Hello again anons, welcome back for volume 8 of Moto Hagio's A Savage God Reigns. Ian continues to play detective with the assistance of Lyndon from the insurance company, insisting on Jeremy's guilt, although his theories aren't always on the mark. And at a tense meeting in the boathouse, Jeremy makes a shocking revelation...The works of Hagio and her contemporaries ("the '49ers") represented an experimental new direction in girls' and women's manga in terms of both content and style. I hope some anons who might be unfamiliar with these mangaka and their works, or who might generally avoid girls' comics or older manga altogether, will consider reading along and trying something new. You might be surprised.For those who would like to catch up and join in, here are the previous threads:Vol. 1: >>268448441Vol. 2: >>268501695Vol. 3: >>268540638Vol. 4: >>268581029Vol. 5: >>268615427Vol. 6: >>268647910Vol. 7: >>268683142For the Japanese-speaking anons among us: tinyurl dot com slash 4wj859ppAnd so it begins...
bamp
bump
>>268721606lindon 3 volumes later: bro that was gay af
>>268721708sometimes ian is soooo
>>268721344>England's antique markets are interesting. It's exciting to see so many accessories laid out, from old eras with styles that you don't see anymore. Like finely detailed flower earrings and jewel necklaces. It's fun just to look at them. I was going to say that Japan doesn't have antique earrings like those, but actually we do have antique kimonos all the way from the Heian Era.
>>268721937Lindon doesn't get payed enough to babysit Ian.
>>268722377Hey, the rain finally turned to snow. Now Ian can enjoy that romantic date with Nadia.
I never understood why so many people disliked ACGR/ASGR after Greg's death.The relationship between Ian and Jeremy his one of the most well built and compelling part of the manga, re reading it the foreshadowing is basically everywhere.>>268723643Ian's copium overdose. Foreshadowing Jeremy's drug addiction
>>268722476really enjoying this ian that is being eaten alive by screentone
>>268725356I like the last third the most personally, but I get why people don't like the shift to shared pov and it's also the point in the series when a lot of the characters start doing frustrating, mean, and self-destructive things all the time. It goes from a story with a clear villain to one where the biggest obstacles to the main characters are arguably themselves and that's not everyone's cup of tea.
I always get interested in this but I can never get through more than a volume or so. Something about the writing is very frustrating, like Ian putting forth significant effort to be rational about confirming the story and arbitrarily getting nothing.
>>268722420"that's a lotta room for step son fuckin"
>>268722507>>268722946The Lindon and Ian dynamic is often that Lindon will say something relatively sensible and Ian will run with it in an insane direction Lindon never intended and it will cause grief for everyone. Despite this, Lindon keeps crawling back for more punishment.
>>268726026tbf if Ian always listened to Lindon Jeremy would still be a drug addicted male prostitute.I feel like Hagio cut some part of Lindon's story, it hardly breaks the story but he came a bit out of nowhere and kept hanging around as Ian's buddy for the rest of the story.
>>268726110Ian can be hot-headed sometimes so he needed a voice of reason to keep him grounded... only for him to proceed to ignore his advice in the way it was actually meant.
>>268723899Greg's infosec in shambles
>>268722994>>268723004The way the lighting suddenly changes here is an interesting choice.
>>268722770Mother issues run in literally all the families
>>268723778things are going well for jeremy, i think he's got a real shot at turning his life around
>>268723929Greg was only one weekend away from introducing that asshole pom-pom to the bedroom before his life was cut tragically short.
>>268723961I like the idea of 2 Ians solving mysteries together. One is homo Ian, the other is straight Ian.
>>268723912Well this is awkward.
>>268723163>>268723274Love when Moto Hagio goes all in on the visual metaphors
>>268723004>>268723068>>268723314how fucked up would it be if the series pivoted here and ian was right. the first time I read it i was worried that would happen
>>268724182Thank you for posting.
>>268728240The Ian tag team is one of my favourite little episodes in the manga.
kino volumethanks OP
>>268732886>>268731782You're both very welcome.
>>268721392Looks like Ian is swinging Jeremy like a baseball bat or something.
>>268733388>>268721392Looking at this again, the imagery is almost Christlike.
>>268733426Jeremy became Ian's cross to carry.
>>268733694More like dumb and dumber.
>>268723350ian stocks are plummeting
>>268722758>>268722770Ritz's sister is just rule 63 Ritz.
