6 children and a cat were caught in a fire accident at a temple. They managed to rescue a sacred box.  God promised to give the present on their 13th birthday.

Years later, they reunite in Rental Club. It’s a club consists of competent people who rent their participation in other club. They can’t wait to get the gift. Misora is the first who receive the present. She is now able to move thing without touching it for 5 cm far. Her cat, Bake, who celebrates his birthday the next day, has the ability to talk like human.

Miyako can predict future once a day. Kasuga can find thing under radius 300 m. Ryu can see someone’s wife for the next 3 years. Munakata can find metal. He use it to find money in the sand, but he can only collect coins. And the last one is Kouta who can teleport.

Unfortunately, they’re not the only one blessed with the super power. Nogami brothers are having it too, only they’re using it for their personal satisfaction. They even hurt people. This is the enemy Misora and her friends should fight!

Well, it’s Adachi Mitsuru’s work. It’s pretty short for me.

My Rating:

There’s a phrase I’ve been hearing a lot in the manga industry that actually bothers me quite a bit.

It goes: Girls will read stuff for guys, but guys won’t read stuff for girls.

There’s actually a fair amount of financial proof that not a lot of guys read stuff written for girls and girls read stuff originally written for a male audience, but I don’t have direct access to that kind of information and that’s not my point.

My point is that there’s some stuff that is “meant for girls” that could have a much wider appeal if marketed properly, so why don’t comic book  publishing companies take that route?

I’ll explain further: Sure, there are plenty of comics (especially manga) that are clearly of no interest to most guys. A lot of shojo and josei manga are really just about light-fluffy romance and girls obsessing over stuff that most guys wouldn’t want to understand, let alone enjoy reading about. That said, there’s plenty of really awesome titles that are billed as shojo or josei, but could almost be gender-neutral.

Example one: Basara by Yumi Tamura, published by Viz under their shojo line.

Basara by Yumi Tamura

I’m up to volume 12 of the series and while it’s got a female protangonist and one of the major plot points is a romance between two of the main characters, the story is about a people’s rebellion under a brutral post-apocalyptic tyranny. While there is the romance, overcoming the big problem comes first, which is more of a shounen trope. Sure, the art does lean towards a shojo style, but other works by Yumi Tamura, like Chicago, remind me more of Naoki Urasawa than Arina Tanemura. (Ha, wow, comparing Arina Tanemura and Yumi Tamura is like comparing Danielle Steel to Stephen King!)

Why didn’t Viz bother to publish under a more universal line if Basara had the potential to sell well with girls AND boys?

To be honest, Shogakukan billed Basara as shojo, serialized it in Betsucomi (a shojo manga magazine) and Viz probably just rode that wave. If I was a Viz editor or someone else involved in that decision-making process, I would have shoved it into their signature line because Basara has that potential to sell well to both genders. After all, it was pretty well-received by critics when it was released. Since I decided to pick it up, I haven’t heard a fan, male or female, say a bad thing about it either. But while some fans are less discerning about their picks, most male fans are just going to see the shojo logo on the spine of the books and turn the other direction.

It’s probably very easy to point the finger at Japanese publishers sticking to their slightly more sexist, but more accepted societal norms, but that does not mean U.S. publishers have to blindly follow them.

Karakuri Odette by Julietta Suzuki

Going from Basara to something more recent, a Tokyopop release by Julietta Suzuki called Karakuri Odette, which I copy-edited as an intern for them. While it’s more likely to be categorized as shojo for many reasons, Karakuri Odette also doesn’t focus on typical shojo plots. Tokyopop even labeled it as a comedy series and it was billed as an a-typical shojo by critics. Yet, the cover design is hot pink and accented with hearts. Not to stereotype, but most male manga fans aren’t going to pick that up at a bookstore unless they’re shopping for their girlfriend’s Christmas gift. If the cover had been mostly green, which is an accent color on Tokyopop’s cover design, it would have faired much better with dudes just picking it up and seeing if it was anything they wanted to read.

I’m no expert at marketing (although I find it and advertising to be really fun, I almost wish I’d gone into PR instead of journalism,) but I feel like such niche targeting is detrimental to some series. I know when I was younger, I wouldn’t have touched shounen or seinen series because I totally thought they were all like Naruto, which I dislike, and not very good. Still, I was curious and if someone had put something out there without making it look like it was shojo or shounen, I would have probably gone for it and tried to read more series like it.  I probably would have been more willing to pick up something different than pure shojo fluff.

