Ongoing Investigations: Case #022

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For the 40th anniversary of Shonen Jump they released three new special anime episodes on their website subtitled in English. Romance Dawn was the One Piece addition to the line up. Romance Dawn is the name of one of several prototype manga that would influence One Piece. This anime take the version with Silk instead and modifies it to be a part of the current One Piece continuum. Luffy gets separated from the rest of the crew and has to save a village from the pirate Crescent-Moon Galley. It was an enjoyable little filler story. While not amazing, it is an effective little wink to any big fans of the series which I think all of these special episodes are supposed to be. If you already knew that Eiichiro Oda made three separate prototype manga named Romance Dawn then you should have already watched this if you already haven’t.

Read Monkey High! volumes 2 and 3 and it continues to be a sweet romantic comedy that doesn’t dwell on minor miscommunications. The second book has an epically long chapter that the manga-ka talks about at the end, apparently it was for a special issue. The kids participate in a quiz show to much laughter and antics but we also saw a little more of Haruna’s home life and her strained relationship with her father. Also in the second volume there is some hilarious commentary at the end by the manga-ka depicting her reactions to the many postcards she receives. She also goes on to say that she can’t believe girls think Masaru (the main love interest) is cute. Volume 3 deals with the ever popular Valentine’s Day and as usual with this series it results in minor drama and much laughter. Both these volumes have Haruna attempting to communicate that she likes Masaru as much as he likes her amidst their ever meddling classmates. I am looking forward to the next volume, it always puts me in a good mood!

Cobra The Animation: The Psychogun is over the top, pulp, science fiction fun. Cobra is one of those so-silly-it-is-good shows that thankfully never takes itself seriously. Cobra is part bounty hunter, part space Lupin, and part Inspector Gadget. After Cobra wastes three space pirates in the intro he decides to dress as a priest to steal some diamonds. During his flawless heist, pirates attack the museum he is robbing and that means it’s Psychogun time. He eventually saves the sexy archaeologist the pirates are after. He follows her to Mars partially to hit on her and partially to kill more space pirates. Seems fine enough but it’s all the details that are crazy. The archaeologist Dr. Utopia More I like to call Dr. Space Thong. Every woman in the series is dressed in either a bikini or skin tight spandex. That is height of women’s fashion in the future. There is also the pirate commander who is a sarcophagus with arms and legs, flying skeleton robots, and a super stereotypical Mexican space pirate with mustache, sombrero, and bandoleer. Cobra himself has a sexy female android, about a dozen gimmick cigars, and his uberhax Psychogun that puts Megaman’s blaster to shame. Oh and Cobra not only tosses women around he uses Newton’s law of universal gravitation as a pick up line. Good times. I can’t wait for the next one.

I always wait anxiously for the next book of Kekkaishi, so I was very happy to finally get volume 15. At the end of the last volume we saw a small girl and were unsure of her powers. In this book she proves to have a totally cool ability to make friends with inanimate objects and specifically rope in the story. She is then able to have it do things for her and even use it as a weapon. She totally needs to take the place of lame Sen. Along with her, enter some cool villains with the power to paint boxes and make them into walls, portals, etc. We also meet the librarian for the Urukai, lots of interesting characters showing up recently. We also see characters fight that we hadn’t had a chance to yet. In addition to all of that, Yoshimori starts to pull more power into his zekkai and Tokine starts developing more of her ability to manipulate space. They are growing and the questions about Karasumori are coming to surface as well.

The Bleach: SOULs Character Book is a very pretty book. The first part is some very nice colored art and stickers. The second part is detailed character write-ups of just about everyone, locations, items, and concepts in Bleach up to the end of the Soul Society arc with a preview of the Hecto Mundo Arc. There is also an interview with Tite Kubo and Masakazu Morita who plays Ichigo. We then have an original prelude comic and the prototype comic for Bleach. I was amused that Ichigo and Orhime had crushes on each other in the original draft of Bleach. It also has palm sized Rukia for most of the story which is either super silly or super awesome depending on who you ask.

My recent obsession with the Vocaloid phenomenon has sent me to many a great fan artist. I like this person’s overall style and they happened to do a few pictures of the series as well. So this is the pic of the week:

Byakuya isn’t the only one getting a piece of Renji’s ass.

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renji, bleach
Spoilers up to the current chapters of Bleach.

Guest editorial by Lothos

Based on the number of Rukia x Renji fan-sites/supporters on forums, plus his standing in  Bleach character popularity polls (consistently in the top 5 until recently), I had to stop and wonder why people like him so much. The more I thought about his character the more I found myself baffled. As far as I can surmise, he just serves as fodder to fill air time/page space to placate the fan-girls who think he’s hot. So he’s Rukia’s buddy from back when they were in Rokungai. Great. That’s apparently so inconsequential that it’s only touched on a couple times in the series. When she’s going to be executed he seems to be pretty much okay with it until Ichigo and friends storm the castle. The more I look back at Renji, the more and more pointless he seems to be and the only reason I can think of why people like him is because he has tattoos and a spiffy haircut. Lets take a look at what exactly he’s ever done throughout the series.

