DESUAU : Pop Culture [Anime + Manga + Games] News and Reviews

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2010-11-09T22:36:00.003+10:00

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News : Front Mission Imminent.

2010-05-26T14:22:00.001+10:00

Square Enix have turned their turn based mech strategy game into an action game, in the newest title in the franchise, Front Mission Evolved. Most of the strategy games were never given PAL releases, so this is perhaps SE attempting to launch another popular franchise in the west. I have to say, I liked even the old games, which were akin to Advance Wars, but this trailer looks brilliant, look at all that power sliding! I've been waiting for a decent, fast mech game ever since I hopped into the special VS in the original Lost Planet. Lets just hope they keep the difficulty and learning curve down to a particular level so it doesn't become like Armoured Core.

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News : Japan anime schedule Q3 2010.

2010-05-24T23:43:00.001+10:00

So the first announcements of next seasons anime schedule are in. Sadly, once again, weird lolicon and harem anime seem to be taking the frontseat, with 2nd seasons of Strike Witches and Sekirei, proving that, that kind of crap sells. Some interesting new titles like the popular manga High School of the Dead and one that has a main character who looks like Inuyasha, Nurarihyon no Mago. There's also a 2nd series of Sengoku Basara, the historical superhero samurai anime, which for some reason is very popular with the female audience.

(Click to enlarge)

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News : Deltora Quest anime on it's way to AUS/NZ.

2010-05-24T15:54:00.000+10:00

The anime version of the popular children's novel by Australia's own author, Emily Rodda, has been announced to air it's full 52 episode series on Cartoon Network. The anime covers the first series of books, where Lief, Jasmine and Barda, journey across the land of Deltora, in an attempt to rebuild the belt of Deltora and destroy the evil Shadow Lord.

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Feature : The fall of anime.

2010-05-11T10:45:00.000+10:00

The award winning Australian journalistic program Dateline, recently aired a story on the dying anime industry. Explaining what anime is for newcomers, giving a brief history of the industry and the importance of it.

It then goes on to interview animation studios, talking to chief members of staff who explain that they are disappointed that they can no longer make the anime they want as they have to tailor it to the hardcore fan base rather than the general public, as they can't afford to take risks any more. Obviously the streaming of anime on the internet is to blame for the loss of revenue, just like the music industry, this has forced downsizing and restructuring, reducing the amount of anime created each season as well as tailoring it to the smaller fan market to make sure it sells.

You can see this change in the kind of anime we're getting these days, with all the 'softcore' harem and moe shows and a lot less focusing on a well scripted story or narrative. Dateline addresses this too and I have to agree, these particular shows seem to focus more on weird fetishes, not always going to the extent of what I'd believe to be sexual but never too far from it either. Now days the amount of shows focusing on the story rather than softcore are few and run the risk of bankrupcy. Sometimes the studios seem to play it safe, by combining the two but this still segments the market scaring off the general public and only appealing the hardcore fan base once again.

It's clear the anime industry will continue to change, new ways need to be found to increase revenue and make money off online streaming, however, the music industry hasn't managed to pull this off in the last decade and they no doubt had more money and international research at their disposal. The future is looking pretty grim for anime.

News : Play Mechwarrior 4 for free!

2010-05-01T14:27:00.001+10:00

Mechwarrior 4 (and it's expansion and a number of fixes and add-ons) has just been released for free. Mechwarrior 4 was the last good instalment in the Mechwarrior series, allowing huge user customisation of mechs, a great single player campaign and intense online multiplayer. If you've never played a Mechwarrior game before or are a grizzled veteran of the older games, this is a great title that you'll be sure to enjoy, especially without a price tag. Download it here.

News : Even Windows has an anime mascot.

2010-05-01T11:07:00.008+10:00

It seems even Windows isn't beyond having an anime mascot in Japan. Named Nanami Madobe, themes featuring the character came free with Japanese editions of Windows 7 Ultimate and there are plans in the works for an anime tv commercial.

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News : New Call of Duty announced!

2010-05-01T10:54:00.002+10:00

Last night the next game in the ever popular Call of Duty franchise was announced, titled Call of Duty : Black Ops. Not much is known about the title, except that it's made by Treyarch (as opposed to Infinity Ward who made the Modern Warfare series) and takes place in Vietnam, or at least during the era of Vietnam. This is the 8th game in the series and is dated for release on the 9th of October this year.

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News : BlazBlue gets tournament joysticks.

2010-05-01T10:43:00.002+10:00

The 2D HD arcade fighter BlazBlue is set to follow the ways of Street Fighter, with tournament joysticks from Mad Catz retailing at $200 US, in limited quantities.

Specifications :

Authentic Japanese-style Sanwa Denshi™ joystick & buttons
8-button layout with additional multi-speed Turbo functionality
Premium-quality components with genuine arcade layout
Controller lock/unlock switch prevents accidental button presses
13 FT USB Cable with internal cable storage
Connect to console via lag free USB
Storage compartment for efficient cable management
3-way switch enables joystick to function as left or right analog stick or D-Pad
Integrated headset port for use with Xbox LIVE®
Officially licensed and designed by Arc System Works and Aksys Games

If you're a huge BlazBlue fan, you might want to look at importing these, as all peripherals are region-less and will work no matter where your consoles is from.

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Flashback : Alex the Kidd!

2010-05-01T00:01:00.008+10:00

You may remember him as the little guy with the big fist, who rode a motorbike, fought evil crows, collected bags of money and defeated evil bosses with a fast paced game of paper scissors rock. Alex the Kidd is one of Sega's more memorable post-Sonic games. His most famous title, Alex the Kidd in Miracle World, came build into all Sega Master System II's back in the day, until the first Sonic was released and took his place. If you're feeling the nostalgia right now and wish you could play it again, good news! Whilst looking for footage for this article, I stumbled across a java version of the game which you can play right here.

Bargain : Guild Wars sale on Steam.

2010-04-29T23:46:00.003+10:00

Guild Wars is celebrating it's 5th birthday letting you pickup the Guild Wars trilogy for $19.95 USD on Steam at the moment. That's three games, Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall, each hours upon hours of online Diablo-like game play at a heavily discounted price.

Unlike World of Warcraft and other MMO's, Guild Wars is a lot more skill and story based, you reach the level cap in under 10 hours and then spend the rest of your time progressing through the rich story whilst collecting more of the hundreds of class skills scattered across the entire three games. It's a blast and I recommend picking it up to anyone, even if you're playing another MMO, as Guild Wars doesn't require any kind of payment to play.

If you played the original Guild Wars before (I hear this a lot) and didn't really like it, I beg you to try Factions or Nightfall, they're separate games with separate stories and they're both just so much better than the original title.

Link to Guild Wars : Trilogy on the Steam store.

News : First look at The Last Story.

2010-04-28T17:27:00.006+10:00

Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, founder of company Mystwalker, has been releasing artwork of his new title, The Last Story, for a while now; however this is the first time actual ingame footage has been released and I must say, for a Wii game it looks pretty fantastic. I also like that it looks much more archaic in a more typical fantasy way, rather than being borderline sci-fi like the recent entries into the Final Fantasy series.

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News : Evangelion convenience store and Gundam cafe.

2010-04-26T20:47:00.008+10:00

Yeah, Japan's always at it. Recently they've opened a Neon Genesis Evangelion convenience store, filled with potato chips, deodorant, manga and other assorted stuff that you'd normally find in a convenience store, branded with Evangelion artwork of course.

It doesn't stop there though, A while ago they opened up an official Gundam Cafe, with Gundam drinks, Gundam models and uh... Gundam coffee?

Source & Source

Anime spotlight : Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou.

2010-04-25T18:30:00.002+10:00

Akuto Sai is looking forward to his first day at a school of magical arts, with the dream of being a high-ranked priest, helping the world become a better place. All this takes a turn for the worse however, when a never-wrong magical aptitude test predicts that his future occupation will be that of a Demon Lord.

So begins Akuto's difficult school life, with girls chasing after him, wanting to kill him or use him. Sadly his conduct usually gets misinterpreted for that of evil and his inability to control his insane power ending up in large scale explosions doesn't help a lot either. It's not easy being a future demon lord.

News : Monster Hunter Tri Australian release!

2010-04-25T12:37:00.000+10:00

Monster Hunter Tri hits the street this week in Australia, Wednesday to be exact. Pre-order the special edition which comes with the new Retro Classic Controller from EB for a free Wii-Speak (microphone that sits atop your sensor bar). EB have it listed as 99 RRP, but I'm sure you'll be able to price match somewhere cheaper like JB-Hifi when the time comes. Seriously, having this game inside it is the primary purpose of your Wii.

News : 3D DSi Ware game.

2010-04-24T13:38:00.000+10:00

As you may or may not know, the next version of the DS is meant to be 3D, without use of 3D glasses. Which sounds pretty crazy, I know, I thought so too, until I saw this video of a DSi Ware title, coming out in Japan sooner or later. I mean the game looks stupid, but the way the 3D works is amazing.

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Anime spotlight : Angel Beats.

2010-04-23T19:42:00.003+10:00

Waking up to a girl with a sniper rifle about to shoot a younger girl claiming that she's an angel, Otonashi does the natural thing, telling the girl to stop and running down to warn the so called angel. Unfortunately for Otanashi, the young girl really isn't as she seems and proceeds to stab him through the chest killing him, it doesn't really matter though because you can't kill that which is already dead.

Waking up for a second time in a school room full of students, Otanashi is fed the hard facts by the sniper rifle girl, Yuri. First of all, he's dead and secondly, they're in some kind of purgatory that just happens to look like a school. Explaining that he has the choice of living here, resisting moving on to whatever awaits them after this place via fighting Angel, or acting like a normal student and slowly fading into whatever comes next. Otanashi doesn't like the idea of becoming a dung beatle in his next life, so he agrees to help Yuri and her resistance, not knowing whats in store.

News : Sengoku Basara heading to PS3/Wii.

2010-04-23T14:00:00.005+10:00

The samurai anime famous for it's weird largely female following is coming to a PS3 or Wii near you this quarter. Loosely based on history to the same level that Ikki Tousen is (not very much), the story is about the wars of 16th century Japan but with more focus on a bunch of muscly guys swinging large weapons around. From description the game will playing like Dynasty warriors, where it's your overpowered character versus many small time npcs.

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News : Doctor Who adventure games on the way.

2010-04-23T13:54:00.003+10:00

This year, BBC are making an effort to bring Doctor Who to the land of video games, with 4 different titles coming as a free download to the land of PC's this year. The first one, titled "City of the Daleks", begins with the Doctor taking his companion Amy back to see the Beatles in 1963, obviously not everything goes according to plan and they find a city destroyed by the Daleks.

A reviewer stated that the game is a "combination of stealth action and Professor Layton-style logic puzzles" and "much more than a point and click affair." Charles Cecil is behind the games, co-founder of Revolution Software, the developer of famous adventure series Broken Sword.

Anyway, the games look interesting and are stated numerous times by PR to be "An extra four episodes this season". Experience them first hand starting on June 5th.

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News : Pre-order Starcraft 2 at EB games for beta invite!

