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Target 302!
Just a quick side note before I jump in here--I'm heading up to Lake George tomorrow to go camping for the weekend, so in all likelihood I'll be MIA until Sunday night at the earliest. There is supposedly Wi-Fi access in select parts of the campground I'm staying at, but even if I do manage to get online at some point, I probably won't have much time for LJ antics. So have a good weekend, everyone. ♥--oh, right. The chapter. XD
1. I had several instant reactions to this cover page, each of which was completely different.
- EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME, CUZ I'M SAILING ON A BOAT~
- Wow. Way to not waste any time, Amano. Did they just blink and suddenly they were sailing the high seas, or what?
- Why do they need three boats?? I thought it was just Tsuna and pals going to Shimon Island? Do they have King Kong stored in the hold of one of those things or something?
- TAKE A GOOD HARD LOOK AT THE MOTHERFUCKING BOAT
2. Oh fuck they brought the Nonos. Well, that's it;
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amberrei, you're absolutely right. They are definitely going to lose. And fast. :/Has anyone else noticed how Timoteo, Coyote (RIP...??) and Ganauche are the only Nonos who ever get dialogue? They don't even let the brownie guy talk, geez.
Speaking of Ganauche, I love this guy so much. Just listen to him, rambling on about "money and power", awww. He definitely harkens back to the old school mafia days when those things actually meant something and battles weren't decided by magic rings and tiny, adorable animals.
3. Oh my God. XDDD Seriously, you could just copy-paste this bottom panel into the Lonely Island music video and it would not look remotely out of place. (Gokudera totally bought you that jacket, didn't he, Tsuna? Not that I'm complaining. You should just let him buy all of your clothes from now on.)
If only Yamamoto, Hibari and Chrome were here to complete the assembly of badass. Well, Hibari's probably tailing them on a Sea-Doo or something.
Also blah blah Tsuna fights for his friends blah blah sky that envelops Vongola blah blah stuff we've all understood for at least a hundred and fifty chapters, etc. MOVING ON.
4. So our heroes arrive at the Shimon Triangle only to find... nothing! Just waves and blue skies as far as the eye can see. It's okay, Vongola family, I once got lost on the way home from the DMV. You guys are totally excused. Besides, it was worth it for Ryohei's face when he says they've wasted time. "Man, this is so the opposite of extreme. :|"
Oh no, wait, the island was totally there after all, my bad. An invitation, Tsuna reasons, which makes sense to me. It would hardly be the first time Enma has propositioned Tsuna, and I take this as a positive sign for their relationship. Maybe there's still hope after all!
5. Oh Lambo. That's the spirit. That is exactly the correct response to islands. You should be a captain in One Piece, Lambo!
Oh snap, they almost beached themselves. GOOD JOB, TEAM; you'd have been really screwed then. XD
6. And so the Vongola kids were dumped onto a raft and sent to an island without adult supervision like so many Survivor contestants. DUN DUN DUN.
The Nonos couldn't even be assed to get them like a high tech Super Raft or something. Just your everyday, run-of-the-mill Lambo-powered raft. (Disclaimer: There is a good chance--like somewhere around a 100% chance--that in fact they are actually tugging Lambo behind them. But I like my interpretation better. "KICK, LAMBO, KICK! WE'RE ALMOST THERE!")
7. --HOLY SHIT
GOKUDERA JUST TURNED INTO EDWARD ELRIC!!!
...AND ALSO THERE IS SUDDENLY A SHIMON FAMILY STANDING THERE, HOW ABOUT THAT.
Adelheid's chest is bigger. Again. I swear to God. And is it just me, or did Aoba straighten his hair for the occasion? How fancy of you, Aoba.
8. Why, Reborn, whatever are you talking ab-- lsdkfjladjsflksdjfl jffff g fj
FDLSKDJFJJ
VINDICE
FFFFFF THEY LOOK JUST THE WAY I REMEMBERED THEM FROM MY NIGHTMARES.
9. Holy shit there's so much happening on this page and I'm running short on time, so, briefly:
- It came as a bit of a shock that Enma and co. actually weren't expecting to see the Vindice there either. You know it's trouble when even the bad guys are thrown for a loop.
- OH ADELHEID, I'VE MISSED YOUR EXPOSITION.
- Christ what do you mean they were human?! SHIT THESE GUYS GET CREEPIER BY THE SECOND.
