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D.GRAY-MAN 195
CHAPTER INDEX
CHAPTER 193
CHAPTER 194 (was not interesting enough to take notes on, apparently)
CHAPTER 196
CHAPTER 197
CHAPTER 198
CHAPTER 199 (a.k.a. "the D.Gray-version of Naruto #347 and #386, combined")
CHAPTER 200
[blah blah D.Gray-chapter 195 blah blah reactions and speculation blah blah shits and giggles blah bl--HELLO, LENALEE. 8DDD]
re: last chapter: Hoshino smoking waaay too much theology and failing at drawing her own protagonist's face, what else is new? And Slinky!Kanda is now forever cemented into my brain, thank you very much Allegra. Although I really would've loved to see what happened to Marie and Renny and how they survived that shit, and maybe something about the lotus mirages transferring to the waking world, and Mystery Woman, wtf with that staff she was holding when she first appeared, Innocence? *sighs and crosses fingers for further explanatory flashbacks that likely will never come*
00
> (nagumooo, j'adore, your translations are like singlehandedly holding up this fandom and the world of sane math)
> (although this new moratorium on raws is really harshing my translate-it-my-own-damn-self mellow)
01
> GOOD ART oh hallelujah she's off the opioids; Johnny, you never looked so beautiful.
> (watch this degenerate into lolwhut!anatomy in 5...4...3...)
02
> a'ight, this is one of those "let me refresh your memory by repeating the last events of the previous chapter from a different pov andthankfully with better art"
> why is Allen's hair morphing slowly over the chapters to mimic Alma's? We have seen you trying to be subtle before, Hoshino, it's like getting dental work done with a jackhammer.
> (new form of virus-pentagrams? mebbe to emphasise the 'holy shit level five!!' factor...)
> (...light that mutates, burns, and destroys. Nooo similarity to a nuclear blast at all. Damn you, WWII! *shakefish*)
> "Stop, Alma. There are a lot of people in here." Yeah, that's totally gonna work, Allen. *pats*
03
> ...oh cute, even the shockwave's in the shape of a pentagram.
04-05
> re: fabulous Noah are fabulous:
>> the Earl still has the Mana-hat. Is he (or Hoshino) trying to make a point?;
>> so that's where Road went. She's pretty agile for a plushie;
>> Tyki looks a bit too much like Allen, but I suppose that was the point of Road and Wisely's surreptitious conversation in chapter 187 (apart from the fact that, hey, Road's not really a lolita! She's just looked that way for thirty-five years. Um, Lavi, I dinnae think that Allen's the pedophile in this relationship...)
> sooo the text apparently has the kanji for "Fourteenth" with the furigana for "Allen Walker", thank god the translators (all hail nagumo) note that shit or...well, I'd be missing out, dunno if anyone else is OCD enough to care.
> oooh, the "om" tattoo (sans dream state) changed into a hand, how...typically unnecessarily symbolic of you, Hoshino. Y'know I didn't find out about the Kashmir Trika philosophies of sāṃsārika and ālma karma until just yesterday? Too much symbolism. (Last chapter's cover, case in point. Hinduism mashed with Buddhism mashed with Christianity mashed with Final Fantasy mashed with I don't even know, man. And while we're at it, why does Kanda have a Hime Cut? I would feel better if the answer to these questions were not "the author was on drugs and felt like it.")
> "from a nightmare into something yet more nightmarish"? Bet that sounded a lot better pre-translation. *alas, the raws...*
06
> --ah! Alma's regaining his facial expressions already. It helps that the inker was using the thick pens...
> AHHH ZUU (at least I think it's Zuu) now who will we have to induce a lotusy flashback? ...Besides the Lotus woman, that is. (And whose foot is that? Peck & Co.?)
> did she finally go and kill alla dem? Hm.
>> Tokusa! Shame, I've liked you ever since you made that terribly inopportune comment about the Akuma in front of Allen. Great one for tact, that guy.
>> Lvellie! ...LVELLIE NOOO I LOVED THAT MAN AND HIS EVIL PASTRY~ T_T (Link will be sad.)
>> Renny! 'Bout time she kicked the bucket considering how she escaped the axe back in the day with the Second Exorcist debacle, but I will miss her sudden resemblance to Larxene. Possibly also her fashion sense--wearing a dead fox around your neck when you go to inform HQ that you're performing another godawful human experiment in the name of the Church and the war effort? Ten points to Epstain House for rubbing it in with style.
>> Peck! You're adorable and your duck hair (and perkily androgynous assistant) will be missed. Possibly also the other sciencey dude and his assistant woman, I don't really know enough to care about them.
>> Johnny! Actually no, that guy's got too much survivor's guilt to die now. He's, like, doomed to watch all his loved ones massacred horribly in front of him, before he goes to cry on Allen's even-more-traumatised shoulder as incentive to Messiah the problem away.