2010-04-23T13:41:00.002+10:00

It's been confirmed that EB will be giving out beta invites for anyone who orders either the collectors or standard edition of Starcraft 2 from them as of April 28.

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News : Read manga on your iphone for free?

2010-04-23T13:38:00.002+10:00

A company has released a manga application for the iphone that allows access to all the unauthorized manga hosting sites. Allowing users to view online or download for later viewing. Some companies are already aiming for it's removal, due to it's obvious illegality.

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News : Watch new Doctor Who online in Australia.

2010-04-20T23:07:00.001+10:00

ABC in Australia have kindly decided to put all the episodes of the new Doctor Who (Series 5) on their new online streaming website iView. As for the new series, it's pretty good, the new Doctor is a bit younger, the script writing is similar, there's still some corney bits, some weird bits and some frightening bits. What is a bonus, is that the new companion is pretty hot, which is kind of weird now that I think about it, why havn't they ever had a hot girl before? Must not be that many in the UK! Anyway, you can check out the first episode of Doctor Who Series 5 here, titled The Eleventh Hour.

News : Farmville (probably) coming to your phone!

2010-04-20T22:36:00.000+10:00

That's right, now you're friends will be able to send you dozens of gifts from farmville each day, straight from their phone to your facebook request page! This is based off information that domain names such as www.farmvilleipad.com and farmvillems.com have been found registered to an affiliated company. Zynga the company who owns the game was questioned and responded that "Zynga plans to expand to various mobile platforms. We cannot provide additional information at this time.” All of which I add together and construe to be a pretty strong "probably".

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News : McDonalds Japan uses DSi training.

2010-04-19T22:44:00.002+10:00

In what is a somewhat bizarre, yet typical kind of Japanese way, staff are now trained via DSi how to make burgers, clean their workplace and so on. You'd think the constant repetition of working at McDonalds would be enough, but obviously not. The video is an English news report, I notice the reporter, who's job it is to read off a piece of paper or prompter, somehow doesn't know how to say "NDS" or "DSi" conveniently, guess it's still not cool amongst the older generation to let anyone know that you know anything about gaming.

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Preview : Black Rock Shooter.

2010-04-17T14:40:00.001+10:00

Black Rock Shooter, named from a song by and involving Japan's infamous vocaloids (company mascots turned animated singers with computerized vocalization software) is an anime that quite a few people are looking forward to, but details seem to be rather scarce. The official Japanese site seems to be keeping the story under wraps, but it's pretty easy to make assumptions yourself from the trailer.

Here's the down-low for anyone looking for the technical information. Firstly it's a 50 minute movie, not a series, it will be airing free on the internet in Japan from June 25 to August 31 and will also come free on DVD as an extra with Japanese magazines.

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Anime spotlight : Kamisama Kazoku.

2010-04-16T00:22:00.006+10:00

Samatarou is an average high school student, but with a little secret, he's the son of God! He's living in the human world to learn about those he will be protecting, along with his guardian angel Tenko. Things are going rather smoothly for him, forgetting his nosey family with godly powers, untill Kumiko, a transfer student appears. Samatarou falls in love with her at first sight and dedicates himself to making her feel the same way, without using any of his powers. This is all much to the dismay of Tenko, who is finding that she has feelings for Samatarou and that not everything is as it seems.

News : First official Pokemon Black & White screens.

2010-04-15T16:29:00.007+10:00

Pokemon Black and White have been announced for release later this year on the NDS, it's looking slightly more 3D than previous titles.

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Bargain : Battlefield Bad Company 2 half price.

2010-04-15T09:38:00.007+10:00

Pickup Battlefield Bad Company 2 for half price at any EB Games in Australia for the next four days (Thursday, April 15th till Sunday April 18th). That's $55 for 360/PS3 and $45 for PC!

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News : Yu-Gi-Oh! Coming to Xbox Live Arcade.

2010-04-15T09:22:00.002+10:00

Konami is bringing Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s Decade Duels to the Xbox Live Arcade next week, that's right, that show about monsters summoned from cards that you probably hated five or so years ago is now coming out on your 360. Featuring a full fledged story mode, versus mode for up to 4 people, voice chat and leader boards.

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News : Final Fantasy XIV Alpha Leaks.

2010-04-15T09:01:00.004+10:00

Supposedly Square Enix haven't heard of a non-disclosure statement, because testers of the next Final Fantasy MMO have been blabbing. A tester is posting his day-by-day experience, along with screen shots of the game on his blog, which you can access here.

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News : Dragon Quest Monsters announced for Wii!

2010-04-15T08:35:00.003+10:00

Everyone's favorite Pokemon clone, is now a Yu-Gi-Oh Clone! A port of the arcade game Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road Victory was announced for the Nintendo Wii. Coming with a trading-card game tie in, allowing you to scan real life cards via a DSi application, which could be seen as good or bad depending on how much you like cards and just happen to have a DSi as well.

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News : Strike Witches coming to XBOX 360.

2010-04-13T22:41:00.008+10:00

The popular anime of military flying pants-less magical girls is on the way to the 360 in side scrolling shoot'em up form. Like most games from Japan of the genre, it's retailing for full price instead of being an arcade title, so even if it is region-free and we can import it, will you actually be willing to part with the cash? Anyway here are some screenies.

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Anime spotlight : Eden of the East.

2010-04-11T16:06:00.003+10:00

In the near future, a young man named Akira finds himself naked in front of the white house with a revolver and a cellphone loaded with 10 billion yen. It's later reveled that he has been chosen as one of twelve individuals known as Selecao to save Japan, which is having huge economic and sociological problems. Having the ability to purchase or arrange for nearly anything via a computer hooked up to their cellphones, these individuals have a choice, to save Japan or be erased. Whats worse is that some of the other individuals have differing mindsets, including those who believe that by killing large amounts of the population they can achieve their goal, It ends being left up to Akira to save Japan from the other Selecao.

Anime spotlight : Death Note.

2010-04-07T11:13:00.004+10:00

A supernatural detective story, where a student named Light finds the notebook of a soul reaper, where writing anyone's name in it kills them. Deciding to bring it upon himself to clean up the world, he kills criminals and attempts to scare the populace into the view that doing anything evil or wrong will result in death and therefore creating a cleaner world. Not everyone agrees with this version of justice, declaring that the killer is nothing but a murderer, the worlds greatest detective codenamed 'L' steps in to hunt the killer down, leading to a battle of wits between the two.

Feature : World of Warcraft Manga.

2010-04-06T09:23:00.016+10:00

With the release of a few more titles just around the bend, I thought it was time for an overview of the manga associated with the popular massively multiplayer game.

WoW's manga presence started with The Sunwell Trilogy, a three book series with a story involving a young woman, a blue dragon and the rebirth of the sunwell. The story from the manga tied into the end of the burning crusade expansion in WoW, with both characters from the manga appearing in game and playing a vital part in the last dungeon and raid instance in the game. The next trilogy which will continue on from there is titled The Dragons Of Outland, with the first manga Shadow Wing releasing soon, no doubt following the story of the nether dragons, the black dragonflights plans and what is going down with the leadership of the blue dragonflight.

The second series of manga titled Warcaft : Legends, which is five books in total, is a collection of short chapter-long stories in each book. A few of the stories feature a continuating in later issues, but most are self contained in their single issue.

The third and newest series, which is simply named after the class of which the main character of book is written about, currently contains two titles, Death Knight, which is already out and Mage which is soon to be released. It is yet to be seen if Blizzard will place these characters in-game and intertwine them into the cannon of the game as both titles are rather new.

If you're an avid player of the game and looking for a title to get started on, I would recommend the Sunwell Trilogy, as it relates more heavily to ingame events. If you've never really played WoW and are looking to read one of these manga to see what all the fuss is about, it's probably not worth it, the story isn't really what makes the game great, especially in these titles which focus on pretty minor events instead of major parts of the lore, which is a dissapointing undersight on Blizzard's behalf.

Anime spotlight : Kara no Kyokai.

2010-03-31T09:00:00.003+10:00

In a modern age world, some who see enough of death, can perceive anyone's death, just by glimpsing at them, such is the case with Shiki, a young Japanese woman. Thrust into a world where the real and the supernatural collide, she is mixed up in murders, suicides and experiments of both worlds. Shiki is however not you're average heroine, claiming to be a murderer herself and having multiple personalities, it's hard to tell if she's friend or foe.

Anime spotlight : Gungrave.

2010-03-31T00:32:00.010+10:00

As young thugs, best friends Harry and Brandon have a great time getting into fights and living with their friends, but all too soon things start taking sour turns and the two ending up seeking shelter in a giant mafia organization known as Millinnon. As time passes, the two are slowly driven apart by Harry's deep seated aspirations to be in charge of it all and Brandon's loyalty to the Millinnon organization, leading to a brutal betrayal and an all out war for revenge that stretches beyond the grave.

Feature : anime airing in Japan Q2 2010

2010-03-26T13:20:00.010+10:00

Last seasons anime are starting to end, the better ones (Drrrr!) are still going. In the next quarters releases we see some terrible titles get another season, like K-On and Da Capo, as well as some interesting looking ova's like Black Rock Shooter and last but not least, the Ironman anime, which just reeks of fail, I'm assuming it's going to coincide with the release of the 2nd Hollywood movie.

(Click to enlarge)

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News : Supanova pop culture festival 2010!

2010-03-26T12:23:00.009+10:00

So what is it?
Supanova, is the biggest Australian pop culture expo and is just around the corner in April for Brisbane and Melbourne, with Sydney and Melbourne later on in June. By pop culture, it means anime, manga, games, creepy guys and girls cosplaying and so forth. Normally there's tons of manga/clothes/weird Japanese items and games on sale, some authors/voice actors/real actors to listen to or get pictures with and last year there was also a few testing booths for unreleased games. If you're into any of that, it's probably worth your time, I mean... do you really have anything better to do? It's a once a year thing, it can't hurt you. If you want more information on speakers and actors you can check out the official site here.

Cost + Advice
The single day ticket price changes between $15-25 dollars depending on the venue. I advise buying your tickets online here, as last time in Brisbane I had to sit in an hour long que that stretched all the way around the block just to buy tickets. If you need to buy tickets at the door, you will need cash by the way, there was no eftpos ticket booth that I can remember last year. I strongly advise getting a decent amount of money out of an ATM before you get there, as there as many of the smaller vendors do not accept eftpos and the que for the single ATM machine inside the grounds is always long. Also if you don't like greasy food, bring your own, all that's ever there is a variety of pizza/chips/hotdogs and they're not exactly top quality either.

In Brisbane there's also cheapish paid car parking but the RNA showgrounds are pretty close to the valley's train station so if you don't mind sitting next to people dressed in cosplay, the train is probably the easiest and cheapest form of transportation.

They are also currently looking for volunteers, who work for half a day helping shuffle the crowds around and in compensation get a free pass, t-shirt and lunch. If interested you can apply here.

Dates + Locations
BRISBANE
April 9-11 2010
RNA Showgrounds

MELBOURNE
April 16-18 2010
Royal Showgrounds

SYDNEY
June 18-20 2010
The Dome, Olympic Park

PERTH
June 25-27 2010
Claremont Showgrounds

Armed with my trusty phone camera this year, I'll try to get a fair few pictures from the one in Brisbane and post about it here. Hope you decide to check it out!

