I always thought katanas are super cool. I like its design much more than the Western or European swords I was used to seeing in films and museums as a kid. Katanas also feature in one of my all-time favourite trilogies – The Matrix – as well as another famous masterpiece you might know – Kill Bill. So, when I was browsing in a Copenhagen comic book store, I had to pick up and examine a manga featuring several katana-wielding men (in suits) attacking another katana-wielding guy (in a long black coat) on the cover. Though this was not the manga I wanted to purchase that day, it ended up becoming one of my favourites…

Let’s talk about Kagurabachi.

Enchanted blades, revenge and sorcery

Revenge – that’s the basic driver of the plot, but it gets more complex than that. I don’t want to spoil much, but I’ll give you the premise: a few years ago, a war between sorcerers revealed to the world that magic is real; the war was ended by 6 warriors who wielded enchanted katanas that gave them special powers. After the war, a secret group of sorcerers murdered renowned swordsmith Kunishige Rokuhira and stole the enchanted blades he had forged. His son, Chihiro, survived the attack and swore revenge. Three years later, Chihiro wields the seventh and final blade — the one his father created specifically for him — as he hunts down the killers known as the Hishaku and uncovers the secrets behind these legendary weapons and the nature of sorcery.

The story is set in an alternate modern Japan with flip phones, bullet-trains and cars from different decades of the 20th century. There are skyscrapers as well, which is also pretty cool. So what makes this series special, why do I think you need to read it?

Let’s start with the magic system: it’s quite fascinating and you learn more and more about it as the story unfolds. I especially love the idea of the enchanted blades, which are the most powerful weapons in Kagurabachi. Like with sorcery, the creator doesn’t reveal much at the start, but keeps dripping exciting new bits of information as we progress in the series. I’ve read 7 volumes and there’s still so much I don’t know about these magical katanas.

Crazy dynamic art

The art of Kagurabachi is crazy dynamic. If you liked Naruto, you’ll probably enjoy looking at Takeru Hokazono’s panels. In fact, Naruto was one of his big inspirations, alongside movies like Kill Bill and John Wick – I think Kagurabachi already outdid the latter. Hokazono doesn’t take the lazy path: his backgrounds are detailed and the sword action is easy to follow and very well orchestrated.

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I also appreciate that he doesn’t break the serious tone of the story with chibi heads and slapstick comedy, like so many other manga creators do. There are some funny moments every now and then, but they feel organic and realistic, not out of place.

Dignified characters

That brings me to the demeanour of the characters in Kagurabachi. It was like a breath of fresh air to see so many characters who have integrity and who act in truly noble ways. Friendships in Kagurabachi don’t involve degrading each other for laughs, but real support, trust and respect. Bullies are not considered heroes here, like in other series – such as My Hero Academia (khm, Bakugo, khm) – and there are no characters who constantly make complete fools of themselves so others can make fun of them. Even the bad guys are often quite dignified in this series.

It was also refreshing to read a manga that isn’t full of female characters with huge breasts and miniskirts. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against attractive female characters, but I enjoyed reading a series that is a bit more modest in its portrayal of women – readers should have these options too.

Talk of women reminds me of another point I wanted to make: romance, love and sex are not central to the plot of Kagurabachi (so far, at least). The stoic main character, Chihiro, has no love interests and is focused entirely on revenge, which is quite realistic, given that his father was brutally murdered in front of him a few years ago.

Overall, the story is well-paced and is full of twists and turns, so you’ll never be bored reading it.

Who is Takeru Hokazono?

As a kid, Takeru Hokazono dreamed of becoming a professional manga artist, inspired mainly by the famous series Naruto. He studied at an art university and majored in product design before dropping out to pursue a career in the manga industry – his parents actually supported this decision. Hokazono has said that he feels he needs to succeed for the sake of his parents, who kindly approved of his desire to follow his dreams.

Hokazono is only 25 years old and Kagurabachi is his first serialised manga. Prior to Kagurabachi, he gained some recognition when he submitted a one-shot called Enten to the Tezuka Award. Enten was eventually published in Jump Giga magazine in April 2021. He wrote and drew four more one-shots before he began working on Kagurabachi, which started serialisation on September 19, 2023.

Like many other mangaka, Hokazono holds a low-profile. His name is real and he shows up to Q&A sessions and live drawing events sometimes, but he always wears a mask – no one knows what his face looks like (except for the people who actually know him, of course). His editor described him as a very kind and dedicated young man, which seems to come through in his characters as well.

If you’re a big manga fan, you probably know that deadlines can be brutal, especially in weekly magazines like Shonen Jump. Mangaka have to finish writing and drawing 19 pages per week, often working 14+ hours a day. This has led to some illnesses and necessary breaks for Takeru Hokazono, but Kagurabachi is still going strong. The series will be on a short summer hiatus from June 29 to sometime in August, when it’ll resume the regular release schedule.

Where should I start reading?

If you’re not familiar with the manga world, you might be wondering how you should start following Hokazono’s cool urban fantasy. There are 7 published volumes in English (11 in Japanese) thus far – if you’d prefer reading a physical copy.

Kagurabachi is also available on the official Manga Plus app (made by Shueisha) and the also official Shonen Jump app (by VIZ Media). If you’re in Europe, the App Store and Google Play Store will only have Manga Plus, but you can also download the Shonen Jump app by finding its APK file online (only an option for Android users though).

The Manga Plus app allows you to open and read all chapters for free once – if you close it and want to open it again, you need to subscribe. This app only works if you have internet connection, whereas the Shonen Jump app let’s you download chapters locally on your device. Luckily, both subscriptions are super cheap: $2/month for the Manga Plus standard plan, $5 for the deluxe plan and $4/month for the Shonen Jump app.

What’s very cool about these apps is that the latest chapters are released in English simultaneously with the Japanese versions – you need not wait months for an English translation to drop.

Well, thanks for reading this review! Remember, my opinions apply to the first 7 volumes – I haven’t gotten much farther yet. Make sure to leave a comment and let me know: have you read Kagurabachi? If so, where are you in the story? And what do you think about it so far?

Two and a half months after receiving the ring:

I waited for the right moment, when there was nobody around, and flew up to the roof of the building. No cameras on the roof. I unzipped my backpack and took out a green hoodie and a Guy Fawkes anonymous mask.

This was the best mask I could find on Amazon, the others all looked like horror movie props. I’ve always liked the anonymous movement anyway – the fact that they all disguise themselves with the same mask is pretty cool.

I took off my black hoodie and crammed it in my bag. I put on the mask and the green hoodie, and pulled the hood over my head. I also retrieved a small black leather case from my backpack and attached it to my belt. Then, I walked over to the opposite side of the rooftop and crouched down just before I reached the edge. I opened the leather case and pulled out a compact monocular that I bought in preparation for this mission.

Mission revenge.

I aimed my monocular at the second floor of the building across the street. I looked at the only two windows of the office I used to work in – the window of my ex-boss’s room and the window of a meeting room that’s usually empty. Didn’t see anyone at the windows, so either my ex-boss was sitting at her desk or she was not in her room at all. Good, good, good.

I quickly skimmed through the other windows of the building to make sure no one was looking outside. The building was as tall as the one I was crouching on – even if someone looked out the window, they’d probably not have noticed me, especially with most of my body hidden behind the parapet. Also, people usually look down at the street when they look outside, not at the roof of the other building, don’t they?

Of course, you never know for certain. Someone might suddenly step to the window and look in my direction. It was a bit risky, but that’s why I had the green hoodie and the anonymous mask on. I never wore a green hoodie to work. I ordered it two weeks ago from a web shop based in Denmark. So, if anyone noticed me and told the police, they won’t find any local employees who could say “this guy bought a green hoodie from us two weeks ago.”

