🌙| ᴛʜᴇ ᴜɴꜰᴏʀɢɪᴠɪɴɢ ᴍᴀɴ.

Why the WATGBS manga was disappointing

(im gonna use capitalization and punctuation, not like my usual typing style, bc i think it looks better)

Did you know there was a WATGBS manga? I’m sure many have known, but for the ones who haven't’, it’s true! And damn, did it hype the shit out of everyone. On August 13th 2015, Funamusea / DSP officially started work on the Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea manga. It had promise! Funamusea was already a pretty well loved creator. Well, at least their work was well loved. We can point out that other stuff later, though. Their games got popular and a good following, spawning a big fandom with art, fanfics, and even blogs dedicated to them! Wink wink.

Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea was one of those games, coming out December 12th 2013. So we do have a good couple years of hype already built for this beloved game. With the fandom growing and fans wanting more and more content...the next step was pretty obvious. This couple come with better art, and hell, maybe some fresh story telling! Answers to things we want! Characters seen more and more! Funamusea is no stranger to mangas. They have another one, Obsolete Dream, which has a good following as well! Same with small comics on the side for their other works. So, this was promising. Everyone was so excited!

Now...excuse my language, but...

WHAT THE FUCK WENT WRONG.

Before I delve into this shitshow, first I want to get some stuff outta the way:

I am no way a professional reviewer or whatever. I’m simply a fan who has been interested in WATGBS since 2014, around when it was translated into English. WATGBS was my very first game into the fandom, and has a lot of importance to me. I’m just sharing my opinion on this matter.

Spoilers are ahead for the game and manga. So, be careful!

Again, please keep in mind that I’m not saying I’m absolutely right about my analysis here. Did I say something wrong? You can correct me. Did I leave something out? You can correct me! I want to hear your opinions as well!

With this said, lets start with at least an overview of the games plot, shall we?

Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea has a simple plot that isn’t too hard to follow. To be honestly I actually started on a very, very long winded and detailed overview...then I started resorting to going onto a walkthrough.

Here’s the video if you want to watch. It’s...6 hours long, but you can easily just jump around.

TL;DR? I’ll try to make a small version for you

Wadanohara is a sea witch who lives in the Sea Kingdom with her familiars; Fukami, Memoca, and Dolphi. Samekichi was a familiar of hers who apparently became a traitor and now tells her to leave the sea for some unknown reason.

She goes to Princess Uomi who wants her to restore the moonstones, which keep a barrier around the Sea Kingdom to protect it after there was a war with the Sea of Death. The Sea of Death war was between Uomi and her sister, Mikotsu, who was angry that she wasn’t chosen to be princess. Meikai, Wadanohara’s father, was the Great Sorcerer who sacrificed himself to seal the Sea of Death away, becoming the Cast Pearl. The moonstones need restored because the other kingdom, the Tosatsu Kingdom, is apparently mad at them for some unknown reason and keep sending in troops to hurt and/or kill. And, the moonstones where broken for an unknown reason.

After restoring the moonstones (with a ring Sal gave you, this will be important later) Wadanohara comes back and has a party thrown for her. Everything seems fine, then Wadanohara runs into Laurentia, a demon who was hired by the Tosatsu Kingdom. They break the barrier and shit goes down.

Princess Tosatsu has her army completely take over the place and starts a war. Wadanohara rushes to the castle to protect Uomi, while also running into the Merc Trio (Laurentia, Ver Million, and Vendetto) along the way, and when she get’s there it’s too late. Tosatsu is already there and ready to kill Uomi. But then, Uomi somehow calms her down and they hug it out. It’s super cute? It’s adorable.

Then we know why Princess Tosatsu was so angry. Apparently, the kingdom was killing her subjects and left a note to antagonize Tosatsu. But, no one ever knew of this. Wadanohara suddenly starts seeing red and runs outside to Tatsumiya.

Then, the cast pearl shatters.

Hey surprise surprise, Sal is the traitor all along!! And Samekichi was trying to protect you in the most emo way he can. After all that, the Sea of Death comes and...

You know.

This doesn’t even matter when it comes to the manga. You know why?

It was canceled before we even get past the part where Princess Tosatsu and Princess Uomi make up.

