Socrates in Love, Hellsing, Video Girl Len

[pianocello]

Socrates in Love
I'm refering to the manga. Should I check this out? I'm getting a bit bored of the shoujo genre and I'm afraid that I'll be disappointed again. Shoujo I like include: Zodiac P.I. . I do not like shoujo with too much angst and stupid cliches like "guy who is jerk is redeemed through the power of love."

Hellsing
I've bought up to vol. 7. Should I continue? So far, the best thing about the manga is Jan and Luke's corner at the end. The story is becoming nothing more than an excuse for an orgy of violence and bloodletting and the fat Nazi leader is a lame one-dimensional villain without much personality. It doesn't help that Dark Horse manga is some of the most expensive in the market.

Video Girl Len
I just finished 13 volumes of the Video Girl Ai manga and I'm wondering whether I go should continue with the Video Girl Len series.
Things I liked about VGAI:
1. Other than the fantasy video girl element, it feels very real - like these could all be people you know.
2. I like to root for the underdog in love - it makes me feel that in life no matter how depressing things are, there is still hope at the end of the tunnel.
3. Natsumi - the one level-headed person amongst idiotic characters.

Things I disliked about VGAI:
1. I felt like strangling some of the characters. Takao Sorayama is one of the most annoying characters in history. Ditto for Roleck and his endless ranting against love. Yota annoyed me with his indecisiveness and Moemi with her naiveness.
2. I found the fanservice unsexy and untitilating at times - kind of like having an ugly whore push her panties in your face - it got too distracting from the meat of the story.
3. Too much angst.

Socrates in Love - I haven't read Zodiac P.I., but I can comment on it otherwise. I liked it, it has a good story and it sort of made me cry, but it struck me as a bit inauthentic and not as great as other shoujo series I read, or even some of the other one-shots I've read. A lot of times I dislike one-shots that are heavily character-based like this because there's not enough time to develop the characters, and that was the case here. They weren't bad characters, and I certainly felt bad for them, but I didn't have quite enough sympathy at the end, I think. As far as my taste in other shoujo one shots/short stories goes, Times Two was pretty good, some of the stories in SOS were too (but I didn't like the title story), and Short Program 2 had a story that made me bawl. I have no problem consuming one-shots though, and I thought it was worth it as far as that goes.

Hellsing - Volume 7 is where the series has been at in Japan for about 2 years, so I don't think there's much of a decision to make there ^_^; It's still running, and it's skipped to a prequel story dealing with Alucard and the butler, but I have no idea of the content. Maybe someone else can enlighten you.

Video Girl Ai - Not so helpful here either... I haven't read the Len story, but I'm behind Video Girl Ai 100% and will be buying those last two volumes myself ^_^; It skips to another story in the last volume too I think, Video Girl Haruno, which was a prequel story for Video Girl Ai.

[Andrew Cunningham]

Socrates - why would you read an adaption when you can read the original novel? And isn't this a disease tear jerker? Sounded terrible to me...
Hellsing -- I read it for the orgy of bloodletting. I admit I started skimming the villain's speeches a while back...

[darkhunter]

I say drop hellsing. Hellsing has a lot of style, gore and more gore, but not much substance. To get your horror/action fix, Priest is a way better title.

[CarlHorn]

The irony is that the Nazis were real, and vampires are not. But as the Major himself says: "Ve do not haff any goal." HELLSING is almost purely an exercise in violent style, an approach I find refreshing—much the same reason I like the original BLOOD THE LAST VAMPIRE anime. If you are going to deal in such cliches, rather than try to find "substance" in them, you might as well put the pedal to the floor, which Kohta Hirano certainly does.

[Noodle]

[ QUOTE ]
JosephineFortune said:
it struck me as a bit inauthentic and not as great as other shoujo series I read, or even some of the other one-shots I've read. A lot of times I dislike one-shots that are heavily character-based like this because there's not enough time to develop the characters, and that was the case here. They weren't bad characters, and I certainly felt bad for them, but I didn't have quite enough sympathy at the end, I think.


[/ QUOTE ]

For the *story* I'd chose the novel over the manga, for the reasons Josephine states above. But, it's a sentimental death story and really lays it on thick and if you like the lighter shoujo, or shoujo that is really story-driven, this isn't the choice you want to make.

[Johnny]

[ QUOTE ]
darkhunter said:
I say drop hellsing. Hellsing has a lot of style, gore and more gore, but not much substance.

[/ QUOTE ]

And Seras! Don't forget Seras! [img]/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif[/img]

FWIW I'd say stick with Hellsing. Where else can you get ultra violence, Vampires, Nazi's and a completely bonkers manga-ka? [img]/images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif[/img]

[Harafan]

Video Len is just two volumes, so it's really hard to go too far wrong.

The one problem I had with the short series was, after going so far with Yota and all of his character growth, this was suddenly back at square zero with the new characters. But I like it because Len isn't just a rerun of Ai. On the surface, it seems that way, and the Yota-ish character is still very Yota-ish, but the Moemi-ish character, Len (the Ai-ish character), and especially the Takashi-ish character all play very different parts.

Also, in the final volume, there is a short-story that is a Video Girl story that Katsura wrote before Video Girl Ai. Kind of interesting to see the evolution.

[Andrew Cunningham]

Really? I read two volumes of Priest and found it completely boring. Nothing interesting happened at all.

[mighty_vespa]

Hellsing has only been an "in-store" read, for me. I like Hirano's art, but there's been nothing worth re-reading about the story. I'm quite glad I've never bought an issue. And I'm forever grateful to B&N/Borders' lenient policies that allow customers to sit on their duffs and read whatever they want.

Now, a Hirano artbook would be a different story altogether.