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3 August 2011 2 Comments

Manga Giveaway: Ghost Talker’s Giveaway Winner

And the winner of the Ghost Talker’s Giveaway is…beckafly!

As the winner, beckafly will be receiving a brand new copy of the first volume of Ghost Talker’s Daydream written by Saki Okuse, illustrated by Sankichi Meguro, and published by Dark Horse. For this giveaway we talked about manga with absurd premises. Normally, I would just refer you to the Ghost Talker’s Giveaway comments, but since there were so few entries this time around I’ve decided to include them in this post.

Now, on to some ridiculous manga!

Justin shares some thoughts on Shinji Saijyo’s Iron Wok Jan which can get pretty crazy indeed:

Ooh, this is interesting. I haven’t read too many out of bounds manga, but one that did get me was Iron Wok Jan—the amount of sheer ridiculousness of the products they get cooked (Whether it was just normal fried rice to custard soup with sheep brains), and how precise everything had to be that made it taste good, and addition to the cast of characters who are sometimes annoyingly stubborn, I was mystified yet entertained at the same time^^ Would love to see this manga in print again, but alas…

beckafly’s favorite absurd manga is X-Day by Setona Mizushiro and specifically mentions the side story “The Last Supper”:

My favorite absurd manga has to be [X-Day].There’s a side story in there where farm animals become people and are used for medicine. The actual story is kind of normal except for the blowing up the school bit.

phoenixphire24 mentions Takashi Hashiguchi’s Yakitate!! Japan. I haven’t read this one yet, but I’ve been meaning to give it a try:

My favorite ridiculous manga premise is for one of my favorite manga: Yakitate Japan. People that use their skills as bakers to fight in competitions with bread. And their bread can do crazy things to the judges, like transform them. And everything is a pun. Damn, I love that manga.

And there you have it! Some potentially absurd manga worth tracking down.

Also, a heads up: I’m thinking about moving from a monthly giveaway to a giveaway every other month. I haven’t decided yet, though. If you care one way or the other, please let me know!

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27 July 2011 4 Comments

Manga Giveaway: Ghost Talker’s Giveaway

The end of July is fast approaching, meaning it’s time for another manga giveaway! This month you all will have a chance to win a brand new copy of Saki Okuse and Sankichi Meguro’s Ghost Talker’s Daydream, Volume 1, published by Dark Horse. It’s a mature title (it even comes shrink-wrapped), so please only enter if you are over the age of eighteen! And, as always, the giveaway is open world-wide.

Occasionally, I come across a manga that has a setup that just seems so strange and bizarre that I can’t pass up the opportunity to give it a try. One such manga is Ghost Talker’s Daydream. The series features a protagonist that works as a dominatrix and a sex writer in addition to being employed as a necromancer and dealing with ghosts. Oh yeah, and she’s also an albino. Taken separately, these elements aren’t all that unusual, but put them together and they make a somewhat odd premise for a manga. I had to read it. Another manga that I had a similar reaction to after learning about it was Nanae Chrono’s Vassalord. Gay cyborg vampire working as a mercenary for the Vatican who wants to be a priest? Sign me up. Sometimes these outrageous sounding manga fail miserably while at other times the creators manage to pull off sometime fantastic and unique.

So, you may be wondering, how can you win a copy of Ghost Talker’s Daydream, Volume 1?

1) In the comments below, tell me a little about a manga, good or bad, that sounds utterly absurd and ridiculous when you try to describe it to someone (and that hasn’t been mentioned yet.)
2) If you’re on Twitter, you can earn a bonus entry by tweeting about the contest. Make sure to include a link to this post and @PhoenixTerran (that’s me).

You may earn up to two entries for this giveaway and there’s only one week to get your comments in. If you have trouble leaving comments, feel free to e-mail me at phoenixterran(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll make sure they get posted. The winner will be randomly selected and announced on August 3, 2011.

VERY IMPORTANT: Include some way that I can contact you. This can be an e-mail address, link to your website, Twitter username, or whatever. If I can’t figure out how to get a hold of you and you win, I’ll just draw another name.

