Category: Manga

Some Of Akira Toriyama’s More Obscure Titles

Published April 1, 2024

As I write this article, it is just the day after the news of Akira Toriyama’s death and I’ve been contemplating my experience with his works. The impact he has had across numerous industries from manga to anime to video games and beyond has been immense but, understandably, many people only know him for Dragon Ball and perhaps Dragon Quest. Another series of his, Dr. Slump, is highly popular in Japan but, even though I think it’s better than Dragon Ball, there is no doubt that it’s relatively unknown in the West. However, his body of work is not restricted merely to those series and I thought I’d take a look at a few of Akira Toriyama’s titles that I’d consider to be much more obscure than Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump or Dragon Quest.

Akira Toriyama’s Manga Theater

Before we talk about any individual manga series, I think it’s important that we cover Akira Toriyama’s Manga Theater, a collection of short stories that Akira Toriyama released over the course of his career. Mostly consisting of stories told in a single chapter, they cover a wide variety of settings and are mostly comedic in nature. It’s also worth noting that several of the early stories inspired the characters and format of Dr. Slump, his first successful and long-running series.

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The Fascinating Development Of Simulpub Manga

Published December 21, 2023

Even in an industry with as much history as that of manga, innovation continues to be a necessity in order to keep up with the demands of consumers. In my personal opinion, no development has been as fascinating as the rise of simulpub manga since it is one of the most obvious responses to a major problem that I’ve ever seen. Alongside the fact that there are numerous advantages and disadvantages with this release format, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at this fascinating development, the history leading up to simulpub manga and my thoughts and opinions on it.

Let’s start with defining what simulpub manga is. The word “Simulpub” is a portmanteau of the words “Simultaneous” and “Publication” and refers to releasing a chapter of manga digitally outside of Japan near simultaneously with its Japanese release. What this usually means is that the chapter is released outside of Japan within 24 hours which is a remarkable, I might even use the word incredible, release schedule and much, MUCH, faster than the historical release of chapters.

Cover of Weekly Shonen Jump by Viz Media — Viz’s digital release of Weekly Shonen Jump was the first time I came across simulpub manga.

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An Overview Of The Higurashi Franchise

Published November 30, 2023

As a fan of horror media, it would only make sense that I’d search for something similar when it comes to anime, manga and video games. While the survival horror genre is well established within video games, I find horror surprisingly difficult to find when it comes to the other two, anime more so than manga. Regardless, there is a franchise that spans anime, manga and video games that is heavily associated with horror. Having only just watched the first three seasons of the anime recently, I thought it might be interesting to provide an overview of the Higurashi franchise and see how this series ended up becoming surprisingly expansive.

The Higurashi franchise began in 2002 as a series of independent visual novels that were created by Ryukishi07 and the doujin circle 07th Expansion that were distributed at Comiket. These are set in the village of Hinamizawa where mysterious events occur and a looming sense of threat hang over the cast of characters. Despite the original artwork proving to be quite crude and the lack of interactivity, the games proved to be popular due to the numerous theories that people developed about what was happening and there ended up being eight main entries alongside several fan discs.

A picture of Higurashi running on the Steam Deck. — A picture of the first game on my Steam Deck.

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What Is The Magic Realism Genre?

Published November 6, 2023

You may look at the title of this article and scratch your head in confusion. Magic Realism? Surely that’s a contradiction in and of itself, right? An oxymoron of genre. If you’re not already familiar with the genre then you may be surprised at how much of it you’ve already experienced. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting if we took a look at the genre of Magic Realism, what it consists of and a few examples.

So what exactly is Magic Realism? Basically, it refers to a story which takes place in a realistic setting but which has a magical or supernatural component(s) that set it apart from a work entirely grounded in reality. Usually, but not always, these elements are left unexplained with the characters trying to deal with the effects rather than figuring out the cause. While the term was first coined by German art critic Franz Roh in 1925, there are numerous examples of works predating this that could easily be considered part of the genre. As with any genre, there is some debate as to which titles fit the criteria of Magic Realism and which ones go too far/not far enough so please be aware of this throughout this article.

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Taking A Look At Some Manga Based On MAL Score Vs. My Score

Published October 30, 2023

Having just written an article called “Taking A Look At Some Anime Based On MAL Score Vs. My Score“, I thought it logical that I should do the same with regards to manga. However, I’ve run into a few issues which necessitate a change compared to the anime article. First, I have a lot more manga that I haven’t completed in their entirety than anime, presumably a byproduct of their different distribution models. Second, I wasn’t satisfied with the selection that MAL chose when it came to my statistics page and have chosen to pick titles from my manga list personally instead. I will include a photo below of the manga statistics but be aware that I’m unlikely to discuss the majority of these titles specifically. Now that I’ve dealt with that, I think it’s worth taking a look at some manga based on their MAL score vs. my personal score.

Ayako – 7.69 vs. 10

The cover for the English language release of Ayako by Osamu Tezuka.

