A*D Volume 2 - Reflections after reading *Spoilers*

A few pictures I took. Sorry for not scanning them. My scanner was really butchering colors and tones. I scanned the cover though, but it was very difficult to restore the original color. [I tried my best to edit, but it didn't work very well m(_ _)m Sorry!] Excuse my fingers in the pictures :( Btw I'll scan them once I figure how to scan them without killing the quality...

Not in order of appearance in manga:

The cover, I really liked her use of right triangles here. Really artistic~ To bad my scanner really butchered the softness of the colors. :(

The only color page... Riku looked really nicely drawn in this picture so I had to post it ;w;

Force [and Riku] orders Galancia's best meats from the butcher lady. Force's pants are really cool... Just say'n... They're double layered with black pants underneath and a lighter one one top. I would kill to see someone cosplay Force in that outfit. [If any cosplayer needs it, I'd be more than happy to scan or take more and larger HQ pictures of Force's outfit. ;w;]

That infamous Galan-oink [lit. in Japanese Galan-bu] is mentioned where Yoneda tries to ask the butcher lady for some Galan-oink but embarrasses himself since Galan-oink doesn't exist. *tricked by Force*

More Galan-oink scenes. This one appeared before the last picture. This was where Eiri and Yoneda first approached the Galan-oink that Force, Riku, and Ziz were eating. This was after a "meeting" with Randy Galancia.

A scene from later on... Riku says that he really wants to try Galan-moo. And a little Galan-baa [lit. in Japanese Galan-mee] in the top left corner [Translation: And thus, there's also a Galan-baa.]

I really liked this scene. Too bad they grey scaled it... If I had known earlier that there was this picture, I would have bought the magazine. Like the cover art, Force's picture on the left is composed of many right triangles.

Yet another grey scaled color scene I would have really liked to see in color. The candies Riku is looking at foreshadow things about the Galancia sapphire. Yet more right triangles were used. Does this symbolize the three friends, Eiri, Force, and Riku? That would make sense since the bottom corners of a right triangle are closer to each other [Riku and Force] whereas the top most corner is Eiri. Eiri only recently befriended Force and Riku. However, all corners are connected to each other in some way.

The reason I took this scene was that I really liked Riku's expression on the bottom right. It really tells a lot. This scene appeared prior to the revelation of the true nature of the Galancia sapphire.

I finally finished my in depth reading of this volume. I really like this volume a heck of a lot better than the first one. The first one seemed to just put ideas and thoughts out there, but the second one seems to expand on it a lot more.

First off, this volume was heavily based on the thesis presented in the first volume: The fake can be as beautiful as the real. Or literally, the fake is worth as much as the real. In the first volume, it was evidently seen in the story about the fake cherry blossoms

Recap: A man met a woman who told him that when the cherry blossoms around them fade, he can leave her. But those cherry blossoms were fake cherry blossoms that would never fade, and the man found out he was tricked when someone told him. The man, however, did not regret it and said that they were real to him. Ultimately this means he found the true value of the fake flowers though they were not the real thing.

It was also mildly hinted through Force and Riku.

Recap on Force: Force is the 4th son of the Caluanthes and is infamous for his way of living, which we all know about. Eiri gets to know more about Force, because he believes Force is faking this act to create value for himself. Force is the youngest, he won't get any inheritance and will pretty much fade away from society if he doesn't make a name for himself.

Recap on Riku: Riku seems to be a pro at forging things. His fake imitations seem to emulate or even exceed the beauty of the real things they were based on.

In the second volume, the thesis was expanded more on more characters. First, it was presented in the Eiri himself.

[spoilers]

It was revealed that Eiri was called a replacement for Mari Lawrence. Literally, he's not the legit Lawrence or in more plebeian terms, the fake Lawrence. Ironically, Eiri is better than his brother Mari in all aspects despite being the fake one. It's as if the fact that he's better than Mari is what distinguishes the "fake" from the "original".

I've also noticed that A*D, like Olimpos, tends to focus more on the younger sibling rather than the older one(s). In the context of the time period, this would make sense. Since A*D takes place in the mid 1800s Germany [I'm guessing during the Industrial Revolution] or possibly the mid to late 1700s [considering that A*D talks more about tutoring rather than school]. During those time periods, whether you were the oldest or the youngest plays a large role in what your future will be. Both Force and Eiri [and possibly even George] know that they will end up fading out of society because they won't be able to inherit their family's name like their eldest sibling. That's why they must put an effort to make a name for themselves before fading away.

