370 – Twiple Dip 2 – My Dress-up Darling, Blue Giant, Oishinbo
Seamus is out this week so the other hosts take advantage by looking at the second volume of previously visited series for a Twiple Dip! This time they check out My Dress-up Darling, Blue Giant, and Oishinbo! The hosts also give their first impressions of the live-action Cowboy Bebop show on Netflix!!!
Continue reading369 – New Chapter Check-in 8 – The Hunters Guild: Red Hood
dakazu is back from his trip and very sleep deprived! He joins Darfox and Ryan aka RUSH to talk full spoilers about popular manga for a New Chapter Check-in! They discuss the recently canceled The Hunters Guild: Red Hood! Darfox pops for Black Clover while Ryan pops for Dr. STONE! Ryan also has a rant on Platinum End!!!
Continue reading368 – One Shot 46 – Cats of the Louvre
Our main host dakazu is out on a mission this week. So it leaves the rest of the cast of Manga Mac to hold the reigns of this show. Listen to them talk about Taiyo Matsumoto’s Cats of the Louvre.
Continue reading367 – One Shot 45 – Sensor
Halloween comes early with Night 5 of October Extravaganza! For our final night we examine the newest Junji Ito release, Sensor! Morgana is reading I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss and dakazu discusses his thoughts on Chimamire Sukeban Chainsaw: reflesh!!!
Continue readingFrankenstein: Junji Ito Story Collection
Junji Ito‘s manga adaptation of Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein.
We’ve discussed this on an older episode.
I personally really enjoyed this book. Junji Ito is such a master of horrific visuals they work so well with the classic Frankenstein story. There are some amazing pages that show how disgusting Victor Frankenstein’s grave robbing was. This even gave birth to the classic Frankenstein fairy meme!
I will say that since I am not that familiar with the Shelley’s original novel I wasn’t effected by many of the artistic changes Ito did for his version. Seamus was not pleased during our Retrospective on this manga and ultimately felt Ito did a disservice to the original book. So if you’re a big fan of the novel you may not enjoy this manga as much as I did.
~dakazu
Siren Rebirth
A manga adaptation of the Siren video game.
We’ve discussed this on a recent episode.
It book is pretty mediocre by horror manga standards. I’ve played a bit of the Siren videogames and unfortunately Yukai Asada fails to capture the creepiness of the ‘shitibto’ living corpses. But what I didn’t know was that this manga is a reboot of an original Siren manga adaptation called Siren – Akai Umi no Yobigoe. That series went on indefinite hiatus when its manga artist Wataru Kamio became ill.
Siren Rebirth is literally a rebirth of the original manga adaptation that was supervised by the game developers of the Siren game. I’m happy that they got to finish this project almost 15 years after the original game. It’s just a shame I didn’t enjoy it.
~dakazu
Cthulhu no Yobigoe
A manga adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft‘s Call of Cthulhu.
It was interesting to read an adaptation of Lovecraft that isn’t done by Gou Tanabe. While Kousuke Miyazaki‘s character art is a simpler style than Tanabe’s art, they are still able to effectively convey the cosmic horror you would expect from the Lovecraft universe. Miyazaki did a particularly great job with the monstrous look of Cthulhu from “The Madness from the Sea” chapter. I also like how in between chapters there were essays by Cthulhu mythos scholar Ryo Morise that introduced Lovecraft and other writers who were influential to the cosmic horror genre.
~dakazu
Mieruko-chan
A manga about a high school girl who has to ignore evil spirits she can see to avoid being attacked.
We’ve discussed this on a recent episode.
This series is a bit one-note but otherwise fun manga. Tomoki Izumi does a really decent job drawing creepy spirits. It helps accentuate titular Mieruko-chan‘s plight of pretending she doesn’t see the horrors around her. There’s even some more touching moments between her family that seems to be a good story hook. I’m not immediately reaching for the next volume of this series but I know I’ll enjoy it when I do.|
There’s currently an anime running right now but I was disappointed how they seem to be leaning heavily on fan service. I’ll stick with the manga.
Available in English from Yen Press.
~dakazu
Shibuya Goldfish
A manga about how people in Shibuya ward in Tokyo are suddenly attacked by giant flying killer goldfish.
This manga is just another series that tried to cash in on the survival horror craze. It’s no different than Fukujuu Toshi, Pygmalion, or Bougyaku no Kokekko. Something mundane is turned into a killer that hunts humans and in this case it’s goldfish. This series isn’t terrible but even from the first chapter it’s extremely generic. I think Magical Girl Apocalypse might be the most interesting title in this genre but even that suffers from wonky sci-fi plot points towards the end. This brand of horror no longer interests me.
Available in English from Yen Press.
~dakazu
Eater
A manga about a half human half alien teen Benimaru who swears vengeance against the alien invaders who eat, impregnate and annihilate humans.
This was another manga like Godsider that my older cousin had. I remember being blown away by the graphic artwork and violence. While this also gave me nightmares I remember really liking how Benimaru was able to apply his life to objects by holding them when he transformed into his alien form. He used this to have living bullets from guns or living piano wire to slice up his opponents. This manga is the debut work by Masatoshi Usune who is most known for Desert Punk. Even from this first series Usune’s art is phenomenal and really helps bring the graphic horror of alien on alien action to life. Revisiting this as an adult I can really appreciate all the gore without the nightmares.
~dakazu