#124 The creator of Death Note made this? Blue Dragon spinoff Ral Grad ft YouTuber James Tullos

[00:00:12] Welcome to this episode of Shonen Flop where we talk about manga and Shonen Jump that didn't make it big. I'm David. I'm Jordan. Next week we'll be covering Panademic if you'd like to read along with us. Be sure to join the discussion in our discord and submit your six word summary. Finally to the discord in our episode description and on our website ShonenFlop.com. I like how David called it Pandademic. I don't know how it's actually Pandemic. Pandemic. Pandemic Janet. Pandemic Janet. Let's Scrammik. Okay, but this week we're talking about Ral Grad and we are joined by the wonderful James.

[00:00:42] James, do you mind telling the audience a little bit about yourself? Yeah. Hi, everybody. My name is James Tullos. I am a YouTuber. I mostly talk about books, but I do occasionally delve into anime and manga stuff. So you can follow me on YouTube at my channel. It's just called James Tullos. That's T-U-L-L-O-S. I also have a second channel called The Other James, but that's just kind of where I rant about whatever stupid stuff annoys me. Do you have an upcoming topic up for that one?

[00:01:06] No, not off the top of my head. Like I said, it's just whatever annoys me or whatever I feel like talking about that day. So sometimes it'll be deadly serious, like problems with addiction in my past. And other times it'll just be, hey, this thing annoys me. Let's talk about SpongeBob fan theories. I love it. Oh, God, they suck. Have you heard? Well, have you heard of the fake skin theory? Is that what it is?

[00:01:28] No, the only video I have a SpongeBob fan theory video on is one where I think that Bikini Bottom is under military occupation by Atlantis. There is this massive theory that all of the creatures, I think it's like all the characters have like a fake layer of skin or something. It's fucking weird because there's cartoon violence where it looks like characters get their skin ripped off sometimes. It's like, no, it's just cartoon violence, man.

[00:01:55] Listen, the only good weird theory I have heard lately is the one Jordan told me where Frodo doesn't know Legolas's name in Lord of the Rings. Yeah, that is the only stupid movie theory I actually accept right now. That is my favorite, my favorite theory ever. I mean, that's possible. I did recently watch Return of the King and it got to the ending part where like, you know, Frodo gets taken away from Mount Doom by the eagles and then he wakes up in bed and Gandalf is there.

[00:02:24] And I realized for like, this is the 20th time I've watched that movie over the years. And I realized for the first time that Frodo has no idea that Gandalf is supposed to be alive and he's not at all surprised to see him there. Yeah. Oh my God. We can talk about how Gandalf being alive actually almost lets me being divorced, but I've told that story recently. So I'll leave that to your imagination, James. Oh, okay. Sure. The TLTR is, I said, told my wife, Gandalf the Grey died very carefully and she was not happy about who shows up in the second movie. Oh.

[00:02:54] Anyway, James, I have to say, I really enjoy your world building videos. Is there any ongoing series or TV or book you're reading right now where you've been really impressed by the quality of the world building? Not that I can think of off the top of my head. No, like I've mostly been reading really terrible books lately because that's just what my audience seems to want. So have we. Yeah, exactly. People tune in to hear you complain about bad stuff far more than they tune in to hear you gush about good stuff. That's just how life works. Yeah. Hey, we know that.

[00:03:23] James, I don't know if you've, how much of our podcast you've listened to, but I'd say the majority of this show is not talking about good manga. We, however, did have two good manga in a row. That's true. So we'll find out if this is the third one. It won't be. But we still have to talk about it. So let's get into the manga details. Jordan, take it away. So this is Ral Grad. And of course, by that, I mean Ral Omega Symbol Grad. It is written by Tuneo Takano, who nobody knows. Nobody fucking knows who this dude is.

[00:03:53] Maxi B does have theories, though. Yeah, it's a similar situation to Cyber Blue, where it's just like, who the fuck are these guys? People think it's a pseudonym for Tsugumi Oba, who wrote Death Note. Jordan's like, I'm Ron Burgundy. I'm Light Yagami? And Maxi B says that they would believe it because Oba seems to hate women. He really, really does. Yeah. Excuse me.

[00:04:19] He only put Misa in a fucking straight jacket and then he make her like piss herself or something. I don't know. Jordan, this is not this kind of podcast. Yeah, this is not that. Anyway, it was drawn by, oh boy, David Takeshi Obata. Yep, of pedophile middle school fame. Of pedophile middle school. Wait, I'm sorry. Could you please elaborate on that? Yeah, so there's a series called School Judgment where the most blatantly created by a pedophile

[00:04:48] manga I've ever seen in my entire life because they will not stop sexualizing 12, 13 year olds in that series. And we had a guest on who said, I don't feel comfortable continuing to read that. And it's substantially worse than the child sexualization in this manga, which we already were worried about. Oh, yeah. By the way, if you did want to read it, it's on the Shonen Jump app, the official Shonen Jump app that you can download. Much like pedophile middle school. That's what I'm talking about. Oh, I thought you were talking about. Well, this series is also on the Shonen Jump app.

[00:05:15] Well, this one is at least rated mature and you have to go on the website to read. You can't read it on the app. It's fair. Anyway, notable people Obata was an assistant for is Ryuji Sugihara on Super Patrol and Makoto Niwano on The Momotaro. Notable people they had as assistants was Nobuhiro Watsuki. Speaking of pedophiles. Oh, no, that one hurts, man. That one hurts. Yeah, that one really hurts.

[00:05:43] I really wanted to rerun in Kenshin, but I can't. Yeah, I don't blame you, man. Yusuke Murata of Eyeshield 21 and One Punch Man fame on Hikaru no Go. A Ando of One Piece Party fame on Hikaru no Go. Kentaro Yabuki from Yamato Gensuki. Oh, boy. And To Love Roof fame on Hikaru no Go. A lot of Hikaru no Go guys. And Ryo Ogawa of Ya Boy Kong Ming on Death Note. I've never heard of that series, but I do like the name.

