No idea what the fuck is going on? In celebration of its 10th anniversary and a new reprint, there is a new serialisation of Azumanga Daioh in Gessan (Monthly Shounen Sunday) [ゲッサン(月刊少年サンデー)], which is a newly launched monthly magazine. The serialisation is going to last for only 3 months, but more Azumanga is more Azumanga, right? In the same magazine is Adachi Mitsuru’s new serialisation, Q and A, but I couldn’t really give two shits about that.

Incidentally, I’ve already read the first chapter, and I’m satisfied with the copious amount of Osaka and what little of Sakaki I got. Tomo’s just as much of an asshole as always, and Yomi continues to act as her straight man, and Chiyo continues to be adorable. So in short, more of the same awesome that we got 10 years ago. I miss this series so much.

Sources: あずまきよひこ.com　and アキバ総研
Chinese scanlation: http://www.lightnovel.cn/viewthread.php?tid=122191&extra=page%3D1

Chapter 4 is finally done after a pretty busy week for me. It’s a background story about Vito and his wife that is mentioned in Episode 3 (at least I think it is). It’s quite nice to be honest, and there are some interesting themes for such a short chapter. Anyway, you can read it for yourself.

Cheers! As usual, this is based on the Chinese scans.

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The usual statement

If you want to share this around, go ahead. Just make sure you give credit where it’s due, and do link to THAT anime blog. In addition, I am not sure how fast I will translate the manga. I am going to take my time with this, but you should see a chapter every week or so. If you wish to make more mirrors, please go ahead and post a comment. Cheers! I will try to remember to update the post, or any admin can do that ^^.

Chapter 3 took much longer because there is a lot of dialogue compared to the first 2 chapters. It’s a very interesting chapter to say the very least. I urge you to read it. Oh, and I decided to be shameless and make a credit page for myself. Don’t kill me for it!

Cheers! As usual, this is based on the Chinese scans.

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The usual statement

If you want to share this around, go ahead. Just make sure you give credit where it’s due, and do link to THAT anime blog. In addition, I am not sure how fast I will translate the manga. I am going to take my time with this, but you should see a chapter every week or so.

A bored Impz + Lazy Sunday + Girlfriend demands for more manga releases so she will stop threatening to kill me + She likes gentlemen = Chapter 2 of Gente. Cheers! As usual, this is based on the Chinese scans.

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The usual statement

If you want to share this around, go ahead. Just make sure you give credit where it’s due, In addition, I am not sure how fast I will translate the manga. I am going to take my time with this, but you should see a chapter every week or so.

Anyway, these are the mirrors for the upload of chapter 1.

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If you want to share this around, go ahead. Just make sure you give credit where it’s due, and do link to THAT. Cheers!

Is it wrong that I look forward to making these images the most when I’m scanlating?

Chapter 1 of one of the manga series (the other being “Bungaku Shoujo to Oishii Recipe” in Beans Ace) based on the light novel I reviewed here. The manga is drawn by Kousaka Rito, and serialised in the bi-monthly magazine Gan Gan Powered since August 2008. There are currently 3 chapters available. Work on the second chapter will start whenever it starts.

Download mirrors after the jump.

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Special thanks to NovaJinx and RunningKid for their proof-reading. Ruki, you’re fired!

Let’s talk a little about translations.

I translate from Chinese, because that is the non-English language that I’m most proficient in. You can even see in these scans the watermark of the Chinese scanlation on which this English scanlation is based. There a few problems with making English scanlations this way, mainly that I have no way of ascertaining whether the Chinese translation is correct, short of getting the Japanese raw and painstakingly translating THAT with a dictionary. Most of the time it’s not worth the effort, because Chinese scans are, in my experience, fairly reliable.

Secondly, sometimes sentences that fit happily in a given bubble in Chinese might not do so in English. Other times a sentence might be split up between multiple bubbles, but because of the difference in sentence structure between the two language, doing the same would result in a very clunky English sentence. It’s more of an issue in wordy manga, and Bungaku Shoujo is nothing if not wordy. I encounterd both of these in this chapter, and they gave me quite a bit of trouble.

Thirdly, Japanese words (and their Chinese equivalent) that have no obvious English equivalents give me trouble. Whenever possible, I’d like to do a complete English translation, without having to resort to using any Japanese words at all. Leaving aside honorifics like “-sempai”, the one issue in this chapter is “youkai“. I initially wanted to use the word monster, but that has a negative connotation, while (I don’t think) youkai does, as it encompasses benevolent and neutral creatures as well. I will leave it to you to decide if that was the right choice.

Finally, does anyone still remember that mascot deal? I sure hope not, I don’t want anyone having strange expectations. Either way, I promise I will have it done before the end of the year. THE YEAR 2009 HAHA!

I did not peel open Volume #01’s glossy, crimson stained cover expecting to greet profound thoughts or a gripping drama, nor was I surprised by what I found inside. Number Two’s coarsely inked fighting stance both entreats eyes hungry for katana swinging action, and preempts the possibility of much else, in one crushing blow.

