Tag: angsty

New Decade, New Edge: VEXED — Culling Culture Album Review

by macksamson, posted in Miscellaneous, music

I’m not generally a cynical person, but I have let other people’s cynicism affect me on a very unhealthy level. That’s why I never listened to bands like Living Colour; their lyrics were so on-the-nose they would make me depressed. And yet, I decided to give the new U.K. alt-metal band, VEXED, a try, despite the fact that cynicism seems to be their brand. They seem to hate quite literally every aspect of first-world society. And as someone who’s had to get over depression from being around doom mongers who read headlines (and good people who listen to doom mongers), VEXED would definitely not make me mentally ill! Not at all!

According to Napalm Records, VEXED consists of the following: vocalist Megan Targett, guitarist Jay Bacon, drummer Willen Mason-Geraghty, and bassist Al Harper. This is my first ever experience with the alt-metal subgenre, and any alternative music, period. I wonder if there even is a musical distinction to be made in the first place.

But before we can figure that out, I must write a blurb on the cover art! There’s a lot of orange in it… Buuuuut, I think it’s supposed to be a car that’s on fire. One cool thing is their choice to include the track listing on the front cover instead of the back. Also… Oh God, is that a “Parental Warning: Explicit Content”? Well, to be honest, I don’t know what the threshold for that tag is. Disturbed’s Immortalized had it, and that album wasn’t too different from their usual angst. But given VEXED’s brand, I have a feeling that Culling Culture is going to be a bit more explicit.

Right off the bat, my expectations were both exceeded and unmet at the same time. The music, especially for a debut, is very powerful. But here’s the disappointment: How is this alt-metal?! As I initially suspected, there’s nothing that different from most modern metal bands. The only possible explanation is that I’ve listened to alt-metal before, but the million dollar question now becomes this: What bands were those? The only ballpark guess I can make is In This Moment.

And speaking of In This Moment… Holy crap Megan Targett! More like, Megan Targets you and opens fire with a Maria Brink-like combination of banshee death growls and emotive clean vocals. But unlike with Brink, Targett definitely prefers the growling. You might want to have the lyrics pulled up if you listen to this stuff, but at the same time, her growls are surprisingly easy to understand once you get used to them.

So, musically, VEXED definitely shows their anger right off the bat. They already figured out how to make themselves sound, a surprising feat for just their first album. I don’t usually put esoteric descriptors for stuff, but I literally mean it by saying that even their guitars sound “rude”. If you’re not used to metal, then this might give you anxiety.

Speaking of anxiety, let’s address what I’ve been building up as the elephant in the room here: the lyrics. Although I sound like a cool dude, I’ve been having heaps of anxieties over some invisible obligation to give a crap about things that have nothing to do with my life. I was worried about VEXED reminding me of all of this and making me feel like garbage. 

Fortunately, that’s not quite the case here. VEXED’s lyrics are more personal, dealing with the topics of removing—or culling—toxic people from your life (or technically, Targett’s life, but it’s supposed to be relatable). She draws from actual life experience, and the fact that there are this many songs with this theme makes me feel really bad for her, but I also admire her for being able to successfully deal with so many toxic relationships. The lyrics initially come off as that early 2000s emo sh** á la Slipknot, but VEXED already has much more substance:

“This is not a warning” / “It’s a f***ing threat” / “Remember lies have a price” / “And karma’s calling in your debt” / “This is not a warning” / “It’s your demise” / “Remember this” / “Narcissist, you’re nothing but a parasite”

