Record of Ragnarok

[anonbtw1738]

@me474 not that deep, throwaway the tinfoil hat.

But, EVEN IF that's the case (which it's way too early to even say, when the manga is a couple more fights in we'll see I guess), it happens in every country in one way or the other. Bad portrayals of other nationalities races due to past conflict, current conflict, or just straight up mischaractirization or demonization is stuff that happens.

I was reading the korean WN for Solo Leveling and in that

Spoiler

they characterize the japanese "monster hunters" and their association as the evil racist warmongers trying to take over korea by trying to backstab and kill all the korean hunters, and then the author has a horrible tragedy happen to japan where millions die and then they're saved by their korean jesus Jin-Woo LOL, the manga is going a diff route though I think. They put "Korea" on this constant moral high ground and pedestal where as japan is constantly characterized as pure stereotypical moustache twirling mentally retarded villains that get fucked over super hard. Not to mention it becomes pretty elitist in general with the portrayal of other countries as well lol, but it doesn't surprise me because 1) Its a KOREAN WN 2) Fan translations can fuck it up

So it isn't something only japan does in their media its normal to have personal country bias across the world in multiple forms of media lol. There are PLENTY more egregious examples.

Not a fan of just being so incredibly reactionary saying its racism. But you shouldn't be surprised at bias if it is that. Way too early to tell anyways.

 

[Dekatdora]

@me474

First of all, how are you confidently deciding that Europeans are the enemy of the Japanese; politics are much more complicated than that and I don't think you realize that both places in the world are separated by a good amount of distance to even be caring about each other that intimately, much less hating each other. Adding to this, China and Japan don't really hate each other like that, at least not as much as you're making it sound; in fact, they're quite culturally similar, from their livelihoods to their lore. Second, the reason why a good amount of gods participating in this Ragnarok are mainly European can largely be due to what @Elinorcross stated - in that the Greek and Norse pantheons are the most famous; there is no reason to dive so deep and so far from the point as to conclude that it's all some racial hate. By the way, Adam isn't exactly a real historical figure outside the Abrahamic religions so you can't necessarily claim racism on him; the book of Genesis is the only record of him and Eve existing and seeing how it originates from the Mediterranean area, during a time when European tribes were advancing in civilization, it justifies the artist's portrayal of him. Lastly, the setting in this story does not "demand in diversity" at all; if you'd go back to Chapter 4, you'd realize that the fighters aren't claimed to be the best in their own respective countries or groups; they were all chosen as humanity's greatest potentials by Brunhild who, in context, is looking at humanity as a whole rather than our fractured societies.

Ignoring my rant above for this shorter and more direct one, this story appeals to people for its action and suspense, not for its portrayals of characters and races; you should simply enjoy the wild imagination of the author and the vivid art style of the artist like a majority of us are doing. Politics and biases really shouldn't be brought into here when they have nothing to do with the story, much less your false views of the world. Please keep your ignorance to yourself and if you really hate Japanese protagonists and Japanese ideals (nakama power ftw!) so much just stop reading Japanese literature as you're bound to come across them.

 

[lonewolf]

I mean... there is plenty of other serial killers with higher kill count so why him?
also all points taken it's kinda hard to not to be judging when gods side have only 2 asian based gods while humans have 7 contestants... there is several more reasons that stops this manga from achieving "great" status in my opinion (climbing above cultural walls would be really awesome for instance) but I guess as seinen flick it works

 

[me474]

@anonbtw1738
yes i know most east asia countries hate each other due to multiple failed attempt of invasion by both side and other countries claiming to be superior to japan because the culture was originate from them
@Dekatdora
-i could name 10 great fighters with great intelligence outside of japan or europe who achieved great thing and killed more people than some constant who deserve to be include in humanity greatest fighters and that's only with my knowledge there are probably more as determining who is the greatest need a very passionate historian that know a lot
heck there are people even from countries or tribes that vanished today
the author really included some people from countries he knew and are still to this day
-how the hell can you claim that china and japan don't hate each other ? japan literary murdered a whole city of china raped many and killed some pregnant women while making her belly their play thing in world war II
and when japan lost china did pay it back with the help of US so japan became more pissed about china
and about european and japan ? japan was really pissed with their first interaction with european who tried to take advantage of them so their view of europe is twisted
you can see the racism to this day by evidence that when western people try to immigrate into japan for job or so
japan give them bad time and the people don't like to interact with them or talk and most of them find it impossible to marry unless they married person from their actual country and you should realise that japan is doing all of that with their low birth rate
that will make their population almost zero with the next 60 years
europe faced the same problem before and because they aren't racist they allowed many countries to immigrate into them to fill their number
about the adam thing some people claim he is from africa and some claim he was in middle of the continent when there was only one continent almost no one today claim him to be living in europe

 

[goronyanpai]

Are you really serious, guys, bringing biased thoughts about politics in this manga?
Which part? Am I too stupid not to think too much about racial issues?
If I may argue, more precisely it might touch religion and belief.

