Category Archives: Written Word

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Satousan

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Satousan

A manga about various people who get involved with a mysterious assassin only known as “Satousan” that is always finds a way to kill his targets.

This horror manga just doesn’t work for me. I liked how they built some tension with the mystery of Satousan. He’s treated almost like an urban myth. But the his actual reveal never scared me. You only see him through his silhouette but he’s basically a walking skeleton: almost all bones. He’s supposed to use his extreme thinness to sneak upon his victims but then he’s somehow able to overpower them with super strength and speed. How is that supposed to work?

I wondered if he was supposed to be an actual supernatural entity but the afterword by creator Tetsu Kusumoto says Satousan is supposed to exist in reality. Well, he failed because it wasn’t realistic at all.

~dakazu

Boxer’s Blast

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Boxer’s Blast

A manga where a world boxing champion starts training his newspaper delivery boy when he shows potential for boxing.

This is kind of a straight-forward sports manga. The twist is that after the champion gets injured and comatose, he leaves his body to becomes a living ghost so he can continue to train the boy. It’s an interesting hook but then you have the common sports manga troupe of a beginner who’s actual possesses a superhuman skill(in this case hearing) that helps him become a superior athlete. 

This is a new series by the same creative team that did Medaka Box. I mostly liked that manga but didn’t like how it got way over-the-top towards the end. This manga seems like a simpler story but I fear they might have gone too simple and too generic.

I’ll keep reading it for now.

~dakazu

Hinomaru Sumo

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Hinomaru Sumo

A sports manga about a high school sumo wrestler who’s fiery spirit overcomes his physical limitations as he dreams to become the next Yokozuna.

We discussed this series on a recent episode of Darfox Dabbles.

It’s a standard sports manga with a lot of sports manga cliches but unique because it covers sumo wrestling. And that’s not to say this isn’t a bad series at all. I quite enjoy the shonen sports genre and Hinomaru Sumo definitely delivers with strong action and good characters.

There’s heavy influence from Weekly Shonen Jump as Hinomaru and the other wrestlers have extravagant names to their throws and techniques that make them feel like super moves right out of a fighting game. While I like this book, I personally think the Bachi Bachi series by the late Takahiro Satou was a superior sumo manga.

This series isn’t included in the English Shonen Jump lineup but you can still read legal chapters in English on MANGA Plus. The current anime is good as well.

~dakazu

Zanki X 99

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Zanki X 99

A manga where 99 girls mysteriously awake in a room where they are teleported inside an deadly old retro game where each of their lives are used as continues.

This is a web series currently on Kurage Bunch. I honestly don’t really like it very much. It just seems focused on seeing how the different girls can be brutally killed by monsters and traps. Heavy gore for the sake of gore.

They try to do some dramatic characterization with the two main girls but I thought the big “twist” was handled poorly. I won’t give exact spoilers but let’s just say it wasn’t great representation.

~dakazu

Momiji no Kisetsu

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Momiji no Kisetsu

A manga about a terrible shogi player who strives to win the professional shogi title of Ryu-ou and realize the dream of his brother, a genius shogi player who passed away due to illness.

We’ve discussed this on an episode of Darfox Dabbles.

I was rooting for this series when it started in Weekly Shonen Jump as I am a fan of shogi manga like 81 Diver and March comes in like a Lion. Unfortunately it was doomed to fail as the readership of Jump wasn’t likely to support a manga about shogi. This also happened to Mononofu, another shogi manga that did better but still got canceled in Jump after 5 volumes.

I feel like shogi manga can only find success in a seinen magazine.

~dakazu

Supinamarada!

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Supinamarada!

A manga about an ex-figure skater that moves to a remote town in Hokkaido and joins the hockey team.

Satoru Noda’s debut work before starting Golden Kamuy. I think it’s pretty interesting that despite these being different genres, he still focuses on his home Hokkaido as a setting for both.

This is a fun series with some great comedy. I personally enjoyed this manga but it wasn’t successful and canceled after 6 volumes. Noda has said his failures here taught him valuable lessons that he wouldn’t forget for his next project. Considering Golden Kamuy won Grand Prize for last year’s Tezuka Osamu Cultural Award, I would say he’s done well.

Fun note: The hunter convict Nihei from Golden Kamuy first appeared here as the stoic Yuufutsu High School hockey coach.

~dakazu

Noah’s Notes

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Noah’s Notes

A manga where an gun-toting Archaeologist teams up with a clueless high school girl to unravel the mystery that humanity is reliving history on a loop.

This is a series we talked about on an episode of Darfox Dabbles.

When you write out the synopsis this series actually sounds pretty cool. In reality we have another new series that(rightfully) failed in Weekly Shonen Jump.

While the artwork was decent, the characters were pretty weak and the story was way too complex. The main heroine is supposed to be an audience surrogate but she just comes off as a generic party girl who’s main purpose was to be in danger or show off cleavage and butt. The concept of the series could’ve been interesting but the execution was sloppy as pages were filled to the brim with needless expositional text.

I wasn’t impressed when it debuted and wasn’t surprised when it ended.

~dakazu

Under Ninja

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Under Ninja

A manga about a modern world where ninjas are the most elite covert operators but are not utilized or known to the public.

This is one of Kengo Hanazawa’s followups to his popular I am a Hero series. I seriously question allowing Hanazawa to draw two manga simultaneously right now given his notoriety for being late with manuscripts and the awful copy/paste job he did in the end of I am a Hero(which we covered in our retrospective).

Since this series just started, it’s hard to tell where Hanazawa is going with the story. So far we follow a ninja who hasn’t even begun his vague mission and we know that the majority of the 200,000 ninja aren’t deployed because of something called ‘under ninja’.

Hanazawa is taking his sweet time with this series so I expect things won’t be clear for a while. Fortunately he did the same for I am a Hero so I expect he’ll have the luxury of being allowed to lead us on for a while. I’ll keep reading and waiting myself.

~dakazu

Rising Sun

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Rising Sun

Finished this manga about a group of people who start their training to join the Japanese Self Defense Force. Although I thought their last training exercise dragged on for a bit, I really enjoyed this series.

Looks like they’ll be following the main character as he starts working as a ranger in the sequel series Rising Sun: Ranger & Rescue. Will definitely be checking that out in the future!

~dakazu

Shiiku Shoujo

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Shiiku Shoujo

A manga about a high school girl who is curious about strange organisms and her science teacher who secretly observes her.

It’s hard to put my finger on this one. On one hand it seems like a manga that just focuses on introducing these minor creatures like barnacles and sea slugs. But then you have the science teacher keeping a research diary on the behaviors of the girl. A possible teacher/student romance is further suggested by when they introduce another high school girl who has a crush on the science teacher. I like learning all about the random creatures because creator Asako Nakagawa puts in lots of visual gags but I really could do without any creepy romantic relationships between the girl and her teacher.

~dakazu