Unpopular But Valid Opinions: I Am Pro-Manga Piracy

I keep hearing a lot about the manga industry and how piracy is "killing" it. And I think a lot about it. I have no choice but to think about it. It's a big part of the world I'm in. Hell, I'm only writing this blog post because the topic was brought up in my Business of Comics class last night.

I am on the unpopular (as far as the industry is concerned anyway) pro-side of manga being available for free on the internet along with available for purchase. I see it as a weird, skewed, scaled-up version of the free-content model of the webcomics industry.

Let me ramble my way through this and hopefully you will see my point...

Let me first present to you the webcomics business model as I understand/plan to use it. Webcomics GIVE AWAY the main body of their content for absolutely nothing. The actual comic is generally available for free, with no restrictions on viewing, to the entire internet. Essentially, creators are giving their product away to the whole world for free. They then make money off of sales of ad space, merchandise, and often PRINT VERSIONS OF THEIR COMIC.



Oh hey, doesn't that sound kind of familiar? Free content on the internet then being available for purchase in print form? Online scanlations --> Print manga.

Very rarely these days do I stand in a Borders (which, soon, I won't be able to do at all) or a Barnes & Noble, stare at the manga shelf, and buy five or six books. I do not pick up new series on a whim anymore! I cannot afford it! Manga is a bit expensive at $10-$12 a book, and I can't drop $50 to start five series, and end up only wanting to continue one of them. That is a waste of my money.

HOWEVER! I do stand in Borders or Barnes & Noble, stare at the manga shelf, and pick up the first volumes of series I read scanlations of online. Series that I have already invested myself in, know I enjoy, and want to be able to read ANY TIME, not just when I'm at a computer. Prime examples of this are "Bleach" and "Bakuman". Both of these are series I read free scanlations of first. As soon as I began reading scanlations of Bleach, I immediately went and bought hard copies. I wanted to be able to look closely at the artwork, and to be able to plow through pages without having to wait for them to load. But I knew it was already a story I enjoyed, and that buying it wouldn't be a waste of my money.

"Bakuman" is an even more perfect example. I, and by extension several friends, began reading scanlations before Viz decided to license the series and translate it for the US market. When we found out Viz had licensed it, we all marked the release date on our calendars. Within a week of release, several of us were at our local B&N, picking up volume 1, excited about when the next volume would be released for us to buy EVEN THOUGH WE COULD READ IT FREE ONLINE.



Scanlations are great to get into a series, and follow it beyond the current English releases. when you don't want to wait a month or two for the next full volume, you can read a few chapters online. Then, when a more reliable and accurate translation comes out on store shelves, often with extras that you won't get in scanlations (such as the rough draft pages between chapters in "Bakuman"), you can buy them.

Honestly, I'm so dependent on scanlations to "try out" manga at this point, that I worry without scanlations, I'll either miss out on series I would otherwise buy, or get BORED of series I like between releases. Again, I provide as an example "Afterschool Charisma".



"Afterschool Charisma" is a rare example of me picking up a title I know nothing about off a shelf at B&;N. I had seen it, joked about it, and the more I thought about the premise the more I thought maybe it would be interesting. But I didn't pick it up for MONTHS because I couldn't find scanlations online! Eventually, I was with my friend Philip, who works for B&N and offered his discount, so I picked it up.

This series is now my guilty pleasure. I adore it. But there are still no scanlations online. this would be less of a problem if it came out monthly, or even bi-monthly. But VIZ releases one volume of "Afterschool Charisma" once every six months. That is six months of me not reading Afterschool Charisma. Six months of me not psyching myself up for the next volume. In June, will I be as excited for Volume 3 as I was in January when I finished Volume 2? Yes, Viz makes the next volume available to read on their website, but their e-reader is abysmal and impossible to use. So I just don't read it on their site. So who knows if, in five months when Volume 3 is released, I'll remember to go pick it up.

There are also a lot of series that have large followings, but are never localized stateside. (See: "Hoshi no Samidare"/"The Lucifer & The Biscuit Hammer") These are series that I would buy in a heartbeat if they were brought to the US, but my only option is to read scanlations.



Manga publishers in the US are really just missing out on the opportunity to capitalize on this model. They need to make better, more accessible e-readers, make content available, and ENCOURAGE people to read their content online. Provide online versions of first volumes that they plan to publish in the future. Maybe even the first two volumes. Give people a chance to get into the story and to WANT to buy the print volumes. They need to pay attention to what's doing well on sites like MangaFox and MangaReader instead of trying to shut them down like they did with OneManga, and then go buy the licenses for those series and provide good translations that will be available at reliable times.