(Disclaimer: I swear that it was a complete coincidence that I chose Targett’s favorite set of lyrics from the whole album for my example. It just goes to show you that she liked them for a good reason.) See? Way better, although Targett is just about as much of a pottymouth as Corey Taylor. Whoever writes these lyrics—be it one or more members of the band—bravo to you. However, it’s still nowhere near as cynical as Oceans of Slumber or Living Colour (wow, America having something super cynical, that’s new). Unfortunately, since my anxieties aren’t caused by people I know in my personal life, it doesn’t exactly help me either. But at the very least, it’ll probably help more neurotypical people who naturally seek relationships.

~~~~~

Final Verdict: 9/10

Color me surprised. Despite the fact that I have no idea what makes this “alt-metal”, VEXED’s Culling Culture is a great start (and it seems to be doing well too). I’d say I like this as much as I did Avaland’s Theater of Sorcery. But due to the added addition of knowing the band’s background better, and being legitimately surprised at how sophisticated the music is for what it is, I think VEXED might just be my favorite metal debut of the year. I am 100% on board with them, and I hope that their career in metal is a lengthy one. I recommend it if there’s someone in your life who absolutely sucks and you need a kick in the pants necessary to kick them in the pants.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life Volume 1: Subversion and Yuri. What’s Not to Love?

by macksamson, posted in Executioner and Her Way of Life, Light Novels

Preface: Guess what? I’m going to Disney again this year, not once but twice! The first of the two trips is in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, the hiatus I took earlier has still backed me up by a lot. While I could schedule some posts to be published during the trip, I just didn’t want to think about it on Disney property, especially since this is a special year for my relatives. As such, you’re going to get a special treat: from tomorrow to May 1st—the week before the trip—I’m going to post every single day. All of these posts have been ready to go for a while, so don’t worry about them being crappy!

Just because I was on hiatus doesn’t mean I didn’t read new light novels on release! Unfortunately, by not posting a review of The Executioner and Her Way of Life within the first week it came out, my review is not exactly going to be relevant. Oh well, that’s just how I roll!

In The Executioner and Her Way of Life, a boy named Mitsuki is summoned to another world. However, he’s rejected faster than Naofumi from The Rising of the Shield Hero. Alone and without a home, he has a fateful encounter with a girl named Menou. She’s nice and sweet and loving, and SHE STABS HIM TO DEATH. Yeah, this story’s actually about Menou, a girl hired by the church of Faust to kill all Otherworlders before their powers cause untold destruction. Unfortunately, her next target is probably the most overpowered isekai protagonist of all time: Akari Tokitou, a girl who can reverse time whenever she’s mortally wounded, effectively rendering her unkillable.

“Plot hole!” you exclaim, “Why not kill her by poisoning her or torturing her slowly so that she begs for the sweet release of death? Since it only reverses mortal wounds, then you can hurt her as much as you want without killing her…” Actually, that gets explained in the story. The special powers that Otherworlders use are uncontrollable, and are really scary when they go haywire. Menou’s entire homeland—including its inhabitants—were turned to salt by one of these powers, with Menou as the sole survivor. She cannot risk anything that could set off Akari’s power, especially given that the power is literal control over time.

In terms of writing, well… Executioner is about as redundant as most light novels. They give good enough context for you to glean key information on the worldbuilding, but then explain it all in the next passage. However, this one is much more bearable just by being a damn good story. The main purpose of the volume is the journey to the capital of Garm, where the shit inevitably hits the fan. There’s an action sequence en route, but there really isn’t a point to it but to stir things up.

The key to this series is in the cast, and they are quite an interesting bunch. Menou’s problem is that she has to act all friendly toward Akari in good old Among Us Impostor fashion. As you could imagine, this will inevitably result in something similar to [name redacted] from Attack on Titan, who ends up getting so caught up in the role that they have an identity crisis. Unfortunately, all this psychological crap regarding Menou is just told to us instead of something that could be organically developed. Menou at least makes up for it by being kind of a badass.

My favorite character so far ended up being Momo. She’s this loli who’s yandere to Menou, and she’s very entertaining. As expected from most lolis, she is also quite adept in the subtle art of murder. Unfortunately, the two other major players end up being a weak spot. Akari is kind of a YA protagonist, who arbitrarily falls head over heels for Menou because of fate. She’s apparently the one Otherworlder who isn’t a sociopath, and it’s supposed to be a whole “moral ambiguity” thing. We also get to see the skimpily-clad princess, Ashuna, but she’s a typical fight-savvy lunatic.

~~~~~

Verdict: 8.75/10

The Executioner and Her Way of Life is starting off great so far. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean the whole series will be great. For now, I recommend it to isekai and yuri fans!

P.S. with SPOILERS

Alright, so I’m kinda annoyed that the whole “church is bad” trope ended up rearing its ugly head again, despite how unique this series is. Fortunately, the crazy crap with Akari at the end definitely makes up for it. Apparently, she knows that Menou is trying to kill her, and is pretending to play along. Also, in the future, Menou’s mentor is going to try to kill them all in the salt place? Yeah, this one’s going to be very complicated moving forward.

A Bittersweet Return: Evanescence — The Bitter Truth Album Review

by macksamson, posted in Miscellaneous, music

Evanescence is a strange band all right. They went mainstream overnight with their massively popular first two albums, Fallen and The Open Door. Unfortunately, things got complicated within the band and they have since gone on numerous, long hiatuses. Their 2011 self-titled album wasn’t just different, but it was also the first after a long hiatus very early in the band’s career. Needless to say, they’re still strong numbers-wise, but nowhere near as much as they were. 

As mentioned in one of my older music posts, I decided to check them out. I enjoyed Fallen and The Open Door, but I never fell in love with them. And it’s probably because I wasn’t in love with those albums, that I was able to enjoy the 2011 album with an open mind. Saying that anything beyond those first two albums is Evanescence’s best work seems to be the minority opinion these days. So, of course, I want to piss off their fandom by saying that 2021’s The Bitter Truth is their best album yet. Let’s see whether or not I agree with such a claim myself.

Of course, I gotta look over the album cover first. I always thought Evanescence had weak album cover art, and The Bitter Truth is no exception. It’s just a mouth with a pill on the tongue. If I wasn’t already listening to this band before the album’s release, I probably would’ve ignored it when stacked up against others. Good thing that what matters is the music!

I might as well start by discussing the pre-release tracks, since those technically came out first. Most of them are good, but they’re kind of… ordinary. Of course, I’m probably just saying that because I—again—am not a diehard Evanescence fan. My least favorite track of the pre-releases ended up being ‘Yeah Right’, but not because of the song itself. Musically, it’s good, but when the band stated that it took them a decade to write it, my impression of ‘Yeah Right’ was colored in a negative way. By way of comparison, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was written and recorded a couple years faster. My favorite track (of the pre-releases) ended up being ‘Use My Voice’, which felt like it had the same pompous, tween spunk of their classic stuff, while still feeling different stylistically. 

In fact, the whole album feels like that. The Bitter Truth retains more of their original, early 2000s emo style than the previous studio outing (which was a decade ago. Holy shit). There’s your usual gothic synth, as well as the sad piano (although they’re still missing the world’s smallest violin). Even the lyrics are their old brand of dreary, esoteric nonsense. For example…

“I’m not fine” / “I don’t know if I will be alright” / “But I have to try” / “I know you’re with me, so what if we do fall apart?” / “Give into all that we are” / “And let all the broken pieces shine.”