I’m not saying the industry has to change how they categorize everything, I’m just saying that we could make SOME series gender-neutral where it fits and start lifting the stereotypes of shojo being JUST for girls and vice-versa.

Baka-Updates Manga’s genre site -This site goes into how they define each genre, which includes shojo, shounen, etc as well as regular genres.

Why Can’t Female Leads Be Happy Without A Boyfriend? -An article about the difference between comics and manga as well as shojo and shounen.

Tegami Bachi (Letter Bee) is yet another example of an anime` that starts off well but can’t keep it going. Just when you think you can trust the show, perviness shows up and deflates your enthusiasm. And what’s worse is that the show has every ingredient to be great — emotions, a killer setting, a steampunk vibe, cool technology, and even a bit of Christian symbolism in the mix. I managed to hold out for eight episodes, mostly because I kept hoping that they’d pull it out of the gutter, but they never did.

1. Good. Starts series off well. Cool world. Somewhat emotional, but it looks like it will be a slow burn on the emotions instead of pyrotechnics.
2. Eh, sophomore slump. Maudlin and a few seconds of ribald mockery. It’s mostly a setup for the rest of the series. The ending theme is good though.
3. Geez, what is it with this series? It has all the facets necessary to be great but instead they introduce perviness to dilute what could be good into something lame. Seriously, a chick that never wears underwear?
4. It’s ok. The beginning theme is above average. Fairly predictable. The whole thing with the chick is cleared up — she’s a wild legendary creature that has been living as a creature.
5 A little better than 4.
6 Ok, but a bit maudlin.
* 7 Good. A diversity of emotions.
8 Trash. They can’t keep the pervy references out, and they deflate any unity between animation and emotion; you feel dirty. This is the end of the road for me.

Welcome to the graveyard, Tegami Bachi.

El mitico mortal kombat desde la NES hasta el Xbox 360 y la Play 3 nos ha divertido con sus sangrientos (Divertidos) Combates y con su sistema cada vez mas innovador de matar a los personajes con fatalityes aqui unos videos de demostracion.

Bien ya llevamos alrededor de 40 Dias dias en la red (20 de noviembre del 2009) por lo tanto hemos intentado crear una red que nos ayuden a crecer y a ustedes a divertirse asi que hoy le presentamos el contenido mas destacado de kajo…
En videos tenemos:

Perdon por el sonido del principio

En cuanto a nuestras redes tenemos:

Nuestro foro: http://kajo.foroes.net
Nuestro intro: http://kajointro.tk
Nuestro blog : http://kajogames.wordpress.com
Nuestro canal en Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/KajoProduction
Y pronto muchas cosas mas….

2006-2009 tarihleri arasında yayımlanan 162 sayılık bir Shonen mangası olan To-Love-Ru’yu bir arkadaşımın çok komik olduğunu söyleyerek tavsiye etmesi üzerine onemanga.com adlı siteden okumaya başladım. Aslında animesi de var ama ben mangayı tercih ettim bu sefer.

16 yaşındaki lise öğrencilerinin aşk hayatlarını, duygularını ve cinselliğe yavaş yavaş girmelerini konu alıyor diyebiliriz basitçe. Fakat bunu çok farklı ve komplike bir hikaye ile yapıyor. Baş kahranımız Yuuki Rito uzun yıllardan beri hoşlandığı Sairenji Haruna’ya duygularını açmakta zorlanmaktadır fakat bilmediği bir şey vardır ki aslında duyguları karşılıklıdır. Ama maalesef Haruna da duygularını dile getirememektedir. Böyle normal bir şekilde başlayan hikayemiz Rito banyo yaparken birden bire küvette çırılçılak, kendi yaşlarında, uzun pembe saçlı bir kızın belirivermesiyle tamamen değişir. Değişen sadece hikaye değil kahramanlarımızın hayatları da olacaktır.

Küvette beliren bu kız Deviluke gezegeninden kendisine yapılan koca seçme ve evlenme baskıları yüzünden kaçan ve Deviluke gezegeni tahtının varisi olan Lala’dır. Dünyayı çok seven Lala Rito’dan anında hoşlanır ve bir yanlış anlaşılma sonucu hem dünyada kalabilmek, hem garip koca adaylarından uzaklaşmak, hem de Rito’dan hoşlandığı için onunla evlenmeye karar verir. Bu konuda Rito’nun ne düşündüğünü pek de önemsemez gibidir.Lala hayat dolu fakat şımarık, inanılmaz derecede zeki fakat bu zekasını sadece insanlara şaka yapmak için aletler geliştirerek kullanan vurdumduymaz bir kişiliktir.

