What I'm Reading - Dennou Kaguki Mephisto Waltz

Twitter strikes hot again and delivers a potential gem to my timeline that I will now share with you all. Mephisto Waltz is about as standard shounen fare as you could imagine. A child piano prodigy breaks his fingers (nerve pain) during a live performance and basically loses his sense of self worth and being while doing so. Fran grew up the type of one dimensional person that chased literally one thing in his life that the adjustment has takes a toll on him and his widowed mother.



That is, until one day when looking at cat videos on his tablet (while being taken care of by his hot childhood friend) he sees a character that looks like him (that also looks Rock Howard) and is immediately drawn to it.


Next chapter, he goes to the arcade with his hot as hell childhood friend, they play games and he meets the goons that play Fighting games in the basement. One of the characters reminds me of the Third Strike Player called TM and that made me enjoy the whole thing a lot more.

I really hope this gets a western release and look forward to seeing how this character navigates the competitive Fighting Game landscape while battling his mother that DEFINITELY hasn't given up on him playing the piano.

But seriously, this manga gets an A for Aesthetics.