Manga Xanadu

The Western New Year has come and gone with January, but with the coming of February means it’s time for the Eastern, or Lunar New Year. It also means a new zodiac animal rolls over, and this year is the Year of the Monkey. Here are some manga that feature monkeys or monkey-like characters.

Chinese New Year moves back up to middle February after starting at the beginning of the month last year. And with a new year comes a new zodiac animal. This year, it is the sheep/ram or goat, depending on where you look. The majority of posts I’ve seen about it seem to use sheep, so I’m going with that. Fruits Basket – Since this series is about the Chinese Zodiac, it always has an animal to contribute. Hiro Sohma is a 12-year-old boy who rarely smiles except when he is being sarcastic or mischievous. He is the youngest of the cursed family members. He has a crush on Kisa Sohma and can be over protective of her. He is initially jealous of Tohru’s friendship with Kisa, but eventually comes to like her. He is also about the only Zodiac member to have a normal, loving parent in his mother, who loves hugging him in his sheep form. It is out of print but was previously published by Tokyopop. Spice and Wolf – In as series where on of the characters is a giant, ancient wolf, it should come as no surprise that there is sheep as well. When Holo and…

This week I talk about features the Weekly Wish List, the Vizmanga.com update, New York Times Bestseller List, and new licenses from Crunchyroll, Seven Seas Entertainment, and Vertical, inc. Then I look at some manga titles in celebration of the Chinese New Year animal, the Horse. http://archive.org/download/MangaDomeEpisode43/MangaDomeEpisode43.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The Chinese New Year has arrived, which means two things; a slow down of shipments at work as factories shut down for 3 weeks, and a new post about manga featuring this year’s zodiac animal! We move from the majestic dragon down to the more common snake, but as you will see, there are no such things as common snakes in manga! Fruits Basket – Let’s get the obvious out-of-the-way with Fruits Basket, which features all the zodiac animals. Ayame Sohma is the snake of the zodiac in the Sohma family. He is the older brother of Yuki, one of the main characters of the series. He is very handsome with silver hair and striking eyes. He is flamboyant, self-confident and self-centered, and annoys Yuki and Kyo to no end. He is very demanding that Yuki return his love as his brother, but Ayame’s treatment of Yuki when he was growing up has made that a difficult request for Yuki to comply with. Naruto – This long running series is about a screw-up boy ninja, Naruto Uzumaki, who wants to prove himself and become the leader of his villain, the Hokage. Orochimaru is the first major antagonist in the series….

Another year has come and gone, and the Chinese New Year is upon us again. This zodiac sign for this year is the Dragon. A creature that plays an important part in Asia history and culture, the dragon also gets lots of page time in manga. Here is just a sampling of the manga available in English that features dragons.

So, cute and cuddly rabbits don’t do it for you? How about cute and (not so) cuddly girls dressed as bunnies? Yes, not only does manga like the furry bunnies, it also like the playboy versions. Here are some bunny girls from both manga and anime, who aren’t quite so playful, but will be a handful.

The western new year has come and gone, but over in the Asian world, their new year starts this week. With the Chinese New Year come a new animal in the zodiac. This year is the cute and cuddly rabbit. I have already written a post featuring rabbits for Easter, so for this one, I have expanded the scope from just real rabbits to anyone rabbit-esque.

This week begins the Chinese New Year.  This traditional Chinese holiday is based on a lunar calendar and is associated with an animal in the Chinese Zodiac.  This year’s animal is the Tiger.  So, I went looking for manga with tigers in them.  Surprisingly, I couldn’t find a lot.  I extended it to any of the big cats, and that make the list grow some, but it’s really surprising how few manga have tigers in them.