Lala kısa süre içinde Rito’nun bütün arkadaşları tarafından kabul edilir ve sevilir ve hatta Haruna ile çok yakın arkadaş olurlar.

Rito’dan bahsetmek gerekirse; hikaye boyunca Lala başına her türlü işi açmış olmasına rağmen (sürekli diğer uzaylı damat adaylarının ölüm tehditleri altında yaşamak gibi….) Lala’ya karşı olan karmaşık duyguları aşka dönüşür fakat bütün hikaye boyunca Lala ve Haruna arasında karar verememesi sıkıcı olmaya başlar. Burda belirtmem gerekir ki hikayenin sonu tam bir hayal kırıklığıydı. Zaten bir süre sonra hikaye de sizi şaşırtan veya güldüren pek birşey kalmıyor.

Şahsen benim en çok hoşuma giden şey Haruna’nın çok korktuğu zamanlarda bir an donakaldırdan sonra gözünü karartıp etrafındaki herşeye saldırmasıydı. Bunun dışında yine başlarda komik gelen ve gerçekten çok gülmeme sebep olan şeylerden biriside Rito’nun sürekli bir şekilde çıplak kızlar etrafına düşüvermesi, kendisi çıplak olarak kızların etrafına düşüvermesi veya koşarken (genelde Lala’dan kaçmak için) bir şeye takılıp düştüğünde mutlaka bir kızın popo veya göğüslerini avuçlamasıyla ve fena şekilde dayak yemesiyle son bulan olaylardı. Fakat bunlarda 50. sayıdan falan sonra can sıkmaya başladı. Aynı şeye ancak kaç defa gülebilirsiniz?

Aslında Rito çok saygılı ve utangaç bir çocuk olmasına rağmen bir şeiklde Lala yüzünden başına gelen bu olaylara büyük bir sabırla katlanması ve herşeye rağmen iyi huyluluğunu koruması, korumacı ve yardımsever yapısı manga ilerledikçe hikayedeki en katı kızın bile içten içe ona hayran/aşık olmasına sebep oluyor. Bir süre sanırım kız karakterlerden Rito’ya aşık olmayan kalmıyor.

Sonuç olarak gayet eğlendirdi beni bu manga. Ama bu kadar uzatmaya ve böyle boktan bir sonla bitirmeye gerek yoktu. Aslında her ne kadar klasik bir shounen sonu olsada…

Bunun dışında çizimler gerçekten çok başarılı ve temiz. Okuması kolay ve eğlenceli. Boş vaktiniz varsa tavsiye ediyorum. Her türlü tabuyu ve sapıklığı görmeniz mümkün. “Japonlar!!…” diyoruz ve geçiyoruz…. =)

Sakamichi Onoda is just an otaku. When he enters highschool, he hopes to join the anime club. Unfortunately, due to the lack of member, that club has been dismissed. In order to bring back the club alive, Onoda starts asking people to join.

One day, he gets a challenge from a cool guy named Imaizumi. He saw Onoda rode his bike on that up step road. It’s not easy to do, but Onoda looked so natural doing it. He actually had been doing it since he was at 4th grade.  Along with Mamachari –a bulky bicycle with a step-he comes to akiba every week. The road is the shortcut to Akiba, the nirvana for an otaku like him.

Imaizumi tells Onoda that if he won the race, he would join the anime club. And the cool guy is surprise to see Onoda can catch him!

Not a very cute manga, because the drawing is suck. But, the story is cool. Too bad no group has taking it into translation. I guess we just have to wait.

My Rating:

Did a little review of Crimson Shell for Manga Recon’s Manga Minis column this week. It’s the artist’s first title and you can tell, but there’s a lot of promise in it.

Grade: C+

Sata Senda has a serious problem with cleanliness. You can call him Mr. Super Clean. He isolates himself from other member of his class just to make sure he gets away from dirt. He protects his body with mask, gloves even plastic shelter. Yeah, he needs help.

