Crunchyroll Manga - A Review of the New Crunchyroll Manga Section

With Crunchyroll getting into the manga business, I thought I should do a review of the Crunchyroll manga section.  Within this context, I will also be providing tips to help folks avoid pitfalls I encountered.

Crunchyroll's foray into the world of legal, online manga publishing is one I highly welcome, especially since they are doing "simulpub" work, meaning that for the manga they've licensed which is currently being published in weekly/monthly/whatever magazines in Japan, we are getting them on the same day in West and beyond to some 170 countries.  While there are only twelve manga titles currently licensed by Crunchyroll, should they add to this count, the service will only become better and better.

One does NOT need to be a member of Crunchyroll in order to read the most current chapter of their simulpub titles. As such, those simply wishing to read the most current chapter in Crunchyroll's collection can do so for free.  You do have to watch an advertisement prior to being allowed to read the manga though.

Navigation is quite simple, and I think most will find it better than the scanlation aggregation sites standard manga viewers. Readers are given an option of either a 2-page spread (recommended for those times when the manga artwork spreads over two pages) or a single page at a time. Moving between pages is as simple as either clicking the left side of the panel to advance (Japanese style), or the right side to go back. There's also an option to zoom in/out, and one can go full screen if one wishes. On my 28" screen monitor set to 2560 x 1440, the manga page is crisp and clear at full screen mode, even on the free side. Very nice for seeing more details in the artwork.

For those wanting to sample more of the manga goods beyond just the most current chapter, you'll have to become a premium member. Crunchyroll offers a two week free trial just for that purpose. If you've never been a member of Crunchyroll, you could even select their top premium account tier, thus giving you unlimited access to not only all of their manga, but anime and drama too.

IMPORTANT NOTE!!!!  When going for a free trial, you will be DEFAULTED to the "Anime Premium" plan, meaning your free trial will only allow you to watch anime.

If you want to change your premium membership plan, you have to change it at the top, which is easy to miss because the whole notion of a "free premium membership" means you get it all, not what they default you to.

In my opinion, Crunchyroll should have a better system in place for this, whereby they make it CLEAR that you have a choice of membership options, not just what they default you to.  Make a point of saying, "Pick a plan" first thing before choosing a ID/password.  Every other place I've ever signed up for makes things really clear on what you are getting. While I did see the "Anime Premium Membership" when I initially signed up, I just figured that this was what they called their free trial, or that it was all they gave away, but I'd still get free manga access as well.

If you do screw up, customer service is not the greatest. It appears that Crunchyroll uses one of those hideous systems whereby some computer application scans the submitted e-mail for key words, then formulates a response for the customer service person to send back. As a result, it took quite a few back-and-forth e-mails to Crunchyroll before someone actually bothered to read my e-mail, then told me I'd accidentally chosen the wrong option.  Technically, Crunchyroll chose the option, but I didn't realize I had the ability to choose something else. But I digress...

I did my free trial via PayPal, and this is another ding I'm putting on Crunchyroll, though I doubt they'll change how they do things since they could score a few extra dollars doing it their way.  The free trial puts you on a PayPal subscription plan automatically. So, when I chose "All Access Premium Plan," Crunchyroll was then authorized to immediately deduct the $11.95 subscription fee the moment the free trial ended.  I would rather that have been a non-subscription free trial, but if you sign up and then forget about it, they just score $11.95.

Changing my subscription plan from "All Access" to "Manga" was easy enough by accessing my account settings. Switching from a monthly subscription to yearly one saved me nearly $20.

It should be noted that if one doesn't have a credit card, one can get premium access for free by  going through various sponsor links and getting credits (like many online games have an option to do).

Even after making a premium manga (or "All Access") purchase, you'll notice that for a title like Fairy Tail or Attack on Titan, Crunchyroll only has the chapters that Kodansha Comics currently hasn't published, or scheduled to have published.  As a member, they'll give you a discount to sell you a copy of the printed edition of the book. Frankly, I found this disappointing, but not unexpected since the fear is you wouldn't buy a printed copy (or a DRM-infested ebook copy) if you could read the old volumes online for a subscription price.  I expect that when Kodansha Comics publishes volume 1 of UQ Holder, the first chapters that are in that volume will be removed as well, though I could be wrong. We'll see since UQH started from scratch, unlike Fairy Tail and Attack on Titan.

