Sky Blade - Sword of Heaven

I recently read the first two volumes of the manhwa, Korean term for comics and print cartoons, titled Sky Blade - Sword of Heaven. I had picked them up at a local comicbook shop on clearance and upon finishing them I looked online to see if I could find some more volumes. I was disappointed to find out that only two volumes were released in English by the now defunct ADV Manga and there are no online fan translations of the series (at least none I could easily find - though I did find a Korean role playing game called Sky Blade which is based on this manga).

I really dislike it when I start a series and am unable to finish it for one reason or another. It's very annoying when there is a lot more of a series written but you can't read it because it is no longer being translated. In this case I don't really mind all that much because while not bad the series is pretty mediocre at least what I had read. I am far more upset about other series for example the Slayers Novels only the first eight where translated into English (volume 9 and part of volume 10 can be found online) and those I really want. I like the Slayers novels considerably more than the anime (and it is one of if not my favorite anime) or the various manga.

Sky Blade is a martial arts story with a fairly clueless and seemingly unskilled (learn fairly quickly that he isn't unskilled actually a prodigy just not interested in fighting) protagonist who manages to get in embarrassing situations with the three most powerful, and supposedly beautiful, female warriors in the land which promptly decide that he has to die because of that (well two of them the third just wants to kill him for his energy).

Ghostbusters: Ghost Busted

TokyoPop American manga Ghostbusters: Ghost Busted written by Nathan Johnson and Matt Yamashita and drawn by a multitude of artists. The graphic novel has six chapters. The first and last chapters are stand alone stories, mostly comedy, with the middle chapters being interconnected and less comedic more dramatic.

I like the Ghostbusters and pretty much always have. I've watched the movies several times and like the cartoons. I did not see them in the movie theater though (the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater came out later than Ghostbusters did). I had watched some of the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters on television prior to seeing the movies (and I have not watched the Extreme Ghostbusters ever; did not even know it existed until sometime last year). This book supposedly comes directly after the two movies (the first movie being significantly better than the second) but feels more like the cartoon series than the movies (which is a good thing).

Chapter 1 titled The Theater of Pain has the Ghostbusters called in to deal with a haunted theater that has the latest musical attacked by ghosts. This leads to the cast and crew members quitting and Ray, Egon and Peter take on the roles of stage manager, lead actor and director. Reading this particular story made me wonder a few things. Mostly what did people do about ghosts prior to the Ghostbusters (since there are a lot of ghosts in this particular story) and if ghosts were getting jobs would they have to pay taxes?

The middle chapters are interconnected with a few short storylines. I don't really know how to (or more accurately don't care enough to bother trying too; which amounts to the same thing) give a synopsis of them without giving too much away (not that I really care if I do give away the entire plot since I'm not being compensated for writing this in any way). The most important part of a review is the reviewer's opinion but to adequately discuss something all the people involved need to know enough details to do so hence at least a small summary is needed since chances are any reader of this post will not have read the book. The reviewing I do is not what I would consider to be good and often is secondary to something else I want to discuss. If I were planning on reviewing something I'd keep things in mind while reading/watching it. Anyway I did like that it showed a boring day for Ray in which he got fake calls (one from a spirit medium who wanted to buy ghosts from them, another from an old lady who just wanted someone to talk to, and another from a best man at a wedding who was convinced that the person his friend was marrying was a ghost).

The last chapter is called The Devil Wears Nada. In this chapter the Ghostbusters must stop a fashionista from turning everyone who wears her clothes into unwilling slaves of Heel, the Sumerian god of deception. Two things I want to comment on: This story illustrates the main reason I am against the transgender behavior that is cross-dressing namely if it becomes too common place it loses the humor value (women cross-dressing in the majority of Western society just does not have the humor value as a guy doing so because most of the traditionally men's clothing such as trousers, men's shirts, and even underwear have become socially acceptable for both genders to wear and has therefore lost the majority of the humor value). The second comment I want to make is: In the story it is extremely, and I mean extremely, easy to convince large groups of mostly women to change clothing outside in broad daylight (and by change clothing I mean remove it entirely and put on some other type of clothing, in this case beige coveralls).

