Archive for December, 2009

Lorena Nava Ruggero lists her picks for the best new series of 2009 at i heart manga. Kris lists her favorite manga of the year—and it’s a very different list—at Manic About Manga. And Casey Brienza picks her top ten at her LJ. David Welsh lists some books he enjoyed in the past year, manga and otherwise. Also, Comic Book Resources presents their next installment of the Best Comics of 2009, in which I participated, and there’s some good reading there.

Here’s some good reading for your holiday weekend: Jason Thompson answers the vexing question of why there are so many maids in manga at comiXology. Actually, the answer is pretty simple, but Jason also discusses the variety of ways in which maids show up. Akemi looks at the roots of Sailor Moon at Myth and Manga. Bill Randall writes about the proliferation of manga in the U.S. at The Comics Journal. And Christopher Mautner’s review of Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto, also at The Comics Journal, is more than just a review, it’s a look at common themes in Urasawa’s work and how they play out in his different series.

The latest episode of David Welsh’s shoujo-sunjeong alphabet is brought to you by the letter L.

News from Japan: ANN has the latest Japanese comic rankings. Otaku News takes a look at Comiket.

Reviews

Edward Zacharias on vol. 7 of Black Lagoon (Animanga Nation)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 8 of Honey and Clover (Manga Bookshelf)
Michael C. Lorah on vol. 1 of King of RPGs (Blog@Newsarama)
Jennifer Dunbar on vol. 1 of The Lizard Prince (Manga Recon)
Emily on Make Sweet (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 20 of Nana (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 30 of One PIece (Slightly Biased Manga)
Todd Douglass on Only One Wish (Blogcritics)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 2 of Ouran High School Host Club (i heart manga)
Connie on vol. 3 of Papillon (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 3 of Pokemon Adventures (Kuriousity)
Connie on vol. 1 of Princess Knight (Slightly Biased Manga)
Gavin Lees on Red Snow (The Comics Journal)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Silent Mobius (Okazu)
Jennifer Dunbar on vols. 5-8 of Vampire Knight (A word is a unit of language)
Megan M. on vol. 8 of Vampire Knight (Manga Bookshelf)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 7 of V.B. Rose (Comics Worth Reading)

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First part of my 2009 in Review article. Only shows I’ve completed watching are in this list, divided in to four tiers of descending “accumulative entertainment value”.

GOD Tier

Bakemonogatari

Senjougahara-fascination in full swing.

Toradora

Poor Ami~n

Maria+Holic

“o..o..o..o..onii-sama no. IJIMEKKOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Ristorante Paradiso

Almost made me gay for megane-jiisan’s

Eden of the East

Mass Naked NEET Event.

Seitokai no Ichizon

I’m still rooting for Key-kun’s Harem End.

Awesome Tier

Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo

Epic space colony battles. Badass Asimo deserved more screentime.

Saki

Rin Shan Kai Hou is rather cheating.

Kanamemo

Lolicon Hocchan and musical episode made my Season.

GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class

Most educational anime I’ve watched this year.

Sora no Otoshimono

Flying panties are awesome.

Kuchuu Buranko

Second most educational anime I’ve watched this year.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei

Resolves a lot of questions for the series + lots of focus on Rika.

Okay Tier

CLANNAD After Story: KEY should stop using those deus ex machina devices so much.
Zoku Natsume Yuujin-chou: Needs more youkai.
Denpateki na Kanojo: The fastest way to happiness is to look awak from reality.
Asu no Yoichi: Better than I thought.
Hayate no Gotoku 2nd Season: J.C. Staff redeemed themselves.
Fight! Ippatsu Juuden-chan: Would’ve been Awesome tier if they didn’t overuse the urination trope.
Taisho Yakyuu Musume: Would’ve been Awesome tier if they won the last match.
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: Did KEY had a hand in writing the last few episodes for this?
Ontama: Short and (bitter)sweet.
Darker than Black Ryuusei no Gemini: Didn’t learn from its predecessor.
Aoi Bungaku: Batshit insane Nana Mizuki was the highlight.
Kanokon OVA: Rather iyashii-kei, surprisingly.
Nyan Koi!: Just barely in here.
Suzumiya Haruhi II: Not counting Endless Eight that is!