[00:06:12] And also Yoshiyuki Nishi, who made Bokesan. One of the worst things we've ever read on the show. Again, on Hikaru no Go. But, you know, we're talking about Obata, who has also worked on Cyborg Grandpa G. That is episode 89 of our show. Believe it or not, Hikaru no Go, if you haven't fucking picked that up yet. And, you know, the series you probably know him from is Death Note. Also, Bakuman, All You Need Is Kill, and Pedophile High School's School Judgment.

[00:06:41] You know, Platinum End and Showa Shoten. But yeah, anyway, we're not talking about that. We're talking about Raoul Omega Symbol Grad, which ran from December 4th, 2006 to July 9th, 2007. It replaced Akaboshi and Stealth Symphony. Those are both episodes of this show. It's great. The longer we go on, the more failures we have episode number four. Oh, I'm sorry. It replaced series called Overtime by the author of those two series.

[00:07:10] So he's got at least three flops going on. Damn. Triple header. Yeah. The series that replaced this series, though, was Sket Dance. That's how I choose to pronounce that series name. Which I think was that created by the person who made Witch Watch. I don't know. Why don't you keep reading the notes? Yeah. Where Maxi Biaz Rayna, here's your excuse to mention Witch Watch. Well, it says obligatory chance. I'm assuming yes. Yeah. Sket Dance by Kenta Shinohara, the guy who made Witch Watch. 32 volumes.

[00:07:40] This was a big hit. James, have you heard of Witch Watch? I have not, actually. I'll be honest. I haven't been reading a whole lot of manga since I was a teenager, so I have no idea what the kids are into nowadays. Oh, man. The anime is starting soon, so it's really fun. It kind of feels like a 60s sitcom as a manga about fun witch hijinks. Right, Jordan? Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. It's good. Okay.

[00:08:01] And the series started at the same time as this is Contractor M and Y by Akira Akatsuki of Madoka Box and, oh, God, David, Shonen Shoujo. And, actually, Maxi Biaz Neglected, but we have covered another series by them, Jordan. Do you remember? No. Cypher Academy. Oh, my God. Right. They did Cypher Academy. But Contractor M and Y was apparently two volumes in a big flop, so maybe we'll be reading that one day.

[00:08:24] And Juki Ningen Jambore by Hirayuki Takei, oh boy, of Shaman King and Butta Zone fame only went for one volume. That's a big-ass flop. I'm guessing Anna is in that. Probably. Because she's in everything he makes. But we're not talking about any of that shit. We're talking about Rau Grad. And it ran for 29 chapters, four volumes. And let's fucking start talking about this goddamn series. I think we should do that. I think so.

[00:08:51] It's medieval Europe times, and a generic castle is under attack by beasts called Shadows. Oh, no. A big booby lady named Mio, like the water enhancer, convinces the king to release a boy named Rau from his prison, locked since infancy in total darkness. For 15 years, Rau has had only his shadow, a big blue dragon named Grad, as company, along with Mio, who would teach him things by talking to him through the big orb he was trapped in. After being released, Rau immediately attacks the king, who was his bio dad, for holding him captive.

[00:09:20] He then rips open Mio's shirt because he doesn't know what boobs are. Mio's surprisingly cool with it and lets him touch her breasts before telling him that if he defeats the Shadows, then she'll, quote, teach him about women. End quote. That's exactly as it sounds. Rau goes outside and summons Grad, who decimates the horde of Shadows. And then he goes to bed with Mio, and it's kinda weird. Rau is now obsessed with boobs and has built up a harem of naked girls. It turns out that the Shadows originate from a place called Le Noir.

[00:09:48] But an evil big boobie shadow named Opsqueria, aka Lady Birra, let them out and is now trying to rule the world or something. So we gotta stop her. Lady Birra's goal is to kidnap beautiful women and suck the beauty out of them, which Rau does not like. Rau and Mio let out a bunch of other people with Shadows in orb cages, and two of them aren't evil. One of them stays back to guard the castle, and we never see him again. The other is Aya and her chameleon dog, Huru. Aya is a 13-year-old girl, and the manga forgets she exists for chapters at a time.

[00:10:16] Rau and the gang go to another castle under siege because Rau heard the princess there has big boobs. Popcorn Jordan. They save the princess, but she's a jerk, so they recruit her shadow user, Kafka, to travel with them. Oh man, I hope he doesn't undergo some kind of metamorphosis. They then go to a town where women are hypnotized and captured, even though they have a wall to keep Shadows out. Uh-oh. Though it turns out that the wall casts a shadow that Shadows come out of. Double uh-oh.

[00:10:45] The wall is made out of Shadows. Grad uses his Flam Blue laser attack to defeat the Shadows. Yay. They decide to sail to the island where Lady Bira lives, but are interrupted by Sun Tzu, a kid who wants to help them. Apparently a legendary warrior named Gunnet, who has the white tiger's shadow, pass through the town, and decided not to help free the women, which led Sun Tzu's sister to be kidnapped. They say he can't come unless he gets a shadow, so he does.

[00:11:15] And they're off. Some stuff happens on the way, who cares? And then they get to the island. Ral decides to save a total 10 out of 10 smoke show Instagram baddie ninja from a racially designed shadow. But oh no, it turns out she was an evil shadow in disguise. Who would have thought? Thankfully, Ral is saved by Gunnet and his two hot girls before leaving. Ral trains Sun Tzu to defeat Gunnet, and they learn that there's a labor camp with enslaved men,

[00:11:43] and a prison tower with enslaved women. But instead, Ral decides to be a fucking moron and go after Lady Bira right away, only to get caught up in a spider web set by a bad guy. Because he's an idiot. Popcorn David. Gunnet and Ral's friends catch up and save him, and Ral teams up with Sun Tzu to defeat Gunnet in a duel to make him help them free the women. First, they free the men and give them a bunch of shadows, and then they go free the women, but are stopped by Yaya, a young girl with a red phoenix, because we are officially in four mythical beasts of Chinese lore situation,