Um… I guess that’s relatable? Those lyrics sure take me back to when I was a miserable, friendless child in high school that no one understood. But to be honest, Evanescence is the kind of band where the lyrics don’t matter. Vocalist Amy Lee can sing the menu of Papa John’s Pizza and we would still love her. Even though she’s all old and stuff, she’s still as talented as ever. 

If there’s any real problem with this album, it’s kind of… Evanescence itself. Like I said before, I enjoy them, but I never once thought that anything they made—even Fallen—was worth all the hem and haw. I don’t even think Lee is the goddess that most fans consider her. They’ve been working in the music industry for twenty years, and there are debuts that I would consider better than this album. 

~~~~~

Final Verdict: 8/10

Evanescence’s The Bitter Truth is—indeed—their best album (according to moi). However, it’s just not god-tier. I don’t know why this band is so big, when Fallen is outclassed even by stuff that was out at the time. I can’t recommend this to someone who’s not acquainted with Evanescence; there’s just so much better out there. I feel like only fans of the group can love it.

Attack on Titan: A Mainstream Series That I… Love?

by macksamson, posted in Full Reviews, Manga

Preface: If you’re wondering how I already have a review of Attack on Titan the day after it finished, don’t worry; I didn’t pirate it! There are official channels through which to finish this manga right now, at least in the U.S. One is to read the last leg of it on Crunchyroll’s manga tab that they actually updated after the death of Flash even though most people never use it. Alternatively, you can buy the remaining chapters on BookWalker for about 2 USD each. Of course, you’ll have to have read all thirty-two currently published U.S. releases for it to work. But you know what, at least you’d be supporting the actual creator!

There are types of stories that have existed since the dawn of man. Romance, for example, as full of BS as it is, is one of the most enduring story types of all time. Stories like Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan are insanely common; plucky teens thrust into a world of strife against some “mysterious enemy” that the main character “happens” to be “special” enough to save the world from. However, Attack on Titan is probably one of the best variations of this story ever created. And here’s why.

The plot is nothing new. We have the Titans—the “mysterious enemy”—ravaging mankind and driving them into hiding behind some walls (“But what about the possibility of an AERIAL ATTACK?!” Squidward Tentacles exclaims). After the designated first-chapter-death, the “plucky teens” join the designated “cool fighter people” and, well, fight the Titans.

I’m gonna tell you straight. You likely already know what’s going to happen, thankfully minus the dumb romance sideplot. As much as this series excels at foreshadowing and build-up, you don’t need it. If you’ve read stuff like this before, then you can probably make several ballpark guesses on what the low-down of this manga’s world is and at least one guess would probably be correct.

But you know what, strong execution beats lack of originality. The rules of how the different units of the military work are all thought out (even if the Survey Corps are the only ones who matter), the “parkour gear” or whatever it’s called is one of the coolest things I have ever seen, and there’s always something engaging going on in terms of plot progress. Even during a later arc that is notorious for its utter lack of Titan combat, the manga consistently keeps the momentum going.

Most of the time, I’m not a fan of “human” characters. But unlike cardboard boxes such as Rimuru Tempest from TenSura, Isayama actually seems to understand the definition OF a human being in the first place, especially what it’s like to be a teenager who has to live in a world of despair, and to have their perception of their established facts of life turned upside down numerous times. Wow, that was all one sentence…

First off, the three main characters—Eren, Armin, and Mikasa—somehow manage to maintain a relatively platonic relationship throughout the whole series. Two male characters and one female character, all of which are childhood friends, is a perfect love triangle, and any [bad] YA author would’ve done it in a heartbeat and ruined the story forever. Mikasa clearly has some level of “thing”-ness for Eren, but it’s seldom ham-fisted into your face but instead shown visually merely by the scarf that she wears; a gift from him when they first met. The fourth main character is Best Boy Levi, who is raw badassery and intellect rolled into one handsome boy. What’s there to dislike? The supporting cast is also phenomenal. From gambit-happy Erwin Smith, to potato-eating Sasha Blouse, to Actual Best Girl Krista, these kids are surprisingly easy to love.

This manga warrants a reread, because re-experiencing the story by watching the anime from the beginning, after having read past chapter ninety, really shows how organically they have developed over time. I cringed at the first episode, at Eren’s incessant whining, thinking, “Is this really the SAME GUY who I grew emotionally attached to?” THIS is character development at its finest.

“Rough around the edges” is an understatement for the art in this manga. Based on the “rules of art” that have been established over the years, Attack on Titan has “objectively” bad art. It’s not smooth nor crisp, but for me, it somehow “works” (It’s as if art was never meant to be assigned rules to begin with…).

If there is one “rule of art” that it follows, it’s gesture drawing. The many (MANY) tiny strokes in Isayama’s technique helps to convey motion in a spectacular fashion. I didn’t need the anime’s sakuga to feel the force of the parkour gear as our intrepid heroes flew through cities and forests, striking Titans as they went. All this in addition to his great sense of good panelwork makes Attack on Titan a tightly paced read. Not even the dialogue-driven chapters feel like a waste of time.

For the last paragraph, I’ll touch on the one thing that always ends up being divisive for long-running battle shounen series: the final act. Don’t worry; I’ll word it in the least spoilery way possible. Late-ish in Attack on Titan, an epic battle—one of the best in the series—unfolds in spectacular glory. But the aftermath opens up a can of worms that drastically changes the entire tone of the manga. Although it is still a great arc, the biggest problem is that it introduces a metric ton of new characters that I honestly didn’t care about, let alone remember their names in the first place. It also didn’t help that this was the arc where I had caught up on the most recent chapters, and ended up playing the waiting game most often. Since I’m always pressed for time, I can’t reread volumes to make sure I still remember stuff. 

And honestly, like a lot of long battle shounen, the plot gets pretty complicated. There’s even the possibility that it was retconned at some point. But you know what, I still love this manga to death. You gotta give mangakas some benefit of the doubt, since a lot of them are forced to make this stuff up as they go along. No matter how confusing it got, I still loved Attack on Titan all the way through. Isayama knows how to make a story feel engaging regardless of what’s happening. That takes talent.

