Dragon Drive Volume 2 by Keiichi Sakura Published by Viz Media Genre: Fantasy, Gaming Rating: All Ages Grade B Storyline Reiji, recalling the events from last battle, wants to train so he does so in a secret training room that Agent L, the female associate that watches the battles and presents who is in the game, shows him. He trains there, determined not to give up. Soon he starts using class time for naps, and also starts avoiding Yuniko. Yuniko is starting to get worried when she sees Agent L and Reiji walking together down the halls. She gets jealous and follows with Hagiwara being dragged away by her. When they enter, a crazy dragon appears and attacks them. Reiji simply defeats the dragon, leaving his friends in amazement. Later, they’re having Summer Vacation when a mysterious girl comes and takes them from Dragon Drive to some place mysterious. Review Reiji and Chibi train and sync together so much, Reiji is able to control Chibi’s power. Then comes a surprise which twists the story up. It keeps the reader going, giving them motivation to read more. It’s happening to me right now. My brain is telling me “Read more Dragon…
I’m not much of a shojo/romance kind of gal. My first forays into manga was through the Shonen Jump action titles. When my Animerica subscription got converted (after two issues) to Shojo Beat, I was sure there wasn’t going to be anything in there for me. Almost 2 years later, I’ve changed my tune, but that’s because shojo isn’t afraid to have romantic leads with bite! (And I don’t mean vampires…) In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are some shojo manga where the leads are anything but romantic!
The latest round of reviews are up at Manga Village. As well as our usual reviewers, we’d like to welcome a new addition: Michael Aronson. He’ll be contribution articles as well as reviews. Our reviews this week cover the spectrum of manga. We start off with some BL, Poison Cherry Drive from Kitty Media reviewed by Lissa Pattillo. Michael Aronson looks at The Astro Boy Essays from Stonebridge Press. John Thomas goes for the odd jobs with Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 1 from Dark Horse. Charles Tan and I get into the swordplay with Ruruoni Kenshin (VIZBig Edition) Vol. 1 from Viz, and The Guin Saga: The Seven Magi Vol. 2 from Verticle. Then, check out our weekly picks of the new releases coming out this week. Like our reviews, our picks cover the manga spectrum. Then, check out Manga in the Philippines, and see what it’s like to be a manga lover in the Philippines.
You’ll start to notice reviews in the Kidlette catagory. These are reviews of manga written by my two daughters. I’m not editing them other than correcting typos, so you’re getting what they think. Finally find out if the kids like the kid stuff! Now, just a bunch of random news items I want to comment on. Hunter X Hunter is coming back….again. After being put on hold in December with no reason and no date of return. You really have to wonder if Togashi wants to write this series any more. I wonder if he’s lost as much interest in writing it as I have in reading it. Yahoo Japan Auctions announced it’s top grossing auctions for charity for 2007, and at the top of the list was the “Worlds First Official Tsukasa Hojo ‘Life Size’ 100-ton Hammer”. It’s a replica of one of the hammers that Kaori would pull out to use on Ryo from Hojo’s manga City Hunter. It’s 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) long, but only weighs 50 kilograms (110 pounds). How cool is that? There are time I wish I could whip something like that out. Especially at work. From the “Dear God, Please No!” Department: Kodansha’s…
Dragon Drive Volume 1 by Keniichi Sakura Published by Viz Media Genre: Fantasy, Game Rating: All Ages Grade: A Storyline This high-schooler, named Reiji, is a video game player. He’s late to his school most of the time and his friend, Yukino, scolds him for it. One day she shows him this awesome game called Dragon Drive, a virtual game where the player is chosen his dragon and will fight other dragons for points to level up their character. His dragon is a sleepy, lazy one. He eventually calls him “Chibi” in a sudden match with this guy named Hagiwara, who seems to love Yukino. When in a situation where he would lose, he links with Chibi and Chibi levels up, and knocking out the opponent. The girl saying who’s in suspects he’s “special” and something will come out from this. Review Dragon Drive is a funny manga. The character’s personalities and the drawings are nice. Chibi, the little dragon, is quite funny, not obeying Reiji’s commands. Even though he just wants to be cool, he can’t get his act together. But this is when the cool part happens; he and Chibi can synch together in tight situations. It’s a…
Growing up, my family never had a lot of spending money, and we never got allowances like kids do today! But, when you’re in that kind of situation, you learn a fun, new pastime; Window Shopping. That’s where you go to stores or malls and look at all things you would buy if you had the money. With the proliferation of the internet, it has become Screen Shopping, I guess. And it’s so much easier now, with the store only being a click away. You can “wander” for hours looking at all the things you want to buy. For me, that’s manga, of course. Amazon.com and Half.com have become my favorite Screen Shopping sites. I’ll drop in on Ebay every once in a while as well, just to see if there are any long runs I might be interested in. I’m not going to buy, just to look. But these sites have a secret weapon to use again us Screen Shoppers; Wish lists. With just a click or two of the mouse, and there’s a long list of wishes just waiting to be granted. For Christmas and birthdays, they’re useful. But for the rest of the year, they’re there, taunting…
It’s time to check the results of another week at Manga Village! And in honor of Super Tuesday that just passed, we’ve got some reviews that fit political life. Charles Tan starts off with the classic political drama Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President Book One from Viz. This is definitely worth a look in light of the current campaigns. If you can find it. Do some womanizing with Lissa Pattillo’s review of Ral Omega Grad Vol 1 from Viz, and then face the conseqences with Nana Vol 8 from Viz. reviewed by me. And finally, get rid of that pesky rival with a visit from Hell Girl Vol 1 from Del Rey reviewed by John Thomas. If you’re in politics, you know you’re going to Hell anyway…. Check out what we recommend to pick up this week in our Picks ‘n’ Mix column. Come check us out, leave a comment, and we promise not to ban or censor you.
