211 – Manga in Motion 33 – Animal World
Apologies in advance as Seamus had to skip this week’s podcast so we changed from our planned retrospective to another Manga in Motion instead. So at darfox’s request we look at the Chinese Animal World based on Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji!
Continue readingButsu-Zone
A manga about the 1000 hands Senju who must protect a young girl who is the reincarnation of Gautama Buddha and help her reach enlightenment.
This is the debut work of Hiroyuki Takei, who is most well known for his ultra popular Shaman King series. Although Butsu-Zone ended early, you can see hints of motifs and designs that Takei would eventually use in his future projects. Even the popular character Anna Kyoyama was originally used in this book and some of the mech-like armor designs would be used in Takei’s Jumbor series.
It’s an interesting manga to see where Takei started.
~dakazu
Buggy Whip
Sports manga about a high school boy with terrible tennis skills named Arata that get’s trained by Sakura, a former genius upperclassman.
A pretty decent realistic take on the sport of tennis, similar in feel to Baby Steps. Compared to typical shonen sports manga, this series isn’t about Arata’s journey to become the number one player in Japan. Instead it follows him as he slowly breaks through his own inferiority complex while butting heads against his mentor and it ends quickly once that resolution is reached. This kind of story progression might be why this ran in the seinen magazine Monthly Afternoon. My only complaint was that there wasn’t enough distinction between characters because many of their faces look too similar.
A solid sports manga that was interesting for it’s story.
~dakazu
Prison School
A manga about 5 boys who attend the recently co-ed elite private boarding school Hachimitsu Academy and are imprisoned on campus after peeking the girl’s bathing area.
This is a manga that fits the concept of a serious comedy, that was described in the manga Bakuman, to a T. All characters are 100% serious about their actions and motivations but they are so extreme and over-reacting that it looks absurd from the reader’s perspective. The extreme part helps me look past the insane amount of fan service and T&A in this series because at the manga is so self-aware of what it’s doing. Though I do think Akira Hiramoto is having his cake and eating it too when it comes to the vice president character.
This manga is hilarious. The anime and live-action were also hilarious. Available from Yen Press.
~dakazu
Hyouge Mono
A manga about Sasuke Furuta, a samurai under Nobunaga Oda who was obsessed with the ways of tea and sought the path of being a comical fellow rather than a warlord.
A great series that mixes history with humor. Yoshihiro Yamada is a master of over the top expressions. Despite the heavy historical setting and deep political intrigue, these colorful reactions help keep the story fun and jovial. I’ll admit that toward the end of this series I had a very hard time following all the various characters. Despite that I would recommend this series to anyone looking for a very different take on the popular warring states period of Japan.
~dakazu
Utsu Gohan
A collections of sad and depressing experiences involving food.
This is a bizarre manga to say the least. Each chapter revolves around the author trying to enjoy some food, whether it be a soft serve ice cream cone or some fries and cola at McDonald’s. But every story ends in a minor tragedy.
With the ice cream, he get’s embarrassed about being a grown adult walking around with it, tries to eat it quickly, and then ends up with brain freeze. While carrying his McDonald’s tray upstairs to the eating area, he knocks over his drink and spills cola on his tray, the fries start soaking up the cola, and he spills more cola on his pants as he tries to avoid other customers on the stairs.
Every chapter left me with an undeniable sense of melancholy. It didn’t feel good but in a weird way I was impressed with artist Yuki Shikawa’s ability to make me feel bad…should that be a positive for this book?
I kinda liked this but probably won’t go back and re-read it ever again.
~dakazu
210 – Manga in Motion 32 – Bleach
This episode we look at the recent live-action adaptation of Bleach and ask ourselves the question “was this ever good to begin with?”
Continue readingGoblin Slayer
A manga taking place in a fantasy RPG world about a warrior obsessed with killing goblins.
Yes, I know this is based on a lite-novel. I know this is overly grotesque with extreme violence and lots of rape. Still I found myself enjoying this series. There’s something oddly satisfying about a character who becomes a specialist in killing low-level enemies, almost to the point of obsession. Of course the depiction of goblins in this world is so brutal and evil they might as well be enemies in the final dungeon of an RPG, so there’s that as well.
We talked about it on a recent episode and I wasn’t surprised my co-hosts weren’t as enthusiastic about this book. Definitely a guilty pleasure pick for me.
Available through Yen Press.
~dakazu
Onna no Ana
A collection of 4 strange stories from Fumiko Fumi. One is about about a girl who claims to be an alien and asks her teacher for a child. Another is about a girl who carries her brother’s face on the back of her head. And the final two are about a girl who treats a teacher like a slave through blackmail and a followup story about her actions being motivated by a demon.
Writing that synopsis makes these stories sound super weird but I really enjoyed this manga. I really liked Fumiko Fumi’s character designs and art. Especially the way she drew the black eyes and ink-like black hair.
Fumi is currently doing a series on Kurage Bunch called Ai to Noroi which is REALLY rough to read(especially considering it’s semi-autobiographical). Worth checking out if you can read Japanese.
After reading this book I’ll be looking for more of her other works.
~dakazu
Satsurikuhime
A manga about a boy who has to control his childhood friend’s murderous impulses to take down other serial killers.
The concept of a killer who hunts other killers has been done before. That said, I enjoyed the dynamic between the boy Ouji and the girl Ru. Ru is in love with Ouji and will get the urge to murder anyone she get’s annoyed with. Ouji himself always ends up getting attacked or beat up by the other killers but usually refuses to resort to using violence only as a last resort. I liked how even in the face of some truly wretched killers he would try and see if they could be redeemable before letting Ru slice them up with her razor nails.
The series was canceled early and unfortunately there is only a single volume to read. A shame because I would have liked read a little more of this.
~dakazu