Sprite

OhHaiDer :]


Holy shit
The sun has appeared!
By the way
I've hit 2000 views 
No matter how I got to that number I'm happy that I did
I'd like to thank you, invisible audience, for all the views
Anyway
Today I bring you
Sprite~
(No, not the beverage.)


Sprite


Story & Art: Yugo Ishikawa
Publisher: Shogakukan
Rating: 16+
Synopsis: (mangaupdates.com) Yoshiko, a hardworking high-school student, is always taking care of others. Despite studying hard for herself, she still finds the time every day to copy her class notes and deliver them to her home bound, video game playing, childhood best friend who has not been to school for quite a while. One day on her way back from delivering the notes to her friend, she notices "black snow" falling from the sky. Confused, she asks her friends Miki and Kiriko if they had seen the snow, too. Having not seen anything, her friends assume she has been overworking herself. Yoshiko, who also regularly helps out a reclusive uncle, one day brings her friends along to help, planning on doing some karaoke afterward. Due to the appearance of the black snow, an ominous event happens and things keep getting stranger and stranger...


Art Review: 3.5/5


A very detailed manga, expected, as it is a apocalyptic manga and that tends to be detailed, although I don't like the design of the faces very much, every single person in this manga aside from the 'reborn Kurt Cobain' seems like they are chubby. I also don't like how all the fear faces in this manga just look like everyone is a zombie from 28 Days Later (an honestly botchy movie.)