>>268723994if he suspects there's even a 1 in a million chance of what's on the camera then he should be giving a much bigger warning than there might be naked ladies lmao. he is basically handing lindon cp
>>268723878Sharon's eyebrows are as unfortunate as ever
>>268736088Lindon seems to have had an idea what that camera roll was before he started working on it. Ian's jumpiness gave it away.
>>268723577Very intense and monstrous Ian in the top of this, possibly his least flattering depiction. You can see the family resemblance with Greg a bit.
>>268723863rare greg
>>268721708Fucking Sandra. That goddamn bitch.
>>268724627Poor Moto, she's running out of English topics...
Might as well ask here.Rose of versailes.Anime or manga?
>>268738502Anime is terrible, cuts all characterization. Don't believe Dezaki slurpers, read the manga.
>>268738502Anime and it's not close.
>>268723723fuck oooff
>>268738576>>268738661
>>268721708>oh god oh god they can't be fucking they can't be fucking>ian, i think this part is suspicious>but she says they're not fucking tho
>>268721723Ian saying this when he was sucking cock in Spain lol lmao even
>>268739806He said it himself, not homo if it's near the mediterranean or in boarding school.
>>268738911Ok let me rephrase it: the anime is melodramatic but has no depth, lots of characters are caricatures of their original selves, even Oscar who is the titular character ends up boring. In the manga she's lively, a drunken dork, a adolescent girl who had no ideia what happened around her. Her love interest in the anime has basically no character, the second protagonist, Maria Antoniette, is completely shafted. It's only 10 volumes, it will take far less time reading than watching 39 episodes of a botched adaption. Artstyle is iconic, no merchandise, stage play etc uses the anime art, but the original. The author hates the anime as well
>>268724004Never noticed before and dunno if it's inentional, but the cheek highlight in the bottom middle panel mimics the spike shape around the eyes of the venetian mask.
>>268741324Very convincing argument.I already started reading the manga so glad I made the right choice.
>>268741597you're being pranked, friend. i won't stop you though
>>268741324The anime also weirdly ruins Robespierre and St. Just's characters for like...no reason. It's bizarre. We know what those two were up to in '89 and it was mostly being annoying youths.
>>268723149The Greg of Ian's memories is so different from reality that it feels off. Uncanny Valley Greg.Nice use of symbolism to show that Ian's denial comes from his attachment and guilt towards his father.
>>268741678My general rule of thump when in doubt is to go with the manga.If I am getting pranked then so be it.Maybe I'll watch the anime anyway one day.
>>268741806The thing about Greg is that he shows different sides of himself depending on the person. Ian was the son he liked, so he was mostly kind to him. Even though Greg was pretty overtly evil, I always liked that this series included scenes like that too. A lot of media will flatten abusers to be nothing but their toxicity but the part that makes it so painful irl is that there are times when they can be caring and loving too and that makes it that much harder to sever, because you want to believe that good side is the real them.
>>268741806>>268742033Ah wait, I thought you were talking about the library memory. Yeah, Ian's delusion of Greg feels weird.
>>268723878Is Greg holding onto that lingerie for funsies?
>>268741678You're the one who got pranked into watching Dezaki slop, at least in Oniisama E it looks amazing but there's no reason to watch Rosa if the original is 1000x better, both art and story.
>>268742437I think he was just hiding the bag
>>268721606Moto really was on something at this point.
>>268739806Ian is the world's greatest hypocrite.
>>268741806Greg probably loved Ian as a proper son, but everyone but Ian knew sides of Greg he won't acknowledge. His mom, Natasha and Matt all knew more darker sides. Sandra as well but she is just as evil to keep this shit going.
>>268721871>>268721889Ian really just can't stop with the raping.
>>268739806Ian's wildly vacillating and contradictory stances and behavior regarding homosexuality should be studied for science.
>>268722303You really have to embrace the theory of Sandra being the one to really kill Greg for her to be at all redeemable.
>>268742910In Sandra's case, he was a sweet little pea of a man to her except when Jeremy wasn't putting out and suddenly his Mr. Hyde side would pop out. I don't think that made her suspicious as much as the accounts of other people like Vivi and Matt though, plus the deteriorating behavior of her son.
>>268726026Ian needs a tardwrangler, is the issue. He's prone to having one good idea, and then either going back on it immediately or taking it in an insane direction and then instantly regretting it.
>Want to read more of the authors work>Barely anything is properly translated to englishYou only win reading shoujo or josei if you're Italian or French
>>268735595Strong genetics.