Feature : Where to get Halo Legends

2010-02-03T11:44:00.004+10:00

Halo Legends, a series of eight animated shorts set in the Halo universe is out March 3rd in Australia, here's the current roundup of places to order/buy the title.

Gametraders
(Pre-Order Bonus : Free Poster)
Blu-Ray $39.95
DVD $34.95

JB Hi-Fi
Blu-Ray $36.98
DVD $33.99

Madman.com.au
(Online Only)
Blu-Ray $39.95
DVD $34.95

(This post will be updated as more information and prices become available)

Feature : anime airing in Japan Q1 2010

2010-01-07T23:04:00.007+10:00

As the year came to an end, sadly so did many anime series. Don't be alarmed though, there's always more, without further adu, here are the titles of 2010, many of which have already begun airing.

(Click to enlarge)

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News : Halo Legends sneak peak.

2009-10-31T18:27:00.007+10:00

This is a sneak peak broadcast on television of Studio 4˚C's part of the Halo Legends project entitled "The Babysitter". Studio 4˚C are the animation studio behind Spriggan and the recently released First Squad, they also did the music video for Linkin Park's Breaking the Habit.

News : Wolverine and Ironman make the jump to anime also.

2009-07-30T23:06:00.006+10:00

Remember the Wolverine manga from a while ago? Looks like making an anime of popular IPs is the new cool thing to do, with the earlier announcements of the Halo short animated films and now anime versions of Wolverine and Ironman.

I have to say, whilst the animation is certainly awesome, the character design of Wolverine is questionable and why is he fighting Japanese transformer bats?

As for the Ironman one, I like how it has a very retro sci-fi anime look about it. I don't know a whole lot about Ironman, but it seems hes fighting Captain Harlock from the famous old anime, maybe the character design was based on him, who knows.

Anyway, will be interesting to see how the more western marvel/DC comic fans feel about these anime adaptions.

News : Halo anime on the way!

2009-07-28T19:57:00.007+10:00

It was bound to happen someday and it looks like Microsoft have chosen the Animatrix/Dark Knight way of doing things, going with short episodic content from a number of different studios. Amongst them you will see Toei, production I.G and even Bones. Could be very interesting to see how things turn out, anyway here's a few pictures. (How cool does Bones' gundam spartan suit look?!)

News : Noodle cup now with Gundam toy

2009-07-23T12:41:00.007+10:00

Yep, now when you're buying two minute noodles on your next stay in Japan, keep an eye out for the ones with a mini Gundam toy under the lid. Can't say the package seems very appetizing, but hey, neither were Happy Meals from McDonald's and we all used to buy them for the toy too.Source

News : Manga coming to the PSP.

2009-07-08T23:41:00.003+10:00

Sony have stated that they will make manga available through their online store for PSP users later this year. There are already third party programs out there that make downloaded manga a lot easier to read on the PSP than it's standard image viewer, but obviously this way would help the industry more. There's also some rumours about a soon to be released iPhone app offering the same sort of service, but obviously Sony would have better connections to the more popular manga titles, being a large sponsor of many anime series. Currently the PSP manga service has only been confirmed for the Japanese market, so who really knows if we'll end up getting it here, but we can hope, right?

Feature : Unboxing the Bleach box set.

2009-07-07T17:02:00.009+10:00

If you recall this article from a few months ago, talking about the new box sets that companies seem to be releasing, you'll already know what this is. For those of you that have not, this is basically a box set, exactly like a dvd one, but instead of dvds, there's a bunch of manga.

The Bleach box set contains the first 21 volumes of the manga, basically encompassing the first major story arc and starting off on the next one. Anyway, I managed to get this one for cheap on Ebay a while ago ($190 AUS, whereas the RRP is $260) and thought some of you out there might be interested on what's inside and how it looks, so here are some pics.

The front.

The back.

Inside.

All the books.

Double sided poster.

So called 'collectors booklet/travel guide'.

It's a pretty impressive little set, not so sure about the nessecity in having a box, but it may be a hit with some people. The small poster and tiny collectors booklet (which is really just an 8 page flyer for Bleach) were a bit of a let down, but at least you get all the books at a marginally cheaper price than if you bought them normally for $15 each.

Review : Elemental Gelade.

2009-07-05T18:47:00.002+10:00

Robbing and pillaging are all in a days work for young air pirate Coud Van Giruet, but things start to get a little strange when one of his stolen valuables turns out to be a coffin with a live girl inside.

It's not long after the sleepy girl named Ren wakes up and demands to be taken to a place called Edel Garden, that Coud's pirate airship comes under attack by three mysterious characters. When negotiations fail, one of the attackers literally transforms into a weapon known as an Edel Raid and proceeds to directly attack Coud and Ren. With things seeming pretty bleak, Ren reveals she is also an Edel Raid and reluctantly makes a contract with Coud, turning into a huge sword that causes tornadoes when it's swung, unfortunately one of these tornadoes damages the airship and everyone is forced to evacuate.

Once on the ground, Ren and Coud decide to travel together to Edel Garden, with the three former assailants revealing that they are actually part of a Edel Raid protection agency and pretty much demanding that they also tag along. Togther the group get caught up in slave trafficking, attacked by bounty hunters and a come across a mysteriously sinister group of Edel Raids who call themselves the Chaos Choir.

The art of Elemental Gelade is pretty much follows the generic anime style, the character designs are interesting, obviously heavily influenced by the authors former works on a manga adaption of a role playing video game. Coud's main weapon is interestingly a hook, which is pretty unique in a genre where every main character usually has the biggest sword or gun. The manga also focuses on some very realistic issues like the trafficking of human beings. Violence is toned down to the shonen level, not a lot of gore or blood, but plenty of fighting, shooting and general action.

Elemental Gelade is a book that a fan of fantasy Japanese role playing games would love and even if you're not a fan, it's still a good read regardless.

Review : Bakuman.

2009-05-21T13:05:00.000+10:00

Ever wanted to draw a manga? It's a lot more complicated than you may think. Follow the story of Mashiro (Artist) and Takagi (Writer), aspiring high school aged mangaka, on their journey to make a manga.

Mashiro likes to draw and he draws quite well, but he isn't overly keen about becoming a mangaka, a hard to get into and not overly well paid profession. Takagi a student in the same class, finds out about Mashiro's artistic abilities and attempts to push him into the idea of becoming a mangaka with him.

Mashiro also has a love interest named Miho, after finding out that she wants to be a voice actress, he accidentally proposes to her and she agrees to marry him if they can achieve their own goals but until then they can't see each other. So Mashiro and Takagi start the onerous task of creating a manga so popular that an anime adaption will be made so that Miho can star as voice actor in it.

Bakuman focuses on the production of the duo's varying manga titles. Including how it's planned, drawn and published as well as the loopholes, problems and competition that they have to deal with along the way. It's interesting to see how the manga creation is done, it's may also serve as huge wake up call as to just how hard and competitive the industry is, being able to draw well and write a good story aren't always enough.

Bakuman is written by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the team behind the hugely popular Death Note title and as expected, is well written and drawn in Obata's usual top-notch style. Obviously the mangaka plot within their book is written with a degree of experience. There is no action, gore or smut, making the title widely accessible for any audience interested in the creation of manga.

Bakuman is a rather original title, with a perfect mix of seriousness, comedy and romance that will appeal to anyone who likes manga.

News : Shojo Beat discontinued.

2009-05-20T21:25:00.013+10:00

Looks like the girl targeted english manga magazine Shojo Beat has just closed shop. With it's last issue hitting newsstands in July. Shojo Beat featured hit titles such as Vampire Knight, Honey and Clover and Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time.

Obviously this isn't a huge blow for the Australian audience as like with most manga magazines, we don't usually end up getting them here. They won't let us subscribe and the few places that stock them, sell them for a hefty price, but anyway, that's enough complaining from me.

One of the public relations people at Viz had this to say...
"Unfortunately in today’s difficult economic climate we felt the need to place our resources elsewhere at this time. Of course all of our great shojo manga titles previously serialized in Shojo Beat magazine will still be published and available as graphic novels..."

It's always sad see english anime/manga publications fail, as most seem to have done sooner or later, the only exception so far seems to be Shonen Jump.

News : Madman to release manga box sets.

2009-05-11T11:05:00.013+10:00

Over the next few coming months Madman Australia will be releasing more manga box sets. You may, or may not have seen box sets for Death Note (containing all 12 novels) and Bleach (containing the first 21 copies, comprising the first story arc) already in stores. There's also a Fruits Basket box set floating around. Generally these are all quite a bit cheaper than if you bought each book individually. As it stands here's the current box sets and those that are soon to be released.

Already Available
Bleach
Naruto
Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball Z
Death Note
Fruits Basket

Coming Soon
.Hack//Legend Of The Twilight Bracelet
Absolute Boyfriend
Chrno Crusade
Venus in Love
Midori Days
Slam Dunk
Fushigi Yugi
Love Hina

These will no doubt be stocked in stores soon after release. I've already seen the Bleach, Death Note, Dragon Ball Z and Fruits Basket one in Borders as well as other assorted comic book retailers.

Review : Monster Hunter Orage.

2009-05-08T00:01:00.002+10:00

Shiki is a newly trained monster hunter, out to prove himself. But he's a bit over energetic and people tend to avoid him, making it rather hard to join a group.

Lucky for Shiki he bumps into a snotty girl named Irie at the local monster hunters guild. Overhearing that she's not in a group, he just doesn't want to take no for an answer and follows her out on a mission, which she isn't too happy about.

Unfortunately though, the monster they're hunting turns out to be something a little bigger than they had planned, but when they're in danger, Shiki really comes through for Ire, not only carrying her out of harms way when she hurts her ankle, but also proving that he has some serious strength and skills. Skills which seem vaguely familiar to Ire for some reason.

Based on the popular video game series of Monster Hunter and made by Hiro Mashima, a well known mangaka. Monster Hunter Orage has some serious weight behind it. It's done in Mashima's usual style, which is much akin to Oda's One Piece. Shiki seems a little bit on the generic shonen hero side, nearly a clone of Luffy (One Piece's main character). Gore isn't really apparent and there doesn't seem to be any moments where their weapons visibly slice through any of the monster's they're killing, which is a disappointment as in the Monster Hunter games the blood just comes fountaining out. But obviously that wouldn't work with the shonen reader demographic though.

For a title based on a game, it's actually pretty good. It's a pity the author is busy working on other manga and only brings out chapters when he can. If your a fan of monster hunter you'll love this, if your not, then you'll still enjoy it none the less.

Review : The World God Only Knows.

2009-05-06T12:34:00.009+10:00

A Japanese high-school student named Keima is known as the 'Capturing God' for his skills at being able to capture the hearts of any girl... well in dating sim video games that is. He isn't interested in real girls at all and not so surprisingly, they're not very interested in him either.

This title however, brings up some rather unfortunate events. Elsee, a young girl like demon from hell, forms a contract with him, mis-interpreting his skills. Elsee is charged with capturing the evil spirits that have gotten lose from hell, spirits that hide within the hearts of girls and the only way to get them out is to make them fall in love, which is where Keima comes in.