~~~~~

Final Verdict: 9.8/10

Attack on Titan is one of my favorite manga of all time. Isayama draws (no pun intended) influence from the very best of Western culture, without using any of the BS, to make a fantastic battle shounen series that miraculously maintains a consistent state of cohesion for a decade-long runtime. I’d recommend it if you want a shounen series that’s light on the fanservice, but I also just recommend it in general. The biggest issue will likely be the art if it doesn’t suit your tastes, but other than that this manga is a masterpiece through and through.

Weeb Reads Monthly January and February 2021

by macksamson, posted in Konosuba, Light Novels, Okaasan Online, ROLL OVER AND DIE, The Bloodline, WATARU

I didn’t think I’d have to lump multiple months together AGAIN. Geez! Only two volumes (excluding debuts) piqued my interest in January; nowhere near enough to put it in a Weeb Reads Monthly. So, here we are. Hooray for being relevant.

WATARU!! Volume 2

Holy crap!!! Another volume of the masterpiece, WATARU!!! …said no one except for me. MyAnimeList doesn’t exactly have a page for this series, and I haven’t read any reviews on WordPress, if there are any. But honestly, I can say with full confidence that I’m in the minority in loving WATARU!!! I mean, it’s so simple and superficial with no story; all violations of the arbitrary rules of good literature!!!

But if you are one of my fellow uncultured swine and love the first volume of WATARU!!!, then the second volume is just as good. There’s more insane hijinks and meta-humor than ever. They also introduce a new character named Elphabell. It seems like she could become a yandere in the future, but she’s not even remotely as insane as Best Girl Aria. According to the afterword, WATARU!!! isn’t too successful, which kinda sucks. Light novels can get axed just as easily as manga, so there’s a chance that this could be the end.

Verdict: 9.65.10

The Bloodline Volume 2

“Wait, why’d you use the first volume’s cover as the thumbnail?” you ask. Well, for whatever reason—be it the licensing or the artist being lazy—the cover of the second volume is just a zoom-in of the first cover!

In any case, my feelings for the volume are mixed. The first half is slow and boring, with a lot of uninteresting dialogue. There’s a really contrived development, thanks to Nagi being smooth-brained, and a ridiculously predictable Top Ten Anime Betrayal. The ending of the volume has a clever twist, but… there’s a chance that this is the end of the whole series. BookWalker doesn’t say “Completed” or anything, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the series is ongoing. I admit I’m curious about what could happen moving forward, but it’s just as likely that it’s over. If it is, then I’ll just say that The Bloodline had some good ideas marred by boring writing.

Verdict: 7.25/10

Konosuba Volume 13

I was concerned about Konosuba slowly falling apart, and honestly, I might be correct. The first half of this volume is almost the same as the first half of volume twelve: more shipping war stuff. As much as I love these characters, their interactions are getting incredibly redundant, and this is coming from someone who loves One Piece. The second half of the volume concerns Wiz, and this guy stalking her. The way it turns out is as silly as you can expect. But at this point, it’s obvious that the endgame plot is looming and it’s just a matter how long the author can beat around the bush leading up to it.

Verdict: 8.25.10

Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?! Volume 8

The first thing you see when you open up this volume is a group of idol moms. Despite how silly that first impression is, this is actually the most emotional volume yet! If you recall from last time, we learned that Porta is the Fourth Heavenly King of the Libere Rebellion. To be honest, it should’ve been obvious, since we’ve strangely never seen her mother.

Fortunately, that gets rectified in this volume! The mastermind behind the whole thing is actually Porta’s mom, who is also one of the key devs behind the game world. Porta feels obligated to join the Libere Rebellion, despite the fact that her mom seems to be a real b****. Ahhhhh, familial bonds!

The theme explored today is independence. In fact, that’s the whole reason behind the Libere Rebellion itself. Porta’s mom hardcore believes in the philosophy of letting the child grow entirely on their own. And as such, we learn of the point that every mom has to deal with: when to let their kids go. Overall, it’s a perfect storm of emotion and humor, making this my favorite volume up to this point. One concern I have, however, is that this is pretty much the end of the Libere Rebellion plot thread, yet the series is confirmed to have three remaining volumes. After the cliffhanger ending, I can’t imagine how it would go beyond a ninth volume.

Verdict: 9.25/10

ROLL OVER AND DIE Volume 2

This volume immediately begins with a discussion between several high-ranking demons, where we get more context for the series’ lore and the purpose of those crazy Uzumaki things. After that, Flum stumbles upon some strange child named Ink, who raises even more intrigue. 

The main conflict of this volume revolves around Dein Phineas being an ass, as well as the church’s latest monstrosity attacking the town. I’m not even going to describe this calamity, but it follows in the last volume’s footsteps by being incredibly effed up and gruesome. The ridiculous part of the scenario is that the church’s evilness is so well known that even the nuns acknowledge it. This series is really ham-fisted on dissing Catholicism, which I’m okay with as an agnostic, but some subtlety would be nice.