>>268743076She's too egoistic to pull that off. Remember, she always gave trouble to Jeremy but excused herself because she's "fragile" and "sick"
>>268742910On one hand, I feel for Ian because it's hard to accept someone who generally treats you well secretly sucks. If they were so bad then wouldn't they treat you poorly too? It's easier to believe the negative things people say are exaggerated. On the other hand, multiple people in his life feeling this way should get him to consider setting aside his preconceived biases and consider their perspectives more carefully.
>>268723004Jeremy just had a giant schizophrenic episode.
>>268742910Greg might not have mistreated him in an obvious way, but he was always distant towards him. The childhood moment in the library would be nothing in a normal family, but Ian was so starved for contact that it became a precious memory. Greg had such a grip on Ian that Ian blames himself for being reserved with his dad and acting out as a teen, even though those were normal reactions to what was happening in that family. Ian watched Greg be nasty towards Matt for years, and shrugged it off. He's been in denial about his dad for a long time.
>>268723306Ian lives on a see-saw of emotions at all times.
>>268723350What a page.
>>268743228Heart of Thomas has a fantastic official translation that was storytimed by the same OP near the end of last year. It's perhaps her most critically acclaimed work so definitely worth a read if you haven't already. Marginal... I'm hesitant to recommend. It's insane and extremely on its scifi bullshit but it's out there if you really want more and has an okay fan translation from what I remember. Iguana Girl is my favorite work by her and has a fan translation, though every source I can find has jpeg artifacts out the wazoo, but is still readable. Hanshin is also another really good oneshot out there. I read some of her other scifi works and Poe Clan ages ago but they didn't leave huge impressions on me, I might appreciate Poe Clan more if I read it now though.
>>268743453Ian just might be one of the most flip-flopping boys in manga, we haven't even seen the full extent of his power
>>268743316She may be selfish but the guilt and denial really did seem to be gnawing at her. The Boston trip was not for her since the only person there was Karen whom she hates, but demanding the trip was the reason she got in the car that day.
>>268743358Ian even blamed himself for Greg treating them all like shit. He was made to think that if only he had been a better son, Greg wouldn’t have been as “stressed” and tense.
>>268723406Three bros chilling out
>>268737233>a bitThis entire section is just Ian becoming his father unknowingly.
>>268725356It becomes more Shojo as it goes on. Which is not something everyone is a fan of.
>>268724039>ian looks directly at the reader and tugs on his collar sheepishlyyou can't win em all
>>268723841Reading about early medieval banking is like a slow motion horror story, given what it became in the future.
>>268723912>a woman's ass on the coverI don't believe that this is Greg's.
>>268723912>>268723929>>268723950Over-Under on Moto getting off on finally drawing a woman in BDSM? Lol
>>268724182>>268724196>>268724216>>268724227Thanks for the effort, baby.
>read ahead>Ian goes on a globe trotting adventure to bring back Jeremy so he could get back the rogue bussy that he inherited from his dad.Not sure if I am a fan of where this is going.
>>268745137Greg's weird, all of his relationships and sexual ventures before Jeremy were with women, at least that we were shown, but his last love before his death was a boy. I think with Greg it's more about exerting his power than the gender of his partner. I used to wonder if he touched Matt too but it sounds like he just witnessed Natasha's abuse.
>>268743228Fantagraphics translated a great compilation of her one-shots under, "A Drunken Dream".Hanshin/Half-God is the best one shot that I've ever read.
>>268722609>World's dumbest man in charge of investigating a serious crime whose outcome he's personally invested inCan someone please kill Ian? I don't even care if he believes Jeremy or not, I'm tired of his shit.
>>268746224Ian and Jeremy are both charmingly retarded and erratic. Neither can hold to a thought for more than 5 pages.
>>268745447It also includes Iguana Girl.The Poe Clan was also recently (past couple years) officially translated into English. My library got a copy. They Were 11 was officially translated decades ago but most of those books were pulped. It's too bad, I liked the non-Moto sci-fi story in there but I never found scans. AA' was also released around the same time but I don't know if it ever got a collection.
>>268745401If the characters made good and healthy decisions, would this even be the same manga? There's also that the second half of the series wants to explore how Jeremy can continue to live after his trauma, but he starts off by running away from it and drowning in drugs to avoid processing it. If Ian doesn't come for him, the answer to how Jeremy picks up what's left of his life is he doesn't, his high-risk lifestyle sends him spiraling into addiction and would have resulted in him dying in an early unmarked grave like BonBon. Not that Ian isn't extremely compromised, I have certainly made similar jokes to yours when speaking of that part of the story.
