#inagaki

[mamonado]

I find it cute how they keep switching hair colors with every official art

[dannyfariiia]

via IG @inagaky : “A Character Running” (Character Paintings)

This series is about the contrast of me being good at character forms as a Japanese man while losing my sense of belonging to my homeland. The fading of cultural and religious ties due to the crazy influence of our hyper-information world is a major challenge for us today… I guess."

[doorbloggr]

Sunday 25/9/21 - Media Recommendations #19

Contents:

Twilight Princess (Manga)

Dr Stone (manga/anime)

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

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

The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess (Manga)

Akira Himekawa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Stone (anime/manga)

Inagaki, Boichi; TMS Entertainment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[octobertwo318]

Pretty Grown Up Suika! | Dr. Stone Ch. 196

[megibluedragon]

Real person or visual methaphor?

Whole Dr. Stone fandom is pretty shocked, confused, scared and even kinda mad after chapter 138. I think I’m after that first wave of shock already and here is part where logical thinking comes back. Boichi is well known for creating visuals metaphors for many situations in Dr. Stone. He draws that to show scary forces in Dr. Stone. We saw that with sulfuric acid and storm.

[Spoilers]

Now let’s go back to Whyman. He got that skull visual methaphor because characters thought it was scary and skull was easiest thing to imagine because they don’t have image of Whyman. They still picked human skull as visuals because they still think they are against another person. What I’m going with this is last page from chapter 138. Our squad just heard Senku’s voice on the phone which tried to make a command. What if that was another visual methaphor? Characters probably just imagined scary version of Senku because it was scary experience. This Whyman is at least able to change his voice and he knows about Senku in particular. Now let’s go back to fake Senku visual so I can back up my point about it being only visual - Yeah this someone looks exactly like Senku so people are talking about him being his father or brother or AI that somehow took form of Senku not only in voice. Now look what is he wearing - lab coat in Senku style. But that’s not the biggest point. Look to what is Whyman talking - He is talking into old fashioned phone which Senku created with this megaphone looking microphone. Are you telling me Whyman doesn’t have better technology than Senku? Are you telling me that somehow he has same cellphone like Senku? That’s pretty ridiculous.

So my point is Whyman doesn’t have to be anyone related to Senku and skull visual of him just got replaced by scary Senku because of him speaking in Senku’s voice. Don’t lie to me that you don’t imagine person’s face that voice belongs to on the other side of phone. It’s really natural. We probably got all fooled by Inagaki and Boichi. Unless they want to convince us that we went from goot theory about Senku’s relative or AI into wrong theory about it being visual and go back to first theory that it was actually Senku’s relative or AI in Senku shape. Inagaki and Boichi are really playing with us hard. Now I will just calm down because it’s also possible that we won’t get any status update on Whyman another 30 chapters and we are just panicking for no reason and we should save that to time until we will get back to him. But with Island arc being done it’s very likely that they will go after Whyman from this point on in next arc.

[drstonebcwhynot]

Yall I am realizing that the picture looks INCREDIBLY BLURRY until you actually tap on the picture so ye if u wanna see a slightly better quality picture then there u go oops.

ITS THAT TIME OF DAY!!!

DAY 5!!

This picture is a narrow boi, but still just as much detail as always. mmmm boichi you really do know how to draw 'em. Here we got a Senku who is deep in thought (but when is he not I mean really) and that l i t t l e hook at the end of his mouth conveys more than I can put into words. Plus I love the close-up/detail on his scars.

SCORE: 30/10 he looks warm and cozy in his fur coat😊

[puck-sama-blog]

Eyeshield 21 - Riichiro Inagaki & Yusuke Murata - 2002

Sena “Eyeshield 21“ Kobayakawa ( 小早川 瀬那 )

[gofancyninjaworld]

Ashita on Twitter

“Yuusuke Murata on how he became the artist of Eyeshield 23 and his relationship with Riichiro Inagaki (ES23 autor and currently Dr Stone writer).”

Some really interesting background on Murata and his relationship with Inagaki.  So much of what he says resonates with the way he currently works with ONE, particularly on the way he views characters.