Much like Crunchyroll's anime section, the quality of the manga translations solely depends on the whims of the translator. So for UQ Holder, the Twins are keeping the translations in line with how they handled Negima!, which for me, is a pure win. For Coppelion, no offense to the translator for this manga, but I kept cringing because of the lack of Japanese honorifics and insertion of "superior" Western honorifics at times. ^_^; Most of the manga titles appear to retain Japanese honorifics though, and I do plan on giving these other titles a try since I'm paying for the privilege.

Since this piece is already long enough, I'll write another article stating how I think Crunchyroll's manga section can get even better.

A Certain Scientific Railgun S - Final Thoughts

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S
とある科学の超電磁砲（レールガン）S
To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S 

When it comes to an anime adaptation of a manga, there are some things that I want. For starters, I want it to be as accurate as possible. Don’t go removing things or changing up things just because as an anime production team, you think you need to make your own mark on the franchise. Any additions to the anime version of the manga adaptation should be to enhance scenes (ie: make what transpired clearer to the viewer). Outside of that, I don’t want the anime version modified.  Thankfully, for the most part, J.C. Staff does just this.

Episodes one through sixteen of the anime provide the adaptation of the Sisters arc from the A Certain Scientific Railgun manga (volumes 04 through the first part of 07), which covers Mikoto’s perspective. It also adapts light novel volume 3 of A Certain Magical Index, which tells the same story from Touma’s perspective, blending the two versions of the story to give the audience the complete version of the Sister’s arc. I applaud J.C. Staff’s decision to do this.  I loved being able to see everything together rather than going to once source for one part and the other source for the rest of the story.  So for me, this is a big plus in how J.C. Staff animated the story.

One of the things I had been worried about, based on the OP sequence of the anime, was that J.C. Staff would change things somewhat to give Kuroko, Saten, and Uiharu more screen time.  The Sister’s arc is a Mikoto story, and in both the Index and Railgun versions of that story, Mikoto’s friends are mostly absent. In order to give those girls more screen time, J.C. Staff doesn’t insert them into the story, thus changing it, but it does show the impact on the girls of Mikoto’s constant absence and signs of being very troubled.  Since the manga couldn’t waste the pages to explore this, but the anime had the time, I had no problem with how J.C. Staff handled things here.

I really do wish all manga titles were adapted in this fashion. My only reason for wanting to see an anime version of a manga tale is to see that manga story not only come to life, but to do so in full color. For the various battles that Mikoto, the Sisters, or Touma got into in the manga, there’s only so much that a manga can do to bring that out.  With the anime, the action sequences were just really nicely done, and there were things the anime made clear to me that the manga was more fuzzy on in said action scenes. So kudo’s to J.C. Staff for the adaptation portion of the anime series.

Where J.C. Staff falters is in their created Silent Party arc, which covers episodes seventeen through twenty four.  In the first Railgun anime, J.C. Staff decided to explore some aftermath issues of the manga’s Level Upper arc, which I liked since the manga doesn’t take the time to explore these things, favoring skipping such ”trivial” things in order to go to the next big thing. With the Silent Party arc, J.C. Staff decided to answer the question of what happened to the supporting character of Shinobu from the Sister’s arc, whom the manga dropped once her role was completed in that story. I have no problem with J.C. Staff doing this, but their subsequent story build was just awful.

The main problem I had with the Silent Party arc is that the story wasn’t written with a specific purpose, but was written so that J.C. Staff could incorporate all of these other side characters back into the series.   The Sister’s arc had purpose, howbeit a very dark one, and even though there were 20,000 clones of Mikoto  here, I felt for them.  There was a connection there.  Unfortunately, with Febri in Silent Party, I never felt a connection with her, despite her being cute and loveable. She was clearly created as a character to evoke certain emotions in the viewer whereas the Sisters as characters were not created to evoke emotions in the viewer, but they do just the same. Artificial heart tugging vs. realistic heart tugging.  For me, the real one will win every time.

