Well, let’s start, this list is crazy long.

First up is a wonderful, Makoto-chan tape measure, just what you’ve always wanted, I know!!

As celebration of Shonen Sunday’s 50th anniversary (besides the awesome T-shirts they were selling at Uni-Qlo) they made some Kewsion (that means Kewpie Fusion) keychain based on popular Sunday titles. Here’s the Makoto-chan version.

A quick break for some sweet Kinnikuman toys (known as Ultimate Muscle in the States).

And Gegege no Kitaro is getting some serious merchandise recently. There’s a pretty extensive spread at Strapya World. Click here for Gegege no Kitaro toys at Strapya-World.

I can’t wait to get these for my girlfriend!!

Thos fake cracks make this bowl perfect.

For you tough guys, who don’t play with toys, here is a “collectible figurine” from our favorite post-apocalyptic beat-em-up, Fist of the North Star!

There are also some awesome Devilman figures this year. This one reminds me of those old GI Joe figures.

Or how about a nice “Desktop Figure” from Golgo 13. I think he has a naked lady hiding somewhere  behind that cardboard.

About the only thing I think they could market from Beck. Still, I’m always down for some Beck toys.

For those Dance Kremlin Palace fans among you, here is the ever present Cheburashka.

There are also some cool DVD’s to pick up. Nothing new or rare, but a few classics at least.

This is crazy Man Gatarou DVD that was a total surprise. Not released in the States, but available from a European distributor here. I’ll be posting more about this later when my copy comes in.

The classic. Jigoku Koshien, aka, Battlefield Baseball. A Man Gatarou fan must have.

Not as satisfyingly quirky as an Umezu comic, these films are still worth a shot, especially if you’re familiar with the comic. This DVD adapts the story from Reptilia (published in the States by IDW).

And, that’s my list for this year. If you’ve got other cool finds, please post them!!! Happy hunting!

Here are some samples. Enjoy!!

and my favorite:

Stalin is the hero in our newest installment. Not yet endowed with supernatural purging powers, Stalin shows off his bad-ass martial arts skills in protecting the values of communist farming! Totally NSFW, and maybe the most extreme chapter yet.

Download Chapter 3 here.

Anonymous K and I are still keeping up on this 1 chapter/week schedule, but in another month, there might be a slow down. School just started back up, so there’ll be less time for me to search Wikipedia to figure out what a pirogie is. Speaking of which, I’ve learned more about Russia while translating this manga than I ever did in history class. Even though most of the content is satirical, usually the theme that it’s based on is historical.

On a side note, I youtubed it, looking for some crazy vidz of Shintaro Kago right before writing this post. The only thing I came up with was the interview with him in Amsterdam that Same Hat already posted, and trailers of a video game. The game is called Mondo Agency, and its totally sweet. One of the keywords is Shintaro Kago, and the vid poster mentioned that the reason he used his name as a keyword was to attract interesting people. I played the game, and it’s really amazing. Check the video below and follow this link to go download the game and others (all the games are amazing).

Straight Girl is a static, user-prompted flash manga. The art is all CG, and often uses blur effects to give the impression of movement. This is a gag manga, and sometimes the CG distracts from the comedy. But other times the CG makes things funnier than they could’ve been drawn. Even the usage of CG is a joke in itself. It’s really just a new type of art that the reader and the author will take time to adapt to. Other artists have tried to use CG before and have totally failed, but Straight Girl seems to be doing a fine job of it.

Straight-Girl Blog here.

Kokusai Youkai Keisatsu Okei (or International Yokai Police Okei) is a hand-drawn, bu heavily computer processed, flash manga with lots of animation and sound effects (like the creepy laughter of Okei-sensei). The animation is genuinely entertaining, and it’s surprising how fun it is to read, even when I can’t understand everything. The story follows a young lady who gets drafted into the International Yokai Police against her will. There is a weird grandma looking character named Okei-sensei. And there’s lots of senior-citizen-looking ghosts. Quite entertaining and eccentric for an action manga.

More from the artist here.

Sora kara Furatarou (Futarou from the sky) has really thick lines and lots of animation. It only requires a next-click when there is text. Otherwise it’s fully animated, and looks good. This is a light-hearted comedy with thick lines and cute characters. It’s a self-contained story without chapters, unlike the other manga on the site.

Marurabo Raifu is the most interactive of the four titles. The title screen lets you select between 1st or 2nd year of school or summer break. Once you click one of these, it takes you to an interactive screen with several characters in a location. Mousing over each will activate a character animation, and clicking on them will open a word balloon with a link to a chapter or chapters of the manga. Once you select a chapter, you’ll see lots of animation with the word balloons and frames moving in and out of the screen, but no actual character animation. The story is a school comedy, and the art is nice and bubbly with thick lines.

