Weekly manga roundup

[branchandroot]

Back from the holidays, and all I can say about most of these is “well finally!”.

Naruto

See, if this had happened either a) a lot sooner or b) significantly later after an actual arc worth of buildup to "Naruto kicks righteous ass" I would really like this turn of affairs a lot. Alas, this is not what happened. Instead we've spend an arc faffing around while Sasuke et al run failed errands in a directionless manner and Naruto powers up at double speed and with no soul searching or really clever turns, which are what make his usual power-up sections fun. And now, rocks having fallen and killed, not everyone but only my favorite fucking character in a really pointless way, please burn in hell Konomi, Super-Naruto with eye makeup gets dumped on us and I'm just kind of sitting here going "...okay, remind me why I'm supposed to care?".

*sighs* The pacing of Shippuden really went all to hell about halfway through.



Bleach

Rock on Orihime! You go, girl! Up yours, Ulquiorra, Mr. Psychological Warfare Expert, you lose! *bounces with pleasure*



TRC

Oh, gee, what a surprise!

Not.

Not that I don't like it. This is looking to be a very nice ending, with all the extras neatly killed off and getting to be together as spirits or whatever, and the Shaoran we all bonded with at the start getting a really fantastic last scene. It's just totally not a surprise at this point.

I do wish that Clamp could have figured out something to do with Fai and Kurogane, so they didn't have to take the course of buffeting them aside in such a totally unconvincing and plot-useless manner. But it's Clamp, I don't actually expect them to do anything well if it doesn't involve buckets of instant pay-off angst.