>> Reever! REEVER ALAS. With you goes some of the finest fanservice known to D.Gray-man. (And that's saying something, considering how half the characters are sex on legs. Tyki and Kanda and Lenalee and Cross, anyone?yes please with whipped cream on top)
>> ummm um um who am I forgetting. Argh. I think that was it...
07
> awww, Alma's all ":D Yuuuuu~ ♥" and Kanda's a bit "...did Jeryy spike my soba or did Beansprout actually just have the cojones to punch me in the face?"
08
> aaand Kanda's hair is somehow still in the ponytail. Wow, it really does only release with the onset of almost-death. Like there's a hair-trigger (pun totally unintended, I apologise for that) somewhere in the tie connected to the regeneration tattoo or something. I wonder if his shirt does the same thing? It did for Skinn...augh more pun. DAMMIT, HOSHINO.
> actually, Ponytail's giving off this vibe of "I have emoted enough for one day. I refuse to have a facial expression until my demands are met.My demands include soba. Part of this complete breakfast! ...And lunch. And dinner. And midnight snack." (Kanda Yuu, everybody! Poster child for poor nutrition.)
09
> ah, Tokusa! Once a Crow, always a Crow. Guess Allen-protecting badassery comes with the package.
10
> see, this is why I love this amputee. Although it is a bit odd that he's smiling while he knees the crying Christ-figure in the face.
> although, "there's no such thing as a war where nobody dies", we've had how many hundreds of casualties since the manga started, including like anyone ever caught in crossfire? *looks up numbers of Barcelona massacre* A'ight, 142 Finders down from Suman's leak alone, plus Klaud's and Socalo's teams, Daisya, Yeegar, the entire crew of Anita's ship minus Chaozii, Kie, and Maosa, and then there's everyone from the massacre at HQ when Lulu Bell led the invading forces...these things add up, my friend.
11
> oh dear. Tokusa has a panel of insane detail and quality; he's obviously going to die soon.
> ...yup. It's a shame; I'd grown attached to these three. Headstrong token-female Link-UST-propagating![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
askerian -esque Tevak, and contrary streak-of-asshole Sir-Amputation Tokusa, and okay I really only care about Madarao because he's prettiful obviously important to his sister and the amputee and rogue mother lion Inspector Link but whatever.
> although the characters of this manga have a serious problem with macho insistence on hiding their problems and doing everything the hard way.
> they also have problems with losing limbs and copious amounts of blood and family members and sanity, but that kind of comes with the territory...
12
> AAAH HOSHINO WHY HAVE YOU BEEN WATCHING RERUNS OF "POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN" YOU KNOW THAT AMERICAN ANIMATION IS BAD FOR YOUR CHOLESTEROLtoo many Ring Dings, not enough soba! *_* (that panel is really adorable, though~ ♥)
> AHA! I knew it! Johnny hasn't accrued enough survivor's guilt to not survive! He's not lucky enough to die quickly, or at all--you know he's totally going to be alive at the end of all thingswith Frodo when like everyone else is dead and there are only three people left to populate the charred corpse of Earth That Was.
13
> aw jeez Johnny, your Jewfro is...actually, I think it might be on fire. Although, really, that'd be the least of their problems at this point.
> AHHH FUCK IT WAS BAK I FORGOT BAK DDD8 *fails at D.Gray-man* Oh well, at least he's alive. Along with Renny and Reever and I think all four of the other scientists (which is funny, 'cause I'm 90% certain that Zuu's dead, and as far as I could tell he was sandwiched on the line of pipes between Bak and Renny's breasts, and they survived...maybe the seals didn't get to him in time and when he hit the ground he shattered into distinct limbs that magically reoriented themselves in such a fashion that--nevermind, I know the answer. You were still coming down off the Vicodin then, weren't you, Hoshino?) and LVELLIE YES LVELLIE MAY YOU LIVE TO TERRORISE AGAIN LIKE A CHARLIE-CHAPLIN-STACHED JULIA CHILD...I mean. *clears throat* I'm sure Link will be pleased.NO ONE BAKES CAKES LIKE THAT MAN~~~ ♥ ♥ ♥
> d'awww, I think that's actually the same expression Allen had on his face when Miranda offered him candy. *sudden really-should-be-disturbing thought* Maybe he just protects his friends because they're a good reserve in case he runs out of food?...nah, I've been reading too many crack-fueled doujin. Next I'll be thinking that Hevlaska only exists for tentacle rape....Oh wait nevermind, that's actually canon.
> ahaha oh Earl, you exist to rain on parades, don't you? You're the ant at the picnic, the grain of sand in someone's eye, the pebble in a shoe, the bad shit cut into Kishimoto's weed. The analogy metaphor pretentious allusion et cetera.
