Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 15, 2010 in Comic Books
It’s all too often that comic books are really about escapism, but every so often you see a book that tackles the issues of society. And one such manga is Hagane no Onna by Hukaya Kaoru which has touched a raw nerve in Japan — now up to its sixth volume (shown above) this manga focuses on a teacher who has to deal with out of control kids and their overly demanding parents. Apparently the book has been so successful that a live action television drama has been produced based on manga and will go on the air in late May in Japan. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 6, 2010 in Comic Books
If you love Naruto you’re going to want to run to your local Japanese bookstore and try and get your hands on Weekly Shonen Jump #18 which just came out. It’s a special edition of the comics magazine aimed at introducing new fans to Naruto. This is part of a larger promotional build up for the new film which will be released in Japan at the end of July. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 5, 2010 in Comic Books
Above: Gesture drawings by the illustrator Don Low.
I just took a look at a webcomic which almost had it all — slick photoshop coloring, a comic book font and an almost dead on faux anime style. Computers area great tool because with some talent you can make anything look pretty finished, but there’s always a stiff quality to aspiring comic book artists who haven’t taken a life drawing class. The reason is that in life drawing you start off with what are known as gesture drawings. The model warms up by changing poses quickly and the artists have to capture the essence of the model within seconds by drawing just a few lines. What’s brilliant about this technique is that it forces an artist to throw their style away and put all of their energy into representing a pose. Read more…
If you’re lucky enough to be in Japan on April 25th there will be an amazing handshake session with Go Nagai at the Go Nagai Wonderland Museum. The day starts off with a Talk Show which traces the career of Go Nagai and then is followed up with the pre-release of the Soul of Chogokin Mazinger Z GX-45C color comic version collectable shown above and below. The collectable robot will be released in a limited edition of 100 and will set you back 6,800 yen: Read more…
Magazine publishers in the United States could learn some real lessons from the Japanese: The May issue of Young Ace magazine features a nice illustration of Evangelion. Apparently the cover is honoring the recent release of a twelve volume manga collection. However the cool thing is that the issue is packed with other Evangelion goodies including a desk calendar. It’s those little extra things like that which make Japanese printed publications so much more lively than what you see here.
So many times fans only think of manga as being focused on either romance or supernatural martial arts, but that’s not always the case: For example the manga series Worst (ワースト) by Hiroshi Takahashi shows the world of Japanese biker gangs — a genre which is quite under appreciated abroad. This limited edition figurine does a amazing job of capturing all of nice little details of Japanese biker culture which is portrayed in the manga series. Worst is very popular in Japan, in fact you can a wide range of merchandise based on the manga from gang rings to sun glasses. Read more…
A museum in honor of Fujiko F. Fujio (pen name for Hiroshi Fujimoto) is set to open in Japan on September 3, 2011. Hiroshi Fujimoto was half of the duo known as Fujiko Fujio who created the Doraemon manga which is one of the most popular franchises in Japan — although sadly the robotic blue cat has never quite caught on in America. Fujimoto passed away in 1996, and as a tribute to his fans his widow helped bring the museum to life as a “way of giving back”. In addition to the many interactive exhibits the museum will include Fujimoto’s drawing table, his personal beret and his pipe. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 29, 2010 in Japanese TV
This very strange Kirin Green Tea ad from 2003 features Nanako Matsushima (松嶋菜々子). Apparently the young lad is getting his romantic advice from a manga, so our fashion model hero knocks him to the floor and then gives him tea tips with the help of her panda puppet. The entire sequence is very strange to say the least, and yet making it even odder is that we never see the panda puppet or the tea in the establishing shot with Nanako: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 17, 2010 in Comic Books
Unless you’re willing to travel to Japan the odds are highly against you coming across vintage manga from the 60s — so coming across a collection is always a cause for celebration: Eico Hanamura dominated shōjo manga in the 60s, and on March 16th a new book titled Happigaruzukorekushon of Hanamura Eiko will show off some of her best work from that primordial era of girls comic books in Japan. This book includes reprints of Some Girl in the Fog, her 1965 series Madeleine Shouwanoto as well as various fashion illustrations. Here’s a gallery to give you a sense of Eico’s style — you can really so how much she inspired how shōjo manga looks today: Read more…
American comic artists tend to love deviantART for showing off their work, however in Japan one of the more favored websites is Pixiv (which is well worth checking out). However the Japanese interface can be a bit much to navigate if you’re not native speaker, so two Pixiv fans mefloraine (who prefers to stay anonymous) and Eugen Rochko have put together a beautifully curated website called PaperDream.net which features an amazing illustration per day from Pixiv.
I was brought up with the belief that coffee isn’t for kids — of course as an adult I see that this was a clever plot to keep more of the good stuff for the grownups who are so addicted to it. So I was a bit surprised to see a line of coffee beverages from Japan designed just for kids! On March 22nd in Japan Pokka will be introducing Café-au-lait Flavor Kizzukafe which features characters from the anime series Penguin Problems: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 12, 2010 in Comic Books
I first discovered the joy of Japanese anime and manga themed art books while I was in art school — and I have to admit that even though these books are always expensive I have yet to regret ever buying one. The reason is that as an artist I always find myself learning from these books and looking at them years later. IllustStudio Perfect Master is a good example of this genre — it’s a collection of a wide range of illustrators who are each given a page in this volume. From what I can gather each artist in the book is using the software package IllustStudio — and the nice thing about this book is that it also includes a bonus CD-ROM which includes a movie of each artist using the software in action. So it’s almost as good as being an apprentice for a Japanese manga illustrator. Read more…
If you’re a fan of horror manga you’re going to like this: Shown above is a GeGeGe no Kitaro collectable which is from a larger line of monster balls. The first set of these goodies will go on sale in Japan on May 6th and there are plans to create 120 for the full series. Below are the first eight which will be released: Kitaro, Nezumi Otoko, Neko Musume, Nurikabe, Medama-oyaji, Ittan Momen, Konaki Jijii, and Sunakake Babaa: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 28, 2010 in Comic Books
Above: Tite Kubo on the left and Nick Simmons on the right.
