Hey sorry to the nobody who reads these posts, I've slowed down since I had to rebuild my website and lost my blogging flow.
But anyway, I just wanted to share how much fun I've been having reading Hiromu Arakawa's manga series Daemons of the Shadow Realm.
Earlier tonight I was watching this video.
https://youtu.be/Y9xsMZTIhKE?si=BNCxNOCu3oW18IdM
It was really cool to learn about Arakawa's life. I'm a massive enjoyer of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, especially after my second watch where I went with the english dub instead of the original audio and I personally think the dub is even better, but FMA is a topic for another time.
I haven't read the original manga yet, but after watching that documentary I was inclined to either rewatch FMA:B or start the manga, but near the end he mentioned another work of Arakawa's, her latest currently running series, Daemons.
In the video it was described as FMA but with stands (Jojo's reference), which sounded fun. Reading what I've read so far I'd kinda disagree with that statement, however it has a similar energy to FMA:B, so maybe that's what they meant.
Anyway, I'm currently in the middle of chapter 8 but I had to pause reading to talk about what I've read so far.
As I said, it has a similat energy to FMA:B, which I very much appreciate. When I first watchrd that show a few years ago, for some reason I wasn't all that into the humor, but after this year's rewatch I actually love it now and feel it's an integral part of what makes it so great.
And so far the same is true for Daemons. It hasn't taken itself too seriously so far, but FMA:B didn't either for the first ten episodes before.... Hughs... man, it sure is a bad day for rain.
Oh my god is Daemons gonna hit hard like that? idk if I'm ready 😭.
But yeah the daemons (stands) are pretty basic so far but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I like how most of them can speak and even if they can't they all have their quirks.
The first one we see, Gabby's daemon (more on her later), Gabriel, is pretty cool. So if you don't know ab Daemons the series, daemons are basically stands except they always come in pairs. In Gabriel's case, he is a pair of jaws, upper and lower, and he attacks aboyt how you'd expect, he just chomps on fools and so far nothing has ptoven too hard for him to bite. There are other daemons but I think my favorite so far other than the mc's are Jin's Makoto and Ai (or is it Al?). So I think Ai is the big one that looks like an angler fish, it swallows things, and Makoto the tiny fish spits out whatever Ai eats. Not sure if there are any limits to what they can store, but it's made for some fun situations.
Left and Right are the MC's (Yuru) daemons. Left is the female, and she's great. She is quiet in a cute way but she's so strong that she even scares Right. She has a sadistice side to her too.
Right reminds me a bit of my OC Graham Clacky. Mostly just because he makes very similar facial expressions to how I imagine Graham. He certainly enjoys the thrill of battle, but somehow I feel like Left enjoys it more even if she isn't as loudly expressive as he is. Right is really cool, sorry the quality of my writing is going to fall off from here on, I'm getting sleepy.
I'll speedrun the rest:
Yuru: Badass, ruthless and interesting protag, I will watch his career with great interest.
Asa: Adorable. I hope Yuru lets her hug him eventually.
Gabby: Gremlin energy sort of character, she's awesome.
This manga is pretty casual with killing people without dwelling on it too much, even the MC, pretty different from FMA. Time will tell if this works, but so far the stakes haven't really come in which is fine. It doesn'y have the same immediate "We fucked up by trying to bring our mom back and we want our bodies back" FMA has, but the hook for me with Daemons is just how fun it is to read.
Sorry this post started with effort then divulged into laziness, I just wanted to share my thoughts so far of this fun manga I'm reading, I'm gonna sleep now bye.
Daemons of the Shadow Realm is Great So Far