In a previous post, I spoke about the Kindle as being a possibility for reading electronic books and manga. But, a little searching around the web has brought to light another possibility that is much more inexpensive, and more readably available. As a matter of fact, you may have on in your home right now! It’s the Nintendo DS. Nintendo’s newest handheld game platform can be a tool for more than just games.While Nintendo has been announcing products that bring manga to the Japanese DS users, we here in the US can only hope and pray that these products are brought over. But, thanks to good, old, hacker ingenuity, (and some hardware from Asia), programmers and others can and often do make their own programs, or “home brews” to run on the DS. For more information on Home Brews for the DS, see this wiki. For purveyors of portable digital manga (and who are willing to risk their DS) would be two home brew programs: PictoDS and Comic Book DS. A review of the software running on a DS, with pictures can be found here. It uses the dual screens and touch screen to really give a customizable reading experience….
I don’t know if it could be considered rehab or feeding the habit, but being able to go to the Manga Cafe and Reading Lounge would be so cool! Sigh… Since it’s in Washington DC, maybe they might feature some of that good political manga we never get to see? Hey Viz! This year would be a perfect time to re-release Eagle: Making of An American President. Unflipped. You can call it the Big Election edition. Wishful thinking, I know…. Oh well….
A situation has arisen at Tokyopop.com that I don’t think should be kept only there. As many of you may know from Brigid’s posts on the Mangablog, people have been frustrated about the condition of the Tokyopop.com website. Namely, since the “upgrade” to 2.0, it has been buggy and not well managed. One of the users of the site, an artist known as Sixxx, has been very vocal about the bad code and poor management on her blog. Last weekend, she was banned from the site and her profile was wiped from the system. Sixxx was a popular person around the site. She was on the front page every day as a “Most Popped” user. Her art was used as avatars, and was often featured in other blog posts. She also spoke her mind about the problems on the site. Her posts weren’t mean or nasty. They were written by someone who obviously cared about the site and was frustrated at what it had become. Apparently, after another venting on her blog, which Sixxx had the comments set for moderation before posting, the webmaster of Tokyopop.com, Matt Paladino, aka MP (who was also on Sixxx’s ignore list) left a comment…
As well as keeping this blog, I’m the Editor in Chief of Manga Village, a news, reviews, commentary website. We’re squatting at Comics Village until our own site is ready. We’ve got some great reviews and columns for you at Manga Village! This week Charles Tan gets ready for the Super Bowl with Eyeshield 21 Vol 1 from Viz. John Thomas helps with the Half Time show with some hot girls with guns with Gunsmith Cats Revised Vol 1 from Dark Horse, and I’ve brought some monsters and maids along to wreck it all with Princess Resurrection Vol 2 from Del Rey!And check the Reviews archive for more great reviews. We’ve got a couple of columns too! Check out our Weekly Picks. Finally, for all you aspiring mangaka…do you have a story that you know you could get published, if you had the chance? Have a manga/web comic that you’d love to get on the web, but no place to upload? Then check this link out for information on our competition, Get Published at Manga Village!
As many parents with school age children know, getting your child to read can sometimes be a real hassle. This is especially true if your child is struggling in school. In this post-“No Child Left Behind”-world, this can mean pressure from teachers and schools to get your child to improve. I was having this problem with my youngest daughter. Now, I’ve always believed the way to get someone interested in reading, was to give them a book about something they were interested in or enjoyed. So with my youngest, we tried finding books that she would like, and let her choose the books she wanted to read, but she still struggled with her reading, and never wanted to do it. We were at a loss of what to do, until we found a breakthrough in the form of an anime. As well as reading manga, I enjoy watching anime based on manga. One series I got interested in was Sgt. Frog from Tokyopop. When I found some fansubs online, I downloaded them to check the anime out. So, I’m out in the living room, watching the shows, and both my daughters come out to see what I was doing. Since…