> d'awwwww, that's Alma's super-happy!face, all excited~ and friendly~ and non-homicidal~ aaand this is going to end badly, isn't it?
14
> "I had a dream" no kidding, hon', you did? Was everything in it purple and anatomically incorrect?
15
> oooh, Alma's healing himself. Possibly has to do with asserting and embracing his identity as an Akuma, but mostly I'm just glad I don't have to look at his scalp anymore. It was making me think bad thoughts about the progression of Kanda's regeneration tattoo. T_T Never lose your hair, Kanda! I will cry. (...Okay, I won't cry, but I may pout. Fear the wrath of my transdimensional pout!)
> speaking of Kanda, total lack of reaction to this. Guess no one's ransomed him his soba yet.
16
> AWWW TINY DEFORMED UNHOLY MONSTER ARMS THAT'S SO CUUUUUTE~ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ *wibbles*
> AWWWWW
> tiny tiny tiny
> ;_; socute.
> ...I mean, oooh, ow, Tokusa, all those demonic mutant mouths and arms coming out of you, that's just awful, it's not adorable at all.
> *is a terrible liar*
> ...dude, Alma's kinda hot all growed up.
> (although I kinda bought his original theory that the Seconds were already Akuma by nature just waiting to turn)
17
> aaand continuing with the total lack of emotion from Kanda. I almost wanna say this is worse than usual. Who can we blame this on--Wisely, the psychic voyeur? Road, the...well, Road? Allen, with his Fist of Justice (stole Lenalee's schtick, he did) and unintentional sneak peek into the world of Kanda-brand trauma? Or is it those pesky ransomers, failing to get him his lotus-root tempura soba?
18
> ...yeah, good art stopped happening. Oh well.
> (with all due respect to![[info]](https://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
allegratheneko and the likelihood of myself being unusually fucked in the head, having read "Continue" (one word: 'splat') and so having expected this level of horror (to a point), nothing in my opinion comes anywhere near the godawful horse-fish-thing from chapter 191. Now that was traumatising. *shudder* Hoshino-sensei, for the love of all that's still holy, never do LSD ever again.)
19
> aw, there's so many of him. That's what they get for cloning it. And what with Allen suddenly having Alma's hair and (due to the degeneration of the art) Tokusa's face being easily mistaken for Kanda's in some panels, there's even a cute little parallel. *squooshes*
> dammit Hoshino, were you interspersing your Popeye marathons with "AKIRA"? 'Cause I'm havin' some serious déjà vu with that one part where Tetsuo splats his girlfriend...what was her name, Kaori?
> ...actually, AKIRA explains this entire fucking arc. Goddamn. Nevermind.
20
> oh dude, it looks like that Skinless thing we saw in the reflections when Tyki was angsting in the room with the shattered windows and Road just sitting and chilling on the floor with a lollipop ('cause that's how she rolls) and and and you know what chapter I'm talking about, right? (I call them "Skinless" because it reminds me of those freaky things in Tamora Pierce's book In the Realms of the Gods, where there were these creatures unleashed upon the world that could by just touching any living thing strip it of its skin and leave it dead, and I was some kind of tiny when I read this and it left an impression on me, even if it sort of warped with time; for instance, the "Skinners" have no mouths, but that round eyeless grin instantly brought back the memory. Although, in retrospect, these mouths look an awful lot more like Timcanpy... *has another gleefully terrible thought*Well, he does seem to be indestructible and eat just about everything...)
21
> oh dear, Hoshino can't draw at all on this page. Well, it was nice while it lasted.
> ...Seriously Allen. Crown Clown has been activating by itself and merrily doing shit without your explicit permission since the beginning of the fucking manga, and you're just noticing it now?
>> Dude, exhibit A: activation to block Goushi's instinctive attack just before the last hiatus;
>> exhibit B: the way it reinforced body armor to puppet your body when you were essentially fucking paralysed back during the fight with the first Level 4;
>> exhibit C: moving as a cloudy particulate mass to seal up a fatal wound in your heart while you were out cold in a puddle of your own blood in the bamboo forest in China;
>> exhibit D: chapter fucking 36, which made no sense to me until I read "ZONE" and realised that your precursor Robin, aside from being a girl, was also an Akuma, but all "D" skulls aside, honey, you were K.O.'d on the floor and lovely Eliade was about to chop off your head when--wait for it--your Innocence moved on its own;
>> and, finally, exhibit Ground motherfucking Zero: maiden-voyage activation, dragging you across the graveyard to exorcise the Akuma of Mana Walker while you were too traumatised, injured, recently cursed, and underage to do anything but feebly try to stop it in anticipation of the next five or six years of screaming-meemies nightmares.