[00:12:11] except this time, there's five. The other two are the black rhino and the most dangerous beast of all, the fucking clear human. Holy shit. Wow, they really said that. Ral, like all five of the users, instinctively knows that there's a special fusion form he can go into with Grad. So he does that, and they fight so good, the phoenix is like, you know what, guys? I'm gonna head out because he seemed pretty strong, because he's pretty much Mac from It's Always Sunny from Philadelphia, where he's just, I'm playing on both sides, so I always come out on top. Yeah. And I wish Offer was good enough to have really embraced

[00:12:40] how ridiculous that character trait is. Next, they go after Lady Bira, who sicks the black rhino on them, but the black rhino is weak to everything except Grad's blue flame. Oh, thank God. So it's all good. The only one left is Lady Bira, and turns out she's the clear human. Whoa! She has the powers to make shadows dissolve by looking at them, and when she tries to do so to Grad, it doesn't work because Grad and Ral have been fused into some sort of Ralgrad, making Grad a human, even though he's clearly not. But yeah, they kill her and get an orb that, when fused with a female shadow, will bring back the shadows home, Len knew you are.

[00:13:09] The Phoenix comes back after getting it back at SIGS, and decides to just do that, and then all the shadows, including the Ralgrad fusion, are sucked into live there, and that's the end. Fuck. Holy shit. I absolutely had to tear ass on the character section, because so many characters were introduced, that never mattered. Yeah, I get the feeling. This is one of the things that I've read most in my life, that you can just tell the author really didn't care by the end, and they were just throwing in whatever they could. I don't think they're an author character at the start. Yeah, that's probably true.

[00:13:39] And James, do you want to tell us about the main character, Ral? Ral is a shadow dragon twink. In the notes here, you wrote that he, quote, likes fucking, but I'm not sure he actually does. I don't know if he does know what sex is. I don't, yeah, I don't know if he even knows what sex is. Yeah, like. Yeah, he was imprisoned in a little orb for his entire life, until he was 15 years old, and then he comes out, and he's obsessed with boobs. Which, to be fair, I was a 15-year-old boy once, that's not unrealistic. Still, like, how does he know what boobs are?

[00:14:07] Like, I remember in the original Dragon Ball, Goku straight up didn't know what girls were when he first met Bulma. Well, he didn't. He shows, the first thing he does, he shows up, and he's like, what are those things on your chest? And he's like, oh, they're boobs, Ral. And he's like, oh man, can I fondle them? And this older woman is like, yeah, Ral, you can fondle them all you want. Yeah, like, I feel like you could do a very interesting psychological experiment with this kid who was raised in darkness, and never did or said or anything,

[00:14:35] and never interacted with anyone for 15 years. We raised him in darkness as a joke. I'm bleeding, making me the victor. But no, he comes out of the orb, and he's fine. Like, he seems like totally fine. Like, in fact, he seems to be pretty savvy with a lot of things. Like, he seems to understand how people are. And it's like, well, sometimes that's true. And then other times... He just sexually assaults people constantly. He sexually assaults people, and then learns that not all hot women are good people.

[00:15:04] Then sometimes he's a master tactician. He has no character. I like how Brad is technically a character too, but does so little, I just deleted his section. Yeah. I honestly kept forgetting that the shadow inside Ral could sometimes talk and do things. Like, I honestly just forgot about that, because I think the author forgot about it for chapters at a time. And then, George, you want to tell us about, I guess, I want to say the least tokenized female, but it's like, barely? Yeah, this is Mio. I don't even know.

[00:15:34] She's, um, she's a smart girl with big boobs, which is unfortunately very relevant to the series. Look, it's a shonen manga, man. Every girl has big boobs or she's a loli. Those are your only two options. No, no, I think... Well, how old was Phoenix Girl? Because she seemed to have a reasonable boob size, but saying that now, she might have been 15. Oh, I think she was closer to 13. Ah, fuck me. I mean, you know, Chainsaw Man does it all right. But anyway, her entire point of existence

[00:16:03] is having big boobs. You know, it's like, she is also apparently Ral's tutor. So there's a few fetishes wrapped up in there. You know, she got the glasses. She's apparently smart. And her main ability is that when they're fighting shadows, she'll be like, oh, it's weak point. Is this? And then that sometimes kind of matters. And it's just, she's the least dumb person in the group. I feel like the offer for like half a chapter is like, let's have her be introspective about how she can't keep up.

[00:16:33] And then the offer just kind of doesn't have time to explore that in any capacity. Because she's like, I want a shadow. And then I don't think anything came of it. The main thing that she ends up getting upset with is that Ral might not need her anymore. And she's the deepest female character. That's the kind of writing of women that we are talking about in this series. Yeah. And then speaking of women, we have Queen Obsquera. Obsquera? Obsqueria? I don't know. Obsqueria? Queen Mash the keyboard. She's beautiful. She's bad shadow.

[00:17:03] She's the clear human, apparently. The clear human. And she kind of, all of her shadows just kind of want to fuck her. One of them literally just, essentially that's the shadow because they're drinking her bath water. Oh yeah. Yeah. I tried my best to forget about that. Oh. God. They're fucking simps. The idea behind her is that she's constantly changing her appearance based on whatever woman captive she is stealing the beauty from. That's kind of her.

[00:17:33] So she has no like set appearance. Get it? Because she's clear. Yeah. She is level clear. She's a Scientologist. Okay. And then, James, do you want to tell us about Gannett? Yeah. And then the last guy is Gannett. He is just the other guy who's there alongside the main character who also fights. Like that's his thing. He has the white tiger shadow, which again, the shadows, like we just have Chinese mythological creatures out of nowhere. At the beginning,

[00:18:01] it seemed like shadows just infected things and then were powerful. But now apparently there's like legendary types and stuff. And the main thing that everyone is going to remember about Gannett is that he fights with a great sword, kind of like Guts, but he also wears a sombrero and a poncho for some reason. So he just like Guts. Yeah, exactly. He looks like a character from One Piece. It is very strange. Yes. As you were describing it, I, it clicked. Wait, like Mihawk? Like when you describe it like that, it sounds like he doesn't look like Mihawk,

