Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 25, 2010 in Animation
Leiji Matsumoto was born on this day in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan in 1938 — and he went on to dominate anime in the 70s much to the delight of a generation of fanboys including yours truly. He got his start in 1953 drawing romantic shōjo manga for girls and although he disliked this genre you can see the influence it would play in the many strong (but rail thin) female characters which would be featured in his work for years to come. 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…
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…
The Toyota Automobile Museum (located in Nagakute Town, Aichi Prefecture, Japan) will be running a special exhibit on “The Car and Comics” from October 10th until March 7th, 2010. The exhibit will feature many autos from various popular manga titles and anime series like Initial D, Detective Conan, Speed Racer and my favorite the Lupin III film Castle of Cagliostro. Here’s a guide to the exhibit from the official museum website: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 24, 2009 in Comic Books
Weekly Shōnen Sunday (週刊少年サンデ) has been published every week since 1959 (although one should note that it actually comes out on Wednesday during the week, not Sunday). Looking back on their 50 years one of the high points of their history was the year 1983 when their circulation grew by leaps and bounds due to the fresh quality of the manga for that era: So to celebrate this they’ve released the book Shonen Sunday 1983 which gives you taste of the manga from that era. Read more…
I came across this recent manga themed advert for the Nissan Cube and was blown away — I really love how the design of this spot picks up on the conventions of Japanese comics from the black and white characters to the use of zip-a-tone patterns.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 6, 2009 in Comic Books
Back in the day the gold standard of computer programming books were the O’Reilly books which featured distinctive woodcuts of various animals on the covers — well look out O’Reilly because a publisher in Japan has introduced a series of of mangas on an entire range of geek topics! If you don’t speak Japanese No Starch Press is starting to translate this line of mangas into English. The first title in the series which is already out is The Manga Guide to Databases. Here’s the description from the publisher:
“Princess Ruruna is stressed out. With the king and queen away, she has to manage the Kingdom of Kod’s humongous fruit-selling empire. Overseas departments, scads of inventory, conflicting prices, and so many customers! It’s all such a confusing mess. But a mysterious book and a helpful fairy promise to solve her organizational problems—with the practical magic of databases.”
Good news!According to filmschoolrejects.com it seems that Will Smith has stated that the American version of Oldboy won’t be based on the Korean film but instead based on the original manga. This will come as good news to fanboys that were worried that Steven Spielberg (or any American company) wouldn’t be able to capture the graphic nature of the original Korean film.
Shown above is a page from a manga that tells the story of the founding of Apple Computer — you can see Woz in the first panel, Jobs in the center and the Apple ][ flying through outer space at the bottom! From my crude Google translation it looks like manga is from 1984 and was titled Korokorokomikku and included as a separate booklet which was inserted into a computer programming magazine of that era.
Special thanks to Chris Liendo for finding this link.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 14, 2008 in Comic Books
The latest meme in comic book circles on Flickr are artists creating icons of themselves using the website faceyourmanga.com. Of course not being a poor artist myself I just screen grabbed an image and cropped it in Photoshop. Other than costing too much my problem with the service is that look of the artwork isn’t very manga like.
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 25, 2008 in Comic Books
As part of our ongoing campaign to support the destruction of superheroes I’ve decided to shine some light on publisher :01 First Second books. What I like about these folks is that they’ve done an amazing job bringing high quality yet quirky graphic novels to a world that’s been lost to the epic battle of comic book clichés. So here’s a title from their back catalog which I think is worth checking out:
Lat is very much a local legend: At the young age of thirteen his first comics were published in the Majallah Filem and Movie News and by age 23 became editorial cartoonist of the New Straits Times, a large Malaysian newspaper. Lat is best known his creation which is the Kampung Boy series, of which Town Boy is the second book. What makes Lat’s work so enjoyable is that he draws what he knows, so while you won’t find any giant robots what you’ll experience is a vivid visual sense of what it’s like to live in Malaysia through the eyes of someone coming of age:
The first volume of Matsuri Hino’s Vampire Knight was released in January, 2007. By the end of 2007 only three volumes were out— but the series made it to ICv2’s top manga properties for 2007. It was #7 on the list, beating out heavy hitters like Fullmetal Alchemist and Loveless. Now the manga has an anime adaptation starting in April in Japan, which is only likely to increase the franchise’s popularity.