Overall, the standouts are definitely Straight Girl and Kokusai Youkai Keisatsu Okei. They are fun to watch and give the reader something more than can be accomplished on paper. We’ll see how much more support Shueisha gives the site. They haven’t expanded past four titles, but they have been adding new chapters of the titles regularly.

Also, this Flash manga really sets itself apart from most Flash animations I’ve seen. The quality is extremely high, and I’m sure there was a group of people working on these rather than one person. It’s almost a half-way point between manga and anime, while still keeping what makes manga great.

In the spirit of the season (and in celebration of my own shopping done) I’m posting some gift ideas for your crazed loved ones. Your family probably won’t appreciate these as much as you readers will. Most are manga-related, but I’ll throw a few non-manga toys in here too. But anyways, here are some cool things to salivate over.

When looking for info on the great Man Gataro, I found this great cell-phone strap site. If you’ve seen the live-action movie Battlefield Baseball, that was developed from Man Gataro’s manga Jigoku Koshien. They’ve got a collection of Man Gataro cell-phone straps that are just beautiful:

They also have some straps from Death Note, KinnikuMan, Worst, and Gegege no Kitarou (among others). Also, check out the Bondaged Kewpie doll! The site also has super-cheap shipping (starting at $5.00 airmail), and incredible product descriptions, like this: Wow, Kewpie is tied up with a cell phone strap string! It’s strange that Kewpie still smiles… He / She likes to be bondaged?? Anyways, welcome to Strapya World.

Kazuo Umezu is a big favorite in Japan these days, so it’s not too hard to find some great nostalgic toys. Makoto-chan was one of Umezz’s biggest hits, even being made into an anime. First, you could get your newborn a hard plastic toy his/her own size and price:

Diet Coke not included.

Or you could learn the lyrics to Bicchiguso Rock! with the Makoto-chan soundtrack:

And it just don’t stop. How about some slightly pornographic movie posters from the anime:

Next, we have some great mini-toys from Umezu’s various series:

Finally, we have some cutesy wind-up toys from his series 14-sai and Nekome Kozou:

Next is a collection of Gachapon figures from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure:

I found two great Hideshi Hino toys at Toy Tokyo (a great toy shop in NY).

Even Junko Mizuno has some toys at Toy Tokyo:

Toy Tokyo also has some retro looking figures from Gegege no Kitaro (Nezumiotoko & Kitaro)and Kinnikuman.

Take advantage of some import action and grab the hippest, edgiest manga anthology in Japan, Ax (or Akkusu) from Last Gasp:

And there’s more issues on their site, just search for “Akkusu.”

Finally, some non-manga toys. Hard Gay is a hilarious comedian (formerly a comic duo) from Japan, and getting a Hard Gay toy for a loved one would really show that you care. Like this Hard Gay version of the famed Japanese toy Kurohige:

Anyways, happy shopping, and enjoy buying things for yourself while looking for others’ presents.

Here are the directions. Important: you can only use Internet Explorer 7 with this site.

1. First, go to Ebook Japan Initiative.

2. Pick a title.

3. If you are on the page for the first volume, look for: “立ち読みする” in the orange button. If you see several titles, look for the small grey button that says: “立読” on the bottom left underneath the first volume. Click it.

4. It will take you to a page that talks about how to set-up your browser to use the page. Now, you need to go up to the right hand corner of the Internet Explorer window, and click on the “Tools” tab, and then select “Internet Options…” Click on the “Security” tab. Then, select the big green check mark and click the “Sites” button.

5. In the sites menu, add these websites:

http://www.ebookjapan.jp/

https://www.ebookjapan.jp/

https://sys.ebookjapan.jp/

Click “Close” when you’re done, and then “OK” your way out of there.

5. Now you have install some stuff. You might need to make IE7 accept the download. The key to getting through these menus is thinking about where the buttons would be if they were in English. In the Install window, look for the button with the “N.” This means next. Click your way through. If there is a text window, and you have to click between two buttons, the left button will be “OK.”

6. This should set everything up. You’ve now downloaded the Ebook viewer, and every Tachiyomi button you hit will download a new chapter onto your computer.

Oddly enough, there is a Tokyopop section on the page, where you can see OEL manga being translated into Japanese. Keeping with Tokyopop fashion, the sound effects are untranslated and the pages are unflopped. Heh heh, it is a little weird to see it go the other way.

Have fun searching through stuff.

