Look in the mirror. And be honest now!

I think we have all asked ourselves this question at least once – am I gay? This is usually followed by imagining various naked specimens of our species and calculating how aroused, ie. hard/wet, we are. For more promiscuous individuals, experimentation takes place either after a drunken night or for an awesome T-shit and a necklace beads. For most of us this is just a passing concern and we move on with our lives, never telling another living soul the ordeal we just went through.

What does this have to do with being an Otaku? Not much, except as a loose and shoddily concocted analogy. That still doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Let’s look at the definition of otaku before moving on, shall we? Merriam-Webster has it as “a person who is obsessed with anime, manga, and Japanese culture in general.” The 56th definition of the word on the definitive online resource Urban Dictionary has it as “teh deliciously kickass wife of nero.” The former indicates an unhealthy fixation on drawn images of junior high school girls in various levels of undress. The latter, with perfect grammar, indicating you’re the wife of an Emperor that burnt a fuck ton of Christian babies alive.  You’re deliciously kickass, though, for what that’s worth.

Either way, it’s slightly unflattering.

So, how can you tell whether or not you’re an Otaku? By taking this painstakingly crafted, scientifically proven quiz of course! Or just go outside and play a sport or hit a pub and get pissed.

Remember, read through the quiz before answering!

Question the first!

If you had to describe your character, would you:

• A) Defer the description to an anime/manga protagonist, and how you’d so “totally master the same jutsus.”
• B) You would refer to a movie /TV or book character, only occasionally referring to anime.
• C) Refer to a historical figure and how you’d “totally end the Civil War if [you] had the chance.” And you’d do it with Ichigo’s haircut, because it’s cool and not because you know who Kurosaki Ichig…
• D) Actually describe personality traits and net income.

This is, like, sooo totally me!

Question the one after the first!

What would be the trait most desirable in your sexual partner:

• A) He/she would be a mega-kawaii mega-tsundere. And mahou. If you chose this, you already know what those mean.
• B) A lifeless, soulless, though still huggable sex doll/life size moe pillow/VCR player. That you can fuck.
• C) She can’t be assertive, because you fear strong, independent women. Someone like Bella from the Twilight series would be nice. Only pretty.
• D) You’d settle for smart and funny, and a superb knowledge of great wines.

Wash your fucking hair once in a while!

Question the thrice!

Where would you like to go on your honeymoon if you could go anywhere?

• A) Obviously a trip to Konoha, with a pit stop at the Grandline on your way home.
• B) Akihabara, with a side of maid and imouto cafes. An actual wife is optional.
• C) A trip East. Japan is an option. Maybe a manga shop, if there’s time. And a maid cafe…just to, like, say I’ve done it.
• D) Hawaii, and then backpack through Europe. Really live the world, y’know?

I didn't really want to go here. But it's an experience, y'know? Heh...heh.

Question the 4th!

What is your usual go to wardrobe?

• A) An exact replica Asuka plug suit, despite me being a 320 pound male.
• B) Just my super wicked awesome Haruhi fanny pack and soooo ironic “Shinji is Cool” T-shirt.
• C) Jeans, jacket and maybe a relatively non-descript T-shirt that may or may not have Naruto images on it.
• D) Whatever the people in The Real World are wearing.

Question the something or other!

How would you battle evil cyborg ninjas that just kidnapped your 2 month old puppy?

• A) You would create a fully functioning Gundam (or just steal the one they made in Tokyo and pimp that shit out), and tear the world asunder looking for Ayanami-chan.
• B) You would so open a can of whoop ass only hundreds of hours of Dragonball and Hunter X Hunter can teach.
• C) Try to trade that collection of animated features (like, totally not anime).
• D) Call the fucking cops. I mean, evil cyborg ninjas just took your new pure-bred toy poodle! That thing cost you eight large!

Nobody fucks with my Ayanami-wawi-foo

Question the ninth!

If you only had three days to live, what’s #1 on your bucket list?

• A) You would molest Hayao Miyazaki and profess your hidden pedophilic tendencies. Nobody is surprised.
• B) Sneak into aforementioned Gundam in Japan and do nasty, filthy things inside.
• C) Admit you may have watched an anime or forty, and cry into your life-sized moe pillow.
• D) Air balloon. Around the world! Though unfortunately you die only three days into your trip.

I...don't recommend going inside there. ESPECIALLY the left arm.