All of these things have been pushed on me as important in the webcomics business model because time has shown that they WORK. Having your content be good, accessible, reliably available is a key to success in the webcomics world. If you provide that, people will read, if they read they might enjoy it, if they enjoy it, they will be willing to support it.

Why can't this free-content model be applied to the manga industry as well?

The numbers show that interest in manga hasn't decreased. Fandoms are still alive, thriving, and growing. Sales have dipped because we're in a recession. We can't buy $50 worth of manga on a whim anymore. We can't risk $10 on something we're not sure if we'll commit to.

I know this is not true for 100% of manga fans. There are always a few people ruining it for everyone. But I am the FIRST to yell at the people who say "I won't buy it, I can just read it online." and the first to tell them to go support series that they love.

The long and short of it, Manga Industry (and book/music publishing industry in general), is that if you let us find what we want, let us commit ourselves to it, we'll still buy it. We just need to know what we want first. Instead of discouraging this, embrace it and find a way to use it to your advantage.

Playing Catch-Up: Bakuman Episode 5

Okay so this is the part where I'm fully caught up with Bakuman. Episode 5, for me, was a good follow to episode 4. It was an entirely different direction, but touched on another of my favorite things in this series -- the relationship between Mashiro and Azuki and the one between Takagi and Kaya. Also in this episode Mashiro and Takagi's bromance just floruishes.

Watching the two of them discuss story ideas is where you can really see it begin. I find it weird that Takagi cries so much, but aybe he actually did that back in the beginning and I just don't remember. He's such a dramatic guy though that I'm completely willing to buy it.



Kaya spends this episode reminding me why she is my goddamn favorite character in the series. Her voice took me a little while to get used to. At first I thought it might be a little too deep, but her energy and emotion is really all there and the more she spoke the more I really felt the voice suited her. Visually, Kaya still feels the most off to me of all of the female characters. Something about her eyes seems really weird, and (as with all of the other girls) I'm still not able to deal with how her hair is drawn. I'm coping with Azuki. Slowly, her anime appearance and her manga appearance are meshing in my head. But Kaya in the anime doesn't seem to suit her at all.

However her acting is great. Even if her appearance seems a little off, her actions are spot on. Her dialog, her reactions, and her vocal inflections are ust completely Miyoshi Kaya, and I can appreciate that even if her apperance feels totally off.



As I mentioned, this episode focuses a lot on the romantic relationships of our to leads. As far as the whole Mashiro and Azuki end of things, it's msotly all in discussion. Mashiro spends time talking with Takagi about the encounter with Miho at the end of episode 4 and how they are on the same "wavelength". Takagi plays with this idea a lot, teasing Mashiro for it at first, but it later comes back and it's hard to tell if he's joking or not.

The beginnings of Takagi and Kaya's relationship (my favorite in the series) is more "active" in episode 5, as Takagi stumbles into it by accident. He had found out about Azuki's dream of voice acting from Kaya, and when Kaya confronts him about talking to Miho about it, he uses the excuse that he just wanted to talk to Kaya. She takes this as a love confession and isn't sure what to do about it. For the rest of the episode, she and Takagi keep passing by and looking back at each other in a more comedic version of Mashiro and Azuki's "wavelength" moment. Takagi mentions it to Mashiro the first time, and Mashiro proceeds to write it off as a joke.



The second half of this episode takes place over summer break and is more focused on Mashiro and Takagi making their first one-shot to submit to Jump. they move into Kawaguchi Taro's old studio to devote themselves entirely to the project. This is where the bromance really blossoms. The first night neither of them can sleep and sit around discussing manga. They talk about Dragonball and then both do the (in)famous Dragonball "fusion dance", which was without a doubt one of the most hillarious things I've ever seen. I was on my semi-daily commute into the city for class when Iw as watching the episode and I was laughing behind my hand in spite of confused looks from other passengers and a conductor.



The truly endearing part of the next two scenes is watching Takagi take care of Mashiro. He's already finished the rough drafts of the story, so there's not as much for him to do. He's watching his friend and partner work constantly and push himself to the point of losing sleep. He watches Mashiro scrap the work he's done on the finished pages to start over entirely. For a while he does his best to just make sure Mashiro is eating and sleeping, and when that's not enough he starts trying to learn how to ink and tone while Mashiro is asleep.

When it comes time to apply screentones to the pages, he asks Mashiro to help and is initially turned down until he states that he was hoping they could "work toward the moment of completion together". When it's all done, the two of them are sleep-deprived and covered in screentone, hoping for the best. The look on their faces was one that I was familiar with after working through big projects.



