I don’t think we’re in Oz anymore, Toto!
Month: April 2008
I just got this press release in the mail about a new Del Rey and Marvel hookup. Wolverine!
The series will be written by Antony Johnston, author of the Alex Rider graphic novels Stormbreaker and Point Blanc. The manga will be illustrated by Wilson Tortosa, artist of Tomb Raider and Battle of the Planets.
The manga chronicles the history of Wolverine, a mutant best known for his adamantium claws. Logan, a rebellious teen training in a remote school in the Canadian wilderness, has no memory of his life prior to being found in the forest near the school. But that forgotten life is about to come after him with a vengeance in this shônen thriller. (Shônen manga is aimed at boys through their teens and focuses on action.)
Wait! Hold up! So it’s a manga if the story is written by a British guy and illustrated by a Filipino guy? Hmm. I think this is another case of a company trying to call their work manga when they might really mean “manga-inspired.” But who’s to really authoritatively say what qualifies as manga? Well, the press release also described manga:
Manga, the Japanese term for comics, is a Japanese cultural phenomenon that accounts for nearly half of all the books and magazines sold in Japan. Read by men and women of all ages, manga covers a wide variety of themes including adventure, romance, fantasy, and more. Manga has experienced incredible growth in the US and Canadian graphic novel market in the past few years. According to industry source ICv2 manga sales reached between $170 million and $200 million in 2006.
So under Del Rey’s description, manga is just the Japanese term for comics. I dunno if I buy it… This is just as bad as calling that one title “The Manga Bible.”
I’m probably somewhat biased for a Wolverine manga anyway, seeing as how I’m currently a student at the University of Michigan and our mascot is Wolverine. Well, ok, it’s the animal, not the X-Man, but I really think we should just adopt Wolverine as our official mascot. He’d totally pwn that wimp, Brutus.
It’s true that I had some initial misgivings about the Anime Blog Awards. But I think they’re probably on the right track to doing something good for the community. So here’s my me-too post about why I nominated the blogs that I nominated. Also, Impz, I think this is my official sponsorship announcement for BGB and Anime Nano for the ABA. I’m Hung Truong and I approve this message.
For some reason I thought Zettai Karen Children was some kind of sequel to Zettai Shounen, but apparently it’s its own series. The second mistake was that I thought Karen was a character in this show, but “å¯æ†” can mean both pitiful and lovely, which actually describes these kids pretty well.
I’m continuing to use the first episodes of this season to procrastinate doing meaningful graduate work! Yay! I heard that Special A was sort of like Ouran, so I was stoked to see it get subbed.
Special A is about an outstanding young girl by the name of Hikari. She’s been trained from an early age to do pro wrestling. By pro wrestling, I’m pretty sure they mean real wrestling and not the fake American stuff like with Hulk Hogan. You can see her here growing some facial hair. It’s a little patchy but so is mine.
Categories
Kanokon – Quick Impressions
I’m actually watching a couple of first episodes this season, mainly because I need a way to procrastinate doing all the stuff I’ve got due this week. I think Kanokon was one of the first anime out with subs so here goes:
Kanokon features a tsundere meganekko iinchou. A good way to start out!
So I just found out (for whatever reason, I’m slow) that there’s going to be a Spring anime about all out library war! Apparently the military has gotten involved in the censorship of certain books. So going to library school means basic training and learning to use a rifle to protect books.
There’s a lot of awesome quotes in the PV, like “watashi mo hon wo mamoritain desu” (I want to protect books!) and “oretachi wa seigi no mikata jya nai!” (we’re not allies of justice (in that cheesy Sentai kind of way)). The protagonist is a frisky high school girl who apparently has a history of saving books from the government in her past.
Also, since I’ll have an ALA-accredited degree once I get out of grad school (the School of Information used to be the School of Library and Information Science)! Technically, I’ll be certified to protect books from evil myself!