OH MY GOD, AMANO, YOU PATHETIC FUCK

[branchandroot]

*howling with absolute disbelief*

AMANO, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, YOU GOATSUCKING HACK?!

*breathing hard*

I had already realized, well before this thank you, that Amano is dedicated to making her women useless frills, to handicapping even the few who are allowed to fight, to portraying the ones who are actually reasonably strong as absolute psychopaths, to making sure that they lose to the men every goddamn time. And I had realized, well before this also, that she has rolled back character development to nearly Issue 60 levels. And it was clear that Chrome was going to be the especial victim of both these trends, for the present arc.

BUT THIS! SHE HAS ACTUALLY CONTRADICTED HER OWN ESTABLISHED FACTS. HER OWN DAMN FACTS FROM THE LAST DAMN ARC WHERE THEY WERE REALLY DAMN CRITICAL TO THE PLOT! SHE CHANGED THE FACTS TO A DEGREE THAT IS FLATLY IMPOSSIBLE TO RECONCILE WITH PREVIOUS ACTION!

I don't believe this. Even though it's Amano I'm-a-flaming-misogynist Continuity-what's-that Akira, I still can't quite believe she actually just did that!

The only bright side I can wrest out of this pathetic clusterfuck is that the present arc is now clearly and canonically AU to the rest of the manga, and I therefore have a bulletproof reason to completely ignore it.

Right. There needs to be fic. Something where Chrome meets the first Mist, one way or another, and kicks his goddamn ass.


ETA: Spoilers for most recent issue in the comments.

Comments

[annotated_em]

I'm way behind on the manga: what did Amano do this time?

[branchandroot]

Oh my GOD. So Julie comes to bug Chrome again and taunts her about the shield around the island keeping Mukuro out, and /tells/ her about her own illusory organs, which she suddenly /did not know about/ and demonstrates that /he's/ the one supplying them now. Because he's the first Mist, Spade Daemon (Amano still loses at names, so very badly).

So yeah. Apparently, /somehow/ Chrome did not /know/ that Mukuro was supplying her organs and certainly is not supplying her own, as was A MAJOR PLOT POINT IN THE FUTURE ARC, WHAT THE FUCK AMANO YOU FUCKING LOSER!

*breathing hard again*

[annotated_em]

.........Amano, you suck.

And wait, what, Julie is... D. Spade? What?

[branchandroot]

Yes. Apparently this is what they mean when they talked about having the one who's "most disappointed in the First" on their side. It is, as yet, unclear whether Julie is actually complicit in this, a disguise, an unwilling host, or what. It is, however, clear that Spade is lying to the Shimon to get Enma to fight Tsuna, so it's still very unclear what his real agenda is. Besides, apparently, wanting to go through Chrome to get to Mukuro.

[annotated_em]

Ohhhhhhkay. Huh.

...the really obnoxious thing is that this could be really interesting and complicated. But, because it is Amano, it is not. *grumps*

[jetsam]

wait, I'd got the basic fail first read but Spade Daemon? No wonder I don't remember anyone's names


Why was this chapter so very painful? Can't they at least spread out hte hurt a little bit

[branchandroot]

I know! *cries* This is just concentrated fail, and it's so pathetic that it could be interesting if only Amano would get her tiny little head out of her ass!

[ekmisao]

Respectfully, it's Daemon Spade. ^^v Her odd way of Italianizing 'demon sword'.

But I actually agree with the rest of the things you've said, now that you've spelled it out. I think this is partly because Amano is still working for a boy's magazine, and is clinging to ratings (KHR still works the whole range of the ratings). FMA, which is a little better at these gender issues you mention, was in another magazine. ^^

[branchandroot]

Amano loses /so bad/ at names, though this is, at least, not /quite/ as bad as the freaking /desserts/.

*spits* For pity's sake, /Bleach/ is better than this about the women.

