Alex Blechman Profile picture
Jan 15, 2022 22 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Friend: You gotta read this manga, it’s amazing. It has been published continuously since 1985 in 162 books that will cost you $7000
Me: Didn’t they make a TV show of that?

Friend: Yeah, season 1 of the anime covers volumes 1-37, the first 9000 pages, but they skip a few things
Friend: It’s all drawn by one guy

Me: Wow, that’s amazing!

Friend: Yeah, he is not happy
Friend: I think volume 163 is coming out soon. I watched an interview with the artist, he looks very tired from work, a broken man

Me: But his drawings are so cheerful

Friend: He was smoking two cigarettes at once
Friend: If you see the anime, don’t watch the sub or dub, the sdub is the only good one

Me: Sdub?

Friend: The bootleg version that’s subtitles except for the English voice actors that did a good job
Me: Enjoying it so far! But I can’t find a copy of volume 3

Friend: Oh yeah, it’s out of print. Contractual issue from when the artist changed publishers

Me: Maybe I can buy it used

Friend: A ripped book with the cover missing is on ebay for $200
Me: There’s more than one anime?

Friend: Yeah, fans hated the ending of the original so they made a second anime with a different finale. But fans hated the new show except for the ending. So they made a movie that retcons both series to have the story of #1 and ending of #2
Friend: I wrote up a watch order for the movies. First start with 1, then 1.1, 2.1, 2.22, 4, 3.2, 4.0, then 5

Me: They have decimals?

Friend: You can skip 5.1, it has some extra clips but nothing essential, and go straight to 5.3
Me: These titles are confusing. What’s the difference between Resurgence, Revitalization, and Restoration?

Friend: Oh, that’s the same film. The studio changed the title for release in different countries

Me: Rejuvenation too?

Friend: Oh. No, fans don’t talk about Rejuvenation
Me: There’s a live-action film?

Friend: The 90s adaptation isn’t that faithful. They got rid of all the magic and samurai, moved the setting to Los Angeles. The main character’s name was changed to Johnny Gasoline. There’s a lot, and I mean A LOT, of product placement for Pepsi
Friend: They’re bringing the artist out of his medically induced coma…

Me: He’s in a coma? I’m glad he’s recovering

Friend: …so he can finish the next chapter by the deadline

Me: Oh no

Friend: Then they’re putting him back in the coma
Me: The talking cow is pretty funny

Friend: What the hell man

Me: What?

Friend: The artist’s wife was trampled to death by a cow. Moo-chan is his expression of grief, it’s not meant to be funny

Me: It’s a talking cow that tells jokes!

Friend: You’re messed up
Me: These panels are completely black

Friend: Yeah, that’s the storyline when the hero was trapped in a dark cave

Me: How many pages does it go on like this?

Friend: The cave arc lasted from 1989 to 1992
Me: This splash page is gorgeous! The detail he puts into every flower…

Friend: Yeah, the artist drew that during a particularly dark period of his life
Friend: Check it out! My rare foil card

Me: They turned the manga into a card game?

Friend: Yeah, it’s super popular. Insanely popular.

Me: Looks fun

Friend: There have been a lot of murders to steal cards. Stores had to hire armed guards
Me: What happened to the ninja? He was my favorite character but then just vanishes from the comic

Friend: Oh, they wrap up his story in the video game. Do you have a Neo Geo? I’ll lend you my cartridge
Me: What’s the deal with that spinoff comic, the one drawn in the super-chibi style where all the characters are kids attending high school together? None of that’s canon right?

Friend: Oh, it is
Me: Marlon Brando is in this anime!

Friend: Yeah, he recorded voiceover before his death. They didn’t give him any lines though, he does the neighing for the horses
Me: It took days but I almost finished playing the Neo Geo game. Can’t say I enjoyed it

Friend: Yeah, it’s pretty bad. But the story is great

Me: Can’t wait for the ending

Friend: You got the artifact right? From the secret cave in level 1? You can’t win if you didn’t get it
Me: Why didn’t they translate this chapter?

Friend: That’s not kanji, that’s the druidic language the author invented

Me: Where can I find the translation?

Friend: Fans have been trying to decipher it for 30 years
Me: This volume of the manga has no dialogue? All the characters are crying in a beautiful park. The hero and the villain are hugging

Friend: Yeah, the artist took the death of Princess Diana pretty hard
Me: The hierophant is alive? How? He got beheaded 20 volumes ago!