While an average score of 7.69 isn’t bad at all, it does stand in high contrast with my own personal score of 10, enough so that I feel it worth discussion. Ayako, written by Osamu Tezuka, takes place after World War II and follows Jiro Tenge who secures his release as a prisoner of war by serving as an agent for the U.S. He returns home only to discover how depraved his family has become in their struggles for power and no character better represents this than a little girl called Ayako whose origins demonstrate the corruption surrounding the Tenge family. I consider Ayako to be a masterpiece and my personal favourite out of all the Osamu Tezuka manga that I’ve read. The artwork is stellar and Osamu Tezuka’s intricate storytelling is masterful but I can see why some may not care for it as much as I do. For one, the manga features quite a bit of sexual content, some of which involves incest, which I could imagine putting some people off while fans of Osamu Tezuka may find the lack of his trademark humour odd and perhaps disorienting. Nonetheless, I think it’s a brilliant work that deserves to be read.

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An Overview Of The Black Jack Franchise

Published October 5, 2023

Osamu Tezuka’s massive body of work is sometimes overshadowed by the success of Astro Boy, to the point where I’m only able to tell certain people who Osamu Tezuka is by bringing up Astro Boy to them. However, one of the most important series that Osamu Tezuka ever created has, itself, grown into quite a respectable franchise, one that easily attains greater critical reception than that of Astro Boy and is also commercially successful, being Osamu Tezuka’s second bestselling manga behind Astro Boy itself. Therefore, I thought it worth providing an overview of this fascinating franchise, Black Jack.

The Black Jack manga ran from 1973-83 in Weekly Shonen Champion and proved to be so successful that it’s often referred to as having rejuvenated Osamu Tezuka’s career. The manga follows the titular Black Jack, a genius surgeon who is unlicensed, as he encounters all sorts of unusual cases, patients and situations alongside his assistant/adopted daughter Pinoko. The series itself is told episodically with a few chapters fleshing out the background of its main cast but the quality of these stories proves remarkable and, in my personal opinion, is much more consistent than Astro Boy. It is also one of the best-selling manga series of all time with an estimated 50 million copies being sold in Japan!

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An Overview Of The Blood Franchise

Published October 2, 2023

When you think of franchises from Japan, you probably think of Dragon Ball, Godzilla, Pokémon etc. but I doubt many of you think of the Blood franchise. It’s certainly not one that would spring to my mind either but I took a look at it the other day and I noticed that it actually has quite a few notable entries now which prove to be surprisingly diverse in terms of both style and media. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to do an overview of the Blood franchise and look at the various works within it.

Of course, the logical place to start with any overview of a franchise is the first entry and Blood is no different. The origins of this series begins in 2000 when a 45 minute film called Blood: The Last Vampire was released by Production I.G. The film is set in 1966 and follows a girl called Saya who hunts down creatures called Chiropterans, vampires that physically resemble bats. The film was well-received and proved to be an international hit where it sold very well on VHS and DVD. Spin-offs such as manga, light novels and even a game soon followed but the original film itself never got a sequel.

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My Favourite Manga That I’ve Read Per Decade

Published September 14, 2023

Considering I wrote an article recently about my favourite anime that I’ve watched from each decade, I thought it would only make sense that I do the same for the manga that I’ve read. The same restrictions as in the other article will apply, those being that I’m not going to include the 2020s since the decade hasn’t finished and that I will be excluding any decades from which I have not read any titles. With that being said, let’s take a look at my favourite manga that I’ve read from each decade.

1920s – The Four Immigrants Manga

First off, I should clarify while the collected book was released in 1931, the original chapters were written from 1924-27. Therefore, I’m counting this as a 1920s title. The Four Immigrants Manga is an autobiographical work by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama about his and others experience as immigrants to San Francisco and it proves to be a fascinating read. For one, while certainly emphasising comedy, The Four Immigrants Manga is a fascinating insight into a time and perspective that we rarely get to see. Sure, the comedy doesn’t always work and the artwork and panel layout can be rough but, close to a hundred years later, I still found myself enjoying the book and the things I learned about the time period. That certainly counts for something!

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The History Of Vampires In Japanese Media

Published August 28, 2023

Anyone who’s familiar with anime, manga, video games or many other forms of Japanese media will know that vampires are a popular subject with numerous vampire fictions being created throughout the history of these mediums. However, it may surprise you to learn that vampires have only recently grown popular in Japan and, so, I thought I’d take a look at the history of vampires in Japanese media.

To begin, it’s interesting to note that vampires are foreign to Japan with vampires typically associated with European mythology. However, blood-drinking creatures can be found in a wide variety of cultures worldwide and Japan is no exception. Amongst the yokai of Japan, two particularly notable examples that drink blood are the Rokurokubi, creatures who look like women but are capable of extending their neck in a snake-like manner or even detaching their head and flying around, and the Nure-onna, creatures that look like snakes with the head of women, sometimes with arms as well, that uses their tongue to suck the blood out of a body.

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Some Of The More Notable Manga Based On Video Games

Published August 21, 2023

Video games and manga have a long and intertwined history. In the early days of video games, manga was often used to promote new games or to tell stories that were too complex to fit into the limited gameplay of the time. This need has waned as video games have become more and more capable of telling their story without the aid of additional media. Regardless of this, many manga based off of video games continue to be produced and I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the more notable ones.

Let’s start off with, as far as I can tell, the best-selling manga based on a video game, Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai. Based on the popular Dragon Quest video game series, The Adventures of Dai follows the titular character as, after being the only human on an island called Delmurin that was filled with monsters after the fall of the last demon lord, he learns that the demon lord has returned and that he must be trained by the previous hero, Avan, to fight against this menace. The series has proved popular with numerous anime adaptations and several video games and an estimated 50 million volumes sold as of 2022.

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