>> "Ultimate Willpower of Shounen Protagonist" only goes so far. That shit has a mind of its own, possibly even more than any other Innocence has shown so far, even if the Heart of the Innocence is clearly Lvellie's eyebrows (which is the real reason why he survives all these massive attacks and invasions). I rest my case.
> (oh, and "invocate" is about as English as "orientate", by which I mean not really; 'invoke' is to 'invocation' as 'orient' is to 'orientation', similar to but not quite the same as the way 'excavate' is to 'excavation' or 'activate' is to 'activation', although what really bugs me is how much I like the term "Invocate" as applied to this particular canon)
> and sweet baby Jesus on a pogo stick I really need to nip these tangents in the bud if I'm going to get through all thirty-something pages before September. Oy. This is what happens when I let myself stew over things. *headdesk*
22
> okay, Allen being totally ineffectual and slightly more suicidal than usual, mebbe I should get back to this with less cynical eyes. *pause to check in with AW's probable mental state* Okay, yeah, parallel of Mana, of course he's panicking, he won't willingly hurt his friends. To everyone else, though, he looks like a complete idiot. Poor bitty.
> *snicker* of course, I can't get the image of him attempting seppuku out of my head. (Especially with the 'go for the jugular!' style of jigai...) Oh, Allen. *pats*
23
> all of a sudden pretty art! Probably because of the stark monochrome thick-lined panel of Alma complete in himself (which, much like Allen's rogue ear (♥!), will most likely make the rounds of the icon comms), but I'll take what I can get! *ogles*
> oh dearie me, he's really gone evil at this point. The emo tearmarks are, like, the ultimate visual cue, jeez. (The evil!smile helps too, of course.)
24
> ah, so that's where Mercym went. Madarao, hold on for your little sister! It'd be boring if there weren't at least some angsty closure.
> ...damn, I still can't tell whether Kiredori is male or female. I may have to file this character under the JasDevi/Legory Peck's Assistant Mathew category of "Question Mark".
25
> --hoshit, that really was Timothy? I coulda sworn it was Tiedoll and his puppet, my b.
> ...all right, quoting Allegra for this one:
ME: LENALEE OH MY GOD IT'S LENALEE LENALEE LENALEE YOU LOOK AMAZING LENALEE OMGOMGOMG I MISSED YOU SO MUCH LENALEEEEE!11!11
LENALEE: *EXPLODES*
ME: D8
LENALEE'S ASS: SO I HERD YOU'VE BEEN MISSING ME?
EVERYONE: 8D
> Lavi too! Gang's all there:
>> the group in the ruins of the North American branch largely represented by Allen, Kanda, and Alma, with cameos from Johnny and the Earl;
>> Link and Tevak nearby;
>> Mercym and Madarao at an undisclosed location, likely also nearby or perhaps back in Jordan;
>> Kiredori and Krory representing the group in Russia (IIRC, Miranda, Socalo, JasDevi, and the froofy-haired Noah are there as well);
>> Goushi, Timothy, and Lenalee (Lenaleeeee! ♥) representing the group in Greece (with Klaud and Lulu Bell, I think?);
>> and now Lavi, representing the only group without a Third Exorcist escort, in China. (Who was with him, Bookman, Chaozii, and the "Fiddler" Noah?) I predict a long, drawn-out battle between the separate Exorcist groups and the newly-born Level 5(?) Akuma. Well, either that or a quick anticlimax...
26
> oh, Link. ♥ Someone's been practising since the battle at the convent/orphanage in France. (Wait, he's a "captain" now?)
> ...oh hold up. Dark Matter comes from the Earl's soul? (And then it grows in and is harvested from the Egg?) Let us have a moment of sympathetic "ew" for the Thirds. *EWWW*
27
> XD oh, Hoshino. I love your attitude of "now is never not a good time to mock the Sharingan."
28
> oooh, the arm-blade looks kinda like that parasitic Innocence he synced with back in the day.
29
> "You're pretty cool now, Yuu." Yup, same old Alma. He does seem like the type to fawn over you even as he slits your throat.
> XDDD;; oh, Hoshino. Never not a good time!~
30
> "Do you have...friends...?" juxtaposed with Allen crashing into a pile of rubble behind them and vocally continuing to be a bleeding heart. *snicker* (I can just imagine Kanda's answer. "Kind of, but I really wish I didn't. As you can see, they're all idiots.")
31
> is it just me, or do the Thirds' Kazaana-claws look more like Crown Clown now than they did originally?
> ah, Crown Clown deactivated.
> "Just how...am I going to save him...!?" Um, here's a thought: your arm turns into a sword that's incapable of hurting normal humans.Exorcise him, cap'n! ...Okay, that was a terrible joke, I apologise for that.
