Oculama

Oh man, you guys are such a good team. I really enjoyed the way you guys mixed different types of formats into this. The News Anchor bit was a lot of fun and I liked how you guys pulled it off.

I think is some of ya’ll best layout work thus far and I think you used your grey tones pretty well in your pages! I appreciated the colored dialogue balloons as well. Ya’ll also took on a lot of ambitious shots and I love how much energy your action and fight scenes are. Super dynamic.

The First Kill shot literally made me go “WHUH!” Out loud. Well done!

And the Death scene and afterlife scene <3 my HEART.

I think my only feedback is I’d like to see you guys do a comic battle at some point with a really limited page count(like 5 or less).
I’d love to see what this high powered, gutsy action comic making energy from both of you does in a condensed dose.

Overall I had a lot of fun as always reading ya’ll work, thank ya’ll so much!!

First off,
I absolutely adore the shonen manga format you guys went with this one. It was such a great reference to see you guys play with and pay homage to.

I think you guys made a good looking and consistent comic all the way through with a lot of fun writing. The actions scenes really dialed in on that fun shonen anime energy. You guys make a really good team.

I’m honestly having a really hard time coming up with a critique that isn’t nit picky. I was originally going to go with having it end on a “be continued” but that does also feel in line with the genre you went with for this, hahaha.

Awesome job you guys, I really like what you guys did with this battle. Thank you so much for sharing.

First off: I have a horrible weakness for news chyron gags, so props for that.

With that out of the way, I enjoyed the comic overall, though there were definitely a few hitches here and there. It's a better approach than having an extremely polished start and rush-job finish, but the inconsistency in the artwork definitely stood out. This was particularly damaging on the large-scale scenes, like Sophie crushing the building or the Lesbian Leviathan getting biblical near the end; the latter in particular was extremely hard to parse.

Writing-wise, the characterization was strong and the overall storytelling effective. It's tough to pull off an "all according to keikaku" sort of character without feeling contrived, but Gin's machinations were believable and well-executed. The issue here was pacing. I am among the biggest dykes on the site (definitely by mass if nothing else) and am a huge sucker for enemies-to-lovers, but I felt the post-double-knockout section dragged.

Still, looking forward to seeing how you cap this off.

I loved the framing here. The interstitial artwork, the Oda-style SBS at the end, the "hey, you're reading the wrong way!" gag; all extremely well done.

As before, the artwork stood out with quality lighting, readable action, and well-done character modeling.

The storytelling just didn't quite hit for me and I think that largely boils down to the opponents' characterization. In addition to disregarding the "get the diamond" story they'd set up in the first round, Gin in particular felt less like a gentleman thief and more, well, just kind of an asshole. I can understand keeping things monster-of-the-week to match the episode framing, but it felt like a missed opportunity.

That said, I'd still TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR THE NEXT EXCITING EPISOD.

There were some fantastic jokes in this one (good guy tony is canon now, as far as im concerned) and the different art styles/media were used to really good effect! A ton of story packed in here (a proper arc!), and it was nice to see a bit more of Sophi's deal this time. Also fascinated by the afterlife section again... curious to see where that goes.

onto the crit: actually going to start with some more praise. xeno, i do not know how you drew this many panels in two weeks. genuinely insane effort, good on you. on the other hand- you guys really need to edit that writing down so its a realistic length. you've clearly thought a lot about the characters motivations and how they'd crash into each other's lives, and i'd love to see that applied to a more tightly written piece! keeping in mind which plot points you can mesh together or have happen in a couple of panels instead of pages. Or alternatively, a comic made outside of oct deadlines so you had enough time to refine it together- you work together well.

Looking forward to more comics from you two!

God, this comic was so funny. everything with Pennington had me absolutely howling, especially the chloroform (and how cutesy he was)... fucking incredible. Action sequences and tones fantastic, that saturday morning cartoon/anime adaption theme coming through loud and clear still. this is grim but i also laughed really hard at how pennington bites it... the gore pile with the hat should not be as funny as it is and yet,

Super pleased to see you guys center your opponents this round; i feel like you really did them justice. that was... kind of at the expense of Jade and Satraxia though. I want them to be more toxic! Give me more of what makes their dynamic unique! Jade's do gooder speech was perfect for evoking a kids show and relaying the plot without burning through more pages on a deadline, but i'd love it if you got a bit more in depth with it- push it further into campy cartoon stuff. maybe jade knows narrating her life as a space cop is silly, etc etc- satraxia is already basically there. or the opposite! her being the straight man really clashing with the setting and sax being really over the top.

More gal pals in my future please

I really enjoyed this a lot!! Another round with very strong bones and loads of energy. I think a lot of the crits I have are the same as last round, but I do see how you've worked to combine dialogue with fight scenes more this time. It works great at spreading out the plot more evenly and adding character to the players in the scene. Nice work!! I had several out loud laughs, and kept finding things to enjoy on rereads.

I love to see you play around with the storytelling medium-- the newscast and tickertape were sensational as an opener, and how it's a new twist on wolks panel-by-panel style. Even though I can see that not every page got finished, there was enough to see what was going on even with a whole bunch of really ambitious shots (and xenos action is always fun to read).

I think the story lost a bit of momentum in the midsection-- I really liked learning more about Sophi, but I think folding that first fight into the second, narratively, could have made the overall work tighter and sharper. I'd really like to see a round where everything has a chance to be at the same level visually, because the finished are really is cool af-- which might mean telling a shorter/tighter story.

Overall though, lots of fun and very impressive :)

I love seeing the difference between this round and r1, it looks like you really took peoples crit to heart and took things up several notches. Really enjoyable, well done!

