One-Shot for the Weekend – Mario (マリオ)

Mario (マリオ)

Manga-ka: Kishimoto Masashi

Genre: Action, Drama, Shounen, Romance

Mario is a half-Japanese, half Italian mercenary  who prioritizes money above everything else. He gets assigned to work together with Saori, another hitman who hates men and refuses to talk to them.

Published as a one-shot in 2013 with Jump SQ .

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It’s pretty much the end of the weekend so it’s coming pretty late, but here’s our recommended one-shot! I’m currently undergoing a Naruto manga marathon, so I decided to choose one of Kishimoto Masashi’s one-shots – Mario. He’s mentioned it before in one of those author rants’ pages in Naruto, where he expressed that Mario was probably one of the best stories that he’d ever come up with. So with no further ado, I jumped into it the moment I saw the one-shot.

I didn’t know what to expect from it at all before reading Mario – didn’t read the summary or anything. If I unattached it from its Jump SQ label and the fact that the manga-ka is one of the most successful shounen manga-ka to date, I would honestly think it’s a seinen one-shot. There’s a more subdued feel to it compared to the usual in-yo-face shounen action.

Mario gives off a very jazzy feel throughout the whole one-shot. From the yakuza/mafia setting, the black suits and black dresses, the character interactions and just everything overall, there is this general feeling of coolness. The kind of story that depicts a romanticized version of the mafia. This whole ‘jazzy’ feel is really what gives of the seinen feel, and in fact is a bit of a weakness for those who are more used to the ba da bing ba da BOOM aspect of shounen manga. There’s no sudden crescendo of action or ground breaking-ly embarrassing romantic confessions – everything seems pretty subdued with a mature over tone.

In other words, it can seem a bit dull.

Not saying that it’s bad or anything, but Mario really seems more like a story that can’t develop in a one-shot since it’s the type that would usually build up on the relationships between the characters; and these relationships can’t be addressed and comprehended in a one-shot. Still, quite an okay read for a jazzy weekend.

Rating: 3.4/5.0

Summer Anime 2013 – Summaries, PVs, Links and Rants

So it’s not quite the end of the Spring Anime yet, but it’s getting quite close.Out of curiosity, I went off to see what’s on for this Summer, and thought I’d share it here on Manga Weekend (It’s been a long, long while since I’ve done on of these posts!) I’ve pretty much got all the summaries from MyAnimeList, and as usual I’ve got the anime listing from The Fansub Wiki. Both really good websites, so o check them out! =D

I’ll just be splitting it up into anime I’ll definitely be following, anime I might be following, and anime that I’ve already ditched before even giving it a chance (Honestly I think that I’ve put wayyy too much into the first category). If you think that there’s any in the last category that shouldn’t be there, convince me in the comments below!

^_^ ANIME: I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO! ^_^

Gin no Saji: Silver Spoon by A-1 Pictures

Yugo Hachiken dreams of life separated from his family, so he takes the initiative by enrolling in an agriculture school. He thinks, with his talent in studying, no problems will arise no matter what kind of school he attends. He is proven wrong very quickly. Raised as a city boy, he is forced to uncover the inconvenient truth about agricultural life. Enjoy the story of Hachiken, as he tries to keep up with his new friends, farmers’ heirs, who are already accustomed to the harsh world of farming. With no clear goals or understanding of farming life, how will Hachiken survive this new, cruel reality? The story of a sweat, tear, and mud-stained youth begins!

Website

Gin no Saji is an original work by Arakawa Hiromu, the manga-ka for Full Metal Alchemist. From the summary, you’d probably notice that it’s got nothing to do with alchemy or philosopher stones – in fact, it’s got to do with pretty much a high school farm. On top of it being very far from the usual high-school life setting, it’s gives this very warm slice-of-life feeling, but at the same time retaining the fun from a shounen/comedy genre. Definite recommendation!