Contest winner announced—Manga Giveaway: Ghost Talker’s Giveaway Winner

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11 July 2011 Leave a Comment

My Week in Manga: July 4-July 10, 2011

My News and Reviews

Not much news (surprise!) other than I’m preparing to go on an extended vacation later this week. I’ve got posts ready to go while I’m away, and supposedly there will be web access where I’ll be, so there shouldn’t be too much interruption here at Experiments in Manga. (Fingers crossed.) In other news, last week I announced the winner of the Rurouni Kenshin manga giveaway. I also took the opportunity to make a couple of lists of samurai manga licensed in English, so if you’re looking for some to read, check it out. I also posted a review of the first volume of Anthony C. Yu’s translation of The Journey to the West. Since The Journey to the West is Chinese and not Japanese, I debated whether or not to include the review here. But because it’s such an influential work and there are so many references and adaptations of the story in Japanese literature I decided that I would go ahead. So there.

Quick Takes

Ghost Talker’s Daydream, Volumes 1-3 written by Saki Okuse and illustrated by Sankichi Meguro. Overall, Ghost Talker’s Daydream feels very disjointed to me; it hasn’t quite managed to pull itself together yet within the first three volumes. The action sequences are often difficult to follow, which is particularly unfortunate as the fight scenes were some of my favorite parts. I also appreciated the S&M elements of the story although they are not incorporated into the work as a whole very well. Misaki does somewhat frustrate me as a character since she hates both her job as a dominatrix and as a necromancer but doesn’t seem willing to make an effort to change the status quo.

Gin Tama, Volumes 6-14 by Hideaki Sorachi. I really do love this series. It’s ridiculous and absurd and genuinely funny if you’re into that sort of thing (which I am.) The cast of characters is huge and they all have their own distinct quirks and personalities. You will never confuse one with another. Despite recurring gimmicks, I haven’t yet gotten bored with Gin Tama. The diverse imaginings of Sorachi impress me greatly, especially considering that Gin Tama is a weekly serialization. Frequently it parodies other established series (and I know I’m missing some references) but it also parodies commonly used tropes. Sorachi doesn’t hesitate to break the fourth wall and I find his omake (which is usually text) to be hilarious.

Go West!, Volumes 1-4 by Yu Yagami. Yagami has a talent for taking a tremendously silly concept, running with it, and making it work. In the case of Go West! we have Red Bullet—a horse that will only travel west in a straight line no matter what obstacles are in the way. Added to that is Naomi, a girl who has come to the West to search for her long lost parents. Pairing up, she and Red Bullet face many challenges together. Not the least of which is a bounty hunter and a wanted man who both claim to be related to her despite the complete lack of any evidence. Plus there’s plenty of gunfights, explosions, and general chaos and destruction that make Go West! highly entertaining. It’s goofy, but that’s not a bad thing.

Seven Days: Monday-Thursday written by Venio Tachibana and illustrated by Rihito Takarai. Every Monday morning, Seryou agrees to go out with the first girl to ask him out. If he doesn’t develop any feelings for her by the end of the week, they break up. As a joke Shino, an older male schoolmate, asks Seryou out and is surprised when he says yes. Shino treats the whole thing like a game, buy Seryou is quite serious about it, especially when he discovers he actually likes Shino. The premise might sound irrational, but it actually works and makes sense in context. I was quite taken with the first volume of Seven Days and look forward to the second and final volume, Seven Days: Friday-Sunday.

Yo-yo Girl Cop directed by Kenta Fukasaku. Yo-yo Girl Cop is based on the manga Sukeban Deka by Shinji Wada (who sadly passed away just last week), making it the third live action film to be based on Wada’s series. A skilled and strong brawler, a teenager from New York is deported and recruited by a Japanese police organization to help track down a group of terrorists. Given the codename Asamiya Saki and a steel yo-yo as her only weapon, she heads undercover as a high school student. Yo-yo Girl Cop is a fun movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Asamiya is pretty badass and there are some fight sequences, especially towards the end, that make really nice use of the yo-yo.

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