He has never won a fight that mattered, not even his very first fight with Ichigo! Byakuya has to step in to save his bum because Ichigo powers up and almost kills him. [Ch. 55] And that was an essentially untrained Ichigo. His Bankai is weak, it’s just a bigger version of his sword. And not even a bigger cooler version like Komamura has, where a giant samurai is wielding his now gigantic sword and he controls it like the kid in Giant Robo. Nope, it’s just a bigger version of his whip blade thing. He also sucks at Kidou and the only time in memory where he actually puts it to good use is when fighting one of the Espada. During his fight with Szayel Aporro Granz, Espada #8, after basically trying everything against him with no effect he manages to use his Shikai to bind himself to Szayel and sets off a pillar of fire around them. This essential does nothing to Szayel other than make him cough from the smoke, and set him up for Ishida to attack. [Ch. 275] He had to blow himself up in the process to do nothing to the guy but char his clothes. Also, his Shikai has a horrible flaw in that it has a set number of times he can whip it around and then it has to go back to being a (for the most part) normal sword, so against any worthwhile fighter it’s pretty useless. [Ch. 96]

He is the constant “set the stage” character for whoever he happens to be running around with. Be it Ichigo, Ishida, or whoever else. He is so useless that all he can do is try to distract the enemy so someone worthwhile can actually do something to them because his wet noodle of a Zanpakuto was ineffective.  He yells at Ichigo and everyone else all the time about how they’re so dumb or weak, [Ch.54, Ch.95, Ch.141, Ch.292, etc.] when in reality he’s never done anything useful except carry Rukia away AFTER Ichigo busted in to save the day and did some bad-ass shit like take out three vice captains bare-handed before they could even draw their swords. [Ch.152] I’m not a big fan of Ichigo either, but at least he gets stuff done and doesn’t fail at every endeavor.

I also blame Renji for the fact that Chad is constantly getting his butt handed to him. After all, Renji was Chad’s sparring partner. [Ch. 224] Which is unfortunate because Chad actually shows some promise and developed some pretty awesome powers. However, even though Chad tends to be on the losing end of fights (mostly because he seems to get matched up against someone way more powerful than those his friends fight) he does at least win some of the time on his own, so thus he’s better than Renji.

His captain, Byakuya, is also fan-girl fodder, but at least he is a bad-ass mofo who tends to beat the snot out of anyone who gets in his way and look good while doing it. What could Renji do against him? Pretty much nothing as we saw when he squared off against Byakuya during the Soul Society story arc. When Renji finally comes around and decides that Rukia shouldn’t be executed, he is confronted by Byakuya who intends to let the execution go through. Byakuya chides Renji saying he’s just an animal looking up at the moon, but just like that moon his fangs will never touch him. [Ch. 142] After a lot of failed attempts he managed to scrape Byakuya’s hand or something [Ch. 144] and that’s with Byakuya essentially going easy on him while Renji was going all out do or die style. Granted, Byakuya’s a captain and one of the more powerful ones at that, but still, Renji’s one of the few non-captains to have achieved Bankai and all he could manage was a scratch? Weak.

I guess that one thing Renji’s good at is taking a beating, but he’s not even among the best at that. Ichigo and Kenpachi take a hell of a lot more punishment than him and they keep on ticking (most of the time anyway). What I’d LOVE to see in the upcoming chapters is someone from soul society die at the hands of one of the Espada. It’d be great if it was a vice captain, and I think Renji would be a prime candidate. That could be the one thing he’d actually be useful for, breaking the hearts of fan girls everywhere while adding a bit of grittiness to the story. It would also show that Soul Society isn’t invincible. He’s a major enough character that it would have a lasting impact on readers and he is connected to enough characters in the story to push some development in them. C’mon Kubo, make me proud! Extra points if you have Gin/Tousen/Aizen do it.

renji, bleach, byakuya, BL, yaoi, doujinshi

Manga of the Month: December

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Yoroshiku Master by Sakura Tsukuba

I picked this story with the holiday spirit in mind! It is by a manga-ka that I really enjoy and have talked about on occasion. She writes really spunky females and good-hearted romantic leads. This series is ongoing and she writes a little of it now and again. In this story, Sagara has a chance meeting with a guy named Kaito who all of a sudden transforms into a reindeer?! Not only that, he informs her that she is one of many santas. Funny, sweet, fluff ensues as Sagara gets to know Kaito (and his hilarious family) and as they prepare for the most important night of the year, Christmas Eve! There is no major drama here just light-hearted romance that is a perfect match for the season!

Liar Game by Shinobu Kaitani

Liar Game starts with Nao Kanzaki dropping of a 100 yen bill that she finds to the police to show us that she is stupidly honest. So when she gets involved in a game about being a great con-artist she is without a doubt up a creek without a paddle. She comes home to a package that reveals she has been chosen to take part in the Liar Game tournament. The briefcase contains 100 million yen and a set of rules. When the round is over she must give back the 100 million yen. Any money she takes from other players is hers to keep. Any money she loses she must pay back. Soon enough she winds up loosing all her money to a fellow player. Out of despair she teams up with a brilliant con-artist named Shinichi Akiyama,who has recently been released from prison. The Liar Game tournament is much bigger than they might have guessed. Also learn the organization behind the tournament seems to have some greater but unknown designs behind their games.

Whenever Liar Game comes up in conversation it is almost always compared to Death Note. This is not an unfair comparison since the core appeal to both series is the psychological games of cat and mouse. In each stage of the tournament, it is Nao and Shinichi trying to figure out the underlying strategy needed to win the game while deducing their opponents strategy. Shinobu Kaitani has been good at building up the tension until the end of each round of the game. There was also a 11 episode live action version made and was rather well received.