/jp/ - Otaku Culture

I can't wait for Ryukishi to fully takedown humanity as hard as he did the Japanese in RGD

>>16459430
Well, heavily would be an understatement, but it's not the core points of discussion. It's more about mafioso shenanigan woooo shonen fun until shit gets real. Like, you know Ryukishi likes his historical commentaries and it gives very unique introspection into Japan as a culture, more than just concepts about nationalism. I still strongly maintain that Ryukishi was full on anti-nationalism despite putting having the Japanese as the underdogs and having you root for them. A weird feeling.

But yeah, Ryukishi isn't hitting you over the head about concepts *of* nationalism, only about culture itself.

>>15905836
>It's not just the opinion of one journalist though.
Yes it is? You've posted the opinion of Julie. Rose saw first hand how the Japanese lowered their pride and culture for basically nothing. I get to eat shit instead of real soy sauce for a few cents less? Wow, such a great deal! Even worse, the event caused a culture of paranoia on soy sauce to the point where it incentivized people to not even want to have any.

>Dude, the whole theme of episode 3 is the japs trying to get their distribution setting up and getting screwed over because of outside force
No, they got their distribution in the job market. It's simply that without a state to fight on behalf of the Japanese, they were slowly getting crushed culturally by the Chinese. Season 3 is about how the Japanese fucked up by caring more about themselves than their culture.
They sold off their entire culture for pennies. They didn't care if they ate shit because times were hard.

>Julie is proud to be Japanese
>wants to have children so that she can pass on a dying culture
>her parents didn't even make her prideful of her own culture despite being the last of her countrymen.

>>15809604
I read it more in the opposite way, but it depends on where you are in Season 3. My overall take of RGD is that culture and history is built up on small moments no one notices that are adopted by the masses and that protecting your history is important. But because Japan doesn't protect its history, it's shit.
If anything, the westernization of the world created more ''STRONG'' women and the overall patriarchy of men in Japan has ended.

You also have the backward notion that immigrants and culture are dangerous which it isn't so long as they also integrate your own culture. Japan was defeated, its government simply a puppet government and the only nationalism left was in the mafia.
There is no ''guide'' to keeping Japan japanese because the Japanese do not care about their culture.

The overall theme of RGD is anti-nationalism, not nationalism. Even so, Japan's culture is ruined and it is replaced by a pure cosmopolitan supercountry with multitude of culture and intrigue as the reporter girl explains. The last Japanese doesn't even care about her own culture and likes what Japan has become.

>>15465497
I somewhat agree with you. Umineko is full of brilliance and I do feel it's his greatest story. Higurashi has a very special place in my heart due to how many insane twist kept being pilled on one after another, but it doesn't make for a good reread as much as Umineko.

Rose Guns Days actually made me think a lot about a lot of weird anti-nationalism/feminism theme that I never thought about. What really surprised me was how much it was anti-japanese despite the paradox of the japanese being the underdogs and having you root for them. And also how the Chinese were somehow actually not the evil asshole backstabbing shits anime/manga always portrays them as. You really got a deep understanding of both cultures when those two characters talk about how China and Japan will never understand each other QED.
It was nice that you could feel that the Chinese, Americans and Japanese all felt different from each other yet still were humane. I still find it funny how the Americans were assholes and yet never got caught for any of their bullshit.

And by god does Ryukishi07 know how to make villains. You barely get one villain that great in a single story and he just adds four that are all interesting and great.

My only real problem with RGD is how the narration purposefully lied twice and it pissed me off. The first is when Lee Meijiu walked out the door, with the narration saying that it's the last time his sister never saw him again, in that anime dramatic shining pose. And the other about how the journalist was TOTALLY not going to run the Rose mafia and yet that's exactly what happened.
And I think Ryukishi07's optimism got the better of him. Like Amanda and Caleb should have died but they didn't because Ryukishi07 probably wanted to keep them for the final fight. The final fight would have been a lot harder had they not been there.

Also, a lot of the characters are not really well fleshed out and often get forgotten completely. Like, you don't even care about Cyrus until Last Season. And Meryl was completely worthless almost the entire story after S1.

RGD had great sociopolitical commentary and villains, but lacked good character interactions that made Higurashi great.
The SoL moments made all the characters great and each got their own arc to flesh out their character, except maybe Mion because she didn't get her own arc. RGD needed something like that.

>>14995711
Anyone else read RGD? It's a bundle of fun. Season 3 might be up there with ep 6 of Higurashi and ep 5 of Umineko.
Jewish Chinese culture warfare keikaku shenanigans was ridiculously good. Though I wish that the whole thing wasn't centered around one move. RGD was so anti-nationalist despite Japan being the underdog that it felt weird cheering for them to win.
The ending was rushed shit, though Ryukishi was sick for a few weeks so I guess it's understandable?

>>14449549
They're good in their own right.
Higanbana is a collection of short stories taking place in an elementary school involving youkai, bullying, suicide, depression, blackmail, etc. It's rather good overall. Actress girl has one of Ryukishi's best twist he's ever done and along with Running Girl, it's one of his best stories he's written.

Rose Gun Days is rather good but very linear. It's as if he went on the internet, saw people talk shit about how he could only trick people with the unreliable narrator and decided to write a simple story.
It's basically a cross between Bebop + Baccano + Moulin Rouge.
At first, RGD is very slow and you get the impression that it's his worst work until you get to the mid point of ep 1, after the first mini-boss gets defeated and the first real villain shows up. After that, it's a great read until the end.

The problem of RGD is that it's so linear that it doesn't spend enough time on its character, some are outright ignored and wasted past ep 1. But the true gold of RGD are the villain. The villains are the true reason to read this. They're so good. Wang and Gabriel are some of the best villains Ryukishi has ever made, it's great.

Another problem of RGD is the ending. It's rushed to shit. Ryukishi got sick back in November 2013 or so with the dreaded cold and couldn't write for about two weeks or so. This forced RGD Last Season to be released after Comitek but you can feel that the entire ending was reeeallly pushed out as fast as possible. There's a huge great final showdown, key members and fighters are there and aren't given a resolution. For example, there's a fight between two of the best knife welder and it's hype but he never shows the fight and neither win. It's bullshit.

Still, RGD Season 3 is up there with Ryukishi's best work such as Higurashi ep 6 and Umineko ep 5. Worth the read.

Trianthology sounds like something Ruykishi thought he might have been able to write on his own but getting sick made him realize he's pushing himself too far, so he asked for help. Hilariously, TRI was supposed to be released in Winter 2014. He probably already wrote the outline and got his friend writers from Rewrite to help out. It looks like an interesting postmodern experimental work, being able to hop between three stories to grasp themes. We'll see how it goes.