Golem Hearts (Relook): Unedited Audio and Recording Notes (Patreon)

Manga Details

• Author: Gen_Oosuga
• Author’s other works:
  • Made a oneshot, now making Dorondororon
• Run dates: Aug 29, 2016 to Jan 23, 2017
• Chapters/Volumes: 2/15

About the Manga

• Plot
  • Golems are little household appliances like the animals from the flintstones. They’re created by arcanists, who manipulate them with golem arts which is alchemy from fma but less cool.
  • Noah is a golem that is also a young boy who was created by his master, Lamech, who’s just the best fuckin dad. Like seriously man, he loves his son. Lamech wants to be the best arcanist in the world and Noah wants to be the second best because the first best is his DAD. He's the best boy.
  • A “Nazi” shows up from “Chernozem” or whatever and attacks them with his own golem. He wants to kidnap Noah because he is the number one special boy and also a golem. He basically kills Lamech and Noah goes into gear 4, destroying the evil Nazi golem and hurting the evil Nazi human.
  • Lamech is fucking dying though until his friend Eir, who happens to be the tenth best arcanist in the world, just happens to be walking by at that exact moment, and just happens to have the surgery Nen power from HXH so Lamech doesn’t fucking die.
  • Lamech wakes up in the hospital and begs her to teach Noah Golem Arts(™) so he can defend himself from hate crimes. Eir is hesitant but she gives Noah a golem coding challenge to stack 10 coins on their edges (talk about a stack overflow). Noah can’t do it until his future rival Erebus happens to stop by to demonstrate that it’s actually fucking easy and Noah needs to git gud by stacking 50 coins. The next day Eir walks in to see that Noah stacked 51 coins fuck you Erebus.
  • 
    
  • 5 years later and it’s time for Noah to take the GOD DAMMIT HES TAKING THE FUCKING CHUNIN EXAM NO! We meet some fellow students: Carles, a friendly guy who’s secretly… kinda twisted… *joker face*, and Lily who’s a neurotic mess that must be protected. Erebus is there too because he’s the Sasuke.
  • The exam challenge is to infiltrate the base of terrorists named Sodom, which is secretly occupied by a bunch of arcanist teachers, but it’s ACTUALLY REALLY housing a random terrorist who killed all the teachers. There’s a boring fight and Noah wins and gets his hunter license.
  • 
    
  • The school board talks to Eir and tells her that they don’t want to let Noah join the federation because he’s a golem but Eir tells them they’re being antisemitic so they decide to send him on a really dangerous mission instead because they’re still racist. Noah is grouped together with the other kids we’ve met so far and sent to fight a sentient golem that’s really really really really really really strong called a riddle golem. Why is it so strong? No one knows, it’s a riddle.
  • Then an incredibly boring fight happens for four chapters until Noah defeats the riddle golem. Next we jump to chapter 153 of Golem Hearts, the epic finale. The Nazi from the first chapter was the big bad guy the whole time and he has a whole army of riddle golems but don’t worry, Noah wins and gets the award for number one best wizard but he gives it to his dad because he’s just the best boy.
• Characters
  • Noah
    • Is a golem
    • Bad at golem arts
  • Lamech
    • Wholesome dad
  • Captain Garbo
    • Bad guy
    • In military
    • Turns out to be in charge of sodom
  • Eir White
    • Typical girl that’s tough and eats a lot
    • Golem master
    • Noah’s teacher
  • Lily Bell
    • Test taking friend of noah
    • Got anxiety
    • Failed her test
  • Carles Lieber
    • Nice guy
  • Erebus
    • Grandson of methuselah the number one arcanist
    • Sauske

Why it failed

• This art is just knda bleh
• This has some very genetically evil badguys
• I feel the firtst chapter doesn’t set up things it’s a little too aggressive to get the plot started
• This art style doesn’t mesh with how violent the series is trying to be
• Don’t have the MC use the strongest abilities possible in the first chapter, use the second highest level so it’s spicy but not oh that’s the limit
• The first chapter really needed to tell a full story
• Why did this series have a 4 year timeskip for no reason
• EXAM ARK WHY
• I do not like Noah’s character design
• This series has issues with perspectrive and propritions
• It’s kinda weird how the MC wants to join an organization that essentially are mercenaries in unending war
• It kinda feels like the 4kids dub of a better series
• The test arc is really dumb like why have such an uncontrollable factor in a exam and why would the trap have the actual gem with it?
• Nothing really makes me keep reading, this is just people telling Noah what to do without him having any agency in a given situation and building to a vague goal that doesn’t have an interesting path forward
• It struggled with show don’t tell, like even them walking around a destroyed town they have to explain everything to us
• This author is afraid to experiment, even dorondorn feels like it was made by a bunch of executives
• Lot of perspective issues in the art
• This series was murdered by its exam arc. It never even had a chance.
• I don’t give a shit about the villains at all. They aren’t characters.
• 
  

What it did well

• Golems / judaism is an interesting element
• The humor is so ridiculous it turns into charming
• Very wholesome, nice having a good dad
• 1000 points for not killing lemech
• Really is a nice father-son story
• Breaking the prize in 3 is actually cute
• I actually like a lot of these characters. Noah is just such a good boy

Where it could have gone

• Really go into some deep cut judaism cause why not
• Be cool to mess with the golem padlock system, like maybe they can hack into golems and turn things around in fights
• Play up the father-son dynamic, it is something unique and wholesome. It’s fine to split them at some point but maybe an arc where Noah gets to grow up
• Imagine if Noah was trying to prove to the world his dad was the best golem guy and he kept saving his ass, kinda like case closed but wholesome
• Teach us more about the golem mechanics be nice to have it…fleshed out
• Maybe the MC is only good at making non combat golems but he still wants to fight so you get to see combat application of “useless abilities” like imagine the chef golem burning people or the tailor golem tying up people
• It might have been cool if these were all PG characters trying to survive and R-rated world, one of those happiness goes nuts stories
• The one shot went for full metal alchemist and the main series went for Naruto. FMA was a way better choice.
• I want weirder powers
• Don’t age Noah up. The best mode this series was in was when Noah was getting taught by Eir
• This series has a tone issue. I don’t think a lot of people should be killed in Golem Hearts, I think it clashes.

Misc Thoughts

• Gotta love the TTGL reference
• The bread shaped speech panel when Eir is getting chewed out is cute
• Nyx looks like a jojo stand prob be called Styx
• Did they explain where sauske came from
• How is losing 1.2% of your fighting force not a substantial loss when talking about losing a riddle golem

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary
  • Community
    • Tucker:
    • Xylon: At least it's not Doron Dororon.
    • Ohio: What if clay could have feelings?.
    • T wolfwood: Worse Black Clover with cool dad
  • David: Let’s leave heart to the Planeteers
    • 4kids dub of a better series
  • Jordan: good dad good son bad plot
  • Guest: eh, cut to four years later
• Flop or not
  • If flop, what they could read instead
  • If not, how it compares to Chainsaw Man
  • I think this is a flop, art is mediocre, characters are uninteresting, has tone and plot issues out the ass but nothing is offensively bad and and it is got a wholesome dad. Straight 5s across the board
  • Read Takopi’s Original Sin
• Is this the best/worst series we’ve talked about