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OBD Convo Thread #6: The One Above All

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Xadlin

Xadlin

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Limu&Doug said:


I’m only posting this coz of the salt it caused lol
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The true alpha giga Chad Heroine
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Adamant soul

Adamant soul

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http://www.allyouranime.net/ghost-reaper-girl-001-003-manga-review/
From Chloe lacking a well-defined backstory,
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The hell do you mean by lacking a well-defined backstory? Aside from her origins and why she was an orphan in the first place, we have a pretty strong picture of what Chloe's life was like.
The trouble though is in the execution, and primarily the way we address her backstory. As it turns out Chloe doesn’t come from a well to do family, or even a modest-middle class one. Rather, Chloe hails from destitution, poverty and homelessness. After fighting to keep herself alive, Chloe clawed her way out of a such a life and now pursues one of stardom. The trouble with this backstory is how undefined it is. While we don’t need to see every moment of suffering and struggle, it would be nice to have one well-defined visualization of her prior life; like her fighting for a simple loaf of bread, or stuck hiding from the rain and cold without a proper roof or jacket. If we had some sequence, just a couple pages or two, to craft this immediately memorable image of how terrible her life was, rather than the scant few frames we do get, it would make Chloe feel more defined as a character.
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You mean like this where we see her fighting grown adults with a fucking baseball bat covered in barbed wire.
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Or like this page where we see her scrounging through trash cans for a meal because she's starving.
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Those are from chapters one and two respectively so I know you saw them, since this is a review of chapters 1 - 3.
So how exactly is her backstory undefined again?
Then there’s the fact of the matter that Chloe actually loses interest in her pursuit of acting quite quickly.
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Because acting in and of itself was NOT her ambition. what she wanted was for people to take notice of her, to be known and to live a better life.
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She fully admits trying to get into acting was "silly", and at best it was a whim.

She doesn't say it but I get the impression it was one of those choices that was fueled by a need to reach for something, just to not go insane or give her the motivation to keep living.
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And she gives it up because Kai said he was a fan of hers, and that was enough.
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Also because she actually can make money being a Ghost Reaper given her obvious talents in that area.
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And because being a Ghost Reaper has brought her the fame and admiration she always wanted.
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ALL of this is in chapters 1 - 3 so I don't know how you could have missed it.
By Chapter 3 she’s more hungry for fame, wealth, etc. just in general, without a clear, set goal.
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Holy shit she's focusing on a short term goal of improving her financial situation. The fucking nerve of Ikeda to write her as a more realistic character who has dreams but still focuses on the more practical side of things. :hm
But maybe that eagerness for wealth, rather than fame, actually makes more sense. A pursuit of fame and stardom doesn’t sit naturally with the life of destitution that she supposedly crawled out of. Typically, when people escape poverty, their hunger is not for fame, but rather financial security, as they are determined never to repeat that portion of their life. Maybe a pursuit of fame, rather than security makes Chloe unique, but it doesn’t make logical sense,
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UNLESS (now stay with me on this one), it wasn't the poverty that motivated Chloe in the first place. It was the LONELINESS of her existence on the streets that causes her to crave fame, arguably more than even money. Why the fuck do you think she was jealous of the idol in the picture in the first place?

The fact that she's made friends for the first time in her life, is one of the big reasons she ultimately states that "despite the scary parts, I'm glad I became a Ghost Reaper".
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Now I jumped ahead to chapter 12 for the last part but I feel like I made my point anyway and that basically adresses the Chloe section of the review.
 
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Adamant soul

Adamant soul

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Eh fuck it I'll address the rest of this shit as well.
Even if Chloe’s ill-defined characterization doesn’t bother you, there’s still the matter of some uncomfortable sexual comedy/antics. First off, Chloe finds herself attacked on the casting couch. Her producer, unannounced to her, becomes possessed by a ghost. What follows is a sequence where the producer attacks Chloe in a way reminiscent of a sexual predator preying on young actresses. It’s actually the Ghost trying to possess her (although every attempt of possession has a sexual/rapey connotation to it). Chloe fights him off and then runs out, cursing out the industry for bringing out the very rage her agent is always complaining about. The problem with this sequence, and really any of the manga’s references to the struggles women face day to day regarding sexual harassment, is how irrelevant it is to the plot. The manga doesn’t concern itself with addressing that topic in a meaningful way, bordering on making any of these instances feel either like comedy in poor taste or exploitative for sensationalists sake.
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The point of the "sexual harassment in the industry" scene is to establish Chloe as a "no means no" type of character who refuses to "bend the knee" This isn't a manga about ACTING. It's about an ACTRESS who discovers she has powerful spiritual abilities and decides to switch professions. No shit it doesn't linger on that point, the manga isn't about that.

Also possession as a concept, is to take control of another person's body against their will (usually). Of course there's going to be a "rapey" connotation to it.
Keeping in theme with inappropriate sexuality, there’s then the matter of Kai. Chloe isn’t out of the producer’s casting room long before she’s assaulted by Ghosts again. Apparently Chloe has an exceptional genetic makeup, making her perfect as a Spirit Medium. It’s here Kai pops onto the scene, a handsome devil of a man, who as it turns out is a spirit himself. He saves Chloe from the ghosts, while also boldly declaring himself a Lolicon. A Lolicon, for those who don’t know, refers to someone who enjoys generally erotic art of young, often pre-teen girls. While the series doesn’t have Kai get up to any typical Lolicon behavior, that bold declaration takes a certain kind of comedic taste to appreciate.
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What kind of comedic taste? Kai's declaration that he's a lolicon is met with scorn from even the evil spirits.
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And disturbs even Chloe herself. It's never treated as a good or humorous thing. It's a character flaw, Chloe even says "What a waste of a handsome guy" in response to learning it so.
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To be fair with either of these awkward sex gags/elements, both exit the series by Chapter 2. Any talk about a woman’s struggle with sexual assault is absent post Chapter 1, and Kai’s Lolicon nature is all but erased moving forward. Though in some ways that just further begs the question of why any of it was here in the first place.
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They're there to establish character traits for both our main characters here, in Kai's case a character flaw.
Even our author’s propensity for harem story-telling begins to shine through as Chapter 2 adds another pretty boy to Chloe’s burgeoning line up of suitors, an Anthropomorphic Cat Spirit that Chloe and Kai save from a horrible curse.
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Aside from Chloe acknowledging that Noel's attractive on occasion, there's no sort of romantic interest on Noel's end. Given he's you know, A CAT, (not a cat-like human, an actual cat) this makes sense. He sees her more as his master/owner than anything else and just wants her to take care of him so he live the "lazy cat life".
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This isn't a harem manga, Kai is really the ONLY character who seems to have genuine romantic interest in Chloe and it's pretty clear Chloe/Kai is the only pairing really being developed here.

Whereas in Rosario ALL the girls clearly wanted to fuck Tsukune, that's a harem manga.
 
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