[00:18:29] but that description fits Mihawk too, which is very weird. Yeah. Like, I don't know. I just remember there was a character in One Piece around the time of the Royal Reverie. I think his name was literally King Taco. And he's a guy who looks like a racial caricature of a Mexican person. And that's what Gannett reminds me of. There's also the Mexican bounty hunter in Tressrosa. That too. Yeah. Who stole like weapons and stuff. There's, there's also the tequila Gundam from G Gundam. Let's not get into that. Yeah. Okay. Look,

[00:18:58] let's just not get into G Gundam. Everything about that show is racist. Oh, but we get into G Gundam every episode. God damn it. All right. Let's, as we also do in every episode, we need to critique this series. So let's do it. James is our esteemed guest, but do you like first word on what isn't good about the series, which would probably be the bulk of our conversation. Pretty much everything about this series isn't good. If I'm being honest, like if you could think of an aspect of the series, it's not very good. The main villain is pretty lame. Like what, what is there to say about her?

[00:19:28] She can kill shadows by looking at them. She's see-through personality. Yeah, exactly. You're forgetting the fact that she has a big boobs. Well, so does every other woman character in this. That doesn't distinguish her. She's just the villain. And she just exists. And the setting is kind of confusing. That's an issue I've noticed with a lot of fantasy manga, actually, like Seven Deadly Sins is another good example of this. It's just sort of generic castles and shit. There's nothing else there. Yeah. It's like Guardian of the Witch.

[00:19:57] There was a point in this series where I just gave up trying to follow what the fuck was happening. Oh yeah. That was actually one of my pluses is the chapters go so fast because you don't have to read them. Yeah. You don't, you don't have to follow what the fuck is happening because it's such nonsense. What is going on? I do think though, that's like the sheer level of female sexualization, like just do write porn at this point. Like, yeah, it's just like, it wasn't even, it wasn't even fan service. It was a whole plot of this manga was sexually assaulting women. Yeah. Obata, dude, my guy,

[00:20:27] if you listen to this, you can just write hentai. If that's what you want to do, just go write hentai. It's so egregious that it's almost like, whatever, man, this is clearly just what this series is. I suppose. Like, I don't know. We're already doubting whether or not Raul knows what sex is. Now I'm just wondering if anyone who worked on the manga knows what sex is. Obata does not know what sex is. Okay. Maybe. That makes a bit too much sense to be honest with you. It's also just like the character.

[00:20:57] Why does he keep introducing new characters? Like, what was the point of the little girl? What was the point of Kafka? When you pretty much have Gante, who essentially is filling the same archetype. You mean Gannett? Yeah. Who gives a shit, Jordan? Yeah, I know. I just wanted to make sure I knew who you were talking about. Yeah. Or what about the water kid? Why was he there? What was the point of him either? Well, the problem is it isn't so much that he's just adding characters. It's that he's forgetting about characters. Like, Aya disappears.

[00:21:24] I forgot she was there completely until she just kind of showed up and was like, hi, I'm still here, basically. Like, you will forget characters are there even when they're there. A speedrunner Dragon Ball Z dropping side characters. Yeah, but like, even though side characters matter for a bit, like, these characters matter for like two or three chapters, and then it's not even that. Again, they're there. It feels like every chapter they thought they were going to do. They're going to get canceled.

[00:21:54] So they just needed to throw in more shit. Yeah. Which, you know, I don't disagree with the offer of thinking the series is going to get canceled. Also, I really, really hate Raul. I think Raul is a horribly written character. Raul has Jim Naruto syndrome, where he's like the best, and he's the smartest, and the brightest, except when he's not. And there's really no rhyme or reason for why he's smart or dumb at any point. Like, it also does like this really annoying thing where it's like, Raul, why are you doing that?

[00:22:24] And he's like, well, pride. And, because I know it doesn't make sense that I'm doing this, but I'm doing it anyway. Or, uh, Raul's just doing it because that's the way, that's the way he is. And it's like, well, that sucks. How is Raul the way that he is? Again, he was in an orb. He's been in complete darkness his entire life. How did he become this person? That's the thing. Like, that may as well not have happened at all. That is not how he acts. He should be like, confused and constantly amazed at everything that's happening.

[00:22:54] Like, he should be scared, maybe. He should just be like, really like, affected in some way by this. And he's not. It honestly feels like he doesn't have a backstory. Like, he just popped into existence at the beginning of the manga. It's literally, he was essentially just formed out of sea foam to be the hero. Cause he just has the fucking one of the five strongest shadows. Also, I felt like it was kind of implied at the beginning that like a human shadow fusion is like rare or like, uh, difficult to have.

[00:23:24] And then like, by the end, it's just like, oh, you want a shadow? Here's a shadow. Oh man, yeah, just go get a shadow. It's fine. You're fine. Yeah, it's no big deal. You got a shadow. It's all good. There's no problems here. And it's like, well, then why were we freaked out at the beginning? Like, if you can just get a shadow pal, like if you could just like, it's a Pokemon or something like who the fuck cares? Also, there's this really complicated three shadow system, you know, where I don't understand why they started with that.

[00:23:52] And the level three is so weirdly like vague. Yeah. It's like, what is it? The first one is like just a normal partner shadow. Yeah. Yeah. And then the second one, I don't even remember what the second one is. It's like possesses you. And the third one is just like, dude, I don't know. It can eat things and turn into it. Super hits more of level two. Yeah. But then David, there's a secret fourth shadow and a secret fifth shadow type. And wow, Raoul is both of them. What I love is that it's like,

[00:24:22] I didn't have Mio explain these to me. I just knew them instinctually. Yeah. So, okay. Fuck you. Like, these revelations might have worked okay if they had been built up to, and it took like a hundred chapters before we learned about it. And we had, you know, a chance to be absorbed in the world as we thought it was. But when they come so close to the beginning and with no buildup, they just sort of happen. And we're left going, oh, well, I guess that's a thing. Okay. There's no buildup to anything.