>>268721638>"It's just a normal diary."The fuck kinda diary entries you been reading, Ian?
>>268746870bridget jones's diary, classic literature of the british empire
>>268745405Greg presumably attended boy's schools and fooled around a bit back then, but yeah, his primary attraction was women.Anons on here consider Greg to be honest when he says he loves Jeremy, and lying when he says the same about Sandra, but I think it's true that they were always a package deal to him. Liliya's tsuba had lead him to these two people, who were kinda like him and his mom used to be. Ian isn't wrong that Greg wanted a happy family life. The sweet, pretty wife and the chew toy son were equally necessary for that LARP. He realized after Liliya and Natasha that having the same person be his outlet for kindness and sadism didn't work.
>>268746966Damn, he was banging her too?
I remember them cats. All of them.
>>268721319Thanks OP. Some major things happen this volume, but they didn't unfold like I expected. Ian is...special.
>>268747100Greg is a character that can be difficult to understand because, aside from his brief Lilya flashback, the mangaka made the decision to only ever show him from other people's perspectives. Because of that, we spend most of his panel-time seeing the abusive monster lurking beneath his mask and don't get details like his tumultuous family life, difficulties pursuing women, and his relationship with his mother until his funeral, and we can only infer how he felt about those things and how it related to his behavior after the fact. It always felt to me like there's a deeper underlying character to him, but we're just short of enough info to piece a clearer picture together, possibly on purpose since this story is from the perspective of an abuse victim and they are rarely made privy to the trauma they're being used as an outlet for.I agree that he loved Sandra, maybe not sexually, but as a fixture of his perfect family he wanted to present the outward image of. I never made the connection that he might have seen himself and his mother's relationship in Jeremy and Sandra's, but that's a really interesting idea. It's often true that a parent abuser projects their past selves and their regrets onto their children when unleashing their anger. It also brings to mind his fixation on punishment what with how his childhood was described as strict.
About Sandra: It's apparently really common for remarried women whose husbands are preying on their kids to just ignore it as hard as possible and stand by their man. It's not something people talk about a lot, but it keeps happening. No idea why, maybe it's a defense mechanism for having brought the new husband into their kids' lives? But Sandra living in denial for months is a pretty realistic touch.
>>268723375It's sad, but this is the more realistic reaction for this kind of situation compared to his admission of his father's guilt when shown the photos. It's not just cases of abuse either, you can see it for example when a murderer is arrested, the family usually sticks by them and insists they're innocent no matter how damning the evidence is, even if the person they killed was also a family member. Most people are not strong enough to accept that someone they love and respect is a monster.>>268748873This too, it's depressingly common.
>>268748873I heard that Hagio said in an interview that part of why she drew this was because she would read about mothers who know their child is being abused and don't do anything and she wanted to understand how that could happen. But this could all be made up for all I know, since I heard it secondhand.
>>268723080Me when I buy more stupid shit from Japan.
>>268748873I worked for social welfare for a while, it's super common for step fathers to rape their step kids and moms' ignoring it because it'd ruin the family's name (mostly christians), sometimes the mom felt jealous of her own kid and let it happen as a punishment, sometimes she knows but if she opens her mouth the husband will kill both her and her kids.
>>268748873Having a stepparent (particularly a stepfather) makes a kid several times more likely to be abused. Many people have cool stepparents, but it's a statistical reality. People talk shit about single moms, but honestly in a lot of cases it would be better for kids if their moms stayed away from relationships until the kids are grown.
>>268750146That TLC flop show "adopting adults" showed that even if the adopted person is an adult, the stepfather could still be lusting for them and their fragility.
>>268723666>"I'll fucking kill you!">starts humping the bed in distress>>268723808Ian casually speedrunning his doing shit he said he wouldn't.
>>268723912What was the watch for though
>>268750673It might've been Sharon's?
>>268739806>don't make my father's ghost into one of your gay friends!Shit what do I do with this ouija board now.
Ian spent weeks playing detective, came to the wrong conclusion, had to have the answer dropped in his lap, and then when he got it, he insisted it's wrong.Ianbros, how are we feeling?
>>268746415They're rather shitty double-page scans, but manganato has the Four Shoujo Stories anthology. Wish I owned it since it was the first manga I'd ever read, found it in my high school's library many years ago
>>268747100>>268748517I always understand Greg in how he differs from a reasonably similar character like Kira in Jojo. Similar desire to have that calm and picturesque outer life, as a veneer over the fantasy he really desires. But where Kira was all about maintaining that work-life balance of fetishized murder and only rarely broke it or expressed the ambition to be recognized for his power at first, Greg didn't have that compulsion. He liked things on the edge and liked pushing the envelope to get off, even if he'd always loop back and guilt trip and manipulate the target into a state of silent aesthetic normalcy. Where Kira enjoyed the image of his targets being too dumb to know how dangerous he was, Greg enjoys the image of his targets knowing it and still playing his charade. But he needed that full charade built to actually get into the fantasy.
