Witch on a Type-Moon Lit Holy Night
September 2, 2010
Let us all run over to our favorite import games website and pre-order the new Type-Moon visual novel, Mahoutsukai no Yoru (Witch on the Holy Night). Based on a novel written by Kinoko Nasu in 1996 this is the back story of Aoko Aozaki aka Miss Blue the Magic Gunner. As Aoko is one of my favorite minor characters in the Nasuverse I cannot wait to see what is revealed about her past. She has always had a delightfully upbeat and whimsical personality while still being a capable and serious character. The fact that she is utterly my type is just a bonus. I know that mysterious characters can have their popularity ruined by a poorly done back story but since this was written before most everything else in the Nasuverse I am not too worried about the Boba Fett effect. Also it is will not have any sex scenes thrown in so you don’t have to worry about awkward kinky sea life metaphors in the middle of your reading experience.
As a special treat the ED has been announced to be Hoshi ga Matataku Konna Yoru ni (This Star Sparkling Night) by Supercell. You can already buy the single that also contains the 14th Naruto Shippuden Ending. Also lvlln at Borderline Hikikomori was nice enough to post an English translation of the song as well. Unless this utterly bombs I cannot see why we would not get an anime adaptation somewhere down the line as well especially considering how well the Kara no Kyōkai movies have done. If you are any sort of Type-Moon fan this will be the release of the year. You should preorder it if for nothing else it comes with an art book which is always a wonderful thing.
September’s Final Denouement: What Lies at the End of the Grand Line?
September 1, 2010
Filled with ever stripe of One Piece spoiler you could imagine up to and including the current manga chapter (579) and anime episode (463+).
Eiichiro Oda just recently announced that One Piece is going on a month-long hiatus after chapter 597. So as the manga moves on to the next stage I thought I would be the perfect time for me to reflect how I think One Piece will end. As I have expressed on the blog before I enjoy trying to figure out what the mangaka has planned and see how many of suspicions are correct. Oda plans out his manga enough that I feel this is viable thought exercise because he is not just making up the story as he goes along. Everything below is my speculation but I feel my theories have a good deal of contextual proof and hints backing them up as well. So let us sail to the end of the Grand Line and see what is there.
Please, put Saint Tail back on the shelf.
August 31, 2010
Saint Tail was one of the first magical girl series released by Tokyopop before they started unflipping manga, it came out along side titles such as Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura in the U.S. Even though the translations were less than desirable, one was just happy to see titles being released. The magical girl genre hasn’t really flourished in the states since then and sadly has left a number of titles out-of-print including the irresistible Saint Tail.
Yotsuba&! makes life more exciting!
August 30, 2010
Cultural diffusion is a funny old thing. When ideas and products hop from one culture to another a strange alchemy can occur that can radically alter how they are seen. Words can gain new meanings, concepts can be reinterpreted, and products can gain new uses. The back and forth struggle over the use of the word otaku in English and Japanese easily shows how a word can have it’s meaning altered when it is borrowed by another language. In that same way a manga that has one target demographic can have a radically different demographic when it crosses over the Pacific Ocean. Often we see cartoons and comics marketed toward older audiences in the west due to their violence and sexual content despite being children’s material in Japan. For Yotsuba&! we have seen the reverse happen. In Japan Yotsuba&! is written and marketed almost exclusively for an adult audience. But in places like America Yotsuba&! is seen as a family friendly all ages title. The question is why do adults enjoy this title that gets an all ages seal of approval.
It wasn’t so long ago that I didn’t know the appeal of Yotsuba&! myself. Even the continued praise I saw it getting online didn’t persuade me. However, when the topic was broached about what Yotsuba&! offers to adults, its target audience, I became intrigued and had to pick it up. There area plenty of titles out their designed to be both enjoyable for kids and their elders but as Hisui mentioned creating a story for adults that captures the child’s imagination just as readily is something very different.