The episode closes with the Takagi calling Jump to set up an appointment to submit a manuscript. We're about to dive into the really nitty-gritty of the series with the two of them working toward their serialization in Jump. Next week we're being introduced to Hattori, which I'm excited for, and maybe we'll get a little more Eiji? I'd like to be able to form a better opinion of him, but I didn't see him in the preview so I'm not sure if I'll have to wait a while longer to get a better look at him.

Let's all look forward to episode 6!

Playing Catch-Up: Bakuman Episode 4

Bakuman 4 might end up being my favorite episode, you guys. This episode was incredibly special to me for a handful of reasons, but most predominantly in how completely nostalgic it was. I've mentioned here in the past that I'm a Cartooning major, and that drawing comics is how I want to make a living for myself. This episode brought back so many memories of when I first decided that, and when I really commited to learning what went into making comics, what tools I needed, how to use them, and how to make a comic page the best that I could possibly make it.



A big focus of the first half of this episode is on Mashiro and his commitment to learning to use a G-Pen. This is a REAL type of pen nib, and one that anyone in comics and pen+ink drawing will be familiar with. It's a long-time standard for manga-ka, and has recently become a standard for American cartoonists as well.

I have to commend the animation tea for their accuracy in the first half of this episode, and for the little things they included that made the first half of this episode so real to me. When Mashiro wiped the edges of his pen on the side of his ink bottle, I actually had to pause the episode for a moment in shock. I knew that gesture. When I worked with a G-Pen, I had done the exact same thing a hundred times. The way they portrayed the motion was so natural. It was perfect.



Mashiro demonstrated the difference between the Kabura pen line and the G-Pen line to Takagi (also later breifly mentioning Maru pens), and it was such a surreal experience for me, having lived this, knowing what he meant, and feeing the same as he did. He was explaining to Takagi all of the things I've learned over the years. The degree of accuracy in the drawings of the nibs, the gestures made when Mashiro uses them, and the lines they create was just phenominal. I have to commend them on the attention to detail. I guess with this series you have to be accurate or it just seems dumb, but even just slight details of this seires that a causal watcher wouldn't know were accurate or not are perfect. And that makes this seires so much more special for someone like me, who's had to learn these things.

There's also something to be said for the "Kawaguchi Taro School Of Thought", which is Mashiro's uncle's three rules for becoming a successful manga-ka.



This rang true in the manga and it rings true now. You have to believe in what you're doing and put all your effot into it, but a lot of actually getting out there is being in the right place at the right time. You need to know people.

So, in order to get better, Mashiro spends the weekend drawing and learning to use the G-Pen and Takagi sits down and reads as much manga as he can in order to come up with a good story. They show Takagi surrounded by piles of manga, and all of the are actual series that have run in Jump! I'm actually amused by how much "Death Note" (also done by Ohba and Obata) and "Hikaru no Go" (which Obata did the art for) show up in this. There are glimpses of them everywhere, and Takagi keeps making "Death Note" jokes.

The latter half of this episode is about Mashiro and Takagi committing to being manga-ka and planning their futures around it. They make decisions about school and make the decision to try and talk to an editor at Jump. They begin making plans to do a one-shot over their summer break to try and get in to talk to an editor. The first stages of Mashiro and Takagi's fanstastic bromance begin to emerge, especially around the key to the studio that Mashiro gave Takagi.



And then we have a breif encounter between Mashiro and Azuki. This is the whole "on the same wavelength" scene, which, admittedly, Iw as worried wouldn't translate well to the anime. It was a very slow, still scene that was about reactions more than anything else. But it actually came out very well.

And finally, episode 4 gives us our first glimpse at Nizuma Eiji in the last 30 second of the episode, on the phone with his editor about moving to Tokyo todo manga. We onyl get close ups of his mouth and a shot of him from behind, and all he does is make bird noises, but it's a good sign of what's to come.



Man, this one sure was image heavy! But this episode has been my favorite so far and there was just so uch I wanted to cover!! I'll be looking at episode 5 tomorrow, and then I'll finally be caught up!

Playing Catch-Up: Bakuman Episode 3

So, I finally got my dumb ass caught up with Bakuman.I regret putting it off. I'm going to do separate posts for eahc one and finish off the week with them. I want to start off saying that when I fired up episode 3, and when I hit the end of it, the themes made me start bawling again. I really don't know why that is, butman something about those songs...

