IKKI: Online Manga Website, Sig Hansen, Sig Sauer, and now Sig Ikki

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Considering the favorable reaction to our review of the Bandai manga website we decide to tackle VIZ’s Signature brand web site IKKI. When I sat down to start work on the review it was if the Gods themselves were trying to tell me this was the correct course of action because a bombshell news announcement made this review 1,000 times more relevant: a coalition of Japanese and American manga publishers joined together to take legal action against 30 scanlation sites. The interesting side debate that came up is what are the manga publishers doing to fill a void that would be created when these sites are shut down. With this question on everyone’s lips I think it the the prefect time to examine what VIZ is doing with IKKI.

When VIZ started the IKKI website it was an experiment to see what they could do to join in the digital revolution. Now it a growing community that is still improving itself, finding new solutions, and hopefully becoming a destination for readers. The Signature brand isn’t that broadly known for VIZ, but it has gotten plenty of critical praise, so with this site the leap into trying to attract more of the main manga crowd has begun.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #089

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hisuiconWildstorm sent us a copy of the Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles prelude book. It is a graphic novel that helps link the Robotech TV series and the Shadow Chronicles movie. Rouge officer T.R. Edwards has allied himself with the Invid. Rick Hunter must catch this traitor before he can use his newly stolen technology to strike back at the Earth Forces. The first thing I noticed is that the book has a really American comic feel to it; being a DC Comics imprint and made for American Robotech fans this is unsurprising. Overall the story was nothing objectionable but also immediately forgettable. It seemed mostly for Robotech fans so I felt like an outsider listening to a conversation between old friends to which I was unaware of many points of the undiscussed history. I clicked a good deal more with the characters from the first part of the Robotech saga partially because those are the strongest characters and partially because that is the part of Robotech I remember the most. T.R. Edwards came off as a mustache twirling villain despite the fact that they did make an honest effort to give him some depth. I enjoyed the mechanical designs more than the human and monster designs which seemed bland to me. It was nice to see them dedicating the book to the memory of Carl Macek pretty prominently on the credits page though.

We went to Vertical Vednesday this week which featured the up and coming (and sure to be great seller) Chi’s Sweet Home as well as a look at pet manga in general. Ed even brought along copies of the book for us to peruse which is in full-color if you aren’t familiar with Chi. There is pet manga that stretches back to Tezuka, I urged him to license his dog manga, but Ed felt it really started to get a foothold in the 80’s along side the beginning of josei. And most pet manga today runs along the josei and seinen lines. It was a quick introduction to a small but popular genre, and you’ll be unsurprised to learn cats are the most popular animal. Near the end we also got to take a look at the second book of Twin Spica which I was infinitely more excited about! Vertical Vednesday’s are a relaxed night with the industry making it well worth a short trip.

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Invincible Super Man Zambot 3: The Birth of Minagoroshi no Tomino

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hisuiconYoshiyuki Tomino the creator of Mobile Suit Gundam is synonymous with bringing the real robot revolution in anime. But before that series was made Tomino created the revolutionary Invincible Super Man Zambot 3. While Zambot 3 is nowhere near as well-known as many of Tomino’s other works, its influence on his later shows is undeniably. Like many of Tomino’s shows Zambot 3 is a flawed and somewhat troubled show but one that sticks with the viewer after they experience it. This is not a review but more of an examination of the value of Zambot 3 to a modern audience.

Tomino is known not only for his own body of work that stretches back to episodes of the original Astro Boy TV series but also for how his ideas go on to influence plenty of other shows thereafter. Zambot 3 is important to Tomino’s history and mecha shows overall spanning even into the 2000’s. Like many a show that was ahead of its time things don’t always go smoothly and believe me Zambot 3 is far from a masterpiece, but it’s important to appreciate its going out and doing something exploratory.

hisuiconThe story seems like the standard fair 1970’s giant robot show outline. The Gaizok are invading the earth with robotic monsters called Mecha Boosts who are commanded by the ruthless Butcher the Killer. The Mecha Boosts can only be defeated by Zambot 3 piloted by Kappei Jin and his two cousins using technology from the planet Beal that was wiped out by the Gaizok. But the main twist is that instead of being welcomed as heroes the people of Earth condemn the pilots of the Zambot 3 and blame them for anything and everything related to the Gaizok invasion.

The families of each pilot also play major roles in the series which seems rather uncommon in robot shows. People both civilian and otherwise are central to the themes and the series very rarely takes the happy ending approach. I have to wonder why Zambot 3 is only 23 episodes long, it is such a strange number! But thankfully it is a complete story. Though quite a few of the episodes can be chalked up to monster of the week, there is usually some hints of matters to come. It is also too easy to dismiss episodes because of the many themes and issues that are popular or tropes nowadays forgetting Zambot’s time period.

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