For Aiuchi, Senda is a cool guy. He’s gentle and care. He even remembers that Aiuchi is easily getting sick riding bus. For that girl, it’s attractive! She smiles at him like a sun to the earth and it opens Senda’s heart. Even just a little step, he lets her touch him. Wow, that’s an achievement, right? Thanks to that, others are coming to get closer. Senda’s friends are increasing.

Just because you don’t understand him, it doesn’t mean he’s difficult. You just need to get closer to know deeper. I know what we see sometimes fool us, so it’s hard to believe that easy. Though the story is over reacted, but I always like phobia theme.

Touya Tobina sensei may not the best drawer in the world, but she tries her best to visualize this abnormal behavior well. The lines are soft but confident. The background is also composite well. So, it’s ok for me!

You can download it from Karma Falls Scanlation

My rating:

The pervert and stupid boy, Amakuni Saruno, can only gain trouble with his big mouth. He tells Nagi, a cute girl from baseball club, that he used to be a great athlete at his school. Nagi asks him to join the club. But, their club is very strong so the coach gives test for new applicants. First, they need to throw bullet ball for at least 10 m. Wow, it’s not a distance normal people can bear. But, Saruno can throw the ball even further. Well, he really caught the coach attention now. Even so, he’s just an idiot with muscles, right?

Please visit Rycolaa or Village Idiot for the scanlation.

My Rating:

Taikoubou is a lazy doushi, a sennin student. To encourage him working on his potency, the great Sennin gives him a task. He’s ordered to captivate 260 sennin-doushies who make trouble on earth.

On top of the list is Dakki, a powerful sennin who torments people for her pleasure. She marries Emperor Zhou and captivated him by the Love Spell. He used to be a wise king but now he lets Dakki does all she like. People are suffered and this has to be stop.

Since Taikoubo is very lazy, he intends to attack the strongest first. He thinks that if he caught Dakki, then capturing other sennin would be an easy task. However, Dakki is the Queen of Sneaky. She has many illusions to trouble Taikoubou. Will Taikoubou able to complete the mission?

It’s a very boring story. The drawing is way too out ordered. The character designs are awful and so does the costume. I think Fujisaki sensei fails to visualize the novel into attractive manga. It’s awkward because the real condition and his imaginations seems mismatched. Look at Dakki’s costume. It’s only suitable in Mecha’s manga.

You can find the latest scanlation at snoopy cool

My Rating:

Inuyasha

So far for the past week or so it’s been hard to choose the anime of the week. Inuyasha Final Act is getting interesting and addictive for me.

This is the first time that I’m watching Inuyasha in japanese because I’ve always watched the english version so I have to get used to their

voices. I love the openings and ending of Inuyasha Final Act.

-Esta si que es una historia original. Un estudiante genio resentido con la sociedad un buen día recibe la visita de un niño rubio desnudo montado en un águila mientras carga un atún vivo de un metro de diámetro en su espalda, y que por si fuera poco, es capaz de lanzar descomunales descargas eléctricas por la boca. El pequeño se presenta como Gash, y le comunica al impactado muchacho que desde ahora en adelante le entrenará para dejar de ser un cobarde. Al avanzar la historia descubriremos que Gash es en realidad un mamodo, una raza de criaturas demoníacas que viven en otra dimensión paralela a la nuestra, y que cada 100 años son enviados a la Tierra para participar en un enfrentamiento mortal para decidir al próximo rey de su planeta. Por si la historia no fuera lo suficientemente descabellada aún, la gran mayoría de los personajes de la serie presentan algún tipo de disfunción mental, destacando la amiga de la escuela del personaje principal que constituye todo un caso clínico.

En serio este manga es uno de los más locos que he visto. Las facciones  faciales son enfermizas, los reacciones absurdas y el humor descomunal. Quizás el planteamiento de la serie no sea tan atractivo en un comienzo, pero no por nada Gash Bell fue durante muchos años uno de los mangas mas populares tanto fuera como dentro de Japón.  Al progresar la historia esta adquiere tonos cada vez más profundos y oscuros, pero sin perder la esencia de la serie, es decir, la base humorística, que adquiere niveles épicos en los volúmenes más avanzados del manga.