Threatened with attempting this task, or alternatively, losing his head. Keima reluctantly agrees and to his surprise, a lot of real life girls and events are just like this dating sim games, making them quiet easy for him to solve with his amazing otaku knowledge.

Obviously this manga title will lose some appeal on a western audience, as dating sim games really only have a mainstream following in Japan. If you don't even know what a dating sim is, it's probably best to give this one a miss, but for anyone else, it is funny and interesting, even if your not a fan of dating sims. The art is great, with the usual anime style. Violence is minimal, as is smut, which is rather surprising for this kind of title.

The World God Only Knows is an interesting and very 'different' kind of story, it's not usual to see shonen manga without any sort of real fighting going on. Well worth the read.

Review : My Japanese Coach.

2009-04-26T00:00:00.000+10:00

Title: My Japanese Coach
Genre: Learning Software (English to Japanese)
Platform: Nintendo DS
Developer: Ubisoft
Price: Ranging from $15-35 US, retails for $25-45 AUS.

I know technically, it's not a manga but obviously being able to read Japanese would open the door to a lot more manga titles that never end up being translated to English.

Without a doubt, learning Japanese is a long and hard road, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Normally the best way to tackle this task is to enroll in Japanese language classes, which is not always an option due to availability, cost, or just being too busy. The second best route is to use a text book or internet site, but text books don't provide any interactive or verbal training and internet sites are only available whilst sitting in front of a computer and are often just supplements to their text book counter parts.

Luckily Ubisoft have bridged the gap between language classes and text books with My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS. Giving your the ability to learn Japanese words, sentence structure, draw kana and use a variety of soloable mini-games to help you remember. All this without having to pay a high price or hassle someone to help you with your flash cards, as well as providing portable access so you can get some practice in on the bus or during a break at work.

Starting it up you're tasked with setting up a personal profile. The game allows a total of 3 separate profiles, so family members or friends can share the same individual software. You are then given a quick multiple choice quiz to see how much you know. Don't worry if you know nothing, the game was designed for someone with no knowledge of the language, this quiz is merely so the people who have already studied Japanese can skip the earlier, easier lessons.

Lessons are organized into segments consisting of 10-15 words or characters that are related. For example, a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko in hiragana (the Japanese alphabet), or Konnichiwa, Ohayoo, Konbanwa, Sayoonara (Greetings). The lessons contain all kana, romaji readings and Japanese verbal pronunciation for the words and characters. Lessons are small and bite size, containing brief, but well written explanations. The Estimated total of lessons would be around 200, which can be revisited and revised at any time. Once a lesson has been read through, you are required to gain 25 points for each word or character before the next lesson can be unlocked. Points are acquired through the mini games. Obviously sometimes you will need to go over a lesson multiple times, just looking at the lesson once will not be enough, remember learning Japanese is still a hard and long process, you need to stick with it and repeat the exercises until you remember.

There are 12 entirely different games all up, including whack a mole, word search, multiple choice and flash cards. The word(s) you are asked to identify in these mini games are sometimes written in romaji, sometimes spoken and sometimes in kana, obviously to begin with most is in romaji (that's Japanese with english letters) as to make it easier for new comers to the language. There are games like fading characters and write cards which are used to assist with drawing characters by writing on the DS screen with the stylus. There is also a few games that help the user by getting them to arrange words to make specific sentences, helping greatly with sentence structure. These mini-games really give My Japanese Coach a big edge on all it's competition.

If the above features haven't already sold you this piece of software, it's also an electronic dictionary and phrasebook. You can type any word in english or romaji and the translator will show you it in romaji, kana and english with a description. It will also provide a verbal pronunciation of the word. If you own a DS, don't know Japanese and are going there for a holiday or work, this feature would be your best friend.

My Japanese Coach is probably the best Japanese solo-learning tool available, obviously, a class room environment is still preferable, but then this would also be the best supplementary study tool available, so purchasing this title is win-win for anyone who is keen to learn the Japanese language.

News : The communist manga of World War II.

2009-04-25T12:41:00.009+10:00

In light of the fact that it's ANZAC day, here's a little bit of a historical lesson for you.

In 1937 when Japan first entered the world war II, the government forced artists and cartoonists to join a government trade organization, known as The New Cartoonists Association of Japan, which published the only manga magazine amidst the wartime paper shortages.

The manga authors drew comics following the governments guidelines, usually having family-style humour as well as making light of the wartime shortages, glorifying the war effort and demoralizing the enemy. Manga was used as a propaganda tool with illustrated leaflets used as an attempt to undermine the psych of allied soldiers.

But the allies also had a manga artist who had left Japan earlier named Taro Yashima, who created a book called "The Unlucky Soldier". Which tells a story about a peasant dying in service to his corrupt leaders. The book was often found on corpses of the Japanese soldiers, showing the strong emotional effect it had on its readers.

Still interested? feel free to read more about the history of WWII/Post War manga here.

Review : Blood+

2009-04-22T21:59:00.010+10:00

Saya is a seemingly ordinary girl with a large appetite, living with her foster family on the sunny coast of Okinawa, Japan. She just has one little problem, she can't remember anything from more than a year ago.

When attacked by an inhuman beast, known as a Chiropteran, memories start slowly coming back. After surprisingly regenerating her wounded legs, a tall stranger appears and hands her a blade. Seemingly in a trance, Saya takes the blade, trickles her blood over it and slices the beast in half.

Afterward an organization named Red Shield make themselves known to her. Their objective is to destroy the Chiropteran threat. But the only way they can do that, is with Saya's help, as her blood is the only thing that can defeat them. Obviously not having much of a choice Saya is thrust into an underground war between Red Shield and The Chiropterans, but coming to terms with what she is and what she must do, weighs heavily upon her mind.

The design and flow of the narrative is simple and well paced, making the story easy to follow. Saya's psych is also well represented by her facial expressions, it's easy to tell when shes acting on instinct, rather than rationally. The art is faultless, but generic, drawn in the usual anime style. There is blood, gore and strong horror themes, so it's probably best kept to a slightly older audience.

Blood+ is a good, modern vampire story, full of action, comedy and a lot of gore. Saya's inability to remember her past, keeps the story interesting and the reader guessing. It's a pity it isn't as in depth as it's anime version and only lasts five volumes.

News : Star Trek manga?

2009-04-19T15:47:00.004+10:00

Looks like more and more companies are following the new trend of releasing manga series with their US movie tie-ins. The newest abuser is of course, Star Trek, the manga. For those 'in the know' with the Star Trek scene, I'm told it will be based on The New Generation series from TV.

Something just doesn't feel right about all this though, but I guess, it must have a market, or else they wouldn't make them, right?...

Which leaves us asking, what's next? Terminator Salvation? Angels and Demons? Fast and the Furious? Only time will tell.

Review : Special A

2009-04-02T10:29:00.003+10:00

Hikari is a girl with a curse. To always lose to her male rival Kei, in both sport and school. It's not just a recent thing though, it's a mission shes been on for over half her life, since she lost to him in a wrestling match when they were six.

Kei and Hikari are part of the elite class of their school known as Special A, made up of the top seven students. Each student has relatively rich or powerful parents, except for Hikari, and all have oddball traits and personalities. Amongst others, there's a guy who randomly wanders off from time to time, an overly controlling angry girl and a mute who writes what she wants to say on a sketchbook.

Hikari is determined to beat Kei and never gives up. Unfortunately for her, things never seem to go her way. If she gets 100 on an exam, Kei manages to find a fault in the test and receive 105. Even in team based games like basketball, Hikari's team will always lose to Kei's. She just keeps on losing, but she never stops trying. It's also plainly obvious that Kei has a huge thing for Hikari, obvious to anyone else that is. Hikari doesn't see Kei as anything more than an ignorant, pompous, jerk who she must beat at all costs, but luckily, Kei doesn't give up and keep's striving for Hikari's affection, although, he still never lets her win at anything.

Special A features a slightly girly style of art. Although, it's not over the top like some manga are and can still be read rather comfortably by the opposite gender. Although the general quality of art is rather high, sometimes the pages feel a little busy and it's hard to keep up with the dialogue. Hikari isn't the average heroine of Shojo manga either, she's not a pushover and stands up for herself when she needs to, including beating the hell out of some fellow male students giving her trouble. Violence is minimal and there is seemingly no smut, which makes it easily fall into the all ages category.

Special A is a nice, clean, funny, high school romance story with a twist that will appeal to both a female and male audience.

News : Supanova Brisbane this weekend!

2009-04-01T10:46:00.009+10:00

Just a heads up for anyone living in Brisbane, Australia. The Supanova Pop-Culture convention is on this coming weekend, 4-5th of April at the RNA showgrounds. Ticket price is $25 dollars for a day. Lots of big comic and manga stores will be there, as well as distributors like Madman. Usually selling a huge variety of manga at a very low price. Last year Madman was selling their titles at $10AUS each and some of the other comic stores were doing a 'buy two, get one free' deal. So it's worth the money at the door to get in, even if you're only going shopping and not attending any of the events.

As far as events go, the writer of Invader Zim will be there and Madman are steaming an english subtitled premier of the new Full Metal Alchemist series on Sunday night, there's also cos-play competitions if you're into that sort of thing.

Update - You can now watch the first few episodes of the new Full Metal Alchemist : Brotherhood series in Madman's online Screening Room for free (with english subtitles) here.

News : Would you read manga on an e-book?

2009-03-26T21:20:00.010+10:00

Would you read manga on an e-book? That's the question I'm asking you.

For a few years now, companies have been coming out with e-book readers. Basically a small electronic device with a singular screen that you can read off. Usually the actual reader sets you back a bit, but in return the cost for digital distribution of novels is somewhere around $1-3 dollars US, substantially lower than if you just went out and bought the book.

Amazon has been spearheading the operation with their e-book titled Kindle and allowing you to buy books digitally from a vast collection of titles, as well as let you move PDF's to your e-book for a small monetary fee.

But now Google and Sony have formed an alliance and are making a new e-book reader. It is also rumored that they are working on an alternative strategy than making a user pay individually per book. There's also the chance that it will have PDF support for free, which could allow manga publishers to sell via digital distribution which you can then move over to your e-book.

There's already software out there for the Sony PSP to be used as a type of manga e-book and a few companies have taken advantage of that, allowing manga downloads in a format easily accessible on the PSP.

So would you consider it or do you believe e-books are just a gimmik? Obviously having a lot of publishers jump aboard the e-book would help substantially, but it just doesn't seem like there's a huge demand out there for it currently. Although I know a lot of manga readers currently read entire manga titles off arguably legit internet sites, so perhaps it's not as bigger leap for fans of this medium.

News : X-men making the jump to manga.

2009-03-25T19:59:00.010+10:00

It looks like they're trying to cover both shonen(boys manga) and shojo(girls manga), the misfits one is kind of disturbing don't you think? I mean X-men is predominantly a comic made for males and it seems like they're stretching it a bit in an attempt to appeal to a female audience.

I'm not really a huge fan of X-men, but it's interesting to see what they're trying, might check out the wolverine one if I see it in stores. As someone mentioned to me, he looks like an 80's rock singer! I think I'll pass on the "girl at all-boys school" one though.