[ekmisao]

I don't know what to say anymore. ^^;;

I think I hold on to this manga out of respect for getting me out of several Yamamoto-ish thoughts. ^^;;; And while I do see these things you site, I guess I have a better endurance or acceptance or something, I don't know.

[metisket]

IT COULD ALL BE OKAY! If it turns out that Chrome's just screwing with him.

...which is obviously not going to happen because that would be. Amazing. WHICH CANNOT BE.

But someone...somewhere...did point out that Chrome doesn't have her ring right now because it is a rock. Which at least explains why she's not making her own organs at this time.

It still doesn't explain why she abruptly doesn't seem to KNOW about them. Unless she's screwing with Spade. She is a Mist Guardian, after all, screwing with people is their THING, come on Amano, just this once. ;_; Because that could be great! Mindfuckery could actually be Chrome's secret power, that would even MAKE SENSE, and it's never come up before now--Mukuro is the only genuine mindfucker she knows, and she has no interest in fighting him, so. So!!!

It's never going to happen. I just need to let that idea die quietly before it burns me. Because she's brainwashed now, right? Or something? Can you fake brainwashing? YOU CAN IN FIC. *weeps* This seriiiiiiies.

[branchandroot]

Amano is /evil/. She makes characters who could be great and a plot that could go fascinating places and then UTTERLY FUCKS IT UP. Augh!

Yes, see, actually the shield is not keeping Mukuro out, and he and Chrome are totally in cahoots to figure out what's going on, and she's the inside agent. So of course she thinks really fast on her feet, and agrees to whatever idiocy Spade comes up with (and he wouldn't know about the future events, so he thinks it's still Mukuro doing the organs). And, actually, by now Chrome can do them without the Ring, but she's fast enough and Purely Amazing enough to make her own organs go away in order to play into Spade's game and totally trick him! And she's faked brainwashing the same way! He isn't actually doing a thing, but she's Illusioned him to think he's got all the cards!

Fic is the only way any of us are going to come out of this sane.

[chronolith]

This is the reason that I cannot get into KHR.

[branchandroot]

Don't. Once you get sucked in to caring what happens to the characters you spend a lot of time frothing. And writing fic to fix the author's various idiocies.

[chronolith]

I tried. Mostly because of Em's Bianchi Fic of Doom but oh my god is the writing terrible, the name scheme is causes me physical pain, the artwork has this terrible tendency to zig zag between awesome and eyeball-gouging-terrible, and I just can't wrap my head around Reborn. But I tried. I really really did.

I mean, I normally try to get into the anime's that both you and Em like but god damn. I mean, Chome could be interesting, but Amano seems to actively hate on her female characters and I just can't get around that.

[slippy]

Hi there. I'm jumping in off random journal-surfing, hope you don't mind. o/

Part of the problem here, I think, is that Binktopia/Meangastream's scanlation is rather a mess (they often are. They were the ones who decided that Giotto goes around talking about "My beloved G".). I was deeply confused that Chrome suddenly didn't know that Mukuro provides her organs, but in the I Eat Manga translation, Chrome's response to Julie telling her about the organ-story is "You even know that..."

Aside from that, she used the Vongola ring to get power to supply her own organs in the Millefiore Arc, and the ring has been shattered and the upgraded version is ... perhaps with Tsuna and the gang, or with Talbot, or something, and thus she doesn't have the power boost to continue making her own organs.

[branchandroot]

*sighs* Well, that doesn't in the least change the fact that Amano slaughters her female characters right and left in a completely unpardonable way, but at least it isn't a /total/ reversal of canon.

...at which point I have to kind of wonder what the scanlators were thinking, but so it goes.

The Rings don't supply power, though, that's what always pisses me off about the thing with Chrome. The Future arc indicated that pretty strongly, if nothing else, that the rings of all kinds channel power, shape and perhaps sustain it, and the Vongola/Mare/presumably-Shimon-too channel it with exceptional purity and help shape in in particular ways, but if someone doesn't have the oomph to light them up, well nothing doing. As Hibari pointed out, it was about time for Chrome to do this with her /own/ power. But no, that would be to independent and non-frill for Amano to let go on! Yet more character-development-rollback, I'm really hating Amano a /whole lot/ for that in particular, on everyone's behalf not just Chrome's. *glares at the manga some more* It was starting to /get/ somewhere, and now the whole lot of them are back at square-bloody-one in personal development terms.

