Hunter x Hunter Volume 16, 17, 18 By Yoshihiro Togashi Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Older Teen (16+) Genre: Action Price: $7.99 Rating: These three volumes finish up the Greed Island arc (thankfully), though in retrospect it wasn’t as bad as it could be. Volume 16 continues “The Bomber” arc within Greed Island that was started in Volume 15. Genthru and his team has 96 and only need 4 more to win the game. Several teams of hunters, including Gon’s gather to come up with a way to stop Genthru. They decide to get a card no one else has and keep it from them. By creating a team of 15 they can activate the quest. After gathering the requisite number (including Hisoka), they reach the challenge of a killer dodgeball game. Volume 17 finishes the game, and starts the war between Genthru’s team and the winners of Plot of the Beach card. There’s more training for Gon and Killua while Tsezguerra’s team buys them time to come up with a strategy to beat Genthru. Volume 18 is the final three-on-three battle between Genthru’s team and Gon’s, and the end of the Green Island arc.
Found via AiCN. Gia of Anime Vice has put together a collection of fanart pictures of the Doctor, manga style. Most of the pictures are cute, and I really like the strip art on the far right with the companions. Very funny. The art features the current 10th Doctor played by David Tennant. He’s young, cute and very action oriented. He’d be the perfect subject for a manga adaptation. Especially as a bishonen, as this rendering shows (credit needed). Now would be the perfect time for the BBC to captialize on this and allow an OEL manga of the Doctor to be made. The announcement of the eleventh doctor, Matt Smith, has led to a lot of speculation, with the one that makes the most sense to me is that he will be going goth. Yes, we’ve had Victorian with the 1st and 8th Doctors, but speculation I’ve heard and seeing what he’s done in the past makes him perfect for the goth style. And it’s what’s popular with the teenage girls, a demographic Doctor Who hasn’t quite captured yet. Russell T. Davies has already given the Doctor lots of angst in his 4 year run. This just seems to…
Just a few comments about this month’s Previews catalog: Marvel/Del Rey collaboration: I have two words for the Wolverine manga; Emo Logan. Does the world REALLY NEED more emo Logan? I mean, honestly… The art looks great, I’m not gonna knock that. The Marvel catalog had some pictures of pages, and they did look nice. But this isn’t going to win anyone over from one side of the manga vs. comics camp, and really hope it was never meant to. If anything, this will probably fan the flames, but that seems to be the way Marvel likes it. Not that they want to come up with anything original…
A Samurai during Japan’s Warring States period (1467-1573), Daigo Kagemitsu wants complete control over Japan. He promises his unborn son’s 48 body parts to demons in exchange for that control. When the baby is born deformed, Daigo throws the newborn into the river to die, but it is miraculously found by a doctor, Jukai, who makes prosthetics for the child and adopts him as his own. When the boy Hyakkimaru is grown, he leaves home and begins a journey to recover his body parts. Along the way he runs into a brash young thief, Dororo, whom he teams up with; together they battle demon and monster on their adventure to reclaim Hyakkimaru’s wholeness. By Osamu Tezuka Publisher: Vertical Inc. Age Rating: Teen Genre: Action/Adventure Price: $13.95 Rating: Dororo, first serialized in 1967, can be seen as a proto-shonen story. It has many of the elements we now see in shonen titles today, though these were new at the time. Tezuka spins a memorable supernatural action/adventure tale and characters that really draw you in, and only disappoints at the very end, though not in story, but lack of it. The first volume of this title is the introduction. Tezuka jumps from…
Well, it’s January in California, and to all you people in the Midwest and East Coast, that usually means lots of cursing or dreaming of our weather. For the Rose Parade it is usually clear but cold, and that can last throughout the month. But not always, like this week. We went from high 50’s the last two weeks during the day to high 70’s to mid 80’s all this week. Since we only have two seasons (fire and rain), spring cleaning can happen at any time of the year. Over the holidays, I finally did some clearing. I’ve gone through my manga collection and have started to pull out titles I want to get rid of. As much as I love the idea of having just one room of wall to wall manga, that just isn’t going to happen right now. So, I’ve had to do a lot of soul-searching, and decide what titles I want keep and what titles need to go. I couldn’t let sentimentality get in the way, (though in some cases I think I have). But I thought things over very carefully, and based on re-readability, I have pulled 43 titles from my shelves. It’s…
Some of you out there may be wondering about my lack of posts lately. Most of you probably haven’t, but anyway… With the holidays and work, I’ve been really bogged down and quite frankly stressed, which tends to kill my creative juices. Distractions by things other than manga can also do it.