But despite being shamelessly banal, such a tidy unification of style and story into a single, iconic character is without waste and effective in roping in its target audience. Think about it. You ought to have a pretty good sense of what Afro Samurai without having to flip a single page: nonstop combat, buckets of blood, and at the center of it all, an Afro ronin ready to kick some serious ass. If hardcore action is not your cup of tea, save yourself the trouble of thumbing through the pages—you probably know by now that this manga is definitely not for you.

Though lacking in its ability to sustain anything beyond a momentary interest (for such is the ephemeral satisfaction conferred by guilty pleasures like chocolate and action comics), I was surprised at the intensity, quantity and quality of the fight scenes packed between the covers. If any praises are in order, Afro Samurai ought to be lauded for trimming the fat from the secondary dimensions of storyline, character development, and drama—dimensions too often abused in an action story to buttress the artist’s poor command of physical perspective—and focusing singularly on the swordplay.

Okazaki gets right down to business in the very first scene, immediately hammering out the backstory for “No. 2”’s revenge quest with his characteristic grit and shading. Two opponents face each other, ready for a battle to the death that will last only seconds. A moment—a glance—and suddenly, a katana whistles through the air while a gunblast punctures the silence. ‘Afro’ (the child version of the present “No. 2”) watches his father’s death in pained and furious silence, while the mysterious gunman named “Justice” wrests the “No. 1” headband” from its previous owner and gloats at his victory.

The opening scenes threaten to usher in another ridiculous parade of worn out ‘samurai revenge story’ tropes; this would most certainly be the case if Okazaki did not attempt to compensate for the story’s unsettling similarity to innumerable others by forcing it into the background and thrusting his style into the spotlight.

Undoubtedly his most distinguishing artistic trait, Okazaki’s graphic style is a peculiar syncretism of cultural and stylistic elements from the East and West that favors funky portmanteaus like a hip hoppish samurai, cybernetic villains decked out in Japanese accoutrement, a seasonal matsuri float carrying a DJ atop a massive PA. Everything is drawn in a rough, almost messy excess of lines more reminiscent of United States comics than traditionally minimalist manga. The result is a dark remix of the good ol’ revenge story, situated ambiguously between feudal Japan and a vaguely postapocalyptic future, which manages to excuse an out and out lack of historical import with its own fashionable, intoxicating brand of ultraviolence.

The story and characters have been pared down to a barest minimum, allowing the plot to speed forward without needing to pause for cumbersome dialogue. Even No. 2, who being the protagonist necessitates a lion’s share of personality, is impossibly one dimensional. He possesses every single quality one would expect of an epically proportioned lone warrior… perhaps a bit more than can be plausibly arranged in a single human being.

“No. 2” never laughs, never smiles, never speaks more than a few words at a time, is constantly engaged in battle, and never, ever stops. Following five or six short battles, he rows himself to Mount Sumeru, takes a bow shaft in the arm, dives into the river to regroup, and after hacking through the hundreds of greedy vigilantes hurling arrows at him from atop a nearby cliff, somehow musters the strength to halt one of the Empty Seven’s spearheads from splitting his cranium using his bare hands. Intense. He is the very picture of blind adamancy, so determined to exact his revenge on Justice that he will not hesitate to sacrifice innocent lives to postpone his own inevitable demise. At one point he even grabs a handicapped girl (now keep in mind he murdered her little brother not long before), hoists her in the air to shield himself from a shower of bullets, then tosses her body aside without the faintest display of compunction.

All in a day’s work, I suppose, if you are constantly fighting off hordes of assassins vying for your head. Still, though a touch of humanity would have been a welcome chink in his superhuman armor and though I am quite sick of the hackneyed ‘unstoppable action hero’, his unscrupulous personality does serve to reinforce the dark ambiance established by the story. Afro is a bit more edgy than your average samurai action hero and Okazaki’s roughshod drawing style reports his movements eloquently and vividly, making for a smooth read that ought to please people like myself who rarely find themselves traversing the frames of an action manga without some degree of difficulty.

When all is said and done, the first volume of Afro Samurai is nothing to jump out of your seat for, but it can definitely be an enjoyable experience for anime fans that appreciate the occasional indulgence. I had a few gripes with the Tor/Seven Seas release. Aside from the fact that I prefer manga’s native layout (arranged from right to left, otherwise it confuses me), I was aghast to find the tops of a few speech bubbles cut off. On the bright side, the crimson inking used for the bloodstains worked perfectly with Okazaki’s dense congregations of lines, pointing out the damage without hindering the artist’s muddy style. Afro Samurai is nowhere near the top of my list, but I would not be opposed to checking out Volume #02 during breaks between the more intricately crafted titles that typically occupy my time.

Verdict: C+

This has been a slow summer for me anime-wise, with not much new that has kept my attention. So, I’ve been using this chance to catch up on some of my backlog, marathoning older shows and reading lots of manga. If you read our fall preview, you may have noticed that I have recently become a huge, HUGE Clannad fan, and seeing as how I have this new love and lots of free time, I have been working my way through the manga.

As you may well know (I am a bit late to the party ), after Key did the Clannad visual novel and the after story, they let their designers kind of run free with the universe, and one of them created another VN set in an alternate world where Tomoya ends up with Tomoyo, aptly calling this VN “Tomoyo After.” The manga that I want to talk about is a short work based on that VN, called Tomoyo After: Dear Shining Memories.