Episode 3: Parents And Children was, more than anything, about the drive to make comics. It's about the fact that it's hard work, but even if you can handle that you have to have the heart for it. Reliving Mashiro and Takagi first exploring the studio that would become such a vital location for the rest of the series was such an intense feeling. Though some of the more touching moments came after they'd done their exploring, the first of which being Mashiro calling his father to talk about his Uncle's death. Mashiro's father reminds him of a moment in "Ashita no Joe" (an old manga about boxing), and it clarifies for Mashiro that his uncle didn't kill himself or die due to stress. He just burned himself out on the passion of making comics for someone he loved.



Another moment that just seemed really special to me was when Mashiro and Takagi were reading the last letter to his uncle from Azuki's mom and Takagi was the one who started crying. It's a very Takagi thing to do. Mashiro isn't exactly the emotional one of the pair, but it just seemed a little more speical than normal because this is something that, to Mashiro, would be very personal. Takagi on the otherhand was just stepping into this situation, knowing nothing about it, and felt such emotion for someone he had never met and what his feelings must have been that it brought him to tears.



I'm still bothered by the appearance of all of the girls in this series, and I think I realized part of it during the scene in which Mashiro and Takagi visit Azuki's mother to talk about what happened between her and Mashiro's uncle. The hair on all of them looks somewhat plastic and fake. I think I discussed this before, but it seems like there's not as much detail in the hair int he girls as there is on the guys. It's really starting to bother me.



But the scene itself was wonderful, and also hillarious. The banter between Azuki's mom and Takagi on "nerds vs. bad boys" was one of the more hilarious moments so far. Satoshi Hino voices him spectacularly. I unfortuantely haven't heard the other roles he's played, so I can't compare them, but at least for Takagi, he is brilliant. Both parts are brilliantly played, actually, but Takagi's performance was just exceptional.

This episode reminded me of why I'dbeen so excited about the Bakuman anime. It was nice to relive my first experiences with this seires. Even though I knew everything that would happen, it was all in a way I hadn't seen so it was like living it for the first time all over again! That was a wonderful feeling, and it's what I love about this adaptation.

On to episode 4!

New Sides To Old Stories

I know it's been a little while since you've heard from me. If you follow me on twitter or any of my other regular internet hangouts you probalby know that for me, the past two weeks have been full of sick cats, stressed moms, half-sinished comics, and pulling 3 water color paintings and a 5-minute presentation out of my ass at the last minute. I've been recovering from all of this since last Thrusday, but things seem to be calming down signifcantly now, so I'm going to try and get caught up on the things I've missed.

The great thing is that right as my schedule has calmed down two of my favorite series have entered new arcs. Chatper 424 of "Bleach" and chapter 57 of "Genshiken" both came out today and have manged to light a bit of a fire under me.



Once again, Kubo sets out to remind me why I love his goddamn manga so much. This week was full of Ichigo, his family, and his riends just hanging out, being weirdos, and implying things to come. In canon, it's been more than a year (17 months, if we're getting specific) since the end of the last arc. Ichigo's sisters are entering middle school and Ichigo is now a senior in high school. Uryu seems to have taken over fighting the hollows in Karakura, Orihime and Chad just kind of continue to exist, Keigo and Mizuiro are still dorks, Tatsuki has become hot, and Rukia hasn't shown her face once since she and Ichigo parted ways, which is to be expected I guess.



I'm wondering if Karin will end up as a shinigami or something given that it was pointed out how much stronger her abilites have become since Ichigo lost his. I'm also excited to find out what is going to go on with Ichigo's deputy shinigami badge. I was fairly certain I was the only one who even remembered he had the damned thing, and all of a sudden it's a plot point. I'm curious about this new villain, who seems to have inherited Aizen's evil mullet.

I'm hoping that next week that Urahara/Yoruichi or the Vizard start poking their heads back into the story. I doubt Ichigo is going to give much thought to his missing badge, but I anticipate one/all of them sticking their noses in and forcing him to go get it back for whatever reason. Still also anticipating Urahara injecting Ichigo with reishi and being "LOL YOU'RE A SHINIGAMI AGAIN!". Seem slike his kind of thing.



As I mentioned, this week also brought the long awaited return of "Genshiken". I think it was my sophomore or junior year of college when I sat down and read all nine volumes of "Genshiken" straight through. It is one of two (the other being "Gurren Lagann") that lived up to the hype I'd heard about it from friends before getting into it. Rumors circulated about it for a little while, and then a few months ago the first chapter leaked. This week brought us further in and I am looking forward to the things to come.