[00:24:51] this author just clearly wrote every chapter in a vacuum. Yeah. It's also speaking of Dragon Ball Z, if you don't have a special shadow, it was really obvious. You wouldn't be able to contribute anything in the fights after a certain point. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the same where it's like, if you're not saying you fucking normal humans, I'm going to fight Frieza. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was kind of annoying too, because they had Raoul be the one with the special shadow and then everybody else had to fight differently. Then that might help the fights feel a little distinct from one another and help the characters feel a little distinct from one another. But as it stands,

[00:25:17] they all just feel like Raoul and then slightly weaker versions of Raoul. Yeah. Again, I just don't understand why the white tiger and Kafka were separate characters. I don't know, man. Kafka was completely pointless, just totally disappeared after they like made it to the island. Like he may as well not have been here. Right? Yeah. And just the people in this series are so fucking stupid, man. They make the dumbest decisions, like especially Raoul and what's his name? Gannett. Like they're on the island and they're just like, yeah,

[00:25:46] we're not going to do the smart thing. We're not going to team up. I'm going to split up. Let's just do that. It's like for no reason. I'm actually going to just leave you guys all here and just kind of go off on my own. Oh no. I immediately get caught in a spider. So stupid. I was just like, so angry when that happened. I was like, you fucking idiot. What are you doing? I, I, I, I, it's also the series never stops fucking talking. We talk about faster chapters go because you have to ignore so much text. Yeah. If you actually try and follow what's happening,

[00:26:16] this series can take so long, but you just have no reason to. Yeah. This is like one of those series where they say, oh, just turn your brain off and it's enjoyable, but it's not enjoyable. You just have to turn your brain off because nothing in here actually makes sense or connects to anything else. It's just annoying. Yeah. Is my issue with this series. It's annoying to read. One last thing before I think we go into the positives, just because I have some issues is do you guys like the art? I thought it was pretty good. I think it looks like a mashup of Death Note,

[00:26:44] a generic JRPG and Berserk. I just felt like the art style just didn't work for me with the series. I think it was drawn very well, but what he was drawing is kind of boring. The issue is it's so hard to maintain this art style. You can't put any pizzazz in it, right? It's just kind of bland handling and stuff. And then I don't know. And I don't like the character redesign. It did at the end either. It was very weird. Look, the man can draw. Oh yeah, for sure. Oh, but the man can fucking draw. All right. The man can draw boobs. All right.

[00:27:13] And the man likes drawing boobs. I think that's fine. There's nothing wrong with enjoying drawing boobs. That's true. You know, there's a time and place for everything. There is. And yeah, I just feel like this series, the art style feels very generic. There's nothing interesting here. Like I don't find the designs novel at all. They're just kind of there. So it's just like, yeah, you drew it. Well, I just don't care about what you drew basically is my response to this series.

[00:27:42] Anybody else have anything? No, no, sorry. No. No. All right. So let's get into what it did. yeah. So Jordan, uh, tell us what you like about the series, but guy, well done art. I mean, you know, as I just said, like, uh, the designs are lame, but like they're drawn very well. Again, Obata, he can fucking draw. And there were like one or two designs I liked. I thought the black rhino had a cool design where he was like this big caterpillar rhino thing. Would have been cooler if he had something resembling a personality,

[00:28:12] but yeah. Yeah. They don't do that here. No. Yeah. I don't know. It goes fast. It's not, it's not a slog to get through as long as you don't try and pay attention, which this series basically begs you not to pay attention to it. Yeah. Just look at the boobies. Yeah. Boobies. Yeah. It's fucking whatever. The series is bad. It does have mega manning, which we don't see very often, which is cool, even though they don't do anything interesting with that. You mean where like, um,

[00:28:41] if you defeat a shadow and ED, you get its powers. Okay. Yeah. I'm looking for scratch, man. Remember, remember how they're like, oh man, we're being attacked by shadows. We built a big wall to keep the shadows out. Oh no. The wall cast shadows. Why didn't we think of that? Why did we think of that? Shadows are a new technology. Okay. I know it's supposed to be positives, but I got nothing positive else to say. I just want to talk. Uh, James, do you have any positives? Yeah, no, I don't. There's nothing here, man.

[00:29:10] This is a very bad series. I do feel like Elias Gannett does feel like a guy who's been doing this for a long time. You know, where he doesn't fuck around. He knows how to kill the shadows and he does so. So at least it felt like he actually was a kind of lived in. And I like that whole white tiger is kind of like the rule too with the SIF where if the white tiger sees someone stronger than the host, it will kill the host and shift hosts. And again, it actually felt like someone who lives that life. Yeah. There were occasional interesting ideas. I can't think of any more of them because.

[00:29:40] I can't think of any examples, but I'm sure it had some good ideas. There's so many. We can't think of an example. Yeah, that's what it is. Oh, I thought that I as chameleon dog was cute. I thought that weird thing kind of looked like Jake from adventure time a little bit. I was cute. Yeah. We're really grasping at straws here, man. There's just not a lot. There's not much here. I have one last pause. All right. I think some of the fights, at least the author tried to put a little effort in. So for instance,

[00:30:08] Kafka has actually shown utilizing and practicing a move he uses in a later fight, which at least shows the offer put a little bit of thought. And then you had that like that dragon bluff thing where it's like, ah, this is my last dragon breath. But guess what? I can also use dragon breath, which is really stupid. But at least the offer, the offer wasn't just trying to say my dick is bigger. I win for every fight. That really was annoying though, where he was like, oh man, this is my last one. Ha ha. And they're like, oh, he said it's his last one. And it's like, that was such a stupid moment where he's like, ah,

[00:30:38] I would never tell a lie. But, and it's like, well, you could have also told a lie. Like, this is, oh God, I'm just, I have nothing else to say. It's just dumb. It's just dumb. Yeah. There's, there's been better instances of that. Like Centuria did that trope really well recently. See, this is the thing. You know, you can talk about Cyber Blue and you can talk about, oh, that series is stupid, you know? But you know what? Being entertaining and stupid is still an accomplishment. Okay.

