Black_Devil
Punos Rey
Forgive me and delete if already posted.
sankakucomplex.com said:
Miura lost to Idolmaster?
- Thread starter Black_Devil
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Man, some people are really gullible. Miura "lost" to Idolmaster? What does that even mean? And can't you tell just from the tone of the article that it's grossly exaggerated/deformed news? The truth is a lot less newsworthy, I'm afraid. But because so many people have been asking about it, I'm going to answer lengthily this one time in the hope that I won't have to anymore afterwards. So, here is where the information originated:
Kouji Mori commented in the latest issue of YA that he went to Miura's place and had a 2 hours long, in-depth talk about iDOLM@STER MADs (fan-made videos). That's it. He went to his friend's place and they talked about trivial stuff. Just a glimpse of a mangaka's non-action-packed life. We've known for a while that Miura's interested in online videos on the Nico Nico Douga website (Japanese equivalent of YouTube), and that he's been playing iDOLM@STER on Xbox 360 recently, so once you remove the sensationalistic spin this isn't anything special. I mean it's obvious Miura doesn't spend ALL of his time working, it would be inhuman (and yet he has actually been constantly working for most of the last 20 years). Then there's the fact he's been taking long breaks for the past few years. Does that mean he's stopped working on Berserk? No. He definitely hasn't. Does that mean he's taking an indefinite break to play video games? No. Where have you been? Don't you realize that Miura's been taking extended breaks since 2006, long before those comments? So now you're going to ask what this means. Well, nothing. Simply put, the long breaks and the fact he's taken an interest in iDOLM@STER aren't related.
To buy this sort of stuff in the first place, you have to be really ignorant of how Miura works, of his personality and most importantly of the nature of the comments printed in Young Animal. Like, do you seriously believe that Miura's never played video games before, or that he never mentioned it? His ninth comment ever in Young Animal, in 1993, was about playing Mario Kart. And he was quite enthusiastic about it, too. Over the years he's posted about how much he could bench press, about loving Susumu Hirasawa's work (many times), about Saint Seiya, Devilman, Star Wars, Sakura Taisen, Evangelion but also about stopping his diet to eat chocolate, going to a tea shop or being lonely and going for a walk alongside a riverbank. About ending his cellphone subscription because he didn't make nor receive any call on it, or about wondering what PC to buy. At the end of 1996 he was bothered because a friend had deleted his Vandal Hearts save file. In 2001, he announced he had bought a PS2 and was playing Armored Core 2. Should I go on? The list is very, very long. There's almost 20 years worth of such comments.
And aside from that, regarding the extended breaks, one shouldn't forget the current context in Berserk's storyline. We're at a pivotal moment. Griffith is about to defeat Ganishka and become king of Midland, and Guts and his friends are getting to Elfhelm after years of travel (the journey started in volume 22, 8 years ago). There is a lot to be done in order to make those events memorable, both in terms of design and story. And we know that Miura's a perfectionist and a workaholic from his own admissions over the years, but also because his attention to detail is obvious to any careful reader. Lastly, we know that Miura creates his designs and plans the story during his breaks, and that he dedicates the usual two weeks between episodes purely to drawing, but that he spent longer than usual to draw thousands of soldiers for Vritannis' battle.
From all this, it can be inferred that Miura's taking all the time he needs to make sure what's to come in Berserk is awesome. The current events are unprecedented in scale as well as in importance in the story, so it'd make perfect sense. But it's also possible that he's working at a slower pace than he used to. As you know he's had health problems due to overworking several years ago, so I could understand the desire to enjoy life a bit. Most likely it's a bit of both. What's important though is that he IS obviously still working on Berserk. There is a reason we speak of "breaks in the prepublication of the series" and not of "vacations". That is because Miura works during the breaks like he does the rest of the time. Remember this if you forget everything else: regardless of whether an episode of Berserk is present in the next issue of Young Animal or not, Miura is working on the series.
Anyway, to go back to what you posted, this isn't the first time that site runs an article like that, they had a previous one sensationalistically titled "Kentarou Miura quits Berserk to play Idolmaster", which was blatant misinformation. It was based on this comment by Miura:
Which really just says that he's a bit disappointed his favorite series (NovelsM@ster) is over and that he was surprised it ended. Then he adds that he bought a Xbox 360 along with iDOLM@STER because he's bored and lonely. Once again, that's all. And when I had reported his comment in the corresponding episode thread, no one had cared, for the good reason that it's anecdotal, like the majority of comments he makes in YA, and shouldn't be related to the publication schedule. If you check out the other news related to Miura on that website, you'll notice they're all very negative and often make silly claims. When he did a cover for March Lion, they said he was stopping Berserk to write manga for the "female market". I think that sums up well enough how reliable it is as a news source. But hey, page views aren't going to generate themselves, right? I rather blame the people who take anything they read literally and without a grain of salt. I can already tell you what's going to follow. Whenever the next episode is released it'll be: "Is Miura finally coming to his senses, has he broken free of his sordid addiction?" And when the next break hits you'll get: "Miura in relapse? Is there truly no hope?" And so on.
It's just another form of the good old: "man miura's so lazy, why doesn't he release chapters more quickly like for *insert shōnen series here*?" Because if he has time for leisure, then it means hecould should be working more, right? RIGHT?!?
And while we're at it, the game he's playing is widely popular in Japan, both in arcade, on the Xbox 360 (Japan has the highest ratio of users connected to the Xbox Live to X360 owners in the world because of it) and the PSP. It's popular enough to have official DLC for it in Ace Combat 6 and Family Sky as well as to be referenced in games like Tales of Hearts or Beautiful Katamari... It's even got a spin-off anime series. It's not some squalid soft-porn game (and Miura hasn't suddenly turned from a partying rock star into a no-life otaku), just some boring raising sim/music rhythm game like only the Japanese can do.