Yup.

The manga was officially canceled by 12 chapters. But here’s the kicker. How do you fit all of THAT up there into just 12 chapters? Simple! You dumb everything down. You take out the padding needed for the game, so the manga isn’t so long drawn out and gets to the good stuff.

Which, that’s not a problem. Writing down a story and playing a game is different. In a game, so much padding out and being somewhat slow for gameplay is going to happen. It’s not a game without gameplay. Even if the gameplay is going isle to isle to fix every moonstone on there.  In a manga, you can’t exactly convey the same feeling as a game feeling. You are going to have to rewrite! But, Funamusea made some mistakes here and there.

They’ve taken out characters. Miyura, Seguro, Minero, Creamil, Rimorimo, Tomoshibi, Laurentia, Ver Million, Vendetto, not even Cherryblod or Doloz show up in the manga at all! This has some ups and downs to it.

Ups: Minero and her crew are honestly not really involved in the story. Same with Miyura and Seguro. Cherryblod and Doloz did have some involvement in the game, but it was very small and not needed in a written story.

Downs: The Merc Trio WAS important! They where actually VERY fucking important! And even though the others aren’t important to the plot, they’re already characters in the lore! They should have at least been shown to exist in the manga. Irena and Aom where shown...but, they’re background characters too! Aom only spoke a small handful of times! Why do they get special treatment?

Back to the answer to my question though...dumbing everything down. Funamusea fucked this up. VERY badly. 

Princess Tosatsu was the most useless villain in the manga.

She was! And here’s how.

By chapter 5, this is when you first hear about the Tosatsu Kingdom threat. They’re attacking the kingdom for unknown reasons, and even fight Wadanohara and her gang! You finally get to see this in action by chapter 6. You see a huge crown of Tosatsu Soldiers attacking and being wiped away by...Samekichi. Not Wadanohara.

Some rewrites are fine here and there, and this is an okay rewrite. Right when Wadanohara leaves the castle in the end of chapter 5, chapter 6 instantly starts with them attacking. Samekichi appears and helps them by protecting Wadanohara from a hoard of buns. We get to see how Samekichi seems to resent Wadanoahara...but his true feelings are masked away. It’s a good rewrite that I personally see no issues with.

BUT! Back to Princess Tosatsu being a terrible villain in the manga.

So a couple chapters pass. Wadanohara goes out to restore the moonstones and that’s pretty much all that goes on. I mean...in one of the chapters Fukami beats the shit out of Samekichi. It does show that Fukami cares a LOT of Wadanohara though..so it at least has a reason to be there. By chapter 9, we’re already at the part where they celebrate the moonstones being fixed. I didn’t exactly skip much...

And, by the end of chapter 9, Wadanoahra leaves the party to see Samekichi. The cast pearl shines brightly suddenly and Samekichi runs up to the surface. Wadanohara follows and is impaled by a Tosatsu soldier spear... Where originally Laurentia was supposed to appear.

Now things get not only weird with the rewriting, but it’s EXTREMELY RUSHED.

Chapter 10 has Wadanoahara waking up, going to where Fukami and Dolphi are fighting soldiers, and Princess Tosatsu shows up. There’s only a small build up for her appearance, for being hinted of in chapter 5 and 7, but it’s a pretty interesting reveal. Suddenly, a new and menacing character just appears before Wadanohara. Having someone else unkown with her (Being Hofuru), they suddenly just disappear as more soldiers surround the gang, ending the chapter...

It’s honestly super cool! You don’t know much other than this girl is out for blood. It’s tense!

But...alas...chapter 11 comes. Keep in mind this is not ONLY the second to last chapter, but the last one isn’t even about the main story! It’s backstory!

Remember how in the game there was the Merc Trio? They not only caused havoc to stall Wadanohara and her gang, but Ver Million is a friend of Wadanohara’s! There was some interesting character building...how does Wadanohara know a demon of all characters? It gets people thinking! They’re not in the manga. At all. Oh! How about how you had to rush to the castle with time on your heels, the suspense of making it riding the story and keeping you invested? Wadanohara is literally shot right into the castle room by Chlomaki after 3 pages into the 14 paged chapter. There’s no rush. No suspense. Wadanohara is instantly there.