In the Sister’s arc, the fact that clones were being used in unethical experiments pointed to a much darker, sinister element within Academy City that is not yet seen (at least, in the Railgun part of the Index franchise). As such, a group like ITEM comes off as competent mercenaries paid to do a job. They do their job well, especially considering they are going up against the number three esper in all of Academy City. They only back off once their leader Shizuri, the number four esper, discovers the Level Six Shift project and decides it will be more interesting to let Mikoto delve deeper into this darkness rather than block her from it.

In the Silent Party arc, we have this supposedly powerful group called STUDY, which is populated with mental geniuses of all types. They use their genius to gain financing, buy excellent “toys”, and even run businesses, such as one that legally supplies equipment to the paramilitary force known as Anti-Skill.   They are tired of esper abilities being elevated above genius abilities. They want to show that mental giants are just as worthy of praise as the most powerful esper in Academy City. Thus they create an artificial human with esper abilities. So far, so good; I don’t have a problem with any of this.

Where STUDY falls apart as a group is that they are just a bunch of petulant teenagers who think they know everything. They say they want a revolution, but are so inept that Judgement members, without using their powers (save for Kuroko) were able to fairly easily hold off their however many "automated" power suits. Their bigger mecha were easily destroyed by Mikoto (and Shizuri with ITEM when they just appeared for the fun of it).  Their decision to let Febri die since she was only their backup creation was stupid because anyone with half a brain knows that the whole purpose of the backup is to carry on in case the primary fails. But hey, this is the ever so smart STUDY!

As I said earlier, I didn't mind that Shinobu was brought back in this episode to give her proper closure as a character. In order to accomplish this, one has to believe that somehow, STUDY knew of Shinobu, made some massive payment offer to ITEM to not have them turn Shinobu over to their client at the time, and then despite Shinobu's attempt to sabotage the Sister's project, STUDY had to believe that Shinobu would work for them.  While one can squeeze in the pieces, it is still a bit of a stretch on the believability factor, even given STUDY's arrogant stupidity.   But, I give it a pass since I like Shinobu and wondered what became of her after she was captured in the Sister's arc.

J.C. Staff does a couple of other weird things.  Because they already introduced Mitsuko in the earlier anime series and did NOT follow the manga story in doing so, they had to take a moment to get Misaki's introduction in since she will be such a major player in the next manga arc (the Daihasei Festival). They adapted the scene properly, but since it wasn't part of Mitsuko's introduction as it was in the manga, it loses context.  It does establish Misaki as someone antagonistic with Mikoto though. Despite this, J.C. Staff decides to have Mikoto go to Misaki off camera and arrange for a massive favor. I'm thinking, "What's in this for Misaki to grant Mikoto such a favor?" Since there's nothing, and at this point, Mikoto's knowledge of Misaki is limited, then it makes no sense that Misaki did anything for Mikoto.

Next up is the decision by J.C. Staff to bring back one of their created villains from the first anime series, Therestina Kihara Lifeline.  Initially, I thought, "Oh, that's cool." But here too, Mikoto goes to see Therestina in prison with NOTHING to offer, yet she expects Therestina to cough up the information. Therestina initially does what one would expect -- she has no interest in helping Mikoto and she event taunts her. Yet in the end, she inexplicably gives Mikoto clues.  The only reason I could come up with for her to do this was to shut Mikoto up, as she'd become rather bloviating like Touma often is. So in the end, there was no reason to bring Therestina back except that J.C. Staff seemed determined to bring in as many characters as possible for the Silent Party arc.