Humans vs Gods.
See? Can you see the line through this concept?
But the problem is that this is not the first thing where a character will be developed wildly with a power commensurate with God or even God itself. If you want to think critically further, you can see this as an insult. This is the part that I worry about if this is published in my country where the issue of trust is taboo and sensitive--too conservative. But on the other hand, this is just a fantasy. And I think almost all authors don't bother to think of a story that is merely fiction. Even all readers know.

Anyway, I don't really like the latest developments. This presents a fierce battle, maybe added by some inner conflict in the past, but that's it. And then repeated many times until they find the most powerful among others.

 

[Dekatdora]

@me474
Are you truly so daft?
I already said that the lineup of fighters is, in context, not influenced by our concept of society nor by how many people were butchered by them; it is decided by Brunhild for their potential powers which is basically from the author's standpoint of who can make this even more wild, heck, Nikola Tesla isn't even a fighter but he's probably going to have some insane power centered around electricity which is probably what the author is looking for.

Regarding the racial hate you're claiming, everyone has been at odds with each other once or even several times in history but it does not necessarily mean they hate each other in this age. China and Japan are long time trade partners, with Japan's economy being reliant on Chinese trade, and tourism between each other is higher than their interactions with any other part of the world; China's government has been murdering its own people up to this day, whether they're seniors or babies, and have been invaded by other countries besides Japan with even worse atrocities. Japan is definitely not at odds with Europe (at least not all of it for the most part) as quite a bit of their culture and goods are influenced and even reliant upon some countries such as France and Italy; Japan is also highly respected in the United Nations with their enormous entertainment industry, with good relations to the U.K. and U.S.

Japan's mistreatment of outsiders is a common stereotype which is not true for most Japanese people; tourism and trade from all these "western" regions are essential to Japanese economy and most of the population knows and respects that as well as the foreigners, if you've ever actually visited Japanese ports to know what you're talking about instead of staying at home and bathing in your ignorance. In regards to Adam, there is no actual physical evidence of him having existed in the first place alongside Eve as a single couple of humans during their time, much less being tied down to a single place outside of popular yet unofficial beliefs and controversies; considering that the biggest abrahamic religion is Christianity with the largest faction being the Roman Catholic Faith centered in Vatican City which is located in Italy, one of the most art-influenced countries in EUROPE, it makes sense that the artist would portray him as a stereotypical European Aryan (deemed to be the superior human race) rather than investigate the plausibility of an actual Adam having existed and how he would actually look like during an age with no photography.

 

[Dekatdora]

@goronyanpai

Sorry bro, I understand where you're getting at but I get so peeved when blatant ignorance is in my face; it's to the point where I get this heated up against the perpetrator. You are right that it's not even about races vs each other; it's simply humanity vs. the gods, with quite a bit of fun imagination and a few liberties taken in these characters' portrayals by the author. I do really enjoy this story at its base worth though; thank you for reminding me of that!

By latest developments, are you talking about Jack vs. Heracles or just the plot in general? I do admit that the Kojiro vs. Poseidon fight was essentially as you described, though I do not feel the Jack the Ripper vs. Heracles fight will turn out that way because the stage makes me think the backstories are going to be less about internal conflicts and more on the origins of whatever outlandish powers they will have, especially Jack.

 

[Siquall]

First tome of this manga will be released in France the 5th September, that's a good news.

The name will be : Valkyrie Apocalypse.

 

[me474]

@Dekatdora
adam = first human
in so the most oldest traces of humans on earth is called adam even if his name wasn't truly that but as i said
first human = adam
and actually the most oldest believer of adam are jewishs who were traveling in lot of places and didn't have place to stay always there
they don't have obvious look at they can look pure european or from asian or black and the pure one from their race don't appear on public to determine their look
about japan racism most people claimed their racism toward them and many can't be wrong ? and by you logic of i need to visit them to confirm their racism i don't need to to jump into a lion cage to confirm that he'll eat me ,right? and also i would probably look like them 'cause many of my friends claim that i look like i am from asia
@goronyanpai
religion isn't really a problem as long as a religion doesn't encourage harming others or killing them everyone is free to believe in what they think is right and actually the author is probably an atheist and doesn't believe even in the shit he is writing about those gods
but racism is a thing and it's what keep people from accepting each others

 

[Dekatdora]

@me474

It's as you say in that Adam can be any race as he himself is technically not proven real, however I would have to disagree with you in that the oldest traces of humanity are called Adam as he is a figment of the Book of Genesis which is preached only in Abrahamic religions; Japan is predominantly of the Shinto and Buddhism (and increasingly aetheists) who don't believe in Adam specifically, which is a reason why I said the artist's depiction of him as an Aryan is quite justified as the largest Abrahamic religion (Christianity) is centered in Europe and the general stereotype of Europeans for outsiders is sadly the blue-eyed blonde Aryan image.