Question the eixinth!

Of these phrases, which would best describe YOU?

• A) Urusai!
• B) Kakkoi!
• C) I swear, I’m not that into this stuff.
• D) Turtlenecks are fashionable and utilitarian!

Swank and warm, all at once!

Question the I never learned to count!

Who would you rather “do” – Suzumiya Haruhi, Ayanami Rei, or Ponyo.

• A) Ponyo. In a heartbeat. Over and over and over again.
• B) Tough, but you’d definitely go with Rei. Her emotionless features underlay a warmth not many see.
• C) Well, if you had to choose, I guess Haruhi. Again, if those are the choices.
• D) They’re cartoons, fer Chrissakes! You’d much rather “do” cocaine and prostitutes.

Consider that shit TAPPED!

Well, how did you do?

1. If you mainly chose A, you are not only an Otaku, you have some serious mental health issues and are probably a registered sex offender. Or one waiting to happen. Look out your window. Do you see a preschool? Yeah? Do you feel tingly? Like, down there? Yeah, you should get some help. Or castrated.
2. If you mainly chose B, you are the very definition of Otaku. Or at least the one from Merriam-Webster. Well, unless you really were married to Nero and were, like, awesome. Chances of reproduction are solely dependent on how many female otakus near you who would prefer male companionship over reading male on male yayoi.
3. If you mainly chose C, you’re more or less normal, but you have to let the cat out of the bag. You are a closeted-Otaku. Now, you may be able to live your life happily, but is it true happiness when you’re rushing your Miyazaki Collectors DVDs into secret compartments before you have company over? Or feel the wrath of Catholic-level guilt every time you beat off to tentacle hentai? Give in! You’ll feel better after you do.
4. If you mainly chose D, congratulations! You’re not an Otaku! Instead you’re just any other of the countless millions of pretentious yuppies infesting the world, drunk on reality TV while pretending you’re more important than the very thing you’re watching and deriving pleasure out of. In short, you are a douchebag.

Well, hey, you may be saying to yourself, “bullshit, there’s no way to win this!” Wrong again. The correct choice from the beginning is to have read through the entirety of the quiz before answering, like I told you to, reach this point and realize you dodged a bullet. The only correct way to finish an Otaku quiz is to not take one at all and live your life, you god damned conformist.

Cheers!

Aaaaand I’m back. In a way. After not checking in on the site for a good 8 freaking months, I’ve noticed I’m STILL getting just as many visitors now as when I was updating everyday. Which just goes to show I really shouldn’t have tried so hard to begin with. Apparently no work is just as good as half-assed work.  

Which works for me! And provides a fantastic moral for my future grandchildren.  

But now that I’m finally settled into a new rythm in a foreign land (the exotic and erotically dangerous Japan. Or as the natives call it, “Bukkake”) I figured I have nothing better to do in my free time, other then crying and being lonely, so why not start this entire enterprise up again? This soul saddeningly unprofitable enterprise.  

I can’t guarantee the same standards as before but I assure everyone tha…who am I kidding? There weren’t any fucking standards to begin with. So, to get the ball rolling, here’s five facts I’ve learned about my new home, Bukkake. But I’ll use Japan for my fellow gaijins out there.  

1. Being awesome, made easy!  

Apparently everything will impress a Japanese person. I use chopsticks and everyone goes, “sugoi!” Which means, “bear my children.” Or something similar.  I say “arigatou” and everyone swoons over my mastery of their language. I later learned “arigatou” actually means “thank you” and not “where are your cheapest prostitutes”, but that’s neither here nor there. 

I tell of my magical homeland of Canada and our great, umm, trees and flat land and stuff and I’m practically made the new Ambassador of Awesome. Hell, I took a dump at a public restroom and they made a TV show called Tokyo Dogs out of it. And trust me, they painstakingly recreated my shit through that show. Man, it’s shitty.  

So I’m telling you, go to Japan and just do whatever the hell you want. Want to smack that homeless dude? Do it! Rob a sushi cart? Right on. Take candy from a baby? Go…well, not a lot of babies in Japan anymore, but I’m willing to bet you could. Not only will you not be arrested and deported, stories of your awesomeness will be told of through their oral tradition for centuries to come. I’m telling you!  