RDG: Red Data Girl – All the WTHs from Episode 8

So one of the anime that I’ve been following this spring (Spring. Haha. What a joke) is Red Data Girl (RDG). It was one of the earliest to come out, and I’ve been underwhelmed by it from the very beginning. For some reason however, I just stuck to watching it anyway. It’s quite mean, but it’s the sort of anime I watch just to hate on. I mean it’s just so – well – tweeny.

Anyway usually I’d just go on about how ridiculous it is to chungky, but after episode 8, not even my trusty partner was enough. Apart from all the ongoing teen angst, everything in the episode suddenly seemed abrupt and unnecessary. I don’t know if it’s just this episode in particular, or if I’ve already had enough of the story that I’m paying attention to other things that have been quite random from the beginning. Anyway, here’s my thoughts of this week’s episode, starting with the OP!

‘Nah mean? ‘Nah mean??

Ever felt like there was a certain moment in some anime/manga that you could completely relate to?

There’s a lot in the anime/manga universe that seems completely out of this world – naturally, a part of its appeal. It delivers something separate from reality, bringing you away from your own life for a moment. It is in these moments where we are soaking up all these fictional moments when suddenly

SNAP!

It doesn’t seem so fictional anymore. Maybe it was a character, a scene or even just a line that made you shoot out from your seat and go “I KNOW THAT FEEL BRO!!” There are instances in anime/manga where the audience have felt that they could relate to the fictional characters or scenarios that no longer seem as fictional as before (btw I completely understand what it feels like to be randomly swept to another galaxy with me giant mecha).

Both chungky and I have experienced this – and we’ve decided to share our Top 3 Anime Moments We Can Relate To! =D

So as the one who instigated this post, I’ll go first!

One-Shot for the Weekend – Danshi Toilet de Machiawase

Danshi Toilet de Machiawase  (男子トイレで待ち合わせ) / Meeting Up at the Male Toilet

Manga-ka: Mizu Asato

Genre: Comedy, Doujinshi, Romance, School Life

An original doujinshi of a girl, a boy and a male toilet.

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Well… this is a bit of an odd one-shot on our part. Sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of our one-shots for the weekend revolve around more or less the same sort of theme, so I thought I’d try something different this time round – and I’m not quite sure how to react to it…?

Danshi Toilet de Machiawase is a one-shot about the scenarios between a boy and girl that find refuge in an abandoned boy’s toilet during their lunch break. The initial thought I had was that it was going to be your usual hanky-panky; but when I saw that there weren’t any of the usual genre associated with a doujin x toilet kind of manga, I decided to give it a go.

There’s an odd kind of humour for an odd kind of manga with an odd kind of male lead.  Most of the comedy has to do with the situation the girl finds herself in, and the type of consideration the guy provides in return. Rather than having some sort of chemistry between the two, I’d say it’s more like they’ve reached this (unfathomable) acceptance of one another which is really quite sweet.

Quite different from what we usually recommend, but if you just finished another repetitive week with repetitive school/work, here’s a one-shot to just blow you off course and make you laugh this weekend =)

Rating: 3.7/5.0

“As my love first came to realization, Word had already spread.”

It’s kind of amazing how you look at something differently after watching it the second time. I spent yesterday and a bit of today re-watching the first season of Chihayafuru (and unbeknownst to me so was chungky). For those of you who don’t know it, Chihayafuru is a manga/anime about a bunch of high-school kids playing karuta. Karuta’s basically a game based around the hyakunin isshu, a collection of 100 poems by 100 poets.

Chihayafuru really changed for me when I re-watched it; most probably because my understanding of karuta was a lot better, but now that I knew some things were going to happen, I could pay attention to others instead. For example, there are times in the story where they use the poetry from the hyakunin isshu to illustrate the relationships between the characters; before I thought they were just pretty words that relate really well to the situation. But my second experience with Chihayafuru found the description to be so beautiful, I’ve quoted some of them in this post!

Let’s start!