[slippy]

Ha, that was why I said "part of the problem". And I gave up on Mangastream scanlations when they didn't realise, at one point, that they were supposed to have the translation reading "Mukuro" instead of "corpse". The translator probably doesn't follow the series, which leads to some missing nuance.

but if someone doesn't have the oomph to light them up, well nothing doing.
...Oh hay, good point. I didn't think of it that way. One could argue that she's not used to doing it without that channel, and thus automatically let (what she thought was) Mukuro take care of it, but the fact that she already has the power does cast a more unsatisfying light on that whole scene. And Spade/Julie is unsatisfying (read: disgusting) enough as it is.

But I am tentatively happy about where the characters are going. It was nearly unforgivable how much they reversed at the start of this arc, but Tsuna's development is looking really promising, Lambo's being allowed to have goals, and it's increasingly apparent that Gokudera's actually able to make sense out of himself and others by now.

[branchandroot]

Yeah, I was a lot happier with Gokudera's fight than I thought I would be. He's been the comic relief so much lately I was really cringing, but that was a really good couple issues for him.

[sabriel]

I'm kinda glad I stopped reading Bleach midway through the future arc...

[branchandroot]

Yes. Yes you are. *stabs Amano a few more times on Chrome's behalf*

[redfullmoon]

Pretty much what I thought. Amano, a woman, is a total misogynist. =A= I somehow either get the feeling that she might be getting approval from guys this ways--by making the girls in her stories weak to e to the power of infinity. =A=

Contradictions, it seems, is not something I should be surprised by in this manga, even though this DID make me hit my head against the tree bark. The mangaka doesn't seem to be writing this for anything other than gags and an audience of hormonal 12-year-old Japanese boys who don't care about female character development in any sense of the word.

It's no wonder why any of us don't want to read the manga anymore (I know guy friends who hate KHR now because of the lack of awesome female characters and the stupidity of the unreasonableness)...but the problem now is that I have a series that I'm writing for this, which makes it difficult for me to continue. :/

[branchandroot]

Yes, it's just appalling! And it's only gotten worse! I mean, even poor Gokudera got a really darn cool fight, even if he's being used for comic relief again the rest of the time. But Chrome seems to be totally out of luck.

I think you're right, really, Amano has turned Chrome into some fainting damsel in distress so she can be made into fanservice bait for adolescent boys. Come to think of it, Suzuki got messed up just as badly, and after a really promising introduction! But no. Her super power is to have her breasts get bigger. *spits with disgust*

I can recommend metisket's fic, though, she really did write a lovely "Chrome is just messing with Spade's head" fic for us!

[redfullmoon]

Pretty much. :( And I have a bad feeling that there is no such thing as a limit on how bad it can get, especially if Amano hates the female gender. Each time I read the new chapters, I just have to thank whatever divine being of writing that you and I and most people can write fanfics to correct this. Even though...it gets so GODDAMN INFURIATING that we might all have to diverge from canon because the canon now sucks like Hell.

Precisely. =A= I used to wonder if the rumors on how a lot of Japanese boys (and girls) being misogynistic were actually true (maybe it's because I met a few of them who didn't have that attitude), but looking at this...it seems so real that it hurts my spine and head.

Ah, that one. :D Indeed, that fic actually made so much more sense (not that Amano has any common sense in the first place, pfft). That and...considering how Chrome has been able to advance from a girl with no knowledge of the outer world to a Mist fighter who can fight one-on-one with the Arcobaleno Mammon in just a span of--let me get this right--a few months? Seriously, the girl has MAJOR potential--perhaps even past Mukuro's level.