More Manga Mayhem!

So I like aliteration. So sue me.

So here's all the manga I read in a 24-hour period today, despite having a big test and a 15-page paper due.

Naruto, Negima, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, MGLN Force, and the Haruhi Suzumiya Yuki-chan manga.

And you know what? All of them were kickass.

But I'm really tired, so I'll probably write tomorrow.

Naruto! Where to start....well, let's get the fact that Gaara's still just as cool as ever out of the way. He's pushed Naruto's buttons in exactly the right way to get him to see the truth about Sasuke. He's the one who's been the true friend, Naruto. So do us all a favor and go kill that motherfucking Uchiha.

Anyways, the main meat of the chapter is Fu and Torune vs. Madara. Fu, as most folks have probably realized by now, is a Yamanaka. Torune, as it turns out, is an Aburame. Complete with microscopic kikai bugs that essentially work as a touch poison! Freakin' sweet! They find out that Madara has an either-or bit with his intangibility- he's either all there or not, so you've got to hit him while he's attacking. Once again, Kage Bunshin is a good tactical opportunity here. However, Madara adopts the expedient option of simply sucking the two of them into another dimension, though Torune does manage to get Madara's arm with his bugs before he cops it. Madara tears his arm off like it's nothing, and I will be willing to bet it grows back rapidly.

Now, Madara brings Sasuke out to take a shot at Danzou, and guess what? His right arm? Is covered in Sharingans that I assume he stole from the corpses of those killed in the massacre. I laughed so damn hard, because it's so ridiculous, and at the same time, so plausible. I don't know how that's going to work in a fight, except that I'd be willing to bet they pop in and out of his eye socket to give him different powers, since it seems that each Sharingan has different ones. This will be an interesting fight, especially since Sasuke's been healed. Who do I want to win? Well, I'm always up for Sasuke getting his ass kicked, but I'm going to throw the little fucker a bone here and say that he can go ahead and take this one. It'll help smooth Kakashi's transition into power back in Konoha, which will be a benefit for our side. I'm breaking out the popcorn, though.

On to Bleach. Son of a bitch, it was actually good this week. Tosen finally reveals some motivation (and is wondefully creepy in doing so- that mask is ridiculous) and it's confirmed- he is, in fact, batshit insane. Blinded by revenge and all that- he joined solely to take revenge on the organization that allowed the chick he was crushing on to be killed (by another shinigami, IIRC), and not to see justice done for the good of all. Komamura gets a great line about how that's basically impossible to reconcile with his worldview, so they're destined to fight. A pity he's going to lose. And Shinji reveals his Shikai against Aizen. A shame he's going to lose as well.

Really, my problem with Bleach is that the narrative structure just fell apart so badly. This is shaping up to be it. The grand finale. The battle Royale with Cheese. Once we're done with this, it's over. The manga would seem to be done. And...well, that's a criminal lack of plot for how long it's run. Look at Naruto- since this fight started (JUNE OF LAST YEAR!), here's what's happened- we got the fallout from Jiraya's death, Sasuke's fight with Killer Bee, the runup to Pain's invasion, Pain's invasion, Naruto's epic fight with Pain, the meeting of the 5 Kages, Sasuke's interruption thereof, and several other major events. Bleach? More and more fighting. Too little's happened- I feel like this is what Dragonball was supposedly like, though I never read Toriyama's manga. It's just too sparse plot-wise for me to be invested in it. But this week's chapter was good.

Negima! The gist of this chapter- Kurt Godel, you are an idiot. Negi kicks his ass with a perfect application of Taijuu rai-bunshin no jutsu (Mass lightning clone technique) to overcome the fact that he can't beat Kurt's shinmeiryuu one on one (I'd pay for a good training session with Setsuna afterwards). Unfortunately, Kurt's Hannibal Lecture cause Negi's magic ereba damage to kick in, and he's down. Kurt gets up and starts monologuing, and Chisame brings the house down by hacking through Kurt's VR program with her artifact. Way to go, Chisame! And then Asakura reveals that they've been spying on him and calls out a position to Ku Fei...who reveals that her Monkey King staff can become roughly the size of a skyscraper. It brutally pounds Godel into the dust. He gets back up to try and attack her...and guess who punches him so hard in the face his mother feels it? Takamichi, that's who! He's finally show up! That is a good thing!

FMA. Alright, so Pride forcibly opens the gate for Mustang. He goes through and...loses his eyesight. Oh shit. Of course, he can now transmute without a gate. He's dumped in with Ed, Al, Izumi, Hoho, and Father. Now, Al's soul is currently out on business from his armor, but he meets up with his body before the gate and realizes that if he goes back to his original form, he'd suddenly have 1's in str, dex, and con, and so decides to stay in his armor so he can fight. Which means his soul comes back and suddenly Father's plan can go off. Mei Chan shows up, I think (I don't have the scan in front of me), which is...somehow significant, I think. I guess if Father turns the alchemy off? I dunno. Oh, and Wrath and Scar are fighting. Two nameless warriors, Wrath says. Coool.

Mahou Senki Lyrical Nanoha Force- Magical War Chronical Lyrical Nanoha Force, as it's called, is looking like the setup for a 4th season, along with the more traditionally magical girl fare that is Vivid, focusing as it does on Vivio. This one deals with this dude, Touma, who rescues a girl, Lily, from some facility. Now, Lily seems strikingly similar to how Hayate was in that she's granted Touma this crazy gun-blade device with wreck-your-shit level powers. And now they're on the run from the cops- only in this case, the cops are Signum, Tea, and Fate. In this chapter, Touma reveals some backstory about how he's hunting for some particular people who caused a mining collapse that killed some people close to him...and they show up at the end of the chapter as typical badguys. Signum is awesome. Cool stuff, need more.

The...Something of Nagato Yuki-chan. Well, this is a sort of alternate-reality spinoff of Haruhi that's basically Yuki being moe. Go read it.