I love how much character you put into your opponents, especially Gin and the way his machinations play out. Your gags are fabulous, and I got several out loud chuckles out of the work as a whole (I went though it with my gf on call and we had a great time). There's always more bg details to find, and your dedication to the saturday morning cartoon/manga from the library vibe is inspired. Everything looks very cohesive and clear, and Gin getting turned into mince is like, my fucking favourite panel this whole round, gets me every time.

While I think you did a great job highlighting your opponents, I do really hope to see more of Jade and Satraxia's dynamic and personalities on the page (the Q+A bits at the end were GREAT). Their screentime felt nicely balanced, but i yearn to know more about them and have their moments be perhaps a bit more meaningful.

Overall, really awesome!! You should be super proud of this!

I don't think it can be denied that this is an ambitious collab and undertaking. It's clear the intent was to fully color this, but it seems the deadline got the better of you which makes ample sense considering you crazy kids banged out nearly 50 pages. I think if you'd committed to having this be just a straight up comic of inks on the page it would've really centralized your efforts to showcase crisp and clear events panel to panel. As it stands, I can feel the rushing in the end product to denote magic, energy blasts and just general movements which makes your panels which are already busy look busier. I'd encourage you to really focus on your inks and look into utilizing negative space and even spot blacks to build your environments and effects as opposed to rendering every little detail or resorting to a squiggle.
I do however commend the ambition. You have some great dynamic shots here when it comes to action and even entrances. the angling on panel one via page 19 is a great example. It also sets the tone an explosive encounter I feel didn't follow through in lieu of conversation. Which dialogue IS great! But I feel if Satraxia is going that hard that Jade would return the effort in kind.
I do love that ironically across all rounds some unrequited romance was the mainliner amidst all the carnage XD The age odl question of whether love can bloom on the battlefield answered!

Considering the sad recent news of Akira Toriyama, this comic is such a love letter to the genre, style and your own artistic touch all wrapped up in one. You found time for a title page, an interior splash page, character title art, down to the screentones that I keep thinking I'm cracking open the latest shonen jump issue.
Your montages of violence, like on page 10 really drive home the devastation so much better than it would have if you'd simply stuck with sequential panel to panel depiction of the action. You two know how to compose a page to get the most bang for your buck on how to tell your story which isnt easy! I think if I had any notes it'd be the same I gave your opponents. Don't be afraid of going heavy on the inks. That sewer scene would've benefitted so much from some spot blacks to really add some dread and atmosphere. Even in places where we have energy blasts, or a good opportunity to stretch a dark shadow behind a character or the second panel of page 16 would've benefitted from some harsh shadows as these two high-powered opponents clash.

I must start this amazed review of wonder with a small negative: while I adore the beginning with the newscast, it feels entirely separate from the comic itself. The transition works much better the second time around, both by making the jarring change part of the story but also by still feeling like a comic until the last couple of pages. That said, it's wonderfully staged and written, and both of those things are true for the entire piece. The characters in this are so wonderfully charismatic, everybody is clearly driven by strong personalities. The action is so beautifully over the top, but flows really well, especially on color pages where the separation is easier to read.

The dedication to the manga theming remains just as strong, and only gets better here. Those opening pages feel like they should be DVD bonuses, and the tones work so well (although sometimes they feel like they could be pared back.) The city feels so fun and bouncy, I could watch characters wreck it for dozens of pages. The dialog's really poppy too, the characters are heightened to really funny lengths without ever feeling strange or out of character. It's dramatic and hilarious, a full package. Also always love a manga right to left page, especially in such a casual way like this.

As i said on the tin, this is some of yalls BEST works!! These new values in the first pages leading up to the pages with color are great!! good use of these values and really helped the readability on the pages where they are present, thats exactly the kind of values i was looking for!!

the ending segment too with the vision of the afterlife, that was so fucking cool and i really like the utilization of the page/comic reader to have that really nice controlled pacing, its a welcome change at the end as a send off to the characters, great stuffs!!

LIKE WISE, some of the best works of this run im so excited for more should you guys win!! This felt like a proper 90s anime slap em up good lord i love the variant covers/dvd posters as apart of the entry and the ending manga reading scene?

Regardless of that i loved the consistently good values and good contrast in these pages it made things pop so much and even more fitting to the story you guys are trying to tell, good improvement on using the characters i cannot stress enough how much i appreciate it when the opponents get a nice spotlight in these rounds! Bravo!

The first thing that stands out to me here is the characterization involved. Sure it is pretty hammy but i do appreciate strong characterizations that really gets characters moving. At first i was wondering if Jade got forgotten but i noticed the VMPD is rather prevalent which pays off in both the appearance of and the fatal injury inflicted to Jade.

The cityscape was a bit hard to recognize until i figured out the brush pattern was used as a shorthand for lit windows. The news segments feel rather tacked on almost to the point the comic could stand without them but fortunately they were around for as long as they needed to.

The continuity and shared elements from the last comic and towards the "double black diamond" is also a nice touch, especially the afterlife scenes.

A neat, clean and lean plot. Turns out the prophecy was unwittingly made true by Jade!
This comic had some care put into it, all of the scenes are populated enough that none of them feel barren.

The plot beats moving all the pieces into place felt a bit fast or contrived but with the pacing being rather consistent this isn't an issue. However at the death scenes it still feels sudden and anticlimactic. Especially given that Soph and Satraxia seemed evenly matched but one of them survived the superweapon but the other only needed what seemed like a regular gunshot. The lightning in the back does help a little.

I do like the inclusions of the pre- and post-story pages, makes the comic feel pretty at home with the inspirations these characters are running with.