Latest chapter of the Gamer - the end was more interesting that the last - lemme see - 20 chapters, but that won't save it. Still the most bland manga that's managed to make me keep reading.

Stop exploiting my fondness for the RPG-in-real-life plots, dammit.

Btw, anybody read Hinamatsuri? It's awesome, especially the supporting cast. Makes me smile every time... Same kind of feel-good manga as Angel Densetsu (though they share few other similarities), and there's really no higher praise than that.

 

Maybe it's just because I've read too much shit fanfiction and slice of life 4koma, but I don't see a real problem with the plot of The Gamer. It's a little slow, but I like to think it has a point. Only in bad writing does something we're told ultimately not matter at all. I assume everything we're being shown will ultimately come into play at some point, from the number of items he's picked up, to how his abilities work and mesh together.

 

I think one of the big reasons The Gamer feels so slow is because of how short the chapters are. The chapters are probably about half as long as ToG chapters are now, which are a slightly shorter than they were at the beginning of ToG. It's the same problem writing in snippets on a forum has. When you read every chapter at once the pacing is a lot better.

 

New Tower of God.

Reflejo is a cunning, murderous sunvabitch.

 

Isn't Baam dying literally the worst outcome for them? Like, I get that Karaka and pals don't really give a shit about ending Zahard's reign so much as Karaka being the most important and powerful, but shit man, Baam dying doesn't help that, it just maintains the status quo.

Karaka faction full retard.

 

Naw, Karaka's plan was never for Baam to survive. His plan was to complete the Thorn with Baam's soul to make an ignition weapon with the properties of an irregular.

 

You seem to have misunderstood me. Reflejo's trying to kill Baam right now. Himself. With his Poken powers.

 

I actually agreed with meev, initially. It didn't make sense to me either.

Then I realized what they need is a container for the thorn. And a container for an ignition weapon (which are sentient) would quite possibly be not another soul, but a body. A corpse, which nevertheless was not bound to the Laws of the Tower and could hold a "Devil" that is almost without doubt (imho) a life form created by Enryu, another Irregular.

After all, I doubt Baam was supposed to survive the process in the first place, if the Karaka faction's first plan went right. If the ignition weapon is Baam's soul, conscious and able to make its own choices, do you think he'd choose to ignite in the hands of a shitstain like Karaka? (Look at Yuri and Black March.) Blackmail only goes so far.

 

If they could have used his corpse that makes even less sense. Since they could have just stabbed him in the back and chucked his corpse in in the first place. It seemed pretty clear to me that the process required him to be alive when it happened.

The whole point is that they weren't putting the Thorn in him. That was the initial plan that they didn't want to happen but happened anyway because they were outsmarted by YHS and pals. What Karaka wanted was Baam to be put inside the Thorn.

 

I presume Baam needed to be alive for the process.

Baam was always going to be the container for the Thorn, only he was going to die doing it. From Karaka faction's viewpoint they haven't lost yet, only Baam's death has been delayed a bit.

That was the vibe I got, anyway.

 

And now Reflejo is trying to murder him. Stupidly, since if Madoraco hasn't also gone full retard (he's now 'preparing the solution' when he should actually be preparing his asshole for Gustang's cock) then it should still be possible to melt Baam into the Thorn even after he's assimilated the thing into his own body. If Baam dies and his and quite possibly the lobster demon's souls are extinguished, then FUG is left with nothing.

So, rather than Karaka Faction as a whole, perhaps we should say Reflejo Full Retard.

Also, am I the only one that's really annoyed that Baam couldn't do anything about that attack that knocked him down? He used five rooms to protect Koon and Rak, and couldn't make a sixth to stop the later blast aimed directly at him. Implying that five actually is his hard limit. As in, a mere one room more than fucking Anak, who's a Fisherman. That is very disappointing to see.

 

Cooking.

Gah. Please just fucking go away, Tadokoro.

 

Anak also has Zahard's blood. Five rooms pulled out your ass as a split-second defense is nothing less than superprodigy-tier. Keep in mind that four-room pulls put you in the top 99% of all Shinsoo users. Until we actually know whether or not Baam is related to Zahard at all, we should assume he's got nothing to do with him, in which case that was actually really goddamn impressive.

 

I don't recall it ever being mentioned anywhere in the comic or in SIU's notes that Zahard's blood power acts as some kind of shinsoo manipulation amplifier. It's has been known to grant the Princesses vastly increased physical strength and durability, but anything beyond that is speculation unless I've missed something. Anak in particular is one of the least technically-inclined fighters in the series (literally, her combat style can be summed up as 'throw wild haymakers and try to smash people with my tail').

I thought it diminished Baam's five-baang feat dramatically when Anak was shown to almost match it, and I took it as a given that Baam could actually do more when he could be bothered to put the effort in. Apparently he can't, and for all the superprodigy Wave Controller-ness he's supposed to have, he's not even significantly better in at least one major aspect of his craft than Anak, who favors an entirely different position altogether. I was expecting better out of his 'serious mode.'

EDIT: Actually, it's all really inconclusive anyway. Baam purposely wanted to tank that attack to draw Reflejo's shinsoo away from him so that he could counterattack, and then got shut down by Reflejo pulling the hostage bait again. It's still possible that he could make more than five rooms.

Fuck Automerge.

And while still on the subject of Tower of God, Tower of God.

I really, really hope that Koon actually did this and that there's no hidden trick. I have sorely missed his cold-blooded bastard side.

 

It makes people superhuman. That's literally all we know about it. Anyone who has it is overwhelmingly powerful. Seeing how Anak is not, as you mentioned, a Wave Controller, and doesn't seem to any particular talent for Shinsoo manipulation beyond the number of rooms she can command, I'm far more liable to write it off as being something she can do because of Zahard's blood, and not something she just figured out on her own.

She's not a talented enough Fisherman for that to be her main occupation if she was capable of calling five rooms up on skill alone.

You say there's nothing that says it can work like that, but there's nothing that says it doesn't, either. Zahard was the first to conquer the Tower. It's not a stretch to say that he or his blood would have some special control or command over Shinsoo.

 

Of course there's a trick. He won't alienate Baam at this time.

 

Baam's unconscious at the bottom of the pit. He saw nothing, and obviously his predisposition is going to be to blame Reflejo. All Koon needs to do is convince Rak not to tell him otherwise (perhaps easier said than done, but not impossible).

 

Trinity Seven.

Haha, Arata levels up again. He seems to push to another tier with every chapter lately.

 

Haha, whenever Arata fights, he makes jumps in power that would make a Super Saiyan jealous.

I liked this chapter, it has some funny and fluffy moments.

 

My thoughts exactly. Also, tanking attacks from such a powerful Regular means he had to reinforce his body with Shinsoo, which iirc makes it far harder to perform shinsoo attacks. (Don't have sauce at hand though.)

I came across a wiki entry on Shinsoo the other day, it explained the basics of Hwajeopgongpasul and some other stuff that I often forget/don't retain. Good stuff.

On the latest chapter, I wish Koon is being a Magnificent Bastard and hanging Hwa Ryun out to dry. I love that girl, but it totally fits with my image of him. However I don't actually expect that to happen. (My trust issues with manga authors is again showing through...)

The Thorn seems to be waking up. I wish Baam wouldn't depend on it to curbstomp Reflejo though. It cheapens the action massively, if you have a literal Deus Ex Machina hanging on your shoulder all the time.