One of the regulars at Suguri’s pet shop finds out that his precious little French bulldog, Zidane, has a weight problem! He tried everything from diet food to yoga and even an exercise machine to help the little guy lose that doggy fat! Could someone else be feeding him, too?! By Yukiya Sakuragi Publisher: Viz Media Genre:Animal/Drama Age Rating: Older Teen Price: $9.99 Rating: Dog lovers rejoice! It’s another volume of dogs and their owners doing doggie things. Then for the second half of the volume, there’s a new plot stirring up, that could be the end of Woofles and the gang. The first half of this volume is all about Hiroshi Akiba, an otaku-goverment worker, and his bulldog Zidane. Zidane was teased by Chizuru about his weight, so Akiba decided to do something about it. He buys low-calorie dog food, he stops buying treats and even gets a doggie treadmill! This story is mildly amusing, though it has all the typical trappings and pitfalls of a diet storyline. The story of how Lupin, Suguri’s mutt, got his name is mildly amusing too. The source isn’t all that surprising, nor why she chose. This story really just seems to fulfill…
“I’m going to uncover the mystery of the ‘Blade Children’.”…World-class detective Kiyotaka Narumi’s last words prior to his sudden disappearance continue to haunt his younger brother, Ayumu. The cheeky 10th-grader becomes equally embroiled in the mystery of the doomed “Blade Children” when he is mistaken for the prime suspect in a murder at his school. Led by Ayumu’s sister-in-law, Kiyotaka’s wife and fellow detective, Madoka, the investigation into the murder gives Ayumu a chance to clear his name. But in doing so, he not only uncovers ties to the Blade Children but also more questions than answers about who and what they are. Story by Kyo Shirodaira; Art by Eita Mizuno Publisher: Yen Press Genre: Mystery Rating: Teen Price: $10.99 Rating: Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning is a title that started out as a novel and was then turned into both a manga and an anime series. This first volume introduces us to the main characters and the overarching mystery of the “Blade Children”, with individual mysteries giving us the pieces to the larger one. Ayumu Narumi is a 10th grader at a private high school, and brother to Kiyotaka Narumi, a world-class pianist in his teens and a “Great…
“On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, Twelve Ecliptic Zodiac Keys,” Lucy Heartphilia has always dreamt of joining the guild of mages known as Fairy Tail. While searching for the guild, she meets up with Natsu Dragonil and Happy, a blue talking cat. They are both members of Fairy Tail, though Lucy doesn’t know it at first. They have a few adventures together, where Lucy shows him her magic. She is a Stellar Spirit practitioner. She collects keys that allow her to summon spirits from another world and make contracts with them. The rarest of these keys are the gold Ecliptic Zodiac keys. At the start, Lucy already has two; Aquarius and Taurus. Natsu then invites Lucy to join the Fairy Tail guild, where the two are often paired together for assignments. Fairy Tail is a new series this year, and one I was hooked on from the first volume. It’s a great action adventure title with lots of comedy as well. Natsu is very much like Luffy or Goku. He doesn’t care about a lot of things, but the things that he does, he cares a lot. Lucy is very outgoing and determined. The…
“On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, Eleven Band Member Battle,” Rin Amami has a dream of becoming a singer like his mother, but it’s an impossible dream. He has the voice of a frog. He has all but given up on his dream until a chance meeting with a new boyband, the Beatmen and their manager rekindles his hopes. He may possess the legendary Dragon Voice. He begins training with the Beatmen, his abrasive personality causing problems, but some how they keep on climbing up the charts. Dragon Voice is a series I was late coming to, but I’m really glad I did! A “male version of Jem and the Holograms” doesn’t even come close to doing it justice. The characters have great personalities that don’t always mesh well, which only increases the fun. The situations are a little outrageous, but with some of the Tokusatsu shows that have been seen recently, could a Voice Rangers really be that far out? Dragon Voice also has one of the best volumes I’ve ever read. In volume 7, there is a big battle of the bands between three groups; The Beatmen, Privee, and Baby Naked. They…
“On the Tenth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, Ten Inukami,” Keita Kawahira is from a family of Inukami tamers, people who contract with dog-spirits to vanquish evil, but he is considered a failure since he couldn’t make a contract with one. One day, his grandmother and head of the clan, tells Keita that there is an Inukami that is willing to contract with him. He goes to meet Yoko, a beautiful girl with green hair and a big, bushy gold tail. He’s thrilled at first, until he finds out how difficult Yoko is to handle. Inukami is based on a series of light novels, and has only one volume out from Seven Seas so far, but I have high hopes for the manga after having seen the 2006 anime (in fansub only). Inukami is not a harem manga. It is closer in relation to a series like Urusei Yatsura. It’s a romantic comedy about Keita and Yoko’s relationship. She wants to be his girlfriend, but he has a roaming eye. None of the other females want anything to do with Keita, not that Yoko will let him be with anyone. She can shoot fire from her…
“On the Ninth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, Nine Tails Fox Demon,” Naruto Uzumaki is a boy that lives in the Hidden Leaf Village. He is a trouble maker and class clown at the Ninja academy he attends. Even though he isn’t very good at ninjitsu, he is determined to become the best Ninja in the village and become it’s leader, Hokage. But Naturo is shunned by the people of the village. When he was a baby, a demon fox with nine tails attacked the village. The demon was stopped and sealed inside of Naturo, but not before many people, including the then current 4th Hokage, were killed. Naturo continues not only towards his goal of becoming the greatest ninja in Hidden Leaf Village, but to also overcome people’s prejudices toward him. Naruto is a wildly popular manga and anime. I started reading it in Shonen Jump, though I’d seen it talked about over the internet for a while before that. After reading a few chapters, I saw why it had garnered such a following. It is a really well-written story. There’s good character development, and even though this is a shonen fighting manga, the plot…