I mentioned Mitsuko earlier.  J.C. Staff had turned her into a character that she is not in the manga. Thus, in order for them to even remotely get the Daihasei Festival arc adapted properly, J.C. Staff had to scramble to redeem the character in the Silent Party arc. For the most part they succeed.  The rivalry between Mikoto and Mitsuko is dropped in a reasonable way and Mitsuko starts shifting from being so haughty to someone who genuinely cares. Of course, J.C. Staff couldn't totally rid themselves of their version of Mitsuko, but assuming they do adapt the Daihasei Festival arc, I want to see Mitsuko as she is in the manga -- a valued ally who's not haughty.

I've written a lot more than I'd planned, but in the end, J.C. Staff does an excellent adaptation of the Sister's arc from the A Certain Scientific Railgun manga.  They fail on their created Silent Party story. The good far outweighs the bad here, so this is a good addition to the anime portion of the franchise.

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya - Final Thoughts

Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA Final Thoughts Review
Fate/kaleid liner プリズマ☆イリヤ


***POTENTIAL SPOILERS**

When I first heard about Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA, I can't say that I was impressed.  Despite its obvious connections to the Fate/stay night franchise, I figured this to be some cheap magic girl knockoff done to cash in on the franchise. After all, I'd seen this happen before with the Mahou Shoujo Pretty Sammy spinoffs from the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki franchise (not to be confused with the Sasami: Mahou Shoujo Club spinoff that came years later).  But, there are times when a magic girl spinoff actually ends up pretty good, which is what happened when Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha was spun off from the Triangle Heart franchise. So on a whim, I decided to watch Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA,which has its good and bad.

The series starts off as a parody of the mahou shoujo genre, making sure to touch the various clichés associated with that genre such as the required magic girl transformation (henshin) sequence. There are obvious nods to Cardcaptor Sakura and Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha as well. However, since this series is based off the Fate/stay night franchise, there are also a lot of nods to the original Fate/stay night series (or visual novel, since that came first).  With the older Rin and Luvia acting as guides for Ilya and Miyu respectively, the subsequent rivalry between Rin and Luvia is cliched but humorous, right down to Luvia's "Noblewoman's Laugh" trope.

With only ten episodes given to adapt the first, two volume manga series, the series has plenty of time to cover the material from the manga. I have not read the source manga (I plan to now), but I could certainly feel some drag at times, but also some oddness in plot development toward the end of the series. Ilya somehow instinctively knows how to use the Class Cards they are collecting, but that's never gone into. Ilya also has a seal on her powers, but that is not explored either once the seal beaks. Miyu has a rather harsh reaction to Ilya's saving everyone, but due to her massive power, which could have injured the others. Miyu's actions didn't make sense to me. The ending was rather clichéd as well, followed by some loli shoujo ai as Miyu clings to Ilya.

But things weren't all bad. The story, despite a lack of any in depth exploration of the Class Cards, was fairly interesting to me. I liked the concept of Ilya's being a fan of the mahou shoujo enabling her to excel when she became a magic girl, but I really liked Ilya's reaction when the deadly reality of being a magic girl came up. I can't imagine anyone like Ilya not having that reaction. After all, not only could Ilya have been killed, but her comrades could have been killed or harmed as well. There's a difference between an anime (manga) and reality.  So I appreciated the series bringing this aspect up. I just hope that subsequent series continues to explore things properly.

I also appreciated the linkage to the Fate/stay night series. Unlike Pretty Sammy, which just took TM!R characters and put them into new settings with no connections to the original TM!R other than names and character designs, Fate/kaleid successfully creates an alternate universe feeling. The some of the characters from Fate/stay night (and one from Fate/Zero) are here and in similar roles, only there's no Grail War for whatever reason in the Fate/kaleid universe. Rin is still Rin and Shiro is still Shiro, only why he was rescued and adopted by Kiritsugu is unknown since there was no Grail War to make him an orphan. The mahou shoujo elements actually end up fitting in fairly well into the Fate/stay night multi-verse.

Despite my disappointment with how the series ended, I am looking forward to seeing more of this world. Since a sequel is in the works, I plan to watch it. In the meantime, I'm going to read the manga, as I'm able.