>>268722718>no one realized a thingHmm, don't know about that one.
>>268750673
>>268753872kek
Corrections. This time I skimmed through the raws instead of only checking out weird lines and as I feared, there were a fair amount I wouldn't have spotted without doing that. It's still possible I missed some since I was skimming fast.>>268721689"He can't see the truth" was "He didn't seem lucid.">>268722039There's missing text by Sandra and Greg embracing, it says "Two people in love">>268722434Missing text to the left of Ian, second panel from the bottom. "...This time, I'm the one who can't sleep.">>268722448More missing text. In the middle of the page, on the right side of Ian's face over his stylized hair. "It's not a lie.">>268722770Rather than Greg being a player, I think it says he got in a relationship with a woman of questionable nature. "Did you warn him?" should be "I warned him, but" and "Greg had a thing for women since back then" should be "Greg always had a thing for blondes.">>268722780He says it wouldn't be strange for his father (accompanied by Sandra) to be among these people.That's as far as I'm getting tonight. If I have time, I'll go through the rest tomorrow and post them in the next thread.
>>268743228We're gradually getting some of Moto's shorter works in English thanks to D&Q. Poe Clan got a box set recently so it must be selling at least okay. And A Drunken Dream and Heart of Thomas are now both back in print. When I scanned HoT it was a library copy, I still don't own the book but I'm planning to get a copy from the new print run.
>>268743228>>268745447>>268746415>>268751830>>268754755Also meant to add, I can only hope that if those works continue to be successful, there might be more interest in more and longer Moto works.It's interesting to look at some of these recent posts >>268699457 >>268698136 by an anon who claims to work for 7S:>Yeah the surveys matter. But the people who group up to suggest stuff are more likely to get some action.>Tell men [who seem to be predominantly interested in isekaislop] to buy more diverse genres of manga, and older manga. There's a reason we keep licensing isekai manga that are practically the exact same thing with a different title. Men. At this time, if there are any classics you want and they are shoujo, send them in the survey.Clearly there's scope for more interesting stuff to be licensed if people show they're interested and then buy the stuff if and when it comes out. If every anon on this thread started spamming the 7S licensing survey with Mesh/Marginal/ASGR/Gin no Sankaku then there would at least be a greater acknowledgment that people want this stuff. Part of why I'm pretty disincentivised to keep scanning the D&Q Moto books at least in the short term. I have both Barbara volumes and one Poe volume already fully scanned on my HDD, but my motivation to clean up and release the scans is pretty near zero in $current_year. That all said, given the success of this thread I'll do some more storytimes of other Moto works and maybe other '49ers works in the future.
>>268733426Yes
>>268755228
>>268755114Yeah, the manga piracy world is so well developed that it really kills tons of the potential for the licensing of anything but the most popular of series. If your Naruto release is pirated 70% of the time, you can still make your money back on volume. If your 70s sci-fi drama is pirated 70% of the time, you're never going to make your money back. For a lot of older series there aren't any scans online for anyone to even work from scanlating - you mentioned Drawn and Quarterly and that is the case for most of their GARO stuff. While groups like Taniguchi Scanlations try hard, they just don't have access to the raw material that a real company can legally acquire. I tend not to expect that official TLs will be much better than a decent scanlation in terms of accuracy. Experience proves that wrong. But the boom in scan quality/availability is worth its weight in gold.
>>268755456Yeah I've helped on some of Taniguchi's releases before. Getting hold of those old magazines can be really difficult and as you say the quality is quite poor. Even old collected releases can be expensive when they come up for sale. We're lucky enough to have a friend in Japan who's helped us in getting hold of some stuff. I've seen cases where even official licensors are sometimes flummoxed by the unavailability of good source material when they try to license something more obscure. Nevertheless, I do have faith that people into more niche genres are happy to invest money and get nice books on their shelves in return. Although sometimes it can be a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy like the Breakdown Press books which people basically try and get to scan from day 1 since we know they'll go out of print so fast. And FWIW, while there are some great scanlation groups out there, a lot are definitely not very good and in my experience *most* licensed releases are better than *most* scan releases.
