#WHATEVER IT WAS COOL OKAY.

[mroddmod]

everyone be quiet i'm manifesting

[taeiris]

in honor of our first byler set leaks and pride month

i present to you: the romantic goth byler i was yapping abt

[sugawara--san]

i'm sorry but izuku watching katsuki and shouto and everyone else be heroes without him makes me actually violently ill IDC IDC

[front-facing-pokemon]

[queerofthedagger]

yes i made the same kind of post about finrod. yes i will make the same kind of post about maedhros at some point, probably. i said what i said

[checkadii]

mman . idk. im so fucking sleepeu and iys only 330

[starzgaze]

ignore fucky anatomy but what do we thinkg gang

[sleepyc63]

watcher fanart based on the ripple trailer!! :)

[hrokkall]

Worthy Sacrifice

[jellydragons]

tetra is having a Day

[seagull9111]

i like the idea of nico trying to convince himself he has a crush on annabeth

so much so that he acts like it around her.

he tries to convince himself but in the process starts to convince everyone around him, even annabeth

till it hits him one day, hard like a brick. that he does not like annabeth, he thinks shes cool. he wants to know her as a person

but he doesnt like annabeth, not like that. but he did like percy, like that

[ultrakillmmmyes]

i wanted to get better at drawing creatures and then hakita’s iconic ultrakill character got involved???

[clawz-loopz]

I always laugh when people get mad at slowburns for being a slowburn... like. You do realize this is what you signed up for, ya?

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

Hope you’re well. Do you know how much extra content volumes usually have compared to the number of weekly pages? Apparently we’re getting 60 extra pages. Is that a lot more than normal?

Hello! Thanks for the well wishes.

You've come to the right person, because I'm a weirdo who has done a ridiculous amount of research on Shueisha's tankōban releases and how they differ from WSJ serialization, so I have a good idea about how some of those pages are going to be used. I'm also gonna compare what we know about this final volume to those of other series.

Strap in for the spreadsheets and data party, pal!

First, here's a look at a selection of MHA volumes.

EDIT: These numbers come from Shueisha's official listings of the volumes and their table of contents, cross-verified with the MHA fanwiki's chapter page counts, some of my own physical copies, and online fan scans.

As you can see, roughly 20 pages is typical. 58 seems wild in comparison. I wanted to know what those 20 pages were usually used for.

So, I went through my copy of volume 37 and did a breakdown of its contents.

Now lemme explain some things:

Every tankōban will have between 4-6 pages for legal disclaimers ("this is a work of fiction", etc.), table of contents, and copyright information.

A "door" is a printing term for what one might call the volume title page or chapter title page (example in link). Not all chapters have "doors," most have their titles integrated into the first page, like so:

The vast majority of tankōban have page counts that are divisible by four. This is related to the physical mechanics of printing and binding books, so it is unusual to find ones outside this format. Volume 11 is an outlier in this regard with 210 pages; in fact, the English language release cut those two surplus pages.

Tankōban may have dust jackets. MHA tankōban with dust jackets often have a second, internal "sketch cover" and a final page promoting the next volume. These are not included in page counts, and are thus not included in my breakdown.

Manga is of course read right-to-left; this means if you hold a tankōban open, odd-numbered pages will be on the left side and even-numbered pages will be on the right.

In professional publishing, chapters are structured so their first page of actual story content is on the left. Page planning, which is taught to new artists and enforced by editors, involves the odd-numbered page ending on some sort of "pull." Basically, page 2 might be drawn to lead your eye across the book, but page 3 has to make you want to turn the page and find out what happens next.

Basically everything published in Weekly Shonen Jump has chapters with an odd-number of pages, so it'll have 15, 17, 19, or 21 pages, instead of 16, 18, 20, or 22. This allows the chapter to both begin and end on the lefthand side; even-numbered pages before and after the chapters separate the different series with promotional ads.

What we think of as bonus material is mostly what I personally call adjustment pages: in order for every chapter to still begin and end on the odd-numbered page in the tankōban, they must be separated by at least one page that fills the even-numbered gap.

Sketches, quotes, doors, all that extra stuff is really just there to make the structure of the tankōban a little more appealing to the reader. In my breakdown, "adjust" refers to an even-numbered page that is totally blank except for a MHA logo in the bottom corner.

So, 4-6 pages for legal stuff and at least 1 page separating each chapter (typically 8-12), plus a few pages of extra art like character pages or chapter doors, you can see why we end up with roughly 20 pages more than the total of the chapter pages combined.

With this information, let's imagine what Volume 42 might look like.

In this estimate, I just guessed it would have the same pattern of extras as Volume 37, since we know the final volume will have the results of the last WSJ popularity poll. This totals 146 pages, so basically, even accounting for the inter-chapter sketches, that's 38 pages of new, unknown content!

I've seen people guessing that the final volume will include the 2008 one-shot Horikoshi used as the basis for My Hero Academia, but I can basically guarantee you that won't happen, because when it was published in Akamaru Jump (which is now called Jump GIGA), it was 47 pages long. Yes, I went and found a Japanese blog post from January 2008 to verify this page count.