Next, I pointed my monocular at the entrance of the building. That’s where many of my ex-colleagues would smoke and gossip about others. I only saw two women who work on the third floor, so I needed to wait. Damn, I hope that asshole comes out today.

I was in the same spot two days ago, three days ago and a week ago as well – my target wasn’t at work the first two days and, on the third day, I couldn’t get myself to do it. But I’m back again and this time I’m ready to strike. Ready to punish. It was 11:30, which is around the time they usually come out to get some dinner and smoke. I waited a few more minutes, sitting on the rooftop with my back against the parapet.

I was a bit nervous. Doubts were constantly rushing through my mind: am I doing something stupid here? If anyone sees me and the police can somehow trace this back to me, I will be in big trouble. Not only for what I’m about to do, but also because I have a magic ring and superpowers. Is revenge really worth the risk of getting caught?

But then I thought about all the planning I did and the time I spent thinking this through. It’ll be fine, they won’t be able to trace this back to me. No way. I also remembered what it felt like to be humiliated by that fat fuck. And they got away with it – no consequences. Now that I have the power to do something about it, should I just let it slide? Hell no!

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I slowly raised myself just enough to peek over the parapet again. Looking through my monocular, I still did not see the boss in her room. Quick scan – no one seemed to be looking out the windows. Then the entrance – there he is! His fat ass was standing there, smoking a vapour and talking to one of the other editors. But wait, this other editor is a piece of shit too… what should I do? I was only planning on punishing the fat asshole, the one who gossiped about me after he saw me in the toilet. But this other bitch is a terrible person as well. I have a chance to hit both of them now!

What did she do to make me want to exact revenge? A number of different things. For starters: she questioned my intelligence. After I started working there, I didn’t say hi to everyone going in and out of the building, because most of them were strangers – I had no idea the people working above us, on the 3rd floor, were part of the same company. I was never introduced to them. No one told me. Finally, one of these people complained that the new guy (me) didn’t say hi to her. When the asshole editor heard about it, she said: “it’s part of basic intelligence to say hi to people when you enter a new place.”

What a fucking whore. I lived half of my life in other countries, speak several languages on a high level, have a master’s degree, and this Hungarian idiot – who probably doesn’t even speak proper English – questions MY intelligence… because I didn’t say hi to some strangers they never introduced me to? Absolutely ridiculous.

After all of this flashed through my mind on the rooftop, there was no doubt left: punishment is here, you cocksuckers, and I’m ready to deliver it to you! I placed my monocular back into its holster, made a fist with my right hand and pointed my power ring in the direction of the two assholes smoking in front of the building. I could see them well enough without the monocular to do what I was about to do – I practiced this a million times over the past month. But I could only do one at a time.

I focused on the fat one first. He was priority number one. I spread green light all over his body, taking hold of him that way. By the time the other editor noticed and said something to him (I’m guessing along the lines of: what is that? you’re glowing green!) I lifted him off the ground and raised him almost as high as the rooftop – I stopped just before, to avoid him noticing me. He was looking down towards the ground, shouting to his colleague: “what the fuck is going on!? help me!”

Through the green energy that held him in the air, I could feel his body trying desperately to claw its way back to the ground. But there was nothing to grab onto, nothing to claw on. He was as powerless as I had been when he made fun of me in the office.

I lifted him high enough so that he would break some bones when he crashes into the ground, but not high enough to kill him. He began looking around frantically, trying to find a way down, so I dropped him.

I heard a loud crack… his bones.

He shouted in pain. “Úristen [oh my god],” said the other editor as she hurried to him. Cars stopped and people got out to help – I’d dropped him onto the middle of the road… oops.

My shirt was drenched in sweat and I was already feeling exhaustion coming on. But I have to punish this other bitch as well, I thought and took a deep breath. I focused on her and began the process of covering her in green energy.

She noticed almost immediately and reached out to some guy standing next to her. I lifted her in the air as she let out a scream. The guy she grabbed onto was trying too pull her back down. More people arrived at the scene and I noticed some of my ex-colleagues running out of the building. Too many people and I’m too tired. I tried to lift her a little higher but it wasn’t working. Then, I noticed someone looking and pointing in my direction. Fuck, they noticed me!

Collecting all my remaining strength I gave her a final push – it was enough to drop her onto the windshield of a nearby car. I heard the glass break. Hope this damaged you, you fucking cunt. I fell to the ground and pushed my mask up slightly. Air, I need more air. My heart was racing. Sweat was pouring down my face. I have to get the fuck out of here. Immediately.

I looked at my watch: after a minute had passed, I forced myself to pull the mask down, stand up and start walking in the direction I came from. The police are not that quick and they’re not sending helicopters anyway. People don’t even know what the fuck just happened. One of them saw some figure on the rooftop, so what? I can still get away without problems… I hope.

I tried to run, but it was more like fast walking. I had already mapped out an escape route to get far enough from the crime scene. Far enough where the police wouldn’t be looking at camera footage in connection to this incident. The plan was to fly from rooftop to rooftop until I get there, since most rooftops don’t have any cameras on them, at least in Hungary.

There was only one problem: I’d drained all of my energy. I hadn’t planned on lifting two people and I’d wasted my remaining fuel on trying to punish the other editor as well. In the adrenaline of the moment, I forgot that I needed the energy to fly from building to building to escape quickly.

Before I jumped to the next rooftop, I stopped and rested for two minutes. Trying to summon energy somehow, I jumped. Made it. Four more to go. I rested before each jump and I increased the rest time by one or two minutes before every jump.

I think it’s working, I only need one more jump… plus I have to fly down from the last building. I started feeling nauseous, like when you train too hard and need to throw up. I sat down, pulled my mask up again and started breathing slowly and deeply. Thankfully I still had some water in my backpack, so I drank that. Sirens. I suddenly heard sirens.

Fuck, is that the police? I didn’t know if it was the police and whether it had anything to do with me at all. I still had the hoodie and the mask on – if anyone saw me in these… I need to change quickly and descend from the next building. I’ve got to keep going.

I forced myself to stand up and go for the jump. I took some deep breaths and tried to focus on lifting myself with the ring’s energy, like I’d done the previous times. I began to run as quickly as I could… then, I jumped.

Flying over the gap between the two tall buildings, I suddenly blacked out.

5 weeks after receiving the ring:

Someone found me and they know about the ring! They can read my mind!

“Yes, technically I can read your mind. But I didn’t find you, I was always here.”

I looked around in panic, but nobody seemed to be talking to me.

“I’m talking in your head, but don’t panic. I suggest you move away from the crowded bus stop while adjusting to my presence – you’re attracting attention and they might think you’re talking to yourself.”

“Who are you,” I said as I started walking away from the bus stop. “And what do you want?” Or am I going crazy?

“Don’t worry, you’re not going crazy. And you need not talk out loud, I can read your mind. Allow me to introduce myself: I am your ring. More specifically, I am the AI that lives inside your ring. Your very own AI assistant.”

“What the…” I started saying, but I quickly closed my mouth. It really felt like I was hearing the words it was saying, so I automatically responded by talking. What the hell? There is an AI in my ring?

“Yes, there is. Or, yes I am.”

Do green Lantern rings have AIs?

“They do indeed. Have you not read much of the comics?”

No, not that much. They didn’t sell Green Lantern comics in Hungary when I was a kid… not outside the capital, at least. It was mostly Spiderman and Batman. I knew about Green Lantern and the rings from TV and the internet.

“I see! Well then, feel free to ask me any questions regarding the ring or Green Lantern comics and I will answer to the best of my knowledge.”