While I generally do not pay much attention to the art style of graphic works (I really do not give artists their due); I do not like the art in this book. It changes some with the different artists, not maintaining an overall consistency, but that in itself is alright. Some of the artists are better than others but overall the art work is not that good. Though there is at least one page I did like to a pretty good degree, and it is not so much the drawing as the idea pictured that is good. Here is the part I'm talking about:

Dōjinshi

Admitting I read dōjinshi (Japanese fan made and published comics akin to fan fiction), much less commenting on them, is not something I do very often. While there are some very good non-hentai dōjinshi, they are not anywhere as easy to find (the series in which I have seen the most non-hentai and good dōjinshi is Slayers). The reason for this is because most dōjinshi are of the Hentai variety, at least most dōjinshi that get posted on the internet are, and have either no plots or very weak plots. There are very good quality dojinshi, even of the hentai variety, quite a few mangaka started out as dōjinshi writers or write dōjinshi on the side. Ken Akamatsu (Love Hina), Rikdo Koshi (Excel Saga), Kiyohiko Azuma (Azumanga Daioh) and Masaki Kajishima (Tenchi Muyo) all wrote dōjinshi prior to becoming mangaka. Some still do like Masaki Kajishima, he writes mostly Tenchi Muyo dōjinshi that is supplementary to the series.

Writing fan made comics is not unique to the Japanese. The biggest difference is that they are more illegal in some places, like the USA, because of copyright laws. The Japanese copyright laws are not as stringent and the industry allows the publishing of dōjinshi (they even have large conventions for dōjinshi).

Some particularly popular anime/manga spawn webcomics (which are for all practical purposes the same as dōjinshi, just not produced in Japan). Two examples are: Sailor Ranko (a fukufic i.e. Ranma/Sailormoon crossover - an alright but not great fan comic) and Slayers Hamlet (Shakespeare's Hamlet with the Slayers cast - a most excellent but sadly not updated in several years webcomic).

A few good dōjinshi are:
-Evangelion Re-Take, which has both a hentai version and a non-hentai version. This has a very good plot.
-Blackdogs Sailormoon dōjinshi, which are hentai and have very little plot but are drawn very well. They can be found at Sailormoon.biz along with a few hundred other sailormoon dōjinshi.
-There are quite a few Slayers dōjinshi that are not hentai, mostly WAFF (warm and fuzzy feeling). I 'd link to them but most of the links to them that I have are non functional and I know not where to find them anymore. The only links in my bookmarks that still works are this Fortuncity site Isabel's fanworks corner, but it registers as a dangerous site according to firefox, QP House which has a few dōjinshi as well as summaries of the Slayers Novels, and Slayers Doujin fan share which has quite a few. I also know of this site which has Hentai and Yaoi pairings but the hentai in general isn't that good and Yaoi disgusts me.
- The Original Dirty Pair / Lovely Angels Shrine has quite a few Dirty Pair things like an entire novel and several dōjinshi the best though is listed under fanmade comics and is a Ranma/Dirty Pair crossover.
-There are a few good Ranma dōjinshi but I don't have a list of links at this time, the sites that had them generally do not have them anymore.

I request of any reader of this to suggest some good dōjinshi in the comments (Hentai variety is acceptable, but please mention that it is) and links to it would be appreciated.

addon: 6/4/10
Turtle Paradise Scanlations, that has several doujinshi including a couple Slayers doujinshi (as well as several Slayers manga scanlations). I've yet to read any of those manga or doujinshi so I can't say how good they are. Though I have read and own several other Slayers manga and enjoyed them so hopefully I'll enjoy these as well. I'm somewhat surprised I hadn't found them earlier but seeing as to how I haven't been reading or looking for Slayers stuff recently I'm not that surprised.

addon: 8/9/10
The website Realm of Sailor Energy has some amusing comics on it.
The Fancomic Central livejournal has links to numerous fan comics.