I give you, Manga Zombie! Okay, before I launch into useless fanboy kiss-assedness, here’s a nice quote to get you in the mood:

Burn manga. Especially Eighties manga on.
Burn these pre-programmed comics that have been churned out ever since manga turned into a business. Burn these bastard things conceived in boardrooms and born as products.
For example, love stories that go on…and oon… and ooon…and oooon.
Burn them. Stories about heroes beating the odds through sheer grit and friendship. Burn them.
‘Interactive’ stories swinging any way the reader surveys tell them:
Burn. Them. All.

Come out of the grave, manga!

Screaming and streaming blood and sweat, pages spattered with artist’s crazed flesh, manga that grab and throw you deep into the warped and fucked-up pit of the artist’s mind itself. And leave you there.
To live it. And manga, staggering on their very last legs, drawn so the artists could eat one more day.
Come back. All is forgiven.

And what comes out of the graves are the manga come back to life. Now don’t get too excited, this isn’t about manga zombie stories. If you’re looking for those, check out High School of the Dead, which would definitely land on Udegawa’s list of manga to burn (although, I do enjoy it.) Manga Zombie is really about resurrecting past manga, from a time when manga-ka really poured their blood, sweat, and tears into their manga. A time when every page they drew meant another day they could eat. And a time when it didn’t matter how few joints a man had, if he needed to bend an arm in five places in order to make that double-page body slam spread work, by god, it could happen.

The book is organized by artist, and Udagawa starts the book with artists of the “Fleshbomb” style. What’s interesting is the amount of information on the artists’ life, something that paragraph-sized bio’s on the backs of manga never delve into. These artists that Udagawa feature truly have interesting lives. They aren’t generic Shonen Jump clone artists; they have distinct lives and raw inspiration. Take Miyaya Kazuhiko, for example. His marriage to a right-wing politician and subsequent divorce practically ruined his career as he exhaustively replayed the romance with his ex-wife in his manga stories. Or Fukushima Masami, who practically disappeared hermit-like after his manga quit being published.

The most recent chapters have focused on another “style” of manga called Trauma Manga. I’m not entirely sure what this means, since Udegawa doesn’t seem to clearly define it, but it seems characterized by extremely disturbing situations and subject matter in manga. The authors he’s mentioned have some “trauma” in their lives, but I’m not sure if this is where the manga is derived from. Compared to the “fleshbomb” artists, these “trauma” artists were extremely successful. Both artists that have been mentioned had movies made from their manga stories. Visually this “trauma” style isn’t as fun to look at as the “fleshbomb” style, but the life stories of the artists seem to make up for it.

Manga Zombie is currently being serialized on the great site, Comipress. Follow this link to start reading it from the beginning. They seem to be publishing a chapter about every 7 days. Also check out Comipress’s other content. They have lots of great translated articles and interviews about manga, anime, and Japanese culture.

And, if you find yourself wanting more of these artists, as I did, then check out the links below for more resources of the artists. Also, I included the Japanese names, if you want to search Google yourselves.

If you’re interested in other things that Udagawa Takeo is up to, you can check his Japanese-only blog here.

George Akiyama - ジョージ秋山

- http://www.george-akiyama.com

Murotani Tsunezo - ムロタニ ツネ象

- http://www011.upp.so-net.ne.jp/lac/m_/murotani/murotani.html#

Miyaya Kazuhiko - 宮谷 一彦

- http://homepage1.nifty.com/DORA/miyayaf.html

- http://miyaya-fan.cocolog-nifty.com/

Sakaki Masaru - 榊 まさる

Fukushima Masami - ふくしま 政美

- http://blog.livedoor.jp/textsite/archives/50051084.html

- http://koware.hp.infoseek.co.jp/jyu-goya/comic/ryu.htm

And if these pitiful pages aren’t enough, read my next blog: Tachiyomi: the art of reading one chapter of manga while sitting down.

Shiki Tsukai and Aventura, two Del Rey series that I probably won’t be reading, continue the tradition of Del Rey’s weak action titles. I remember seeing an early form of anime which involved a display of the comic frames with sound-effects, voice-overs, and music. And now, it’s pretty much coming full circle. The question is, will using TV (essentially) be a successful form of marketing for print? Already Americans don’t read enough (at least relative to other countries). Will making badly animated commercials (in black & white) actually sway some viewers? And where are the words? They are all suspiciously absent from the text bubbles, only the Japanese sound effects remain. Was it because these trailers were produced before the books were translated, or because words would distract viewers (the same trick they pull for foreign movies and anime, when they remove all the dialogue in place of a voice-over and music)?

Also of interest is that Del Rey and Tokyopop are the only publishers that are extending their advertising in such a way.