486 – Saikyo Selections 16 – Berserk
This week we talk about the Solar New Year and the international popularity of Kagurabachi! Then, we look at the Birth Ceremony chapter in the Conviction arc of Berserk! We examine Kentaro Miura‘s legacy for a special Saikyo Selections!!!
Continue reading463 – Manga in Motion 59 – Belle
This week we talk about Mamoru Hosoda‘s Belle! What does dakazu have to say about the singing?! We also share our thoughts on the new Netflix One Piece show!!!
Continue reading401 – Triple Dip 63 – New York, New York, Catch These Hands!, I Want to be a Wall
Morgana is out this week but she left us a great selection of books from Yen Press to read for Pride and Panels! Here’s our Triple Dip on New York, New York, Catch These Hands!, and I Want to be a Wall! Also, Darfox saw Fruits Basket: Prelude and dakazu read the continuation of Berserk!!!
Continue reading399 – Twiple Dip 4 – 10 Dance, Classmates: sotsu gyo sei, Dick Fight Island
Our celebration of Pride Month continues! Pride and Panels takes a turn for the perverse as we revisit 10 Dance, Classmates, and Dick Fight Island for a Twiple Dip! Darfox also talks about the brand new RuriDragon, dakazu shares the movie loving Ikari no Roadshow, and the gang discuss the continuation of Berserk!!!
Continue readingDestroy and Revolution
A manga about a teenager with a supernatural ability called “oneness” who teams up with his friend to become terrorists in order to destroy the corrupt Japanese government.
This is another entertaining series by Kouji Mori. I was initially surprised that Mori started this science fiction story but it shares a lot of introspective scenes from the main characters which is a common theme in his other works like Jisatsutou and Holyland. Mori does a great job building the story slowly as the protagonist takes time opening up to his friend’s ideals about forcefully fixing society. Even after they being performing acts of terrorism there’s plenty of moments showing how complex the issues are. They actually don’t succeed despite growing more members who can access the powers of “oneness” and the story eventually leads to them taking on the American government as a world power. It’s all well drawn and engaging to read.
Mori is such a talented manga artist and this is just another example to his amazing body of titles.
~dakazu
Holyland
A manga about bullied teenager who teaches himself martial arts and becomes street fighter known as the delinquent hunter.
We’ve talked about this on an older episode.
Holyland is the first Kouji Mori manga I ever read. I was immediately taken with the comprehensive breakdown of martial arts and fighting techniques displayed in this series. You can tell Mori did a lot of research into different fighting styles like boxing, wrestling, karate, kendo, kick boxing, and even knife fighting. Whenever characters would match up for fights Mori would break the 4th wall and address the audience with quick informative panels that broke down the mechanics of the moves. While our co-host Seamus hates this kind of stuff, I personally love it. It gave an extra layer of realism to the fights without sounding like shonen battle exposition. Mori would later use these info dumps for survival techniques in Jisatsutou as well.
A solid fighting manga for sure.
~dakazu
Muhoutou
A prequel to Jisatsutou. The Japanese government exiles convicts facing execution to a remote lawless island to fend for themselves.
I really wish Kouji Mori didn’t start this manga. Making a prequel to Jisatsutou seems really silly because we already know what’s going to happen. I’m not sure I care enough about our protagonist who is an innocent man trying to survive against all these other criminals. I really feels like Mori is just rehashing all the beats of Jisatsutou minus the suicidal youths, which was the most interesting part.
I’d rather Mori kept working on something totally new like his Sousei no Taiga.
~dakazu
271 – Fantasy Magazine – Horror
This week we launch our new format called Fantasy Magazine! Morgana, Darfox8, and dakazu have all drafted non-licensed or out-of-print series to create their ultimate horror-themed manga magazine! Listen in as we present our picks of Petshop of Horrors, Dai Dark, and Jisatsutou and then debate whether or not they fall under the category of horror!!!
Continue readingJisatsutou
A manga about suicidal patients who have been stranded by the Japanese government to a lawless island to fend for themselves.
Fantastic survival series. We discussed this one all the time in the early days of our podcast. Kouji Mori has a really interesting writing style where he’ll address the audience directly to give information about survival tips or comments about fishing and eating deer.
The story follows a young man named Sei who teaches himself how to hunt wild game with a bow. The beginning of the series is very intense as many of the stranded immediately start killing themselves in despair. Sei lives up to his namesake(which means live) and changes himself as he learns to hunt for food. There’s also plenty of conflict as the island is lawless and certain groups use power to oppress and steal. There’s even a queer character who gets decent representation.
Everything about this series is engaging and exciting. I think it’s a real shame we haven’t seen any of Mori’s manga get official English releases because they’re all great.
Mori is currently writing a prequel series called Muhoutou. It’s good but I’m not sure how things will go considering the fate of those survivors was already established in this series.
~dakazu
Sousei no Taiga
New manga by Kouji Mori of Jisatsutou fame. This one is another survival manga that takes place when a group of teens are transported 40,000 years into the past. Love Mori’s work and this is no exception.
~dakazu