We all live with the cultural myth that if you’ve got talent and work hard that at some point you’ll be discovered. But the sad reality is that there are some very talented people out there who kill themselves their entire lives and still go absolutely nowhere. And even for these of us who do manage to make a living with our creative skills know that it’s not an easy path. So whenever you see nepotism it’s a pretty bitter pill to swallow. Read more…
If you’re a neko loving manga fan you may want to get your hands on volume 8 of PoyoPoyo Observation Diary which includes a life-sized plush doll of the comic book cat hero Poyo Sato (who looks a bit hamster like to me). Here are some other images of the kitty in action (or maybe that’s inaction): Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 4, 2010 in Animation, Tech
It’s always the silly things that amuse me: In this case it’s an iPhone application that turns your icon set into a grinning Doraemon. Apparently this is a free set of applications from Yahoo! Japan — which include Doraemon manga as well! Here are screen shots and there are iTunes links on this Japanese page: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 2, 2010 in Comic Books
Being a manga fanboy the release of Devil #1 immediately caught my eye: “Manga artist Torajiro Kishi (Maka-Maka) and blockbuster anime studio Madhouse (Trigun, Paprika, Ninja Scroll) love comics. So much so that they’ve decided to publish an original, Western-style comic exclusively with Dark Horse! Enter Devil, a thrilling, sci-fi take on the vampire genre.” Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 5, 2010 in Comic Books
Above: I’m sorry son, you’ll have to move to the back because these fierce fangurls now own comic book fandom. Photo by Christian Liendo.
I just read the article Trends in 00s from Comic Book Resources was blown away when coming across the following mislabled “trend”:
The Rise and Fall of MangaGeorge Tramountanas: At the beginning of this decade, manga was on the rise. Everyone was reading the little “backwards books” and publishers were trying to figure out how to hop on this zeitgeist. Since then, several American manga publishers have either had to reduce their output or have gone out of business. I guess I wouldn’t actually say that manga has “fallen,” but it’s definitely not as prominent as it was in the early ’00s. As for reasons behind this – I have no idea. I don’t know if it was an overabundance of material, or if fans are getting their manga digitally now (I understand lots of Japanese kids are reading manga in a digital format). In any case, it’s something I’ll keep watching – and reading!Read more…
Shown above is a trailer for the film Solanin (ソラニン) which is based upon the manga by the same name which was serialized in Young Sunday. The music meets romance themed film features Japanese actress Aoi Miyazaki in the leading role and is due out in 2010 with a soundtrack from Asian Kung Fu Generation. Here’s a panel from the original manga: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 13, 2009 in Comic Books
This illustration by manga artist Hisashi Eguchi got my attention right away as the Christmas attired anime lady is sporting a vintage Devo cap. The drawing was created for a flyer promoting a Christmas concert in Japan which features the the musician Naoki Yamamoto (who is also works in the anime industry) and the hardcore band Surorana. Here is the illustration at full size (just click on the drawing): Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 29, 2009 in Comic Books
For the October 29th release of Weekly Shonen Champion the publication features a nice illustration of Tezuka standing next to his manga creation Black Jack. This is the 80th year of Tezuka’s birth (born on November 3, 1928) which nicely fit in with the 40th anniversary of the magazine: Read more…
Kazuo Umezu (楳図 かずお) is the the godfather of the Japanese horror manga genre. A new film has been released in Japan which profiles the author/artist who got his start in 1962 and is still active. Umezu is best known for such works as The Drifting Classroom, Makoto-chan and Reptilia. The Drifting Classroom was turned into a live action film in 1987. Here are some samples of his wonderfully gothic work: Read more…
Back in the day my friend Ardith Carlton (who now lives in Japan) would keep telling us about this amazing anime series called Tomorrow’s Joe (あしたのジョ) which she claimed at the time was one of THE best anime series of all time. Of course none of us believed her because the subject matter in the show was boxing and this being the 80s our obsessions at the time were giant robots and cool looking spaceships and of course Joe offered none of that. Little did we know what a cool series that we were missing out on! Ashita no Jō is now seen as one of the heavyweights of its genre. And in celebration of the series Kaitendoh is releasing a huge 1/6th scale collectable statuette which will come out in December: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 11, 2009 in Comic Books
Starting this month the Japanese book publisher Kodansha will publish a series of paperbacks titled The Complete Works of Tezuka which will include every manga that Osamu Tezuka created. The books will be published on a monthly basis and the series starts off with Astro Boy, future editions will include Jungle Emperor (Kimba the White Lion), Princess Knight, W3 and Pinocchio: Read more…
Back in the day my friend Ardith Carlton (who now lives in Japan) would keep telling us about this amazing anime series called 