> "Forbidden temptation!" Aside from the fact that that sounds like the name of a bad fanfic, here is the difference between Wilful Shounen Protagonists andme the rest of us. It'd be so easy for Allen to go, "Sacrifice myself for the sake of my friends? Sure! Put it in writing, bitches, swear on it in blood, where's my attorney? Slide in some fine print about liability during 'acts of god' and when I fight my way out of this we can beat off the army of lawyers with the argument that anything an Exorcist 'Apostle' does can be considered an Act of God..." But no, he's gonna take the hard way out.
*is ded* On to chapter 196!...
CHAPTER 193
CHAPTER 194 (was not interesting enough to take notes on, apparently)
CHAPTER 196
CHAPTER 197
CHAPTER 198
CHAPTER 199 (a.k.a. "the D.Gray-version of Naruto #347 and #386, combined")
CHAPTER 200
[blah blah D.Gray-chapter 195 blah blah reactions and speculation blah blah shits and giggles blah bl--HELLO, LENALEE. 8DDD]
re: last chapter: Hoshino smoking waaay too much theology and failing at drawing her own protagonist's face, what else is new? And Slinky!Kanda is now forever cemented into my brain, thank you very much Allegra. Although I really would've loved to see what happened to Marie and Renny and how they survived that shit, and maybe something about the lotus mirages transferring to the waking world, and Mystery Woman, wtf with that staff she was holding when she first appeared, Innocence? *sighs and crosses fingers for further explanatory flashbacks that likely will never come*
00
> (nagumooo, j'adore, your translations are like singlehandedly holding up this fandom and the world of sane math)
> (although this new moratorium on raws is really harshing my translate-it-my-own-damn-self mellow)
01
> GOOD ART oh hallelujah she's off the opioids; Johnny, you never looked so beautiful.
> (watch this degenerate into lolwhut!anatomy in 5...4...3...)
02
> a'ight, this is one of those "let me refresh your memory by repeating the last events of the previous chapter from a different pov and
> why is Allen's hair morphing slowly over the chapters to mimic Alma's? We have seen you trying to be subtle before, Hoshino, it's like getting dental work done with a jackhammer.
> (new form of virus-pentagrams? mebbe to emphasise the 'holy shit level five!!' factor...)
> (...light that mutates, burns, and destroys. Nooo similarity to a nuclear blast at all. Damn you, WWII! *shakefish*)
> "Stop, Alma. There are a lot of people in here." Yeah, that's totally gonna work, Allen. *pats*
03
> ...oh cute, even the shockwave's in the shape of a pentagram.
04-05
> re: fabulous Noah are fabulous:
>> the Earl still has the Mana-hat. Is he (or Hoshino) trying to make a point?;
>> so that's where Road went. She's pretty agile for a plushie;
>> Tyki looks a bit too much like Allen, but I suppose that was the point of Road and Wisely's surreptitious conversation in chapter 187 (apart from the fact that, hey, Road's not really a lolita! She's just looked that way for thirty-five years. Um, Lavi, I dinnae think that Allen's the pedophile in this relationship...)
> sooo the text apparently has the kanji for "Fourteenth" with the furigana for "Allen Walker", thank god the translators (all hail nagumo) note that shit or...well, I'd be missing out, dunno if anyone else is OCD enough to care.
> oooh, the "om" tattoo (sans dream state) changed into a hand, how...typically unnecessarily symbolic of you, Hoshino. Y'know I didn't find out about the Kashmir Trika philosophies of sāṃsārika and ālma karma until just yesterday? Too much symbolism. (Last chapter's cover, case in point. Hinduism mashed with Buddhism mashed with Christianity mashed with Final Fantasy mashed with I don't even know, man. And while we're at it, why does Kanda have a Hime Cut? I would feel better if the answer to these questions were not "the author was on drugs and felt like it.")
> "from a nightmare into something yet more nightmarish"? Bet that sounded a lot better pre-translation. *alas, the raws...*
06
> --ah! Alma's regaining his facial expressions already. It helps that the inker was using the thick pens...
> AHHH ZUU (at least I think it's Zuu) now who will we have to induce a lotusy flashback? ...Besides the Lotus woman, that is. (And whose foot is that? Peck & Co.?)
> did she finally go and kill alla dem? Hm.
>> Tokusa! Shame, I've liked you ever since you made that terribly inopportune comment about the Akuma in front of Allen. Great one for tact, that guy.
>> Lvellie! ...LVELLIE NOOO I LOVED THAT MAN AND HIS EVIL PASTRY~ T_T (Link will be sad.)