Sobre eso, no esta demás mencionar que Gash, tanto en su versión manga como anime, está completamente finalizado. El último volumen de la versión impresa fue publicado en el 2007 con la friolera cantidad de 33 tomos, mientras que el anime dejo de emitirse el 2006 en el episodio 150. Como es de fácil deducción al observar los años, el final del anime y del manga discrepan notablemente. Esto es a raíz de que el mangaka sufrió una terrible lesión en su mano derecha que le imposibilitó de dibujar durante casi un año completo,  impidiendo al anime mantenerse en el aire. Pese a todo, las diferencias entre ambas versiones no son tan dramáticas.

Volviendo a la historia original, permítanme contarles un poco como se desenvuelven los combates en la serie, el cuál es sin duda uno de los aspectos más sobresalientes de la misma.

Los mamodos que son enviados al mundo humanos necesitan de asistencia humana para expulsar sus poderes. El catalizador de sus hechizos vendría a ser un libro escrito en un lenguaje perdido, que solo un humano compatible es capaz de leer y portar, transformándose en el maestro de aquel libro. Mientras que la asistencia humana es fundamental para el mamodo (ya que sin ellos no pueden utilizar sus ataques especiales) ocurre también al revés, como se da en el caso de los humanos corruptos que usan el poder del libro para el mal.

De esta manera las parejas de mamodos y humanos se enfrentan entre si en busca de obtener la presea final, pero no hay reglas explícitas en cuanto a las acciones que los participantes pueden hacer (o no hacer) durante la extensión el enfrentamiento, por lo que muchas parejas harán alianzas con otros grupos (como es el caso de los protagonistas) para así otorgarse asistencia mutua, pese a que sus objetivos finales pueden o no ser afines.

Ok, hasta ahora todo suena muy interesante, pero eso no es nada en comparación a los dinámicos que resultan los combates en parejas, sobretodo entre varios grupos de mamodos y humanos. Es importante mencionar que algunos de los dueños de los libros también participan “activamente” en los enfrentamientos entre mamodos. Son generalmente humanos con habilidades físicas muy superiores al resto (especialistas en artes marciales, por ejemplo) aunque también hay casos de maestros de libros que participan de manera “subrepticia”, es decir, a una distancia prudente, ya que si el libro que portan es alcanzado por un ataque enemigo, este se incinerará, enviando al mamodo de regreso a su mundo.

Ya sea a distancia para proteger el libro o participando en el combate repartiendo ostias a diestra y siniestra, tanto los humanos como sus compañeros demoníacos de alguna u otra manera se verán envueltos en el fragor de la batalla y si consideramos que la gran mayoría de los combates en la serie se realizan en equipos, podemos contar a 8 personajes enfrentándose al mismo tiempo. Una verdadera locura, de esas que rara vez puedes toparte en un manga shonen, donde la dinámica por excelencia es la del duelo uno contra uno.

Sumado a la enorme cantidad de participantes en los combates, cabe destacar la existencia de ciertos compañeros humanos especialmente aniquiladores, como es el caso de Kiyomaro, el prota (con una monstruosa capacidad intelectual, que le permite adaptarse rápidamente a los combates y a planificar estrategias), SunBeam (capaz de detectar de una manera magistral movimientos y patrones de conducta) y de Alishie (que cuando se enfurece combate a la par contra demonios con las manos desnudas). Ya con esto pueden hacerse una idea de lo ASOMBROSOS que resultan las batallas en esta serie, plagadas de estrategias geniales, movimientos impensados y momentos legendarios que hacen hervir la sangre shonen que todos tenemos en nuestro interior.

Tengo un montón de cosas más que decir sobre esta serie, debido a que creo que ha sido víctima de una enorme injusticia a razón de sus ¿infantiles? dibujos y de la censura sufrida en su adaptación televisiva (al igual como ocurrió, y en menor escala sigue ocurriendo con One Piece), pero creo que el mensaje ya no puede ser más claro, y doy por concluida esta entrada incentivándolos a que le den una oportunidad a este manga, quizás con una historia un poco tirada de mechas, como diríamos por aquí, pero con una progresión general que quita el aliento. A medida que avanza la lectura mejora en todos los sentidos posibles, que no les quepa duda al respecto.

Mein erster Blogeintrag! Und ich komme gleich zur Sache: Hier sind die Mangas, die ich in der letzten Zeit bestellt habe.