2. To there and back again. Eventually.  

Japanese roads are messed up. For all the wonders that Japan has given the world, from Nintendo to octopus pornography, they still don’t understand the concept of city planning. The roads are, for lack of a wittier analogy, like Amy Winehouse’s face – you don’t know what the fuck is up with it. I’m about 250 km away from Tokyo, and if this were any other country, that’s a 20 minute drive.  Probably.  

Here? I left in December and I’m still on the road. Hell, I think I made a wrong turn back in Narnia and now I’m somewhere called “New Jersey” and it’s fucking horrible. All I wanted was to go to a maid cafe, where I can be treated like a real man (you know, by average looking girls dressed in bright frilly costumes pretending to like you. As nature intended).  

Instead, I got this:  

3. English, motherfucker. Do you speak it?  

Apparently my Anglo-centric worldview was a tad off kilter. Apparently not everywhere in the world speaks perfect Canadian English, the most stoic of all Englishes (Englii?). Apparently Japan in particular speaks something called “Japanese”. At first I called the person who told me this, my fellow coworker Obata-san,  a dirty Satan fucking liar. But then I realized everyone around me WAS speaking non-English. It was like I got sent into the Twilight Zone and ended up in a land of humanoid llamas. Or something. Also apparent was the fact that I was here to be an English teacher. How the hell did that happen? The only English I’ve ever taught in my life was to get my little brothers and sister to say “cunt”.  

Life works in mysterious ways, eh?  

After discovering the existence of this new language, I claimed it as Bukkakanese outside of Japan’s borders. That’s copyrighted by the way, so step the fuck off Carlos Mencia. Then I discovered most everyone doesn’t know what the hell I’m saying when I’m screaming into a crying clerks face for ten minutes. All I wanted to know  was where the celery sticks were. I even tried the universally accepted method of speaking English loudly, slowly and more patronizingly. No go. I think she may have had downs syndrome or something.  

She then commited harakiri in shame. That was awkward. And I didn’t find out where the celery was. 

Oh, celery! Where art thou?

4. Can I have a side of stroke with that?  

In a land of such petite inhabitants, you’d think they’d also eat petite, pussified food. Well, you’d be right. I ‘medium’ drink here is about a midget American small, AKA how much little Donny sweats walking nine and a half feet down hill. Everything’s exceedingly small except when it comes to fast food burgers, which they love. If ever you thought Americans were the only people gorging themselves to a greasy, acne masked early death, you haven’t seen these Japanese exclusive burgers yet:  

Like, seriously, what the hell?

Celebrating the human spirit!

It's like a Big Mac, if the Big Mac had BALLS.

 5. Who needs LSD when you’re shooting up pure Japan?  

Have you ever heard the stereotype that Japan is a weird and colorful land of strangeness? Well, it’s all true. Every single last word of it is true. Absolutely so. It’s just like you imagined. In fact, the real thing is so depravedly sordid that your imagination had a hernia picturing it. I hardened myself before arriving at the onslaught of geekdom that would surely fuck my face once I step foot on Japanese soil. Like a facehugger from Aliens. Only kawaii. 

My preparations failed. 

Okay, I can handle this...

Just a little bit of baby eating. We've all done it from time to time...

Where else indeed?

Episode 2: Yay, I'm so pumped for a new Suzumiya.

I loved the original season of Suzumiya Haruhi with a passion. It still stands right up there with Fruits Basket as the best anime ever released (in my opinion, so don’t shout) but whatever the fuck KyoAni was smoking this season, they should get a refund. Then they should shoot their supplier.

I understand experimental film making (or, in this case, animation). I also understand that the overwhelming majority of the time experimental = shit. Unfortunately not even KyoAni can escape that imaginary, but I assure you very accurate, generalisation.

This has been an absolute fucking disaster in every fucking way. Fuck. I don’t usually swear this fucking much but I am fucking mad. I hope you can forgive my fucking language for a little while longer.

FUCK.

Episode 3: Oh, we're doing one of THESE stories? Cool.

It’s pretty much a groundhogs day storyline, except most sci-fi television shows and/or movies know when enough is enough. Usually it involves the characters becoming self aware fairly early on, have fun with the situation (doing crazy things they wouldn’t normally), and then everything is fixed in a timely ONE EPISODE manner.

Suzumiya Haruhi? They just reached episode 5 of this motherfucking arc, every character is still stuck exactly in the same situation and nobody is any closer to an assraping resolution. Nobody even tries to have any fun with the situation. They just do the exact same thing every episode. What’s really frustrating is the “mysterious” solution to this time warping conundrum is about as subtle as a brick to your jaw. And then a steel toed boot for good measure.