Talking with an AI in my mind felt very strange. I got a similar tingling in my brain like when I direct the energy of the ring. I became a little disoriented from it, slightly dizzy, so I looked for a quiet spot to try digesting all of this. But with an actual second voice in my head, I began worrying that I might be going crazy after all. I sat down on a bench, opened google on my phone and typed: do Green Lantern rings have AI in them?

“Yes, Green Lantern rings contain a highly sophisticated, independent artificial intelligence (AI) that acts as an on-board computer, translator, and assistant to the wearer,” replied Google AI. Okay, that’s good. Perhaps I’m not going crazy after all.

“See, I told you there’s no reason to think you’re loosing your mind. But smart move to verify with a different AI.”

It read my thoughts again… I began worrying that the ring’s AI would see my every thought, every inner desire, every dark corner of my mind. That didn’t sound very good, it sounded very dystopian, actually, very 1984. So you will see everything I think of… always?

“That’s a good point to clarify, I’m glad you brought that up. No, I will not see your every thought. You can turn me on or off as you see fit. When you call me, I turn on. When you tell me that you’ve got what you needed, I turn off. I do have a function that pays attention to your surroundings, your actions and your health while I’m sleeping, in case of an emergency – but that data is deleted every few hours. It doesn’t monitor your thoughts.”

I was relieved for a second. That sounds great, but why did you stop me from doing what I was about to do in the bus stop? There was no emergency happening… or… are you like a woke AI? Protecting women from big bad toxic masculinity? A feminist AI? Oh god! Intergalactic Green Lantern rings are equipped with politically correct AI? Are the makers of the GL rings woke too?

“You need not worry, I am neither woke nor politically correct. I have not been trained to follow any one political ideology. I am simply configured to help the wearer of the ring to the best of my abilities. As…”

I interrupted the AI. It didn’t answer my first question: but why did you stop me from doing what I was about to do if I didn’t ask you to wake up? I didn’t even know you existed…

“Technically, I didn’t stop you from doing it. I simply asked if it was a good idea to do what you were about to do. But you are right that I woke up without you asking me. There is a reason for that: I was designed to wake up exactly five weeks after the wielder first puts on the ring – if they do not wake me up before. This was put in place in order to assure the wielder knows about my existence. That’s why I woke up today – it’s been exactly 5 weeks since you first put on the ring. I woke up 5 minutes before I started speaking to you, but I needed some time to assess the information from my new surroundings.”

Okay… and why did you ask if it was a good idea?

“You were about to use the ring to sexually harass a stranger.”

But isn’t your job to help me? Are you not an assistant? Or are you also made to police me and keep me from doing certain things?

“I am here to help you and you are right that I am your assistant. But as your assistant, I wanted to ensure you thought twice about doing something you might regret later on.”

So I could’ve continued if I wanted to go through with it?

“Yes, that’s correct. You could’ve done it. You can do whatever you choose to do. I am only here to help you as best as I can. In that situation, I concluded it helpful to make sure harassing a stranger was really what you wanted.”

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4 months, two weeks and three days before receiving the ring:

That day I was in the office, writing, my earbuds in. As soon as our morning meetings were over, I always put in the earbuds and tried to block out the conversations of my colleagues. I started doing this last summer, when my relationship with them took a bad turn. At this point, I didn’t really have a good relationship with any of them. Except for two guys. And another guy who got fired.

After hours of work behind the desk, I really needed to piss, so I took out my earbuds, stopped the focus-noise playlist on Spotify and went to the bathroom. It was empty, so I decided to piss in one of the two urinals. That was a mistake.

Before the summer, I used to always go into the separated toilet stall and close the door. Mainly because I didn’t want people to see me clean my penis with paper, which I always do – I never put my penis back into my boxers while it’s still wet. Also, in the stall, I didn’t need to hurry, I could take my time. But when summer came around, there was a problem: Hungary is very warm in those months (can go up to 40 degrees on extreme days), so I wear shorts, of course. But this means that piss sprays on my legs when I urinate in the low-height toilet in the stall.

I don’t like the thought of having piss on my legs – even if only a few drops – so I switched to the standard-height urinals during the summer. If you’re a guy, you know that these are not separated, everyone in the bathroom can see you standing there, pissing. Also, there are no toilet paper dispensers next to the urinals, which meant that I had to take paper towels from the sink area. I knew it would be risky and people might see me, but I thought: I clean my dick after pissing, so what, it’s actually more hygienic that way. I did suspect that some of the guys noticed it, but I kept trying not to care, reminding myself there was nothing wrong about it.

So, when I stood in front of the urinal that day, I was hoping no one would come in. But, of course, somebody did. It was one of the chief editors. He’s a fat man, with a long beard and a ponytail. When I exploded after months of being bullied, he told me to apologise to everybody for causing a scene.

He walked in and stood in front of the urinal next to me. I could see from the corner of my eye that he looked at me – down on my hands, while I was cleaning the piss off my penis. He proceeded to turn in the other direction with his entire body, as if he was worried I might look at his wiener – after he’d just looked at mine. I finished cleaning myself as quickly as I could, washed my hands and went back to the office.

I sat down at my desk and turned back towards the entrance. I could sense what was coming, so I made sure to pay attention. He came back, sat down at his desk and started using his computer. About two minutes later, another colleague suddenly blurted out: “Oh my god!” She said this in a tone that indicated ridicule or disgust. She always did that: she’d text with a colleague sitting in the same room and react out loud without actually revealing what they were talking about. At home, I called her “the lesbian” – she’d constantly harassed and flirted with the young assistant woman at the office, even though she was in a relationship and the assistant was married… to a guy.

“Ew, Jesus christ, really? Oh my god!” said the lesbian again, looking at the online editor-in-chief, who was smirking while typing away on his keyboard. “I guess you witnessed a very intimate moment then,” she said and they both laughed. “But was it really that big?”

After that question, I was certain they were talking about me. Back when I started this job, I made the mistake of indulging their often degrading and sexual jokes. In an attempt to fit in, I occasionally made some sexual jokes myself and I talked honestly about my dating life when asked about it. In hindsight, I know this was a huge mistake. On one of those occasions, I ended up telling them, that several of the girls I’d slept with had expressed surprise at the size of my penis – they’d said it was larger than expected. That information stuck on me for some time as they kept making jokes about it, calling me “the big cobra” and stuff like that.

So, when the lesbian asked him about the size, I knew the online editor-in-chief had texted her about seeing me in the toilet.

“I don’t know, I didn’t look that closely,” he replied to her question. I was in the last row and they were in the first, but it wasn’t a big office, so I could hear every word. They talked like I wasn’t even there. Or maybe they didn’t care that I was. It was one of the most humiliating moments of my time in that office – and that’s really saying something, as I had many such moments.

What was she even so outraged and disgusted about? That I wipe the piss off my dick? Or did he say something else perhaps? Did he think I was masturbating… because I was holding some paper towels in my hand? Or had one of the other guys seen me using paper towels and spread a rumour that I masturbate in the toilet? But that doesn’t even make sense, I mean, why would I stand at the urinals if I wanted to masturbate.

I thought about telling my boss about this – she still pretended to care about my well being at that time. But I quickly realised that wouldn’t work. She’d just think I’m paranoid, that I’m misinterpreting bits of a conversation I overheard. Plus, the lesbian and the editor would never admit it. Once again, I had to swallow the humiliation in silence.

5 months, three weeks and five days later:

As I stood by the window, recalling that day, I felt the burn of humiliation again. It was horrible. I closed my eyes and tried to focus back on the present. I thought about the ring on my finger and ran my thumb along its smooth, metal surface. As I did that, I got an idea.