>> Renny! 'Bout time she kicked the bucket considering how she escaped the axe back in the day with the Second Exorcist debacle, but I will miss her sudden resemblance to Larxene. Possibly also her fashion sense--wearing a dead fox around your neck when you go to inform HQ that you're performing another godawful human experiment in the name of the Church and the war effort? Ten points to Epstain House for rubbing it in with style.
>> Peck! You're adorable and your duck hair (and perkily androgynous assistant) will be missed. Possibly also the other sciencey dude and his assistant woman, I don't really know enough to care about them.
>> Johnny! Actually no, that guy's got too much survivor's guilt to die now. He's, like, doomed to watch all his loved ones massacred horribly in front of him, before he goes to cry on Allen's even-more-traumatised shoulder as incentive to Messiah the problem away.
>> Reever! REEVER ALAS. With you goes some of the finest fanservice known to D.Gray-man. (And that's saying something, considering how half the characters are sex on legs. Tyki and Kanda and Lenalee and Cross, anyone?
>> ummm um um who am I forgetting. Argh. I think that was it...
07
> awww, Alma's all ":D Yuuuuu~ ♥" and Kanda's a bit "...did Jeryy spike my soba or did Beansprout actually just have the cojones to punch me in the face?"
08
> aaand Kanda's hair is somehow still in the ponytail. Wow, it really does only release with the onset of almost-death. Like there's a hair-trigger (pun totally unintended, I apologise for that) somewhere in the tie connected to the regeneration tattoo or something. I wonder if his shirt does the same thing? It did for Skinn...augh more pun. DAMMIT, HOSHINO.
> actually, Ponytail's giving off this vibe of "I have emoted enough for one day. I refuse to have a facial expression until my demands are met.
09
> ah, Tokusa! Once a Crow, always a Crow. Guess Allen-protecting badassery comes with the package.
10
> see, this is why I love this amputee. Although it is a bit odd that he's smiling while he knees the crying Christ-figure in the face.
> although, "there's no such thing as a war where nobody dies", we've had how many hundreds of casualties since the manga started, including like anyone ever caught in crossfire? *looks up numbers of Barcelona massacre* A'ight, 142 Finders down from Suman's leak alone, plus Klaud's and Socalo's teams, Daisya, Yeegar, the entire crew of Anita's ship minus Chaozii, Kie, and Maosa, and then there's everyone from the massacre at HQ when Lulu Bell led the invading forces...these things add up, my friend.
11
> oh dear. Tokusa has a panel of insane detail and quality; he's obviously going to die soon.
> ...yup. It's a shame; I'd grown attached to these three. Headstrong token-female Link-UST-propagating
askerian -esque Tevak, and contrary streak-of-asshole Sir-Amputation Tokusa, and okay I really only care about Madarao because he's > although the characters of this manga have a serious problem with macho insistence on hiding their problems and doing everything the hard way.
> they also have problems with losing limbs and copious amounts of blood and family members and sanity, but that kind of comes with the territory...
12
> AAAH HOSHINO WHY HAVE YOU BEEN WATCHING RERUNS OF "POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN" YOU KNOW THAT AMERICAN ANIMATION IS BAD FOR YOUR CHOLESTEROL
> AHA! I knew it! Johnny hasn't accrued enough survivor's guilt to not survive! He's not lucky enough to die quickly, or at all--you know he's totally going to be alive at the end of all things
13
> aw jeez Johnny, your Jewfro is...actually, I think it might be on fire. Although, really, that'd be the least of their problems at this point.
> AHHH FUCK IT WAS BAK I FORGOT BAK DDD8 *fails at D.Gray-man* Oh well, at least he's alive. Along with Renny and Reever and I think all four of the other scientists (which is funny, 'cause I'm 90% certain that Zuu's dead, and as far as I could tell he was sandwiched on the line of pipes between Bak and Renny's breasts, and they survived...maybe the seals didn't get to him in time and when he hit the ground he shattered into distinct limbs that magically reoriented themselves in such a fashion that--nevermind, I know the answer. You were still coming down off the Vicodin then, weren't you, Hoshino?) and LVELLIE YES LVELLIE MAY YOU LIVE TO TERRORISE AGAIN LIKE A CHARLIE-CHAPLIN-STACHED JULIA CHILD...I mean. *clears throat* I'm sure Link will be pleased.
> d'awww, I think that's actually the same expression Allen had on his face when Miranda offered him candy. *sudden really-should-be-disturbing thought* Maybe he just protects his friends because they're a good reserve in case he runs out of food?...nah, I've been reading too many crack-fueled doujin. Next I'll be thinking that Hevlaska only exists for tentacle rape.
> ahaha oh Earl, you exist to rain on parades, don't you? You're the ant at the picnic, the grain of sand in someone's eye, the pebble in a shoe, the bad shit cut into Kishimoto's weed. The analogy metaphor pretentious allusion et cetera.