I figured out the second goddamned episode Haruhi probably wants to do her fucking homework but do any of the other characters realize this? Of course not. Maybe Nagato does but she doesn’t talk. I’m not positive this is the answer but I’ll eat crow if it isn’t. I don’t think the show could’ve telegraphed this fucker anymore clearly.

The show had gone from one of the smartest animated series to braindead dumb.

Episode 4: Are you fucking serious?

You know what’s especially exasperating? I just watched episode 2-5 of the new season back to back and it was bar none the most annoying experience I’ve ever had with anime. I can’t even imagine the suffering fans have gone through watching the show real time. For me it was a kin to a scraping chalkboard, only in concert with ten others, and repeated three times now.

I mean, what kind of retarded chimp logic goes into something like this? Budget saving? Nope, there’s new animation every episode. Good story telling? Uh, read the last few paragraphs. The only thing I can think of is that this is a deliberate move on KyoAni’s part to alienate every one of their fans and bankrupt themselves in the process.

Well congratu-fucking-lations you dick suckers, you’re well on your way. I won’t be buying season 2 on DVD when it comes here. Not with this shit happening. This is bad story telling and a minor act of torture rolled up into one.

Episode 5: Yes, you fucking are.

And if you actually defend this crap? Well fuck you too. Here’s a friendly suggestion to anyone who hasn’t suffered this yet: If episode 6 is (if there’s a god) the conclusion, watch episode 2 and 3 and just skip to 6. Episode 4 and 5 are absolutely superfluous and add NOTHING except the characters in different yukatas and swimsuits for about 3 minutes.

If the next episode isn’t the end (and I have a nagging suspicion it isn’t) then this will officially be the biggest waste of a gigantic anime budget I’ve ever witnessed. In a way, it’s rather brave seeing that KyoAni is daring enough to shit diarrhea into the faces of their loyal (me included) fans in such a shitty economy (see what I did there?).

I guess it can be historic for that.

Poor Nagato. You deserve to be in a better show right now.

NOTE: I apologize for the “fuck you too” comment. Just a bit emotional here. But you have to admit, it’s hard to defend.

She can Tsukino me any day.

Probably the funniest manga I’ve ever read, Yakitate!! Japan is essentially a shounen gag manga about baking with a focus on puns. Yeeeeaaaah. Even the title is a pun, with the “pan” in “Japan” meaning bread in Japanese. The protagonist, Kazuma Azuma, strives to create the perfect “Ja-pan”, Japanese bread, that the world will recognize. Why? In prototypical shounen fashion, he meets a man when he’s younger that turns him towards the surprisingly cut throat and deadly world of world class bread making.

Despite a somewhat ludicrous plot, this is one badass series. It’s not everyday that you get a really exciting shounen series that also serves as one of the best comedies, too. I never knew making a croissant could be so riveting and laugh out loud funny. I’m not kidding. I audibly laugh nearly every chapter at the absurdity of the proceedings. Besides the breakneck bread baking (see what I did there?), the series infuses some of the most ludicrous and outrageous humour I’ve ever witnessed. Though starting off rather innocuously the humour, and one suspects mangaka Takashi Hashiguchi’s sanity,  dives deeper and deeper into ridiculousness.

And it works. It worked so great that what was originally scheduled as a five week miniseries was expanded into 26 volumes.

This is mainly due to two characters – Kyosuke Kawachi and Ryou Kuroyanagi. In my opinion, these two side characters are by far the best elements of this series. In Kawachi you have the hapless coworker and sidekick doomed to be adequate in the face of Azuma’s god-like breadmaking abilities and in Kuroyanagi you have the greatest bread judge ever conceived. I should know, I’m a member of BJOB – Bread Judges Official Branch. You can say I like BJOBs.

Of course this makes sense!

Err, anyways, the reason Kawachi and Kuroyanagi works so well is the way the manga incorporates reactionary puns in literal terms. It’s hard to explain, but just imagine people transforming in accordance to how they feel about the taste of a bread. Take this picture for instance. This is Kuroyanagi transforming into a parrot after tasting Azuma’s amazing pizza. Because parrots fly, he was inevitably hit by a hunters rifle but luckily, as a parrot, he’ll heal in no time. And the guy with a face on his knee is Kawachi, whose face moved down there during a previous rounds tasting.