[00:31:06] This series is just as stupid and not entertaining. So, yeah. Fair enough. Let's get into where it could have gone then. Yeah. So I have the ideas. I wonder if it would have been cool if it was from Mio's perspective. And it really was like, hey, the main character is a fish out of water. He needs me to be like his social consultant. But then over time she realizes, it's like, what's really my purpose. And I think that could have been fun where it's really like an introspective series where all like the plot, lack of existence, you could cut like the sexism out. And it's really just focusing on her. I've actually taught, discussed with Jordan.

[00:31:35] I think this idea before where like a plot about a character who is kind of like the bad-ass normal, but ultimately he gets scaled out of being a part of the party. Yeah. You know, where it's like, there's a point where Batman can't help Superman anymore. And I think that's, would have been a really cool perspective that the offer talks about for like two minutes and then realizes he has a good idea and doesn't do it. It's TN. Yeah. It's like TN. Yeah. Yeah. Like Dragon Ball Z from TN's perspective. Yeah. Like I've always kind of wanted to see what, uh, what's up with TN because he's clearly doing shit, you know, but honestly with Raoul Grad,

[00:32:02] the most obvious thing is I want Raoul to be more affected by the fact that he was in a dark box for all of his life. I think the problem with the, this way of looking at it is that in order to make Raoul Grad a decent, or sorry, Raoul Omega Symbol Grad into a decent manga, you would basically have to rewrite everything about it and make it something completely different than what it is. Sure. But I mean, like part of that is like, if you have to have this thing where Raoul is locked away for 15 years,

[00:32:32] you should write a character that feels like they were locked away for 15 years instead of just this horny kid, you know, again, he should be afraid of things or at least be like confused by more things. Like that happens a little bit in chapter one and never again. It's just like, it's such an obvious setup for like a flawed character learning about the world. And it just doesn't feel like the series does anything with it. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[00:32:58] Did you just say flawed character when referring to the protagonist of a shounen manga? Because that's not allowed, sir. That's true. Especially not in this series. We're not talking about Kuguribachi. Ha. We're talking about a series that isn't the greatest manga ever written. The manga of all time. The manga of all time. Yeah. Why didn't they make the dragons have personalities? Like it's kind of like their partners. This is like, this shows the other side of the characters, like attributes. Like what if it was like your dragon was kind of like your it. It really was saying what you were thinking and how it really represented

[00:33:28] like your unsuppressed persona. You know what? If this series was more like persona, I think that would be cool. Like they already have the idea of defeating shadows and then taking on their powers. We could do something with that, like combine it with their own shadows and become stronger over time. Yeah. It could have been like a Jungian sense of a shadow, you know? Yeah. Like the persona content where it's the shadow, the other side of the soul or whatever the fuck they say in persona all the time. Yeah. And then James, is there anything that you would have changed about the series we haven't discussed yet? I would have made it good.

[00:33:58] But if you want more specific, wow. Where could this series have gone? It could have been good. I would have had Raoul wear clothes more often because he is naked the vast majority of the time. And I just kept thinking, wow, this guy's 15. I'm a little uncomfortable. Uh, yeah. Well, I mean, Hey, there's a lot in this series to be uncomfortable with. And I mean, other than that, it's just stuff we've already talked about, you know, have Raoul be affected by the fact that he was imprisoned his entire life and

[00:34:27] missed a lot of developmental milestones that other kids would have had. Have him be kind of curious and possibly scared of the world around him. Have him not instantly know how to do everything. Have him have to train and practice with his powers a little bit. Like hell, I'm surprised this guy knows how to walk. Yeah. He should have trouble walking. He should. Cause he's never done it before. He's never walked before in his life. He's never used his eyes in his life. This should be like the scene in the matrix where Neo is like, why do my eyes hurt? Because you've never used them before.

[00:34:56] Like exactly. That kind of thing, you know, like it just completely ignores the premise that it sets up. Also, another thing it could have done is like develop a character. Just, just one, just the one. Just develop a character, you know, how about you do that? Just as a start. Yeah. Oh God. How about a character arc? Jesus Christ. They could have also given Kafka the Phoenix. Uh, you know, that would probably have been better, but I feel like they would just forget the Phoenix existed if they did that.

[00:35:26] The Phoenix does have probably the best character in this series because of how little the shit he gives about this plot. I really thought they were going to give the shadow to Neo. It just seemed so like such an obvious thing to do. But Jordan, you have to remember she's female, so they don't do that. I mean, it already has a female host, but I guess the author just forgot about that. Yeah. Ugh. Uh, it also could have been like kind of like Final Fantasy 16, where it's like Game of Thrones and the shadow users are kind of considered like weapons and not really people,

[00:35:56] which is kind of used at the start. And then they forget about that plot, you know, where it's just like, it's kind of like actually the bugle call kind of has that. So maybe it's just, just go read the bugle call actually, even though it's got a kind of a weird arc right now, which actually is not my recommendation. Oh, right. This series is based on Blue Dragon, isn't it? Speaking of Square Enix games. Yeah. Oh, that's true. Oh, and speaking of Dragon Ball Steve. Yeah. Here, Toriyama. Rest in peace. All right. All right. We're getting off topic. Let's get into some new spots, right? James,

[00:36:26] is there anything you haven't had a chance to say on the show or like an observation you fought didn't fit in their sections? Yeah. During the second to last big battle where they're fighting the Phoenix, everything just kind of turns into a tornado for a while. Like that's just what it is. The Phoenix is just a big tornado and they're just punching it. I can't think of another way to explain that entire fight. I think that's as accurate of a description as I, as anybody could give. I also love where it's like, I may not look like a human, but I'm a human. And it's like, he's clearly not a human.

[00:36:54] He's clearly some kind of dragon monster. And it's like, no, I'm the human. So her shadow destroying attack doesn't work on me. Ha ha. It's just, all right. It just pulls so much shit out of its ass. Yeah. I gotta admit, I feel this is a pretty good translation where, uh, I think they're talking about like the boob touching deal and he says it's not tit for tat. Yeah. They say tit for tat a bunch of times. I just feel like I got to at least give the offer the first time. That's not a bad translation. Yeah, sure.

