Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

Okay, Episode 4 of Fairy Tail was actually pretty impressive. Not only did they make the secret of Daybreak actually surprising and creative, but the plot has finally started moving forward, too, if only by a few inches. Just when I was letting the frustration get to me, too.

I stopped at episode 136, got boring.

Well, that's 5 times longer than it took for Bleach and Naruto to get boring.

The one I was closest to shut down a few years ago, but yeah they had a TON of anime and all of it was too expensive. It was also terrible to browse through and see bootlegs mixed in, just made looking through them feel even worse.

Good place to get out of print stuff, though. Assuming you want to pay the price, of course.

Yeah, that sounds like the FYEs near me. Terrible to browse, too expensive, but good selection and lots of OoP stuff.

Also, I might have to cross Sword Art Online off my list. I saw some of it that made it seem pretty good, and a lot of people seemed to like it, but now those same people are saying it's gotten really bad and it should've ended at episode 14.

So for those of you who follow a manga series how do you get your manga? Do you buy the issues, check them out at a library, or read them online?

Different people, different tastes.

Online. Although I hate it when you find a good translation, and 20, 40, 50 chapers in or whatever, the site switches to a source with noticeably much worse translation.

Not much can be done about that. Probably means the previous group dropped it or was disbanded, and another group had to pick it up.

A mix of options 1 and 3.

Here's a question. Which anime character do you think is useless, but the creator tries to pass off as important?

I'd have to say Koga (from InuYasha). Seeing as the series is more or less serious Ranma 1/2, if you will, it seems like they felt the need to shoehorn in a "Ryoga" character, although this series didn't need one.

He fails his main role as a romantic rival, as the person he's trying to woo, never shows the slightest romantic interest in him (meaning his presence never effects the relationship of the main characters in a meaningful way). It's just that he (and InuYasha) are both too dense to realize this.

He fails as a general rival, because InuYasha already has a better (and more important) rival in the form of Sesshomaru.

The only thing that makes him important, is his two jewel shards, which of course aren't an aspect of him personally (give the two shards to another side character, and I can't think of anything major that would change). Seriously, I can't think of many things he personally contributed to the story (& the things he did do, didn't need to done by him).

As proof of this, when he lost his jewel shards (about halfway through the second series), he ran off, never to be seen again. He was the only major side character that was completely absent from the final battle (hinting that he may be actually pretty weak, without the shards).

Useless important characters? I can't think of many atm except for Team Rocket's Wobbuffet. Seriously, Wobbuffet did nothing in nearly every episode it featured in except to chime in on every character. It was funny the first few times, and then it became quite annoying.

Also, has anyone else noticed that Funimation is pulling its dubs off youtube? The subs are still there but some episodes are missing too. What's up with that?

_{I can't watch the BECK dub anymore and that makes me .}

^I wouldn't necessarily say they tried passing off Wobbuffet as important. The point was the joke, and it was successful with the joke (overboard as it may be).

Also, that in itself doesn't sound like they were trying to make it look important at all.

Lucy in Fairy Tail.
That Kid in Claymore.
Shinji Ikari in Evangelion
Every Married woman in Dragon Ball Z
The Red-haired girl in Bleach

Naruto Uzimaki can also be more of a hinderance than a help, and Kagome's only major skill is finding the Jewel Shards.

Library. Unless they don't have them at the library in their system, then I read online like TWGOK.

They only keep them up for so long. Especially dubs. Btw, Funimation has a Youtube channel? What? Do they put their recent stuff up there, too?

I could argue quite a few Conan characters, especially during the actual cases where everyone other than Conan (and whichever other cool detective character might be around during a case) often is either there because of police work related to the case or to occasionally unintentionally give clues/exposition for parts of a case/get stuff ready to show off how a murder trick could work etc. But the problem (especially in later years) with the importance of characters in the series is just not even bothering with using a character or forgetting that a character blatantly IS important, so it's kinda sorta the opposite problem.

Rock Lee after season 2 of the first Naruto series and Ino and Choji during the Immortals arc in Shippuden. Iruka-sensei too. And Tsunade's assistant.

Tristan Taylor in Yugioh. If it wasn't for the Abridged Series, I doubt any of you would even know what I was talking about.

Just finished chapter 73 of Bleach. Finally in the soul society.

started School Rumble a couple of days ago, and I'm not really feelin' it. Does it get better later on? Or is it just more awkward cannot-spit-it-out-awkward-humour?

Also, finished Spice And Wolf season 1 a few days ago with mixed feelings. The economic slice-of-life stuff was great. The supernatural thriller elements, also pretty well done. Both at the same time? Didn't mesh that well. It felt weird to see Lawrence smiling after a good sale in one episode and then running for his life in the next, especially when they both have that annoying and catchy end tune.

_{seven apples on a ... ah dammit}

Spice and Wolf is great! >:0 Horo is the best and she is my waifu! >:0