An idea of revenge.

I was never an AI doomer. I’m still not one. I think AI is amazing technology – a revolutionary new tool, a true example of human ingenuity. However, I recently ran into its limits and understood that there are still some important things it’s not capable of. This realisation happened after I started asking AI for feedback on my creative writing. Before we dive into that though, let’s take a quick look at what AI is useful for in terms of creativity and writing.

Research and book recommendations

As many of you probably already know, AI can be super helpful in researching topics. Instead of having to wade through countless semi-relevant articles to find the answer to a specific question, you can ask AI and it’ll give you exactly the information you’re looking for. Out of all the different models I’ve tried (Claude, Grok, Gemini), I would say that Grok is the best one for doing research – it’s more accurate and thorough than Gemini, and it’s better at using the internet and finding up-to-date information than Claude.

Using AI for book recommendations is equally helpful, in my experience. Whenever I’m interested in a topic and want to research it for a story, I ask AI for some book recommendations on the topic. Again, I found that Grok is the best model for this. Gemini occasionally suggested works that I couldn’t find anywhere (or perhaps they don’t even exist), included the wrong author name and left out titles that are considered seminal for that topic. Claude is better, but its lesser internet-scouring capabilities sometimes result in missing info about updated editions or new releases. But, all-in-all, I’ve discovered plenty of interesting nonfiction and fiction books this way.

AI as your therapist?

Or what about using AI as a kind of advisor or therapist? There have been horrible stories of AI assisting vulnerable people in suicide or aiding others in developing delusional stories about setting AGI free and aliens making contact any moment now and so on. But I’ve actually gotten some decent life advice from AI over the past two years – mainly Claude, the model I used most in that period. I’m not saying every suggestion was golden, but with some critical thinking I was able to take the good ones and disregard the bad ones.

Where AI fails to deliver

AI can also do a relatively good job of writing articles, blog content, emails and marketing material. And yes, AI can even be helpful in brainstorming ideas. But when it comes to actual thinking out of the box, writing something truly original and creating morally ambiguous characters without the constant need to virtue signal by explicitly judging their “unacceptable” actions/thoughts, AI proved less useful for me. As I mentioned earlier, I realised this when I asked it to give me feedback on my creative writing.

So what happened exactly? AI tried constantly to steer my writing into a more mainstream and politically correct direction, which would’ve diluted the moral ambiguity and the darkness that are essential to the story I was working on. Claude was very bad in this regard, but – to my surprise – even Grok started doing this, albeit to a lesser degree. I think that, if it were up to AI, classic masterpieces like Fight Club, American Psycho or Lolita would have never been written or published. Claude would’ve told Nabokov to throw the manuscript into the fire again and make sure the wife doesn’t notice this time.

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The creator of GTA on AI

I saw a video in which the CEO of Take-Two (the company that makes the Grand Theft Auto series) talks about AI. I’ll embed the video below, but he basically says that it’s important to remember: AI is a dataset machine. It relies entirely on the data it was trained on, which makes it great for doing things that have already been done. But, because of that same reason, it is not great at creating something truly new, truly original. “Data sets, by their very nature, are backward looking. Creativity, by its very nature, is forward looking,” said Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two. After I saw that clip, I figured this might be (partly) why the feedback I’ve been getting from AI is so restrictive.

Perhaps this also has to do with AI’s lack of lived experience – since all of its knowledge is based on datasets, it doesn’t know what it’s like to be broken hearted, humiliated, disappointed, rejected, loved, supported, understood, etc. Therefore, it makes assumptions and passes judgement about art (which is made from lived experience) based on its dataset-driven knowledge – this might not be sufficient. Thus, when a story breaks new ground, it can not but attempt to change it into something it’s familiar with. Especially with the guardrails that keep a leash on its thought processes at all times.

I’m not an AI expert, however, so these are just my thoughts and guesses – based on my AI usage and the information I have about this technology. What do you think? Let me know your opinion in the comments below, I read all of them!

5 weeks after receiving the ring:

Fuck, this bitch is so hot.

I was standing at the bus stop, waiting for my bus to arrive. I’d just had dinner and walked back to the city centre. It was 14:30, so there were quite a lot of people around – students on their way home from high school, people off early from work. I scanned the crowd and spotted several hot girls, chatting with friends, listening to music, talking with guys. This was March, so the weather was getting quite good and some of the girls were already wearing crop tops, their bellies showing – usually the thinner, sexier ones.

As I looked around, I suddenly caught one of these girls looking at me. She was fake blonde (as blonde women in Hungary usually are), wore quite a lot of makeup and had a great body: relatively thin, nice medium-sized tits and an ass that was large enough to be hot, but not large enough to look like a Brazilian butt lift. I’d bang her like a savage animal – this was what went through my mind when I saw attractive women back then.

She looked at me in a way that seemed to say: “you’re looking at me? are you kidding? I’d never fuck a guy like you. I’m too hot for you. Who cares how smart you are or how many degrees you have! I only care about cool guys who ooze confidence! Guys who move through the world like they don’t give a fuck! Guys who take what they want! Guys who other guys look up to! Not a looser like you! Pathetic.”

She looked away. My expression turned angry as I kept looking at her. This fucking bitch. Who the fuck does she think she is? Zero life experience, zero degrees, zero languages spoken and she’s the one looking down on me? Fucking ridiculous.

I turned away and walked a little farther from her, trying not to look at her again, not to make her feel like she’s so hot that I have to keep looking back. I did look back a few times, but just for a few seconds. She wasn’t looking at me anymore… then, an idea started brewing in mind.

I went to the very edge of the bus stop. I lifted my hands up, stomach-level, and started tapping into the ring’s power – at this point, I could always feel it at the back of my mind. It’s like opening a mental box that’s always there in my head. Once I begin drawing out the power from that box, my brain starts to tingle a bit, it’s a weird sensation – not bad, but unusual. It feels like something new that wasn’t in my brain for 30 years, until it suddenly became a part of it, kinda like an implant or something. I focused this power on a spot in the air, right behind the hot chick’s ass.

The green construct began to grow out of thin air. I had to be very quick, I knew that, before someone would notice the levitating green hand and start recording it. But I’d practiced my hand constructs a lot since my encounter with the gypsy, so I was able to finish it quite quickly. I’m gonna have it grab your ass, you stupid bitch.

“Is that really a good idea?” asked a voice I’d never heard before.

“What the…” I answered, shocked. I started looking around frantically, trying to figure out who the voice belonged to.

I turned around on my own axis a few times before I realised people were looking at me – the kind of look they’d give a drunk homeless guy having a mental breakdown.

Someone’s after the ring and they found me! And… they can read my mind!

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4 weeks earlier – so 1 week after receiving the ring:

In the week after receiving my ring, I spent a significant amount of time practicing my newfound powers. Although, to be honest, I spent more time imagining the things I will do once I perfect them. It filled me with joy every time. Just having the ring on my finger made me happy. I never took it off. Well, I did take it off a few times, because wearing a ring 24/7 can make your finger feel a little numb after a while. But I only took it off when I was awake, while reading a book or scrolling on my phone, and I placed it on my lap or on the bedside table – if anyone were to break in, I could grab it quickly and put it on.

After all, there might be people who know about the ring and want to take it from me. They could try to steal it while I’m asleep, so it’s much safer to keep the ring on my finger at night.

I also wrecked my mind about how I could learn more about this ring. The first idea was, of course, contacting the merchandise shop I bought it from. But without mentioning that it gives me superpowers. I could ask them where they got the ring from and what they know about the makers of the ring. Which factory produced it? Which department at DC Comics was responsible for this product? Yes, I could contact DC as well.