Only The Ringfinger Knows – Nippon Novel Band 1+2. Ich bin nicht direkt ein Shonen-Ai/Yaoi-Fanatiker, aber ich lese entsprechende Mangas/Novels doch ziemlich gerne^^

Rosario + Vampire 3. Mittlerweile ist Band 4 schon draußen und ich komme mit dem Kaufen nicht nach. Dabei will ich unbedingt wissen wie es weiter geht^^

Rockin Heaven 8 – Die Serie habe ich vor einer Weile mehr oder weniger zufällig begonnen und habe beschlossen, mir alle Bände zu holen. Nur fehlt mir leider noch der 7., den ich noch nicht günstig bekommen habe ^^”

Pure Love – Boys Love. Schon wieder ein BL-Manga. Langsam habe ich ganz schön viele von denen^^

Aozora Pop 4+5 – Mmh, wieder ein Shojo, bei dem ich hängen geblieben bin. Leichte Kost für zwischendurch sozusagen.

Ab sofort Dämonenkönig! Manga Band 3 – Von allen laufenden Serien mein Favorit^^ Ich liebe die Story und die Charaktere.

Ab sofort Dämonenkönig! Novel Band 7 – Heute bei mir angekommen – muss ich sofort lesen^^

Gosick 2 – Die (ziemlich teuren) Tokyopop-Novels sind toll. So klein und handlich^^ Lese ich immer unterwegs in Bus und Bahn.

Yotsuba&! 2 – …mag ich fast noch mehr als Azumanga Daioh. Und das war schon genial.

]]> http://blogolife.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/black-cat/ Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:24:25 +0000 Méta http://blogolife.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/black-cat/

L’histoire relate les aventures de Train Heartnet, alias le Black Cat, ex-membre des Chronos Numbers, bras armé Numéro XIII de Chronos, organisation contrôlant le tiers de l’économie mondiale. Il manie à la perfection son révolver Hades, fait d’orichalque, matériau indestructible. Après avoir quitté les Chronos Numbers, Train s’est allié avec Sven Vollfied et est devenu un sweeper (un chasseur de primes).Ils rencontrent rapidement Rinslet (Rins), voleuse professionnelle, qui leur demande de l’aider vis à vis des recherches d’un parrain de la mafia sur une jeune fille et “arme biologique” créée par des nano-machines : Eve.

Black Cat est un shonen pur et dur mais c’est un genre que j’affectionne beaucoup. Pas besoin de trop réfléchir, il remplit parfaitement son rôle de libérateur. Il s’agit là de la critique du manga et pas de l’anime.

Bien évidemment, l’histoire n’a rien de philosophique ou de sérieuse mais ce n’est pas ce que je demandais à ce manga. Assez banale, il ne s’agit que d’une vengeance inavouée, sur fond d’humour et de sensibilité. Il est vrai que les bons sentiments naifs des personnages sont parfois risibles par le manque de bon sens. Je veux bien admettre le bien fondé de ces grands principes mais il y a des limites au ridicule. Pourtant, celà ne m’a choqué plus que ca car cette mentalité simpliste et bon enfant reflète le ton du manga. Il ne s’inscrit pas dans la lignée gore ou cruelle de certains mais plutôt dans l’optique d’un sauvetage des ames. On ne peut donc pas être surpris de ce point, même s’il fait doucement rire à certains moments. Ca ne brille pas pour son originalité scénaristique mais ca détend.

Le véritable attrait concerne les personnages qui sont multiples et souvent intéressants. Train n’est pas particulièrement bons mais son coté simple et joyeux rend le bonhomme sympathique. Sven est plus intéressant mais pas assez travaillé. Eve est tout mimi et elle cache un grand coeur derrière son noir passé et son coté froid. Une myriade de protagonistes viennent compléter cette joyeuse bande sans qu’ils soient tous bons. Rins ne présente que peu d’intéret, d’ailleurs, elle disparait assez vite. Le méchant est suffisamment dingue et charismatique pour équilibré avec les “gentils”. Malgré un état mental proche de la folie (voir complétement), son but n’est pas dénué de logique. Ca n’a rien avoir avec un pseudo envie de tout zigouiller pour le plaisir mais plutot avec une réalité que procure l’horreur de la guerre et du monde. Malheureusement, on apprend ses raisons tout à la fin.

Le dessin n’est pas mauvais sans être magnifique. Le mangaka s’est contenté d’un minimum de réaliste (sans compter les monstres) et d’un décor fourni comme il faut. En fait, il offre un style déjà vu pour ce genre mais sans innovation. Je pense que c’est plutot decla lassitude.

