Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

The Shaman Fight Shakedown (Shaman King #29) ★★★☆½

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Title: The Shaman Fight Shakedown
Series: Shaman King #29
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Some guy on the beach gets a call from Mr Oyamada and he tells him that all of Hao's minions on the beach, who were going to destroy them, have destroyed themselves. Oyamada makes it clear that he is after the Great Spirit itself, for all the power it contains.

We then flashback to the Oyamada minion taking down all of Hao's minions with modern weaponry. He, and by extension, Mr Oyamada, don't believe in souls and so the Shaman's powers simply don't work against him. A few of Hao's minions survive and warn him of his minion's demise. Hao simply shrugs, says he needs more mana and tells the survivors to sacrifice themselves so he can devour their souls.

Anna begins to fight Hao but Hao reveals his powered up (yet again) Oversoul and begins taunting Anna. If she can't save herself, how is she supposed to save Hao's minions, who might not even want to be saved? Yoh shows up and tells Hao that Anna is simply Anna.

Anna brings the minions back to their place and Yoh and Hao have coffee at a Patch coffee shop. Hao seems to revel in the fact that he's destroying anyone to become stronger while Yoh acts like a stoner.

Mikihisa, Yoh's dad, comes across the massacre on the beach and starts doing some kind of ceremony. Sati revives Lady Jeanne so that together they can resurrect the rest of their allies.

Yoh and Ren have a little talk and Ren shows that he thinks the only way to stop Hao is to kill him. Yoh doesn't believe it is that simple and that Hao still has a heart. The next shaman fight is between Team Ren and Yoh's team and they're fighting for their belief in how to deal with Hao.

Horohoro and Ren immediately take out Faust and Ryu, so as to isolate Yoh. Yoh reveals his mana neutralizing powers and Ren answers with his own power of nature using lightning. Both sides are going all out but only Yoh is completely certain in his mind. Suddeny Lyserg appears and stops the fight and Sati pulls out all of her teams, thus ensuring that both Team Ren and Yoh advance.

The Asakura's and the Tao's get together to figure out how their collective families can taken down Hao and deal with whatever Mr Oyamada is trying to do.

Despite the shenanigans pulled by Sati and her Gandala teams, Team Ren makes it clear they are going to finish their fight against Yoh. Lyserg steps in to cover for Ryu and Faust. The fight WILL continue.

The volume ends with a shot of the ship owned by Mr Oyamada and something going overboard.

My Thoughts:

This was a really twisty, turny volume. The idea that non-shamans are getting involved ratchets this up even more but in a way that I fully support. It is different from the shamans just endlessly powering up and pulling new powers out of their butts.

In the last review I was talking about how I missed Manta and in this volume, he plays a very small part but it is extremely pertinent. He's asking himself why he is even there. I'm really hoping that his friendship with Yoh will be one of the deciding factors in the final battle. Especially given that everyone now knows just how powerful Hao truly is. He is unbeatable and no one has the raw power to defeat him. I doubt even the 5 Warriors with a spirit ally could do it.

The Patch continue to sit on the sidelines and have their own little behind the scenes game and I still hate them. Sati and Gandala manipulating the fight seems a bit amateur to me. If the Shaman Fight has been going on for thousands of years, someone of a tactical mind would have already done something like it and I'm sure the bloody Patch would then institute rules to prevent such manipulation. You know, people were still pretty smart even 500 years ago. Technology doesn't equal intelligence.

With only 3 volumes to go, I suspect this is going to end extremely fast. And that the Power of Friendship will solve everything. I mean, you can't have a fighting shonen manga without that trope!

★★★☆½

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Monday, July 15, 2019

[Manga Monday] A Good Woman (Shaman King #28) ★★★☆☆

Title: A Good Woman
Series: Shaman King #28
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

The volume starts out with Lyserg alone in some deserted city and the title of the chapter is “Separated in Hell”. Then Team Ren, now separated, all get the same “You're in Hell to train to become one of the 5 Warriors Speech”.

Back in the real world some of Hao's minions are taunting Sati and Ryu about Lyserg being blown up and Ryu loses his cool and attacks them. Sati intervenes and tells Ryu he musn't kill anyone, no matter the provocation. She is then stabbed by one of the minions.