Old favorites Ohno and Ogiue are running the Genshiken now, Kuchiki still hanging around and being a creeper, the American transfer Sue still being totally insane and amazing, and a few new members coming in to give new life to the group we all know and love. Familair faces like Sasahara, Saki, and Madarame are also popping up as needed and I'm excited to see how they'll play as now-supporting members of the cast.

In a very out of character turn for me, I've already got a crush on the new member Hato. Hato is a cross-dresser. He goes to school as a boy, but whenever he goes to the Genshiken he changes clothes and makes himself up as a girl. He also seems to avoid the other members during regular school hours and wantes them to see him as boy as little as possible. A few other members are uncomfortable about it, but Ohno and Ogiue, from their past experiences, are already used to this sort of thing and make Madarame give them a key to his apartment so Hato can change clothes there after school instead of having to do it in a bathroom at the school.



There's somethign that I find very endearing about Hato, and I'm interested about all of the new interactions that the members of the Genshiken, new and old, will have. Sue seems to have taken over Madarame's place, even if Ogiue is the chairman, often proclaiming meetings to be the Nth meeting on whatever topic.

I'm still two or three weeks behind on the anime episodes for "Bakuman", but I promise I'll get caught up with those as soon as possible and blog about them. I have caught up with the manga though, and I'm really excited about the direction it's taking. I love Shiratori and I'm looking forward to seeing how Mashiro and Takagi will do working on seires spearate from each other while also still doing Perfect Crime Club. Kaya also continus to just be my favorite character in the damn series.



I'm headed to New England Webcomics Weekend, so I'll be sure to write a post about that as well when I get back!

Bakuman EP 2 - Keeping the momentum.

Right off the bat, I've got to say, I love the opening song and ending song more and more every time I hear them. I maybe the only Bakuman fan I know that lie the opening, but this week even more than last week it really felt appropriate. Same with the ending. when I heard it start, it only emphasized the energy of the situation and pulled me into being eager for next week and watching episode 3.

I really kept my ear to the ground this week and tried to actively listen for the background music in episode 2 so that I could comment on it. In doing so, I noticed that in many scenes they don't use any background music at all. Even in scenes that are just conversation, the ambient background is often very quiet until some great revelation is point of thought is made. These choices on when to start and stop the background music are brilliant. It brings importance to certain mmoments that might not have come through as well if there had been a musical underscore the whole time.

The music itself is stunning. The tracks I most noticed were the slower, more sentimental ones, but in the final scene, during Mashiro's running montage there is a more upbeat, lively song that I also found to be absolutely wonderful. As soon as I can, I want to get my hands on the soundtrack and just listen to it straight, without having the anime along with it to distract me.




Right now, we are still in the fledgling stages of Bakuman, so it's really hard to comment on it as I would the manga right now. We haven't gotten to any manga creation, the comradere and rivalry in Jump, the first appearance of Niizuma Eiji, or even all of Takagi's lady troubles. However, Takagi's lady troubles WERE beautifuly foreshadowed in episode two in his conversation with Iwase about the exams they were about to take, punctuated by Kaya passing by telling Miho how she didn't study at all.



I'm still very iffy on the visuals in Bakuman. It's not Mashiro and Takagi that bother me, as I said last week. It's the girls. Iwase, now that she's come in, feels as equally off as Miho and Kaya. I don't know why, but Miho and Iwase have been given brown and purple hair respectively, when in the manga both of them had black hair. That is throwing me significantly.

Mashiro's blue isn't bothering me, mostly because his hair is blue in all of the color spots, and I'm accustomed to it, but even in the color spots, Miho and Iwase's hair is dark and near-black. It may have a tint of the colors they were given in the anime, but it's not nearly as blatant. Kaya's hair is also more red in the color illustrations than it is the light brown in the anime. Also her hair seems to have a lot more texture in the manga than the anime. I don't know why it was simplifed, or if I'm just imagining it, but it really pulls me out of her character.



One thing about the episode that was incredibly strange to me was how every time that Mashiro flashed back to his conversation with Miho in the previous episode, he flashed back to the moment he aske dher to marry him, and only up to her runing away afterward. The flashback never includes where she agrees and the terms that go with it, even if they are acknowledged in conversation. Also he never looks back on it and smiles.

I understand that he's feeling determined and wants to prove himself to Miho, but isn't that something to smile about? If he can accomplish his dream, he'll be with the girl he loves. Instead he looks very somber and serious, as if he's been rejected and the only way to redeem himself to her is to become an accomplished manga-ka, which isn't the case at all.