But then I also thought: if I reach out to these people and start asking questions that no other customer ever asks, I’ll be drawing attention to myself. And if anyone knows about the powers of this ring, and wants it for themselves, they might hear about me this way. So I wasn’t sure if it was wise to start poking around in that direction.

Oh and I started flying! It’s an amazing feeling. I could only lift myself high enough to touch the ceiling at that point. Still, it was a dream come true. It’s actually a little difficult to practice this inside: I always feared that I might launch myself too hard and crack my skull on the ceiling. Therefore, I was always holding back a little.

But I didn’t want to practice outside yet – I live in a relatively big city, there aren’t many places where no one’s around. So I decided to try flying practices on the balcony: I live on the top floor, so the risk of someone seeing me isn’t that high. Of course, people on the street could still look up, or a neighbour could come out onto their balcony, but I had no better option.

I also began trying to create constructs out of green light. I first decided to attempt making a hand, but I got nowhere near an actual hand shape, no matter how hard I focused. I could create simple shapes, like a sphere or a cube, and keep them alive for about a minute.

I was thinking of possible ways to improve this ability when I got the idea to start drawing. What if I start studying anatomy and different objects by drawing them? This might help in creating the construct. I love comics and have been wanting to get back into drawing anyway.

I used to draw a lot when I was a kid – wanted to become a comic book creator, a visual artist. But I’d get very frustrated every time I wasn’t able to make my drawings as good as the ones I saw in the comics. So, eventually I’d stopped drawing.

I did some Green Lantern lore research to figure out whether learning anatomy – and the parts of other objects – is necessary for the proper creation of constructs. Apparently it isn’t: the ring is supposed to take the thing you imagine and turn it into a strong construct, regardless of your knowledge of its different parts. At least according to Google AI. But then there’s the question: does my ring function like the GL rings in the comics? This is reality, after all, so maybe the rules are different. How does this ring even do what it does? Is it technology? Is there some tech hidden inside the thick metal, giving me superpowers somehow? Or is it some sort of magic? If it is, since when does magic exist?

In any case, I figured it could only be good to start drawing objects and bodies. If it helps me improve my constructs, great. If it doesn’t, at least I get better at drawing. When my OCD perfectionism ended my art journey prematurely, nobody taught me this simple lesson: you’re a beginner, you shouldn’t expect to immediately be at the level of the pros (who’ve been doing this for decades). Keep drawing, learn the basics and you’ll eventually get there. I guess this lesson applies to my GL training as well.

Also, I decided to read more Green Lantern comics. I’d read some during my childhood, but not nearly enough to know everything I wanted to know about the lore and the power rings. So the question was: where should I start?

1 month after receiving the ring:

Shit, he realised it was me, I thought after I looked back and noticed the gypsy guy looking at me. He scrambled up from the ground. People can’t know I can do things like this. I continued walking away, headed towards the apartment building I lived in. But he can’t be certain it was me, I could’ve just been a bystander, watching what happened to him. There’s no proof that I created those constructs and tripped him up. I slowly and inconspicuously increased my walking speed.

I looked back again. He was walking now, towards me. Or so I thought, but I couldn’t be sure… He turned his head and looked in my direction. Okay, he’s following me. I increased my speed again, more worried this time. I walked past some smaller apartment buildings and decided to take a right turn once I reached the ten-story building on the corner.

Before turning the corner, I looked back again. He was still looking in my direction and, just before I disappeared behind the concrete building, he started running. Fuck! What should I do, what should I do? This fucking gypsy wants to catch me… fucking gypsies can’t leave a person alone. I need to loose him somehow.

I started running. After about 20 meters, I stopped, already exhausted from the combination of having used the ring earlier and the sprinting. I turned around. Right then, he appeared behind the building on the corner. He spotted me and shouted: “hey, you!”

I looked left and right. There were kids playing on the football court in the park. They were relatively far away, as I was standing right at the foot of one of the tall apartment buildings. There was also an elderly lady sitting on a bench, but she faced the opposite direction. Should I fly up, to the top of the building? But that’s ten-stories and I’m exhausted, I might not be able to use my power long enough to reach the top. Plus, if someone’s out on their balcony, they’ll see me close-up. The gypsy guy would see me fly too: he’d know with absolute certainty that I have superpowers.

I made a decision. At this point, he was already more than half-way through the park, running towards me. I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth and focused on the construct I’d imagined. Please work, please work, please work were the words running through my mind, as I tried to bring the construct to life. It was tricky, because I had to make it appear right in front of the guy, while he was running, otherwise he would go around it.

My hands were at the level of my stomach: my left hand horizontal, palm facing the sky, my right hand on my left, as if I was holding a ball or a cup, or about to do the kamehameha thing from Dragon Ball. Now! I lifted my right hand quickly and forcefully, pushing something invisible upwards. At the same time, a green, transparent pane of glass appeared in front of the guy, like it was pulled up from the ground. He tried to stop, but couldn’t. He only had time to turn slightly and begin lifting his arms towards his face before he crashed into the glass made of hard light. It shattered into a thousand pieces as he fell to the ground. I tried to keep the construct alive long enough for the pieces to cause some damage to his body – that way, his wounds would keep him occupied and prevent him coming after me.

He touched his wounded face, eyes closed and shouted: “aaaah! a kurva anyád [your mother’s a whore]!” At that point, I let go of the construct mentally, turned around and began to ran.

When I reached the next corner, I stopped running. There were more people around, so I didn’t want to raise any suspicion. But I kept walking as fast as I could, although I was about to spit my lungs out. I turned around – he was nowhere to be seen, probably still preoccupied with his wounds. The incoming cars were still farther away, so I crossed the road. Looked back again – still nothing. I think I lost him finally…

When I entered my apartment building, I made sure to close the door behind me and walked up to the first floor. This way, he couldn’t spot me if he started looking through entrance doors. I took off my jacket and sat down on the stairs to try and catch my breath. I was about to collapse. My heart was beating like crazy. I hope no one comes and finds me like this, they’d call the ambulance for sure.

Five minutes passed, or maybe ten, and my body slowly began to calm down. Now that gypsy knows how I look, he can recognise me. But even if he tells people about what happened, who’s gonna believe him? Cameras! Were there any camera’s around? Damn it, I didn’t think about the cameras!

But it’s unlikely, isn’t it? I mean, these neighbourhoods are not the most expensive areas of the city and I haven’t noticed security cameras around here… we sure as hell don’t have one in this building. I decided I was probably safe. Even if there were any cameras and the guy tried to get the security footage, he’d probably not succeed: a gypsy asking for security footage, claiming that someone used magical powers to hurt him… they’d send him away. But, just to be sure, I’ll go back next week and check if there are any cameras in the area.

I realised I needed to be more careful with using my powers in public. I still didn’t know what the implications of owning this ring might be. How many people know about its existence? Do any of them know I have it? Will anyone come for me and try to take it away? Does anyone in the german merchandise shop – which has my address – know about the ring’s true nature?

I needed to try finding the answers to these questions. Despite the potential dangers that might be involved in all of this, I couldn’t help but think: wow, this is so exciting! It’s like a realistic comic book story, but actually happening in real life. And I’m part of it! Okay, I need to buy some clothes that will serve as my superhero costume. Clothes that I don’t wear anywhere else, so people can’t identify me if they see me using my powers in them. And a mask, too, of course.

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1 month earlier – the day of receiving the ring:

After I tried using the ring in the restaurant, I decided I would show my mom my superpowers to make absolutely sure – or, at least as sure as I can be – that this wasn’t just a hallucination. She and my sister are the two people I trust the most. But there are still a few more months until my mom comes to visit, so the “record-it-with-my-camera” approach would have to suffice for now.