Tamao and Manta survived the car explosion but Marco, Lady Jeanne and Lyserg are all dead. Tamao vows to safeguard their bodies until Sati can resurrect them. The minion of Hao who initially attacked them was also called on to destroy the bodies. Now Tamao, with help from Manta, must stand against the minion. Marco makes a comeback, thanks to Lady Jeanne blessing him right before they all died. Now that he's resurrected, he's stronger than ever and easily defeats the minion. Instead of killing him though, he tries to make a deal. Then Hao and Luchist show up and Marco gives his oversoul to Tamao so she can escape with the bodies of Lady Jeanne and Lyserg.

The island that the Shaman Fight is taking place on has now been revealed to the world since the X-Laws used a super-secret space laser on it. The Patch are trying to figure out what to do but reveal that the second part of the Tournament will take place somewhere where no one can interfere.

Anna shows up with the Golem to help Tamao and Marco and Hao reveals that he's planning on making her his bride once he becomes Shaman King. A battle ensues between them. Also, another team of Hao Minions show up at the inn where the bodies of Team Ren are. If the bodies are destroyed, they can't come back from hell.

Yoh faces down all the ogres and makes them take him to the king of hell, Yama. Ryu is fighting, uselessly, against the minions to protect Sati and Yoh's bodies. Dr Faust resurrects Yoh. Yoh instructs him to resurrect Sati while he holds off the minions.

A warship shows up at the island, helmed by Tycoon Oyamada, Manta's father.

Back at the Hotsprings Team Ren is resurrected by Jun Tao and Team Ren tests its new powers by taking on the Hao minions. The minions are recalled by Hao for “cleanup duty”, as are Hao's minions all over the island.

Lyserg continues his training in hell.

The volume ends with Hao's minions being told to “clean up” the warship. Dissension arises as some of them don't want to fight non-shamans and infighting commences.

My Thoughts:

Phracking aye, this was a busy volume. Too much time is spent shifting around to various characters instead of just sticking with a core group. It also made me realize that I miss Manta. He's not a shaman so he's pretty much been sidelined for quite some time. However, his interactions with Yoh in the first few volumes were what were so great. I miss that.

The plot continues to expand, what with the “real world” now getting involved. It is tough enough that Hao has about 50 bazillion shaman minions, but then between the X-Laws and Gandala you had another bazillion people and then the core group of Yoh and his friends. Now adding outsiders? It just feels like the manga-ka is going as “wide” as he can. Focus has been lost and everything feels frenetic. I'm barely hanging by my fingernails to the plot because it's become so twisty and convoluted.

I suspect the continued escalation of Everything would blow a teenagers mind. I'm not a teenager anymore so my mind is just bored.

★★★☆☆

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Friday, July 12, 2019

Exotica (Shaman King #27) ★★★☆☆

Title: Exotica
Series: Shaman King #27
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Ryu is about to go berserk when he realizes Sati has killed Yoh but she reveals that she did it so Yoh would become one of the 5 Warriors, beings able to control the Five High Spirits, which are needed to defeat Hao.

Yoh is confronted by the giant ogre demon that he slew helping Anna several years ago and he senses the presence of Matamune, who is hiding in the shadows. The ogre tells Yoh he now serves Sati and that Yoh must think of Anna to make through all the levels of hell. The ogre leaves and Yoh's first opponent shows up looking like his dad. Turns out to be his distant ancestor who defeated Hao 500 years ago. Yoken eventually uses his ultimate power, that he used to defeat Hao, against Yoh and Yoh stops it cold. During the fight Yoh realizes Yoken isn't evil but just guilty about killing Hao, which is why he is still bound in hell.

Back in the real world, the Patch Officant for Gandala overhears Sati talking and confronts her. He states that the 5 High Spirits belong to the Patch and them alone.

Yoh and Yoken are talking and Yoken reveals that there are only 2 options for defeating Hao. One is total dissolution, which means no reincarnation and Yoh states he'll try the other way. Then a giant hammer kills Yoken and another giant ogre climbs up onto the battlefield. Yoh kills that ogre but the a whole clan shows up.

