep into the anime, and I have A LOT to talk about.

As those who have also read my dinosaur blogposts will understand, I am a big science nerd. Biology, palaeontology, space, chemistry, it's all so interesting, and sometimes I struggle to understand how a passion for science is not a universal human experience. I share that in common with the main character of a manga I've been reading for maybe a year now, Dr Stone.

In Dr Stone, the world of 21st Century humanity is brought crashing to a halt when a bright wave of mysterious light blankets the entire planet, and everywhere on the entire globe, humans have been turned to stone. 3700 years later, a young man who has kept his mind active within the stone forces himself awake and breaks out. Around him, nature has reclaimed the Earth and millennia of human progress has been all but buried.

Senku is a young man of science, and spent years obsessing over every scientific domain he could comprehend in order to one day travel to space. In this stone world, armed with this wealth of science progress in his mind, Senku begins efforts to restart the scientific age, and free every single person frozen in stone. He starts with a mysterious acid that breaks down the stone. Then he develops tools, machinery, electricity, and eventually, he wants to push humanity back to the space age within his lifetime. Senku may be a know it all, but knowledge only gets you so far. Thanks to the allies he makes, a wealth of expertise will be harnessed to bring his dream to fruition.

Dr Stone is a must read for anyone who enjoys Scifi. Although the rate at which progress is made seems absurd, every single scientific process the kingdom of science works on is real science. Although post apocalyptic themes establish the base for the story and the supernatural force that turned humanity to stone is the main adversary, Dr Stone is a very scientific story based on real Earth and its just... exhilarating!

The scope of the story begins on the small scale in primitive villages, but the story eventually reaches a global scale. There are adversaries at each step, those who wish to rule the Stone World with might, free of the tyranny science had in our age, and there are also those who wish to use science as its own form of might, but Senku and his allies want to use science for the benefit of everyone. So that one day, all of humanity will be restored, and that eventually, he will get to moon.

I will refrain from speaking any further on story specifics because you really should experience the plot for yourself. So I will end with the presentation itself. The art and format of the manga are beautiful. Character designs are rugged, stylised, and exciting, it's very easy to determine what a character is all about just by their unique appearance.

In the last week, I have begun watching the anime, as it has been long enough since I started reading that I can experience parts of the plot anew. The anime is very beautifully made, the world is lush and beautiful, and characters move in such a fun and interesting way. I'm watching the English dub, and characters sound exactly like the voices I had for them in my head.

If you have even an inkling of interest in Dr Stone after reading what I've said today, you should definitely experience the story for yourself, 1 billion percent.

[toi-monogatari]

So

Currently read last chapter of Dr stone

Spoilers ahead

Read with caution

Part 1 probably

So in the ending Senku is building a time machine, with the idea of going back to make the why man never petrify earth.

I have a problem with that.

And I'm not even talking on how making a part faster than the speed of light is impossible, since its a sci-fi.

No I wanna focus on what might happen if he does that.

Okay so first, i did see in twitter in the translation of inagakis post that it will be continued. I am not sure if it is about the anime or if there will be a time travel manga now. (picking up steins:Gate vibes)

So the reason to go back it to tell the why man that in petrifying earth, all they achieve is just the death of their bodies. They don't want that, right? So let's have a time machine and prevent petrification at all.

That is chill yeah.

This will mean there never is a peteification.

It would mean that the civilization won't need to be kickstarted. Our now 25+ years old scientist Senku, that has been awarded by the top tier communities will never need to make scientific world revive.

Thus no green light. He continues making his petroleum machine from bottle caps. Tajiu probably tells Yuzuriha he loves her there and then. A bet has been won.

Tsukasa and Hyoga never will need to fave a sentence for assault.

Byakuya comes back from space. He never needed to form a village to save humanity, no. All his space achievement was, was to help his son get into NASA as a rocket designer himself. Ya can see where its going right?

Byakuya never will need to spent years building a village. The people from the space craft go back to their own countries. They never are forced to have children. Those children are never forced to have kids on their own. The whole Ichigami village will never come to be. Chrome, Kohaku, Kaseki, Suika, Kinrou, Ginrou, Ruri, Suyuz and many more will never come to exist because petrification never happens.

And it's not all the stuff that will never happen.

Senku will probably never meet Gen, Tsukasa, Ryusui or Ukyo (Hyoga neither but I don't think they wanna meet).

Xeno and Stanley will probably never come as far in their relationship as they did now.

Petrification never happens so they will never find "the cure it all devices". All people with deseases will not be cured that way. Mirai will stay comatose.

Our dear protagonist Senku will probably never get out of his shell. In the anime and manga it was clear to see how with each time he had the oppurtunity to do a new thing, he had the fun with it. How he got excited with small stuff like stones. In a world where he can get whatever he needs from the Internet, that kind of fun is gone. Even more with safety restrictions, he can't just let himself go apeshit.

While he was greatly robbed of a teenagehood to save people from petrification, he did have fun. The time travel will probably make him go back to being 15 again. He will have a dad again. But he will loose a lot of his friends.

Now my question is how it will go

Maybe I will discuss how in the steins:gate it could go (meaning how I think the time travel might go, because I think it might have multiple outcomes).