126 chapter pages + 4 legal pages + 8 adjustment pages between chapters + 4 pages for popularity poll + 47 one-shot pages = 189 pages, 5 pages too many. They would have to remove the adjustment pages to make it work, which totally fucks the flow of the manga.

Furthermore, the word used in the WSJ ad to describe the bonus material for the final volume (描き下ろし) specifically refers to drawings newly made for a special purpose. They simply would not use this to refer to a previously published manga being included.

For comparison, I researched the tankōban releases for a number of other WSJ series.

Dr. Stone and Mashle's final volumes were basically identical to their regular volumes in terms of extras and content. I also researched The Prince of Tennis and Naruto as older comparisons, but I couldn't find information exact enough to warrant inclusion, but what I saw more or less matched Dr. Stone and Mashle.

As you can see, Demon Slayer is the weird one here, and it's obvious why. The series ended during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Gotouge mentioned having a family member they needed to care for; a lot of people felt these issues contributed to Gotouge not being able to end the series as they had originally intended.

Demon Slayer chapters were typically 19 pages, but the last two chapters were 26 pages and 24 pages, uncommonly even-numbered. If you look at the final chapters and the epilogue in the tankōban, just numbers-wise, the ending could have been four 19-page chapters. But for whatever reason, that wasn't how it went down during serialization.

It's worth noting that the pages added to the tankōban do not change the ending, they merely provided greater emotional closure.

Side note but if anyone's gonna try and bring up Attack on Titan, I'm just gonna point out that AOT was a monthly manga published by Kodansha, a different company entirely. I imagine they have their own approach to marketing tankōban or special releases. You also have to consider the tastes and intentions of the creator, and hot take but I have absolutely no fucking positive opinions on that dude or his work, so it was no surprise to me that anything he added just made the ending worse.

TL;DR: Yes, it's a lot more than regular volumes! Content-wise, we'll probably get beautiful new illustrations and some revised page art that add details which improve pacing or themes. We might get a few extra chapter pages where a single serialized page gets turned into a big double-page spread, like we saw for Katsuki's fight with AFO.

There could be a couple new panels that bring more closure to things that were hinted at in the final chapters, who knows.

The only thing I personally want is a true bkdk handhold.

I'd love a double-page spread of Izuku taking Katsuki's hand and beaming up at him. Just insert it right there at the end before we see them all scampering off to make the world a better place. That would do my heart good.

[sysig]

Wuh oh (Patreon)

Bonus:

The novel experience of being crushed by a giant rock, a visual metaphor

[reel-fear]

Bendy And The Power Of Representation

So those graphic novel pages huh? Seems I posted my cover post at just the right time because literally minutes after I was informed the preview pages came out and uh. This is Buddy and Norman!

Oh dear... I'll put the full graphic novel pages down below but I have so much to say on how awful this is it'll need several posts. However, right now I want to mostly talk about representation and briefly touch on why it's so damn important + inform others about the current shit Mike and Meatly are saying about the books n such.

Now note: All the things I'm saying below are based on my personal experience, maybe some people don't care about seeing the representation of their identities in the media they consume. Maybe some will think I'm merely being dramatic and I might be but I'm not lying when I say I personally believe being represented and seen in the media you consume can be one of the most wonderful feelings in the world.

Look I'm not here to argue with people who think that Norman in particular was never meant to be a person of color, I would argue he is very coded but the points I'm making here are not about how Norman particularly had to be black. The point I want to make is the lack of diversity in our cast in general and how Norman's design has heavily dwindled it considering most people [including myself] rightfully assumed he was at least one of three black characters in our cast. Not according to this though and looking at the the rest of the pages our chances of seeing any kind of decent diverse character designs dwindle more.

So firstly... Buddy a character who has been said to experience discrimination for being Jewish, lacks any kind of ethnic features at all. That's... Cool but yeah I think this shows a rather grim future for the character designs as a whole.

Also, Norman... As I mentioned he was largely assumed to be black due to his southern dialect, his voice, and other factors. But nope, he's a generic white guy. With... Gross looking hair tbh...

Sadly this is not the first time the topic of poor representation has come up concerning Bendy either.

[note how he disregarded the other mentioned minorities and specifically cites LGBTQ+ characters]

This sucks as a response but sadly considering Mike's recent behavior it seems to fall in line with the Bendy team's general lack of care towards representing anyone who isn't straight and white.

So how did Mike respond to all of this? Well...

TDLR - "Who cares if the Graphic Novel we're selling to our fans for full price sucks, we now no longer consider the books canon."

This is horrible, I know Mike and Meatly are only really in this for the money, the fact BATIM is in the state that it is proved that, but they really couldn't have been less obvious about it?

So basically when it benefited them, AKA when it meant people would have to buy the books to understand important lore like Boris' identity... [the character you spend all of chapter 4 trying to rescue] They were considered canon... At least the author sure thought so.

