2012-03-29, 20:05
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Link #7521 | ||
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Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
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There is also the matter regarding Medaka killing someone three years ago. We haven't learned the circumstances that would cause her to do such a thing, and it's bad-press to let a main character get off scot-free without an actual explanation. My bet is the author solves both problems in one go by revealing Hanten to be the "father" she killed as he starts putting his own plans into motion. Quote:
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2012-03-29, 20:06
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Link #7522 | |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
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Medaka, could have said those things at the begining of the arc had she figured it out and the overall point and effectiveness would have remained. Which was essentially Medaka wouldn't allow her to die regardless and reality is awesome. Medaka didn't need to lose for this to happen neither did Aijimu getting Zenkichi to join her or pretty much anything else. |
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2012-03-29, 20:07
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Link #7523 | |
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Now or Never
Join Date: Jan 2012
Age: 37
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2012-03-29, 20:09
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Link #7524 |
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KORA!!
 Scanlator
Join Date: May 2009
Age: 33
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Speaking of what's going to happen, they did tease something didn't they? While this Zenkichi/Medaka romance seems to be locked in, she did say that she's supposed to take over Kurokami group, and that she has 7 suitors right? Let's go Zenkichi vs 7 suitors arc! I called it the moment those suitors were mentioned, woot!
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2012-03-29, 20:11
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Link #7525 | |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
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2012-03-29, 20:32
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Link #7531 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
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That. Was. Brilliant.
So every "meta" thing Ajimu spouted was nothing but a wholesale delusion born out of everything being too easy for her. Loved the expressions of every character when they realized they were being set up to fail all along. |
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2012-03-29, 20:38
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Link #7532 | |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
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I am really glad that medaka box didnt have an ending like negima cause that would be sad , negimas ending was like admitting writing that manga was a useless effort from the beginning but i didnt feel that from medaka box in this chapter , this chapter was fun for me and it satisfied me abaut ajimu . |
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2012-03-29, 20:47
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Link #7533 |
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The Mage of Four Hearts
Author
Join Date: Mar 2010
Age: 34
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Oh Nisio, you never fail to amuse me. This was an epic chapter, fitting the title well. Ajimu's delusion makes so much sense in retrospect, I thought Ajimu was joking, and Nisio wrote it that way to be meta, but she actually believed it.
With this, something fresh is bound to come up, probably from the Shiranui family. I look forward to it.
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2012-03-29, 20:47
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Link #7534 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
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Ajimu kind of reminds me of Marvel's Deadpool, who shares a similar delusion (he thinks he's a comic book character with actual yellow speech boxes), though he's crazy because "artificial healing factor" + "cancer" means his brain is constantly being warped.
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2012-03-29, 20:53
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Link #7535 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
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Oh my gosh that was incredible!! xD even if the manga were to end right here I'd be completely satisfied what with how awesome this chapter was!!
Medaka looked so freaking adorable in that uniform!!!♥♥♥♥♥ I absolutely love Medaka!!!♥ Bring on the 7 evil |
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2012-03-29, 22:55
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Link #7537 |
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⌂ Vulcan 300 ⌂
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Damn, maybe the entire not equal can be a product of ajimu imagination so she actually can be a minus with the power of overwrite reality into her own, but crashed as in her fictional world zen got a skill that force reality to be the only outcome.....holy crap, i only have one picture for this
 meanwhile the stadium got melted by emukae after the kiss 
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2012-03-29, 23:00
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Link #7538 |
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Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
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Ajimu actually hinted at this ending, talking about wanting to become Medaka's friend and such..