Plein de bons sentiments parfois niais, de l’action, pas mal de persos intéressants, Black Cat rempli amplement son role de divertissement et m’a fait passer un très bon moment. C’est un poil long pour pas grand chose, voilà juste mon vrai reproche. En même temps, je l’ai dévoré donc….

Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation is a bit of an odd duck. Muhyo is an executor of Magic Law, handing down sentences to malevolent ghosts and Roji is the lowly second clerk working for his practice. Clients come to their office and inflict themselves with Muhyo and Roji to solve their ghost hauntings, Muhyo holds an impromptu kangaroo court and damns somebody to eternal torment, lather, rinse, repeat. Surprisingly, the book actually straddles several genres and is packed with a enough potential to add up to more than the sum of its parts though. I actually picked up volume one on the merit of its art and wasn’t disappointed and the formulaic stories that I was expecting were already straying from their confines by the end of the volume.

It says right there in the title that this book is about Supernatural Investigation, but the specific focus is actually a little harder to pin down. All in all, I’d say this was a owarai comedy routine set to the tune of monster-of-the-week, but there’s actually a lot of slice-of-life sentimentality mixed in there and Muhyo’s magic law judicial rulings come down to a little light action in the summoning of spiritual ‘bailiffs’ to carry out sentences. For the most part, the mood shifts are fairly seemless, but there are some areas when you’ll go from suspenseful horror to a Roji boke moment to sentimental flashbacks in the span of two or three pages and the shifts could certainly be jarring for some readers. I think the mixed bag, much like Hayate X Blade, really works when you accept that there’s just no pinning it down, but many, justifiably, prefer series that are less whimsical.

Still, it’s this mixed bag of themes and moods that really helps keep the stories themselves from becoming too formulaic. Ghost-of-the-Week and supporting characters don’t need to conform to genre definitions and end up very three-dimensional with wildly different motivations from story to story. You also start to see some intriguing hints at a metaplot in this volume and though formulaic in content, the stories vary widely in interesting narrative flow.

Like I mentioned before, the art is really the major selling point of this book for me. Monster-of-the-week templates are really made or broken on the strength of visual design and the design of not only the ghosts, but the ‘bailiffs’ as well are interesting and imaginative. Misshapen dolls, centipede girls, possessed chairs with a face only the Necronomicon could love, they’re creepy without flying fully into the realm of grotesque. The visual narrative is also very solid; this is one of those books you could follow even if the dialog were not translated. Delineation is clean and legible throughout the book and ink techniques are deftly used to set the tone of various scenes: suspense relies on heavier detail and hatching while light-hearted scenes are very light and clean. Overall, the style reminds me of older horror manga styles done in a fun shonen style, but it really still stands on its own as unique.

*sigh* Remember how I mentioned how well-developed the minor characters were? Not the case with Mohyu and Roji themselves. Both are frustratingly one-dimensional and severely limited to their heavy-handed tsukkomi and boke roles. Like many manga heroes these days, Mohyu is an unrelenting stream of douche who is repellingly arrogant about being the best at what he does and is faced with zero real conflict throughout the volume. I’m sorry, but misanthropic irritation does not dynamic conflict make and I really get tired of seeing The Adventures of Naturally Talented Self-Entitled Egoist:The Still not Breaking a Sweat Saga. On this next point, I may be a little biased by personal spiritual belief against the idea of hellfire and brimstone, but once you also place the ability to sentence formerly living persons to eternal damnation into a complete dickhead’s hands, it starts coming off as more than a little fascistic. On the other hand, you have Roji. Roji…I can see how attaching a sympathetic character to the Josef Stalin of supernatural justice might help engender their adventures to the reader, but this guy is too stupid for sympathy. Roji is such an impotent waste of weeping human flesh you can almost forgive Muhyo’s condescending hatred of humanity. Still, when the moral of every story is Muhyo is right, even when he makes a mistake, it ends up reading more like Ayn Rand than fun ghost-hunting shenanigans.

Lots of potential in this series, but so far, I found the main characters seriously off-putting. Throw a little more development at them and tone down their social maladjustments and I can actually call this a must read though.

Err… right now I have to think were I published this one (my newest, by the way) before. It has not been aired in any forum nor any website… wait, there has been one (big) videohoster that had the pleasure. But it did not really matter at all, since almost nobody clicked on it. So I deleted it there – as I said, I am moving everything to this blog. Since there is a difference – if nobody clicks on my videos while there are hosted on a big site – I can only feel frustrated. But if I have them here on my blog and nobody clicks them – well, at least this “my” kind of thingy.