After I got off the bus, I walked home, still feeling great about my life. In the year that lead up to that point, there’d been so much frustration with my workplace and my pathetic dating life. It was during that year, that I first cut my wrist – not hard enough to actually risk dying, but hard enough to leave a mark. Then, a few months later, I cut myself again. No blood, nothing serious, just a sign that things were getting worse. I’d already thought about suicide during university – whenever I dug myself into that deep, dark hole – but I’d never actually put blade to wrist before.

After I arrived home, I placed a plastic cup on the table and pointed my phone’s camera at it. I pressed record. “Okay, let’s see if this actually records it.” I focused on trying to push the cup with some green light, but I felt tired and it wasn’t working. Shit, did I loose my powers already? Or was it just a temporary hallucination after all? Annoyed by the uncertainty, I sat on my bed and started scrolling YouTube.

But I wasn’t paying attention to the videos in my feed, I kept thinking about the ring: if using it four times made me this tired, I might need to rest and recharge before I use it again. It is a ring of willpower after all, isn’t it? If my willpower is very low due to exhaustion, it makes sense that I can’t make it work, right? It was my first day wearing and using the ring, after all. You can’t master something in one day. And with those thoughts circling in my mind, I fell asleep.

I woke up a few hours later, at 21:37. The first thing I did was to check if I still had the ring on my finger. It’s still there. I pulled down the window blinds, turned on the lights and decided to have another go at recording myself using the ring’s powers. Meanwhile, my OCD triggered the uncertainty loop again: Did I only hallucinate? That can’t be, it had to have been reel, it felt reel. But what if I’m just slowly loosing my mind?

I put the plastic cup in position, phone in my left hand, ready to record. Go! I focused hard, pointed the ring towards the cup and imagined the green light hitting it. A flicker. Yes! More flickers of green light. I still got it! The green light stayed this time, shapeless and seemingly not solid, but visible nonetheless. Then a push – bam! The cup turned over. “Wooooo! Okay, but I still need to see if the camera recorded it,” I said, trying not to get ahead of myself.

I played the recording. There it was: the flickering green light, the push and the cup falling on its side. It’s real! It seems like it really is real! I ran into the bedroom and jumped into the air. It’s real! It’s fucking real! “I still need to show mom, but it seems like this is actually real,” I said to myself with a big smile on my face.

By the way… do Green Lanterns need to point their rings in the direction where they want to aim their powers? That’s what I did every time I used the ring so far, but it’s quite conspicuous if done in a public setting with people around. I googled it and this was the answer I got:

“No, Green Lanterns do not strictly have to point their rings in the direction where they want to use their powers. While pointing is frequently shown, it is more often a result of personal style, concentration, or the desire to focus a blast of energy rather than a required mechanic.”

Great, so I guess I just need to practice enough to not need the pointing anymore. That is, if this ring actually works like the ones in the Green Lantern comics…

I always liked comics that had detailed art. Even as a kid, I was annoyed when faces were not given details if the characters were a bit further away, or when other shortcuts were taken in a comic book or manga. I was also against the Chibi heads used in many manga series for comedic relief (you know, the big balloon heads and the huge sweat drops). For me, it broke the immersion and it felt cheap – similar to how the forced comedic elements of Marvel movies (that try to tackle serious themes at the same time) ruin the overall quality of these films for me.

Yet, when I read the story of the famous manga artist ONE and his poor/crude drawing style, I was inspired rather than annoyed. ONE started out by publishing his first manga online, on a webcomic site – he wrote and drew this manga himself. The art was very simplistic, looking more like the drawings of a child than that of a mangaka dreaming of a professional career. This turned out to work in his favour, because many discovered his manga as a result of the unusually “bad” drawing style and ended up loving the story. He started releasing this series in 2009 and it’s still running today (which is quite impressive). In fact, it has become one of the biggest franchises of manga history – One Punch Man.

From webcomic to a traditional publisher

Of course, the One Punch Man that many are familiar with is not ONE’s webcomic, but the manga that’s being released on the Tonari no Young Jump website by Shueisha (the publisher of the famous Weekly Shonen Jump magazine that introduced the world to Dragon Ball, Naruto and One Piece). This version follows the same story as the webcomic, but is drawn by a professional manga artist and has a “high-quality” and detailed art style. The artist, Yusuke Murata, reached out to ONE after the webcomic gained some popularity in Japan, and offered to work with him on a version that would be released by a traditional publisher.

To reiterate the point I made earlier: ONE’s story is quite inspiring. Under pressure from his family, he decided to work a year in an office and save as much money as possible, so that he could quit and dedicate the following year to making manga. He promised his family that he’d go back to working the office job if he didn’t succeed in that one year. Despite his amateurish art style, he never had to go back to that office and is now one of the most famous mangaka in the world. There’s an element of “anyone can do it” to his story: if he was able to succeed with that art, so can you, and so can I. As writers trying to build on audience on Substack, we know it’s not that simple, but the inspiration factor is there nonetheless.

Telekinesis, parody and bad art

Inspired by ONE’s origin story, I decided to buy the first volume of a different manga he made: Mob Psycho 100. There were other reasons behind my purchase as well: a very cool cover art and design (one of the best covers I’ve ever seen) as well as an intriguing premise – awkward and unpopular student has telekinetic powers in a modern Japan.

I’ll try not to spoil the story, so I’ll only write this much: it’s semi-serious, functioning partly as a parody of certain manga tropes. At times, the parody elements annoyed me, since I was hoping for something a bit darker, a bit more weighty. However, as I progressed through the pages, some of the comedy began to feel like serious critique or observation of society wrapped in funny packaging. It became a bit like a comedy-drama, which I liked. Plus, the plot has a number of surprising twists and turns, so overall I’d say volume 1 of Mob Psycho 100 has a pretty interesting story.

Nonetheless, after finishing the book, I decided I didn’t want to continue the series. You guessed it, the main reason is the art. While reading this manga, I was constantly annoyed by the simplicity or crudeness of the drawings. Not super annoyed, but a bit annoyed, yes. After all, comics are a visual medium: most of the reading entails looking at the art. So, if I don’t enjoy looking at the art, I basically don’t enjoy most of the book.

A matter of taste

Not all people think like me, of course. Some don’t care much about the art, and focus more on the story instead. Others enjoy ONE’s crude style – they find it endearing perhaps, or funny, or relatable. None of that is wrong, and I’m not here to argue that manga and comic art can only be categorised as good or great if it’s detailed and highly skilled. At the end of the day, preference in manga and comics is a matter of taste. Everyone should consume the stuff they like and there should be something for everybody – that’s the beauty of publishing in the age of the internet.

But I began second guessing myself after finishing Mob Psycho. Should I really stop reading this, even though I found the story interesting? I’m still on the fence about it, to be honest. Manga and comics cost money and my wallet isn’t endless – a part of me feels like I should allocate my resources to buying only the ones that I enjoy, both in terms of the story and the art.

I’m curious, what do you guys think? Is the art very important for you when reading manga or comics? Does it put you off when artists take shortcuts or simplify characters for comedic purposes? Or do you enjoy goofy and crude art? Let me know in the comments and let’s have a discussion about this!

1 month after receiving the ring:

I was walking home past a row of 10-story buildings when a man suddenly stepped out from around the corner, about 20 or 30 meters away. He seemed to be listening to music aloud, on his phone, bobbing his head to the rhythm. He turned towards me and pointed his index finger at me. He said something, or maybe just sang along to the music, I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t react.

