Summer Adaptations – Ikoku Meiro no Croisée & Usagi Drop

I’m back home now for my summer holidays, so I decided to make this post a little manga sneak peak for two of the upcoming anime this Summer 2011, Ikoku Meiro no Croisée and Usagi Drop.

Before that though, if you want the summaries and trailers for most of the summer anime, you can go check out squidoo. Hope it helps! =D

Moving on!

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée (異国迷路のクロワーゼ)

Manga-ka: Takeda Hinata

Genre: Historical, Romance, Shounen, Slice-of-life

During the second half of the 19th century, Europe became intrigued by the Japanese culture. A Japanese girl named Yune travels to France, where she started working in the lower parts of a town in Paris at a craft store called Enseignes du Roy. She and the store owner named Claude communicate with each other in order to get over their cultural differences. This is the story of Yune’s stay in Paris.

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I picked this up shortly before I realised it would be aired in the summer, and I have to say that it is definitely one of the anime that I am really looking forward to. From the art, to the story, to the characters and setting… everything is just simply so beautifully executed.

After reading it the first time round, I really wanted to mushroom it. It’s the 21^st century, and having to live and study in a foreign country hasn’t been that easy for me – I can only imagine that it should be about 50 times worse for the main character in the 19^th century, who knows next to nothing about French culture or its language. Topping it off with the fact all it took for her to travel halfway across the world was her thirst for French culture (and that she’s a kid) makes Ikoku Meiro no Croisée  really something that is worth reading.

Manga & Anime: Medium of Freedom

Library Wars|Toshokan Sensō

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These few days I struggled to think how I would write a full length essay. The situation is getting out of hand since my writing skills have not awoken even with my exam approaching. So, as I tried to escape from my exam induced stress, I decided to take a short-term solution by watching Anime. I beg all of you not to follow my example.

Having no idea with what to watch, I settled for Library Wars since I wanted to catch up with the Love and War manga adaptation by Kiiro Yumi. Oh, just a note, the Library Wars Anime isn’t licensed and it should very well should be. It’s fantastic! But what really triggered me to write this post was initiated by the concept of Library Wars by Hiro Arikawa.

What may that be you ask?

The plot is derived from Japan’s statement of intellectual freedom for libraries – which basically means that libraries have the freedom to offer and collect any material, as well as disregarding censorship. The freedom of expression.

The conflict starts here; in the story, the government passes the Media Betterment Act which gives the committee the power to remove and censor any type of media that could pose a threat on Japanese Society. It’s almost like the Gestapo of Hitler Germany. Pretty deep stuff. Joining the side of free expression is no other than the Library Defence Agency, set up by local governments who oppose the Media Betterment Act.

Library Wars|Toshokan Sensō

Bits of Hana to Yume Issue No.11(20/05) & No.12(05/06)~

These few weeks I feel as if I’ve been weighed down to the bog since I got tons to things to do. However, I’m not doing what I should be doing which makes things suck even more for myself. Here’s a rather short-ish post on Hana to Yume magazine issue 11 + 12. Just a simple post since I need to cram my head with English Literature for the next 2 weeks.

Hana to Yume 11

Gakuen Alice featured on the cover.

Gakuen Alice freebie! It’s a cute, small stationary set and you can take a look at some pictures of it here on Omari’s Sister blog. Also head there for a nice high resolution scan of the cover! It contains a small single hole puncher, staples, a stapler and some sticky tape.

One-Shot for the Weekend! Cencoroll (センコロール)

Cencoroll (センコロール)

Producer/Director/Creator: Uki Atsuya

Producer: Aniplex

Genre: Action, Sci-fi

When a gigantic, unearthly monster suddenly looms on the skyline of a Japanese city, the expected occurs—the Japan Self-Defense Forces roll out the tanks while the public panics. Nobody knows what it is or where it came from, but Yuki, a bold and inquisitive teenage girl, has a secret that might be a useful clue. Her friend Tetsu has been clandestinely caring for a bizarre creature called Cenco, which will soon prove itself to have some remarkable, even impossible characteristics.