Shit Tier

Kurogane no Linebarrels: Only watched it for the name similarity.
Asura Cryin’: Causality loops are mindfucking.
CANAAN: SUGOI SUGOI SUGOI SUGOI
Chrome-Shelled Regios: Felli was in the wrong show.
Tales of the Abyss: Even gg didn’t finish subbing this shit.
To Aru Majutsu no Index: Adaptation Decay.
Gundam 00 2nd Season: The Innovator’s names.
WHITE ALBUM: Give me back my boyfriend.
Tower of Druaga The Sword of Uruk: Needed more Ropers.
Munto TV: Pretentious as fuck.
K-ON!: A music anime with sucky music.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni: DEEN Adaptation.
Princess Lover!: Took itself as a joke.
Kampfer: Ode to Joy.
The Sacred Blacksmith: Cecily is annoying.
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu Purezza: WHITE ALBUM wannabe.
11eyes: The sex in the penultimate episode was just a vision? GODDAMNIT.

In total, 43 shows completed this year. I’m surprised at how much I managed to watch despite thinking about how slow this year was. Then again, I never did keep track of the number of shows I watched for the last few years…..

Part 2, which consists of other miscanellous accolades, should be up tomorrow!

©2010 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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I hope you found time to drop by and check out my year in review post at Robot 6. I also contributed to Comic Book Resources’ top 100 comics of 2009 discussion; the first round is up now, and I see a couple of my picks made the final cut. Lots of good reading there, so do check it out.

David Brothers looks back at his year in comics, which included shifting away from superheroes and toward more manga and a variety of other types of comics, at 4thletter! Welcome to the fold, David.

Alex Hoffman is looking at the big picture as well, and he has some thoughts on Viz’s online initiatives at Manga Widget. Stop by, read, leave your comments, and then congratulate Alex on getting engaged!

Dave Ferraro includes quite a few manga in his top 20 comics of 2009 at Comics-and-More.

Jason Thompson picks his top ten manga of 2009 at Suvudu.

Sean Gaffney has his own blog! And he kicks things off with a review of vol. 2 of Dogs.

Kate Dacey and Brad Rice look at this week’s new releases.

News from Japan: Elemental Gelade has come to an end, and Harlem Beat creator Yuku Nishiyama has started a new series, promisingly titled Queen’s Butler Karin.

Reviews: The Manga Recon team has another round of Manga Minis for your entertainment and edification. And at Manga Life, Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane posts short takes on manga she has been reading lately.

Rob on vol. 3 of Antique Bakery (Panel Patter)
Ken Haley on Battle Royale (novel) (Manga Recon)
Jaime Samms on Caged Slave (Kuriousity)
Julie on Dog X Cat (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Chris Zimmerman on The Ghost in the Shell and Akira (CBS 4)
Oyceter on vol. 2 of Grand Guignol Orchestra (Chinese edition) (Sakura of DOOM)
Lori Henderson on Heaven’s Will (Manga Xanadu)
Snow Wildsmith on InVisible (Fujoshi Librarian)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of King of RPGs (Comics Worth Reading)
Penny Kenny on vol. 4 of Leave it to PET (Manga Life)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 1 of Madness (The Comic Book Bin)
Emily on Make Sweet (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Todd Douglas on vol. 1 of Moyasimon (Blogcritics)
Rob on vol. 2 of Nana (Panel Patter)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Night Head Genesis (Kuriousity)
Thomas Zoth on vol. 1 of Nightschool (Mania.com)
David Welsh on vol. 2 of Nightschool (Precocious Curmudgeon)
Scott VonSchilling on Only One Wish (The Anime Almanac)
Deb Aoki on vol. 1 of Raiders (About.com)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 4 of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (Manga Bookshelf)
Erin Jones on vol. 3 of Shinobi Life (Mania.com)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of Swans in Space (Comics-and-More)
Alexander Hoffman on vol. 1 of We Were There (Comics Village)
David Welsh on vol. 2 of Yokaiden (Precocious Curmudgeon)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Yuri Shoujo (Okazu)

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FUCK YEAH JUN-CHAN!

Because mahjong is the way to settle international diplomacy. RISING SUN, BITCHES.

P.S. Taro Aso is a cool motherfucker here.

Next stop, China, ROFL. I can’t wait till they get to the Hitler arc.

©2009 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Fuck yeah, I missed this shit. Yabuki-sensei is truly the master of Fanservice-moments, even if he can’t tell a proper love story for shits and giggles.

There’s even a To-LOVE-ru cameo too!

