The official R.O.D. thread

Joyling · Post by **Joyling** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 8:24 pm

The full version of the R.O.D. PC game is out now! Um, it's on bittorrent ... and apparently it can take a rediculous amount of time to download. But anyone with an always-on connection who can wait on it for a while.... go to http://www.mininova.org and search for ele paper action.

Special K · Post by **Special K** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 7:36 am

Coooool! It's in Japanese though, ain't it?

Shadowguard · Post by **Shadowguard** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 10:50 pm

R O D??

Kevo-sama · Post by **Kevo-sama** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 3:31 pm

Shadowguard wrote:R O D??

I second with: "ROD

"

E~Man · Post by **E~Man** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 5:10 pm

And a third W.T.F. is R O D ?

Shadowguard · Post by **Shadowguard** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:29 pm

WOO I'm not the only one ^^

Diatribe · Post by **Diatribe** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 6:26 am

Read or Die...They've mentioned it in a few other threads. I've never seen or read it though.

Special K · Post by **Special K** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 12:45 pm

Yes. It's an anime called Read or Die. The tv series is chock full of crazy plotholes but the oav is pretty damned awesome. Not that I dislike the tv series... I still heart the characters even if the story sometimes doesn't make any sense.

Valkyeris · Post by **Valkyeris** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 2:18 pm

There was also a manga called Dream or Die. I've seen the shows and the movie, they rocked

Diatribe · Post by **Diatribe** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 5:12 pm

I saw commercials for it the couple of times they played the tv series on Cartoon Network, and it looked interesting, but it was unfortunately not on when I could watch it.

...Now that everyone knows what RoD is...can someone tell me what oav is? -_-'

Special K · Post by **Special K** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 6:44 am

Original animation video. Meaning direct to video shows, not aired originally on tv. It's usually in just a few episodes, say 2 to 4ish, rather than in just one go like a movie. Like an animation miniseries straight to video. Usually they're higher quality 'cause it's shorter and they have a bigger budget.

Joyling · Post by **Joyling** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 7:40 pm

Valkyeris wrote:There was also a manga called Dream or Die. I've seen the shows and the movie, they rocked

Dream or Die was an episode title from R.O.D the TV. (From the final couple episodes, I think, where the writing just kinda went to crap. Too much standing around and not enough doing stuff. You really notice the bad writing when all they are doing is talking.)The manga based around the Paper Sisters is called Read or Dream. Supposedly the reason the series was specifically called R.O.D was because it was neither Read or Die nor Read or Dream, but rather both of them. If you are willing to overlook the last couple episodes it's a really fun series. Kind of like how I do with the last couple, you know, seasons of Buffy.

Diatribe · Post by **Diatribe** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 5:20 am

Special K wrote:Original animation video. Meaning direct to video shows, not aired originally on tv. It's usually in just a few episodes, say 2 to 4ish, rather than in just one go like a movie. Like an animation miniseries straight to video. Usually they're higher quality 'cause it's shorter and they have a bigger budget.

Ah. Thank you.

Dennis Kininger · Post by **Dennis Kininger** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 2:40 pm

Since I happen to work as a Reference Librarian and I've been a book addict since I first learned how to read (age 4 or so), I'm naturally a huge READ OR DIE (ROD) fan.

The OAV is definitely better than the TV series, though both are still very entertaining...the TV series kinda lost it in the last few episodes, storywise but it's still worth seeing.

I'd enjoy reading the manga version but I've only seen it sporadically online.

Anyway, yes, ROD gets a thumbs up from me.

Dennis

Dennis Kininger · Post by **Dennis Kininger** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:01 pm

Hi everyone!

Since I was too lazy to make a new thread about ROD, I decided to dust off this old one...which actually took more work, come to think of it. **D'oh!**

Anyway, I was recently very pleased to spot the manga version of my favorite anime finally on the shelves.

For those unfamiliar with READ OR DIE (ROD), it's the tale of Yomiko Readman, a young woman who loves books...REALLY loves books!

She's a sometime substitute teacher and also a secret agent for the British Library known as "The Paper".

While not a formidable fighter, she has the ability to make paper do whatever she commands: Become hard enough to stop a bullet, for instance. She's a Paper Master.

Yomiko appears in a well-done three episode OAV series. There's also a 26 episode TV series. Yomiko appears later in the series and the focus is on three other women who are Paper Masters.

Anyway, if you're a fan of the anime, you'll enjoy this. Since I'm a reference librarian, I really like this anime.

It's set at roughly the same time as the OAV but I think it's before those events happened as they're not mentioned. Yomiko is 25 in this manga and she's 25 in the OAV, so I assume they happen fairly close together.

The manga is divided into 8 "episodes".

The first story has Yomiko doing her secret agent thing to buy back a stolen rare book from the thief who stole it 20 years earlier.

The rest of the book is an adventure with Nenene Sumiregawa.

For those, who've seen the TV series, Nenene appears as a young woman. She's an author with writer's block. The TV series is set 5 years or so after the OAV.

In the manga, she's a teenaged girl, still in school (She was a teen author) and it's the story of how Yomiko and Nenene met. A crazed fan kidnaps her and Yomiko goes to great lengths to save her.

One thing I enjoyed about the manga is that it sort of explains how Yomiko has her abilities. Since she loves books so much, the paper actually loves her back and will do whatever she commands. The anime doesn't really do much with how one becomes a Paper Master. The TV series hints that the other three women got their abilities artificially.

It's revealed that Yomiko is part of a line of Paper Masters. She was trained by the previous one and loved him.

The anime version goes into some detail about the workings of the British Library. Mr. Joker appears in the manga a few times. The Gentleman is seen once. Wendy appears once. There's no sign of Drake or Nancy.

Perhaps the rest of the manga series goes into more detail but there's not much in the first book.

Yomiko is the star of the manga and the start of her friendship with the teenaged Nenene makes up much of the book.

The art is very good.

The story is lots of fun...everytime the action got going, I heard the OAV theme music playing in my head.

Yomiko battles a female villain whose specialty is fire...yeah, the fire versus paper thing was well done and kinda cool.

So...if you liked the anime, you oughta enjoy this.

I did.

Dennis

Redtail · Post by **Redtail** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 6:23 pm

now i gotta go look for it at boarders!

Diatribe · Post by **Diatribe** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 12:24 pm

Dennis Kininger wrote:Anyway, I was recently very pleased to spot the manga version of my favorite anime finally on the shelves.

Yeah, I saw it a coupla weeks ago too. I was gonna pick it up, but I decided to wait until a few more of them come out(unless its only one volume o.O; Doubtful though). The thing I hate most about reading manga is waiting for the next one. I'm so impatient *claws at Kenshin 25* Come out dammit ; ;

Dennis Kininger · Post by **Dennis Kininger** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:36 am

As I recall, the Japanese ROD manga series is 4 or 5 books...I tried looking up the books sometime back just to see what they were about.

There is an ad for book 2 in the new english version but it didn't say when it was coming out.

Dennis...ROD deprived

Redtail · Post by **Redtail** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 11:18 pm

blarg!
i looked in the bookstore today & couldn't find it

Dennis Kininger · Post by **Dennis Kininger** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:23 am

Hmmmm...It was at the Borders in Syracuse when I was there this past Sunday.

I haven't been to the local Barnes & Noble near me in a couple weeks. **Gasp!** Yeah, I've been busy. Anyway, I'll pop in there soon and check.

Nifty Invader Zim banner thingy!

Dennis

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The official R.O.D. thread

The official R.O.D. thread

On Rod

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ROD: The manga!

Re: ROD: The manga!