Verdict: 9.75/10

~~~~~

Conclusion

When it comes to light novels, this is definitely a great start to 2021 (*insert pretentious and not-at-all overstated comment about how it’s better than last year even though nothing’s changed here*). Since I’m going to take a month’s hiatus in early March in order to avoid Attack on Titan finale spoilers, I’ll be lumping March and April’s posts into one. Hooray for that!

Vampires? Dystopia? Teen Angst? The Bloodline is Practically a YA Novel! (Volume 1 Review)

by macksamson, posted in Light Novels, The Bloodline

Sometimes it’s hard to write an intro. As I said in my review of Unnamed Memory, I’ve been disappointed with the new light novel releases pretty much all year. No one seemed to look forward to The Bloodline, published in English by J-Novel Club. And as someone who rarely posts about something popular, it seemed like a fitting choice for me. 

In The Bloodline, the world is ruled by vampires who feed off the common people’s blood. In the middle of some festival or whatever, a boy named Nagi breaks into some house and finds a girl named Saya. He saves her for no particular reason, and chaos ensues.

Sadly, there’s not much to say about the story thus far. The Bloodline is very generic across the board. Not only is it a typical “rob from the poor to feed the rich” dystopia (complete with vampires as if this was some YA novel), but it’s also a wish fulfilment fantasy. In about 30 pages, Saya thinks to herself: “I want to be with this boy.” I mean, sure, he saved you. But to be in love with him so impulsively? Not even Disney does it this fast anymore.

Time for me to sound like a broken record again. I don’t like the characters, not a single one of them! So far, Nagi is a typical whiny self-insert, and Saya is a typical damsel in distress. Keele is Nagi’s snarky brother, and this girl named Tess is the third wheel. I don’t even remember the names of everyone else, but they’re about as plastic as the rest of the cast.

But even with all these issues, The Bloodline is at least better than what I have read recently. Although the writing is about as negligent at describing people and places as a lot of light novels, the pacing and momentum is solid. There is some good entertainment value here, and honestly, that’s all I could ask for these days. Also, they don’t dump all of the lore on you at once in the beginning.

~~~~~

Verdict: 7.75/10

Maybe I’m just desperate, but I actually have hope for The Bloodline. As bland as the story is idea-wise, it still appeared to be pretty well thought out by light novel standards. It’s no masterpiece at this juncture, but it could become close to one if it’s given enough love over time. If you like edgy dystopian novels, then this one’s for you.

The Adventurers Guild Trilogy: Social Commentary for Kids!

by macksamson, posted in Children's Novels, Western Media

Sometimes, the title of a series is so generic and unremarkable that I almost feel like it’s a red herring. I ask myself, “It’s trying so hard to look boring, but does that mean it’s actually legitimately good?” That’s a gambit that I hoped would pay off when I read through The Adventurers Guild series, written by Zack Loran Clark and Nicolas Eliopulous.

A half-elf boy named Zed and a typical human named Brock are ready to join one of Freestone’s many Guilds. They are picked for the Mages and Merchants Guilds respectively; however, this series isn’t titled The Adventurers Guild for nothing. Alasabel Frond, the leader of the titular Guild, yoinks them right out of their respective Guilds and drafts them into the Adventurers Guild. Now they have to protect the world from monsters known as Dangers, and like true warriors, they get nothing for it!

The Adventurers Guild isn’t quite as generic as it looks (key words: “quite as”, but we’ll get to that later). They at least put some good effort into the magic system. Each element is tied to a specific spiritual plane (or something), and they all have a signature that Zed can detect. The writers also pull no punches when it comes to the Dangers’ designs; get used to tentacles coming out of faces and other areas. The prose is also all-around great, but V.E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic taught me that good writing and good storytelling are two completely different talents. 

A lot of things irked me about The Adventurers Guild. One is that—like every modern fantasy and its grandma—there’s social commentary on a lot of bad -isms in society (none of which are commercialism). In addition to my problem with how heavy-handed it gets, The Adventurers Guild makes it unrealistic. And while I normally don’t mind a lack of realism, this case isn’t merely “Ooooh, magic! What is physics again?”; it’s a clash with the human mind itself. 

You’d think that people’d get their sh** together to fight a one-dimensional evil alien threat to the whole species. And yet, the bad -isms are still in effect in the world of The Adventurers Guild! Every authority figure in Freestone tries to get Frond arrested because of sexism. And when a group of elves seeks refuge at the start of the second book, they’re treated with unconditional racism. It felt so arbitrary, that the bad -isms were only there for the sake of bad -isms. I’ll acknowledge that the hatred against Zed is justified to an extent. A half-elf warlock is what caused the Dangers in the first place, giving the whole race a bad rep. But that doesn’t excuse the cases of sexism or anything else, really. 

Alright, alright. For the sake of argument, let’s just take the bad -isms at face value: a conflict in the story that needs to be resolved. But what is there to talk about? The thing with The Adventurers Guild is that beyond the social commentaries, the main plot really isn’t that interesting. Dangers are out there, go kill ‘em. That’s really it. 

