xparrot | GB: end of an era

For those of us who still attend the First Church of BanGin - all good things must come to an end...and the GetBackers manga just did yesterday.

And I am thrilled to report that despite my fears about A&A-sensei, they came through. Super-super-happy ending, for the WIN.

I've only been haphazardly following the series, flipping through the weekly Shounen Mag chapters without trying to read them (trying to translate GB hurts my brain, yo. And my eyes, all those little kanji...) and sporadically checking the translations folks have been posting on

getbackers. So I don't actually know what's going on - Ginji became 'god', went to an alternate (the real) universe and met his mom and discovered he'd died a long time before, Ban was going to vanish from existence from having used the Jagan more than thrice a day...yeah. Hurts my brain. So I don't know exactly how they got to this ending.

But sometimes pictures speak louder than words. So, yes. Happi endo!!

Kazuki's threesome:

My only regret is that Shido & Madoka didn't actually tie the knot. But hey! MakubeX is out and about! And has become a GitS fanboy!

Hevn is going to spend her ever after with Masaki (much to Ban's immense dismay.)

Masaki is saying "Mine!" in response to Ban's attempt to glom onto his sweetie's bosum last panel.

Team Transporter go!

And because I know you all are dying to know, does The Superhappy Ending mean that Emishi & Amon open a maid cafe together?
The answer is Yes. Yes, it does.

But the last pages really say it all:

"Let's go, Ginji!"
"Yeah, Ban-chan!!"

(the overlay text reads: "A shop of friends -- a tumult of ways -- the two sprinting...this town will never change!!")

^______^

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ahh, did you ever see the anime? Most fans I know (myself included) were introduced to it via the anime, which is cuter and marginally more sensical. (also, I don't know about the later translations, but the first couple English volumes of GB were horrible, very inferior translations. TP is very hit-or-miss and early GB was a profound miss. I've heard that improved later, but...) And once you fall in love with Ban & Ginji you're willing to wade through quite a lot of nonsense to get to the smarm. Two guys who will do anything for each other, who fall apart without one another and can cheerfully accomplish anything together - yeah. Much love.

And Shido & Madoka are cutest couple ever, yo! I really must read the bug arc sometime (it's Shido's main story, crazy complicated antics with the beast tribe and the bug tribe, which kidnaps Madoka, and the entire extended gang teams up to retrieve her) I still wanted it to end with their wedding :P

Yep, I was introduced to the series through the anime, and then I started reading the manga and it was sort of like, WTF? And yeah, the translation never was very good, which probably helped to kill my interest in it. I'll put up with a LOT in scanslations, but if I'm paying money for it, I kinda want it to sound good ...

It also happened to be a period where I was getting sort of disillusioned with manga anyway. This was a couple of years ago, and I was spending a LOT of money on manga and starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the 40-volume series that seem to wander around without much of a point to them. (Curse me and my shonen-fighting-manga addiction, anyway!) I think I kinda needed a break from it. Of course, now that I'm interested again, all the series I was buying back then are some 15 volumes farther along ...

I think right now, YGO and Saiyuki Reload are the only ones I'm buying regularly. Everything else, either I've lost interest in, or there are so many volumes to catch up on that I look at the GN section in Barnes & Noble and my checking account starts to cry ...

Oh, and I did finally finish reading your Saiyuki fic!

I can understand that. I'm not really in a manga-phase myself at the moment (which is a shame, considering where I am and how cheap it is here! But then it might be partly self-preservation that I've gotten into Western shows of late, which can't drain my bank account from this distance...) Animanga series definitely scratch different itches than Western series, and the fandoms are so different...I can't say I like one more than the other; they both have their strengths and weaknesses. But sometimes I'm only in the mood for one or the other.

--though GB, Saiyuki, OP, a few others, are eternal favorites that I never fall out of, whatever else I get into. ^^

And I got your review for R2B - meant to email you about that! Thank you so much for the review (and glad I achieved the optimal h/c balance!)

I was really interested in your comments on "slash" writing style, because I've observed that difference myself. I tend to think of it as a masculine vs feminine style myself - not the sex of the author, but whether the focus is on plot, descriptions furthering the action (masculine); or on character, descriptions furthering the emotions (feminine), an emphasis that leads to the rich sensuality of much slashfic. As in all things, a happy medium between the two is ideal, I believe, but I'm partial to the feminine style.

The odd thing is that I think my writing was leaning more towards the feminine before I was into slash, though there was a definite shift in my style around the time I got into it. But then I was alway really a smarm fan above all, and smarm-fic is more feminine (which is why it can raise such a tumult: the sensuality leads people to expect slash that is never realized, since the story is technically gen...) H/C can be done successfully in either style (relationships are important whether the focus is on plot or char) but I always went for the lush, over-the-top angst and emotional expression, so...

GB: end of an era

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