Premise

This manga is only 4 chapters long, and is basically a retelling of the VN, with the 3 major events of the story each getting their own chapter plus a brief intro chapter. The first three are relatively short, and the fourth – the ‘main’ arc – is twice as long as the rest.

The story is told from the perspective of Tomoyo, and it is revealed in the fourth chapter that the first three chapters are glimpses into her memories of the past. The first is more a snapshot of their life together, and the second and third revolve around the two new additions to the cast – a young girl named Kanoko who used to date Tomoyo’s brother, and a small child that has seemingly been abandoned on their doorstep.

The final chapter is where the drama really steps in. Tomoya falls ill with cancer amnesia memento syndrome an unknown rare disease that erases his memories every few days. He gets a really bad headache, and all his recent memories are wiped. So, of course Tomoyo sticks with him, and retells their love story to him every few days, while remembering the good times herself. In the end, they learn about a risky operation that would allow Tomoya to regain his lost memories, but there is a chance he won’t make it through…

First Impression

Who cares? You're 12!

I get the feeling that the target audience was people who have played the VN, and as someone who has not, I was very lost for the first 3 chapters. The writers really did a poor job of explaining the setting in a way that newcomers from the anime, or simply the first VN, could understand.

It felt very rushed, and it’s glaringly obvious that it was just a retelling of a story with which the reader is expected to be familiar. The fourth chapter is where it gets interesting, but the taste in my mouth was so sour by the time I got there, it ended up being very anti-climactic.

I did go back and re-read, which helped tremendously, but I still think that the story was thrown together for a quick cash-in, missing out on what could have been – and should have been – a moving experience.

Thoughts

An accurate representation of me after reading

Like so many others, I am holding my breath waiting for the Clannad TV After Story, and when I stumbled upon this manga, I could barely contain my elation. I felt it criminal how little time was given to Tomoyo in the main episodes of Clannad TV, and I was fond of the Tomoyo After OVA, if only because we got to see more of Tomoyo and her personality. I was expecting more of that, I suppose, which is why this manga ended up being such a letdown.

Being the huge fan of the source material that I was, I went into the reading of this with some pretty high expectations, and perhaps that is partly why I am so disappointed, but in truth, I am quite forgiving when reading “extra” stories about something I already like; for me to dislike it as much as I do says volumes about the quality of the work.

None of the charm of the series made it to the manga; none of the themes of family were present in any noticeable quantity. The strong focus Clannad put on the notion of what it means to have a family resonated very strongly with me, especially the notion that even if the hand you are dealt by fate is not the best, you still have a deep-seated need for a family - even if it means you have to create one yourself. After all – isn’t the reason people fall in love and get married that they want to have a family of their own choosing?

So, rather than expand on those universal themes – themes that are ripe for the picking by the writers since they were so brilliantly laid out in the first series – the writers of Dear Shining Memories chose to simply thrust new characters on us, and tell us point blank that we need to start caring about them, and about what they have to say about Tomoya and Tomoyo.

The chapters that dealt with Kanako, the girl that used to date Tomoyo's little brother, were so hurried that I barely had time to piece together what was happening. All of a sudden, she just appears in their lives and goes about telling Tomoyo that her "eternal love" is something that can never last. Is this a Naruto villain? Seriously, why the writers thought they could just thrust this child on me and expect me to care what she has to say is offensive. Furthermore, can I really be expected to believe that the thoughtless words of an insane child have to power to reduce Tomoyo to tears? She may be moe, but there are limits. At the end of her chapter, she is off again, out of their lives with as little explanation as to why she came.

The next chapter's addition is even worse. Some toddler wanders into their house, and rather than try to find where she was lost, Tomoyo and Tomoya just kind of adopt her:

How is this even legal?

After trying halfheartedly to find this abandoned child's parents, the mom comes around looking for her, apologizing for leaving her and asking for her back. For some unknown reason, Tomoyo tells her no, and then changes her mind and has to race to the train station to give this kid back. Oh no! The train station is 30 minutes away and they only have 20 minutes! Will Tomoyo's power of the ninja love be strong enough to see them through this tragedy?? I guess you'll have to suffer through 2 panels of intense running to find out.

The last chapter, where Tomoyo reveals that the first three chapters were her memories of her past life with Tomoya, before the accident/illness, was by far the most compelling; If I had known that these were snapshots of memories to begin with, I might have been a little more lenient of the story, but it did make a terrible first impression. I know that the chapters were called "memory 1" and such, but that was hardly clear enough to help. Since chapter four ended up being something besides just a mish mash of “memories” from Tomoyo’s life with Tomoya, it was actually interesting, but the emotional finale the writers were hoping for fell flat, due mostly to the horrible lead-up.

There was more than enough happening in the last chapter to expand upon and create a believable, interesting story, perhaps even taking things in a direction the VN did not. Unfortunately, the laziness of the writers won in the end, and we are left with half-baked plots and characters, as well as the the knowledge that this could have been so much more. In the end, this was really written for those that have played the VN. If you are like me and simply loved the anime series and wanted more, you should avoid this like the plague. I suggest spending the time we have left until October trying to find a copy of the VN and experiencing the story first hand, which is what I am going to do, rather than waste any more time with these terrible mangas.