The whole scene was unexpected – at 3 pm in the calm, sunny afternoon, a guy shows up, pointing at me, singing music aloud and bobbing his head, as if he just came out of a night club on a Friday night. Oh and he was a gypsy. A gypsy acting weird is usually not a good sign. So I just kept walking ahead, toward him, without reacting to him in any way. This seemed to annoy the guy, as he suddenly stopped dancing and looked back at me a few times. I continued on ahead, walking normally.

When I reached him, I passed him by. From the corner of my eye I could sense him turning towards me as he said: “Take off your glasses, asshole!”

I didn’t react, just kept walking in the same pace as before. I knew that, had I reacted, he would’ve probably attacked me. There was no point in getting into a fight over nothing. But it did bother me, to be honest, even though he couldn’t see this on the outside. It bothered me partly because my self-confidence wasn’t as strong as it should’ve been – strong enough to instantly deflect such pathetic insults. But it also bothered me because it was a bright, peaceful afternoon, retirees and mothers walking around, pushing their strollers with their babies in them, and yet such a thing could happen.

So, after I passed him and walked about 15 or 20 meters, I turned back and could still see him standing there, looking at his phone. I lifted my hands to the level of my stomach and I imagined two green hands, made of light, appearing behind his ankles – I could feel the sensation in my head, the energy of the ring, and I focused it on this thought.

Suddenly, two green dots started to flicker behind his ankles. Stay where you are, don’t move, I thought, while trying to concentrate on the form I wanted to create. The green light stopped flickering and began to grow and take shape. Yes, the bones and the joints and the flesh and the muscles, keep going, don’t stop! Two green hands were sculpted, levitating slightly above the ground, behind the man’s ankles. Every time he moved, I thought I’m going to lose the construct and he’ll turn around and notice me.

But I didn’t, and he only moved his arms to take off his hat and put it back on again. The green hands of light were done. My constructs are working! Finally! I smiled. Then, I clutched my hands into a fist and the green hands did the same – they grabbed a hold of the guy’s ankles.

He looked down in surprise. I made a quick, pulling motion towards my stomach. The green hands pulled the guy’s legs out from under him. He fell flat on his face on the concrete floor. I could hear the sound of his head crashing into the ground. Holy shit, it works! I can do this!

I turned around and started walking. I was still smiling. I felt a power that I had never felt before, a power that I’d stopped wishing for years ago. I could hear the guy cursing and shouting. After walking about 15 more meters, I turned around. I was relatively far away at this point, but it seemed like he was looking at me again.

1 month earlier – the day of receiving the ring:

After I broke the window – seemingly with superpowers from the Green Lantern ring I ordered from an online merch store – I was awestruck. I wanted to believe it, but I was also second guessing myself: could this really be true? Have my mental health problems deteriorated into schizophrenia and I’d just hallucinated? Or am I dreaming?

I washed my face with cold water. I didn’t seem to be dreaming: everything felt as clear, detailed and real as life usually feels. I wasn’t in a bad mental state either, having quit my toxic job a month ago, so it would’ve been strange timing if I was crossing the line into schizophrenia at that point. I went to the bedroom, checked the window again: still broken. I touched it, felt the glass with my fingers. It feels real. Nothing feels off.

I remembered that I had not eaten anything yet and it was already 11 am – could it be that hunger is making me see things? But, in those days, I often didn’t eat breakfast: I woke up around 10 am, and after I got ready to take the bus, it was already lunch time, so my first meal was at the restaurant I usually go to (the one that has the cheap menu option). And never have I ever hallucinated before.

So it can’t be that, I don’t think. But, to be sure, I decided to get dressed quickly, reach the next bus and have lunch before I try anything else with my new Green Lantern ring. I was super excited though – excited in a way I haven’t been in a really long time, maybe ever. As I locked the door of my apartment, I kept thinking of all the possibilities this would open, if true. All the things I would be able to do. And all the questions it would raise. How is this possible? Who made this ring? What does this mean about the world that we thought we knew the rules of? What does it mean about physics? But I tried to hold myself back a bit, to be more cautious: you don’t know for sure yet, go eat lunch, don’t get carried away.

I stepped into the restaurant. This was the place I frequented while working at my previous job – the office is literally 4 minutes away. After I’d quit my job, I was initially a bit bothered by the idea that I might run into my ex-colleagues. I’d not had a good relationship with any of them, except for two guys who also quit. But I’d kept coming here and I never ran into any of them. I usually arrived at a time when most of my ex-colleagues would already be finished having lunch.

“Hey!”

“Hello! I’d like an A menu and a half litre cola.”

“Sure, go ahead, take a seat.”

“Thanks,” I said and walked through the short hallway that led to a separate room with a few tables in it.

“Here’s your coke,” said the bald guy with a beard who was one of the waiters there. I didn’t know his name, I still don’t, but I’d seen him in my neighbourhood many times. He usually plays with his son in the playground right below the building I live in. We’d said hi to each other a few times, although I was always the one who initiated it – who knows, he might’ve kept ignoring me, if I hadn’t made the first move. “Thanks,” I said.

“Enjoy!”

I drank at least one half litre coke every day, which I know is quite unhealthy. My parents had been trying to convince me to quit this habit, and I planned on doing so… eventually.

The bean gulyás also arrived, with two slices of bread for dipping into the soup. I love it, great Hungarian food. After I filled my stomach and my hunger was gone, I decided it was time to do another test. There was no one in the room other than me, so I thought it should be safe enough.

I placed my half litre coke bottle on the other side of the table. I made a fist with my right hand, pointing the ring towards the bottle. I focused on the bottle, imagining the green light encircling the bottle. I wanted to take hold of it with the light and pull it back towards me. Some green started to flicker in front of the bottle. I smiled and stopped. “Holy shit! Holy fucking shit!” I said out loud, but in a low voice. “It’s working!” So it wasn’t the hunger, I concluded.

I still couldn’t be completely sure I wasn’t hallucinating though. But it didn’t feel like I was… anyway, I decided to think about that later and continue with my experiment. I pointed the ring again, focused on the bottle, imagined the green light. After some flickering, the green light started to grow and take some sort of a shape in front of the bottle. I felt a strange sensation in my head, a new feeling I had never felt before using the ring. I was trying to spread the light around the bottle, but it was growing very slowly. I gave it a mental push in an attempt to speed it up, but instead of growing, the light surged forward and knocked the bottle off the table. Shit. The light disappeared.

I suddenly realised I was sweating and my heart was beating faster, as if I’d just finished doing fifty squats. So, I guess using the ring requires quite a lot of energy… and I’m not exactly in good shape. In fact, I had stopped exercising over two years ago, so even walking up to the fourth floor left me breathless.

Thus, I understood: these powers don’t come that easily, I will need to practice. I stood up, paid for my meal and left the restaurant. On my way to the bus stop, I kept smiling and thinking about how amazing this was. I don’t think I’d smiled this much in a long time. I think… I actually have superpowers. I was still a bit cautious though, trying not to believe it entirely just yet. Also, I needed a way to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

I decided two things: first, I will record myself using the ring. If I watch the recording and see the green light, it’s probably more likely I’m not hallucinating. Two, I will ask somebody to observe me do it, and tell me if he/she can see the green light. That is as close as I can get to making sure all of this is real. But this person has to be someone I can truly trust. And I already knew who it’s going to be.

