Double Posting: Part Deux

And here I am, ladies and germs, posting the second part of that "double posting" thing I promised you yesterday.  Did you miss me?

Anyway, on the same bookstore trip where I discovered "Tomodachi Monster" (still in the mail, by the way), I also ran across a relatively interesting-looking new series called "Real Account".

In a world where nearly everyone is online and linked up near-constantly through a social media site called Real Account, a loner named Ataru Kashiwagi lives alone with his sister, consoling himself with all of his many online friends.  (Gee, I wonder where we've seen that trope before?)

Anyway, all of a sudden, people from all over Japan (and I think the world, too) find themselves sucked into their phones and into a mysterious new world called Real Account (I think).  There they meet our antagonist, pictured above, the mysterious Marble.

In the "real world", Marble is just the cute mascot for the Real Account site.  Here, however, he is a misanthropic, near-omnipotent yet playful force akin to Koro-Sensei from Assassination Classroom (one of my favorites).  One by one, Marble kills and judges the users, slaying them with tentacles at blinding speeds whenever they fail at one of his sick, deadly online games or hits a total of zero followers.

Along the way, Marble exposes online frauds for public shaming and forces the greedy and the desperate to beg on bended knee and promise the world to their followers if they don't unfriend them (but if their online friend dies, the followers will die as well, so it's a sadistic choice if ever there was one).  He laughs at these actions, claiming that "this is how humans really are".

Basically, it's like a cross between "Doubt", ".hack" and "Battle Royale".  We don't know what Marble is or who is doing this or how, but that's just part of the fun.  And there's a really creepy-cool part at the end of Volume One where Marble (up to this point a solely virtual being) appears in the real world to come after Ataru's sister.

The story is the main focus here, really: following Ataru and his fellow users as they struggle desperately to survive through Lord knows how many deadly online games while despairing over who could betray whom.  And Volume One also has a nice scene where a hottie strips down to her underthings and tells all her followers that she'll take it all off once she reaches a certain number of them.

It pretty much hits every target, save for martial-arts fantasy violence.  (Sorry, ladies and germs, but that's just the way it goes.)

Hope you've enjoyed this special double posting, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Double Posting Time!

Hi, everyone!  I'm sorry I haven't gotten the chance to just spend all day at the bookstore for a while, but I can still remember the last time I went, just a week or so ago.  And boy, do I have some new manga to share with you!

In apology for the lateness and lack of posting, I'd like to try and attempt a "double posting" of sorts.  I have some things to do today for dinner, and not an infinite amount of time to do them in, so I won't actually be posting a double article today, but I will instead be attempting to post articles both today and tomorrow.

(Maybe making this promise will force me to actually stick to a plan for a change...)

Anyway, moving on.

You guys notice our little friend at the top of the page?  You like him?  Well, his name's Peke and he is one of the titular "Tomodachi Monsters" from today's article.  Shy, friendless Wataru Narimiya (I think that was his name) finds him one day in the woods out behind the school.  But only Wataru can see him.  That is, Wataru and all the other kids out there who have similar "Friend" monsters.

This series has been described as a darker, more realistic take on things like Pokemon and Digimon, and with good reason.  It also has some parallels to Zatch Bell (at least, so far): The monsters and children are actively battling to kill each other for reasons unknown.

And man, is it bloody!  One kid with a cutting-type Friend actually slices a girl's head into bits, and we're left with lovely shots of skull and musculature and skin just falling away from the spot where her cranium used to be.  And then there's the kid who gets his neck snapped...and the one whose Friend enables him to control corpses...

Think of this series as Zatch Bell meets Pokemon, with a tiny hint of Magical Girl Apocalypse in there, too.  As well as a hint of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, as it's insinuated that having a Friend and using it to battle slowly kills your own sense of empathy and humanity.

At this point, we don't know what Friends are (though I'd bet money they're at least semi-imaginary), and we have no idea why they're fighting.  But I assume that will all be cleared up soon enough.

This series is the first one in a LONG while that I have actually decided to purchase and own.  Hopefully my Amazon order containing Volume One will be here soon.

My only complaint is that I've seen on the internet that the series has already run its course after only three volumes.  There's so much potential there, and I just hate seeing it go to waste.

But, with any luck, those two remaining volumes will be just as fun and interesting as this one was.  Go out and get yours today!

(Just don't expect any little virtual pet games or keychain buddies...)