Team Ren is confronted by the Wisdom Kings, who tell them they know all about the 5 Warriors. However, the Wisdom Kings tell Team Ren that'll they will never leave the bathhouse alive.

Then 3 of Hao's minions show up to confront Sati and Ryu while the Patch Officiant makes snide remarks about how neutral he is. Sati knows that the X-Laws have been wiped out.

The story then moves into a shot story from which this volume gets its name. A story about 2 young street racers using “exotic” cars, ie, a lamborgini and a ferrari.

Then the manga-ka spends 15 pages illustrating his time doing the aforementioned one shot.

My Thoughts:

Ok, this was going along strong, definitely into the 3.5star territory. We finally get to see Yoh be really serious when the Ogre kills his ancestor. The fights with Yoken were pretty cool but since I am an experienced connoisseur of fighting shonen manga, having watched every single Yu Yu Hakusho episode, it didn't blow me away. I was impressed though.

The whole 5 Warriors/Spirits thing seems to be the manga-ka's way of shaking the story out of any potential ruts. I guess I can deal with that.

Then the whole stupid one shot story happened. I've read the Initial D manga so the whole japanese street racing thing is old hat. Considering this took place at least 3+ years after Initial D was released, it felt like he was trying to ride the coat tails of its success. And to be honest, I haven't given 2 figs about cars since I was 16. I drive them and I earn money to pay somebody else to fix them. That is it. And the icing on the cake was the manga-ka then illustrating how he came to do the one shot. He basically ran out of ideas for the one shot and so padded it out with the “how to” of it. Completely took me out of the Shaman King world. I feel like I'm being very generous with only dropping this to a 3. If there is another instance like this in any of the future volumes I'll drop it to at least a 2, if not lower.

Only five more volumes to go. I feel like I'm in some kind of weird book marathon or something. And I have no one to blame but myself! Well, except maybe you. Yep, I'm definitely going to blame you this time. Bad you, go sit in the corner! Sit!

★★★☆☆

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Thursday, July 11, 2019

The Brother's Nose (Shaman King #26) ★★★☆☆

Title: The Brother's Nose
Series: Shaman King #26
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Yoh realizes Team Ren has powered up so he and his cohorts race out of the stadium for more special training. The new member of the Wisdom Kings takes Ren out with a mental attack and Joco steps up to do battle with him. Joco's new oversoul tells him to keep cool when suddenly the 3^rd member of the Wisdom Kings does a sneak attack and apparently kills him. Now it's up to Horohoro to face down the strongest members of the Wisdom Kings.

Horohoro pretty much goes super-sayan on them and just completely overwhelms them. The scene cuts away to the lady in charge of Gandala and she's thanking Bonze the musician monks and Jun Tao for bringing Team Ren to her attention. Turns out Horohoro is some wolf-god incarnate and so powerful that Hao realizes the futility of turning him. Team Ren wins and the next match between a Hao affiliate and a Gandala affiliate begins.

Hao's team almost literally slices and dices their way to victory. While this match is going on, some X-Laws are attempting to assassinate Hao. Hao unleashes his fire elemental on them and devours their souls. They knew that Hao could read their minds, hence their plan, so they initiated a secret plan, an unrevealed Angel of Fire, a laser satellite and use it to destroy the entire area where Hao is.

Sati, the head of Gandala, confronts Yoh and tells him he must die for the sake of the 5 Warriors. Yoh prepares to test out his new oversoul.

At the time of the rogue X-Laws attack, a brother of one of the contestants beaten by Lady Jeanne confronts the car carrying Marco, Lyserg, Jeanne, Manta and Tamao. Marco appears to be killed outright.

The volume ends with the X-laws attack failing, Yoh being killed and sent to hell by Sati and Lady Jeanne and Co defenseless.

My Thoughts:

A good bit of fighting but once again, it is overwhelming on a visual aspect. I see this huge explosion of power and just pass it over as it's to much effort to parse it out. It would appear that Joco has been co-opted by Gandala and the whole 5 Warrior thing, whatever that is. Honestly, it seems a bit late in the series to be introducing yet another wrinkle into the plot. It certainly does create tension though.