Next week looks like we're getting into the history between Mashiro's uncle and Miho's mom, and the parallels to Mashiro and Miho they draw. Hopefully we'll also start leading into Takagi and Kaya, since I'd obviously love to see more of them given that they're my favorites in the series. After that we'll likely start getting into Niizuma Eiji and the nitty-gritty manga side of Bakuman.

"Bakuman" episode 1: Starting strong right out of the gate!

Ah you guys!!! I just got through watching the first episode of the "Bakuman" anime! I've been excited about this for months, and the last few weeks my friends and I have really been building up to it. This morning I watched raws of the opening and ending sequences, and a little bit of the episode, then decided to wait for fansubs to watch the rest!

I was confused when I started and got the opening for "Super Hero Legend", in my mind I recognized what it was but I kept wondering if I was watching the wrong thing by mistake. But when it faded to a young Mashiro reading the manga for "Super Hero Legend", I laughed.

Then the real opening sequence began...



I instantly fell in love. Especially given the context of the early story, which focuses mostly on Mashiro and Miho, I felt that this opening was really appropriate. It focuses mostly on Mashiro and Miho, with a backtone of Takagi and Kaya. It really sets the tone for the start of the story, and I am just in love with the song, "Blue Bird" by Kobukuro.

So far it's pretty faithful to the manga. The "Death Note" joke was retained, and that was great for me. As of episode one, I have no complaints about how the anime is following the manga. Still, this is episode one so it's a little hard to tell just what direction the anime will roll in.



As for the visuals, I'm about 75%. I like the way Mashiro and Takagi are presented. They feel very natural and they look like themselves. Takagi pulled out some really great expressions, though as of now some of the comedic faces don't seem to have come through in the anime. I'm not sure how many really showed up this early on, so I'm hoping that they just haven't gotten a chance to really make those expressions yet and will pull through on it in the future.

But the girls... The girls are my sticking point right now. Kaya doesn't feel like herself to me at all. Of course we've seen almost nothing of her, so it's hard to really say what the problem is. But as for Miho, it's her eyes. In the manga, and even in Mashiro's drawings of her in the anime, Miho's eyes are very wide, bright, and expressive of the fact that she's a very hopeful, dreamy character. In the anime, her eyes don't always express that, and it's a little disappointing to me. I hope that as the anime progresses I lose this feeling and Miho's eyes begin to feel more natural to her character for me, because I really love Miho and those qualities about her.



The voice acting completely wins my support. My favorite is Takagi, who is being voiced by Hino Satoshi. I'm not familiar with any of his previous roles, even though he's had some major ones. But he really gives Takagi the energy, cunning, and personality that the manga always made me believe he has.

I'm really excited about some of the other voices (which are all listed on one of Wikipedia's "Bakuman" articles) for supporting characters who haven't appeared yet. Fukuda is going to be voiced by Suwabe Junichi, who voiced Grimmjow in "Bleach", and I feel like this is a perfect fit.

The background music is hard for me to comment on, as I tend to lose track of it while watching. But I suppose that is a good thing. It makes me comfortable watching the things going on and doesn't jar me or pull me out of the story at all. It feels natural to the events occurring while it plays.

As for the ending sequence, I'm just as in love with it as the opening.



Here we get to see a lot more of the backbone of what "Bakuman" is and will be. We get to see our supporting cast done up in manga panels, showcasing their personalities. The song is "Bakurock: Outline the Future" by Ya-kyim. The song has some drawing puns in it, which I think is fantastic, and the tone of the song just really fits the overall tone of "Bakuman".

Out of the gate, "Bakuman" gets a solid "A" from me, and I'm really really looking forward to episode 2 next week! I'll do my best to follow through with reviews on each episode if I have time and remember to!

Just checking in at the moment.

So, the newest Pokemon games, "Black Version" and "White Version" come out in Japan in less than two weeks. The influx of leaked info has been minimal lately and mostly confined to info about the new anime arc, "Best Wishes". I am debating actually watching it because I have developed a huge crush on Dento and I want to see more of Araragi.

While new info is slow now, I'm expecting it to explode in two weeks when the games finally get released. I'll do my best to keep up, but since I'm heading back for my final two semesters at SVA on the 7th, and will therefore have classwork to keep up with, I don't know how much info I'll be able to give.

On the upside, my first Senior Series class is "Anime Workshop". This is a class on exploring different types of anime and it's influences. So we'll be watching a lot of classic anime films ("Akira", "Naussica", ect.), and I'll have those to write about while I'm in the class. The whole "Aizen is a total psycho" arc of Bleach also seems to be hitting it's final stretch, so once that ends I am sure I will have a long and meaningless post to write about that. I'm predicting I'll have some things to say about Bakuman again in the near future as well.

