Karakuridouji Ultimo/Headscratchers

Spoilers are unmarked. -
 * Tell me if I'm wrong, but so far, on the side of good there's Ultimo and the Six Perfections, and on the side of bad, there's Vice and the Seven Deadly Sins. They're outnumbered!
 * Well, there are/supposed to be 100 doji. Hopefully it's divided equally. It's more of the idea of good and evil anyway. There are more evil doji because people can easily fall to evil. Meanwhile, the good side is smaller, but as Sophia notes, they fight with "love" meaning that they will always be strong, no matter what.
 * Apparently one good doji is a little stronger than one evil doji, making the seven and six difference even out. At least, according to Service.
 * Is it me, or Hiroyuki Takei seems gay? I mean, there's the fact that everyone sheds their clothes in Icon Mode, and then there's Rune...
 * This troper wondered that too. At first I thought it was all right but then Chapter 21 came. Actually, every person I've introduced Ultimo to has asked me -usually around Chapter 10, or 21 if they haven't given up- "What was the author thinking when he writes out the plot?" It's weird how the simple plot of Good Vs. Evil turned into this. I've noticed even some reviewers of Ultimo have acknowledged this direction into shounen-ai. Maybe you're right - Takei is gay, or he just couldn't think up another way for the plot to move along.
 * It's more a case of different values. In Japan, homosexuality isn't nearly as serious as it is here. A lot of kids shows and manga have homosexuality in them, just as long as it isn't explicit. There is quite a few works by female artists that have lesbians in them. Fan Service is also just Fan Service. It's not like he's drawn anything in detail. There is quite a few Shoujo with far more graphic female nudity than anything we've seen of the guys here. He also seems to be putting in a bit of Fan Service for males in the recent chapters as well. I mean, what other possible reason could he have for making Machi go from "above average" to Gag Boobs. The reason for the vast difference in types of Fan Service may be that Takei isn't comfortable with sexualizing the female characters. Most of them are techinacally underage. Not all male manga artists want to put ridiculous big breatsted 14 year olds in their works. Although I have no idea if Takei is really uncomfortable with it or not.
 * True, but Takei could have easily found another way for Rune to become Jealous' master. He could have made Rune Yamato's warlord rival in the past, or a member of his bandit group who was secretly jealous of Yamato having Ultimo. Instead, he had Rune be a princess. I think people are more bothered that it had to go this way, instead of other countless backstories Rune could have had.
 * Takei probably wanted to shock us, and makes us wonder what will happen next. I mean, I'm pretty sure nobody was expecting princess. I will agree, he did start to take it too far. His backstory tends to fall into "were drugs/alcohol involved" for some people by the sounds of it. (Including myself when I first heard it.)
 * Question: If Takei were gay... Why would that be a problem?
 * No. It would just be a little strange, considering the norm. How many uncloseted, gay, shonen manga-ka can you name?
 * How will the transistion team deal with Chapter 21?
 * They took the easy way out and decided not to. Ultimo was just announced to be removed from Shonen Jump's USA magazine. Hopefully this means that they will no longer censor the English releases of the volumes.
 * Wait - so if the masters receive memories of their past, present, and future from their doji, then why don't they just use that to help their team win the One Hundred Machine Funeral? Or at least, why does Yamato seem so surprised about everything's going on, when he's already seen vague images of certain events from Ultimo during the pledge? He distinctly sees Musashi in his future visions, yet is completely blown away when Akira reveals that Musashi's from the future in chapter 12. Yamato even sees Dunstan step out of his car (which just happened in chapter 25) in his present visions. Or maybe this is all just Yamato.
 * Remember that Ultimo didn't reveal all of the memories.
 * Nonn history related, but my hair is going white just to think about this (and im nine-teen) WHERE THE **** DO YOU PEOPLE READ THE MANGA?? Im up to chapter 15 and thats it, nothing more, absolutely nothing more >.<!!
 * Well... if you can call it "reading"... there's the chinese scans of Ultimo here. Also, if you want to read translations of chapters 21-23, that's here.
 * I've only read the first issue, and it was a while ago, but I remember being really annoyed at the fact that there were long paragraphs describing the Ultimo character's appearances.....in a manga. I don't mind description, really, but it seems both pointless to describe something in a visual medium, and also I thought it was a little...what's the word I'm looking for? Not quite rude, but like saying that the art isn't good enough. Belittling, maybe? Belittling to the art of the comic. Of course, I may just be insane and easily bugged, and it may not have been as irritating as I remember. It's been at least six months since I last had that issue of Shonen Jump in my possession, after all.
 * That bothered me too; but that only happened in the Pilot chapter. I think they were trying to empathasize the whole "East Meets West" thing, with Stan Lee being the co-author. I don't read that many American comics, but in Watchmen there were many long descriptive paragraphs too.
 * Um...WHAT THE HELL...IS A SHURA?(What Jealousy accuses Ultimo to be in their fight in their fight outside Yamato's apartment.)
 * Shura means killing, or scene of carnage. It was probably just a different way of saying Ultimo will become the kind of person who causes death and destruction.