[00:37:24] That's, that's not bad. What does tit mean in that expression? What is a tat? I look, I, I think they're referring to a tit as in a bird and then a tat. I don't know what it is, but I think they're just, they're trading the bird for something else. I think that's what that means. You're trading the bird for a tattoo. I don't know. You gotta look it up. I guess. I'm, I don't know. I don't know. Do we want to stop and look it up real quick? So it's actually, there's a concept called fossil words where words only exist in these kind of weird expressions, but no one uses the words anymore, which is really interesting. Oh, okay.

[00:37:54] So much without further ado is an example, because no one uses the word ado or run them up. Okay. Hold on. So according to Wikipedia, tit for tat is an English saying meaning equivalent retaliation. It is an alteration of tip for tap, meaning blow for blow first recorded in 1558. Okay. So it's just a mispronunciation. Okay. Well, yeah, I guess so. Yeah. All right. Also in Smith's, did you know the word yo was created by Italian Americans? I believe that makes sense. Yeah.

[00:38:23] Considering like how much it's used in Philly. Yes. I believe that. My guy. 100%. Also, why is it that he was like, Hey, there's 200 guys here. That's not enough, but he only had 89 shadows to equip them. I don't know. Math is hard, bro. Okay. Cause he actively is like, Oh, that's not going to be enough for us. And then I'm like, you don't have enough shadows for this many. This is a fantasy world. They don't have calculators everywhere. Be more culturally sensitive. Yeah. Um, they also reckon the fuck out of Sun Tzu dying. Cause he very clearly at least has his arm cut off.

[00:38:53] It's a manga getting your arm cut off. It's not a big deal. His arm is even cut off when they show it. I forget about it. They just reattach his arm in the next scene. Don't worry. Don't, don't worry about shadow. Did it. Don't worry about it. Okay. Okay. Uh, but I do want to worry about Max B's thoughts. Uh, that's not a mean, you know what I mean? I love you. Rao grad is a tie-in, as Jordan said, RPG franchise, blue dragon, which people in the West mostly know for its Xbox 360 game. It also has an anime that was 102 episodes, two DS games, a V jump manga,

[00:39:23] a monthly Shonen jump manga, this series in a role-playing game. Oh, by the way, the Omega between Rao and grad is a supposedly supposed to be a different character. Apparently the ascending node in astrology, it's often referred to as the dragon's head. So there you go. And I believe the offer, I didn't really know what the symbol meant in their offer notes. And also I don't think knew how to pronounce the symbol. So it's silent. Blue dragon is also notable for the song eternity, which everybody should check out. The best part of that game. Featuring, of course, the singer from deep purple.

[00:39:53] Yes. Song kicks ass. It is pretty good. I wish we had the rights to play it. It's awesome. Yeah. And then Jordan, do you want to read Tucker's notes on how bad the French in this series is? Yeah. So here are some of the translations. Delire Monstre means monster of delirium. Flamme bleu, however you pronounce that is flame blue or blue flame. Obviously, le noir means the blackness.

[00:40:18] Shine Lord is the French word from which the English word chain comes from. So I guess it means chain Lord. I don't know something like that. We're translating across three languages. None of this is going to make sense. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Obscuria, of course, means obscure. So great. Oh, so the queen of the shadows is just literally called queen obscure. Yeah. Queen of the dark. Roy serpent means snake king.

[00:40:46] Her like squad is called the sink. Chevaliers, which just means five nights. Yeah. There's a gratuitous French in this series. Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys have anything else? Or should we get a little final? I got nothing. Yeah, I got nothing else. All right, let's do it, man. Man, what a great series to read while I was sick with the flu. All right, let's, let's get started with six words. I'm always struggling. And he's starting with Tucker worst main protagonist since build king and sexual harassment is not a personality. Max B said more like shit for tat, right?

[00:41:16] Armored queen says pre isekai era fantasy. Slop anyone. Diego ramping basement creature verse the sims. Dude rock said basement dweller fights. Army of sims. Everyone's favorite uber talente. Dragon D is nuts to the axemen. Hey, got him. Hey, God damn it. I should have said blue dragon. He's not. That's really good. Funky green. Even sigmoid. Freud would be embarrassed. Dragon D is blue balls. Lord Anuma said, ax the dragon. Well, grad L. I'm sure Jordan, you probably do the better than me. Dragon, dragon, ax the dragon.

[00:41:47] Well, grad L. That's why I keep Jordan around. Mara said, that's not how you say good day. Monster Hunter Ichi, wild interpretation of the source of child. I don't know how the fuck this series came about. Portal man, space dandy, eat your heart out or in shadow realm, boobs grab you. Red blade said, unique fantasy contaminated with excessive fetishes. real basement child discovers what boobs are. Spell be blue dragon, better cheer him up. And unlinking ducks said, what the hell is a flend? Oh man, but James, you are definitely my friend.

[00:42:15] So can you give us your six for summary, please? I have two. The first one is naked teenager uses dragon to fight. And the second one is naked teenager has blue dragon balls. Nice. Nice. I also noticed he was, he goes from naked to clothed several times without explanation. Jordan, what was your six for summary? I have two as well. Never should have left the shadows and got to save the big booby ladies. God, those are pretty good. And mine was character should have read sex at 120%,

[00:42:45] which was sex education. We had just covered before this and the Omega in the title stands for consent. Well, David, do you, you essentially read what you wrote, but you read it in a way that there are more than six words. So you want to try that one more time? The titles Omega stands for consent. Thank you. Okay. There you go. All right. So I think we can all say this is a certified flop given how much we struggle. This sucks. Yeah. This is bad. It's a certified flop, man. This is real, real bad. So James,

[00:43:15] what would you say someone should check out instead? And it doesn't have to be a manga. Well, the suggestion I came up with was a manga. It's called Rave Master. It's a classic. A lot of people know about it for, cause you know, it's a good classic. We covered a series by him. He did Monster Hunter Araj. Yeah. I've heard of that one. I've never read it, but you know what? Not great. Rave Master. It is a lot better. Okay. It's a basic shonen story. It doesn't do anything like really crazy or different, but it's fun. You know, it's also known as Groove Adventure Rave, right?