But it damn well tries to be different, that’s for sure. It succeeds to an extent in the two main characters, Zed and Brock. These two both have secrets that they keep from each other, and it’s all “Ooooooh” and stuff. Unfortunately, they have very plastic and flat personalities. The rest of the characters… are just as flat. They’re relatable, which—if you’re not anal about writing—would make them super-duper amazing and lovable. But besides the occasional dumb “kid-like” interactions they have with each during their down time, a lot of their dialgoue feels forced. For someone like me, who has grown to love narcissists like Senku from Dr. Stone, I couldn’t care less about the cast of The Adventurers Guild. I had to do ridiculous things like picturing a character as Lord Don’ator to not fall asleep! The third book does introduce a pretty witty new character, who exists for sarcastic comments, and shows up too late to offset everyone else. 

And speaking of the third book, let’s talk about it in the least spoilery way possible. Remember when I said “beyond the social commentaries, the main plot really isn’t that interesting”? Well, that shows. Night of Dangers completely does away with social undertones and becomes a tedious slog that’s just as cliché as anything else, despite how the trilogy desperately tried to avoid it. The only saving grace is the admittedly enjoyable climax, but saying that it offsets everything else is a stretch. One character even deflects from the main issue super intentionally and it’s never explained why. 

Speaking of intentionally, that word is everything wrong with The Adventurers Guild. Virtually none of it felt natural; each story beat was 110% deliberate. As much as having a plan for the narrative is good (in fact, it’s essential), you can’t plan literally everything. You need to have a stream of consciousness effect when writing, which allows some aspects of the story to tell themselves. And if you end up needing to pull something out of your ass, go back and edit earlier parts so that it has proper context. I can’t describe exactly why, but I just felt in my writer-brain that this whole series was… wrong.

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Final Verdict: 6/10

The Adventurers Guild tried a lot of things, and it all felt flat to me. In the end, I have no idea what the takeaway of this series is. Is it that racism is bad, or that you shouldn’t keep secrets? Whatever it is, there’s definitely something out there that’s conveyed it better. While this isn’t the worst series on the market, it is still just about as bland as its name implies.

The Sorcerer King of Destruction and the Golem of the Barbarian Queen Volume 1 Review

by macksamson, posted in Light Novels, Sorcerer King

For every happy-go-lucky isekai, there’s one that tries to be all dark and brooding. One example is The Eminence in Shadow, which I recently covered. There’s also, of course, Overlord and Torture Princess. Despite their wild variance in quality, they all seem to have one thing in common: they’re not really that dark at all. I’m fine with that, but it would be nice to have something that’s truly effed up. Maybe this new series from Seven Seas, *takes deep breath* The Sorcerer King of Destruction and the Golem of the Barbarian Queen, will be dark enough.

In Sorcerer King, a dude is summoned to another world. He finds some books, and realizes that the purpose of his summoning is to become the titular Sorcerer King of Destruction and destroy the world! Ignoring that last part, he practices some spells, such as summoning golems. When he actually manages to make one that lasts, he loses all of his memories of the real world.

What is immediately made apparent is that this thing starts off slow. And I mean real slow. To put it in anime terms, it fails the “Three Episode Test”, which judges anime under the pretense that it’ll pick up during the third episode at the latest. It takes almost a quarter of the volume for the guy to create the other protagonist, his golem, Goltarou. However, it doesn’t become the strapping she-golem that probably made you want to read this light novel in the first place until about halfway through.

And as far as tone is concerned… Sorcerer King is- surprise, surprise- edgy, instead of dark. Even if the protag has no memories of himself, he still has memories of Japan and various otaku terminology, which is as out-of-place as it usually is. But if anything is dark, it’s the world itself. This is the sorriest state I have ever seen an isekai setting in; even more so than Torture Princess, which is definitely saying something. There’s no need for a Sorcerer King of Destruction; it seems the world is already destroyed.

When it comes to the characters, it’s just our main protagonist and Goltarou. He’s as generic as you can expect. In fact, without his memories, anyone can project themselves onto him, hooray! The real point of contention is Goltarou. One aspect that stands out is the possibility that she’s transgender, which to me, is a first in isekai (ps: if trans is the wrong term for this, then please correct me). However, they’re still clearly pushing for a heterosexual romance between her and the main protagonist, so it’s kind of up to interpretation. Due to the fact that Goltarou is silent, has no personality, and does whatever the main protagonist says, her being 100% female would make this LN come off as hardcore sexist.

The art is mixed. While the cover art is fine, the inside illustrations are very rough and sketchy. Everything has a dark toner that makes a lot of stuff blur together, and I’m not entirely a fan. But hey, what’s important is that Goltarou is very *makes cat noises*. 

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Verdict: 7/10

So far, Sorcerer King is very… okay. It could go either way from here, so I can’t definitively say what I think. For the time being, I recommend it if you like those anime waifus who walk around like robots and call you “goshujin-sama”. 

The Eminence in Shadow Volume 1 Review

by macksamson, posted in Eminence in Shadow, Light Novels

If you know my blog, you know I tend to like a good sociopath. As a critic, I don’t like Mary/Gary Sue; sometimes I want a protagonist like Light Yagami, who smirks and says “All according to keikaku.” However, I know not everyone feels that way, and that’s why I anticipate that The Eminence in Shadow (published in English by Yen Press) is going to become one of the most contentious new isekai.

Our protagonist idolizes those who operate from behind the scenes, and he dreams of being a puppet master himself. The biggest thing standing in his way is the fact that magic isn’t real in our world. After years of training, he gets hit by a truck, and is reborn in a fantasy world as Cid Kagenou. With his wildest dreams now in his grasp, he (very quickly) builds a harem of cute girls, and calls said harem the Shadow Garden.