Rated PG-13

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BUH-BYE EXAMSSS!!!! XDXD

YES for all of you who didn’t realise my absence I am BACK. Now chungky and I have realised that lately MW’s been kinda dead since we’ve both been pretty preoccupied, but now I’m (slightly) more free while chungky goes ahead and crams for exams. Hence, therefore, as a result, conclusively (I’ve been writing essays), MW shall bear the brunt of my rants until the big boss gets back >=D

Anyway! Yes! One-shot for the weekend! You can tell how inactive we’ve been with this being the 3^rd one-shot under our recent posts but whatever. I’ll make it up to you by presenting Cencoroll.

This is a little different from our usual manga one-shot, but I thought that it’d be an interesting change since we’retrying to generate more anime posts. I chose Cencoroll mainly because the background of its production involved a lot of hard work – by one guy. Basically the dude (Uki Atsuya) practically wrote, designed, directed and animated the whole thing by himself. Wish I put that much work into my studies.

Contrary to the trailer, Cencoroll has a very monotone atmosphere going on. Rather than making the whole thing boring though, I find that it kinda gives more or a ‘real’ feel (or, as real as it could get). Rather than having some sort of Megazord (remember this!?! Guess what generation I’m from!!) or mahou shoujo transformation, the pace of the whole thing makes it seem like something really ordinary is going on. Except that. You know. Living, massive blobby white creatures and buildings getting blown up aren’t really ordinary.

And. Okay. Another reason was that I snitched watching Cencoroll when I was supposed to read up on my neurons.

Rating: 4.6/5.0

You may notice I’m a little hyped up here. My exams just finished like 3 hours ago. NYAAAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

Have an awesome, awesome weekend!!

– arawr X3

One-Shot for a Weekday ~ Kaze no Yubiwa to Hikari no Udewa

 Kaze no Yubiwa to Hikari no Udewa  | The Ring of Wind and the Bracelet of Light

(風の指輪と光の腕輪)

Manga-ka: Kawase Natsuna

Genre: Fantasy,  Romance,  Shoujo,  Supernatural

Our heroine is a girl who was born with magical power, and can give that power to magic users, since magic users don’t have power on their own. But her teacher sealed her power with a ring and a bracelet. She’s travelling to a sacred temple in order to take off the ring and the bracelet, but on the way, she meets two magic users who saves her from those who attempt to steal her money, ring, and bracelet. Although she’s determined to not trust magic users, she ends up travelling with them…What fate awaits this trio?

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I didn’t have time to post a one-shot for the weekend so I decided to post a one-shot for the week-day. Yes, I’m so very creative. I’ve read a few beautiful one-shots recently but most of which were scary or sad. This is a one-shot for a week-day so I thought I’d better select something more cheery and one with some kind of hope or sense of adventure to give your week-day a boost since they’re commonly associated with work.

Here, I present to you a light fantasy one-shot. While initial thoughts might include something about an angsty love triangle, the story rebutts that claim to produce an atmosphere you wish would never end. What I refer to personally by that, is stories that have that care-free atmosphere which is often found in adventure stories. That feeling you get when the boss has just been beaten or maybe something’s been resolved and you just want the characters to live on peacefully in happiness and watch them live in happiness. This one-shot gives me that very feeling. The story itself focuses on the heroine’s mind-set of not wanting to trust magicians and how these two young men prove her wrong. The art is simple and charming which adds to the easy-going pace of the story. A nice fun fantasy with that feeling of together-ness.

Rating: 3.7/5

Mushroom Manga – Yasuko to Kenji & Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun (となりの怪物くん) /The Monster Nearby | My Neighbor is a Strange Classmate

Manga-ka: Robiko

Genre: Comedy,  Romance,  School Life,  Shoujo

Mizutani Shizuku is the type of person who only cares for her own grades. But when she accidentally delivers the lesson notes to Yoshida Haru, Haru becomes convinced they are friends.
Haru turns out to have a very innocent personality, but who would’ve thought that Haru would actually confess to Shizuku?
A cold-hearted girl x super troublemaker romance with a fresh new perspective.

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The two stories I’ve selected in this mushroom post are in the shoujo genre but they are both similar in which they both have a rather shounen manga ‘feel’ to them.

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun is one of the less sparkly shoujo manga out there; if it were a kind of photo finish, it would be matte instead of glossy. The story is told in the perspective of a cold young lady who cares about nothing but her grades with an ambition gross about 10 million Yen a year in her future.