So stick around. We've got lots coming.

Blogging about everything today.

Yeahhh.... I've been slacking off this week guys. Sorry. I've been out doing things pretty much every other day, so it's understandable right? But while I've been at ti I've watched more K-On, some clips from Hetalia, listening to the soundtrack from "The Road to El Dorado", and started reading "Yankee-kun to Megane-chan", which is absolutely hilarious. I'm still a long way from caught up, but it's fantastic, so far so I'd recommend taking a look at it if you've got some time to kill. I also went to a family reunion in there somewhere.

In pokemon news, we got another new pokemon revealed -- Yanappu.



A grass-type monkey is a weird combination to me, and I'm not totally sold on the broccoli growing out of his head, but I suppose he could be an interesting grass-type to work with if you're into that sort of thing. However, he's probably not going to be on my B/W team.

This pokemon isn't actually a reveal so much as a confirmation. We got a picture of a figure of this pokemon back in July, but up until now it wasn't confirmed as an actual pokemon in the games.

I've been playing SoulSilver again, finishing up some things that I've left hanging, such as chasing down roaming legendaries and doing the spiky-eared Pichu event. Suri's been helping me shuffle pokemon over from my copies of Platinum and Diamond to help me finish my pokedex. I also got a Japanese Wigglytuff over the GTS that has pokerus, so I've been infecting my pokemon with that slowly but surely. This is the first time I've ever had pokemon with it, so that's kind of exciting for me.

On a complete shift of subject, this week's "Bakuman" reminded me just who the team working on this was -- The pair who did "Death Note".

Mashiro and Takagi are currently planning a five-chapter story are in "Perfect Crime Party" that involves a rival trying to expose the club. Listening to them plan it out, it sounded a lot like the rivalry between Light and L, but with a lot less murder. Not that this is a bad thing. "Death Note" was written very well, even though I never finished it. I'm really excited to see how the next chapters play out and if "Perfect Crime Party" can beat Iwase and Eiji's crossover between "Crow" and "+Natural".

Image via Wikipedia

If you're not reading Bakuman yet, now is the perfect time to start. VIZ's translation has just hit stores, so the first volume is available. Go pick it up, and then catch up to the scans. then in November we can all go out an pick up volume 2. Especially if you're into the process of making comics, the physical volumes are worth picking up because VIZ has thrown in a little something extra for us -- Ohba and Obata's thumbnails for some of the pages! Getting that little something extra between chapters really sealed the deal for me. With how important the thumbnails are for Mashiro and Takagi within the story, getting to see Ohba and Obata's made it all the better.

Ahaha, I guess I managed to write a decent blog entry after all. I'm pretty impressed, since I didn't intend to. I'll try and do another update soon. It will probably be about Scott Pilgrim since I need to finish reading that and go see the movie.

Otakon 2010 - Thursday/Friday

So we didn't do anything Otakon related on Thursday, but it was a good day, so I'm going to shove it in with Friday's activities.

So Cass picked me up around 1, we grabbed Suri, and headed down to Baltimore. We stopped at a rest stop for lunch, and then headed down to UMBC, where we're staying in Cass's apartment on campus. We got ourselves settled in, and then headed over to the local Safeway to pick up some food/snacks for the weekend.

I made steak sautéed in olive oil (I am the most Italian), a box of white cheddar & broccoli Pasta-Roni, and a bag of frozen broccoli for dinner. Cass made a box of cupcakes for dessert. It was the most delicious. For those of you who didn't know, I absolutely love to cook. So getting to cook dinner for my friends (while wearing an awesome blue apron!) was great.

Suri played some Twilight Princess, I played some Cate West: The Velvet Keys, and we made a lot of jokes about mangos being 100 cents, Death Note's "Take this potato chip... AND EAT IT!!!", and various other things we all found funny over the course of the day. Just being out of the house is nice, and I enjoyed hanging around and just being kind of nerdy and awesome with two of the most important people in my life.

Friday rolled around and Cass dropped Suri and I off at the convention center. We picked up our badges and began heading around the convention. We met up with friends and took pictures of cosplayers until it was around time for a Q&A panel with Jerry Jewel, who voices Vino/Claire from "Baccano!".



The previous Q&A for Todd Haberkorn was still going on, so we sat in in the end of it and figured out that he voiced Firo from "Baccano!", which was pretty cool also. They are hilarious men, and will also be voicing Italy and Russia (respectively) in the dub of "Axis Powers Hetalia" with crazy accents. I've never been too into Hetalia, but I do love crazy accents so I may watch it just for that.