The gripping, all-new adventure of the X-men's greatest icon, completely reimagined in the Manga style.

This is not the Wolverine you know.

Logan is a teenage rebel with a real good reason for having a real bad attitude. Ever since being left in a nearby forest–with no memory of who he was or how he got there–Logan (or Wolverine, as his classmates sometimes call him) has been stuck in a martial arts school in the icy wilds of Canada. No wonder he’s bored, restless, yearning. There’s a whole world out there, and Logan can almost taste it. But he’s chained to a past he can’t remember and can’t escape. Now it just may destroy his future.

Marvel's mutants in a radical remix! Kitty Pryde has always been the odd girl out. A mutant, she was born with strange superpowers, magical talents that make her the class freak. But Kitty's world is changed when she's invited to study at Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, a special home for mutant teens. There's just one catch: Kitty's the only girl at the all-boy school, and she ends up just feeling like a freak all over again.

Blurb and pictures from justmanga.com.
They will also be selling them when released if your interested.

Review : Welcome To The N.H.K.

2009-03-23T19:31:00.011+10:00

There is a massive conspiracy going on, one huge company is calling the shots. Their sole purpose, to destroy your dignity, self esteem and turn you into a house-bound hikikomori (social recluse). Luckily one brave hikikomori has seen through their scheme and is fighting back, his name is Satou Tatsuhiro.

Satou is a 22 year old, unemployed, university drop out, who has been living holed up in his apartment for 4 years. He sleeps 16 hours a day, only ever leaves when he needs to buy smokes or food and lives off money funneled through to him from his parents. Satou hasn't given up, but any attempt to leave his apartment is foiled by the N.H.K. A real-life Japanese television channel and in his mind an evil corporation whose sole purpose is to stop him from re-entering normal society.

Satou's life is arguably changed for the better though when Misaki, a young girl with aspirations of curing him appears out of the blue. But it's not quite that simple, thanks to his perverted otaku neighbour and friend who ends up getting him into all sorts of morally questionable activities. Like downloading gigs of porn, hiding in bushes and taking photos of school girls and to top if off, attempting to make a hentai game.

It's not all fun and laughs though, with the characters all having to deal with their own traumatic emotional issues and hardships. Which perhaps reflect many of the social and mental issues associated with todays youth and modern society.

The art is that of the usual manga style. It communicates Satou's psych quite well, it can make him change from just an average guy, trying his best, to a crazy depraved molester in mere seconds. It's all in the angles, use of shadows and facial hair. Obviously with such questionable themes comes questionable imagery. Welcome To The N.H.K. is best kept to a mature audience. Also for anyone interested, the original book that the manga is based on is also available in english from Tokyopop and has a very different ending.

Welcome To The N.H.K. is perhaps one of the greatest black comedies ever written, it will make you laugh, cry and even gasp in horror at some of things Satou and crew get up to.

Review : D.Gray-Man.

2009-03-21T22:52:00.003+10:00

Born with a disfigured arm and cursed by his foster father, Allen Walker is not your average protagonist. In his curse, however, lies his power. The ability to perceive akuma, dangerous unholy monsters that disguise themselves as the humans they kill, who work for the Millennium Earl and the Noah family, those forsaken by God.

Fortunately for Allen, his disfigured arm is also an anti-akuma weapon, which are called innocence. Hundreds of innocence are scattered about the world and at the right time and place can come to synchronize with certain people. These people are known as exorcists, part of the black order, a branch of the church dedicated to destroying the akumas and stopping the Millennium Earl from destroying the world.

The object of the game lies in the innocence. One out of the thousands contains "the heart" the only way to stop the Earl. On the other hand, the Earl knows that getting his hand on the heart will mean mankind has no hope. Some of the un-synchronized innocence cause strange phenomena, like giving dolls life, vampires or even make a day repeat itself over and over. Leaving it a race between the Earl's akumas and the exorcists to investigate any strange activity and acquire, or destroy the innocence.

Allen's team consists of Lenalee, a girl with innocence impowered boots, allowing her to fly and kick akuma's pretty damn hard, Kanda, a young Japanese man whose innocence lies in his samurai sword and Lavi, the older of the four, who wields a hammer that can extends and grow to any size. They fight against the akuma of various shapes and sizes, they also evolve and become much more dangerous, the Noah family, super strong human beings who are marked by stigmata on their forehead and last of all the Millenium Earl, a strange, plump, mysterious being with one purpose, to destroy the world.

The art is of a higher quality than the normal shonen battle manga, the style doesn't really stand out, but it's extremely consistant and sharp. Character designs are rather good as well, except for a few strange ones, for some reason the Earl looks like Penguin from batman. There's only really fantasy violence, the weapons used would never be mistaken for anything real and the akuma are machines, rather than creatures of fleash.

D.Gray-Man is a great fantasy battle manga with a fresh story and goth overtones. Whilst sometimes it does seem to drag out a little, like most battle manga do, it keeps the story vivid and interesting enough to read on.

Review : Speed Grapher.

2009-03-20T14:29:00.003+10:00

Dodge the lens of the camera as best you can, not because your having a bad hair day or just feeling a tiny bit shy, but because anything caught by Saiga's cameras instantly explodes.

Saiga is a famous war photojournalist, reduced to the everyday job of a bottom feeding paparazi, that is until things take a turn for the worst. Following a trail of corruption and murder Saiga uncovers a bizarre ceremony being held by an elusive underground society. When his cover is blown, it seems like the end, until the object of the ceremony, a so called goddess, gives him his one true desire. To destroy the things he takes photos of.

With camera in tow, Saiga takes the goddess hostage and to his surprise she's just a simple school girl named Kagura, unaware of what shes been doing. Both wanting to get away from the sinister underground society, they make a break for it. But it's not so simple when there are others with powers just as strong as Saiga's after them.

The art is of a very high quality, mirroring the style of Takeshi Obata (the artist of Death Note) nearly exactly. It works very well with such serious manga, theres not really many comedic moments, it's fast paced pumping action from beginning to end. It is also very violent and contains pornographic imagery, so obviously better kept to the older audience.

Speed Grapher is a very interesting title, with a cool protagonist, a violent fast paced plot and amazing art. Can't really ask for much more than that.

Review : FLCL.

2009-03-07T08:23:00.011+10:00

Imagine if you suddenly grew a horn on your forehead. But it's not really a horn, it's the portal to the belly of a robot cat. Doesn't make a lot of sense to you? Well that's what FLCL is all about, making barely any sense, in the coolest way possible.

Naota is a young boy living in a small town, who spends his days hanging around with his older brothers clingy ex-girlfriend. That is until some crazy girl riding a scooter appears and smacks him in the forehead with a guitar.

When Naoto regains consciousness he returns home to find the crazy scooter girl and some weird robot with a tv for a head working as maids in his house. Naoto has barely anytime to take this all in before a giant robot hand emerges from the guitar wound on his forehead. Before any more of the hand makes it through the TV headed robot shows up, tears it off at the root and then systematically beats it into a pulp. As the story progresses more of the robot makes it through. Naoto and crew are forced to deal with them, albeit, not in the usual battle-manga type way.

Obviously a strange story needs a strange art style and Hajime Ueda offers just that. Unlike any other manga, the art is very rough, but in a stylish way. Featuring heavy sketching, odd angles and demented characters. Even if the story doesn't particularly speak to you, it's worth a read just for a look at the unique and amazing art. There's some violence and sexual themes, but it's kept to a minimum and would be enjoyable for the usual 13+ manga audience.

FLCL has a crazy story, crazy characters, crazy art, generally a crazy manga. You'll either love it or hate it, but if you hate it, one day a crazy girl on a scooter may come and smack you in the forehead with a guitar. You've been forewarned.

Review : Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles.

2009-02-18T23:08:00.007+10:00

In an ancient kingdom on a different world, a young princesses memories are forcibly taken from her by an unknown force and scattered across space and time to numerous worlds and dimensions.

Syaoran, a young archeologist, is desperate to save his beloved princess Sakura. In a bid to save her life he makes it through to another world to visit the space-time witch. She agrees to help, but only for a price. She gives him a rabbit like creature called Mokona, which has the ability to sense Sakura's memories as well as being able to randomly teleport to different worlds.

Now with a way open to him, Syaoran immediately embarks on an epic quest to retrieve Sakura's memories, which have taken the form of feathers on various worlds. Luckily for him, Syaoran is not alone on his long journey, he is joined by Kurogane a great warrior who wishes to return to his world and Fai a great mage who wants to do anything but return to his world.

Clamps character designs as per usual are top notch, setting a bar for other artists to aim for. Each frame is a work of art by itself. Drawn simply, but beautifully, which may be why Clamps titles are always so popular with girls. Fortunately Tsubasa is one of Clamps titles which contains enough interest and action to make it appeal to a male audience as well. Violence is all of a fantasy style, mainly involving magic, so it's relatively fine for audiences of all ages.

Tsubasa is a fine fantasy title and if anything like Clamps other titles will no doubt to be a long one. The selflessness of Syaoran really stands out amongst similar titles and will no doubt remain memorable. The ability to bring in different worlds and cultures will no doubt keep the series fresh for as long as it lasts.

Review : Buso Renkin.

2009-02-16T22:56:00.004+10:00

Homunculus walk amongst us. Vile half human, half machine beasts who feed on living humans. Luckily alchemist warriors wielding powerful weapons known as Buso Renkins, work behind the scenes, protecting the unaware populace from their threat and culling their numbers.

After selflessly protecting someone who didn't really need saving from a homunculus, Kazuki, a male high school student is granted a replacement heart in the form of a spare Buso Renkin from alchemist warrior Tokiko, a serious girl with a mysterious scar across her face. Tokiko originally tries to keep Kazuki away from the world of alchemy, but his total disregard for his own safety whilst others are in trouble slowly drags him in.

Despite the serious plot, Buso Renkin is packed full of comedic moments, some in the right places, some not so much. For instance the primary antagonist has a very fruity wardrobe, which kind of undermines the serious plot earlier on. Nobuhiro is a seasoned manga veteran known mostly for his internationally successful series Rurouni Kenshin. His art is clean, vibrant and full of action. His character designs are alright, some are great, but as mentioned before some are also a little strange or questionable.

Tokiko's Buso Renkin named the Valkyrie Skirt is on the better side. The weapon starts as large metal rings around her thighs, when deployed 4 huge blades on the end of long maneuverable poles lash out, kind of like spider legs. It looks very cool and must have been insanely hard to plan or draw. There is a lot of violence and a tiny bit of gore, it is a battle manga, but it's all against monsters that barely resemble anything human at all.

Buso Renkin is an enjoyable and unique story, Kazuki's and Tokiko's relationship is a lot more in depth than your average shonen battle manga. The art is near perfect, the comedic elements and jokes are great, even the stranger characters end up growing on you later on in the series. Not a bad manga at all.

Review : Full Metal Alchemist.

2009-02-14T22:50:00.009+10:00

Everything works on one principle, equivalent exchange, including the science of alchemy. When young boys Edward and Al Elreic lose their mother to an incurable disease, they attempt a forbidden human transmutation to bring her back to life.