One of the X-Laws sees Hao crying right before Hao kills him. Which means that Hao's ability to feel sympathy/empathy isn't gone like he claims. Not sure what that is going to portend, but I'm sure the manga-ka will make hay with it at some point.

Right at the end, when Sati kills Yoh, Matamune is shown greeting Yoh in the afterlife. So hopefully Matamune will power up Yoh and reveal some weakness about Hao. Or he'll just blather the manga-ka's useless palaver about not hurting anybody, ever, blah, blah, blah.

★★★☆☆

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Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Death Wish ★★★★★

Title: Death Wish
Series: ----------
Author: Brian Garfield
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Psychological Fiction
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Paul Benjamin is a successful accountant in New York City. One afternoon his wife and married daughter are attacked in Paul's apartment and savagely beaten. His wife dies and his daughter ends up in a sanitarium, insane for all intents and purposes.

Paul has always been a good guy. He's done charity work for prison reform, contributes to causes left and right and thinks that if he obeys the rules that Society will protect him. With the attack on his family this delusion is ripped away and Paul must confront what living in a big city really means.

As he mulls these thoughts over, he begins to change. He realizes he has been afraid and he is now going to stop being afraid. But how does one stop being afraid? By taking responsibility for ones self is the conclusion Paul comes to.

On a business trip to the Mid-West Paul has a one night stand with some stranger at his hotel. When she leaves he realizes how empty his life is. How empty those hoodlums have made his life. He buys a small calibre pistol at a fishing shop and takes it back to New York with him hidden in his carry on baggage.

Paul begins roaming the city at night, exposing himself to danger so as to kill the perpetrators of violence and crime. After several kills the papers pick up on the fact that there is a vigilante on the loose. The book ends with Paul having just shot 4 teenagers who were throwing 50lb rocks onto a train to kill people inside and a cop seeing him. The cop raises his hat and deliberately turns his back and Paul walks home.

My Thoughts:

My goodness, another fantastic book for this year. Definitely gets the “Best Book of the Year” tag.

So, this review might be long and rambly, please bear with me or just skip it. Either way, it's all good.

I had heard about this through the 1974 film starring Charles Bronson. Knowing the type of movie Bronson usually starred in, I never got around to watching it. Then in 2018 a remake with Bruce Willis was made and it eventually came to Amazon Prime. I watched the reboot, as I really like Willis. That led me to watching the original with Bronson and then to hunting down the book. I plan on talking about the movies in a Versus post later this month. Death Wish vs Death Wish vs Death Wish!

Based on the synopsis and the movies, I was expecting a book about a vigilante getting his revenge. A soft, pasty, weakminded fool seeing reality for the first time in his life and going all gung-ho to the other extreme. What I got was a psychological book that impressed me over and over and over. Paul never finds the hoodlums who killed his wife and he never expects to. What I read was the mind of a man pushed beyond its self-imposed limits. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't always easy to read about but it was good.

I've always considered Crime & Punishment to be THE book on what a criminal mind goes through after a murder. Death Wish is entering the same territory in my mind but from the other end. What does a man go through when he truly realizes how broken, destructive and unsafe his world is? This book shows the answer to that.

Given the fact that I already agree with most of the statements made in this book (see my Quote post from the other day) it is no surprise that I liked this. The only part I struggled with was Paul taking the role of Executioner into his own hands, not lightly, but so determinedly. I believe that every human has the God given right to defend themselves. I believe that laws like the Stand Your Ground laws are essential to a free society. However, when defense of Self moves into the defense of Society then I cannot blindly accept or promote it. But neither do I blindly negate it. Evil, and people who commit acts of Evil ARE evil, must be resisted not only by the dutifully elected officials of Law and Order but by every conscientious citizen as well. The flip side of the Right to Self-defense is the Responsibility of Self-defense. This book was written in 1972 and is pretty dated but the battle that Paul goes through in his mind is as relevant today as it was then.

I don't know what someone who is in staunch opposition to the right of self-defense would make of this book. I don't think it would change their mind. It is not meant to however. This was a book written to all of those people who sit on the fence and think they are safe because “of the police” or that “it couldn't happen here in Safe Safe Happy Funland.” Brian Garfield also NEVER ridicules those who think like Paul at the beginning of the book. I really appreciated that.