As for the claims on Japanese racism, they are true but by no means are most, much less all, of them rude and arrogant against others; Japan is an island country with approximately a 98.5% population ratio of pure Japanese people, which means that quite a lot of them are simply not used to other ethnic groups; the testimonies of people can be quite embellished as well in order to create excitement or drama, or they may simply conform to majority opinion (see the Asch paradigm), however I will not claim all of them to be false or exaggerated. As for the issues with outsiders finding jobs, that would have to do with Japan's laws in which you can only get a job if you are either a citizen or a visa student with a permit, either of which are particularly easy to achieve as Japan's regulations are considerably lax compared to many other countries (even then most of their jobs aren't filled because of how undesirable employer terms are in Japan). Racism in Japan can't even be compared to racism in... pretty much the rest of the world; wars across many parts of the world are largely due to racism or some other form of bias, while much of Japanese warfare is infighting amongst their own race and other Asians simply for resources and prestige. It's not right to be bashing the author and artist as Japanese supremacists from your own interpretations of the manga and large assumptions.

Just another note but I also believe it's wrong for us to be talking about Europe as a whole because it really isn't a "whole"; Europe is a continent filled up with different countries, many of which hate each other way more than they would hate Japan. The continent of Europe is defined by the extent of King Charles' (Charlemagne) conquest across the Eurasian continent.

Btw a caged lion would not eat you unless it had no choice after a few days, or it has been trained to do so; humans are not only quite scary to other predatory species but also taste quite nasty as our bodies are more fat than muscle, unless you're a bodybuilder/athlete then all bets are off you delicious morsel.

@me474 @goronyanpai
Religion isn't the problem, people are; religion is basically a guideline to live life and be humble about it but people tend to twist it to their own views and cause problems with those who don't share that same view, especially with those of another religion... sad world we live in.

 

[SGraves]

So far this is actually really good , enjoying art work as well altho last chapter was abit wonky but still can manage

 

[Tamed]

Is it just me or there's barely any change to this recent upload?

 

[Elinorcross]

@tamed

It's because it's the exact same chapter uploaded by two different scanlation groups

 

[Tamed]

@Elinorcross
Says 20.1 when I saw it.. guess it got changed.

 

[Dekatdora]

@Elinorcross @Tamed
I was wondering what your comments was about so I decided to reread Chapter 20 and got surprised that it was different than I remembered... Sure enough, the second scanlation is a bit cleaner but there are some translating errors that triggered me lol (in Zeus' room, the second translation ties both Shiva and Loki to the Greek pantheon wut). I couldn't help but notice the second scanlation is actually the first since Valhalla has done the past several chapters of this series.

Also, will the other group be doing scanlations from now on, or both groups?

 

[Tamed]

@Dekatdora
I just asked because it was 20.1 when I saw it. Figured if there were a page or two missing, I should ask since that flew by me if there was.

 

[DrMuffin]

While it is pretty dumb, it is a really fun manga. I can't wait to see Rasputin fight, and I hope that the next gods will be using more magic, like Loki is. Thes fist fights are great, but I feel like there is some untapped potential with this set up.

 

[Dekatdora]

@DrMuffin
I mean, I think Jack is going to be using some sort of magic... I can imagine his fight against Herakles to be hide-and-seek considering the arena but I doubt the author is going to be having JtR be a simple master of stealth and murder; I imagine poison (since he's a doctor-type) and shadows (classic stealth magic kek) and Sherlock Holmes calculations (I'm mad Holmes isn't part of Brunhild's team and Tesla and Ripper is... hasn't she seen any of Robert Downy Jr.'s portrayals) in his arsenal, unless the author plans to give him brawling powers beyond Adam as a surprise read.

BTW do you think Jack's Volund is the cane or the monocle; I know that the cane is technically a weapon (or maybe a cane sword) but that monocle is peculiarly striking (I don't even think he can see out of it...).

 

[SirSniper]

@Chronos889
what happened? wheres the monthly snipe? I was looking forward to it

 

[Chronos889]

@SirSniper yeah, me too, but still no translation available, so...