Don’t worry if not everything makes sense. The series is steeped in Japanese puns and for the most part I just go with the flow. I have neither the time nor inclination to go so deep into the nation’s culture to fully understand throwaway one panel puns. It’s just absurd and it’s just funny, so that’s what counts. When a fellow bread baker suddenly shows up as a turtle for some convoluted reason relating to a Japanese pun, I don’t much care about the grammatical syntax of it all. The dude’s a fucking turtle, that’s funny.

Love the randomness

Of course, humour is the most subjective form of entertainment so I can’t guarantee you’ll find the same appeal in the manic nature of everything, but I do recommend at least getting to the second volume where things really start going crazy to see if it’s your cup of tea or not. There’s also an overarching storyline about Azuma and Tsukino (his same aged boss) trying to defeat her evil sisters as well as that man from Azuma’s past. It’s decent, but you’re not coming for a riveting story. You come for Kuroyanagi’s insane transformations and Kawachi making a fool out of himself.

Not so great...

There’s also an animated series that spanned 69 episodes (heh…sorry, I’m an immature dick…heh…dick) that I really can’t recommend. I remember it being fairly popular, but it’s got problems. The animation was sub par at best and the voice acting just didn’t fit how I imagined the characters sounding. But worse of all was that the show simply doesn’t get the timing of the humour right. When you’re reading the manga, it comes at you naturally while in animated form it all just feels forced. So, save yourself a lot of wasted hours and focus on the manga.

You can get the series from Viz, though I’m sure the majority of you reading this will just download the series so I might as well help out. You can get the series here, though there is a sign up required. And no, I have no affiliation with them. I just find the site a fast and easy way to get manga I have no intention of ever buying.

So what the hell are you waiting for? It’s funny, it’s awesome, it’s Suzumiya fucking Haruhi. Go get it.

Well, it actually came out last week but I’ve only had enough time recently to actually watch it. I forgot how enjoyable a good anime can be, what with 95% of every anime season being absolute shit.

And no, it’s not as dorkishly nerdy as that sounded out loud. The series is about Nao Kanzaki, an inherently honest and timid person, who gets embroiled in something called the Liar Game Tourament. Essentially a game set up by forces unknown to exploit the worse in human nature (short of murder), she finds out that if she were to lose she’d be 100 million yen in debt. She enlists the help of expert on man Shinichi Akiyama for help when she inevitably loses that 100 million yen. From there, they get deeper and deeper into the tournament, dead set on freeing everyone from debt along the way.

Okay, man, the series sounds cheesier and cheesier as I type but it’s not! Okay, the manga doesn’t exactly have enduring characters outside of Akiyama. Even Nao, the protagonist, is a total pushover and has no presence whatsoever. Everyone is completely one note and if any one of them were to suddenly die I wouldn’t give two shits. Not even one shit, really.

But, in a weird thing to say about a manga, it’s not about the characters! It’s about the competition itself. Each stage in the Liar Game, a brand new situation occurs that forces the contestants to lie and cheat their way to the top. It’s this basis that makes it so much fun to read. You know Akiyama will eventually lead Nao to victory, but watching him go about achieving it is the riveting part. You can tell Shinobu Kaitani loves puzzles and math problems, because every round is based on Akiyama solving the problem to maximize his and Nao’s own scores.

I love brainteasers and this entire series is essentially one giant one after another. There’s no unnecessary backstory to delve into for any one character. No abused childhood, or murdered parents, or any of the other crap shounen series get bogged down into. Crap that invariably leads to chapters long exposition flashbacks that grinds the story to a stand still. Besides Akiyama’s briefly mentioned backstory, the entire series is about the game. I thought I was a fairly smart guy, but I didn’t figure out the strategy for any of the Liar Game rounds until the mangaka genoursly sits down and explains what the hell happened. Then you realize if you read the chapters again, it’s all right there.

That’s called a pay off, folks.

No, Liar Game won’t have ten chapter long mega battles. It won’t even have gut wrenching drama. What it does is challenge your mind on a constant basis, forcing you to pay attention to the details and strategies. Yeah, I know it sounds kind of lame – “oh hey, a manga about math and problem solving? Hah!” But give the series a try. It’s pretty cool and at the very least it’ll present smart things to you (unlike Bleach lately).

