Moon-Kid the Special Short Story

[M-92 Mantis]

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Reuploaded on April 12th, 2015

This story has been completely rebooted, along with the accents for dialogue with all the Westerners, in order to fit the Old West theme, while keeping the same context. Typesetting and cleaning have also been fixed up.

Enjoy!

[Kit]

..... Que?!

[Flame]

Wow not a bad story, but just wow.

[Kausza]

The materializing in shadows was a little too far for me, but I liked everything else, and especially the official English sound effects! Moon is a badass.

[Kit]

I think he was buried shallowly underground at the time so he just looked like a shadow? I have no clue, cuz that still makes little to no sense. And the entire plot was a little much for me. I mean... is anyone sure why Moon can talk, and that's considered "normal" by everyone around him...?

And I'm gonna get smacked, but I disliked Moon, LOL. Forcing a 15 year old to kill people and then basically calling him a soft-hearted fool when he has trouble, without considering his feelings whatsoever isn't my idea of a caring guardian. But just fighting-wise, yes. He was badass, LOL.

And I'm actually very sad Yoshi never expanded on how Kid felt at the the end! He had a very heartbreaking reason for not wanting to kill. Not just because of some inherent "justice" like Weed, but because he simply could not look his mother in the eye again if he wasn't the same innocent little boy she left behind. Then when he snapped and realized he had nothing left to hold back for (something I found extremely sad) it just... ends... and everything is hunky-dory, lol. I realize it was a short story, but c'mon, Yoshi, throw us a bone!

Anyway... */end thoughts on Moon-Kid* Anyone is free to agree or disagree, obviously! I love hearing people's thoughts on any chapter we release!

[Kausza]

Wow, Kit, you always read so much into the characters! Whenever you talk about characters, the way you put them I'm usually forced to agree because I don't look so deeply haha (I mean, admittedly I kind of rushed through the story and that gave me some superficial opinions).

I should start paying more attention to these things

[Kit]

LOL! I think I read too much into things, which often has me frustrated with the rather simplistic characterizations and plots of Ginga.

You don't have to agree, I just like stating my opinions (something that often gets me into trouble.) I'm very much interested to hear you liked Moon, because once I dislike a character, I never consider their good points.

[Kausza]

Oh, no of course not! You just make really good points that I haven't thought about really. And, LOL I just think he looked really cool as a wolf-like dog ... :I

[Kit]

LOL, that's true, he did have a really cool design.

And oh, don't say that, or I'll never stop talking your ear of with my psycho-analysis of characters.

[乃ĿŌŌƉȲ₭ȲŌŪƧĦĪṜŌ]

I liked this story, because it was different...and, yeah I agree with Kit...the fact that NO ONE said anything about a talking dog was a little odd...also...if Kid and his parents were from Japan how did they speak English so well...or even at all?

[The Tiger of Kai]

I read the RAWs before I read the translated version. This story was just bizarre.
I liked Moon, but I think I liked Kid more. The plot was alright and the characters were okay. Nothing stellar, but not terrible.
Fred was a jerk, lol. Seriously thought he got what he deserved. Serves him right, anyway. =P

[Kit]

Oh my, since you read the RAW, I guess my translation is up to judgement, LOL. I hope it's accurate enough. *crazily self-conscious*

[M-92 Mantis]

This whole story to me was nothing but a shrug.

The maximum intake of Meh.

If it had been longer, it may have been a bit better. Wasn't horrible, but unfortunately wasn't as awesome as expected, hence my silence on it.

If Yoshi keeps triyng to make ninja dogs in separate stories, he just needs to make Gamu a longer series (even if he'd fuck it up royally now...)

[The Tiger of Kai]

Oct 30, 2013 18:32:07 GMT -7 Kit said:

Oh my, since you read the RAW, I guess my translation is up to judgement, LOL. I hope it's accurate enough. *crazily self-conscious*

Silly Kit, lol! =P It was fine!

And yeah, I'd looove to see more Gamu (seeing as it's my favorite of Yoshihiro's stories, even more so than GNG), but not at the cost of its quality. While I'm a fan of Orion (and you can thank the countless Sengoku references in it for that), I can't deny that Yoshihiro's storytelling has dwindled in the past few years or so. Must come with being a manga-ka, because I know Bleach isn't doing spectacularly well either. I don't always completely judge based on artwork alone when it comes to manga or comic books; I tend to look at the story first, then make my judgments on the artwork (similar to how I base my opinion of quality to video games and the like). There's a lot of evolution going on in Yoshihiro's stories that I just can't quite put my finger on. It's almost like, artwork-wise, that he's doing sketches, while letting his assistants take over the character art along with the backgrounds (whereas, normally, assistants usually do fill-in backgrounds when the manga-ka is busy with other duties). I'm totally jumping into theory territory, so don't quote me on this.

I would say this was a weaker attempt at a "ninja-dog" story than Gamu. Gamu, while still crazy and out-there, was still believable to an extent. The characters in Moon-Kid contradict each other at times. Whether this is an actual character trait belonging to said characters or Yoshi's own mistakes is up for debate, though.

I'm going to stop there. I've typed up a story when I should be working on more important things, like getting more Gamu chapters done.

[Kit]

LOL, I'm always paranoid, I know.

And it's not really my place to criticize Orion on an in-depth basis, since I stopped following a long time ago. I just personally never cared for the characters or plot that seems all over the place to me. Then again, the plot of GDW was kind of everywhere until it settled down with the Hougen arc, so Orion may have done the same thing. If we translate it, I may like it - who knows.

I too would love to see something more Gamu-related, but I think he kind of forgot he ever did that story, now, so it would likely be much lower quality. Which is sad, because with such a fantastical basis, it seems like it would be so easy and fun to work with (I'm lookin' at you, fanfiction writers, lol.) The other reason it won't be done is the unfortunate fact that Gamu was never very popular, if my research is correct. I think his most popular works were SSY and GNG.

Even his side-story "Ganin" seems more related to GNG than Gamu - which is what I was dying for it to be related to, considering the name, lol. Gamu had more focus on backstory and building up to why things were the way they were, so it's very sad that he isn't publishing some side-stories clarifying characters like Honou, Hayabusa and Gama and how they're related to each other or the Kagerou. We just got little hints making it feel like an incomplete story.

Whew boy, have I gone off-topic, LOL. I could be getting more chapters out, as well! *skips off*

tl;dr version:

Moon-Kid was an okay ninja story, but not as strong as Gamu, and I really can't tell what Yoshi was thinking or where he was trying to go with it... Still entertaining, just odd and a bit on the weak side.