Story Review: I think I picked this manga to review simply because it was called Sprite and I'm really thirsty. Yoshiko starts walking outside and sees black snow. Um, guys, it's Japan, I think that's ash.. And no, I'm not implying that they have incinerated Ash Ketchum and somehow scattered his ashes all over Japan (no pun intended.) Yoshiko was sitting in class when it started snowing black again. But to be honest I was playing attention to the Japanese Yahoo knock-off, Yahuuuu! I found that hysterical. "Oh wow, yahoo.com, that still exists" If you're a Raocow fan, you know exactly what I'm referring to. I guess someone tries to be a troll and scream that Yoshiko is watching porn. If YOUR nose is bleeding, miss, then you are no better. At the sight of blood, the following is uttered: Student: Bleeding!! Student 2: Bleeding!! Student 3: Her nose is bleeding!! Firstly, are you guys a male chorus or something? We're not reading a musical are we? (How on earth would you READ a musical, anyway?) Secondly, thanks for pointing out the obvious. We move along to Bront, who for whatever reason, has a online game that is closing. As soon as he gets kicked off he throws his monitor to the ground and rage quits. There are other games in the internet sea, bro.. My question is, how is a guy who has played games for 10 years, ever able to take care of a dog? Oh that's right, he can live off of ramen leftovers. And this Bront guy is so emo. At one point he just says "the whole world is raining.." I was expecting him to go,"and my heart is crying." And I swear when he was looking down at his can of beer I was expecting him to headbutt it, like in that commercial. A time tsunami hits (don't ask, the manga's not even finished so I can't even begin to explain that) and after he tries to call his dog. Your dog looks like Frank from Men in Black. I really don't think he can help pull anyone's weight. I always thought that in these apocalyptic mangas, the guy with the shaggy hair and wisdom about the situation would randomly turn epic even if they are old, but it turns out otherwise, as Bront stands up, steps on glass and faceplants against a wall and collapses. When Yoshiki comes to, she decides to call someone. Ohh, the choices.. 119 for fire department.. 911 for police.. Or mom. Let's call mom first! The girls try to figure out why it is so black outside, and Kiriko suggests that Mt.Fuji has erupted. Girls, it wouldn't have that much ash if it erupted unless the Earth was taking Ex-Lax today. After, they see some guy crawling from the rubble, panting,"Woo hoo, woo.." Seems a bit inappropriate for the moment. A query about this manga, why is it that everyone who is found here, they look like a zombie. With the bloodshot eyes, and the mouth gaping and the blood tears.. The guy they find jumps in the water in attempts to find a way to escape. He quickly realises that it isn't really water that he's jumped in. Firstly, you guys are on the 42nd floor. How were you expecting to make it all the way down if it's flooded all the way up there? Secondly, if it's pitch black, I think it's safe to assume it ISN'T water. It could have been TAR for all you know. Following the guy jumping into the water and dying they keep exclaiming that it's NOT water. With all that proclamation you'd think they were enacting the "I can't believe it's not butter" ad. The wife of the man who just died is also pregnant, and she tries to jump into the water to save him. She rips the baby out of her womb and dies as well. What threw me off for a second is that the baby was not only unharmed, it had a full head of hair and can speak. For one second I thought she had a super uterus. Another query about this manga, what is it about this water that makes older women batshit insane? The next woman takes this kid, thinking it was the one she used to have that died in the earthquake. Oh Kiriko.. Tsk tsk. You're breaking a rule of apocalyptic manga.. Don't ever go alone anywhere and try to be a hero... You usually die. But she gets lucky and finds a bunch of children on the roof instead. With tents. Somehow. And rescuing fat people? Already this seems like a bad idea. They automatically go and steal supplies. They themselves are walking supplies. All you have to do is embrace cannibalism.. -evil smile- And you know you're addicted to video games, Bront, when you even dream about them when the world is ending. I do have to ask myself one question.. In my notes I have written the following with no context whatsoever,"I chickens." Just what the hell was I trying to write? I shall give you a cookie if you help me find that out. Anyway, Bront continues to fail. You even see his dog facepalming at this point. So we find out later that the 'black water' is time itself in a physical form. Explains the woman with the super uterus. I kind of laughed when Bront exclaims that he's spent 10 years studying time, and Kiriko walks in at that moment and says it's a waste of time. What a wonderful pun. And apparently the kids on the roof have found ways to avoid time for at least 250 years. It somewhat explains how time has become material. They've wrecked balance. And I have a terrible feeling that this is all going to end up being a huge metaphor. When the black water does finally drain, Yoshiko says, is that how it is? It makes it sound like she's offended. Mhmmmm *snaps fingers* Bront asks the 258 year old kid what's happening, and he says he doesn't know, and Bront retorts that he's a useless 258 year old. I really was expecting him to say 'YOU WHIPPERNSNAPPERS' or something else stereotypical of old people. Another thing I thought when reading that, how would you give this guy a birthday card? Buy a card for a 50 year old and write a huge 2 beside it? As they start discovering that they have gone to the year 2059, Setsuko finds a cartridge for a game for the PS5. What's next, the xbox1080? They do sort of make me mad in this scene. I know they are all freaked out and everything, but they can't even figure out why there's a calendar for the year 2059. And apparently since now you have gone in time there are giant insects. That's the future? With my lifestyle I'm supposed to live until 2083, assuming I don't get killed or something. If that's what I have to deal with when I'm 65, fuck that shit. Speaking upon those insects, with Bront's addiction to gaming, I expect he's going to hear Final Fantasy music in his head. Now, see, I told you NOT to save those fat people in the beginning. Look at them now, they're blocking your door as the giant insects chase you. And as more bugs arrive to eat them, I'm thinking to myself,"Now's not the time for you guys to be re enacting The Mist. Break that window with the bat!" (Although I know it's cruel of me, I laughed REALLY hard at the ending where *spoiler alert* The father shoots all of his family because he hears noises, only to find that it was the army making those noises. *spoiler alert* I just find things like that funny, for whatever reason.) The fat guy insists he's not going to open that door and says,"The only way this door is opening is over my dead body!" You know, considering how fat you are, that's not going to happen even if you died. Yoshiko takes the bat and says that she will fend off the bugs. With the way she was posing with the bat for battle, I swear she was gonna say,"IN THE NAME OF THE MOON I SHALL PUNISH YOU" I just started loving this manga even more. A cool Kurt Cobain look a like has come to save the day! Now that you think about it the future might not be so bad if they decide to resurrect Kurt Cobain. Bront yells at Yoshiko for trying to be brave, saying,"If you died, how could I face your mother?" Um, considering you've gone into the future, I don't think that would matter much anymore. And as we see the monsters walk away with Setsuko in their.. umm.. Mandibles, I think to myself,"Oh no, they're eating Shirley Temple." (I seriously don't believe she's still alive.) The 258-year-old-kid (still don't know his name) asks for a gun. Child with a gun. That reminds me of Katekyou Hitman Reborn. Or Chuckie, when he decides to ditch his kitchen knife. The action scenes in this manga, I think of epic rock songs in my head while I'm reading. All of a sudden while he's fighting, Kurt Cobain just turns around and has glasses. That's fucking epic. And it kind of reminds me of the meme. If you need to be linked to that, I should slap you. Overall, I really enjoyed this manga as you can see, and it's not even over yet. A great manga you should pick up if you're a fan of the apocalyptic manga.


9/10