I would love to unreservedly recommend this book but honestly, I can't. For me, it was the right book at the right time. People can have their minds changed and responsibility can grow from even the stinkiest compost heap.

To end, this was not an action/adventure novel of revenge and over the top violence. This was the story of a man finally growing up.

★★★★★

Tuesday, July 09, 2019

Cornerstone (Shaman King #25) ★★★☆½

Title: Cornerstone
Series: Shaman King #25
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Yoh steps in between Marco and Luchist. Yoh sets himself in opposition and yet another battle begins. Just as the fallen angel Lucifer is about to destroy's Amidamaru, “Lady Jeanne” appears and captures Yoh. It's all a deception though, as this “Jeanne” is a creation by Lyserg and a part of a plan by Yoh. Only it is a double trap because they know Luchist will see through it. The real Lady Jeanne appears and destroys Lucifer, causing Luchist to faint.

Turns out Jeanne was being used by the X-Laws while Marco was the real leader. And the angels were just sports cars imbued with spirit energy. Marco starts blabbing it all out and then prepares to blow his brains out in despair. Lady Jeanne tells him to keep on fighting and stay alive and she tells Yoh they'll face each other in an official shaman fight to determine who will get to take Hao down.

Then everyone, Luchist, the X-Laws and Yoh's gang all have breakfast together and hijinks ensue. The X-Laws are “x”ing all over the place and the little minion of Hao's that's hanging out with Yoh starts copying them.

Yoh reveals that Hao's winning the tournament is inevitable but that at some point the winner must undergo a purification ritual where he is helpless. Then he can be attacked a new Shaman King declared. But the ritual is protected by the 10 most powerful Patch Warriors.

The next day Team Ren faces off against the Wisdom Kings, a sub-group of the Gandala gang that helped Joco. They can negate mana and oversouls, so Ren has to figure out how to take them down. He exposes their weakness and then we get a flashback to Super Joco training Ren and Horohoro to make them stronger.

The volume ends with Ren defeating his opponent and the next Wisdom King stepping up to fight.

My Thoughts:

There is a small character named Opacho, one of Hao's minions, who's been sent to spy on Yoh and his friends. He's only 5 years old and he is funny as all get out. Thankfully, the manga-ka makes full use of him in this volume to provide a lot of comic relief, if you're looking for it. Opacho is in a lot of the panels but off to the side or something and usually doing something funny. Made me laugh several times and definitely brought the “humor” back into the series.

The revelation by Yoh about their ultimate plan makes a lot of sense AND neatly solves most of the issues the manga-ka created by backing everyone into their corners. How it works out though, well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

It is also a lot of fun to see how Yoh makes friends of everyone he comes into contact with, even those opposed to him and allied with Hao. After the battle with Luchist and Lucifer, you see everyone sitting down at a breakfast table the next morning and Anna complaining about yet even more people hanging out. Very light hearted and brought the focus back on Yoh and his ethos for becoming Shaman King.

As a side note, I also started using the Adobe Reader program instead of the CdisplayEx program and every page rendered correctly. Made for a much more enjoyable read. Really weird why CD wouldn't properly display the last couple of pages though. Eh, whatever, I've got it working now with Reader.

★★★☆½

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Monday, July 08, 2019

[Manga Monday] Shaman Fight (Shaman King #24) ★★★☆½

Title: Shaman Fight
Series: Shaman King #24
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Anna shows up and calls out the ghost. He's already seen the error of his ways thanks to Super Joco though and un-possesses his daughter and asks the gang to destroy the golem. Anna refuses and tells him to stop being stupid. They need the golem in the fight against Hao. So Munzer the ghost becomes part of Team Yoh.

The Patch are looking at their records and only 39 shamans are left in the fight. The Patch chief goes on about the Shaman fight not being a moral fight but one only of strength. He then sends 2 other Patch officiants to teach Silva (the officiant who qualified Yoh) a lesson, as Silva tried to steal some Patch artifacts to do something on his own.

