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agallimaufryofoddments · 5 years

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My physical copy of Dead Mount Death Play, Volume 1 (Yen Press release) arrived in the mail an hour ago. (Today, December 11, 2018, is its release day). If anyone is on the fence about buying it and would like to know what sort of bonus content it has, the manga-exclusive bonus content is as follows:

A two-page bonus manga revealing how Arase’s profile picture for messages was chosen. (Basically: blame Iwanome).

(Addendum: I didn’t notice this at first, but there’s actually a one-page bonus comic inserted between Chs 3 & 4 in which Shagrua and the priestess are going through the Corpse God’s books? I’d say this counts as a bonus too.)

(Addendum x2: Also a silly bonus 1p comic before Ch 8).

A six-page Narita-authored short story (”Episode 1: Calamity, Alive and Well”) which gives an insight into Shagrua’s backstory and what immediately transpired after his battle with the Corpse God. Also reveals that his full name is “Shagrua Edith Lugrid.”

A single, final page featuring the “real Polka” (as the shark plush) in a “super-fun illustrated guide to [DMDP].” Has three illustrations of the shark plush + an origin paragraph.

There you have it. In other news, Yen Press’ website now has an entry for a Volume 2 release, which they seem to be projected for June 18, 2019. Mark your calendars?

In any case, the physical paperback is nice ‘n thick and just sleek in general. I’ve seen more than one Japanese fan on Twitter (and, I think, blog posts?) say they picked up the series because the Volume 1 cover art caught their attention, and I hope it’s the same for fans outside of Japan. I think it will, at any rate.

(When the JP cover was first revealed I know I was impressed: sleek modern graphic design w/the title and colors; Polka has a neat character design and is making ‘eye contact’ with the viewer - not to mention, his ‘Evil Eye’; and then you have those large, nicely-textured skeletal hands framing him from both sides. It’s a gorgeous cover, and cover art is a huge part of catching people’s interest. Damn good job, Fujimoto + graphic design team.)

As with Yen Press’ physical releases of the Baccano! manga, the chapter 1 colored pages are still in full color as per the digital release...but the color pages of later chapters (e.g. Chapter 3) are in grayscale. Boo. I assume it’s to save money (or maybe it’s a partial incentive for people to also be reading the manga digitally), but stil...boo.

Oh, right: Typo/spelling concerns: Those of you who have also been buying the chapters as they come out will have noticed a few typos and occasional spelling inconsistencies for names. If you were wondering whether the volume release fixes those... Well, I haven’t checked for every typo yet, but so far I’ve noticed that the “Shakusawa Building” spelling in Chapter 6 (digital) has been corrected to “Shakuzawa Building” in the volume edition.

Curiously enough, they’ve spelled Kozaburo’s name as ‘Kouzaburou” in the volume release - whereas the digital version simply went with “Kozaburo.” I mean, I knew that YP prefers using “ou” where it can (e.g. Denkurou over Denkurō in Baccano!), but they didn’t use ō before...

What they haven’t changed is “Mystery Solitaire” to “Phantom Solitaire,” which I...was wondering about since they switched to the latter for later (beyond Vol 1) chapters. Hm. Does this mean they’ve decided to stick to the former after all?

The volume release also translates a lot more of the background signs compared to the digital release. It also translates Aikawa’s armband! The first time it reads ‘autopsy’; second time, 'coroner’, which is...useful info to know. In fact, it even goes so far as to explain some Japanese wordplay in Ch 5.

Misc Rev musings: As soon as I saw Shagrua’s middle name was Edith I immediately thought of Baccano!’s Edith... I wonder why on earth Narita used it? It’d be quite the odd homage to Baccano! since Edith and Shagrua have nothing in common... (even if DMDP isn’t in the Naritaverse, it wouldn’t be a surprise for him to homage/sneaky reference his other series once in a while).

--I mean, heck, on the first page of the short story, we see mention of “an elixir of immortality.” ("They claimed the heart of one who possesses the Evil Eye can be used to create an elixir of immortality when boiled with certain kinds of metals and plants.") I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that evokes Baccano!, at least a little.

#Dead Mount Death Play #DMDP #Ryohgo Narita #long post #(sorry; should I put this under a 'keep reading'?)

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agallimaufryofoddments · 6 years

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Should I pick this back up? I’m way behind

(via @toushindai, asked on this post I made the latest chapter (Ch8) of Dead Mount Death Play)

This got way too unnecessarily long (what a...shock. so shocked) so I’m shoving most of it under the cut and writing a TL;DR that probably should just have been the entire post in the first place:

TL;DR: I’ve actually really liked the last few chapters! They have way less fanservice than Chs1-4, but that’s not why why (it’s nice, but I’m not going to get my hopes up); it’s that the introduction of the characters Iwanome and Arase in Ch5 shifted the story’s direction in a good way.

It definitely feels weird to say that I’ve been looking forward to the latest chapters way more than I was the earlier ones thanks to the very chapter that has that opening scene (I talk about it in the long post), but...it’s true? I would finish Chs 5, 6, 7 always wanting to know more about Arase* and excited to see what he and Iwanome would do next. They’re interesting both personality-wise and what they offer for the story, from Arase’s personal history with Takumi to his and Iwanome’s roles as officers investigating ‘inexplicable’ phenomena.

The last few chapters have also been building up to Lemmings, as the linked post probably (definitely) implied. So, now I’m looking forward to Ch9 because oh damn - Lemmings is taking center stage with almost all of the main cast present to witness it.

I dunno. We only have eight chapters so far, and it’s probably too early both into this new development and the manga as a whole to give definitive opinions on it. All I know for certain is that I do like what the last couple chapters have been doing and want to see more of what it’s currently doing.