I read the Chihayafuru manga before the anime came out, and I’ve been captured by it from the very beginning. Maybe it’s my own bias for stories that use the ‘childhood friends’ card; I always feel that the relationship between children are a lot more direct, honest and simple (e.g. not manipulated by hormones yet). So anyway, the three main characters are 1, the heroine (Chihaya), 2, the transfer student who introduces her to karuta (Arata) and 3, the bully/friend (Taichi). I’ll be going off on my own rant about it from here on, so spoilers will follow. But if you’re like chungky who went all “Well, don’t mean to spoil it for you, but looks like the bully’s gonna get her,” when I’d only explained what characters were in the story and nothing about storyline, then we all never had to worry about what ultimately would or would not happen.

BUT THAT’S THE THING!!

Mushroom Manga Talk (?) – Changing the Past in Orange

Orange (Takano Ichigo) /オレンジ (高野苺)

Manga-ka: Takano Ichigo

Genre: Drama, Mystery, Shoujo, Romance, School Life, Slice-of-Life, Supernatural, Tragedy

In the Spring she was 16, Takamiya Naho receives a strange, but detailed letter from herself, ten years in the future. At first she thinks the letter is a prank, but then the things written in the letter actually happen, including the new transfer student that sits next to her in class, Naruse Kakeru. In the letter, her 27-year-old self tells her 16-year-old self that her biggest regret is that Kakeru is no longer with them in the future, and asks her to watch him closely.

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So I don’t usually read – much less write – posts around the shoujo/drama genre, but there was just something about Takano Ichigo’s Orange that compelled me to get typing. The story revolves around a high school girl called Naho, who somehow receives a letter from herself 10 years into the future. The letter basically tells her to re-do the things that her 10-years-later self (let’s call her Naho2) regrets even to her present day, from the little things such as not stepping up as a batter in a class softball tournament, to not being able to save somebody very, very precious to her.

Gosh I feel old but it’s about half a year since I’ve turned 21, and chungky’s also just turned 21 so Happy Birthday dude. Anyway, around the time I turned 21 I started doing everything I always wanted to do, but had been afraid of failing, or having people laugh at me since 1991. There’s always this nagging at the back of my head saying “Well you could’ve done it 10 years ago; you just chickened out,”. I should have been more persistent, I should have been braver, I should have said this, I should have done that. Should, should, should.

But I didn’t.

Shingeki no Kyojin – Chew on it Bro

Shingeki no Kyojin (進撃の巨人) / Attack on Titan

Several hundred years ago, humans were nearly exterminated by titans. Titans are typically several stories tall, seem to have no intelligence, and devour human beings. A small percentage of humanity survived by locking themselves in a city surrounded by 50m walls. Flash forward to the present; the city has not seen a titan in over 100 years. However, this all changes when a colossal titan appears and breaches the wall that had protected them for a century.

Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Shounen, Tragedy

Status: Currently airing, planned for 25 episodes

Original work by Isayama Hajime, directed by Araki Tetsurou and produced by like a massive bunch of companies including Production I.G.,  FUNimation Entertainment, Mainichi Broascasting, etc. etc.

Rated  R17; and like guys, pay attention to that rating because I (and I think a lot of other people) really got the shock of their lives from watching this anime. Speaking of which, I’m wondering why none of the genres mention ‘psychological’ considering the fact that watching this probably leaves you with some mental scars.

Let’s start!

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What do you mean you haven’t watched it?!

I think it’s pretty solid to say that the anime of the season right now is Shingeki no Kyojin; I know it’s not much of a reference but whenever I read comments off 9gag, there’s always someone putting in  some titan joke or yo’ momma is a titan or whatever. Even chungky who doesn’t usually watch anime (much less one that is quite graphic, to say the least) has got a bit of an unhealthy obsession with it,as mentioned previously, “following the anime religiously and even re-watching it like a cow regurgitating grass,”.