The Horror of Horror
Well-executed horror stories are rare gems. I’ll admit that I’m no authority on the subject (ergo a quick departure from anime and manga as the centerpiece of discussion), but these days it’s just so damned hard to find a good horror movie that I practically trip over myself on the way to the video store when one is actually released. Nowadays, horror flick screenwriters and directors rely almost entirely on shock value to produce a film. The modern rendition of a good thriller is little more than a visual rollercoaster ride that keeps you physically gripping the armrests rather than mentally gripping your sanity. Armed with multi-channel bass stabs and macabre imagery, producers struggle to conquer the horror genre’s unassailable canon — psychology; intoxicated by their newfound digital capabilities, they easily forget that terror is not just high-definition buckets of gore and cheap scares, but that it’s also engendered by the grotesque thoughts that creep into your brain and remain festering there hours after the screen has gone blank or the last page has been turned — psychology. This is why I am obsessed with Doubt. It’s an excellent reminder that a comic with a minimum of visual effects can be just as creepy as a movie. Many thanks to Manga King Extrange for recommending this one, as I’ll be taking a short break from Natsume Yuujin-chou to decide whether or not I want to continue blogging it.

Rabbit Doubt
Doubt reminds me of a few successful contemporary iterations of the horror genre for two reasons. The first and more obvious of the two is that the story is constructed around a twisted game of wits called ‘Rabbit Doubt’. At first impression it appears to be another incarnation of the Saw franchise, but takes little time to distinguish itself as strong concept in its own right. The second is that Yoshiki Tonogai forgoes most of the token background story in order to focus exclusively on this heinous mindfuck of a game. The manga dumps you right into the action after only a chapter of preparation, and the remaining chapters are spent creeping around dark corners in search of the Wolf. Thrillers are often best served without the trimmings, with no time wasted harping on and on a boring sidestory. This is especially accurate if you are the type to not require highly plausible circumstances to put you in the mood. Remember, it’s horror; it’s not supposed to make tons of sense. Doubt is just that—a lean, mean rabbit-crunching machine, and thankfully not much else.

The game is almost insultingly simple: a Wolf infiltrates a group of Rabbits by pretending to be one of their own and slowly picks them off one-by-one while keeping the Rabbits confused about its identity. The Wolf’s goal is to trick the Rabbits into suspecting and sacrificing the wrong Rabbit, while it continues its conquest unfettered. As stated, it is a game of wits to see whether the Wolf or the Rabbits will survive in the end. According to the story, Rabbit Doubt has become insanely popular in Japan, and students identify each other as potential players by carrying rabbit-shaped cell phone straps or other conspicuous insignia. Yuu Aikawa meets up with his usual crew at a karaoke bar to start another game of Rabbit Doubt when [SPOILER] happens and they all awaken to find themselves in a darkened, abandoned building, partitioned by a maze of magnetically locked doors. What was only supposed to be a game has suddenly become reality.

Six people may seem too few to craft an impenetrable whodunit, but it is not. In reality, it is an ideal number of participants—too few to keep you confused, but one too many for you to easily deduce the identity of the Wolf. Tonogal gets genius points for meticulously weaving each of the characters into an actual game of survival. They are not marionettes dancing insipidly toward certain doom, but real people who, due to minor slip-ups or inconvenient lapses of mental stamina, make poor choices that gradually hammer the game into place as each chapter passes. Instead of depending on elaborate traps created by a mythical super-sicko with too much time on his hands (the building notwithstanding), Rabbit Doubt relies mostly on the characters’ fear-crazed imaginations to set itself into motion. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy that comes true simply because the rules of Rabbit Doubt are still fresh in their heads, requiring only a few well-placed rabbit masks, cryptic text messages and bloody murders to keep itself going.

Final Thoughts
What is truly interesting about Doubt, besides trying to guess the Wolf’s identity before everyone is murdered, is observing the psychological and emotional changes in Yuu and his friends, as well as the way their interactions change; for instance, the way Hajime consistently relies on coolheaded observations even in the face of mortal danger, or Haruka’s abrupt descent into batshit so deep that she ties up her childhood friend and tries to beat a confession out of him after she discovers that he lied about his barcode. Each of the characters ultimately arrives at the gruesome realization that their alliances rest on shifting ground, as just enough clues are available to label each person a legitimate suspect, but not enough to tip the scales in anyone’s favor. The dialogue is sagging with subtext and subtle hints, making for immense replay (reread) value.

But enough said. Just read it (alone and in the dark, like I did). It flows smoothly and will go by quickly. Only two volumes of Doubt have been completed so far, and the manga is still being serialized. Shocking revelations can be expected in Chapter 14, which is scheduled for release on August 12th. I’m interested to hear speculations on the identity of the wolf from those who have already read up to Chapter 13. Please use spoiler warnings!

Life is a fragile thing. We often procrastinate and think that something that can be done today can be done tomorrow. Time, to most of us, is an object that is hardly precious since we have so much time that we can afford to lose part of it. However, when time is the one who will govern your life, how do you live that life?