They believed themselves to be prepared with all the elements of the human body on hand to exchange for their mother. They were wrong. Edward loses one of his legs and Al loses his entire body, in a final bid to save his brother, Edward trades one of his own arms to transmute his brothers soul into one of the armoured suits in the room. The two are left a sorry mess. One a young boys soul in a huge empty suit of armour and the other with two artificial limbs known as auto-mail, usually a sign reserved for war veterans.

With no hope of ever restoring their mother, Ed and Al set to putting things right, restoring their bodies. But for that they will need the legendary alchemist stone. Unfortunately for them, it's not just legendary, it's also more of a rumour, but this doesn't dissuade the boys, who set out on an epic journey chasing any leads they they can find. A lot of mysterious forces and obstacles stand in the way, a corrupt military, several homunculus and a man obsessed with wiping any signs of alchemy off the face of the earth. Even in the end, it's price may not be something the boys are willing to pay.

The art of full metal alchemist is of a standard anime style. The world is some sort of modern alternative dimension, different enough to be interesting, close enough to not need to explain what general objects are or do. The comic contains a lot of sarcastic humor to compliment the plot and will no doubt appeal to a broad audience. A caution though, Full Metal Alchemist does have some strong themes and scenes concerning parts of the story when human transmutation is involved, for example the very first page has a very vivid image of Edward dragging his bloody stump of a leg across the ground.

Full Metal Alchemist is an interesting and inspiring story of two brothers trying to right their own wrongs, along the way overcoming some huge metal and physical obstacles. Even though it is in a sense, fantasy, it touches on some very realistic issues that are in the world today, like religion, racism, war and the morality of science in general. Full Metal Alchemist is without a doubt one of the greatest and most unique stories ever written.

Review : Bleach.

2009-02-11T13:14:00.004+10:00

After death, some souls linger in this world. Left to loiter and brood long enough and they turn into hollows, huge deadly masked creatures invisible to the living who eat souls and people alike. Unfortunately for high school student, Ichigo Kurosaki who can see ghosts, hollows prefer to hunt the those with a strong sensitivity to the world of the dead.

Soul reapers, dressed in black and wielding swords formed from their own soul are tasked with killing hollows and protecting innocents. Rukia, a female, dark haired soul reaper is tracking a hollow hunting Ichigo and his family. When things go wrong and Rukia is injured, Ichigo makes the choice to borrow Rukia's powers and become a temporary soul reaper in order to save his family. Afterward Ichigo is forced to take on Rukias soul reaper duties until she gets her power pack and unwillingly some of Ichigo's friends and schoolmates are drawn into the esculating conflict in the world of the dead. Unfortunately, Ichigo's borrowing of soul reaper powers also goes against the laws of the soul reaper society and when found out, Rukia is taken by her fellow soul reapers and found punishable by execution.

Ichigo is the primary protagonist of bleach, a 15 year old that looks more like hes 20. Ichigo has the typical "I don't know what I'm doing, but I will stand up for what I believe in!" attitude of most shonen jump heroes. When turned into a soul reaper Ichigo wields a gigantic blade to supplement his head-first attitude. Although bleach has a huge supporting cast, Rukia can be considered the main supporting protagonist. Shes short and overly serious but has a cute side displayed through means such as her terrible artwork and love of bunnies. She also actually looks like shes 15 but claims to be over 100 years old, quite the opposite of Ichigo. Other members of the supporting cast include Orihime, a shy, comical girl, who acts a healer. Chad, a huge Mexican with incredible strength and Ishida, a priest like archer who hates soul reapers a lot. The cast is rather varied and helps keep the manga interesting, as well as perhaps helping to draw it out.

Bleach's art and style relies more heavily on action and movement than on each frame being an individual work of art. Tite Kubo also has a good sense of style and shows in most of his characters, in particular what they wear. Besides the fashion sense, nothing really stands out about the art, but there's nothing drawn badly enough for you to stop reading, which in reality means the art has done it's part in telling the story efficiently. Since most of the fighting is not incredibly realistic and more often than not is against a fifteen foot monster, it can easily be read by a broad age group.

Bleach is a great modern world/fantasy cross over, it's has a broad range of characters all interesting and cool in their own way. The idea of sharing a world with spirits obviously isn't incredibly unique, but bleach still has a good go at the concept and obviously did something right as it is currently one of the more popular manga titles out there.

Review : Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy.

2009-01-11T13:13:00.021+10:00

Set in the world of the popular computer game series, Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy is a high fantasy story of fire breathing dragons, rotting undead and one mysterious young woman at the center of it all. Written by well known fantasy novelist Richard Knaak, who also helped with the english adaption of the Ragnarok manga series. The Sunwell Trilogy actually contains the three seperate graphic novels; Dragon Hunt, Shadows Of Ice and Ghostlands, is unscaled to a larger page size and given a well designed hard cover.

The story revolves around Anveena, a young seemingly innocent country girl and Kalec, a blue dragon who has taken human form and cannot leave it due to unforeseen circumstances. Kalec is searching for the sunwell, a lake of potent magic that has seemingly disappeared. After Aveena's home is attacked, she gets caught up in Kalecs search for the sunwell as well. Unfortunately, the undead scourge are also looking for it and hamper the pair at every turn.

For those familiar with the franchise, the story takes place after the events of Warcraft III and leads up to the final events of World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. For those unfamiliar with Warcraft or just wanting to brush up on their lore, The Sunwell Trilogy contains a very dense explanation of Warcraft history at the start. If you've never played any of Warcrafts incarnations I would not suggest this manga, it seems to have primarily been made for Warcraft fans, a lot of events and character appearances will have a lot less impact to those unfamiliar with the franchise.

The art is more reminiscent of older manga titles, but is still very much in the anime style, the female blood elf Tyri is inarguable proof of it, especially when she gets attacked by tenticles at one part in the book. Despite being called 'War'craft there isn't actually a lot of overly violent scenes within the book, or adult/sexual themes for that matter, making the novel accessible for all age groups.

The Sunwell Trilogy has a fine narrative, which is easy to follow for anyone but will appeal more to Warcraft fans. The conclusive plot twist is pretty shallow and obvious, but besides that it remains overall a strong graphic novel that will entice all high fantasy story lovers.

Review : Zombie Powder.

2009-01-03T23:51:00.024+10:00

Raising the dead or attaining eternal life may be simpler than you would think. All it requires is a little zombie powder, which can be acquired from the twelve rings of the dead. Unfortunately, everyone else also knows this and these abilities are not exactly unwanted by the masses. Enter Tite Kubo's first graphic novel series, Zombie Powder. Set in a modern-western world where everyone and everything is after the twelve rings of the dead. Zombie Powder is packed full of gun and sword fights, set in a unique local where saloons sit alongside buses and has cast of very unusual characters.

Gamma, a tall, long haired man is after the rings to make himself immortal. Besides being a wanted criminal, Gamma isn't exactly your run of the mill main character. For one, he wields a huge motorized chainsaw sword. Secondly, you may think, surely a gun is more effective than a sword? Well Gamma seems to have figured out a way around this, having nailed metal onto his own skin, he is able to stop bullets by merely blocking or catching them with his hand. He's a pretty light hearted character most of the time and gets himself into a lot of comedic situations, but when forced into a confrontation, Gamma turns into a dark, bloodthirsty killing machine. Elwood and C.T. Smith are the other primary characters of Zombie Powder. Elwood is a 13 year old boy, raised as a pick pocket, knife thrower and all round thief. He tags along with Gamma after his sister is murdered and is after the powder to bring her back to life. C.T. Smith is Gamma's partner, a clean-cut, square-rim glasses wearing business man, complete with tie and suit and armed with sleeve launching pistols. Smith is a mysterious character, but remains likable none the less.

The story primarily involves Gamma and company searching for the rings. Which mainly entails battling other hardened criminals and taking their rings. The first unlucky group are the Ash Daughter Bandits and their leader, Ranewater Calder, a crazy drug addicted boy who wields a sword with rockets attached. Gamma, never one to back down, steps up to the fight with his chainsaw sword buzzing.

The art is pretty typical of anime style. Tite Kubo seems to have a thing for western clothing, Gamma is dressed in a trench coat with fur lining, Elwood wears shirts with a big star on them and Smith is made to look like an English banker. Not that there is any real issue with this, as it is based in a pseudo-western world, it's also a nice change from everyone running around in kimonos with katanas. The manga contains a lot of violence, people are decapitated, cut in half, shot, tourtured and there is no sign of the usual attempt to get around it by making the bad guys inhuman or monsters which is quite unusual but praisable for a Shonen Jump manga.

From Zombie Powder it's quite easy to tell how Tite Kubo has gone on to create other popular series, the manga has an original story and is packed with action. The characters are unique and non-redundant. The action and movement is communicated brilliantly by the art. It's one of those manga you will pick up and put down before realising you read it all in one go.

Review : Claymore.

2008-12-02T22:55:00.017+10:00

In a fantasy world where your neighbor could be a flesh eating monster in disguise, mankinds only hope of survival lies in beautiful half human, half monster girls dubbed claymores after the two handed swords they wield. On the flip side not everything is so great about being a claymore as they have to forever battle with the monster within, least they lose their human self and become a monster themselves.

The story revolves around a claymore named Claire and a human boy named Raki both who have had their entire family killed by monsters. After a series of events Raki ends up traveling with Claire. He tends to provide the readers voice throughout the narrative, for example, being shocked at the strange and terrible things Claire is forced to do. Raki's company makes Claire reveal more of her human side, his presence undoubtedly helping in her struggle to remain human.

The art is consistent, but the style seems a little dated and character designs are kind of lackluster. The layout is well set out, making the dialogue, story and action easy to follow. Claymore does feature quite a bit of violence and was probably aimed at older teens, but besides being in comic form, it's also fantasy violence, anyone thirteen or older would not be phased from it.

With the final chapter not really leading onto anything else, it's hard to tell where exactly where the story of Claymore is going. It's made apparent that Claire goes from village to village clearing out the monsters. The story is a bit weak in that regard, at least in this volume, there is no real conveyance of any greater goal to follow on through to the next volume.

Review : 12 Days.

2008-11-10T22:12:00.017+10:00

Ever wondered what an art-house romance story would be like as a manga? 12 days by June Kim is just that. Not really depressing, not really bursting with action, yet it's still quite interesting in a melancholic way, which probably adds to the realistic nature of it's narrative.

A young woman named Noah dies in a car accident on the way back from her honey-moon, however, 12 days is not really her story, it is the story of her lesbian lover Jackie and her brother Nick, as they come together to try to deal with the grief and loss of a loved one. They go about this in a rather interesting way, by drinking Noah's cremated ashes over 12 days, mixed in with wine, smoothies and other assorted beverages. Together they reminisce about Noah, in particular, slowly uncovering Jackie's past with her. There's also a few nice touches of comedy strategically placed through out the narrative, giving you a break from the melancholic vibe.