Medaka's power of coincidences is too uber hax, basically her coincidences can even rewrite the story of god in order to win. But it's weird, it's like Medaka is reacting to Ajimu and not the other way around. This really feels like Ajimu's victory, but it doesn't? Who won? Damn. Basically, it's simply not possible for anyone to 'win' against Medaka except for Zenkichi, period. Zenkichi got validated and Medaka was defeated more completely than anyone else in the series, to the point of basically being completely subject to his will.... But this still seems a bit, well, empty. It's too cut and dry. Betrayal and evil and such are the spice of the story; without them, it has no flavor. Medaka is in love with Zenkichi, but it was too fast and too easy. I have to explain that. There wasn't any conflict or the juicy bits that come with the journey. There wasn't any shy uncertainty, or jealousy or misunderstandings or even drama about it. Medaka went from not really seeing Zenkichi as a valuable person, to just being in love with him. You have steps in this sort of thing. I'll tell you exactly how we were trolled. The point of this arc seemed like it was significantly about Zenkichi and Medaka. In fact, that's what most people were pining over seeing. For the past months, I've been wanting to see romance and such, but really that was never important to the story. I wanted to see Medaka and Zenkichi interacting, but honestly we saw relatively little of Zenkichi, which makes sense now since it was really about Medaka and Ajimu, or atleast that's what this chapter seems to say. I wasn't that interested in Ajimu getting reformed. I thought she was more awesome the way that she was. I loved how she was going all mastermind and saying stuff like, "It all looks good, but just you wait I'm seriously going to **** everything up." And it didn't seem like all this silly simulated reality stuff either. It seemed like she was saying, "Oh yeah, there isn't going to be a heel face turn for me. I'm going to seriously do something e-v-i-l that you didn't expect." What happened with the whole simulated reality thing made perfect sense. It puts everything in perspective. But, simulated reality, although psychologcally interesting, is not very dramatic. In fact, it's very logical and literal. The reaction is, "Oh, ok. I understand now. Uhh, can I leave?" I didn't expect that... Because... It... Wasn't very interesting or thrilling. I was expecting awesome and I got a lecture. It's dissatisfying for the same reason that you can't seduce women by explaining Liskov's substitution principle to them. Explaining covariance is logically stimulating, not emotionally stimulating. It's like with those hints about 'simulated reality' that were common in the preceding chapters; I was just bored and disappointed each week because what I really wanted to see was Medaka and Zenkichi's relationship. I wanted to see how Zenkichi was changing, and I wanted to see how Medaka would react. Here's what happened. This arc was about Medaka and Ajimu. It was all about Ajimu's simulated reality deal. Zenkichi was a tool to upgrade Medaka and provide the path for her to win, so that she could find the one answer to win against someone who she couldn't defeat directly. Also, she just did the whole copying thing again. She just did for Ajimu something similar to what Zenkichi did for her. Medaka 'defeated' the undefeatable. If Ajimu controls reality, Medaka said 'I'll limit reality'. When it comes to connecting to people, honestly Ajimu is an even more hard case than Medaka. And Medaka just pulled a Zenkichi and connected to Ajimu. Honestly, Medaka beat Ajimu in a really lame way. Ajimu can't die, and Medaka said that I won't let you die. If Ajimu had killed herself, it would have been way more awesome. A life of 3 trillion years ended by suicide, pretty epic. A 3 trillion year old who has no conceivable external threats to her existence living longer is not that dramatic a change. Ajimu said that she wanted to become Medaka's friend and her peer, and Medaka beat Ajimu by becoming her friend. And Ajimu and Medaka are about the only people that can really be peers to each other. It might very well end up that Ajimu plays more a part in interaction with Medaka than Zenkichi. Zenkichi is not on Medaka's level. Ajimu is on Medaka's level. I've said this before; there are alot of similarities between them. They're not the same, but they're sort of a different take on the same thing. The easiest way to explain this is that they are both mary sues. The worst thing is that there wasn't any darkness here. If Ajimu has done something badass evil, then it would have been way cooler than what Medaka did. What Medaka did was just sort of lame and flat. I feel like Medaka took away from the potential of the story. Something awesome was about to happen, and it got medaka-blocked. There seems to be a 'new world' coming, but is Zenkichi really the main character? At the very top of Zenkichi's 'meta-victory' Medaka immediately meta-recovered. Zenkichi didn't do anything this chapter, except look flabbergasted and get kissed. Zenkichi did something incredibly awesome for Medaka, and then in the very next chapter Medaka did something that made Zenkichi's act pale in comparison, which is pretty much Medaka's method of operation. She did for Ajimu what Zenkichi did for her, only taken to the absolute extremes and the backing for it was weak and lame (i.e. you can't die, but I won't let you kill yourself that can be your impossibility, the thing you didn't do for 3 trillion years). In one chapter, she made Zenkichi into a minor character