Ninja Baseball Kyuma Volume 1 By Shunshin Maeda Publisher: Udon Entertainment Age Rating: All Ages Genre: Sports Price: $7.99 Rating: Kyuma and his dog Inui live in the mountains, where Kyuma trains every day to become a great ninja. But when Kyuma mistakes a baseball coach for his training master, the local baseball team ends up with its first ninja player! Can a ninja step up to the plate and learn how to play ball? Find out in Ninja Baseball Kyuma! Boys love ninjas and baseball, so it seems only natural to put them together, right? Fortunately, in this title, the combination works. Thanks to some great characters, good stories and a lack of “ninja magic”, Ninja Baseball Kyuma is a title anyone can read and enjoy.
I just read the first issue of Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers, and I have to say, I really liked it. I wasn’t sure what I was in store for when I first ordered it, but I can safely say, it was $3 well spent. Throg (Frog Thor) is really the character that really made this issue. He is the first “teammate” that Lockjaw goes to after he finds one of the Infinity Gems. Apparently Lockjaw has decided that animals are better for finding the gems than the humans. Throg’s whole backstory is just what you’d expect from a Marvel Universe origin. Bad things happen to a good man who is then rewarded with superpowers; after being turned into a frog. Throg himself is just great. He speaks for Lockjaw, jabbering on with the other animals as he convinces each of them to join the cause and journey to find the gems. Just like Thor, he speaks with lots of “thee”s and “thou”s, and “wouldst”s and “dost”s.
I talk a lot about buying manga on this blog. Living on a budget means that I have to make every manga dollar count, and get the best deals I can to keep up on the series’ I enjoy. This is why I subscribe to Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat, watch for sales at Bookcloseouts.com, Deepdiscount.com, very occasionally search eBay, wait for 4-for-3 deals on Amazon.com, and trade. So it’s no surprise, that the bulk of my collection is from Viz, because they have provided the best deals with tiered pricing that let me get more than the other publishers. This fall, that’s all changing.
A lot has been going on at Viz Media recently. First, back in April, Viz started running Rumiko Takahashi’s new manga, Rin-Ne, concurrent with it’s Japanese release online for American fans to read. A first for legal simultaneous manga releases. Next, Viz quietly announced that they would be releasing up-to-date One Piece chapters in Shonen Jump. Then they confirmed that they were discontinuing it’s manga magazine for girls, Shojo Beat. This was a major disappointment to many people (myself included). But, right on the heels of that, as if to try to make amends, Viz then announces the start of a new manga magazine. Online. Ikki is a Japanese manga magazine that specializes in seinen, or young men’s manga.
I know it’s a little late for Mother’s Day, but as long as it’s still May, I figure I can sneak this in. Last year, I wrote a post about the roles moms can play in manga. I picked out manga I had read and broke them down into categories; Mom affecting the characters, Mom as support, Mom’s absence affecting the character, Mom’s absence affecting the story. I’ve read and/or more titles have come out that can be added to the list.
Fairy Idol Kanon Volume 1 By Mera Hakamada Publisher: Udon Entertainment Age Rating: All Ages Genre: Magical Girl/Fantasy Price: $7.99 Rating: Can a regular girl become a superstar celebrity? Kanon is an ordinary fourth grader who loves to sing more than anything else. When a magical fairy princess named Alto meets Kanon and decides to help start her singing career, their journey to fame takes off! Friendship and magic combine in this cute musical story! Fairy Idol Kanon is another title aimed directly at girls. Singing, fashion, stardom and fairies all make this the perfect title for young girls. Almost too perfect. It’s a safe story with all the messages that parents and teachers will love, while the girls will love the magic and bits of drama.
There’s been a lot of talk in the media lately about Twitter, especially with Ashton Kutcher reaching 1 million followers and Oprah joining and getting 220,000 in one day. And, while it might be nice to follow celebrities like them, it might get real boring real fast. I know when a technology has reached a saturation point when my Mother asks me about something. She’s not very techie (she’s just started using a cellphone), and prefers running her old Mac with OS7 than a PC. She asked me, “What is Twitter?” The more complicated answer is to say, it’s a microblogging platform that can be used for marketing and networking. With the addition of celebrities, it’s become a sort of voyeuristic way to watch what the rich and famous are doing, if, in fact, it’s the rich and famous doing the actual tweeting, and not some assistant. But if this is all you do with your twitter, you will probably become one of the “Twitter Quitters”, who give up after a month.