©2009 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Riza's shocked by Nama-ko's awesome figure in the shower…

Summary:

The episode starts off with Riza acting all paranoid after being threatened by Pride, even imagining Hayate as an evil monster out to get her. She’s interrupted by Roy checking up on her, but as she hangs up on him he realizes somethings wrong.

Shot through the heart, and you're to blame, darling you give love a bad name…

Meanwhile back in the North Ed, Al, Winry, Miles, Kimblee and everyone has traveled to the ghost town of Baschool where Scar was last sighted. As they split up, two of Kimblee’s ‘bodyguards’ accompany Ed and Al, but the brothers manage to run off with some quick thinking. As they search for Scar, the brothers are tracked down by May Chang and Xiao May as the girl gets all giddy at the prospect of the two brothers looking for her (ignoring that fact that they just wanted to know about Eastern alchemy). After Winry pops out of Al’s armour, May’s heart is broken though by the ‘other’ woman.

Armstrong family = PURE WIN

Following May are Dr. Marcoh and Yoki, who is crushed that Ed does not remember him. Apparently Yoki was a crooked mine operator (was that from the first series?! Looks strangely familiar…) that Ed had tricked to drive out of town, and had lived a life of hilarious misery including trying to rob the Armstrong household before he was picked up by Scar.

Not bad for Red Shirted Ensigns

Meanwhile Scar runs into Zampano and Jerso, two of Kimblee’s ‘bodyguards’ who were actually chimera agents sent from Central to kill Scar. As Dr. Marcoh explains to the brothers about Scar’s brother’s book and the truth of eastern alchemy, Scar starts his fight and the Elric brothers rush towards where he is. The chimeras have done their homework as they figure out a way to trap Scar, but before they can finish their job, the brothers arrive and pretend not to know the chimeras (they ARE suddenly monsterly after all) as Ed manages to beat down the chimeras with his new lightning quick speed using his new lighter automail. As the brothers go to finish off Scar, Winry accompanied by Miles bursts on the scene to stop them.

I'm the King of the World!!

Back at Briggs, Buccaneer’s team arrives back at the entrance to the tunnel after the 24-hour deadline. Fearing that their fate is sealed, the door opens from above and they are saved. Apparently Olivier decided to ignore the 24-hour deadline because of her faith in her men. Afterwards, a newly arrived officer (probably some guy from Central) confronts Olivier (probably about the missing General Raven).

The episode ends as Kimblee becomes aware of the Scar fight, only to arrive after a huge explosion with Scar carrying Winry away.

Reaction:

Overall this was an average episode. The fight scene was pretty good, but the plot did not really advance too much as it was more of an episode where everyone was just meeting up again, rather than new things developing. There were two crucial things that happened of course.

Firstly, we see Riza’s unbridled fear of Pride. Considering how brave she has always been shown to be, as a war veteran and someone who even fought Gluttony head-on it’s pretty important that she’s scared of Pride. That guy really got under her skin in more ways than one, if you as a viewer weren’t already scared of him, you should be now.

Secondly, we get to see just how much Olivier cares for and trusts her men. It’s amazing that the ice queen herself completely ignored the deadline. Now With that new army dude coming to ask her to explain herself about what I can only imagine to be about General Raven, the game is upped yet another level as we’ll have to see what kind of excuse she comes up with, or if she’ll just kill this guy too. Perhaps Buccaneer would now that he’s totally blushing at Olivier’s kindness, especially if the new guy is like Raven and tries to pick her up.

Finally for the end of the episode we see Scar carrying away Winry. The episode of course purposefully doesn’t show us exactly what has happened. My theory is that Scar took away Winry on purpose as part of some plan to make everyone believe that she’s a hostage. It’s implied that Marcoh told them how crucial Scar is to figuring out everything, so I doubt the brothers were ever going to kill the guy. Considering she’s not safe at all with the Elric brothers (as they are with Kimblee) removing her would be a good thing to do. Why Scar would so quickly go along with their plan is a mystery. Perhaps Miles was part of this plan too, as he was clearly there and no real conversation could have happened without Miles knowing about it.

Oh yeah one last thing… Yoki’s story was totally awesome in every way. I like how his ‘reliable investment’ was gambling LOL. And of course robbing the Armstrong household was the icing on the cake, especially the RIDICULOUSLY STRONG LITTLE SISTER.