Kouji Mori commented in the latest issue of YA that he went to Miura's place and had a 2 hours long, in-depth talk about iDOLM@STER MADs (fan-made videos). That's it. He went to his friend's place and they talked about trivial stuff. Just a glimpse of a mangaka's non-action-packed life. We've known for a while that Miura's interested in online videos on the Nico Nico Douga website (Japanese equivalent of YouTube), and that he's been playing iDOLM@STER on Xbox 360 recently, so once you remove the sensationalistic spin this isn't anything special. I mean it's obvious Miura doesn't spend ALL of his time working, it would be inhuman (and yet he has actually been constantly working for most of the last 20 years). Then there's the fact he's been taking long breaks for the past few years. Does that mean he's stopped working on Berserk? No. He definitely hasn't. Does that mean he's taking an indefinite break to play video games? No. Where have you been? Don't you realize that Miura's been taking extended breaks since 2006, long before those comments? So now you're going to ask what this means. Well, nothing. Simply put, the long breaks and the fact he's taken an interest in iDOLM@STER aren't related.
To buy this sort of stuff in the first place, you have to be really ignorant of how Miura works, of his personality and most importantly of the nature of the comments printed in Young Animal. Like, do you seriously believe that Miura's never played video games before, or that he never mentioned it? His ninth comment ever in Young Animal, in 1993, was about playing Mario Kart. And he was quite enthusiastic about it, too. Over the years he's posted about how much he could bench press, about loving Susumu Hirasawa's work (many times), about Saint Seiya, Devilman, Star Wars, Sakura Taisen, Evangelion but also about stopping his diet to eat chocolate, going to a tea shop or being lonely and going for a walk alongside a riverbank. About ending his cellphone subscription because he didn't make nor receive any call on it, or about wondering what PC to buy. At the end of 1996 he was bothered because a friend had deleted his Vandal Hearts save file. In 2001, he announced he had bought a PS2 and was playing Armored Core 2. Should I go on? The list is very, very long. There's almost 20 years worth of such comments.
And aside from that, regarding the extended breaks, one shouldn't forget the current context in Berserk's storyline. We're at a pivotal moment. Griffith is about to defeat Ganishka and become king of Midland, and Guts and his friends are getting to Elfhelm after years of travel (the journey started in volume 22, 8 years ago). There is a lot to be done in order to make those events memorable, both in terms of design and story. And we know that Miura's a perfectionist and a workaholic from his own admissions over the years, but also because his attention to detail is obvious to any careful reader. Lastly, we know that Miura creates his designs and plans the story during his breaks, and that he dedicates the usual two weeks between episodes purely to drawing, but that he spent longer than usual to draw thousands of soldiers for Vritannis' battle.
From all this, it can be inferred that Miura's taking all the time he needs to make sure what's to come in Berserk is awesome. The current events are unprecedented in scale as well as in importance in the story, so it'd make perfect sense. But it's also possible that he's working at a slower pace than he used to. As you know he's had health problems due to overworking several years ago, so I could understand the desire to enjoy life a bit. Most likely it's a bit of both. What's important though is that he IS obviously still working on Berserk. There is a reason we speak of "breaks in the prepublication of the series" and not of "vacations". That is because Miura works during the breaks like he does the rest of the time. Remember this if you forget everything else: regardless of whether an episode of Berserk is present in the next issue of Young Animal or not, Miura is working on the series.
Anyway, to go back to what you posted, this isn't the first time that site runs an article like that, they had a previous one sensationalistically titled "Kentarou Miura quits Berserk to play Idolmaster", which was blatant misinformation. It was based on this comment by Miura:
Which really just says that he's a bit disappointed his favorite series (NovelsM@ster) is over and that he was surprised it ended. Then he adds that he bought a Xbox 360 along with iDOLM@STER because he's bored and lonely. Once again, that's all. And when I had reported his comment in the corresponding episode thread, no one had cared, for the good reason that it's anecdotal, like the majority of comments he makes in YA, and shouldn't be related to the publication schedule. If you check out the other news related to Miura on that website, you'll notice they're all very negative and often make silly claims. When he did a cover for March Lion, they said he was stopping Berserk to write manga for the "female market". I think that sums up well enough how reliable it is as a news source. But hey, page views aren't going to generate themselves, right? I rather blame the people who take anything they read literally and without a grain of salt. I can already tell you what's going to follow. Whenever the next episode is released it'll be: "Is Miura finally coming to his senses, has he broken free of his sordid addiction?" And when the next break hits you'll get: "Miura in relapse? Is there truly no hope?" And so on.
It's just another form of the good old: "man miura's so lazy, why doesn't he release chapters more quickly like for *insert shōnen series here*?" Because if he has time for leisure, then it means he
And while we're at it, the game he's playing is widely popular in Japan, both in arcade, on the Xbox 360 (Japan has the highest ratio of users connected to the Xbox Live to X360 owners in the world because of it) and the PSP. It's popular enough to have official DLC for it in Ace Combat 6 and Family Sky as well as to be referenced in games like Tales of Hearts or Beautiful Katamari... It's even got a spin-off anime series. It's not some squalid soft-porn game (and Miura hasn't suddenly turned from a partying rock star into a no-life otaku), just some boring raising sim/music rhythm game like only the Japanese can do.
(*hears theme music playing in head*).
Vampire_Hunter_Bob
Cats are great
Walter said:
In all honesty I just want all the stupid threads being created just to ask this stopped.
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