Category: Reviews

Murder, Magic, and Madness: Kindaichi Spin-off Manga

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narutaki_icon_4040 It has been a long, long time since TokyoPop released some (nearly all of it actually, 22 volumes worth out of 27) of the original Kindaichi Case Files by Youzaburou Kanari and Fumiya Satou manga stateside. This was in their early days, with 100% Authentic emblazing the covers. In Japan, long has Kindaichi reigned alongside Detective Conan as an institution.

Still, in the last year it feels as though there has been an extra resurgence for the Kindaichi franchise. A new anime has premiered, more live action has been announced, and two spin-off manga series have debuted. In a shocking twist, those spin-off manga have been made available for English-speaking fans via Kodansha’s MangaBox App.

hisui_icon_4040 I always felt like Kindaichi Case Files was Green Arrow to Detective Conan‘s Batman. Batman and Green Arrow are similar enough that they get constantly compared to each other but different enough that you can’t call them carbon copies of each other. The thing is Batman has always just been a major tier above his fellow billionaire superhero. As the current Arrow TV show proves the Green Arrow character is hardly forgotten but at the same time he is just always one step behind the more popular character. But let’s make it clear: Kindaichi is still a popular manga detective character. It is not like Detective Conan is Transformers and Kindaichi is Gobots. That is just an insulting comparison. It is just that any big anime fan has probably heard of Detective Conan but you would not be super surprised if American fans were unaware of Kindaichi.

So this Kindaichi renaissance is a bit unexpected but not utterly surprising. The main benefit of this recent surge is that we are now getting a lot of this new material in this era of simulcasts and simulpubs. When Crunchyroll picked up The File of Young Kindaichi Returns it was pretty hard to miss the announcement if you watching anything streaming but MangaBox is not anywhere near as high-profile. So as manga bloggers and detective aficionados we felt it was our duty to talk about these two titles that you can read for free.

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Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya OVA & Specials: Miyu’s Electric Boogaloo

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hisui_icon_4040 Don’t worry! I know everyone is worried that I would not do an episode review for the Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya OVA and specials. I have been inundated with emails, tweets, instant messages, hand written letters, telegraphs, candy-grams, and sky writing campaigns to cover these vital and game changing pieces of the Type-Moon universe by my legions of adoring fans. As a magnanimous hero of the hoi polloi I will answer your fickle demands with grace and wisdom.

(No one has even remotely commented on this fact. In fact the only reason I remember these existed was I was randomly looking for the Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya opening and saw someone uploaded one of the specials to YouTube. Then the existence of all these extra animated episodes came back to me. I then figured I should talk about them before 2wei! starts airing. Also I am fairly certain I don’t have anything even remotely approaching an adoring fan.)

These episodes were all pack-ins with various Fate/kaleid items. The specials were BD disc extras and the OVA was bundled with the manga. Sadly none of them have been picked up by Crunchyroll yet so I sort of forgot about them. If anything that clearly shows the power of Crunchyroll’s excellent anti-piracy model. In the old days I would have carefully monitored torrent sites for the release of the specials. Now I am so used to the ease that Crunchyroll provides I don’t ever look on torrent sites for anything but a very small niche of anime. Good job Crunchyroll. That is the way to do it.

Now pick up Pretty Cure so I never have to regularly look at a torrent site again.

But on to the far less wholesome magical girl show.
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Manga of the Month: Yurikuma Arashi

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Yurikuma Arashi (ユリ熊嵐) by
Kunihiko Ikuhara and Akiko Morishima

hisui_icon_4040 On a certain level I think most of us enjoy the idea of being an early adopter when it comes to any form of entertainment. You want to be the person who learns of a title first so you can show all your friends what is cool. It also lets you present them with a title that is free from a good deal of preconceptions that fandom can attach to a property while making sure a title does not have a backlog to get through to be caught up on. The biggest barrier to hooking anyone on One Piece is the 745+ chapter/643+ episode Mount Everest sized wall to climb to gain entry alongside all the fan baggage that comes with that. It can be a hard sell.

Now recommending a new title that is still in production has its own flaws. We have all been burned by a concept that starts off with seemingly unlimited possibility that degrades into an utter mess. That is a risk with putting forth any bleeding edge ongoing title. No one wants to champion the series that dies in a horrible death spiral.

But when everything works out in that wonderful high risk/high reward formula you seem like a hero. So I’m giving you the chance to be a hero in your little section of fandom by telling you about Yurikuma Arashi before it hopefully explodes. There is only one chapter out so you can be right on the ground level for this series. Continue reading →