I was debating whether or not to make my inaugural post about something more manly, what with me being the perfect male otaku/geek specimen at only 15 lbs overweight, but then I decided my site’s already overflowing with testosterone.

Like Manny Ramirez.

Yotsubato!, translated as “Yotsuba and,” has no mystical ninjas, emo death gods, pirates, monsters, blood, or general angst. What it has, in spades, is charm. So much charm one can say it’s fucking disgusting. One would also be a little retarded in the head. About a little girl, her dad, and her neighbours, it doesn’t get much simpler than this. Each chapter focuses on her experiencing something new. There aren’t any amazing plot twists or deceiving red herrings.

She finds something interesting to do, and the story tells how she goes about doing it recklessly. You laugh. Period.

Kyohiko Azuma doesn’t stray too far from the humour of his previous work, Azumanga. But instead of short vignettes, Yotsubato! expands those to chapter long stories that are amusing the entire way through. The gut busting laughs are kept relatively minimal, but almost every panel you’ll have a big ass grin on your face. The art is generally solid, and the way things are composed elicit maximum humour out of the reader. You can tell Azuma’s a master at taking advantage of every single panel.

So, if you haven’t read this manga yet and consider yourself an otaku, why the hell not? Sometimes you need to take a step back from the Narutos or One Pieces or hentai and just sit back, relax and enjoy a little slice of life. Also, why the hell hasn’t this gotten an anime deal yet? 95% of every anime season is complete and utter garbage. The very worse of what TV has to offer in any country.

Can you honestly say ostrich shit like Queen’s Blade or Tayutama deserve a TV show over this?

Can you say, "fucking pwned?" Of course you can't, 'pwned' isn't a fucking word!

This is the start of my weekly column containing itty-bitty-mini-reviews of the manga chapters I’m currently following. There may be spoilers, so if you aren’t into that I don’t recom-Dumbledore Dies!-mend you continue reading this.

Naruto 442:

The exciting conclusion promised last week…doesn’t happen here. Which annoys me because lies are like acid to my mood. In typical shounen fashion, it ends right on the money shot, leaving us to wonder another week what the fuck will happen.

Rating: 3 out of 5, for Kishimoto being a lying little bitch.

One Piece 538:

One Piece chapters fall into two categories for me:

1. Action issues, where its almost a non-stop overflow of bloodied manhood. Impel Down’s been mostly this up until now, and its been glorious.

2. The explanation chapter, where the series slows to a standstill so character can suddenly jump into a ten chapter long flashback, or people just talk about WHAT WE HAD JUST SEEN.

Unfortunately, this week’s One Piece was the latter. Just a bunch of word bubbles  floating around gender bending okamas. Sure there was a nice One Piece moment on the last page with Luffy defying everyone’s expectations, but honestly, who didn’t see that coming? (Unless you’re blind, in which case I apologise. Actually, no I don’t because you didn’t just read that)

Rating: 2 out of 5, for a Nazi okama queen/king having a Shakespearean monologue.

You're a douchebag, Mr. Kurosaki.

Bleach 352:

So, what can we learn from chapter 352? Hollow-Ichigo is one giant, smelly, penis of a friend. Aside from that? Absolutely nothing else. Ichigo stabs an already armless Ishida. Gasp, shock, ambivalence.

Still, I have to note that of everyone this arc, Ishida’s definitely getting the shot end of the stick. I mean, the dude gets his ass kicked repeatedly, loses and arm and now has a fucking katana stuck in him.

Rating: 1 out of 5, for being a chapter that didn’t need to exist.

Fairy Tail 129:

Festival’s over, Lucy meets her dad, everyone’s going out for a mission. Lucy finds out dead beat dad is in danger, demands everyone go to rescue him. I assume they all say yes next week.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5, for excessive scenes of Lucy’s cleavage.

D.Gray-Man 182:

Now this is why I read manga. Just the right amount of exposition, followed by copious amounts of blood letting and a grand, juicy bits-filled finale. And I simply can’t fathom how the mangakacan draw so many detailed panels week in and week out. Probably the best drawn manga/comic on the market right now.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5, deducted .5 for not having Lenalee to stand around and be useless, but adorable.

Well, there’s the wrapup. Sorry for the lack of shoujo on the list, but, like, I’m a dude. Overall, a very lacking week with one bright spot in D.Gray-Man.