Splash Panel » Manga

DeathNote

Khaled Abou Alfa — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:52:03 +0000

Jasmina, who’s the BIGGEST Otaku I’ve ever met in my life pointed me out to this manga series called ‘DeathNote’ The idea alone made me excited to read this. It’s basically about a boy called Kira who gets a book, whereby any name he scribbles down will be killed. He makes it his duty to kill all the bad guys in the world. As you can expect a lot of morality at play here. In his eyes he’s doing good but in many other people he is not, and by that definition is he one of the bad guys? Does his name deserve to be in the book as well?

For some strange reason you can register and download the series from Manga Download. Dunno how legit this all is to be honest with you (probably not very), however you can see how popular DeathNote actually is.

Spirit of Wonder

Khaled Abou Alfa — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 10:45:37 +0000

Few things can make me smile from ear to ear and make me feel good about life in general. I get this feeling whenever I watch a Miyazaki movie. However before I discovered Miyazaki, I was reading ‘Spirit of Wonder’.

This is arguably one of the most beautiful manga’s ever created. This work is far and above standard manga fair. It’s a special piece of printed history that deserves to be on everyone’s shelf.

Set in the late 19th Century, in Bristol England, a young Asian girl, Miss China is the owner of the Tenkai Tea and Boarding House. However not everything’s going well as one of her lodgers Breckenridge (a completely mad scientist) is always late with the rent and Miss China is finding it hard to run her business and make ends meet. Meanwhile she’s pinning after Jim who’s actions seem to imply that he’s actually out for the flower girl,..but we all know better.

I dare any warm blooded male to not fall in love with Miss China after reading this series, in the same way that guys fall for Amelie after watching that movie. While the story might seem girly, it has got something for everyone.

The one aspect of this book that will make you revisit the work again and again is the artwork which is absolutely breathe-taking. It’s seriously detailed and has an incredible amount of sheer class in every single page.

Artist/Writer: Kenji Tsuruta
Letterer: Studio Proteusâ€™s Toren Smith
Publisher: Dark Horse

Vagabond | Volume 1

Khaled Abou Alfa — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:13:20 +0000

This is not hyperbole, this isn’t an overstatement, this is fact. The sooner you come to understand it about this book the better the world shall be, honest trust me on this one, I know what I’m talking about. The fact being that Vagabond is one of the most haunting, best crafted, lushously illustrated stories to be published in comics. Originally this series was published by Viz as a series of thick comic books, but they soon changed their publishing model completely and these volumes started coming out on a regular basis. The production values on these volumes is much better than your average manga book. Painted pages at the start of a new chapter in the story are presented as they originally appeared rather than giving these pages in black and white as well. It’s these additional touches that make this series that much more special.

This is a retelling of the origins of one of the Japanese sword saints, Miyamoto Musashi. The closest approximation I can give is that he’s to Japan, what King Aurther is to England. Musashi didn’t start off life in the most glamourous ways. The story picks up directly after the battle of Sekigahara, with two close friends who have survived, however were on the wrong side of the battle, the losing side.

This first volume gives us a brief introduction to Takezo (the man that will become Musashi) and his best friend Matahachi as they try to get back to their village. Along the way they are ambushed by samurai looking for survivors of from the battle, however they get a lot more than they bargained for from this deceptively brutal 17 year old.

Little can be said about the artwork, short of just how spectacular it is. You can smell the grass, feel the Japanese sun, and dirt gets in your eyes from the dusty roads. The level of detail that Inoue puts into the backgrounds is something Geoff Darrow (of the Matrix fame) would put in. What come across very clearly in this book is just how much fun the creator is having with this series. It’s a story he was meant to write and draw and he shows this by putting this amount of effort and attention to detail on every page.

This book was originally published in March 2002 and we’re currently on volume 20. That’s actually up to speed with the very latest release in Japan. So it could be a while before any more volumes get translated, which gives everyone the perfect opportunity to actually get to grips with this series. Unlike Dark Horse who keeps issues in the bag with their samurai epic (Blade of the Immortal), Viz decided to go down the opposite route and publish everything as soon as they could.

Story and Art by Takehiko Inoue
Touch-ups and Letters by Steve Dutro
Publisher Viz Media