Anyway if you haven’t watched Shingeki no Kyojin by now, you have no idea what you’re missing out. I cannot remember the last time I’ve been this floored by an anime; there’s something very brutally blunt about the way the story is executed. This post does contain spoilers, but nothing beyond like the 4^th episode. The basic premise is that humanity has been hiding behind 50m walls for the past 100 years to hide away from the titans, who are these humanoid creatures that come in assorted sizes (usually larger than yo’ momma) and have pretty much been snacking their way through the human race. This post shall henceforth primarily focus on the aforementioned snackers.

Found ya

One-Shot for the Weekend – Koe no Katachi (聲の形)

Koe no Katachi (聲の形) / The Shape of a Voice

Manga-ka: Ooima Yoshitoki

Genre: Drama, School Life, Shounen

A one-shot about a grade school class that accepts a girl with impaired hearing.

Winner of the 80th Weekly Shounen Magazine Newbie Best Mangaka Award Publicized again on the 12th edition of the 2013 Weekly Shounen Magazine.

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Okay so it’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything (over a year, really) but I’ll update anyone who cares about it some other time. Here’s some other information about the manga I got from MyAnimeList – “The vector of the content made it difficult for publication in any manga magazine, until it was picked up, after months of legal dispute, by the February edition of Bessatsu Shounen Magazine, where it got first place despite its being a one-shot.”

So! I’ll start with the one-shot that’s affected me the most since I went off on hiatus. Koe no Katachi, or The Shape of a Voice. There are some common themes with this manga that you’d see in others as well, but the way the manga-ka handles this doesn’t just make it realistic – he makes it believable. The story is so grounded it felt like a story you could read of your daily newspaper; a story you don’t want to believe, but somehow know that it probably is true.  There are a lot of manga out there who have ‘realistic’ story lines, but making something believable – making it into something that you can see happening in real life – is something that takes a different sort of talent (and quite a lot of guts in this case due to the controversial content).

The issues throughout the manga that really intrigued me was special education needs (SEN), bullying and teaching. I’ve been pretty much working in a sort of special school setting this past year, so these issues really stood out for me. I did about 5 minutes research about SEN in Japan, and there apparently was a period of time when children with disabilities were placed in regular classes in regular schools. You can read the short article where I got this from here.

Like I said before, a lot of manga deals with this kind of story line, but there’s always something about it that can make you separate fact from fiction. Normally with manga, you end up caring for the character, but can detach yourself from that universe. In Koe no Katachi, maybe in the end you are able to detach yourself from the characters (if you can’t care for them, you sure are an a**), but you can’t detach yourself from the issues that were highlighted in the manga.

If you’re into a one-shot that chains you back to reality after all the floating away the fictional world has brought you to, here’s one for you. And despite everything I said, the manga does end on an extremely sweet note, so do give it a go!

Rating: 5.0/5.0

Kimi ni Mune Kyun! (plus a mini Winter Anime update!)

There’s just something about the exam season where I always end up re-reading Eyeshield 21. Just finished reading my #1 favourite match this morning – Deimon vs. Shinryuuji!! The last 58 seconds of the match…!! @_@

This is not good for studying.

But that’s not why I’m posting today. I am a massive fan of School Food Punishment – if it does/not sound familiar, they’re the geniuses responsible for ‘Futuristic Imagination’ and ‘light prayer’ for Higashi no Eden. Last season, they sang ‘How to Go’ for Un-Go (I KNEW it was them the moment the song started!! XD) and before that, RPG for [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control.

If you haven’t listened to them, do so. Like. NOW.

In any case, a song that I’ve been addicted to lately from their How to Go single is Kimi ni, Mune Kyun -Uwaki no Vacanses-. It’s a really, really cute song with their own blend of the electrical techno thingy they do with a keyboard/guitar/synthesiser/whatever (you may notice I know zilch about music from my description) along with the calming, sweet vocals of Ichimura Yumi .