After that, Suri and I made a few round in the dealer's room and artist's alley to scout out things we might want to buy and what booths had the best prices. While doing that, we also found some of my favorite cosplayers of the day.



Once we'd made a few rounds, we went back and started buying things. I didn't figure there would be much I wanted, but I managed to find a good handful of Nia figures to buy, plus a few other little Bleach things that I couldn't resist.



The "cookies" are actually zipper-pulls/keychains. They are really really cute. The "decorated" cookies are of Abarai Renji and Hitsugaya Toshiro, the two square cookies are of Kuchiki Byakuya and Hirako Shinji, and the chocolate cookies is just squares. I don't really know what it is. If I can find the booth again, I may buy a few more tomorrow and see what else I can get.



I also found this poster in the artist's alley. While making my rounds, there wasn't really a whole lot that I wanted. There were things at the tables of friends that I'd planned to pick up (and will go back for tomorrow since I didn't get to today), but there wasn't much I wanted to buy. Then I saw this Bakuman poster by Rikyo (of Studio Painted Blade), and just stopped dead in my tracks. He asked if I saw anything I liked, I pointed at it, and said "That." I paid the $10 for the poster and we had a brief conversation about how great Bakuman is.

After that we caught up with Cass and headed back to the apartment. I made chicken, corn, and chicken-flavored rice-a-roni for dinner, and now we're all hanging around unwinding after a full, very eventful day. Tomorrow we plan to take another spin around the dealer's room and the artist's alley and then see what happens.

All of our pictures from this weekend can be found in this album on Photobucket. It is full of fantastic cosplayers, so do go take a look!

Comics About Making Comics

So, a while ago, after reading a blog post about it by my friend Hilary, I started reading a manga currently running in Jump by the pair who brough us "Death Note", Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi -- I have been reading "Bakuman".



I'm not sure if I've brought this up, but I am a senior at SVA in Manhattan and my major is Cartooning. Drawing comics is pretty much a way of life for me. As such, I absolutly love comics about comics, and "Bakuman" is far and away my new favorite. To sum it up quickly, it's about two kids, Mashiro Moritaka and Takagi Akito who want to (and do!) write for Weekly Jump.

I am completely fascinated by this, by the ideas for stories that the characters come up with, and how they learn what they're good at, what they're not, and a look into how things work in Weekly Jump. They face problems like threats of cancelation, rivalries from other mangaka, and doing work they don't enjoy. But, like any heroes in shonen manga, they solve their problems with perserverance and manly determination. As they should.



And, like any shonen manga, there are the romantic interests, Azuki Miho and Kyoshi Kaya. These two are probably my favorite part of "Bakuman", even if the romantic plots play second fiddle to the main event of "OMG LETS MAKE MANGA!".

Miho has a dream of becoming a voice actor, and she and Mashiro have agreed that when Mashiro's manga is popular enough to get an anime, Miho will voice the lead female, and then they'll get married. They've also agreed not to see each other until then and only communicate by email. They've had to come in contact a few times, but the way they email back and forth is compeltely adorable.

And then there is Kaya and Takagi, who are my favorite thing about this series. Their relationship is vastly different from that of Miho and Mashiro. Kaya keeps herself around the boys all the time, wanting to have an active part in their dream. She and Takagi get togther somewhat by accident, but they form a close, absolutely hilarious and wonderful relatoionship.



One great, and simultaniousy disappointing thing is that I'll never get to read all of the series within "Bakuman". I would honestly love to read every single one of them. I honestly feel like I would read "Perfect Crime Club" and "Otters 11" forever if I was given the chance, and I could see myself having been very disappointed over the cancelation of "Detective Trap". And I can totally see "Crow" being a guilty pleasure of mine. Hopefully when we get the anime, maybe we'll get a "Kujibiki Unbalance"-esque spin off of one of them? If we did, I would hope it was for "Perfect Crime Club". Though I don't think we get a close enough look at any of the series-within-the-series to warrent a spin off.

One can only imagine how many incidents in the manga are based in some way on Ohba and Obata's own experiences, and how many characters are based on other mangaka they know. "Bakuman" updates weekly, and has started running in the english Shonen Jump magazine. Though if you don't have a subscription to that, you can find it as OneManga, MangaFox, and probably on other similar sites.

The anime, set to run 25 episodes, is starting this fall, so I'll probably take a swing at talking about that once it starts running. Though I'm really worried about a 25 episode run and what it will do as far as condensing the series. But it's a "wait and see" situation so that's what I'll have to do -- Wait and see.