One-Shot for the Weekend – Yoru to Yakusoku

(夜と約束 | Night and Promise)

Manga-ka: Mitsuki

Genre: Comedy,  Shounen,  Supernatural,

Yoshino Shinya is a high school boy who is bullied all the time at school, which leads him to have no friends. However, no one knows that he is actually half-youkai, and due to that, he has the desire to eat human flesh. But because of the promise he made with his youkai father never to prey on humans, Shinya tries to resist his youkai blood that is thirsty for human’s blood, and live as a normal high school student. Will he be able to keep the promise he made with his father and keep his secret hidden?

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It’s rather hard to find a good shounen one-shot for me. I mean, I don’t read a lot of shounen manga in the first place but I also think that it’s because of the nature of most shounen manga – they have complex storylines that a normal one-shot length cannot sustain. Well, anyway, since I found one – I’m particularly excited!

The story focuses on a teenage half-ling, human and youkai, a werewolf to be exact. The overall story has a very good balance of everything, it’s characters are well developed and it has a simple, but yet solid plot which is perfect as a one-shot. The story also offers this nice undertone of  fan-service. I’m not sure whether I’ve grasp the whole concept of fan-service quite yet(I probably don’t even know how to use the term), but the hero is quite likable and I find his ‘urge-to-eat-humans’ quite a suggestive act. The ladies of the series are also quite blessed and there was a mild saucy scene which was quite funny.

The art of the youkai is pretty amazing, it has lots of nice detail and shading; it sort of reminds me of “Western comic” art like Marvel. I did however, nearly stop reading since I found it a bit freaky but I’m glad I didn’t. I think it would make a rather good ongoing series. It also has some friendship theme thrown inside which I give lots of bonus points for!

Late one-shot again, I’ve been quite busy and today is a rather special day for me so lots of love to all of you.

Rating: 4.5/5

Moshidora Live-Action Film!

Well now. Moshi Koukou Yakyuu no Joshi Manager ga Drucker no Management wo Yondara, or (since hardly anybody would be able to memorize that) more commonly known as Moshidora, has ended. Ironically, although it was one of the last (if not the last) anime to start airing this spring, it has now finished. Done. Adapted from the top-selling book of the year by Natsumi Iwasaki, 10 episodes flew past us in about 2 weeks while the rest that started ages ago have just reached half that. Oh well.

Anyway I really did like Moshidora. I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed with it or anything, but it was a nice high school baseball anime drama. It was a nice change in the sense that instead of trying to strengthen the team by pumping their players up or coming up with awesomely wicked strategies, they tackled it through management. The whole thing was kinda predictable and the OP was a tad bit annoying but whatever. It was enjoyable.

So enjoyable (and popular), in fact, that it’s being adapted into a live-action film on 4th July, 2011.

Produced by Akimoto Yasushi and starring Maeda Atsuko from AKB48 as Kawashima Minami (the whole film is pretty AKB48 centric), I suppose it’s going to just be a repeat of everything that we’ve already watched. Except that it’s, you know. Live-action.

And I have to say, when I saw the pitcher dude who’s acting as Asano – for some reason, I thought… “Wow. He really looks like he just stepped out from some 80’s baseball manga.” Does anyone else share this feeling or is it just me??

Wish I could say more but have to get back to studies now. Just really felt like sharing this =P

Sources

The Official Website

Tokyo Graph

Nippon Cinema

and inevitably,

Wikipedia

Monthly Lala 06/2011~

Hello! How are you?

Okay, well, back to me. Jokes. Here we have the Lala June issue for this year with The Wolf King’s Bride taking the covet role of being on the cover – it seems although they’re always in that pose. Regardless, its pretty!

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Not much new news, but I think this deserves a mention. I think everybody knows already but there will be a special chapter of La Corda D’Oro in the July issue. I am, however a bit skeptical that it’s about Len and Kahoko.

Mangaka of the Month – Kure Yuki

Kure Yuki 

(呉由姫)

-April-

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Name: Kure Yuki

Date of Birth: December 4th

Hometown: Chiba Prefecture, Japan

Yuki Kure made her debut in 2000, with the story Chijo yori Eien ni (Forever from the Earth), published in monthly LaLa magazine. She was born on December 4th, and is from Chiba prefecture. La Corda d’ Oro is her first manga series published. Her hobby is watching soccer games and collecting small goodies (fancy goods).

-ShojoBeat