Category: Manga

The Fascinating Impact Of The Moon Rabbit

Published April 10, 2023

I’m currently watching Ultraman Taro, as part of my recent fascination with tokusatsu, and there was a particular episode where they mentioned the rabbit on the Moon. As you can imagine, the people I was watching the show with were quite confused so I ended up having to explain what the Moon rabbit was to them. However, it brought to mind that I had actually come across the Moon rabbit in a variety of media and that it might be worth discussing. Therefore, I thought that I’d take a look at the fascinating impact of the Moon rabbit on media.

Let’s start with what the Moon rabbit is. When looking at the Moon from Earth, you will only see the near side of the Moon which is covered in lunar maria. Different cultures have interpreted these lunar maria differently with some believing it resembles a man’s face or a lady but the cultures of East Asia and the Native Americans interpreted the lunar maria as resembling a rabbit with the East Asian cultures also seeing a mortar that’s being used to make the elixir of life, mochi, medicine etc.

An outline showing a trace of the Moon rabbit and its mortar.

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How Ken Akamatsu, A Mangaka, Became A Politician

Published April 3, 2023

If you had asked me who the first mangaka to become a politician would be, Ken Akamatsu wouldn’t have been my first choice. Not to say that Ken Akamatsu isn’t capable of working in politics but I would have guessed mangaka that dealt more with politics in their works such as Naoki Urasawa. Nonetheless, the reasons are quite fascinating for why Ken Akamatsu transitioned into politics so I thought I’d give a quick background on who Ken Akamatsu is, some of his works, his involvement in politics and how he ended up becoming Japan’s first mangaka turned politician.

Ken Akamatsu was born in Nagoya, Japan on July 5th, 1968 and became interested in manga after encountering Sailor Moon. He ended up submitting a manga to the Shonen Magazine Newcomer Award while he was in college and ended up winning, kick-starting his career as a mangaka. Over the course of his career, some of the most notable manga that he’s created have been “A.I. Love You”, “Love Hina”, “Negima! Magister Negi Magi” and “UQ Holder!”. I most heavily associate him with Love Hina and Negima and something that is particularly notable about those series is the high level of fan service that is used.

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The Strange Fusion Of Anime And Manga That Is Ga-nime

Published March 30, 2023

I remember doing some research recently on Yoshitaka Amano and spotted a term that I was unfamiliar with, “Ga-nime”. You can imagine my curiosity and, upon digging into it, I soon realised that Ga-nime was a strange fusion of anime and manga. Having learned about this, I thought it might be interesting to explain what Ga-nime is, how it’s unique and several other interesting details that I’ve found.

Something that’s important to note is that Ga-nime isn’t necessarily a style in and of itself and is actually a product line from the collaboration between Toei Animation, an anime company, and Gentosha, a publishing company. The name itself,画ニメ, is a fusion of the character 画, the second half of the word manga, and ニメ, the last two characters of the word anime. As the name implies, Ga-nime is a strange fusion of anime and manga which is a short work, distributed as an OVA, that features voice acting and music but very minimal animation, mostly being still images that are occasionally supplemented by limited animation, computer animation etc.

Anyone familiar with Yoshitaka Amano’s artwork will immediately recognise his involvement in this Ga-nime.

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An Overview Of The Unusual Appleseed Franchise

Published February 27, 2023

I’ve mentioned the Appleseed series several times on this blog, mainly in reference to anime CGI films, but it occurred to me that it may be helpful to provide an overview of this unusual franchise. I say unusual because it feels like Appleseed has become a franchise whose sole purpose is to experiment with CGI but, understandably, it didn’t start out this way, hence the reason for this overview.

Appleseed first took shape as a manga series written and drawn by Shirow Masamune, famous for his creation of the Ghost in the Shell franchise. Unusually, the manga wasn’t serialised originally with the first four volumes being released directly to market although a later attempt to serialise it was aborted after Shirow Masamune said that serialisation didn’t suit the series. The plot of the manga, which would serve as the basis for its many adaptations, follows Deunan Knute, a human woman, and Briareos Hecatonchires, a human man who, due to his injuries, has undergone extensive surgery which has resulted in him becoming a cyborg, who serve in ES.W.A.T. to protect Olympus, a new, seemingly idyllic, city-state established in the aftermath of World War III. The manga was well-received with praise for its action, humour and themes and, most notably, won the 1986 Seiun Award for Best Comic.

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Beginner Anime And Manga Recommendations

Published February 9, 2023

I’ve always thought that it must be tough to make a beginner anime and manga recommendations list (a good one at least). People’s tastes can be incredibly different and, despite the common factor being that they’re beginners, I don’t believe that one can make a recommendations list that’ll apply to everyone. Therefore, I thought that something I would do is recommend some anime and manga based on other interests. Of course, there’ll be some generalisations but I do believe that this’ll result in a better list.