again. Medaka took back her place as the 'most important character.' Basically, the whole romance issue was sidestepped. Stories aren't about their resolution; they're about their journey. This wasn't an interesting love. The whole love thing was wrapped up for consistency sake, not for content. It was a side issue. If you think about it, the problem is Medaka is too perfect to make romance interesting. What makes romance interesting is all the mistakes and the half-steps and the misunderstandings.... Well, it's always possible that she screws it up in ways that aren't normal, but I don't know if that's the direction this is going. Here's the real troll move. It's been on from chapter 1 in this manga. This manga's theme, introduced from the very beginning chapter, was Zenkichi and Medaka's relationship. We've been waiting (or atleast I've been waiting) for something interesting to happen along these lines. I didn't care if Medaka and Zenkichi got together. In fact, it might have been more interesting for them to have a REAL fight, the type where the two parties absolutely hate each other. But it didn't happen. The whole issue was sidestepped. Medaka went from 'not acknowledging Zenkichi despite his efforts' to 'completely in love' in one chapter. All the things that make romance interesting were sidestepped. Maybe Nisio will take a direction different in this, but it seems like we're moving onto the traditionally boring part; Medaka and Zenkichi are pretty much boyfriend and girlfriend now, so the story can effectively ignore that issue because there isn't anything interesting going on there. What about Hansode and Emukae? There's another couple of dismissed issues. The main point in this arc that was addressed was upgrading Medaka and reforming Ajimu. That's it. We weren't given one chapter for the Zenkichi and Medaka romance buildup; we were given a pause between chapters. There's a saying that what makes music great is the pauses, but when all you have is a pause, the only thing you can hear is silence. I understand that I'm sidestepping details and little things you can pick at. Zenkichi went from loving to being in love, blah blah blah, and all that.. But really in the larger context it wasn't that substantial. Medaka is in love with Zenkichi. Zenkichi is in love with Medaka. They've both in love. Ok. Maybe it's all going to fall apart in some interesting way. Think about this. Medaka killed her stepfather. IGNORED. Medaka's dark side. IGNORED. Zenkichi's growth. ONLY NECESSARY BUILD UP, NOT A CENTRAL FOCUS. The side effects of Zenkichi's zero abnormality. ISSUE IGNORED. (Zenkichi's absolute zero is as gamebreaking in its own way as Medaka's absolute plus. As I said, Kumagawa could beat Zenkichi, and there are also loads of other things too that you could take out of that. Little side effects that you wouldn't expect. Not having 'coincidences' can mean a lot things, which is actually sort of mysterious and confusing. I can think of plenty of non-coincidental reasons why Zenkichi could have lost. Zenkichi did alot more than was shown, but it wasn't shown because he really wasn't the focus of this arc. It was about Ajimu and her simulated reality and Medaka upgrading.) There are tons of other things I've forgotten. There is a hope here though... Medaka now has a tried and true weakness. She's in love. The problem is that she's a true 'plus' and maybe she doesn't get any of the ugly things that being in love forces upon you. For instance, being in love makes normal people needy just as much as it makes them caring. Is Medaka going to be 'needy' around Zenkichi? That isn't a very 'strong' trait. If she isn't, her love isn't going to be very endearing. You won't get that 'moe' feeling. It's just as likely likely, despite all of the hinting by Zenkichi that something happens in the future, that a third party enters the picture again and we have another Medaka upgrades arc. It could go the other direction, but after this it seems a little hard. Maybe that's the point. There is a complete range of characters here and we've compeletely explored the possibilities of Medaka's presidental formula. Maybe the new interesting thing is how Zenkichi's mind changes and how his perception changes being someone who is completely 'flat' in an environment of extremes like Medaka, Ajimu, Kumagawa, and Hansode. Coming to truly understand these people where the irony is that he's become a parodoxical extreme himself. There are a whole bunch of interesting stuff you can do with Zenkichi now. In fact, in his own way, he has more potential than Medaka to be interesting at this point in the story. It's like how Zenkichi was interesting when he had his whole love epiphany or when he was thinking over how he wanted to deal with Medaka's defeat. What this chapter proved was even if Zenkichi can win against Medaka, but Medaka's abnormality still hasn't changed. She still does the same things she did beforehand. It seems to me that in order to make this interesting he'll have to take a 180 degree turn here. Maybe this was symbolic, Medaka's last frenzied gasp before she handed over the torch to Zenkichi or maybe not. What about these hints that haven't panned out? Zenkichi hinted a couple of chapters ago after the music festival that he never got up on stage with Medaka in the future. Maybe that was all misdirection i.e. well, we never got around it. Maybe THIS chapter was misdirection i.e. it seems like everything worked out for the best but the real tragedy is about to happen. Maybe the story is just going to say **** it, and do something else. What bothers me is what was said at the end of the