The Eminence in Shadow reeks of shallow wish-fulfilment, and not just because of the harem. Similar to the Secret Organization LN I reviewed (that got axed apparently), Cid pulls a non-existent enemy out of his ass by fabricating the Cult of Diablos. The women he meets fall for it hook, line, and sinker. Or at least… I think that’s the case? The opening lines in the volume are as follows: “The Cult of Diablos… That’s our enemy. Well… it’s not like they actually exist.” However, from pretty much the get-go, they’re already fighting evil scientists who seem to very much be real Diablos Cult members. I don’t know if it was implied that Cid bribed them into doing it or something, or if it was an oopsie on the author’s part (or option C: I didn’t notice it because I’m a dimwit).

Putting that logic issue aside, Eminence is pretty entertaining. It has a dark sense of humor, and that stupid level of teen angst that’s fun to cringe at. The story reads fast, and there’s plenty of gore and over-the-top action. There’s also some funny romcom-like antics that ensue as Cid tries to blend in as a side character at his school.

Speaking of characters, Cid is my favorite thus far; he’s a clever, conniving little sociopath. He’s also a pretty unique take on an overpowered protagonist, since he’s overpowered at techniques rather than, well, power. But other than him, everyone else is quite forgettable. His entourage of women are your typical tropes, and they’re all Cid’s lapdogs. The only other remotely likeable characters are this sadistic princess, Alexia, and Gamma, one of Cid’s women who is somehow both a mastermind and a ditz at the same time.

The art in Eminence is great. It has an edgy color palette which fits in perfectly with its image, and the characters at least look cool, even if they aren’t particularly enjoyable. I’ll definitely be looking forward to what the future volume covers look like.

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Verdict: 7.65/10

Although it’s a bit confusing at times, The Eminence in Shadow is off to a great start. It’s edgy, trashy, and scandalous. For now, I recommend it to fans of similarly edgy franchises, like Persona.

RWBY First Impressions (Volumes 1-5)

by macksamson, posted in Western Media

My job will have fully opened by the time you read this, but at the time of this writing, it was only partially opened. This gave me the chance to squeeze in one more Western animated series while my shift is substantially reduced. But what to pick? Steven Universe was a very emotional show, and I’m still caught up on DuckTales and The Dragon Prince, waiting for new episodes. Since I didn’t find the CG of the latter to be so bad, I thought I would watch a more… (in)famous CG series: Rooster Teeth’s RWBY. Even from beneath the rock I’ve been living under, I’m aware of the heated debates that occur over this franchise. So, because I love controversial media (for some reason), I thought I’d give the show a whirl to see what the hubbub is about.

In the world of RWBY, people rely on some magic junk called Dust (which is basically Sepith from Trails of Cold Steel), and that’s their only way to fight these monsters called Grimm. One night, a girl named Ruby Rose takes on some criminals with a crazy scythe-gun, and is sought out by Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon Academy. He decides that “you’re a wizard, Ruby!” and instantly bumps her into the prestigious school, two years in advance. There, she meets three more color-coded girls (her older sister, a tsundere, and an emo girl) and they go on adventures together.

Like with Dragon Prince, I must discuss the visuals of RWBY first and foremost. “The Dragon Prince looked great,”  I thought. “RWBY shouldn’t be so bad,” I thought. Oh, how wrong I was. I understood that The Dragon Prince was made with the backing of Netflix, one of the biggest entertainment distributors in the world, and also five years after the premiere of RWBY. But even with that in mind, RWBY takes some time to get used to. While the character designs are fine, everything else about the visuals is horribly wrong. I complained about The Dragon Prince’s choppy and inconsistent frames, but RWBY showed me that the smoother framerates of its animations look more stiff, unnatural, and awkward than in The Dragon Prince.

Fortunately, the visuals improve substantially over time, with it finally looking legitimately good by season 4. The fight scenes in RWBY are when it’s at its best… sort of. The camera swings too wildly for humans to possibly keep an eye on, and it relies entirely on pure spectacle. However, as a fan of over-the-top battle shounens, I love it. The animation is at its most fluid and impactful here. Also, the show is truly anime for one reason: everything is a gun. Scythes, gauntlets, even suitcases; they’re all guns. 

To be honest, the visuals served to make RWBY one of the funniest battle shounen I have ever experienced. The humor was legitimately on point in the show, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they had influence from the best of Weekly Shounen Jump. It’s the kind of stupidity that I’ve grown to love ever since I started reading manga all those years ago. The awkward movements made it even funnier for some reason.

However, despite the anime influences, RWBY is still a Western fantasy, and a modern one at that. And if you couldn’t tell, it is qualified to fall into the Harry Potter knockoff category. In the early seasons, the plot is mind-numbingly simple, with typical gag-shounen-meets-school-drama antics coupled with some YA awkwardness; a very difficult combination of tropes to get used to.

Being a modern fantasy, RWBY does another common thing: making its world an overly obvious mirror to our society, i.e. racism. The people who get targeted for discrimination are the Faunus. They are essentially furries, which ironically, adds another layer of social commentary. Anyway, the big problem with the Faunus is the White Fang, a terrorist organization that has resorted to rather… harsh methods of ending racism (which isn’t at all ten times more relevant in 2020 for any specific reasons). Honestly… I didn’t really care much for this line of narrative. It’s a topical topic for a reason, but this is one of the things I enjoyed The Dragon Prince for not having. I like adventure fantasies the best, and there really aren’t enough of them in this day and age.