The art of 12 days is nice, clear and vivid. Sometimes the characters say little, leaving the pictures to do the talking. The characters are drawn on a more realistic side to most manga, which adds nicely to the books verisimilitude . The only real reason the book has a +16 age rating is it's themes, realistically someone 13+ could enjoy this, but it's clearly been crafted for an older audience. Being a Korean made manga, it's also written in the english format, which makes it more reader friendly to beginners of the graphic novel medium than their Japanese counterparts.

12 days is a nice, simple, interesting story of two people working their way through the loss of a loved one. If your looking for a one volume drama/romance graphic novel to sink your teeth into, look no further.

Review : Air Gear.

2008-11-09T20:00:00.006+10:00

Imagine zooming along the city skyline, jumping off roofs and grinding along power lines at exhilarating speeds before bursting out into the clear blue open sky. All you need is a pair of air treks, motorized two wheeled roller blades. Welcome to the world of Air Gear.

The story focuses around Ikki, a 15 year old high school student, who is first introduced whilst piledriving someone in a brawl. Followed by a proclaimation about how great he is, some of the others present are not too impressed with his attitude and call in an air trek gang named The Skull Saders to deal with him. After being smashed to a pulp by said gang. Ikki slowly enters the world of air treks along with the help of his harem-like makeshift family, who have been a secretive pro air trek group all along without him knowing. It's not too long before Ikki gets a hang of things and gets some revenge, but now obsessed with the sensation of flight it seems that it's only the beginning for him in the sport of air treks.

Air Gear is a fast paced manga, with every page containing either humorous antics or stylish action. Ikki delivers most of the comedy himself, but he's just silly enough that he still remains a strong, cool, likable character without becoming annoying. Air Gear has a harem like side to it, with a whole collection of girls hanging around him, like a lot of manga, this leads to some pretty perverted opportunities for him, many of which, he takes. The female characters take a back seat to Ikki in relation to the storyline, but they're still very strong characters none the less. There's Ringo, his childhood friend, whom we are told is the successor to Sleeping Forest, the best air gear team in the world. Ringo seems to have some sort of crush on Ikki, but she's awfully shy about it, unlike the beautiful Simca, another air trek enthusiast who leads Ikki into all sorts of trouble seemingly purposefully.

The art breathes alot of life into the world, with characters drawn at insane energetic angles and the choice of fashion in the character designs above par. There are a lot of sexual themes, both comedic and just plain seedy, so it's probably best to keep this in a fifteen plus category.

Air Gear manages to take possibly the most fruity activity in the world, rollerblading, and turn it into something very straight, stylish and totally kick-ass. It's a great mix of action and comedy and can only leave you wanting for more.

Review : Genshiken.

2008-10-07T22:13:00.011+10:00

It's the first year of university for Sasahara, an average Japanese student. In Japan it's common to join a university club, or social circle. But anyway you guessed it, he wants to join an anime club and thus ends up joining Genshiken, the society for the study of modern visual culture. Basically a really long description for a club that does nothing but sit around and watch anime, play games and get into all sort of nerdy situations.

The second primary character is Saki, a beautiful, tall, bright haired woman, who's into fashion and all the normal cliche girly things. She gets stuck with the Genshiken crowd when the guy she likes turns out to be a closet anime-fanboy. Saki is a comedic character, she gets weirded out by a lot of the strange otaku related activities (cos-play, conventions, computer games, etc) and also causes a lot of conflict with Sasahara.

Genshiken is mostly filled with hardcore otakus who get into discussions about which director is better than others and quote from famous animes left, right and center. The general plot of the chapters lies in character relationships and otaku related activities. The best part of the manga lies in the constant referencing of other anime. Regular fans should be able to spot them quite easily, but if your not too knowledgeable about anime it's probably best to skip this novel, as you'll either miss or not understand nearly all the jokes.

The art of Genshiken is clean, everything is in the normal anime style, nothing strange or new. It is based on people going through university and thus would probably be best enjoyed by a 16+ audience. There's no graphical reason why, it has more to do with some of the themes covered in particular chapters of the book, including hentai video games.

Genshiken is a great graphic novel for manga/anime fans, unfortunately, if your not one of them, this is not a good place to start. The chapters are written in the short-episodic format, each have their own mini-plots and there is really no overall story, but it still remains interesting and funny enough to read on.

Review : Death Note.

2008-10-05T15:55:00.005+10:00

What would you do if you were offered the power to kill anyone? Would you take it? Would you use it? What if you could make the world a better place, reduce crime and punish the wicked, could you bare the burden?

Death note is the name of the novel and is also the name of it's plot device, a shinigami (soul reapers) notebook. All you have to do is write a name in a notebook, envision the persons face in your mind and write a cause of death and BAM, they're dead.

Light Yagami, an grade A student is bored out of his mind and sick of the way justice is handled in the world. Light stumbles upon the death note by chance, on the grass outside his school. At first he believes it's a hoax, like anyone would, but after testing it on a criminal holding kids hostage, he confirms it's legality.

A few days later Rukk, a winged dirty looking shinigami confronts Light and explains the rules of the death note. Basically Rukk who is visible only to him intends to follow Light around watching what happens purely because he's bored. Light plans to force his sense of justice on the masses, killing the wicked and sending a message out that if you sin, you will be judged.

Unfortunately for Light, it does not take too long for L, world's greatest detective to get hot on the trail. L also remains anonymous to all, making it impossible to simply kill him with the note. L doesn't agree with Light's version of justice and sees him as nothing more than a murderer.

The art is dark and everything remains in proportion, although the theme and plot of Death Note is quite sinister, it's not very violent visually. Once again, a 13+ year old could read it, but to really enjoy and understand it's themes/messages about justice, being slightly older would be preferable.

Death Note is a great detective/crime story, with an anti-hero protagonist, but is Light really bad? I guess it's up to you and your sense of justice, should one person really judge us all by their standards?

Review : Eureka Seven.

2008-09-30T12:18:00.010+10:00

Eureka Seven is an original sci-fi story set in an alternative world, where strange coral formations bulge from the ground and invisible trapar waves that people can 'ride' with strange looking aerial-surfboards fill the air. Sky surfing looks like a ton of fun.

The plot of Eureka Seven is based around that of a thirteen year old mechanic apprentice named Renton and that of a mysterious young girl named Eureka who falls out of the sky (literally) quite early on in the story in an LFO (sky surfing giant robot ). Renton immediately falls head over heals for Eureka and ends up joining her resistance group called Gekko State. Only then to find out she has three kids... It's not really made clear what it is they're resisting or why the military is after them, but there's a lot of action, giant robot fights and laughs along the way.

Eureka Seven has a large cast of characters, the main character obviously being Renton a messy brown haired kid who doesn't know when to stop. Then there is Gekko State, which includes Holland, the swish dressing know-it-all captain. His girlfriend (?) Talho, the pilot of their ship. Eureka and her kids as well as a bunch of other minor characters who have their comical moments. Eureka seveN also characterizes a few antagonists, A young military officer and a strange long haired man who is foreshadowed at the end of the volume.

The art is great, everything is in proportion, the action sequences are well thought out and the character designs are all quite stylish. It's also nice that we get the colour introduction pages in the English copy, where as normally they tend to print them in black and white for us. Violence is kept to a minimum and most of the fighting is done by giant sky surfing robots. Even though the main character is 13, the story and themes are interesting enough that anyone of any age would be able to appreciate it.

Eureka Seven is a unique enjoyable story, full of action, comedy and interesting characterization. Even if your sceptical of giant sky surfing robots, I'd still suggest giving this a try.

Review : RedRum 327.

2008-09-29T12:54:00.013+10:00

A group of college students go away to spend a weekend in a expensive remote villa. Things start going wrong, people start disappearing or worse... dying. This doesn't sound too out of the ordinary for a Hollywood style horror film, but RedRum still manages to deliver a unique experience.

RedRum's plot is basically that seven rich college students, all with successful parents, go on a retreat to a remote villa. There's all the stereotypical love triangles, romance and angst that goes along with these style of stories. Basically things start turning sour and people end up biting the dust. The difference between RedRum and your B-grade horror movies really lies in the fact that it's not an outside force doing the killing, infact it's made quite clear who's doing it from the start. The mystery lies in the why?

The characters in RedRum are all quite believable, if not once again a little stereotypical. There's the 'nice guy', the 'not-so-nice guy', the 'quiet guy', the 'cheerful girl', the 'not-so-cheerful girl' and so on. The characters seem to stay true to their personality placement. A long haired girl named Gahui seems to be the primary protagonist, she's nice to everyone and has some messed up flashbacks occasionally. The quiet glasses wearing Gihu seems to be another primary character, with some mention of an unexplained conflict involving him near the start.

The art in RedRum is actually above that of what you'd expect in a normal manga (or manwha), everything is drawn cleanly and proportionately in the normal style. The great use of shading helps it stand out and makes its art somewhat above average. There is only a small amount of violence and blood, so it's probably ok for anyone 13 or older, but it does have quite dark themes and the characters are rather old, someone 15+ would probably enjoy it more.

RedRum is an older teenage drama-horror-murder story which focus's more on why people are being killed than who is killing them. It's not the most original plot, but it's art is A+ and it's still an interesting read.

Review : Mail.

2008-09-26T15:41:00.015+10:00

Being able to see dead people looked like it was pretty tough for that poor kid in the sixth sense, but in MAIL, the real issue is when the dead people see you, seeing them.

MAIL is about detective Reiji Akiba, a somewhat eccentric private eye, he has the signature waistcoat and tie of anyone who's in the 'bizz'. What makes him different from your average detective is what it is, exactly, that he investigates. Reiji tracks down wayward and harmful spirits, which he then exorcises with the help of his sanctified handgun, saving lives and burying the dead.

The graphic novel is in the story-per-chapter format. Each one introduces us to a new group of characters who find themselves in the midst of an urban myth or somewhat gruesome problem. All the plots and urban myths are very original and unique. The stories manages to grip you enough that you feel genuinely scared, if not for yourself, then for the victims in the story. The only real downside is that each really ends the same, with Reiji showing up and taking the ghost down. Except for a few of the stories, which gives us a view of Reiji's past.

This manga is by the same artist as the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. And thus has the same art style. Mail was however drawn at a later date and thus Yamazaki's art is a lot more consistent and clean throughout the entire volume than it was in the first volume of Kurosagi.
The plots and themes themselves are obviously for more mature readers, but besides a very small amount of partial nudity, I don't see any reason why a slightly more mature manga reader would enjoy it any less.

MAIL is a great read, if you like the horror-mystery genre, then this book is certainly for you. If you've never read a horror manga before this would be a great title to start with. It's a real pity there's only three volumes, as it's probably one of the best serious seinen (mature reader) titles available to an english reader, as typically they don't make it out of Japan.

Review : Hellsing.

2008-09-05T14:36:00.008+10:00

This is one of those few and peculiar stories where the main character is in fact an anti-hero. Alucard is the Hellsing organizations pet vampire. An organization whos sole mission is to deal with other vampires, monsters and 'freaks'. Think they are kind of hypocritical for having a vampire to kill other vampires? The catholic church thinks so too and has a few things to 'say' to Alucard and Hellsing.