One of Hao's minions confronts Yoh and tells him if he doesn't get back in the Shaman Fight that he, Hao, will destroy the golem AND the children. Yoh has a personal crisis with this threat. He doesn't WANT to fight but he also wants to be Shaman King for a variety of good reasons. Anna tells Yoh to stop sulking and to get back in the fight. She'll be a laughingstock otherwise.

Yoh heads over to the X-Laws and tells them he's back in the Shaman Fight. This obviously doesn't go over well with Marco, the Captain. 4 or 5 of the X-Law's and their angels attack Yoh. Yoh avoids everything easily and tells Lyserg to stand clear so he doesn't get hurt. Yoh fights off the minor Angels and then directly attacks Marco and his Archangel. Marco goes ballistic and then some stranger walks up to the boat claiming to be the creator of the X-Laws.

He, Luchist, also says he's working with Hao and he has the 000 Angel, the Lucifer. He effortlessly destroys the minor shamans and their angels and Marco and his angel the Michael spring into attack mode. They beat the snot out of each other and Luchist is about to kill Marco when Yoh intervenes.

Both Luchist and Marco suddenly transform into skimpy leather clothing and Luchist begins lecturing Yoh about “Battle Clothes”. Then he and Marco really start fighting. Yoh and Lyserg wonder if they even should intervene and Lyserg wants to get Lady Jeanne to intervene but Yoh realizes Luchist's real goal is to destroy Jeanne.

My Thoughts:

Much better. Michael and Lucifer fighting each other? That is the level of power I want to see!

Sadly, while I really did like the increased fighting, the battle scenes were wicked busy and it made it hard to parse out just what exactly was going on. It also didn't help that the last 10 pages in this ebook version had the pages sideways. Not the fault of the manga-ka but still something I had to take into consideration.

I really want to kill the whole Patch tribe at the moment. They are NOT my favorites with their recent reveal about how they're treating Silva for trying to help Yoh.

★★★☆½

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Friday, July 05, 2019

Epilogue IV (Shaman King #23) ★★★☆☆

Title: Epilogue IV
Series: Shaman King #23
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Yoh and his friends face off against the Golem and Hao's gang but Hao is reminded of the one friend he had, Matamune the cat spirit, who taught Yoh a lot of what he now knows. Hao decides to amble off.

Anna and Manta are slowly making their way to the scene and Anna begins to tell Manta a story about Yoh's past.

The golem revives, fully under the control of the ghost of it's creator. To replenish its mana it must consume the souls of other shamans, so it begins to attack Yoh's group. Horohoro and Ren are first in line. With Lyserg's help they slow the golem down but then everyone is running away on Lyserg's new angel ally. The golem gives chase and the crew has to figure out how to stop it without killing the little girl inside. Suddenly a stronger than ever Joco shows up and fights off the golem.

Hao reveals to his minions that he can read minds and that he left the golem fight so he didn't have to fight Yoh yet.

Super-Joco begins beating the ever living daylights out of the golem with new shaman powers and his ghost teacher shows up and starts lecturing the gang (and the audience by extension). The audience then gets a flashback sequence via Ghost Teacher about Joco's training in the other-world.

Joco and the golem continue their fight but Joco isn't fighting to defeat the golem but to make it realize its dreams so the ghost will pass on. The fight ends with Joco lying in a pool blood.

My Thoughts:

Super New Joco looked super new stupid. I have no idea where the manga-ka gets his ideas for what looks cook, but Joco was a complete fail in this regard.

The manga-ka also can't seem to help himself from preaching at his audience. It is really getting annoying. If it was consistent or more than skin deep pop psychology I could deal with it better. But it isn't and it comes across as Dr. Phil-lite. If you don't know who Dr. Phil is (and good for you if you don't), he's a tv personality who hands out self-help advice like gummy vitamins.

How can the manga-ka go on and on about shamans being keepers of peace and not interested in politics and greed and all the other crap he spews while at the exact same time he has not just Hao in complete opposition to that but every single one of Hao's minions. They are all shamans too. And they're evil shamans. My running theory is that everyone in the last volume will have a kum-bai-ya moment and suddenly be all fething lovey dovey with every one else.

I hope I'm wrong.

This probably would have gone down to a 2 ½ if it weren't for the fights. Takei can draw a most excellent fight scene.