There is a girl you love a lot. You have loved her ever since you know about love, and wishes for her to stay with you forever. If you know you are going to live up to 20 years old, what would you do? That is the question asked by Takuma, a boy with a heart failure that means that he might not survive beyond twenty summers. He loves Mayu, a childhood lover, but he knows he cannot give her eternal happiness. The happiness he can give to any girl only lasts one-fifth of a century. What will you do if you are him?

This is Boku no Hatsukoi o Kimi ni Sasagu, or in English “I’ll Give You My First Love.”

The two main characters

Takuma is a outwardly energetic boy that does not allow the pain in his heart (pun intended) to surface. He hops in and out of a hospital due to his heart condition, but he never wavers in confidence that he will be cured. He always smiles to everyone, despite the fact that he knew that his biological clock will cease to exist faster than anyone that surrounds him. Nonetheless, he bears the pain alone, not daring to love anyone. No one wishes to let the person they love to see them die, and leave them with plain loneliness. Mayu’s father is one of the doctors that is caring for him, and knows his true condition.

Mayu is his childhood friend that loves him dearly as well. She always protects him, just as he will always protect her all the time. Despite visiting him often in the hospital, she never knows about his condition (until a further date in the manga) that he will die before the age of 20. Her father is a specialist in heart dysfunctional issues, and is hiding the truth from her.

Thoughts

It has been a while since I cried while reading a manga. For some reason, anime tends to evoke more feelings in me due to the animation that provides more tangible expressions and the ambiance that has to be imagined in a manga. I lack creativity for imagining and absorbing the tension between the characters through visual dialogue of a piece of paper. Nonetheless, the extremely realistic and powerful rendition of these extremely likable characters just makes you wonder why they have to endure this cruel twisted hand of fate.

However, it is hardly surprising that this manga series is such a tearjerker. The mangaka is Kotomi Aoki, who is famous for her work in Boku wa Imōto ni Koi o Suru. Some of the characters in her previous work also appears in this series, as the two main characters here are in fact side characters then. I like her previous work as well, and I do not exactly like incest themes since I find them generally disgusting.

Due to the fact that I do not want to reveal any spoilers, I will not mention too much of the plot. Nonetheless, I have read up to the second last volume of this series, and I really find that despite some of the rather melodramatic plot themes, the combination of humor and drama is very intrinsic. It has been a very long while since I read such a beautiful drama/romance manga, and I urge you to pick it up as well.

None of them is as shitty as Naruto, thank God.

Urgh, it’s been so long since I’ve decently blogged something (thanks to a nasty case of Writer’s Block), but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention to my beloved mangas. Recently, my focus was on top of Shounen Rival, the latest manga magazine from Kodansha. Shounen Rival had it’s first issue on April and replaced the now defunct Comic Bonbon magazine. Also, it’s focus is aimed to junior highschoolers, diverting from Comic Bonbon elementary school children target audience. Let’s have a quick look on the mangas being serialized on the magazine after the jump.

Holy Talker

Synopsis

From the hands of Ayamine Rando (mangaka of Getbackers), comes a new high school manga. Takayama Renga is part of a team of teenager exorcists in charge of fighting and sealing the demons that are corrupting humankind. But he doesn’t do it only for altruism: his sister, Takayame Moegi, is a “Proof of the Descended Holy Mother”, which means her infused blood with the power of the Holy Mother can be used to make the chalices which are the only thing that can send back the demons to hell.

But a new student enters the school and changes everything. Amakusa Chitose is a priest with a strange power: he has a split personality which can fight the demons by itself and consumes the soul of the demons.

Comments

Ayamine Rando’s one year break hasn’t changed much his style: he reused several character designs of Getbackers like Ban Mido, Makubex and Hevn and even the personalities don’t differ much from the originals. What’s changed is the settings of the action, which was shifted to a more spiritual one, kinda similar with Getbacker’s Divine Design arc. Although the fights seem to be less epic, there is still enough action to make the reader satisfied. It’s all a matter of adjusting to this new style.

Monster Hunter Orage

Synopsis

If you are a Fairy Tail reader, you will recognize in an instant the unique style of Mashima Hiro, which was also the mangaka of Rave. Again, this new manga brings us a plot that focuses heavily in the concept of nakamas mixed with the extremely popular MMO game from Capcom, Monster Hunter. Shiki Ryuuhou is a special kind of monster hunter: taking the dream of his deceased master, he’s a Forbidden Hunter; a hunter who can enter any hunting ground and with the goal of defeating the forbidden dragon of light, Miogaruna. During his travels, he finally meet the daughter of his master, Irie, who is also a monster hunter. Together, they will journey to realize the dream of the master/father: Gurelli.

Comments

You can’t deny that Mashima Hiro really likes the One Piece kind of manga. the plot is again based on
a party of nakamas, with the added bonus of being based on Monster Hunter, a series of games that I’m a huge fan. Another great bonus is the amount of detail and info that the mangaka took from the game universe: just to cite a few, the non-existant wind element, the prototype whip weapons that only exists on artbooks and loose data on the game, the several ways to use the weapons like the dual sword “Demonization”. The only defect I find is this is a bit too similar with Mashima Hiro’s other current manga, Fairy Tail.