Excel Saga volume 8

I am a rather large fan of the Excel Saga manga, not so much the anime. I have acquired volumes 1-6,9-14 in English and volume 18 in Japanese. Today I went browsing some sites on the internet to get some of the missing volumes (7-8, 15-20) and the price for volume 8 is the most absurd price I have ever seen for a book. Amazon market place wants 999.99 dollars + shipping for it used. That is the lowest price I can find it for (the other sites that list it for somewhat reasonable prices don't actually have it). The highest is nearly 2,500 dollars. First thing I have to wonder is who is going to pay that much for a manga volume? The second thing is why hasn't VIZ released a re-release of Volume 7 and 8 yet, since they are selling later volumes. Most people would like to purchase the volumes in order and I'm sure that quite a few people would not buy any volume after volume 6 when they find out that they would be unable to acquire volumes 7 and 8.

The VIZ store does not have the manga for sale, but the viz store has very few things to sell at all, so few and at so discounted prices (75% off) that it looks like they are phasing out the online store. They do have on the VIZ Media site several manga excerpts, but not Excel Saga. The buy volume buttons do not link to anywhere though (error message). VIZ also has some manga online that is not listed on that list, like the newest work by Rumiko Takahashi, Rin-ne! (which I have not gotten around to reading yet but have known about for quite sometime and do plan on reading).

update 2/3/2010: The price of volume 7 and 8 has gone down considerably. I have acquired volume 7 but have yet to acquire volume 8 since, while no longer as ridiculously high priced, it is still far too expensive (checked today and the cheapest price on Amazon.com is currently 149.96). As for the other volumes I purchased volumes 15-17, and volume 19 as well (combined price for 15-17,19 used including shipping was less than 20 dollars).

addon 7/27/2010: I have finally managed to acquire volume 8 for a much more than reasonable price from a local library.

Cowa!

Akira Toriyama is considered by many to be one of the best manga artists, inspiring many others. I have sort of split feelings about his work. My first exposure to his work was Dragon Warrior (Japanese released as: Dragon Quest) a role playing game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom in Japan). I did not associate that with him though; what I did associate with him is the dubbed version of Dragon Ball Z on Fox network. I did not like Dragon Ball Z, this in turn has colored my opinion of his works. Judging a manga artist on a translated, edited, and altered medium is really not a fair way to base his work.

I recently re-read his short work Cowa! which is about a kindergarten age vampire/were-Koola named Paifu, his friend a ghost named José Rodriguez, his rival Arpon, and a retired Sumo wrestler. The plot is very simple, the many monsters of the village are getting sick and Paifu and friends make a trip to get the medicine needed to save them.

I found this manga very enjoyable, having read it more than once, the online version as well as the VIZ version. It's a pretty funny manga. What I particularly like is that in a village of monsters the most scary being is the human. If you look at some of the stuff humans do and have done in the past it seems apt that a human would be scary, plus there is the monster story staple of humans hunting monsters (Frankenstein, Dracula, etc.).

While I like longer series, for the simple fact there is more of it to read. In many ways I like short one shots more. One of the reasons is it is much easier to acquire one book than many, another reason being it is a complete story that can easily be read all at once.

Top 20 manga

I have read a lot of manga, some good and some bad. These are my top twenty manga, in no particular order. These are only Manga written by Japanese authors, so no Tokyopop American Manga like Bizenghast or Antarctic Press manga like comics like Gold Digger. I'm not even including written in the US but based on Japanese works like Adam Warren's Dirty Pair. What makes the list and the order they are in changes depending on mood or if something newly read was better. If asked in say a month, my list would probably have changed some. Though the top 2 have stayed the top 2 since I first read them.