But, maybe Wadanohara got there just in time! And she did! She is ready to fight for her princess a-

..Oh.

She’s instantly smacked aside.

O..kay, I guess. This can be suspenseful, right? Maybe if she put up more of a fight.

Then Princess Uomi shows up. Talks to Princess Tosatsu. And instantly hugs her. Tosatsu cries and makes up. 

Chapter 11 ends. And so does the manga.

This...is disappointment. Chapter 12 isn’t even important to this, so I won’t even talk about it.

Keep in mind that these chapters are 15 pages MAX. That’s nothing for mangas! You blow through these updates, that at the time, came at sudden random weeks at a time! The wait isn’t even worth it. There’s nothing to hold this story. Absolute NOTHING. Suspense of Princess Tosatsu? Nonexistent till the end of chapter 10, which is then instantly wrapped up in the next chapter. Anything else? You get nothing. The manga is canceled.

This is not how you do a manga adaptation. All you can say about this manga is that it answers meaningless and small questions, and it has pretty art.

Wadanohara is a weak little cute girl. One who was even appreciated by Idate for her strength is just a cute face for Samekichi to protect.  Fukami, Memoca, and Dolphi feel more like side characters. Fukami has more character, but Dolphi is literally unimportant to the story. She barely even talks. Samekichi gets only slight character development, but the most out of everyone. He’s seen smiling, emoting, and caring for Wadanohara when he’s trying to chase her away. 

That’s it.

In the prologue, you actually get to know why she went to Witch World. To restore her memories. It does leave a question, for those who haven’t played the game, of what is she trying to restore? And it answers the question of why she was gone in the first place, for those who have played the game. It’s a good bit of info that does foreshadow.

But you’re not gonna get that shit now!

After a very short chapter with promises of learning more about Wadanohara and Samekichi’s relationship, Funamusea officially stated they’re not going to continue the manga due to it being “too stressful”. Which is a valid, yet heartbreaking, reason. But...is it the real reason? Some people doubt it.

This is the era I called the Satanivlis era. Well...it’s not exactly an era? But, it’s something I will bring up.

There’s been some speculation on why Funamusea really did cancel the manga. This suspicious thinking came from when Funamusea announced The Gray Garden to have a remake, seem to have gone pretty well into development, then suddenly cancel it.

Around the same time, Funamusea suddenly started to work on a comic about Satanick, Ivlis, Kcalb, Etihw, and Siralos. It seemed like just a tiny preoccupation for Funamusea. This is fine and dandy! They can do whatever they please. But, then this is when they started drawing heavy amounts of Satanivlis (Satanick x Ivlis) after making a lovechild for them, Licorice.

The problem with this is how MUCH we are seeing this. And it’s not just shipping art. No, it’s r*pe fetish art. Many, MANY amounts of r*pe fetish art suddenly pours into their website. This continues for quite some time.

Till very recently (as of making this its March 26th, 2017), they start showing previews of what looks like to be a manga... Funamusea makes a yaoi r*pe fetish manga that’s for SALE suddenly, out of the blue. And this is why everyone is suspicious.

Funamusea makes the WATGBS manga for fans. The updates are slow, the chapters are rushed, and then it’s suddenly canceled for being “too stressful”. We get no more info on it. Unknown if they will continue or not. No real communication or hope for the manga to ever be good.

Then after months of updates involving Ivlis being r*ped as a joke or to look sexual, and even being r*ped by his own child, we get a manga. Out of no where. Just for the fun of it.

Funamusea is the problem with this whole situation. Why the manga was shit, and why we got nothing but the same shit over and over again. Funamusea doesn’t communicate. Funamusea doesn’t realize they have a fanbase that sticks around to see more of content they love, or new content to love. 

I’m making chrome crash with how long this is. So I’m going to stop.