Blaze Driver

Synopsis

After finishing the semi-flop manga 666 Satan (which had one of the lamest endings I have ever read), Seishi Kishimoto has begun this new manga called Blaze Driver. Similar to the concept of O-Parts of 666 Satan, there is now Mystickers, a technology developed as being enviroment-friendly which imbues stickers with elemental powers and allows them to be activated by drawing a specific pattern with your fingers on the surface of the sticker. As usual on manga plots, the main place of development of this technology is Tokyo, which has became a true eco-city.

Daichi, the main hero is part of the Team Sky,which is lead by his female friend Misora. Together with it’s friends they battle other teams for respect and and rival team’s Mystickers.
One day, during a battle, a rival sticks a Ice Mysticker directly on the arm of a unconscious Daichi, with the aim to physicaly harm Daichi. Instead of the excepted freezing to the ground, Daichi’s body reacts to the Mysticker and emanates a wave of ice, damaging the rival and Misora, who was on the way of helping Daichi. From this incident begins the entry of Daichi of the chosen ones to harness the powers of the Mystickers, the Blazers.

Comments

Seishi Kishimoto still has the same defect that he had in 666 Satan: he rushes things way too fast and tends to make things more complex than it should. But the concept of the Mystickers is interesting and it almost looks like it was made to be converted into a Nintendo Ds game.

Kitsune no Yomeiri

Synopsis

From the newcomer Takagi Satoshi, Kitsune no Yomeiri is based on a japanese folktale about a fox’s marriage (the manga title means exactly Fox’s Marriage in japanese). when rain suddenly pours down in a sunny day means that a fox is being married somewhere.

Ousuke is a fellow with very bad luck to everything. Trying to get better luck, he fixes a Oinari shrine he found during one of his unlucky accidents, even tying a ribbon to the small fox shaped Inari statue.
Hours later , rain suddenly pours on that sunny day and for his surprise, a Kitsune no Yomeiri procission passes right in front of him. Thinking he’s getting crazy, he runs home but he finds a beautiful young girl called Kyoka inside waiting for him and saying she’s his wife

It seems that Kyoka was the Inari statue that he tied the ribbon to and that’s considered as a act of marriage. Ousuke can’t even reject the marriage or he will get the wrath of the entire Fox Clan. And to add things up, Kyouka as the fox she is, can’t resist playing pranks. How will Ousuke’s life be affected from now on?

Comments

Cute comedy manga with a even cuter girl. But it’s a furry again…Why the hell Japan is trying to turn us into furry lovers? Do they pretend to sell girl clones with fox years?

Ann Cassandra

Synopsis

Bekku Nanaki is a countryside girl who with a constant bad hair which moves to Tokyo. At the arrival , she is saved from being crushed to death under a billboard by a strange and clumsy mobile fish vendor.

On the next day, she finds out that the strange guy with the shocking pink glasses turns out to be Banjou Kizaki, her classmate. He seems to be surrounded in several accidents and bad luck, which makes Bekku intrigued by this peculiar fellow.

During her “stalking”, she finds a notebook that he dropped filled with pictures of accidents and deaths. Banjou reveals to her that those pictures are predictions and he’s in a game to prevent them and change the future. As unbeliabable as it sounds and after an initial distrust, Bekku believes him since she shares more things with Banjou than he suspects….

Comments

Future prediction mangas are hard to make, but this one seems to have a good start. What appealed me the most was the character design: I have a thing for short hair, so Bekku with her kawaii hairstyle made me howl from the Moeness; Banjo’s design is also great and it isn’t everyone that can use pink glasses and still look good.

Side Note: There are also 2 mangas running on Shounen Rival that I’m particulary interested, Emma and Zettai Hakase Kolisch. The problem is that there aren’t scanlators for them and I can’t Moonread… Nevertheless, here are some pics of them.

Emma

Zettai Hakase Kolisch

Side Side Note: I would have posted this sooner but lately this what was happening to me: “I should write that post…..oh wait, new shoujo manga releases!!!”

It’s like a crow and shiny objects…

“Goodbye..”

These are sad days. According to Canned Dog, the usual Shounen Jump insider that lurks 2ch has revealed that 3 mangas are going to get cut off in 3 or 4 weeks. Those series are Mx0, Hatsukoi Limited and Poseidon.

While I don’t really care about Poseidon (random gag manga), I can’t really believe this news about Mx0 and Hatsukoi. Mxo is one of the best Mahou School mangas from the last years, filled with comic moments and mixed with a nice school romance plot. The unique magic system it uses allows for fresh ideas in a genre that had spent most of the general concepts you could devise.

And how is Hatsukoi Limited ( aka: Hatsukoi Gentei), a manga created by the author of Ichigo 100%, going to get shafted? This sounds like a really bad dream.

I only hope that the mangakas can publish their mangas in another magazine or editors, like what happened to Trigun in the past.

Me, Calawain and mike from Anime|Otaku are crying non-stop….

Why a Kotomi pic? Because I can.