©2009 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Related posts:

1. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 33
2. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 36

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Sometimes hard work and guts just aren't enough

Summary:

Everyone heads back to their own guild, and because Troia has diminishing returns if you use it repeatedly, Natsu is back to getting motion sick on vehicles.  Lucy gets 3 new keys (Scorpio, Gemini, and Aries) and everyone else parties.

If ever there was a time to box out for the rebound, THIS IS IT

After a few days of nothing happening, the big bell starts ringing to signal Gildart’s return.  He’s been working on a crazy 100-year mission (for 3 years), but he’s back now.

Guild arts?!

Reaction:

I’m pumped to meet this geezer who is supposed to be the top (or at least second behind Makarov) mage in the guild.  The last time we met a mysterious powerful Fairy Tail mage it ended up being the super-awkward Mistgun.  Please oh please let Gildart turn out to be an old version of Gerald, and by “old” I mean George-Clooney-old and not Jack-Nicholson-old.  I don’t even know what Erza would do in this scenario, but I’d like to find out.

©2009 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Related posts:

1. Fairy Tail 123-125
2. Fairy Tail 119

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I didn’t have high hopes going into 2009, but it turned out to be a pretty good year after all. Read all about it in my look back at the year in manga at Robot 6.

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I have spent most of today going over the past year’s worth of MangaBlog posts for a Robot 6 piece, and as I went, I noticed a number of interesting essays, interviews, and think-pieces, so I figured I would round them all up into a year-end post as a special treat for those who have a bit of time on their hands this time of year. And in case you’re super-efficient and have read them all already, here’s something new that I just discovered: The blog Three Steps Over Japan has been doing a detailed history of manga, with lots of fun facts and fascinating vintage illustrations. Here’s part 1 to get you started, and you can find the rest of the links in the December archive in the sidebar.

And here are the rest. Enjoy!

The Hooded Utilitarian’s manga roundtable, which kicked off with Tom Crippen’s admission that he just doesn’t get it.

Manga translator Gottsu-Iiyan translated an interview with Naoki Urasawa, creator of Pluto and 20th Century Boys; the interview is broken into six parts, but you can start with part 1 and follow the link at the bottom of each post to the next one.

Matt Blind’s pie chart of all manga

Joe Iglesias looks back at Mangajin magazine

My interview with manga translator and scholar Matt Thorn

Casey Brienza on the exploitation and objectification of women in manga and anime

Good Comics for Kids roundtable on whether manga should be flipped

Bad Jew on North Korean comics
And here are scanlations of two actual North Korean comics: Great General Mighty Wing and the adventure comic Blizzard in the Jungle (part 1, part 2, part 3)

The Manga Village team, Kate Dacey, and Jake Forbes on the question of OEL manga

Gia Manry talks to Lillian Diaz-Przybyl about marketing global manga in Japan

Lawrence A. Stanley on child pornography in manga (note: images aren’t pornographic but may be unsettling)

Jason Thompson on moe
Jason Thompson on military and political moe

Nice old shoujo art from Macoto Takahashi

The cultural implications of emoticons

Jason Thompson on dirty manga

Michele Mason on manga creators grappling with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

Matt Thorn on bad manga translations
Shaenon Garrity’s response

Joy Kim on different “doorways” into manga

Shaenon Garrity on Fumi Yoshinaga

And some comics for you to sample:

Saint Onii-San on scans_daily

Preview of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life at Words Without Borders

est em’s Age Called Blue (first chapter is free)

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Well not anime related, but thought I’d talk about it anyway just cause I feel like it. Just saw Avatar in IMAX 3D tonight, and I have to say, it was pretty amazing. The special effects were out of this world. The showing of mecha in every which awesome way (totally kicked the Matrix sequels ass) only makes me wish for live action Gundam all that more. The story was of course:

Show ▼

One thing to note is that the special effects were created by WETA (Peter Jackson’s company that he used to make LOTR) and of course, WETA was SUPPOSED to be doing that rumoured live-action Neon Genesis Evangelion. Considering the incredible effects in this movie, I have no doubt that they can do it and that brain syncing scene in the movie really made me think… damn Eva. But hey I”d settle for some Gundam as well! One can only dream…

I’d give it a 10/10 for awesome groundbreakingness but drops down to a 9-9.5 for generic plot.

P.S. FMA 38 coming up tomorrow… it’s late I need sleep.

©2009 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Related posts:

1. Rahxephon 1-26 + Movie
2. Death Note II Movie Ticket Giveaway

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