TL;DR: Funamusea sucks at writing and cares more about their yaoi ships than their fans.

thank ya for readin my dumb opinion. you dont have to agree but ay it was fun to salt. heres to hoping funamsuea will draw ur fave character again

-mod kichi

My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade

Let me preface this My Chemical Romance retrospective by stating that they are my favorite band, and I still hold The Black Parade as one of my top-5 favorite albums ever recorded. Throughout My Chemical Romance’s career, I was astounded by their rise to fame, and having seen them go as the first opening band on tour with The Used, to headlining stadiums by the time The Black Parade reached its heights, and I have marveled at the lore and theatrics surrounding my favorite artist. The Black Parade was always an album that I kept coming back to when it first came out on October 24, 2006, and it still hits me hard every time I revisit this modern classic. Boiling down to the story of a cancer patient to the closing lyrics of “I am not afraid to keep on living,” I am bold enough to say that I found this album to be perfect from first listen, to now today as I re-listen to it again. In a lot of ways, My Chemical Romance were on a collision course for making this classic album as front-man Gerard Way mentioned in several interviews that he was always planning on make this LP from the start of the incarnation of the band. In some ways, this album killed My Chemical Romance as they put every drop of blood and sweat into creating this record, and even the group themselves initially saw this as the closing chapter to the band. However, what came after the mammoth success of The Black Parade was a scrapped album (to later be released, called Conventional Weapons) to the reinvention of the artist as the Killjoys on Danger Days, to the last recording we were left with on an aborted project called “Fake Your Death.” These events only added to allure and mystique surrounding The Black Parade. From the opening notes of a hospital machine quietly beeping to a flat-line on the introductory track “The End,” everything just seemed to be fully thought out and worked with the vision of this extraordinary group of musicians. When Way sings, “Now come one, come all to this tragic affair/Wipe off that makeup, what’s in is despair,” you are immediately transported to a world inside the five of the bandmates’ heads of a cancer patient living out their last moments. “Dead!” follows this track with an extremely up-tempo pace and rocks like The Ramones on steroids. On the chorus, Way sings, “Have you heard the news that you’re dead?/No one ever had much nice to say/I think they never liked you anyway/Oh, take me from the hospital bed/Wouldn’t it be grand? It ain’t exactly what you planned./And wouldn’t it be great if we were dead?” and it’s almost as if he is finding the silver lining in a life ending to a terrible disease such as cancer. The dual-guitar work of Ray Toro and Frank Iero is at its most potent on songs such as this one, and bassist Mikey Way keeps up with the duo as mentioned above’s frenetic pace. The underrated musician in all of this work of art is the drumming of Bob Bryar, who was let go shortly after the touring cycle wrapped on this record. Bryar’s fills and energy throughout the disc is nothing short of remarkable, and he adds an intricate layer to the story of the record. The next song, is arguably one of the best songs MCR had ever written in “This Is How I Disappear.” From its double-edged sword guitar attack to the somber lyrics of Way scripting out the journey of The Patient in the story, nothing comes off as cheesy or cabaret. Instead, everything clicks at just the right point and time. My favorite moment, in particular, is the bridge where Way sings, “Can you hear me cry out to you?/Words I thought I’d choke on figure out/I’m really not so with you anymore/I’m just a ghost/So I can’t hurt you anymore.” The simplicity of the lyrics to the complexity of what the guitars were doing made this a truly beautiful musical moment for the group, and solidified my pick as album of the year in 2006. “The Sharpest Lives” is a certified killer cut of a track and features some of the best guitar work of Toro’s and Iero’s career to date. Seeing this song performed live just exploded on the chorus of, “Give me a shot to remember/And you can take all the pain away from me/A kiss and I will surrender/The sharpest lives are the deadliest to lead,” and allowed me to personally gain the courage to sing in my band at a later date. It was the energy that I felt from their songs like this that truly made me understand when fans would claim, “Their music saved my life.” MCR may not have directly “saved” me, but it did give me a shit-ton of confidence to feel like I could take on all doubters if I followed a similar path as my favorite front-man. The album itself hits its crescendo and stride on the first single, “Welcome to the Black Parade.” From the gut-wrenching first notes on a piano to the call-to-arms lyrics of Way gaining every misplaced or forgotten kid to join him in the fictional parade, My Chemical Romance hit this one to the moon and back. After the first few opening lines lead into the punk rock verses of the meat of the song, they quickly bleed into one of the more anthemic choruses of my generation where Way sings, “We’ll carry on, we’ll carry on/And though you’re dead and gone believe