The Knight Cartoonist and her Orc Editor

nathandouglasdavis Apr 6, 2020

2

This manga feels like the self-absorbed rantings of the author--like a mixture of opinionated diary entries and the post-it notes people might put on their bathroom mirrors to psych themselves up. We get arguments in defense of the traditional manga industry--of editors helping artists find their voices through competition and limited slots in a magazine. It implies that free distribution through manga apps and self-publishing will result in more watered-down works. It criticizes artists for trying to take shortcuts rather than putting in the work, including writing stories they don't actually care about in order to jump on a trend. That effort and diligence is portrayed as the backbone of good manga. And even though artists might not immediately sell, if they continue to put in the effort and put their soul into each one of their works, eventually it will yield results. And the rivalries and constant rejection should be embraced because they only serve to push manga artists to improve. Obviously, this all sounds like a manga artist trying to give femself a pep talk and it definitely started getting on my nerves by the end (I might've rated it as a 4/10 before it started actively annoying me). But are there other aspects which make the manga worth it? Not really. It tries to be funny, but honestly the jokes didn't really land all that well for me. The two recurring jokes both involve the manga artist, Annelise, and feir inability to cope with constructive criticism--feir armor explodes off feir body leaving fem naked (and nudity is supposed to be funny) and then fe spouts feir catchphrase "Death take me" before trying to commit suicide using some cumbersome execution device fe happened to have on hand. Other than that, the entire premise of fantasy characters doing real-world activities is supposed to be funny (and it is, just not that funny).