Hell even in the tweet Meatly made here he doesn't say the books aren't canon, he just says they're not needed to understand Bendy's world. Now Mike is using that as a shield instead of doing the right thing and saying "You're right, the poc in our fanbase deserve better we'll have it fixed right away!" Like most reasonable people would considering how his studio has literally been accused of bigotry, poor rep, and general lack of diversity before. Why risk making more people avoid this franchise?

Also just... Imagine how insulting it would be to be an author who helps flesh out so much of this world and gives its characters depth like NONE of the games have managed to do, filling in plot holes, creating a timeline for events, etc... Then because they couldn't bother to change the graphic novel for ur story to be better they instead throw out all ur writing and declare it non-canon.

If I were her to put it bluntly I'd feel insulted and horrible. Why make her do all the work of making sure her works align with the timeline and game's canon if they're not part of it?

I can't speak for her obviously but Meatly and Mike know of her account, so speaking out against this could very much risk her being fired or at least not allowed to work on Bendy anymore... So I would take all her tweets on this situation with a grain of salt. She very much is not in a position where she could be honest if she was against this.

So with all that history now, the question I'm sure many are wondering is... Why does this even matter? Who cares how diverse the characters are when it doesn't affect the story?

Well for one thing, if you think like that consider having more empathy for your fellow human beings but also it does affect the story. One of DCTL's themes is about the bigotry of the period it is set in.

Now the Bendy team has managed to make the discussion of this book centering around their bigotry which is ironic in a way I almost find funny... Though this entire thing is just a bit too hurtful and upsetting to find any humor in, at least for me...

But another thing is representation can bring people such joy when it's done with care. It really shouldn't be understated how far it can go to make people feel more comfortable in their own sense of self to have a franchise choose to represent them and their experiences. I know this from personal experience.

Now if you've been following me for a while, you know I'm a big fan of Transformers. I no longer engage with it much due to baggage from the fandom's awful treatment of me, but before I left I remember being able to witness the release of Transformers: Earthspark first few episodes.

These introduced the Maltos the family who meets the Transformers and serve as our protagonists and guess what?

It's a family of Filipinos!

Now look I'm not Filipino, but I am half Mexican and I have a lot of love for that part of me. So seeing the representation of any Spanish culture in this franchise I loved made me so happy! I remember just watching the first episode I was happily telling my partner how fun it was to see people like me and my family in a world I love!!

But it didn't end with the Maltos in fact... There was another character who spoke to me, their name was Nightshade. Their pronouns are They/Them and they spoke about it on the show! Not just mentioning it and moving on but actually sitting down to speak about their experiences...

This clip in particular really turned them into an absolute favorite among fans and well... I'll let you see it for yourself.

This scene... Fills me with a joy I cannot describe. It is the creators of a franchise I love telling me they see people like me and find the stories of people like me important enough to include in this series. There really is nothing like being able to say there are Non-Binary characters in a franchise I have so much love for. I was far from the only one too.

This is amazing, this is wonderful, this clip and character were moving to so so many people and...

This is a joy the Bendy creators have no interest in giving their audience. They don't care how you feel as a queer and/or black person, which... Hurts...

I... Discovered I was trans while in the Bendy community... It was where I learned the word Non-Binary and started using it for myself. To me Bendy will always have that connection... But the devs themselves seem to hate the idea of being forced to actually represent that in their games... And I still haven't really gotten over that pain or betrayal if I'm being honest.

So...

With Norman now being portrayed as white here, we are down to two black characters. Thomas [who Meatly has claimed is white in the past] based on a vague conversation with Sammy in DCTL they could easily ignore... And Jacob.... A book exclusive character which according to Mike means he is non-canon.

If we don't count Thomas' vague talk with Sammy about disrespect as confirmation he's black [which the devs don't seem to think so] then we have one black character in all of Bendy... And he recently got retconned into non-existence. Great.

Look... The Bendy fanbase has always been full of wonderfully diverse designs for the staff and even more diverse people creating them. Bendy's fandom was built with the work of queer people from all kinds of places.

If the Bendy team continues to show how little they care for anyone who isn't straight or white... I wonder who they are counting on to buy this book or in general financially support their franchise?

I know right now, I am furious, I am hurt and I most certainly don't feel like buying a book that's currently just a massive fuck you to the fans and I hope I've expressed why I feel this way in an easy-to-understand way here...

Either way, I will not be forgetting this anytime soon and I hope the fanbase does the same. Maybe just maybe, if there's enough backlash to this series of horrible decisions they'll learn better.

Right now, it's kinda of our only hope for a better future, and if you know any poc who are into Bendy right now... Maybe consider making sure they're feeling okay.

I know from experience how much this sort of thing hurts, to have the creators of a world you love straight up tell you they don't intend to fix the fact no one in their stories represents your identity or life...

What I'm trying to say is...

This is a really low point for Bendy and its fans... Even more for the poc who have to witness such ignorant and careless attitudes from Mike and Meatly towards their feelings.

Please don't forget them when you discuss these tweets or this situation. That's exactly what Mike and Meatly want right now.

For them to be unrepresented and therefore... Unheard.