As a little bonus, I took screen caps from the 2011 Fall Kurofune's A*D preview [all 4 pages]. It features Force's older brother

Epic moment where Ziz starts flipping the bird at the poor man and calls him baldy. But I kinda feel sorry for Ziz sometimes, since he has to deal with Force and Riku 24/7.

A mysterious gentleman appears...

And fffffuuuuuu Force's brother's such an ikemen ❤ I would have really liked it if Aki drew him with glasses ;w; But Aki isn't a very big fan of meganekko ikemen so I didn't expect much. .___. As for which brother, he's the famous 2nd one. His face does look somewhat like Hades from Olimpos, right...? Aki really knows how to appeal to fangirls XD

Larger HQ of these pictures can be found here.

Later on it goes on talking about stuff like Galan-oink, Galan-moo, and Galan-baa. [lol] More comic relief, not much going on there. There was also stuff about eating insects. Very little addressing the thesis there too.

Near the end, they reveal the truth behind the mystery of the stone.

Not much of a spoiler, since everyone probably already guessed. The stone is not a sapphire. It's revealed to be spinel, which looks very like sapphire but has some differences. Riku was able to make identical copies of the same crystal George Galancia made by using sugar. So basically he made rock candies that looked exactly like the prized "Galancia Sapphire". That's my boy, Riku~

Here's the picture of the scene:

So what's going on is that Galancia is foisting off spinel as sapphire. Like what Eiri said in the previous volume [in chapter 4], Galancia hasn't been doing all that well with their mining business because they've only been getting low quality stones that can't be sold for much. But what Eiri's been getting at the whole time is that, despite the spinel having low quality, it has the beauty of a precious stone. Eiri agreed to play with George's plans because Eiri believes that the fake sapphires also have worth. He's on the right track too, since according to the Wiki article, some spinel can be of gemstone worth. That just might be the case for the "Galancia sapphire."

As seen in the Wiki article, the red/pink varieties of spinel were called Balas rubies. [Rubies are in the same family as sapphires. They're pretty much the same type of stone besides the fact that rubies are red and sapphires are blue.] Balas comes from the name Balascia, which is the old name for Badakhshan. Evidently, Galancia is a parody of Balascia. In Japanese, Galancia is spelled ガランシア [lit. in romaji, Garanshia] while Balascia would be バラスキア [lit. romaji, Barasukia]. They sound alike if pronounced in right Japanese. I suggest plugging in ガランシア and バラスキア into Google translate to hear Miss Translate pronounce it. In addition, in the Japanese Wiki article for spinel, what really caught my eye was the word color change or カラーチェンジ. It looks a lot like Galancia in Japanese. Galancia/ガランシア vs Color change/カラーチェンジ. The ガ looks and is pronounced slightly differently from カ. The ラ is the same. The rest are completely different. So what Aki might have done was take the カラ and changed it to ガラ, added the ン, and tweeked スキア to シア . All that would make ガランシア. As for how color change relates to the Galancia spinel, I think it's because one of the difference is that spinel's color is darker than a sapphire's color. [A color change]

Now onto the art, I really enjoyed the art much better. It's got that refined Aki look and is getting significantly more detailed. Aki's coloring improved a lot too. It's significantly less "muddy" and has a wonderful blend of colors. The details were breath-taking too. The only problem I have with the art is that sometimes Aki's art isn't very stable. Especially around the face area. Otherwise it's fine.

Overall I found this volume to be impacting. Aki has Ikuhara potential with all of her symbolism, foreshadowing, and complex ideas. I can see that she's very steadily refining her skills more so in A*D than any other of her manga. I don't know about Elhanburg's Angel, but A*D is certainly better than Aruosumente content wise. Art wise A*D falls short of Aruosumente, but it's catching up. Sadly, A*D might not ever make it to fame because it's not well advertised. Kurofune Zero isn't exactly the most famous magazine ever. In addition, it lacks the action the majority of the audience wants. I really liked it myself, but not a single person I introduced this to liked it. Mainly because there's no romance, action, or drama. ): A*D is more literature-quality rather than mainstream quality, unfortunately...