> d'awwwww, that's Alma's super-happy!face, all excited~ and friendly~ and non-homicidal~ aaand this is going to end badly, isn't it?
14
> "I had a dream" no kidding, hon', you did? Was everything in it purple and anatomically incorrect?
15
> oooh, Alma's healing himself. Possibly has to do with asserting and embracing his identity as an Akuma, but mostly I'm just glad I don't have to look at his scalp anymore. It was making me think bad thoughts about the progression of Kanda's regeneration tattoo. T_T Never lose your hair, Kanda! I will cry. (...Okay, I won't cry, but I may pout. Fear the wrath of my transdimensional pout!)
> speaking of Kanda, total lack of reaction to this. Guess no one's ransomed him his soba yet.
16
> AWWW TINY DEFORMED UNHOLY MONSTER ARMS THAT'S SO CUUUUUTE~ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ *wibbles*
> AWWWWW
> tiny tiny tiny
> ;_; socute.
> ...I mean, oooh, ow, Tokusa, all those demonic mutant mouths and arms coming out of you, that's just awful, it's not adorable at all.
> *is a terrible liar*
> ...dude, Alma's kinda hot all growed up.
> (although I kinda bought his original theory that the Seconds were already Akuma by nature just waiting to turn)
17
> aaand continuing with the total lack of emotion from Kanda. I almost wanna say this is worse than usual. Who can we blame this on--Wisely, the psychic voyeur? Road, the...well, Road? Allen, with his Fist of Justice (stole Lenalee's schtick, he did) and unintentional sneak peek into the world of Kanda-brand trauma? Or is it those pesky ransomers, failing to get him his lotus-root tempura soba?
18
> ...yeah, good art stopped happening. Oh well.
> (with all due respect to
allegratheneko and the likelihood of myself being unusually fucked in the head, having read "Continue" (one word: 'splat') and so having expected this level of horror (to a point), nothing in my opinion comes anywhere near the godawful horse-fish-thing from chapter 191. Now that was traumatising. *shudder* Hoshino-sensei, for the love of all that's still holy, never do LSD ever again.)19
> aw, there's so many of him. That's what they get for cloning it. And what with Allen suddenly having Alma's hair and (due to the degeneration of the art) Tokusa's face being easily mistaken for Kanda's in some panels, there's even a cute little parallel. *squooshes*
> dammit Hoshino, were you interspersing your Popeye marathons with "AKIRA"? 'Cause I'm havin' some serious déjà vu with that one part where Tetsuo splats his girlfriend...what was her name, Kaori?
> ...actually, AKIRA explains this entire fucking arc. Goddamn. Nevermind.
20
> oh dude, it looks like that Skinless thing we saw in the reflections when Tyki was angsting in the room with the shattered windows and Road just sitting and chilling on the floor with a lollipop ('cause that's how she rolls) and and and you know what chapter I'm talking about, right? (I call them "Skinless" because it reminds me of those freaky things in Tamora Pierce's book In the Realms of the Gods, where there were these creatures unleashed upon the world that could by just touching any living thing strip it of its skin and leave it dead, and I was some kind of tiny when I read this and it left an impression on me, even if it sort of warped with time; for instance, the "Skinners" have no mouths, but that round eyeless grin instantly brought back the memory. Although, in retrospect, these mouths look an awful lot more like Timcanpy... *has another gleefully terrible thought*
21
> oh dear, Hoshino can't draw at all on this page. Well, it was nice while it lasted.
> ...Seriously Allen. Crown Clown has been activating by itself and merrily doing shit without your explicit permission since the beginning of the fucking manga, and you're just noticing it now?
>> Dude, exhibit A: activation to block Goushi's instinctive attack just before the last hiatus;
>> exhibit B: the way it reinforced body armor to puppet your body when you were essentially fucking paralysed back during the fight with the first Level 4;
>> exhibit C: moving as a cloudy particulate mass to seal up a fatal wound in your heart while you were out cold in a puddle of your own blood in the bamboo forest in China;
>> exhibit D: chapter fucking 36, which made no sense to me until I read "ZONE" and realised that your precursor Robin, aside from being a girl, was also an Akuma, but all "D" skulls aside, honey, you were K.O.'d on the floor and lovely Eliade was about to chop off your head when--wait for it--your Innocence moved on its own;
>> and, finally, exhibit Ground motherfucking Zero: maiden-voyage activation, dragging you across the graveyard to exorcise the Akuma of Mana Walker while you were too traumatised, injured, recently cursed, and underage to do anything but feebly try to stop it in anticipation of the next five or six years of screaming-meemies nightmares.