The series follows a young girl named Yuki Cross, who attends the Cross Academy. She is one of the school guardians, who ensures that the Day Class and the Night Class don’t have any troublesome interactions. See, Yuki knows the school’s biggest secret: the Night Class consists entirely of vampires. Yuki herself is the victim of a vampire, her parents having been killed by them many years before. Now she fights for peace between the two races…even if she has to fight against the other school guardian, the vampire hunter Zero Kiryu.
Takeshi Obata is an odd member of this list: the only one who has never written a hit manga (in fact, he’s only written one manga, period). And yet, he’s also one of the most well-known and well-loved creators in my 10some. Why? Because he is the artist behind the phenomenal hit Death Note, as well as the popular board game shounen series Hikaru no Go and the upcoming shounen action series Blue Dragon, based on a popular game.
Obata is a rare sort of shounen artist: his style is very heavy on the details, whether on facial expressions, in backgrounds, or on clothing. His drawings are also more fashion-conscious than your average Naruto issue, often featuring recent trends in clothing and accessories.
But whether the art is for a go tournament in Hikaru or a shinigami consulting with a human in Death Note, Obata’s art is always extraordinarily attractive and, to put it simply, just plain cool.
This twosome has long been a hit amongst hardcore anime fans for their cult series Rozen Maiden, about a collection of living dolls that have to fight to become “Alice.” The series has proven to be extremely viral, and its characters are arguably more popular than the actual series itself.
Unfortunately for Rozen Maiden fans, a dispute between Peach-Pit and the editors at Rozen Maiden‘s magazine, Monthly Comic Birz, led to the series getting a sudden an anticlimactic ending. Fans hope that the dynamic duo will continue the series elsewhere, but there is no news.
You may not have heard of Tachibana Higuchi or her manga Gakuen Alice just yet, but TOKYOPOP is guaranteeing that you will. They’re positioning it to be the new shoujo hit, to replace the uber-popular Fruits Basket when it ends in 2009.
The series features Mikan, a young girl whose best friend, the uber-intelligent Hotaru, leaves town to go to an exclusive school. Mikan, desolate without her friend, runs away to attend the same school: Gakuen Alice. At the school, she learns that “Alice” isn’t just a name, it’s a magic power— one that every student at Gakuen Alice has, but its form varies with each student.
Gakuen Alice isn’t Higuchi’s first manga, but it’s her first to be released in English, and is being positioned to be a big hit in the U.S. if TOKYOPOP gets its way. With fun characterizations, an interesting plot surrounding a mysterious school and its student bodies, and Higuchi’s cute art, the odds are certainly in its favor.
Gia Manry is a Portland, OR-based professional writer specializing in pop culture/entertainment writing. Read up on more of her work at giapet.net or hire her at GiaManry.com.
Kishimoto has only two manga to his credit to date: his debut, a Shonen Jump contest winner called Karakuri, and a little manga about a ninja named Naruto. What, you’ve heard of it?
Jokes aside, Naruto has become the biggest seller in U.S. anime and manga history. VIZ has been releasing both the manga and anime, and the anime has also been a big hit on Cartoon Network. The series, which follows a young Naruto as he grows up and learns about being a ninja— and faces his greatest fears, foes, and friends.
Like its spiritual sibling Bleach, Naruto features a large cast of popular characters all across the “good”/”bad” spectrum, and the titular Naruto himself— who is also the containment vessel for a fox demon —isn’t always a good guy.
Coharu Sakuraba is not one of the more well-known mangaka in the U.S., for the simple reason that none of his works has been licensed for release here. Two of them have been adapted into anime, though, which has provided Sakuraba with something of a cult following among fans around the world.
The first of those series is based on Kyou no Go no Ni (“Today in Class 5-2”), which follows a group of fifth graders and their adventures at school as they sit on the cusp of becoming teenagers. In keeping with their age, the stories often feature some level of sexual interest, combined with naivety as the kids have no actual experience. The slightly pervy tone is probably what prevents the manga from making it over to the U.S., although the series is well-liked for its goofy humor and occasional slapstick.
No name is more revered in the shoujo scene these days than that of Ai Yazawa, creator of the immense crossover hit Nana. The series features two girls, both named Nana, who meet on a train to Tokyo, where they’re both moving. They run into each other again while apartment-hunting and decide to live together. The two are complete opposites in personality; Nana Osaki is a punk rock singer with a less-than-pleasant past, while Nana Komatsu is a cheerful klutz with no particular life plan.