Daily, the manga market gets spammed with new works, ranging from one-shots, serializations or volumes; some will have some success, some will be best sellers and some will die, forgotten in the middle of the works that surpass them. A few years back, who thought that mangas like One Piece and Naruto would last more than 10 years and become references outside Japan?

That’s why I’m always eager to check the new releases created each year: 2008 has been so far an interesting year in that matter. So I wrote this list of works to pay attention along the year , because I think they have potential to become great works.

ONE-SHOTS

A good deal of mangas start as one-shots; a completed story with one chapter only and can be serialized or not in the future( kinda like a pilot chapter to see if has a good reception by the readers). I was particularly interested in these two:

Urooboe Uroboros!

This one-shot was made by the artist of Death Note, showing that he can make a Fighting manga as he did a Psychological Seinen manga, while incorporating a similar dialogue style to his previous work.

Jamais Vu

TANAKA Yasuki, the newcomer mangaka who made the short manga Hitomi no Catoblepas, has also made this one-shot. It is very similar to Parasite but with a Shounen content instead of Seinen. It still has some flaws but shows that the mangaka has some skills with the Shounen genre.

SERIALIZED MANGAS

These mangas are quite fresh, having only a couple of weeks of age. Even so, they have grabbed my attention due to their unique story plots and premisses.

Double Arts

Now, this is the manga I’m more interested at the moment (it is also known as Double Ertz). A story about a world filled with a mortal disease called Troi which spreads through touch and the Sisters, girls who can temporary heal it by absorbing it into their own body. in spite of having strong immunities, the Sister will end up dying from Troi at a very young age. Elrene is one of those sisters, and she has reached her limit.

She starts having a seizures in the middle of the street, the sign that her death is near, when a young painter called Kiri tries to help and touches El, making her seizures stop. Kiri seems to be the person with the total immunity to Troi that every Sisters is looking for. but to keep herself alive, El can’t let go Kiri’s hand forever even when bathing or sleeping. With this hassle, they travel to the Sisters HQ, while avoiding the Gazelle Association, killers that are after the sisters.

Nurarihyon no Mago

This manga revolves around Riuko Nura, a typical wuss looking high school student. But Riuko has a secret: he is 1/4 yokai and his house his filled with yokais belonging to the Nura clan and his grandfather, a shameless old guy yokai. Riuko can awaken his yokai half for one quarter of the day, which he does when one of his friend are threathened. How he will manage concealing his yokai heritage and keep the normal life of a human, while dealing with the yokai world?

UPCOMING MANGAS

Even before they are released, some mangas are already expected with anxiety because the mangaka is already known or the story is based in some other work.

Monster Hunter Orage

Hiro Mashima, mangaka of Rave Master and Fairy Tail, will start a new manga based on Capcom’s series of games, Monster Hunter.
It will be serialized in the new manga magazine Monthly Shounen Rival, which will be released in April 4th. I will be eagerly awaiting for this one….

A sadist, a con man, a tsun, a wuss and a crazy chick…the usual.

I hate you Sony. Why you allowed Final Fantasy 7:Crisis Core and Wild Arms XF to be released at the same time!Do you realize how many lives (and free time)have you destroyed?

Game whining apart, this time I present to you readers a manga which breaks my latest trend of Ecchi. This time it’s a Seinen manga where a 14 year old kid, Ganta, is wrongly accused of mass murdering his schoolmates and he’s sent to Deadman Wonderland, Japan’s only prison which is private managed and a theme park as well. There, Ganta finds out that the prison is more wicked and sadistic than it seems and the lives of the inmates are gambled everyday. He also finds out that the real killer of the crimes who have condemned Ganta is also there: the Red Man.

Summary (from Wikipedia)

Ten years have passed since the ‘Great Tokyo Earthquake’, a massive natural distaster that sank over 70 percent of Tokyo into the ocean. Ganta Igarashi is an unassuming 14-year old middle school student in Nagano Prefecture. Ganta is an ‘escapee’, a Tokyo survivor of the earthquake, but he has no memories of the disaster and simply wishes to play soccer and live a normal life. All that changes one day when a mysterious man covered in blood appears outside his classroom window. The ‘Red Man’ slaughters Ganta’s classmates, but strangly leaves him alive after imbedding a crimson crystal in his chest. Ganta’s life goes from bad to worse when he is blamed for the grisly murders and sentenced to life imprisonment in ‘Deadman Wonderland’.

This what happens when you run around with scissors.

Deadman Wonderland is Japan’s only publically operated prison, build after the earthquake as a tourist attraction to help revive Tokyo. The prisoners serve as staff and ‘entertainment’ for visitors. Due to the heinous nature of Ganta’s crime, he is give DW’s ‘death sentence’. A metal collar around his neck slowly injects poison into his body. The only way to delay his ‘execution’ is by consuming a special candy-like antidote every three days. Shortly after arriving at the prison, Ganga meets a mysterious girl named Shiro, who seems to know Ganta from the past. He also befriends a prisoner named Yoh, a kleptomaniac with a talent for locating things.

Strong Points

Deadman Wonderland is written by Kataoka Jinsei and illustrated by Kondou Kazuma, the same pair who made the manga adaptation of BONES anime, Eureka Seven. It’s being serialized at Shonen Ace and has 3 released volumes.