>> "Ultimate Willpower of Shounen Protagonist" only goes so far. That shit has a mind of its own, possibly even more than any other Innocence has shown so far, even if the Heart of the Innocence is clearly Lvellie's eyebrows (which is the real reason why he survives all these massive attacks and invasions). I rest my case.
> (oh, and "invocate" is about as English as "orientate", by which I mean not really; 'invoke' is to 'invocation' as 'orient' is to 'orientation', similar to but not quite the same as the way 'excavate' is to 'excavation' or 'activate' is to 'activation', although what really bugs me is how much I like the term "Invocate" as applied to this particular canon)
> and sweet baby Jesus on a pogo stick I really need to nip these tangents in the bud if I'm going to get through all thirty-something pages before September. Oy. This is what happens when I let myself stew over things. *headdesk*
22
> okay, Allen being totally ineffectual and slightly more suicidal than usual, mebbe I should get back to this with less cynical eyes. *pause to check in with AW's probable mental state* Okay, yeah, parallel of Mana, of course he's panicking, he won't willingly hurt his friends. To everyone else, though, he looks like a complete idiot. Poor bitty.
> *snicker* of course, I can't get the image of him attempting seppuku out of my head. (Especially with the 'go for the jugular!' style of jigai...) Oh, Allen. *pats*
23
> all of a sudden pretty art! Probably because of the stark monochrome thick-lined panel of Alma complete in himself (which, much like Allen's rogue ear (♥!), will most likely make the rounds of the icon comms), but I'll take what I can get! *ogles*
> oh dearie me, he's really gone evil at this point. The emo tearmarks are, like, the ultimate visual cue, jeez. (The evil!smile helps too, of course.)
24
> ah, so that's where Mercym went. Madarao, hold on for your little sister! It'd be boring if there weren't at least some angsty closure.
> ...damn, I still can't tell whether Kiredori is male or female. I may have to file this character under the JasDevi/Legory Peck's Assistant Mathew category of "Question Mark".
25
> --hoshit, that really was Timothy? I coulda sworn it was Tiedoll and his puppet, my b.
> ...all right, quoting Allegra for this one:
ME: LENALEE OH MY GOD IT'S LENALEE LENALEE LENALEE YOU LOOK AMAZING LENALEE OMGOMGOMG I MISSED YOU SO MUCH LENALEEEEE!11!11
LENALEE: *EXPLODES*
ME: D8
LENALEE'S ASS: SO I HERD YOU'VE BEEN MISSING ME?
EVERYONE: 8D
> Lavi too! Gang's all there:
>> the group in the ruins of the North American branch largely represented by Allen, Kanda, and Alma, with cameos from Johnny and the Earl;
>> Link and Tevak nearby;
>> Mercym and Madarao at an undisclosed location, likely also nearby or perhaps back in Jordan;
>> Kiredori and Krory representing the group in Russia (IIRC, Miranda, Socalo, JasDevi, and the froofy-haired Noah are there as well);
>> Goushi, Timothy, and Lenalee (Lenaleeeee! ♥) representing the group in Greece (with Klaud and Lulu Bell, I think?);
>> and now Lavi, representing the only group without a Third Exorcist escort, in China. (Who was with him, Bookman, Chaozii, and the "Fiddler" Noah?) I predict a long, drawn-out battle between the separate Exorcist groups and the newly-born Level 5(?) Akuma. Well, either that or a quick anticlimax...
26
> oh, Link. ♥ Someone's been practising since the battle at the convent/orphanage in France. (Wait, he's a "captain" now?)
> ...oh hold up. Dark Matter comes from the Earl's soul? (And then it grows in and is harvested from the Egg?) Let us have a moment of sympathetic "ew" for the Thirds. *EWWW*
27
> XD oh, Hoshino. I love your attitude of "now is never not a good time to mock the Sharingan."
28
> oooh, the arm-blade looks kinda like that parasitic Innocence he synced with back in the day.
29
> "You're pretty cool now, Yuu." Yup, same old Alma. He does seem like the type to fawn over you even as he slits your throat.
> XDDD;; oh, Hoshino. Never not a good time!~
30
> "Do you have...friends...?" juxtaposed with Allen crashing into a pile of rubble behind them and vocally continuing to be a bleeding heart. *snicker* (I can just imagine Kanda's answer. "Kind of, but I really wish I didn't. As you can see, they're all idiots.")
31
> is it just me, or do the Thirds' Kazaana-claws look more like Crown Clown now than they did originally?
> ah, Crown Clown deactivated.
> "Just how...am I going to save him...!?" Um, here's a thought: your arm turns into a sword that's incapable of hurting normal humans.
> "Forbidden temptation!" Aside from the fact that that sounds like the name of a bad fanfic, here is the difference between Wilful Shounen Protagonists and
*is ded* On to chapter 196!...