me/Your memory will carry on/We’ll carry on/And in my heart I can’t contain it/The anthem won’t explain it.” It’s on brilliant choruses such as this one as to why this band hit such an incredible high with The Black Parade. There was simply going to be no way of containing this band’s popularity with certified smash singles like this one. “I Don’t Love You” reminded me a bit of a brit-pop rock band donned in all black clothing hitting all the right notes and moments on a heartfelt ballad. The music video for this track abandoned much of the marching band garb that the fans had grown accustomed to over this album cycle and delivered a quick re-imagining of what My Chemical Romance could do and become. As I mentioned before, Bob Bryar really gets forgotten as an underrated player in the parade, but his chops are what drives songs such as “House of Wolves.” Way’s shrieking in between the cabaret-esque verses come off as playful and fun and don’t seem forced at all from a front-man with an affinity for stealing the show. However, this track clearly gets Bryar to take over, and several key fills help drive this song home. Next up, the heart-wrenching piano and vocal-driven “Cancer,” which Way mentioned in several interviews as being one of the more important songs on the record, and in the totality of the My Chemical Romance project. The beauty of this track comes from its simplicity and features some of the best vocal delivery in Way’s career. This was a song that I didn’t know that MCR was capable of making at this stage in their career, but damn am I glad that they were able to pull it off. “Mama” sounds like a show-tune drenched in emo lore and despair, and even features Liza Minnelli’s vocals towards the bridge of the song. The song is structured around the story of the character “Mother War” as Way responds to Minelli’s earnest vocals with, “But there’s shit that I’ve done with this fuck of a gun/You would cry out your eyes all along.” All of these elements built into this song would be difficult for the average band to pull off. Lucky for us, My Chemical Romance were not an “average band;” instead they became almost super-human on their landmark LP. “Sleep” starts with some actual recordings of Way describing his night terrors during the recording process of The Black Parade, and is a clever way of introducing a killer song such as this. The crescendos in this particular song are some of the most powerful moments you will find in our scene still today, and you can tell that the band hit several key chords with their performance on this larger than life song. “Teenagers” was one song that I originally thought didn’t belong in the fold of the Black Parade-era since it sounded more like a track that would have fit better on Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. However, now I can’t even imagine this record without this brilliant single, that features some of the most dangerous lyrical content of Way’s career when he sings, “The boys and girls in the clique/The awful names that they stick/You’re never gonna fit in much, kid/But if you’re troubled and hurt/What you got under your shirt/Will make them pay for the things that they did.” In the days of school shootings making us almost numb, due to the vast number over the past ten years or so, this was a lyrical line that could’ve derailed some of the success that MCR had due to the possible lack of sensitivity to the topic. In fact, the music video release was also delayed due to another senseless tragedy that happened around that time. Yet, My Chemical Romance was able to release this as one of their more popular singles from this record and their catalog in general. The ending of The Black Parade record features a great one-two punch of one of my most cherished My Chem-songs in “Disenchanted” and the blazing “Famous Last Words.” Starting with the former, I was incredibly blown away by the production of Rob Cavallo on this song in particular, since he made this somber track shine in so many unique ways. From the delicate opening to the first major hook of, “It was the roar of the crowd that gave me heartache to sing,” everything is pretty damn near perfect. My favorite moment of this song is the restraint that the entire band is able to showcase, as they could’ve done a huge build-up much like the aforementioned “Mama,” yet knowing that they had already followed that formula, they chose to blaze a new path forward on a larger than life emo power ballad. “Famous Last Words,” on the other hand, is just a free-flowing hard rock single that was destined for prime time right from the get-go. With the closing word of “I am not afraid to keep on living/I am not afraid to walk this world alone/Honey, if you stay I’ll be forgiven/Nothing you can say can stop me going home,” Way almost single-handedly gave all of those kids out there struggling for meaning in their own lives a reason to press on and realize that things do get better. With an ending like that, it’s hard not to get just as excited about listening to this record again from front to back, as MCR intended. This LP will undoubtedly continue to stand the test of time in our scene as one of the most critical records in punk, emo, and rock in general. The Black Parade may be “dead,” but its memory certainly carries on. --- Please consider supporting us so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/review/retrospective/my-chemical-romance-the-black-parade/