★★★☆☆

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Tuesday, July 02, 2019

Epilogue III (Shaman King #22) ★★★☆☆

Title: Epilogue III
Series: Shaman King #22
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Ryu's fight with the Minions isn't going so well so Yoh heads back his way to see if he needs to intervene. Another Shaman team intervenes on Ryu's behalf and Ryu falls in love with their leader (like he does every girl he meets).

Joco goes for a walk and is looking for his old gang and finds them. All dead. He is confronted by the kids of the man he killed 3 years ago. The kids are shamans and control a nigh unstoppable golem. The kids were with Yoh's father but they attacked him to go after Joco. They're little psychopaths. Joco cuts the golem up but it simply regenerates and slices him up. Yoh and Ryu show up on the scene and Ryu takes Joco away leaving Yoh to face the brats and the golem. Yoh confronts the children and tricks the golem into cutting it's own head off. Then when he's convincing the kids to be good again the golem regenerates and stabs him.

Meanwhile Joco is on the edge of death and having his own little experience.

Yoh and the brother are on the run from the sister and golem, only to run directly into Hao and his entire team. Hao reveals that the children's father has possessed the daughter and he's the one killing everyone who killed him.

Yoh tries to defend the golem and the little girl inside but Hao has his minions casually brush him aside.

My Thoughts:

The manga-ka gets a bit preachy in this volume with a lot of talk about “hurting others only makes them hurt you” and such silly talk. The thing is, Yoh then turns around fights when needed. The manga-ka has him not kill anyone, but that is a hypocritical line with all the words the manga-ka has poured through Yoh's mouth. It's as evil as someone who will defend a mass murderer and then turns around and kills infants with a dull spoon as soon as they exit the mother's womb. You know, I bet Takei is a Democrat in a former life before getting hit by Truck-kun and reincarnating to atone for his horrific life from before. Of course, I'm not sure Truck-kun operates in America, so maybe it's distantly related cousin Mack Truck-kun?

Really, not much else to say. We still haven't gotten Yoh's Super Secret Get Everyone Together to Explain Plan. I figure I'm going to be lucky if that plan gets revealed within the next 3 volumes. Onward!

★★★☆☆

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Monday, July 01, 2019

[Manga Monday] Epilogue II (Shaman King #21) ★★★☆½

Title: Epilogue II
Series: Shaman King #21
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Manta, Ryu and Tokagero arrive at the abandoned mansion where the X-Laws are reviving Ren. Ren is a spirit and doesn't want to be revived since he knows it will mean Yoh has to drop out of the Shaman Fight but he can't communicate with anyone, not even his spirit ally Bason. Lady Jeane revives him. He has a huge increase in mana ability so when Marco and his Angel spirit attack hims, he simply dodges out of the way.

Horohoro and Joco are walking along the beach trying to figure out what they're going to do, as they don't know Ren is back. They come across minions of Hao harassing some defeated shamans. Horohoro steps in even though there is no way he can materially affect the fight. At the same time his father and little sister appear and are watching to see what Horohoro does. Horohoro's dad leaves and Hao's minions try to stop him. Even though his mana is much lower than theirs, he flattens them with one punch and leaves. This gives Horohoro hope and he starts a fight with a Lego Man (no joke). He wins using his brains and ingenuity instead of straight up brawn. Lyserg shows up and defeats the final minion and brings Horohoro back to Yoh.

Another minion of Hao tracks them down and attacks them. Yoh has important news to tell the group so he designates Ryu to fight the minions while the rest of them simply leave. One of the minions falls to his death and his partner is all “eh, whatever”. That pisses Ryu off so he decides to stay and finish the fight instead of just delaying them.

My Thoughts:

Interesting tidbit that death and resurrection increase mana ability exponentially. Not the way I'd choose to get more powerful though!

The fighting is back and I'm glad for it. However, with all of these fights taking place outside of sanctioned Shaman Fights it just further cements the fact that the Patch are a corrupt bunch of scumbags. Or they're playing a long game that we the audience aren't aware of.

It is also obvious that Yoh has a plan even with him being out of the official Shaman Fight. I guess I'll find out what it is next volume.

★★★☆½

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