This slideshow is again one of the better ones, so to say a tribute for some good anime series that have been aired within the last years. A nice little side-effect: almost all of these ones have some serious shonen-elements, so if you like that kind of stuff you will definitely enjoy this one. Whatever, since nobody comments on my slideshows I do not know wether you like them or not ! The only thing I can therefore do is keep them coming…

But the time of feeling pissed is over, it only costs important minutes of one’s lifetime I guess. So, watch it or leave it – I do not really care. Such phrases coming from my mouth, pardon; fingers… guess this is the first time. But since this is “my place” here…

For those of you who are really interested: have fun with this one… ! For more informations (like song title or band-name) look for the tags on this one…

Disclaimer: My slideshows are my personal work – they shall not be used by you and on your site. I never wanted to harm anybodies copyright, nor personal rights and feelings – if you feel like that is the case, please inform me immediately. I declare all the material used within these works as “fair use” of the corresponding material, with all respect to the respective owners of the source material (goes for films as well as for music). If you feel like the quality of the slideshows is rather poor, that is because of the convertion process on WordPress. However, I did not intend to offer them in the full quality. The material as it is should be enough for all my planned purposes, and for your entertainment. If you wonder about the names in the slideshows, that do not match with my nickname Ikarus – they are also former nicknames of me, I would never steal anybodies personal artwork. Feel free to comment on the slideshows that you watched, wether it is a negative or a positive feedback that you are giving. Greetings ! Ikarus/Jimbo (c) 2009

It’s been 2 years since Falcon stopped the terrorist attack in Tokyo. But, the trauma still lies beneath. Fujimaru is working at a café now and never even touch computer. He blames himself for letting so many of his friends died. However, his service is needed now. A plane has been hijacked by two terrorists demanding the release of Hino Alexei, a leader terrorist who’s even more dangerous than Kamishima Simon’s cult. They put the plane into auto pilot and aim it to Tokyo. Can you imagine how many people would die because of that? Third-i thinks that it can be stopped if only they can hack into the system. The only one who can do it is Fujimaru. But, the legendary hacker claim to be dead. Is it true? Can Fujimaru just watch people dying?

The new series is released 6 months after 96 chapters of Bloody Monday. Thanks to many positive response, Bloody Monday is back to amaze us!
Hurry up and visit J.A.C for the latest chapters!

Yay! I was hoping they would make the sequel for the dorama, too. I won’t be tired seeing my cute Haru-chan hacking.

My Rating:

Despite of his ability to move thing, Hinomiya Mitsuru, is just a depressed lonely child you can find anywhere. He barely talks and girls find it cute! He’s always bug by Shijiro Sayu. For Sayu, this boy is a savior. He saved her from broken ferris wheel with his super power.
One day, they found a little girl covered with blood. She’s chased with an awful creature that already killed her mother. That creature is a bokke san. He attacks Sayu and it drives Hino mad. He suddenly pull all his power and turn into something else. It shocking when the Bokke said, “You are a Bokke-san as well”
What is bokke anyway? It tells in a rumor. They live inside forest that cover the town. They are God’s family.

Awful drawing with good story! I already bore after reading the first chapter.
You can download it Hitsugaara, Shinra Tensei atau Kakashi guy

My rating:

It’s been 2 years since Falcon stopped the terrorist attack in Tokyo. But, the trauma still lies beneath. Fujimaru is working at a café now and never even touch computer. He blames himself for letting so many of his friends died. However, his service is needed now. A plane has been hijacked by two terrorists demanding the release of Hino Alexei, a leader terrorist who’s even more dangerous than Kamishima Simon’s cult. They put the plane into auto pilot and aim it to Tokyo. Can you imagine how many people would die because of that? Third-i thinks that it can be stopped if only they can hack into the system. The only one who can do it is Fujimaru. But, the legendary hacker claim to be dead. Is it true? Can Fujimaru just watch people dying?

The new series is released 6 months after 96 chapters of Bloody Monday. Thanks to many positive response, Bloody Monday is back to amaze us!
Hurry up and visit J.A.C for the latest chapters!

Yay! I was hoping they would make the sequel for the dorama, too. I won’t be tired seeing my cute Haru-chan’s hacking.

My Rating: