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Post by 10k on May 2, 2013 12:49:54 GMT
Since we're all familiar with manga, we all have a few favorites, and I wanted to keep the LG thread for...LG, I felt like this deserves its own thread. So SPOILERS and JUMPS in conversation warnings ahoy.
For now, I'll dedicate the OP to compiling *our* recommendations of the psychological/deception genres (deception is pretty broad), listed in the order they occurred to me. I have reviewed all of these to relate to those genres. If you would like to add something, post and I'll read through to make sure I can add it.
*Has an anime
*One Outs: Did you like Liar Game? Check out Kaitani's other famous work! ...Can you handle a pitching contract for +5m yen per out and -50m yen per run given up? Liar Game: Roots of A: A bunch of one-shots by Kaitani, though not all relate to LG.
*Monster: A Japanese neurosurgeon in Europe chases an engimatic serial killer. Bloody Monday: Hacker trying to prevent a pandemic. 20th Century Boys: Childhood friends try to stop a world conspiracy. (Finished in 21st Century Boys) Kurosagi: Scammer who only scams scammers *Death Note: Kill people just by writing names in a notebook! Life is Money: Mentally scar others to death for money. Usogui: Gambling, with a bunch of action scenes for good measure. Judge: Person with the most votes dies! Gamble Fish: Double or nothing with a game of the opponent's choice! *When they Cry: Mystery series + time loop *Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna: Killer kids want to outsmart a genius detective's brother with mysteries and games LOST+BRAIN: Replace Death Note with hypnosis P.A.: An actress paid to be certain people. *Dangan Ronpa: Ace Attorney X Battle Royale
In progress... Jinrou Game: Let's play life-stakes Mafia for 100m yen! Kingdom Game: Conquer other groups of humans while changing roles. Bloody Junkie: Pay-to-View people fighting a battle royale Real-Account: Death games for social media addicts
Works by Fukumoto (prolific author of this genre) *Kaiji: A loser thrown into high-stakes gambling. Strongest Legend Kurosawa: An unpopular man with a midlife crisis. *Akagi: High-stakes Riichi Mahjong. Ten: More high-stakes Riichi Mahjong. Takes place after Akagi. Confession (Kawaguchi Kaiji): Friend makes deathbed murder confession in a snowstorm, but they survive... Buraiden Gai: A boy is sent to a harsh corrections facility for a murder he didn't commit. Gambling Emperor Legend Zero: like Kaiji, but with more riddles and the protagonist is a genius Gin to Kin: Shady business and stock practices.
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Post by Iain7 on May 2, 2013 15:16:38 GMT
I really liked the relationship chapter of roots of a monster is amazing. they're making it into an English live action series! if you like medical manga try out team medical dragon and black jack kurosagi and kaiji are cool too, although I don't understand Mahjong the slightest
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Post by Cyrus on May 3, 2013 1:49:25 GMT
Roots of A was pretty good, though mostly unrelated to Akiyama & co. The chapter I remember the most was the one with the people being imprisoned for having that disease. Also.... Kurosagi: Scammer who only scams scammers I love this. While I can't weigh in on the quality of the manga, that description is sweet! No sarcasm. That is a genuine compliment.
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Post by Iain7 on May 3, 2013 14:27:23 GMT
haha it's pretty good actually, it uses real scams that are possible in Japan
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Post by Cyrus on May 5, 2013 3:12:59 GMT
Ugh! I just found out (by reading to that point) that One Outs is missing about 20 chapters in the middle. They're just not scanlated anywhere. Well, anywhere I could find. I guess I'll have to stop there and go read about a scammer who only scams scammers.
Oh, and for my two cents about One Outs, I'd totally recommend it. The art is immediately better than the art at the beginning of LG, and while I haven't been interested in baseball since I was a little kid, the story and mind games are quite good. Definitely worth a shot.
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Freih
Observer
Posts: 347
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Post by Freih on May 5, 2013 4:03:50 GMT
The part of One Outs that's not scanlated is animated and subtitled.
The translations of Kurosagi are so bad that it's not worth reading, IMO.
20th Century Boys turns into (an awfully slow) bullshit after an awfully slow, but promising buildup. I dropped it there. Maybe I'll pick it back up if someone answers the following questions (the questions themselves contain spoilers): 1) Is there anything supernatural? 2) Is there anything sci-fi? 3) Do the bad guys have a sotive other than being mad? 4) Is there any strategical reason for doing things according to The Book of Prophecy? 5) Does it ever turn into a battle of wits, and in which volume does that happen?
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Post by 10k on May 5, 2013 17:49:39 GMT
20th Century Boys turns into (an awfully slow) bullshit after an awfully slow, but promising buildup. I dropped it there. Maybe I'll pick it back up if someone answers the following questions (the questions themselves contain spoilers): 1) Is there anything supernatural? 2) Is there anything sci-fi? 3) Do the bad guys have a sotive other than being mad? 4) Is there any strategical reason for doing things according to The Book of Prophecy? 5) Does it ever turn into a battle of wits, and in which volume does that happen? Looks like an infrequent response, since 20th Century Boys had an excellent reception; it's not my personal favorite, but it has my approval in regards to quality. I'm taking you're looking specifically for mind-games. From the sound of your post, you should definitely look into Kaiji. Highlight for quick answers (no spoilers) 1. Yes 2. Yes 3. Nope, but I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing. A lot of people have one-track reasons for doing things in real life, and Friend isn't the focus of character development 4. Yes 5. Define "battle of wits". There's definitely deception, but the focus isn't on arc-spanning mindgames...it's in a bunch of little details. You don't think it doesn't take any mental effort to stop a worldwide conspiracy?Highlight for explanations (MASSIVE spoilers) 1. A later protagonist has psychic powers and ESP, and combines them with her charisma to defeat the enemy's maneuvers. 2. Friend's virtual reality training game, a dangerous virus...we're not dealing with aliens, though. 3. Between the the first and second Friend, "I'll show the naysayers I CAN take over the world!" and "Kenji hurt my feelings when I was a kid", respectively. They're amazingly childish.
Although the second Friend has a brief appearance, I'd like to note that the former Friend had a strong interest in controlling others, and he's shown all the characteristics of a classical psychopath. In his childhood, Friend formed a group to rival Kenji's, with himself as the leader, and there are multiple instances where he's abusing one of his own members. Without the desire to control others (and by extension, everyone in the world), Friend could never have had an interest in taking a rivalry so far as world domination.
4. "Let's play Kenji! Tee hee"...Friend has a specific connection to Kenji and wants him to know that. Does it particularly help with the world domination effort? Not really; there are better ways, but the reason world domination happened is that Friend wants Kenji to realize who is responsible. Friend, however, manages to twist these events to his advantage anyway in the form of propaganda and Kenji-smearing. 5. I can't really elaborate further unless you want quick-and-dirty examples, because as I said, deception is in the details. How about the part where the twin bullies grew up into corporate executives, agree to help their old "friends" (Kenji Faction) get rid of Friend--we we can put the past bullying behind us to save the world, right?--and then double-cross the Faction so badly for Friend that the good guys are endangered?
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Freih
Observer
Posts: 347
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Post by Freih on May 5, 2013 18:46:24 GMT
Looks like an infrequent response, since 20th Century Boys had an excellent reception; it's not my personal favorite, but it has my approval in regards to quality. I'm taking you're looking specifically for mind-games. From the sound of your post, you should definitely look into Kaiji. Highlight for quick answers (no spoilers) 1. Yes 2. Yes 3. Nope, but I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing. A lot of people have one-track reasons for doing things in real life, and Friend isn't the focus of character development 4. Yes 5. Define "battle of wits". There's definitely deception, but the focus isn't on arc-spanning mindgames...it's in a bunch of little details. You don't think it doesn't take any mental effort to stop a worldwide conspiracy?Yes, I was wondering about spoiler tags and didn't realize black color would do it... 3. The reason I think this is a bad thing is because it's unreasonable to expect people with this motive to make strategically correct decisions. For example, take their decision not to kill Kenji in the first three volumes. If the motive wasn't madness, I would be left wondering what could the reason for that be. However, now it's completely plausible that the reason is the (totally unsatisfactory for me) desire to see how he would fight the conspiracy he wanted to fight as a child. This ruins my enjoyment. 5. Well, I've certainly seen/read many works of fiction where it didn't take much mental effort to stop a world conspiracy (or another similarly threatening event) . Unfortunately I can't quote because I don't remember those (maybe Iron Man 3).
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Post by 10k on May 5, 2013 19:44:32 GMT
[quote author=freih board=lounge thread=564 post=4573 time=1367779584]Yes, I was wondering about spoiler tags and didn't realize black color would do it... 3. The reason I think this is a bad thing is because it's unreasonable to expect people with this motive to make strategically correct decisions. For example, take their decision not to kill Kenji in the first three volumes. If the motive wasn't madness, I would be left wondering what could the reason for that be. However, now it's completely plausible that the reason is the (totally unsatisfactory for me) desire to see how he would fight the conspiracy he wanted to fight as a child. This ruins my enjoyment.> That's not really the reason, but I can't elaborate because I don't know whether you checked "MASSIVE spoilers" section. I'm going to edit my previous post because there was one other subconscious reason Friend was interested in taking over the world (it's been a while, so it's slowly coming back to me), but I can't say whether it'll change your opinion.5. Well, I've certainly seen/read many works of fiction where it didn't take much mental effort to stop a world conspiracy (or another similarly threatening event) . Unfortunately I can't quote because I don't remember those (maybe Iron Man 3).
> Naoki Urasawa is an award-winning mangaka, this being one of his notable works. The story might not be to your taste (I liked Monster far better), but I think there are a bunch of people willing to attest to the quality.[/quote]
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Post by Alydar on May 5, 2013 21:01:51 GMT
If you're using black text to spoiler things, that won't work all the time. The background switches off between black (color=000000) and a lighter gray (color=111111). Quote fields are the same lighter gray (color=111111). So, if you want to keep things spoilered, it would be nice to keep that in mind.
As for a response to all these manga, I'll do that once I'm not hugely busy. That may be after finals...
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Post by 10k on May 5, 2013 23:00:47 GMT
I never got those colors straight. Thanks!
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Freih
Observer
Posts: 347
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Post by Freih on May 11, 2013 5:26:37 GMT
I haven't read the massive spoilers. Anyway, I decided to read 20th Century Boys a further. It repeats the cycle of getting very interesting, then suddenly disappointing me with something (those somethings usually concern Friend's "special treatment" of Kenji - I don't know, however I can't help but feel that stopping the conspiracy would largely be due to that special treatment). So far it is interesting enough to keep reading, but in six volumes I've yet to see that mental effort you were talking about (except for a chunk or two).
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Post by Alydar on May 11, 2013 18:27:30 GMT
So, I've gone ahead and taken the liberty to better spoiler Freih's "hidden" text. I know previewing your message shows the message on a black background, so you may think it's hidden when it's not. Once you post, however, you can go back and edit your message to keep spoilers unreadable without highlighting. If you have a black background (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th, or 15th post on a page), use , , or tags.
If you have a dark gray background (2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, or 14th post on a page), use tags. Use these tags when quoting spoilered text as well.
This will help keep people from reading spoilers that they don't want spoiled. Otherwise, the black is readable on dark gray and vice versa. Thank you in advance.
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Post by 10k on Jun 19, 2013 18:55:29 GMT
So...who else was surprised that they started playing strip poker in Gamble Fish?
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Freih
Observer
Posts: 347
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Post by Freih on Jun 19, 2013 20:23:09 GMT
Well, I'm not reading Gamble Fish anymore... But I was surprised when you said that, although on second thought it's hardly surprising...
On another note, I did finish 20th Century Boys. The story did indeed become more interesting and had several wonderful plot twist. However, I would object to it's supposedly good quality. Spoilers follow... IMO the best part in the story was Friend's plan to take over the world. That is, despite we are never shown how does he manage to get his funding, his political power, etc. etc. The most psychological part in the manga is starting, again, starting Friend's cult (the rest hardly has much to do with psychology at all). Still, that's also shown very briefly. A strong point is the suspense - while the surprising plot twists are few, they were good, and the manga managed to keep my suspense even when there were no plot twists. In terms of suspense, it was one of the best works I've read. Now, to the weak points. First, while in other kinds of works stopping an army with a guitar may be OK, I find it an inexcusable asspull for a thriller of this kind. This, and other less serious asspulls (like passing through a gate through which very few has managed to pass with a fake ID using a fake ID drawn by hand) is why I object to the quality. Then, there was the issue of one-sidedness of the story. Friend was always a few steps ahead, and everyone else managed to do what they did just because he, for some reason, didn't actually try to stop them (i.e. he must have known that Haru Namio's manager was Maruo but just let him be). And while the protagonists were trying their best, anddid a lot of small good deeds, they never acomplished anything significant. The way I see it, Friend was never defeated - he just self-destructed after he decided he has ahd enough of world domination. The same would have happened if they all the time stayed and did nothing, which, of course, causes their actions to lose some importance. The same happened in Monster to some extend, but while I think it was more appropriate there, here it is not. Then, 10k said before that mental effort was necessary to defeat a world comspiracy. However, as this one just self-destructed, no mental effort was necessary to cause that. And while I wouldn't call the main characrs stupid, rarely did they show brilliance (admittedly, a few times they did) - most of the time they were close by 'the book'. This in particular doesn't reduce the quality - after all, it makes the story more realistic - but it does reduce my enjoyment.
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