1. Ranma 1/2
2. Uzumaki
3. Yotsuba&
4. Excel Saga
5. Azumanga Daioh
6. Detective Conan
7. Dr Slump
8. Slayers
9. Ah My Goddess
10. Tenchi Muyo
11. Battle Angel Alita (Gunnm)
12. His and Her Circumstances
13. Your Under Arrest
14. Mermaid Saga
15. Gunsmith Cats
16. DNA^2
17. 3x3 Eyes
18. Urusei Yatsura
19. Remote
20. Love Hina
    

Confidential Confessions

Confidential Confessions is a 6 volume manga by Reiko Momochi. While fictional it deals with some very real issues that most people would rather not think about. The manga dealt with getting aids, becoming addicted to drugs, rape, bullying, sexual harassment, stalking, prostitution, and more. It tells these in a very realistic way showing the real negatives, though it does more often than not end each story on a positive note.

The manga is well written and well drawn but the very nature of the subject matter makes it a very depressing manga. While reading this manga series I tended to put myself in the character's position (which is something I have a tendency to do when I read anything) and wondering what I would do in the situation. Some of the situations are extremely unlikely but quite a few of them are possible (or a variation on them). I could talk about some of these types of things that did happen to me or people I know in some form but I will not. I'd rather not spend much time dwelling on those types of things (part of the reason I read so much is likely escapism -real life is far to depressing).

The thing that bothered me the most was not the act/thing itself, terrible as they maybe. Rather what bothered me the most was how the people not experiencing it would lay the blame on the person who was the victim. In the story about rape for example some of the classmates others would say things like it's not big deal it's not like she was a virgin, look at the way she was dress she was probably asking for it, she probable enjoyed it why else didn't she fight back, etc. In addition to that it bothered me how the victims would receive additional hardships for example in the story with the stalker the stalker had altered her website to make her look promiscuous and put digitally altered pictures of her up. Since that was done the school blamed her for that and basically said she was an embarrassment and that it would be best if she were to take the rest of the year off. In another story the one about sexual harassment the school blamed one of the girls for it and transferred the girl to another school instead of blaming the person who was doing the sexual harassment. In an earlier post, I talked a bit about the casual cruelty people have. I really do not understand it. Why do so many people have so little empathy and compassion? Why do people blame the innocent victims instead of laying blame where it is deserved? Why do they rationalize it to make the victim (of others or just circumstance) look at fault? I think in part it is because people really do not believe that these things could happen to anyone even them. As a means of not accepting that it could happen to anyone, they rationalize that the victim must have done something to bring it upon themselves.

Another thing that saddens me is that in the manga as well as in real life, the people who have these things happen to them quite often do not go to others for help. There are a lot of reasons for this. A lot of times the person knows the person who is doing the stalking or what not and protects them since they try to rationalize that the person isn't really bad or what they did must not be so bad (in the case of stalking for example rationalizes that stalker loves them and is doing it out of love). Other times they fear other peoples reaction like in rape they fear how other people like boyfriend/friends/associates will react to finding out, or the rapist may take pictures and threaten to post them somewhere if they tell, or that if they tell they will kill them, or next time it will be your younger sister, etc. Peer pressure; for example in the manga story about sexual harassment thing no one would join her against the guy and actively told her not to make a big deal about it and told her it's not a big deal. They feared consequences to themselves. Pride - they don't go to others for help because they are to proud to ask for help or don't want to admit they need help.

It also saddens me that even when they do go to people for help. They don't always get it. The people they go to are unable to help them. Occasionally unwilling to help them or blaming them (see two paragraphs up). Don't believe them. In attempting to help makes things worse or gives the wrong type of help. Become over protective which can be just as bad.

Of course sometimes there are only victims. In the case of a sexually transmitted disease or something there are only victims if neither knew they had the disease. Other times say a stalker for instance could in their own way be as much of a victim as the person they are stalking. They let obsession over run their life and they are in need of help as much as the person they are victimizing.

Here is a link to Tokyopo's website on this series that has summaries: Tokyopop Confidential Confessions