If you have read/seen Eureka Seven, you will notice that the character design is very similar with E7, specially Ganta and Shiro, who could be confused with Renton and Anenome. Even the personalities are similar, but with some quirks unique to Deadman Wonderland. Even so, the characters are interesting, with unique backgrounds that makes the readers get even more interested as the story progresses. The plot itself isn’t predictable and is original, a detail which is very important in a manga.

Careful…she means it.

The artwork comes again straight from E7 and has it’s strong points on how the more violent scenes are drawn; without showing directly, they can strongly hint the raw violence embedded in them. For last, the female cast is moe enough to make some fans of this manga for themselves.

Last Comments

You silly Ganta, if you died there would be no more manga…

Even if I mentioned E7 several times, I must warn that the manga is more action oriented than E7, and it has way fewer quiet moments. But expect instead a lot of plot twists and climax moments, with a visible evolution of the characters. Argh, it’s another manga in my endless list of “Currently Reading”. Anyone wants to donate a new pair of eyeballs? (pun included for those who have read the manga.)

School has not been always the most favourite place to go, but I’m ‘forced’ to because it’s for my sake and future. I’m quite busy with school, music lessons, school, writing fanfictions, projects, school, school…wait a minute, did I say school 4 times? You know how school is like, someday I’ll rename school into an Overload. I should announce that school is making my everyday life miserable, especially when it rains every single Wednesday. (Ok, that was a lame joke. It’s something personal.) and my back is aching.

SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAD NOT READ CHAPTER 38!!! If not, click ‘more’.

Coming back to chapter 38 (I’m not outdated, I’m always on the lookout of anything new for the Spring season, and yes, I’ll be co-writing the VK anime posts with Impz). Moving on, the chapter starts with going back into time, 10 years before Haruka and Juuri went X.X, the stage is focused more about the Kuran bloodline (Showing how Rido looks like 10 years ago was added in the chapter too.) rather than what happened to Yuki after she was back to her vampire self.

In this chapter, it indicates that purebloods has quite a long life which twist the story even further and after exchanging a few words with Juuri, Haruka went on with the fight with Rido (And his servants, who does not contribute to the story and all the hack and slash.) and more fighting (with 110% more blood added!!!)

Rido looked as if he was playing a game of peek-a-boo at Haruka. Go back to reality, yeah?

More lengthy speeches occupy the entire chapter (With no specific explanation why Rido called Yuki his ’sacrifice’.) with more fights going on, but with our little young Kaname entering the battlefield, Haruka didn’t expect a surprise attack from Rido. Using the sword that could be only used by vampire hunters, Kaname took over the fight after Haruka exchanged more words with Kaname before he shatters into something that looked like glass pieces.

Kaname took over where his father had left off and using the hunter’s sword, but indicates that:

KANAME: I WILL KILL YOU ONCE AND FOR ALL!

He knew that he could not finish off Rido (The reason is on the next stanza.), his uncle began his last words before disappearing before Kaname. Kaname has ‘killed’ Rido, and we go back to the present, with Ichijou seeing Kaname using Ichiru’s sword piercing through his hand, dripping some of his blood to the Rido body that has not been awaken yet. Ichijou stops Kaname from killing Rido, but ignoring his warning, Kaname let his blood to infect into Rido.

Before leaving, Ichiru asked why he had not completely killed Rido off, and guess what:

Wow, fanciful words, Kaname. Then I am the queen of all vampires.

You’ll see Ichijou’s grandfather and the head of the Hunter’s Association having a small conversation who await for Rido’s revival (Uh oh@!). Shifting to where Zero and Toga is, Zero was held prisoner in the Hunter’s Association, with Toga unable to help him with the tight situation (As mentioned in chapter 37 which I’ve not written.) and the only thing that he does to help him was passing him the Bloody Rose before he left. Leaving Zero with a confused (And probably a clouded mind) mind, that chapter concludes.

Thoughts:

After reading the chapter (Maybe 4 times, that is.), I would say I pity Zero just by looking at the last pages. I had a hunch that now Yuki too is a vampire, he’s now a boy who is lost in the middle of nowhere, and no one to turn to.

Lately, my friend and I had been discussing the chapter regularly, and here is what she predicted:

I would have to break this down into choices on what happened to Zero, either he is brainwashed and then later sent off to kill Yuki, or kidnap Yuki and bring her to Rido. But I think the first option is probably out, since I don’t want to see Yuki die. But I would be happy to see Yuki wearing the Night Class uniform. The second choice is Zero will be blackmailed by the Association or the Council and is forced to be with Yuki for some time. I too pity Zero, but this is how the story goes

I would have to disagree with what my friend said in a certain extend. I like Zero very much, and not wanting to see him being brainwashed than being blackmailed. We’ll just wait and see what the next chapter will bring us. Life have to be unfair sometimes, right? And that gives me more inspiration to write my 2nd VK fanfic (Which is in a planning process currently.) which Kaname-lover fans would hate. Not continuing the post, review on what you think about this chapter. Maybe your ideas would be posted in the next post writing about chapter 39.