[00:43:44] I think so. I have to say, I insanely respect him. Cause he may be one of the only mangaka who literally has turned making manga into a 40 hour a week job. That's impressive. Yeah. He like genuinely works a nine to five. And then he's like, yeah, I just kind of do whatever I want after those hours. Damn. I'm going to live to be like a hundred. Cause he has figured out how to make a manga chapter in 40 hours a week, which is insane. Yeah. Right on. But yeah. And then Jordan, how about you? What's your recommendation? Well, you like dragons. You like JRPGs.

[00:44:11] How about a classic PS1 JRPG called Legend of Dragoon? Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. Fuck yeah. I've heard great things. That's like the game I most heard people talk about that I don't actually know anything about. If you want a classic JRPG and you're sick of Final Fantasy VII, Legend of Dragoon kicks ass. Yeah. I love it. And then mine is, I've been going through Undead Unlocked. I also want to give a game recommendation, which actually has nothing to do. Well, I guess if you like a tactical game,

[00:44:40] have you guys heard of tactical breach wizards? No, no, it's not really like XCOM, but it kind of feels like it is where it's like a strategy game where you're playing a special off soldiers, except the special off soldiers are all wizards. Oh, okay. Sure. And it's kind of like into the breach where each level is like an individual puzzle you're solving, but you're literally like playing as a wizard who is throwing a fireball and then shooting someone with a machine gun. Cause you're both a wizard and a SWAT team member. God. Well, that sounds like fun to me. It knows exactly how silly it is. One of my favorites is a neck.

[00:45:10] They're healers and necromancers. So they can only break people back to life. They can't heal anyone. So they have to kill the people they're healing to fully revive them. Hey, you know what? As long as I'm getting revived, I suppose it's fine. I mean, it makes sense. Like an necromancer won't know how to heal in a live person. Yeah. Anyway, Jordan, this is, this is really bad. Is this the worst thing we've read? No, we've, we've, we've still read worse. We have. Yeah. This is not even close to the worst thing you can find out there. It's just really stupid. And as you were saying earlier, it's just annoying. Yeah.

[00:45:40] I can agree with that. All right. Let's get into wrap up support the show and get the best prices of manga at mangamart.com slash shown and flop. Mangamart's a family owned store offering 20% off manga free shipping over a hundred dollars. And I want to say, James, thank you so much for being on the show. This was a total blast. I also appreciate you being active in the community. Where can people get more of you in their lives? Yeah. You can always find me on my two YouTube channels at James Tullis. That's T U L L O S or my second channel, the other James. You can also find me on Twitter and blue sky at for Tullis. If you're already on Twitter,

[00:46:10] follow me. If you're not already on Twitter, don't go there. That place is terrible. I can respect that. And props to Jordan for making the opening ending theme, being a great cohost and helping with editing. Thank you, David, for all the work that you do on the show. Oh, no problem. Props to Mur Lyle for the last one cover. Find her online at my at Lyle Mur and Nigel for being our generous ARP and a factor. Thank you, Dylan, for assistance with editing. You can find his podcast, Amy, out of context at Amy, out of context.com. Thanks to Tucker, Max, CB for assistance with pronunciation, translation, and other miscellaneous research. Find us on blue sky or X at shown and flop. Tumblr shown and dash flop.

[00:46:38] And our website shown on flop.com or on Spotify, Apple music, YouTube, wherever else you get your podcast and come join the shown flop discords. We talked about James is active. I love it. So, but everyone, you don't even have to be a patron, hang out for us to talk about any games, whatever else is on your mind. We even have a manga book club in movie nights. The book club is starting a brand new series, which I thought I had written down and I forgot to. So I am just filibustering. I can find my note where they said it. The book club is going to be starting the first two volumes of Dora Hedoro, April 9th. So join in. It's been a lot of fun. You can find a link to it in our show notes or on our site shown and flop.com. And if you've been joining the podcast,

[00:47:08] someone help us keep going. Subscribe to our patron at patron.com slash shown and flop. Along with that warm and fuzzy feeling of helping us out. You also get access to monthly bonus episodes, including the shown and drop. We're joining. Look back the previous month's episode and open the mystery box. Jordan, what was our bonus episode this month? And what did we talk about in the mystery box? Well, David, we checked out a manga called gun dragon. Sigma with a little guy, Casey green, the legend. That's right. The, this is fine dog, Dick, but guy himself, Dick, buttington, Dick,

[00:47:37] buttington as he is known. And in the mystery box, we did the 10 shown in flop commandments. I love it. And if that's not enough, other person include picking a manga for us to cover in a main episode, episodes up to a week in advance of behind the scenes, content, like warmup body or recording notes. I would read off some of our wonderful patrons starting with the dolphin dad tier. We have my wonderful wife, Rachel. She took great care of me. Why I was having my sick baby day. It's, you know, happens once a year and I love it. Moving on down to the ravioli tier. What is something silly ravioli did?

[00:48:04] Let me look at my notes where I write down what silly thing ravioli did today. Let's see. So while I do yoga, ravioli has something called the goblin stretch where she has realized that in certain positions, my hand is perfectly at the height to pet her while I'm doing yoga. So she crawls over to me and I pet her while I'm doing a standing stretch. We have Chris, Eva, Jenna Davis, Justin, Matt, Scarlett, T, Tiffany, and Trevor. Moving on down to the king of the forest. We have zero nine zero Z, Bambit, Stu, my girlfriend, Brad, follow AOC on blue sky, Ivan, Karima, Marty, Riley, and Sarah.

[00:48:33] And a big thank you to your galactic ball federation officers and our beast children. Yes. I love you all. You're all my children. Well, Jordan, anything you want to toss in? Check out my podcast, mission ignition. I love it. All right, let's get the sign up. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. Tune in next Monday as we give our first thoughts on pandemic. This has been David. This has been Jordan. This has been James. And you've been listening to show the flop. Keep on flopping. Floppers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.