Fans of Western Animation:

I think it’s fair to say that a lot of people develop an interest in anime because they’re fans of animation and want to try something a little different. For those people, I think a logical, and perhaps too obvious, suggestion is to watch the films of Studio Ghibli, an anime studio that is often compared to Disney. I also think Mamoru Hosoda films would generally appeal to these fans as well. As for manga, I think a manga like Unico would appeal to Western animation fans but, since it can be a bit awkward to get a hold of, I’d also recommend Princess Knight, which is from the same author as Unico, and a Clamp manga such as Angelic Layer, although some of their other manga may prove to be a bit much for beginners.

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The Interesting History Of Disney Anime And Manga

Published January 26, 2023

I’ve always been a fan of Disney and I strongly believe that many of their animated works are some of the finest ever created. However, I think it’s fair to say that part of the reason that many people are drawn to anime and manga is how different it can be in terms of storytelling and visuals from most Western animation that feel unable to separate themselves from Disney’s impact. However, I think it’s interesting how, throughout the history of their mediums, anime and manga have teamed up with Disney to produce works that combine the styles of the former with the IP of the latter.

As far as I’m aware, the first time that this occurred was Osamu Tezuka’s Bambi in 1951. Osamu Tezuka, often considered to be the founder of the modern anime industry, was a big fan of Disney and he particularly adored Bambi. He even ended up watching it over 80 times during its original Japanese theatrical release! He managed to eventually license the right to Bambi and to produce a manga adaptation. Interestingly, he also produced a manga adaptation of Disney’s Pinocchio the next year but, since copyright was hard to enforce at the time, it was an unlicensed work.

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The Interesting Mangaka Naoki Urasawa

Published January 12, 2023

When someone is learning about manga for the first time, I’m sure that the sheer number of important series and mangaka can prove to be a little intimidating. However, as much as I love to talk about many of the classic mangaka such as Shotaro Ishinomori or Mitsuteru Yokoyama, it’s true that there are a great deal of very talented mangaka working in the modern industry. One of the more notable is an individual called Naoki Urasawa, a particularly interesting mangaka whose body of work has seen both strong critical and commercial success.

As a child, Naoki Urasawa idolised the work of Osamu Tezuka, later naming him as one of his two heroes alongside Bob Dylan. Despite this, he didn’t initially end up pursuing a career as being a mangaka and it was only chance that he ended up becoming a mangaka. While visiting Shogakukan in search of a job in business, he decided to bring along some of the manga he’d drawn and, after initially struggling to get the attention of editors, he ended up running into one who submitted it to a contest for the 1982 New Manga Artist award. He proved to be quite surprised when he won and decided to begin working as a mangaka.

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Do You Remember Raijin Comics?

Published December 29, 2022

American manga magazines have an interesting history with the rise of Shonen Jump and Yen Plus in the physical format before eventually transitioning to digital and, in Shonen Jump’s case, reforming themselves. However, an interesting manga magazine from this era which seems to have largely been forgotten was Raijin Comics. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at Raijin Comics, what it was and to remember the path it attempted to thread.

The company responsible for Raijin Comics was Gutsoon! Entertainment which was a subsidiary of Coamix, a company founded by mangaka Tetsuo Hara and Tsukasa Hojo. Along with running manga magazine Weekly Comic Bunch, the decision was made to release a manga magazine in America called Raijin Comics. This magazine ended up debuting shortly before Viz Media released their Shonen Jump manga magazine.

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Manga Tie-Ins That Came Out Before Their Anime

Published December 15, 2022

When I first learned of an anime called “Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne“, a series I highly recommend by the way, I remember doing some brief research and learning that a light novel was in release before the anime started airing. Without pursuing it further, I assumed that the anime was an adaptation. Of course, you know what happens when you assume! Some time later, I actually looked deeper and learned that the novel had only begun a month before the anime started airing and was only completed after the anime had ended! Similarly, many original anime series may decide to release manga tie-ins prior to the anime airing and so I thought it might be interesting to take a look at a few examples and to consider why a company, likely a production committee in these cases, would choose to do this.

When I think of manga tie-ins that came out before their anime, the first one that comes to mind is Neon Genesis Evangelion. Beginning nearly a full year before the anime began airing, the manga adaptation was done by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, who also served as the character designer for the TV series, and ended up running for over 18 years. It’s since proven to be quite financially successful with about 25 million copies sold and has also been very well received and, while this is very much a personal statement, I actually ended up preferring the manga over the anime TV series.

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The Important Mangaka Mitsuteru Yokoyama

Published November 28, 2022

It’s always tragic when so many fans of a medium choose to only experience the newest incarnations and ignore many of the classics. Of course, this pretty much applies to all media as I’ve noticed that numerous people that I know don’t watch older movies and TV series and they don’t read older literature or play older video games. This certainly applies to the medium of manga and, while I’ve highlighted classic mangaka like Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori, another important mangaka that is arguably less known than them in the West is Mitsuteru Yokoyama. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of his works and the impact that he has had.

Born on June 18th, 1934, he ended up becoming inspired to become a mangaka at the age of 15 after reading Osamu Tezuka’s Metropolis. After a few jobs, he eventually managed to turn his career as a mangaka into a full-time job and he continued to have success until 2004 when, after a fire broke out in his house, he died in hospital.

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