The rumors started yesterday, but David Welsh of Comics Reporter confirmed it today with Viz’s Evelyn Dubocq via Twitter that the rumors were true. Shojo Beat is being cancelled. The manga magazine that started in 2005, about 2 years after it’s older brother Shonen Jump, took over from another Viz publication, Animerica. I know this very well, since I had just subscribed to Animerica after taking a hard look at the anime/manga magazines at the time. One month after my first issue, I got the news that it was switching to Shojo Beat. At the time, I wasn’t reading any shojo. I think the only shojo series I had read any of was Ceres Celestial Legend. I’m not into too many chick things, and being told my magazine of choice was going to be replaced with one about “fashion, cooking and beauty” didn’t make me too happy. I thought I would hate the magazine. But I decided to get the first issue and check it out. Much to my surprise, I actually liked the titles that premiered. Godchild and Nana sucked me in. Kaze Hikaru and Baby and Me entertained, while Crimson Hero and Absolute Boyfriend passed the time. Over…
When I last looked at the Amazon Blogs, just after the Kindle 2.0 came out, there were no blogs available. Whispernet is rather pointless if there aren’t any books or blogs to get through it. But that is starting to change finally. A tweet from Erica Friedman about her Yuri blog Okazu being published on the Kindle made me take a look to see if there were any others. I was pleasantly surprised to see there were a few others. Comics Worth Reading is a group blog run by Johanna Draper Carlson. It’s a terrific place to get reviews of not just manga, but comics, graphic novels and everything related to them. Okazu is run by Erica Friedman and is the oldest blog about Yuri manga. You won’t find better or comprehensive information on Yuri than here. There it is, Plain as Daylight is a review blog by Melinda Beasi. You’ll find lots of reviews of manga and commentary here. The Anime Almanac is a blog by Scott VonSchilling. It covers manga, anime and commentary on the medium. The Anime Blog is a group blog. It covers anime and manga, as well as Japanese culture such as cooking, culture and…
Nikkita asks: I am Nikkita Bechdel and a senior at Bald Eagle Area high School in Central Pennsylvania. For the final in my Advanced Placement English class, I must write a research paper on any topic relating to literature. I chose to prove the literacy value of manga. I am having difficulties finding sources on sections such as why Japan considers it literature. If you could please help me, it would mean a lot to me. Wow, this is a tough one. A bit of a lofty goal, but a worthwhile one. When I was in Jr. College, I did a sociology study on anime fans, so I can relate on the difficulty in finding sources. There hasn’t been a lot of analysis of manga in english, but there are a few books you can look at that may have the information you’re looking for. Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society by Sharon Kinsella. It provides, among other things “a detailed analysis of manga for adults.” (quote via Books on Japan) Manga! Manga! World of Japanese Comics and Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga by Fred Schodt. Manga! Manga! was first published in the 1980’s and can…
Along with the announcement that Funimation would begin streaming the One Piece anime simultaneously with the Japanese showing, waaaaayyyy down at the bottom of the announcement, tucked in the About One Piece section, it was also announced that the US edition of Shonen Jump would start running the manga in line with the Japanese releases. Just like Naruto. Huh? How are they going to do that? Naruto‘s catching up seems to be doing well for Viz and Shueisha, if the Japanese publisher has agreed to this. But, Naruto took two years and a mass release of 22 volumes in order to get caught up with the Japanese releases. One Piece, which missed it’s bus thanks to 4Kids raping it and it taking a few years for Funimation to do a proper anime release of it, has a lot further to go. Volume 53 was just published in Japan, and volume 21 will be released here in June. That’s a 32 volume jump. And Viz plans to have the new chapters start in Shonen Jump in the fall of this year! There is no way they will be able to publish and sell 32 One Piece volumes! Not unless they plan…
Lunar Legend Tsukihime is about Shiki Tohno. Eight years ago, he was in an accident that left him weakened, and with a mysterious power. He can see the hidden lines, or death lines, in all things, organic or inanimate. By cutting along these lines, he can destroy or kill anything, or anyone. While in the hospital he meets a woman who claims she is a magician, and gives him some special glasses that make it so he can’t see the lines as long as he wears them. After recovering, Shiki was sent away from the main Tohno family home to live with relatives. Now, after the death of his father, his younger sister Akiha has asked him to live in the big house again with her. Shiki accepts, but on his way home from school the same day he is to move in, he sees a woman in the park. Something seems to take over him, and he cuts the woman into several pieces. Then he faints. He awakens the next day, in his new home. Believing the events from the day before a dream, he goes to school, and meets the woman again, who then berates him for killing her….