Volume one introduces us to Serras Victora, a blonde, large breasted somewhat ditzy police officer who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Alucard ends up granting her eternal life and she joins the Hellsing organization. A side story of the novel is Serras coming to terms with her vampirism, despite her appearance, she isn't over-feminized and remains her own character, unlike a lot of girl characters in manga. There is no fan-service, the story is too dark and serious for that.

The manga contains a good mix of seriousness and comedy, Serras usually providing the later, Alucard is a somewhat serious main character, but it's clear from the beginning that his state of mind is inhuman, as it should be. Alucard is quite insane, as you can imagine someone would be if they never died. He's just looking for some fun, a good fight and a lot of carnage along the way. He's not to be confused with 'A good vampire', he isn't there to save humans, he's there to get rid of the lowly 'scum' giving vampires a bad name.

The art starts off not being exactly great, but it has it's own style and the mangaka seems to quickly get better at it, by the end of the book it's all drawn quite well. Some of the full page cells look amazing. It's a very 'dark' book as you can imagine, it's refreshing to see London as a location as well, rather than Japan again.

Hellsing is one of the best vampire stories ever, it's dark, has alot of action, a crazy anti-hero and an insane anti-villain. The first volume was great and I recommend any male or female of around 15+ to read it.

Review : Mushishi

2008-09-01T21:09:00.012+10:00

Mushishi is a collection of original Grimm style fairy tales that takes place in a pre-feudal Japan. Each chapter is presented in a very well constructed short story form, with only two similarities carrying through the series of different stories.

The first is a strange form of life referred to as Mushi. Life forms that don't really exist within our reality, but at the same time do. Those sensitive to the mushi are the only ones able to see them and thus a lot of people and children with this sensitivity are thought to be crazy. Mushi take a variety of different forms such as amoebas, single celled organisms, they can resemble human beings and some are even great creatures the size of mountains.

Mushi are not actually evil, they're not really sentient enough. Instead they're just like any animal or creature, doing what they can to get by. In doing so however they can cause dramatic, strange and often horrific incidents when they come into contact with human

The second connection between the stories is the protagonist Ginko, a one eyed, white haired mushishi. Basically a profession like a doctor, but for mushi related problems and conditions. Ginko is a mushi magnet, why isn't really clear, but it forces him to constantly travel the countryside, never stopping for too long. So he wanders from town to town, offering his services and helping victims of the mushi in every way he can.

Ginko is a somewhat mysterious character, he's very knowledgeable and seems to nearly always have some knowledge about what's going on. The most likable characteristic about him is just how far he goes to help those plagued by the troubles of the mushi, going to great lengths and putting his life on the line to help and save them. Future volumes will hopefully reveal more of Ginko's past and character.

These stories are obviously not aimed at younger children, having some quite strong horror themes, just like an original Grimm's fairy tail. A young teenager to an adult would appreciate the stories far more. 'A light behind the eyelid' is the story that won the manga award that is proudly displayed on the front of the cover. It's about a young girl who's eyes have been infected with mushi, and any sort of light, even with her eyes closed, causes her pain. How will Ginko be able to cure her? That's the other nice thing about this manga, the endings are never predictable, things rarely end with a "and they lived happily ever after".

Yuki has obviously mastered the art of short stories and Mushishi is an example of this art at it's pinnacle. A great read for anyone that enjoys a good story, not just manga lovers or teenagers.

Review : Ragnarok.

2008-08-31T20:53:00.018+10:00

Ragnarok is the story about a warrior named Chaos in the mythical worlds of Midgard. Basically, the end of the world is coming and the old gods are trying to stop it. They've sent out their Valkyries to find those destined to cause it and remove them. Unfortunately for Chaos, he is in fact the reincarnation of the fallen god, Balder and hes the main target of the Valkyries. Lucky for him, there is a mage named Fenris Fenrir, who has set out to find Baulder's reincarnation before the Valkyries, with whom she needs to change the world.

Ragnarok is a blend of fantasy action and adventure with a dash of comedy on the side. There are multiple characters with differing personalities and a crazy bad guy wearing too much eyeliner. Basicially this first volume just introduces a variety of characters and gives them each a purpose with some good quality action and laughs in between.

This manga is actually what created the famous computer game, Ragnarok Online, a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). Which has been serialised into numerous countries around the world, including Australia. Ragnarok Online 2 has been released in Korea, where it and the manga originated and will hopefully have an english release sometime next year.

The art of ragnarok is acceptable, it's slightly rough at times, but thats alright. Ragnarok, being a manwha, has a korean influenced art style and theme, which is identifiable in the characters armor and weapons. Ragnarok has also been published in the english book format, instead of backwards like traditional manga, so it's a good place to start for first time manga readers.

Ragnarok seems like a great manga for fans of fantasy fiction novels or fantasy computer games, although it's hard to tell where exactly the story is going with only this first volume, it's interesting enough none the less.

Review : Hell Girl.

2008-08-30T21:44:00.018+10:00

Hell girl is both a popular written novel, anime and live action series, so why shouldn't it be a manga as well? That is what the marketing people were thinking when they went and asked an artist if they would like some money to draw a manga of it. This happens much like the novels that go along with movie releases and often the novel seems to lose alot in the translation from screen to paper.

Ever had someone you really hate? Someone that killed your pet cat or tries to permanently cripple you for life? Yeah, me neither. But the plot of hell girl is that in each story a different character becomes a victim of some unbelievably evil person who would do such things. Enter Enma Ai, aka, Hell Girl. Just type the name of the dastardly person into the Hell Correspondence website at midnight and Enma Ai will extract revenge on the person for you and then proceed to take them to hell afterwards.

Sounds all fine and dandy right? Well here is where my beef lies with the story and characterization. In payment for sending the person to hell, you also have to goto hell when you die. I'm not much of a religious person, but I don't think I would agree to that just because someone killed my cat or put my cakeshop out of business, no matter how angry I was at the time. It just dosn't seem believable that these victims condemn themselves to an eternity in hell when they die, just to get rid of their tormentors.

The art is drawn in a very shojo-girly, sort of way. The guys teeth all sparkle, hair is drawn in the strand like manner. Girls are all cutesy and flowery. The art is great for it's style and theres practically no flaws. This art style does, however, kind of mess with the manga's dark and urban myth theme.

I think this manga is probably best suited to young teenage girls looking for slightly darker reading. There is hardly any actual violence and it's friendly to all ages, if you overlook the somewhat evil plot. I wouldn't suggest it to many others demographics.

Review : The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.

2008-08-29T19:50:00.015+10:00

As soon as you open to the first page, you'll know this isn't a book for children. The opening page depicts a man who has hung himself from a tree, and judging by the decaying flesh and amount of flies, hes been there for quiet a while.

Enter the Kurosagi corpse delivery service! A group of five weirdo's from a local Buddhist university with some equally strange powers to match their equally weird personalities.
Kurosagi are more than happy to find and grant a persons dying wish. Including going along with the horrific consequences and events along the way.

How do they find a dead person? Luckily enough, one of them has the ability of corpse dowsing. How do they find out their dying wish? Well, luckily enough, another one of them can speak to the dead. There is also a mature woman who seems to be the brains of their little organization, a cute teenage girl who is a graduate embalmer and some weird kid with a puppet on his hand that has a mind of its own.

Just like any other manga the book is divided up into chapters. The first volume contains four chapters, each an individual story in it's own right. They are all very unique, as you would expect from such a peculiar novel. It's always nice to read refreshing stories, without overused cliche conflicts and plot devices.

The art is not exactly great, but it's not exactly terrible either. Kurosagi's art differs from your average manga style and a little bit on the rough side at times. Possibly as an attempt to separate it from the younger manga market. The novel depicts dead people, corpses, zombies, blood, guts, gore and some nudity, so it's best to keep this away from any young audiences.

If your an older reader and looking to get a slightly more seriously gruesome manga fix or enjoy urban myths then this is for you.

Review : Cowboy Bebop.

2008-08-27T14:00:00.009+10:00

For those of your not familiar with the cowboy bebop, it's a story about a crazy crew of bounty hunters, set in a futuristic setting. Spike, the cool slick smoking main character, with Bruce Lee like moves. Jet the bald ex-cop with a cybernetic arm. Faye Valentine, sly card shark and always in the same skimpy clothes. Ed, some crazy hacker girl with gangly arms and her best friend Ein, a little, but very intelligent dog. Together they cruise around space catching a variety of criminals.

This manga of the same name as the anime, doesn't follow the same story at all. The crew are together from the start and it is more a collection of short stories of 'bounty' adventures. Not that isn't entertaining, but it just seems like an expander to the cowboy bebop anime, which is cool if your a big fan and have seen the anime first, like me, but perhaps not so good if you've never seen or heard of it and have just gone out and bought the manga.

Volume one of the manga contains four stories.

1. It's showtime.
A short and funny skit about the three bounty hunters all ending up in the same restaurant but after different people.

2. We will rock you.
Spike gets himself sent to the slammer in attempt to get the bounty on a criminal that has already been locked up.

3. Cheap trick.
A rich male millionaire challenges female bounty hunters to catch him, Faye pretty much solo's this one without the rest of the teams help.

4. Black diamond.
Faye stumbles upon an illegal chip hidden in a playing card, corrupt police place a bounty on her and Jet steps in to settle an old score with one of his ex-workers.

The art of cowboy bebop is alright, it's not particularly fantastic, but it does its job well enough that you won't stop and pause and think "That's badly drawn", which is the most important thing. The stories are interesting and always contain a bit of action. I can't say how the later volumes will pan out, but it does not really seem like the manga will touch on the main storyline of the anime. It is a pity in a way, but I guess it means you can watch the anime and read the manga and not feel like your doubling up.

News : If it's not violent it's not for adults?

2008-08-26T21:54:00.008+10:00

I think it's interesting to see that people in the western world are slowly adapting to graphic novels, as they are to manga. I do however, find it amusing that they believe it's new "cutting edge" stuff, as stated by one of my creative writing lecturers. People seem to think this nice marketing term 'graphic novel' is of somewhat a higher status than your average comic or manga, which is simply not true. It is just a comic or manga in it's book form, rather than in softcover magazines or papery flip books. Of course we never see manga in it's flippy book stage, but that is how they come out in Japan, in flippy magazines containing normally one chapter of several different manga, published monthly or even weekly.

Some will argue that graphic novels are aimed at an older audience and perhaps a majority written by western authors are, but Japan has always had manga aimed at an older audience, including hentai and erotic comics, which I'm not necessarily sure that we want.Alot of these manga actually bear a rating system when published in english, even titles such as Mushishi by Yuki Urushibara, which have no erotic content, drug use, or violence, still bear a rating of Older Teen 16+, which is just a suggestion that the actual content and stories are aimed at a more mature age group. This is entirely unlike the adult graphic novels written by western authors, such as Frank Miller for example, which seem to figure that it is extreme violence, gore, drug and sexual references which make graphic novels worthy of the older audience title, which isn't such a terrible thing, Eastern authors also have titles that fall into that same sort of ideaology, like Akira for example.
But the point I'm trying to make is that the Japanese authors and Japanese reading audience, accept the other kind of graphic novels as also being for an adult demographic, which sadly, a large part of the western audience don't. If you want to sell a 'graphic novel' to westerners it seems you just have to make something with as much violence as kill bill.