Friend: Yeah, fans have a lot of theories. That he’s resurrected, or an impostor, or a time traveler

Me: The other characters aren’t surprised to see him

Friend: It’s also possible the author forgot he died

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More from @AlexBlechman

Jul 13, 2022
I'm an architect in the world of Elden Ring. Just designed a new building, think I'll give it a catchy name like Sanctum of Lamentations
As an architect in the world of Elden Ring, I take urban planning seriously. Broad elegant walkways to encourage pedestrian traffic. Pillars that spew fire at passersby. Elevators with no walls that leave a behind a yawning deadly abyss in the ground when they ascend
As an Elden Ring architect, whenever I design a castle I always make sure to build lots of hidden ledges where a corpse could sit. The main use for castles is to store all your perched upright corpses that hold a beckoning treasure
Read 4 tweets
Jan 23, 2022
The personality of the blue M&M is being changed to “Australian bounty hunter”

In commercials he growls “I’m too busy to get eaten. There’s murderers to catch”
In his new ad the blue M&M kicks down the door of a meth lab and slaughters dozens of henchmen

As the cartel kingpin flees, the blue M&M tosses a knife through his hand pinning the drug lord to a wall

“Salazar Crain, I’m here to give you a taste of what you did to my partner”
The M&M super bowl ad is a heated argument between the blue M&M and his human girlfriend, played by Cara Delevingne

“Are you fighting for justice or vengeance?” she asks

“Justice is a myth,” growls the blue M&M, loading his shotgun
Read 6 tweets
Jan 22, 2022
Neat, found out @Destructoid quoted me about Wordle

Wordle is a very fun game but it's even more of a communal event. The few minutes of guessing words alone is just a tiny part of it
destructoid.com/wordle-clones-…
Part of childhood development is called Parallel Play. It's when toddlers hang out near each other, playing alone, copying another, but not playing directly together

We sort of lose that growing up. We have games where we compete or collaborate, but few chances to just hang out
Wordle is great because it's a shared experience, and has a competitive aspect, but doesn't feel like a competition with other people. You're competing with yourself and rooting on everyone else. When someone guesses it faster than you you're impressed, not defeated
Read 6 tweets
Jan 22, 2022
Imagine working at the Captured Angel Facility. Filling paperwork at your desk, ignoring the ever-present vibration from the halo. Grabbing a sandwich at the cafeteria, having lunch on a bench overlooking the Containment Pit. While eating, a giant golden eye turns to look at you
Throwing an office party for your coworker Janice to celebrate her 20th anniversary working as Left Leg Shackle Supervisor

You carefully extinguish the cake sparklers, place them in a fireproof bag in case they recombust. The angel’s divine presence sometimes reverses entropy
A cluster of eyes have sprouted on your arm, a side effect of chronic exposure to the celestial aura. You wear a bandage to cover them up

If you concentrate you can see through the eyes. Doctors have warned you not to do that
Read 11 tweets
Jan 20, 2022
It’s going to be wild when the twist ending of Boba Fett is that he never escaped the Sarlacc Pit and the entire show is the Sarlacc psychically tormenting him with a dream of freedom
“But wait!” you cry. “Boba Fett appeared on The Mandalorian, proving he really escaped!”

Wrong. The Mandalorian is part of the Sarlacc dream too
More bad news. Luke Skywalker also fell in the Sarlacc pit while trying to rescue Han. Jabba never died

The last 2/3rds of Return of the Jedi, all the later movies, just Luke’s dream inside the Sarlacc as he’s slowly digested for one thousand years
Read 7 tweets
Dec 5, 2021
It looks fun being one of those authors with hardcover books sold at airport bookshops. Your name is something like J.L. Marston, your book is titled Collateral Fear, and the cover illustration is a bloody knife with a kiss mark
Just seems nice. You’re at the airport waiting for a flight, grab lunch at Panera, then stop in BookZone to autograph some books on the shelf with a silver sharpie. The cashier asks what you’re doing and you say “I’m J.L. Marston” and they say “Okay”. It’s pleasant
Your life is perfect. You have the ideal level of fame: nobody recognizes you but you have a wikipedia page. Your books have encouraging blurbs on the back like “A high octane tightrope act that’ll leave you guessing until the last page” written by your acquaintance Stephen King
Read 12 tweets

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