Like any gag shounen, RWBY inevitably makes the transition to a more serious and plot-driven story. However, it’s not that simple. During production of the third season, the original creator of RWBY tragically passed away. The rest of the team has been carrying on with the series since, but it’s at this point where the show became the divisive debate-starting show it is today. It makes a transition that’s extremely risky for the genre: from gag shounen to straight-up seinen.

There are a couple of issues with this. One is that the transition is not at all organic. Normally, most shounen start out with short arcs, some of which last only one volume. Then, an arc goes for two volumes to make the reader think, “Finally, they’re actually doing something substantial with these characters and ideas.” Then, there’s an arc that’s really long and is generally considered the best, followed by a unanimously hated slog to the end. I get that not all battle shounen are like this, and RWBY definitely does not follow this pattern either (but in a bad way). There is a very visible instant in which the show completely changes with no build-up whatsoever: Season 3 Episode 6. After that, it packs on the emotional baggage to no end, and it becomes very hard to take seriously if you’re not super-emotional.

Also, Eastern angst and Western angst are two completely different things, and if you’ve read any of my YA novel reviews, you’d know I don’t entirely enjoy the latter’s company. While a lot of edgy stuff from Japan can tackle some uncomfortable themes with surprising elegance (Chainsaw Man, Torture Princess, Tokyo Ghoul, Monster, etc.), I’ve found a lot of the same from Western culture to be pretentious and heavy-handed. Additionally, some of the voice acting has enough gravel to pave a whole interstate highway. At the point I’m at, the few gags they do use feel jarring instead of something meant to break the ice. But in all honesty, it’s not terrible. The show is still enjoyable, and if I had liked the characters better, the feels would’ve actually struck a chord with me. However, due to the fact that it gets more and more controversial from here, I can’t guarantee that my opinion isn’t going to sway drastically in later seasons.

Regardless of the narrative, there is a somewhat great cast of characters to motivate you to keep watching. Each of the four girls are typical tropes: Ruby, ditz; Weiss, tsundere; Blake, YA protagonist; Yang, brash. But they all have genuinely good interactions with each other, and overall truly feel like a ragtag team of young’uns. They go through a lot of character development, even if it makes them come off as typical YA drama queens. Unfortunately, their fellow peers are similarly tropeish but with less… interestingness. A boy named Jaune is a typical underdog, a girl named Pyrrha is a typical hyper-justice-girl, a girl named Nora is Ruby but with a hammer, etc. Even when they all go through big emotional crises in season four, I didn’t care for any of the kids besides the four main ones.

However, the adults make up for it. My favorite character ended up being Ruby’s uncle, Crow. He’s your typical bad-ass, trollish, yet down-to-earth father figure guy, and it’s hard not to like him. There’s also a fast-talking professor named Oobleck, but he’s- sadly- a pretty minor character. Also, this one guy named James Ironwood has the best worst name (I’ll leave society’s many euphemisms to explain why).

I can’t say the same for the villains, though. As much the show really tries to do a moral ambiguity angle, the major antagonists fall under the typical Saturday morning cartoon villain category, at least up to where I’ve watched. This one swindler named Roman Torchwick is entertaining enough, but it’s not the case for the people he’s getting his fat stacks from. He reports to this woman named Cinder, who is literally Azula from Avatar. Her two minions, Mercury and Emerald, are just about as uninteresting. Cinder reports works under the true mastermind of the series, some alien(?) named Salem, but there’s not yet enough information to really say anything about her.

Before I get to my current score, I must clarify that I’m not criticizing RWBY because it stopped being what I wanted it to be; it’s just that the show felt more generic after the tone shift. I wholly understand that not everything can be original, but a lot of the content felt like it was ripped right out of How to Make Your Audiences Bleed Tears in Five Easy Steps with no finesse or variation. Compare the portrayal of the Faunus- which is the same exact allegory to American history that’s been done eleventy other times- to something like Eighty-Six. Both are commentaries on the exact same topic, but Eighty-Six does it in a way that feels much fresher than what RWBY does. 

Television is also a deceptively limiting medium for visual storytelling. Once in a blue moon, you’ll have someone like Satoshi Kon who can do something interesting with film as an entertainment medium, but RWBY is not a Satoshi Kon film; a lot of it had bog-standard cinematography, such as those “hard-cut-to-black-with-some-kind-of-distressing-sound-effect-cliffhanger” techniques. I suppose I’ve been spoiled by manga, which have billions of combinations of panel layouts that all subtly contribute to the mood of a scene, or books, which can use the written word to at times convey more emotion than an image ever could. Also, Legend of Korra taught me that I should be examining television through an entirely different lens, as a lot of things I find typical are less common on TV. I’m even willing to bet that RWBY wouldn’t even have been allowed to air on network television, and could only exist as an indie program, for whatever dumb bureaucratic reason.

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Current Verdict: 8.35/10

RWBY is a typical battle shounen in presentation and plot structure. It is great mindless entertainment, and I honestly don’t see why so many people take it so seriously. The food fight at the start of season two shows what I believe RWBY is at its best: over-the-top action with goofy slapstick. Unfortunately, I don’t entirely like the darker turn it took, mainly because it took it too fast. RWBY seems to be trying to be a fantasy epic on the scope of something like Trails of Cold Steel, but without the foundation that those games took time to build. Overall, the show is pretty middle-of-the-road, and I do not understand either side of the arguments with this show (but like I said, that could change). These seasons are stupid short, so I should be able to see RWBY through to the end without much hassle.