*Blame Arase for the length of the post below the cut. He deserves all of the blame. Well, no, I do (oh God, why do I spend hours writing fandom posts that could be written in ten minutes when I have work I need to be doing to day), but, uh... Look, for a character who’s only been in four chapters he’s super intriguing and almost single=handedly doubled my interest in buying Chapter 6.

I have the vague sense that you may have dropped DMDP around Ch2 or Ch3 - I remember some sort of post or tag in which you weren’t, ah, impressed with the amount of breast jokes in Ch2, so maybe that’s where the feeling comes from? Well, I know you definitely dropped it by Chapter 5... after all, you were there for the bewildered back-and-forth @dianharvent and I had over Ch5′s cold open featuring a les.bian threesome.

We haven’t had anything that explicit since, thankfully...but then again, we’ve only progressed three chapters. There’s no way of knowing whether or not it’ll stay that way, but we can hope.

That being said, there has also been a surprising lack of general fanservice post-Chapter 5! Don’t get me wrong: the women remain as large-breasted as ever, and there’s been at least one boob joke, but Misaki has remained fully-clothed and that’s good. You still see the club employees and their playbunny uniforms, but...hey, at least it’s fanservice that makes sense in-context.

(And, as much as I hate to say it, ‘at least’ Misaki’s total lack of shyness about her body is something that’s meant to be in-character. Those partial undressing scenes are drawn in such a way as to be outrageously blatant fanservice, of course - looking at you especially Ch2, but also Ch4 - so I’m glad we haven’t seen any of that lately. I think her personality’s calmed down a little compared to her Ch2 self, which I like).

This might be because the last few chapters have been focusing a lot on the new characters Tsubaki Iwanome and Kozaburo Arase, who are formally introduced in Chapter 5. The way Ch5 opens with ‘plot’ and goes straight into actual plot...it’s like they decided, “Hey you know what, since we may not have the chance for fanservice in this new arc let’s go all out with this opening scene to make up for it.”

Actually, I think it would be more accurate to say that the spotlight has especially been on Arase these last few chapters. No joke, he features solo on three whole chapter covers (chapters 5-7). Solo! Remember, his debut chapter is Ch5 – so when I saw an unfamiliar man on its cover, blood on his face and wearing the queerest expression, I was bewildered but immediately intrigued. The portrait is so striking that you immediately want to know who its subject is.

Why do I bring this up? Well, simply acknowledging that Chs 5 onward have felt different from Chs 1-4 thanks to the introduction of Iwanome and Arase (and the new focus on Lemmings) isn’t enough to answer the question of “Whether DMDP is worth picking up again,” or even, “Okay, but are Chs 5-8 good?”

The reason I bring up Arase is because the manga considered him important enough to feature on a cover before the readers even know who he is. And then he claims the next two covers. Ch5′s cover wants you to be curious about this man and have expectations about him. So the key question, then, is does Arase work? Does Ch5 fall flat on its face, or does its cover have a payoff?

See, I wanted to know the same thing before I read CH5. What if the guy on the cover turned out to be a letdown?

Spoiler alert: he doesn’t. Looking back on the last three chapters in hindsight and how heavily Iwanome and Arase have been involved in the plot, it’s clear that Ch5 is staking everything on you being interested in these characters. Arase being on the cover is a risky but necessary move because it’s entirely faith-based: it’s a statement demonstrating how much the manga believes in this character. If the character falls flat, it’ll reflect even worse on the manga than it would had he not been on the cover - thus, high-risk.

...But if he succeeds, then that means the manga’s faith was well-deserved and the cover has a better pay-off as a result.

For me, Ch5′s cover not only paid-off - it continues to pay off. Why was I looking forward to Ch6? I wanted to know who Lemmings was, yes, and I was still interested in Polka and his powers - but the main immediate reason was now, “I want to know more about Arase.” Iwanome too, of course, but consider this: Iwanome has far more pagetime in Ch5 than Arase - but Arase is still the one on the cover. The cover image is from one of the last few pages, in fact; shortly after we see Arase’s bloody, strange expression we see him on the last page with an unsettlingly...peaceful expression instead. There’s a mild, serene smile but you get the impression his brow is drown - it’s - it’s odd. He’s a mystery, and you want to solve him.

One chapter doth not a character make, and a single character doesn’t necessarily make four chapters (5-8) worthwhile (subjective, yadda yadda) - but he and Iwanome are still center stage for Chs6-7. Does he/do they remain interesting? Ch5 was just an intro, after all...

For me, they do. They’re interesting unto themselves, but the new direction the manga’s taken in tandem isn’t unwelcome. See, they’re part of “Materials Compiling Group #3″ (Comps-3), some sort of police division that investigates troublemakers and reports of strange phenomena - all of which they’ve debunked. ...Up until now. Not only are the troublemakers “Lemmings,” “Fire-Breathing Bug,” and “The Grim Reaper” still on the loose, they’ve recently received reports of skeletons (damn it Polka) and human knots.

So the few chapters have involved: the reminder that the real Polka’s soul is alive; the plot point that Polka needs to replenish his magic (and that jewels/gems are magic-storing objects); and Arase and Iwanome’s investigation of the strange phenomena. It also turns out that Arase is an unwelcome figure from Takumi’s past (Takumi = tech guy).

...And here we are, Ch8, with Lemmings finally stepping out of the shadows and nearly the entire main cast (introduced so far) here to witness it.

Um, I just realized I spent a good hour or two writing this and that it’s a good bit more ‘beating about the bush’ than just ‘getting to the damn point.’ I’ll go write a TL;DR and just....stop.

#Dead Mount Death Play #DMDP #DMDP Spoilers #I should just write a post dedicated to Arase because this is embarrassing #fuck I'm really just hopeless aren't I

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