2018 MANGA MADNESS brackets, pt.3!

Following up on an earlier post, here are the results from the next round of competition in a set of "March Manga Madness" brackets I worked up back in 2018:

(BTW, the correct title of the #15 seed at lower right is To Your Eternity, of course. Whoops!)

A few words on the more obscure manga involved in the latest set of brackets:

*The SF manga Dark Whisper by Ikuto Yamashita (best known today as the original designer of the Eva units from Evangelion) had a hueeeyuge influence on my design of miscellaneous mecha and machinery; the "two-tone," high-contrast design scheme I still use today was derived directly from his mecha.

*Sinbad was, as the title suggests, mangaka Atsuji Yamamoto's whimsical take on the whole One Thousand and One Nights dealie. Weirdly influential on me, with the very recent tribute scene in Empowered vol. 12 heavily inspired by the very nice (if, in turn, Caroline-Munro-inspired) costumes sported by the series' heroines:

*Star of the Kurds was a contemporary action manga by the great Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, original artist for the prose version of Dirty Pair; somewhere way back in the ol' Patreon archive, I posted a feature extolling the fantastic action scenes from this series.

*Sakuran was a Moyoco Anno historical manga about a high-ranking courtesan in the Yoshiwara red-light district. I was semi-recently influenced by her character designs and facial-expression approaches, as I recall. (Okay, a decade ago counts as "semi-recently," I suppose.)

*Wow, for a brief time long ago Genshiken by Kio Shimoku was possibly my favorite manga, period, especially in the back half of the first series when manga artist (and massive fujoshi) Ogiue showed up. Alas, tragedy (for me) ensued with the follow-up Genshiken: Second Generation, which thoroughly and relentlessly stamped out my interest in the series. The last straw, for me, was when the book effectively turned into a "harem manga" for one of my least favorite characters from the first series. Nope! (On the other hand, the experience did give me a bit more sympathy for readers eventually turned off by creative choices in my own work.)

Stay tuned for our next bracket update in a few days, okay?

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: A mo' substantial, art-based post of some sort, I would expect!