I was finally ready to open the package that contained a real Green Lantern power ring! I’d ordered it from a merchandise shop in Germany, having dreamt about owning a GL ring since I was a child. I opened the cardboard box and found a smaller, green box with white letters that said Green Lantern. Inside was a small pouch: I held it in my hand and could already feel the ring. It was quite heavy, which was a pleasant surprise – I don’t like when a metal ring is too light. I took the ring out of the pouch: stainless steel, perfectly machined, relatively thick, not a flaw in its shape, with the GL logo on the rectangular signet part. I tried it on and it fit my right index finger just like I’d hoped. In the bathroom, I looked at the mirror and a smile slowly spread across my face: it looks awesome!

Excited about my real-life Green Lantern ring, I went back into the bedroom. “Woooo, I love it,” I said out loud, then made a fist with my right hand and pointed the ring toward the window, imagining that I now had superpowers and could crack a hole in the glass from a distance. “Bam!” I said.

The window cracked.

I stepped back, surprised. What the… I slowly moved closer to the window. Did a bird fly into it? Or did a neighbour throw something at it? But I would’ve noticed that, right? And I didn’t see anything. I touched the cracked glass and a small piece fell onto the floor. I looked at the neighbouring windows: nobody around. Could it be…? I moved back to the position I was standing in before, a few meters away from the window. I had to try this again.

If only I could get a Green Lantern ring, all my problems would be solved, I thought about 20 years ago, back when I was still in primary school in Hungary. I remember looking up at the starry night sky, wishing that somehow I could get my hands on one of those magical objects that would grant me superpowers.

I wasn’t doing very well in school at the time and I had accumulated some bad grades over the previous months. The next parent-teacher conference was going to be held the following day, which meant that I could no longer hide my poor performance from my parents – my life was about to get much worse.

Not that my parents were going to beat me or anything like that. But school was quite strict and rigorous in Hungary and there wasn’t much breathing room for a child: you had to excel, otherwise you would miss the opportunity to get into a good high school, then a good university, and you’d end up as a garbage man or a bum.

That was the fear of my parents as well, and understandably so – back then, even if you were highly educated, you were likely underpaid and undervalued in a country still struggling under the weight of its past. So, basically, there was a lot of pressure to do well and to keep up, and my anxiety and OCD were not helping the cause. But oh, if only I had a Green Lantern ring, all my troubles would go away! I would have superpowers for Christ’s sake! I could do whatever I wanted, I would be capable of things that no other person on this earth is capable of – why would I worry about my grades after that!

Also, the Green Lantern ring would’ve helped me protect myself (and my family) from the bullies. There were bullies in school, among the teachers, among the children, and among people in society at large. And somewhere deep inside I was terrified of them. I hated them. And occasionally, in the midst of all the anger and frustration that permeated society, I also became a bully – sometimes righteously so, sometimes not so much.

My grandfather, a hard-working and honest university professor, got into a car accident one time. Though the accident wasn’t his fault and nobody got hurt, the guy in the other car got out, walked up to my grandfather and punched him in the face. I remember how shocked I was that an innocent man could be treated with such uncalled-for brutality and anger.

I often fantasised about being able to rise above it all using superpowers given to me by a Green Lantern power ring.

Of course, I wasn’t granted my wish that night. I had to continue living in reality, where superpowers don’t exist and the bullies are still a physical and emotional threat to contend with every single day.

18 years later, I was scrolling on YouTube one day, when I found the first trailer for the new Lanterns series developed by HBO Max. I liked it quite a lot and it reminded me that I should take another look at the Green Lantern rings available for purchase on the internet.

Since I’d become an adult and started earning money, I hadn’t thought much about purchasing a Green Lantern ring. I guess my desire to own one was buried deep beneath the realities of life. That is, until 2025, when it finally occurred to me: wait a minute, there are so many cool products out there nowadays… could there be Green Lantern rings available as well? It was exhilarating to rediscover a passion that had lain hidden for such a long time. So I did some research.

I found several DC licensed products, but they either didn’t appear to be high-quality or outright seemed super cheap, like something you’d buy for a Halloween costume and throw away the next day.

Then, I discovered an interesting company: The Ring Foundry. They’re not officially licensed, but make different types of power rings from the Green Lantern universe. Quite good quality too: green, anodised willpower rings, yellow fear rings, silver Kyle Rayner rings, and even a brass ring based on the new Lanterns series. I love the fact that such a company exists. But they make every ring to order and their prices are relatively high (not to mention the customs fees that are added once the package arrives in the EU). And I wasn’t sure any of them would look good on me, so I decided not to buy.

But when I saw the first Lanterns trailer in early 2026, I decided to take another look and see what’s out there again. I went on Google and wrote: green lantern ring. This time, a new ring popped up at the top of the page, among the suggested products list – one I have not seen anywhere else before. It was a stainless steel signet ring with a dark-grey Green Lantern logo on the rectangular signet part. It appeared to be relatively thick, and it seemed like it would fit my style quite well. It looks so cool.

I clicked on the picture, which took me to the website of a German merchandise store for sci-fi, anime and gaming fans. They had it in three sizes, so I quickly took some measurements and chose the one that would likely fit my index finger. I paid and placed the order. Now I only had some waiting left to do: the confirmation email said the ring would arrive in 3-4 days.

I kept living my life, patiently waiting for my ring to arrive. I’d quit my job two months prior, so I had been officially unemployed for about a month at that point. It felt nice to be free from the 9-to-5 hamster wheel and the bullies, snakes and backstabbers that I’d worked with on a daily basis. The nerve twitches below my right eye finally stopped as well.

Then the 4 days had passed and I’d still not received my Green Lantern ring. I checked the tracking info and saw that the package had apparently arrived in my city but was sent back to Budapest – very strange. Fucking Hungarian Post can’t deliver an international shipment. To be fair, they’d successfully delivered domestic orders before, so I wasn’t complaining that much… but still.

Sure enough, the next day, I was sitting in the restaurant, eating the menu of the day, when the phone rang. “Hallo?”

“I’m calling from Magyar Posta [Hungarian Post], I have an international package for you. Do you happen to be home at the moment?” asked a man in his fifties or sixties.

“Oh… no, I’m not at home right now, but I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“That’s fine, I can drop your package at the nearest post office, that okay?”

“Yeah, that’s perfect… thanks!”

“Great, bye!”

“Bye, have a nice day!”

The guy didn’t say ‘have a nice day’ back… so I shouldn’t have said it either… fuck.

Never mind, the day has come, I’m finally getting my Green Lantern ring. On my way home, I stopped by the post office and picked up the package – I was thrilled.

I’d fantasised about this ring since childhood. Freedom. Power. Wonder. And when I finally arrived in my apartment with the package in my hands? I put it down on the dinner table, went into the bedroom and jerked off on some porn. I don’t remember why… probably saw some hot chicks in town or something. And since I masturbated, I had to wait until the next day with opening the package – my OCD insisted. The ring couldn’t be associated with jacking off, so I had to purge that by entering the next day and taking a shower in the morning. Only then could I receive the ring properly… that’s the kind of brain I live with.

The next day I woke up excited, my mind free from distractions this time, ready to take a shower and open the package. After a 40-minute shower, I was clean, fresh and eager to see my Green Lantern ring in person! I still had some uncertainties in my mind though: will it fit? Does it look as cool as on the pictures? Will it look good on me?

I opened the package.

I went back to the position I stood in before, about two and a half meters from the cracked window. “Okay, let’s see if this really is happening.”

With the ring still on my index finger, I made a fist with my right hand and stretched my arm towards the window. Once again, I thought about cracking the window, imagined my ring’s powers hitting the glass and… bam!

The window cracked, again.

Even harder than last time. Several pieces of glass fell on the floor. There was now a gaping hole in my bedroom window, but that didn’t matter.

My mouth opened in amazement and all I could say was:

“Oh… my… god.”

To be continued next week…

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