But Nana isn’t Yazawa’s first hit, or her last. Paradise Kiss, the tale of a high schooler Yukari who chugs along at school as her parents tell her, until the day she is “kidnapped” by Paradise Kiss, a group of fashion designers who want her to model for them. She does so, and finds her life turned upside-down as she learns about life, love, and fashion.
You may have heard of a little manga called Bleach, about a high school guy and a few shinigami (death gods) that fight various evil-doers. Sound familiar? It’s only one of the biggest anime and manga hits in recent years.
Creator Tite Kubo is actually the son of a town council member in Hiroshima. His intense art style earned him an editor’s attention when he entered a manga contest, and although he didn’t win, he was able to do a few short stories. He got his big break with Zombie Powder, an action series that was serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump for a year before it was discontinued.
Arina Tanemura is a shoujo manga superstar, with hit series such as Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and Full Moon wo Sagashite under her belt. Her current ongoing series is Gentleman’s Alliance†, which is being released in English by VIZ.
Tanemura’s debut work was a 1997 series called I-O-N, about a girl named Ion Tsubaragi who develops psychic powers. After that she charged ahead with a collection of shorts called Firecracker is Melancholy, and dove into her first big hit: Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, a magical girl series about a high school girl who transforms to fight demons. Jeanne was followed up by the shorter Time Stranger Kyoko, which is a slightly sci-fi magical girl series set in the 30th century.
And finally comes Full Moon wo Sagashite (published by VIZ as Full Moon), featuring a 12-year-old girl named Mitsuki who wishes to be a pop idol but who has a throat cancer that can only be cured by removing her vocal chords— and a grandmother who is opposed to the idea of her granddaughter auditioning. When Mitsuki overhears two shinigami (death gods) talking about how she has only a year left to live, and she runs away to audition. The shinigami catch up with her and offer her a deal: if she promises to go quietly when her time comes, they will give her the ability to turn into a healthy 16-year-old so that she can audition.
He first made waves in the U.S. with his series Master Keaton, whose anime adaptation was released in English by Pioneer/Geneon in 2003. But Naoki Urasawa’s best-known works these days are the Fugitive-esque drama Monster and the extremely popular and still-running 20th Century Boys.
In Monster, Kenzo Tenma is a Japanese doctor living in Germany when he makes the decision to operate on a young boy who arrived at the hospital first instead of a prominent politician who arrived later, displeasing his superiors. Shortly thereafter, his superiors— and the boy, along with his twin sister —all disappear. Nine years later, he runs into the boy, Johan, again, now a man and a mass murderer. When Tenma becomes the suspect for Johan’s crimes, the doctor takes matters into his own hands. He saved the monster; he will put him away. The series is widely acclaimed for its slow yet intense pacing, thrilling and suspenseful action, and particularly its phenomenal characterizations. No character is thrown away; each has his or her own back story, and there are many of them.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 21, 2008 in Animation
In 1991 for some odd reason Brian Cirulnick and myself were able to talk John O’Donnell of Central Park Media into making the first Anime themed CD-ROM. The CD-ROM featured 1,000 targa images taken from various Anime TV shows and movies (everything from from Project A-ko to Urusei Yatsura) and 100 digital video clips which were produced using the then new technology QuickTime from Apple Computer. In fact the CD-ROM was the 2nd commercial title to feature QuickTime, the first I believe was a porno title. The other cool thing about the project was that it featured a multimedia presentation which contained a catalog showing a thumbnail sketch of each image. After it’s release the CD-ROM started to sell well and was even picked up by Educorp (one of the early CD-ROM catalogs). However sadly the title was spotted in Japan by one of the copyright holders who mistook it for a video game and thus ending the shelf life of the project.
Posted by Guest Author on Jan 18, 2008 in Comic Books
With American anime sales on a downward trend, a lot of attention is being paid to its partner in crime manga, the Japanese comics that are often adapted into anime (if they’re not already adaptations themselves). In North America and Europe manga has exploded, but the sheer volume of manga published in Japan means that not every series makes it over here— and even the ones that do don’t always get the attention that they deserve! So here’s one of our Top Ten Underrated Manga that we recommend that you should get your hands on:
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
How can the manga adaptations of a light novel and anime series so immensely popular that even protesters in Gaza use her on their signs go unlicensed and unloved? Haruhi has two manga adaptations: one started in 2004 and was cancelled due to its unpopularity; fans maintain that it’s a poor adaptation. A new version started in 2005, shortly before the anime aired, and now has five volumes in Japan.
