The Other Side of the Fourth Wall

This entry will contain some Bleach spoilers. Having looked at Death Note and Naruto's  pilot chapters, I will now examine Bleach's. Bleach is a shonen series that has changed over time, starting off as an urban fantasy with a "monster of the week" format, and eventually becoming a series with long story arcs. The pilot features a story that's more in line with the early series- in fact, it's strikingly similar to Orihime's introductory arc- but nevertheless shows how Bleach's concept evolved over time. Synopsis The pilot begins with Ichigo, as a Soul Reaper, confronting a Hollow and slicing him through the torso. He then gives the "whole" spirit of an old man, whom the Hollow had menaced, bus tickets to Soul Society. These two pages alone demonstrate multiple differences from canon. Ichigo's sword looks like a standard katana, as opposed to the large and thick katana he gets before releasing Zangetsu. The Hollow looks like an ordinary

This blog entry will contain some One Piece spoilers. One Pieces anime adaptation is relatively faithful, since while there is a copious amount of material added to the anime to pad out each episode, and occasional censorship, relatively little about the story is changed. However, the start of the series had a small but significant alteration; rather than begin with Episode 1, it instead first adapted Chapter 2's story, and saved Chapter 1 for Episode 4, after Luffy and Zoro's introductory arc concludes. I will look at Chapter 1 of the manga and Episode 1 of the anime to see which makes for the better start to the series. Chapter 1/Episode 4 The story begins in a small harbor village, and the narrator explains that a group of pirates has been based there for about a year. A young boy named Monkey D. Luffy decides to make a gesture in hopes that the pirates will take him seriously- he takes a knife and cuts himself under his left eye, leaving a scar under that eye. While the sca

When you think of Naruto, do you think of the shonen battle manga story of an orange-clad ninja, or an urban fantasy murder mystery with elements of a coming of age story about a kitsune? If it's the former, you may be surprised to hear that the pilot for Naruto was starkly different from the published series in terms of genre, setting and characters, although it does also have some similarities in terms of themes and character design. Synopsis The pilot begins with Naruto having trapped another boy in a pit, apparently in retaliation for badmouthing him at school. The other boy tries to get Naruto to let him out by first making an insecure appeal to their friendship, then by threatening to reveal what Naruto did to the chief's bed, but Naruto refuses, then pees all over the other boy. It is then revealed that in ancient times, nine warriors banded together to stop a fox spirit and succeeded in sealing it away, but only one of the warriors survived the battle. The chief of Naru

This blog entry contains Persona 5 spoilers While Makoto Niijima of Persona 5 is a popular character, many people criticize her Confidant for wasting time on her new friend Eiko that could have been used to better develop Makoto. To that, I respond by saying that Eiko works well as a foil to Makoto and as someone who forces Makoto to question her own choices, and will provide a synopsis and analysis of her Confidant. Rank 1 Unlike some Phantom Thief Confidants(Morgana, Ryuji, Ann, Futaba, Kasumi), the Rank 1 event is optional, rather than an automatic storyline event. In order to access this event, you need Rank 3 Knowledge, since Makoto wants to make sure that you're keeping up with your schoolwork. It isn't too hard to get that high by this point in the game, since while Knowledge requires the most points to rank up, it's also the easiest to get points in, since you can get some without spending free time. While the requirement is for Rank 3 out of 5, the first two rank-u

Spoilers for Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony follow This time, I decided to retell the first chapter of Danganronpa V3 according to an AI, starting from the first murder. It took several attempts to get a narrative that even vaguely resembled canon, since on some of the other times I tried it, one or more of the following happened. The characters wandered around, talking about the murder, without going to the class trial. Sometimes, the characters completely forget about the murder. Additional characters showed up, some of whom are adults. Without further ado, here it is. The parts in bold are what I put in manually. In this case, I decided to have Kaede ask the others to sentence Maki to death to get things moving once she confessed to the killing. You are Kaede Akamatsu, a Japanese high school girl who has found herself trapped inside Hope's Peak Academy. You are inside the school with seven other girls- Tenko Chabashira, Maki Harukawa, Miu Iruma, Tsumugi Shirogane Kirumi Tojo, A

Warning: this entry contains Death Note spoilers.  Manga pilot chapters serve to test the waters for a possible new series, and often provide readers with a glimpse of what to expect from the series. Despite this, pilots can often be starkly different from the final product in many ways, from the setting to how the characters are depicted. This time, I will look at Death Note's pilot, which shows what might have happened if someone very different from Light had received the death note. Synopsis The pilot begins with Ryuk, a shinigami, leaving the shinigami's realm in search of the Death Note he lost in the human world. The other shinigami mock him for his carelessness, noting that's why he's still a C-Rank shinigami. It's unclear what the ranking means exactly, but it fits with Ryuk canonically being ranked 6th out of the 13 Shinigami, a middling rank. The scene switches to the human world, where Taro Kagami, a 13-year-old middle schooler(in his first or second year