- THANKS FOR FILLING IN THE ROLE OF "LOL DERP THAT'S AWESOME" THAT YAMAMOTO SO RECENTLY AND PAINFULLY VACATED, JULIE.
- "Have you come to mourn for Vongola who will soon meet their end?" Enma, stop talking like a bad 80s cartoon villain. (Or... don't.)
- VINDICE SERIOUSLY TERRIFY ME TO THE CORE OF MY FUCKING SOUL. SERIOUSLY.
10. Terrifying as they and their black speech bubbles are, however, I at least have to give props to the Vindice for laying out the rules of this fight, which strike me as oddly hilarious. "IF YOU LOSE YOU GO TO JAIL... FOREVER." Small wonder Enma likes these guidelines; after losing so many games of tag in elementary school, they must be comfortingly familiar to him.
Well, like I said before,
amberrei, I've got my fingers crossed that your theory pans out. PRISON BREAK ARC, FUCK YEAH.And since I won't be around tomorrow, as mentioned, Happy Birthday,
mecomptane! PEACE, ALL.
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3. Agreed.
5. He totally saved this chapter, or at least the first half of this. The manga needs more Lambo; I hope he doesn't just disappear again after this.
8. The Cervello are always fun, but I gotta say, so far I like the Vindice's rules much better. The last thing we needed was another Choice, but the whole "LOSERS GO TO JAIL!" thing is awesome. :D
Come on, Prison Break Arc... *crosses fingers*
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Amano doesn't want to waste time on things that will ultimately turn out to be pointless, like she did in the early Future Arc.
You mean she did or didn't in early future arc? And regarding what? *puts on geek glasses*
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And the second half of the arc had the unintentional effect of making many of the elements from the first half seem pointless in retrospect. Invading the Melone Base started out as basically their one and only chance of getting back to their own time, and ended up being little more than practice for the "real" fights later to come. The Funeral Wreaths that they spent chapters and chapters fighting against turned out to be fakes. The entirety of Choice was... I don't even know what that was, actually. XD A lead-up to Shouichi's flashback, I guess? But again, it was built up to be much more than that, and ended up as a farce. "PSYCH! THAT WASN'T THE FINAL BATTLE AFTER ALL, AGAIN, LOL."
Basically, as someone who's studied editing, when I look at the whole of the Future Arc from start to finish, I can't help but see bits and pieces everywhere that could have been cut or reworked or rearranged in so many ways so that the arc could have told the same basic story with all of the essential elements, but in twenty or thirty fewer chapters. And as the mangaka, I'm sure Amano is more conscious than anyone of the weaker parts of her story (I know I'm hyper-aware of all of the flaws whenever I look back at anything I've written), and judging by the pace of the Inheritance Arc so far, she's trying to avoid making the same mistakes this time.
Some might say she's trying too hard, but I guess that remains to be seen. XD
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/random
I see what you mean. More than false starts it has... false endings! xD I must say I enormously enjoyed the Melone Base ending: Shoichi being a 'friend' was TOTALLY unexpected and never hinted at. Maybe because it wasn't in Amano's mind from the start. XD If it was, well, KUDOS. Then again, the battle couldn't end at Melone Base since the true enemy was Byakuran... About the FW, well. With Gloxinia hospitalized, Shoichi with Vongola, Gamma not really an enemy, Genkishi 'defeated' and so on, Byakuran had no-one to back him up. That's why Amano created the RFW. Still, they were not fleshed out as characters, so I would have preferred the old funeral wreaths after all, and to have everything ending with Choice... still, with the anime developing the last part in a better way, I'm enjoying even the infamous End of Future Arc... *I'm desperately trying to enter her mind, being a former (shitty) doujin-ka and having a full and huge box full of my attempts to write and draw stories... BUT I'M NOT MUKURO, sadly*
About the inheritance ceremony arc you might be right, still I'm FOND of some things in fiction: angst, character development, psychological developments/scenes. And the last few chapters are almost lacking this (except for the scene in which they were waiting for Talbot to fix the 'rings'). I hope Amano won't forget the AWESOME work she had done in the previous chapters, especially with Tsunayoshi, in favour of a 'cleaner and faster' storytelling.
I'm sorry if I was random or going OT, this shitty coffee hasn't reached my brain yet. XD;