chapter. The feeling was so real? That's an odd thing for Zenkichi to think or to be narrated at the end of this chapter when Medaka confesses to him. That's really odd. Going off on a little bit of a tangent too, I was a bit dissatisfed that Medaka confessed to him and not the other way around. In fact, it seems she's saying that she knows that Zenkichi was in love with her (we match) and maybe knew the whole time, which makes some of her prior conversations and her 'not considering Zenkichi as a boyfriend possibility' distinctly disturbing, because it means that she thought that he truly didn't have any value to her in that department, and that was why she wasn't acknowledging him. The only reason she came off as 'dense' was because it was such a complete impossibility to her that she wouldn't consider it, i.e. "Zenkichi? That's ridiculous." I have to say that generally I wasn't satisfied with what happened in this arc. It's not that I didn't like the resolution necessarily; it's that I didn't like how it played out. I didn't really enjoy it that much; I was just hyped up that there was going to be something that I could enjoy. I think this is a well written story on many level, but I'll be honest, I think it's Nisio's reputation has been keeping this manga alive, for a quite a while actually. I've enjoyed many other mangas more than Medaka Box; Big Order was really interesting for instance. Not only was it interesting, I would come away from reading it feeling like 'I'm glad I read this." My feeling with Medaka Box has been, "I'm going to be glad I read this... next week", but it hasn't really panned out -- it's just been drawn out. Even with this resolution, I don't have a feeling of catharsis and that's the most important thing. In a way, things that have been said are a hint that 'You know, the Medaka Box has gone in a bad direction and that's point.. We're going to start over and redo it so it's better." I feel like I've learned a great deal of things about writing and storytelling from reading Medaka Box, but I really don't feel that satisfied. Maybe that's the point of what was said this chapter, everything about starting over and redoing. This certainly is a finale in a complete sense. This has really wrapped up Medaka's direct conflict. Medaka vs. Ajimu was really between Ajimu and Medaka; Zenkichi, and his relationship with Medaka, just happened to be caught up in the middle of it. Or if you want to pick it out, then Zenkichi and Medaka's ideological conflict from the first chapter was resolved. But I never really had super-strong feelings about that; what gripped me was the potential in their interpersonal relations. There were months of things happening between Zenkichi and Medaka, Zenkichi doing things for the election, Zenkichi changing and building up his character, Zenkichi having discussions with Ajimu and the rest of his supporters, that were just completely and totally sidestepped. Zenkichi changed quite a bit, but it's hard to quantify it because we basically we basically skipped a great deal of the practical development he had. It didn't fit into the formula of 'Medaka fights with someone, makes them do a heel face turn at the end." I don't find that formula interesting anymore, and I haven't since the Kumagawa arc. I didn't want Ajimu to do a heel face turn, and when she did it was lame and the way Medaka did it was lame. I hate being this cynical, but I've been really patient about holding out hope for this. I think it'll improve, but this could have been a lot better.. Maybe that's the whole point of getting rid of Medaka as the main character and changing the 'formula' for the manga. But I'm not even sure that's happening at this point or not. Basically, Medaka pulled off a Medaka comeback and said, "Even though Ajimu seems to be absolutely correct in what's she is saying from the reader's perspective of acknowledging that this is the world of a manga, Medaka overrides that with 'That's just crazy talk. Our manga world IS our real world', so everything Ajimu was saying about the new world and main characters, even though it was all correct, was just crazy talk and actually now untrue and irrelevant." Think about the subtlety of this. Ajimu is right. We know she's right. But Medaka's abnormality controls the manga (with Zenkichi being the only exemption), and so in the manga world Medaka is actually more right than Ajimu, even though Medaka is actually wrong and Ajimu is actually really right from our perspective. Last edited by sungreentakeo; 2012-03-30 at 01:18. |
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2012-03-29, 23:52
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Link #7540 |
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Spinning round and round~
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Singapore
Age: 32
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We could already see signs of Medaka seeing Zenkichi as a treasured and important person from quite some time back (the Flask Plan Arc) but to be honest, like some of you have pointed out, it feels a bit too abrupt and just seems like it's been brought out from somewhere and blindsided us readers.
I was however, pretty intrigued with the way the arc has already been slowly building up its suspense and climax level, and I do feel Nisio Isin has done a pretty good job of that, however cliché I find the ending. |
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| Tags |
| action, comedy, harem, nishio, romance, shounen, student council |
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One way of looking at it, is that it was 
otoh it was also 
