Home Archives for Great Teacher Onizuka
15 September 2010 4 Comments

Manga Giveaway: Crazy Karate Contest

I am currently in possession of an extra copy of Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2, Volume 11: Creative Cures and so I have decided to run a contest. The giveaway is open world-wide, so if you’re interested in a chance to win a free, brand new copy of Ranma 1/2, Volume 11, read on!

I have been studying karate for a little over a year now. I absolutely love it and it has been really good for me. I also happen to love when karate makes an appearance in the manga that I read. It doesn’t matter whether it’s crazy karate like in Ranma 1/2 or Yu Yagami’s Hikkatsu! or something more serious—it just makes me happy. Sometimes, karate might not be critical to the story itself, but is important to a specific character. Eikichi Onizuka, the eponymous character from Tohru Fujisawa’s Great Teacher Onizuka, is a second-degree black-belt and captain of his university karate team. In Yaya Sakuragi’s yaoi series Tea for Two, both Tokumaru and his sister study karate and he helps teach the kids’ class and run the dojo’s training camp.

So, you may be wondering, how can you win a copy of Ranma 1/2, Volume 11?

1) In the comments section below, name any martial arts manga or martial artist manga character that hasn’t been mentioned in this post or in others’ comments. If possible, include the style of martial art involved.
2) If that style is a form of karate, you get a bonus entry!
3) If you’re on Twitter you can earn another entry by tweeting about this contest. Make sure to include a link to this post and @PhoenixTerran (that’s me) so that I know you’ve tweeted.

And that’s it! One person can earn up to three entries in the contest. The winner will be randomly chosen and announced on Wednesday, September 29, 2010—so you’ve got two weeks to get your entries in.

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: Crazy Karate Contest Winner

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13 September 2010 Leave a Comment

My Week in Manga: September 6-September 12, 2010

My News and Reviews

I’ve more or less gotten back on schedule after my vacation. Not much news to speak of, although I have some fun things in store for all of you out there. An interesting story about my third volume of Challengers: I went to read it only to discover that it was volume two hiding in the dust jacket of volume three. I have never seen something like this happen before, but the folks at Akadot Retail (from whom I ordered the books several months ago) were marvelous to work with in fixing the situation.

I did review Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s Slum Online this past week which I’m pretty sure was a light novel. If you like video games, you’ll probably enjoy it, and if you don’t, you might still enjoy it. There is also another As Seen Online post with links to all sorts of interesting things.

I’ve added a few more sites to the Resources page. I don’t remember how I stumbled across Kathryn Hemmann’s Contemporary Japanese Literature, but it was a very happy accident. The blog features book reviews for everything from nonfiction to manga. I’ve also added Manga Worth Reading, which is a part of Comics Worth Reading sites, A Feminist Otaku, which explores gender issues in manga and anime, and the news and review site Manga Xanadu.

Quick Takes

Challengers, Volumes 3-4 by Hinako Takanaga. The third volume is probably my favorite in the entire series. While there is still plenty of humor and goofiness going on—it is a romantic comedy after all—the last two books take a slightly more serious turn. Though, I do giggle every time I read the phrase “Satan’s rape demons.” Anyway—we get a showdown between Kurokawa’s mother and Souichi, Morinaga admits to Souichi that he’s gay, a female coworker is out to rehabilitate Kurokawa, and Tomoe is given the opportunity to work in America. Challengers is followed by the series The Tyrant Falls in Love which focuses on Morinaga and Souichi.

Dining Bar Akira by Tomoko Yamashita. The first thing I want to say is that I absolutely adore the cover of Dining Bar Akira; it really does a great job of capturing the feeling of the story. Despite having fallen for one another, Akria and Torihara piss each other off so much. They’re complete opposites and it’s hilarious in a very realistic way. Yamashita’s art reminds me a little of est em’s which is not at all a bad thing. In addition to the main story there are also two shorts, “Foggy Scene” and “Riverside Moonlight.” The dialogue is a little hard to follow at times, but I really enjoyed this one-shot.

GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka, Volumes 15-20 by Tohru Fujisawa. I do like this series, I do, I do. At this point, most of the material is completely new to me and doesn’t show up in the anime. The craziness, inappropriateness, and well intentioned insanity continues. While Onizuka has won over most of his students by now, he still has plenty to work out with their parents, other teachers, and the school administration. Now my only problem is that I haven’t been able to track down affordable copies of the last five books in the series. I’ll be keeping my eyes open, though.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie The Cowboy Bebop series was one of the first anime that I ever saw and remains one of my favorites. I don’t think the movie is quite as good, but it’s still pretty fantastic. It’s hard to go wrong with awesome music and awesome characters. Apparently, the movie is rated R for violence, which I hadn’t realized until now. The movie doesn’t seem to have the same sense of urgency as the series does, but granted the creators have almost two hours to explore one plot arc as opposed to under a half hour. Still, the movie is pretty great and even if you haven’t seen the series you should still be able to follow everything.

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7 September 2010 Leave a Comment

My Week in Manga: August 30-September 5, 2010

My News and Reviews

I was away on an extra-long-weekend-mini-vacation this past week. I didn’t do much but read, play video games, and enjoy the outdoors of northern Michigan, including walking across the Mackinac Bridge—the third longest suspension bridge in the world. So, not really much news-wise other than my posting schedule is going to be a little off while I catch up.

Before I left, I did manage to get my review up for the first volume of Saemi Yorita’s Brilliant Blue. Also posted this past week was my first Bookshelf Overload, featuring my empty wallet and acquisitions for August.

Quick Takes

Challengers, Volume 1-2 by Hinako Takanaga. Challengers is Takanaga’s debut manga series. I am quite fond of Takanaga’s work, particularly her art, so it’s interesting to get to see her early style. Challengers is a cute, romantic, boys’ love comedy. I like the characters, and while the main couple (Tomoe and Kurokawa) is endearing, it’s really the secondary characters that make the series so much fun. My favorite is probably Isogai, Kurokawa’s meddling office-mate and best friend, although Tomoe’s violently homophobic brother Souichi is pretty fantastic as well.

GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka, Volumes 8-14 by Tohru Fujisawa. I took a huge stack of GTO with me up north and it was pretty much all I read while I was up there. So far, the series and the anime have stuck pretty close together, but it’s nice that a few chapters and story arcs unique to the manga are starting showing up. I really do enjoy Onizuka’s crazy antics and enthusiasm for what he calls being a teacher. He may be a little unorthodox to say the least, but his students definitely learn something from him even if it’s not on the standard curriculum.

Brave Story: New Traveler (PSP) I recently read and enjoyed Miyuki Miyabe’s Brave Story so I figured I’d give one of the video games based on the story a try. Brave Story: New Traveler is your pretty standard random-encounter RPG. It has a nice fighting system with animations unique to each attack. However, the monsters can get repetitive (as can the battle music). The thing I really enjoyed is how the game incorporated elements and characters from the original story—you even have the opportunity to play Wataru and his friends at one point. The main quest is very similar to the book’s plot but different enough to be interesting.

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30 August 2010 2 Comments

My Week in Manga: August 23-August 29, 2010

My News and Reviews

I’ve become a reviewer for Netcomics! If you’re a manga blogger and are interested in reviewing and working with Netcomics you can send them an e-mail at info (at) netcomics (dot) com for more information. I had read several of Netcomics manga and manhwa titles before becoming an “official” reviewer and really enjoyed them.

Several more blogs have been listed in the News and Reviews section of the Resources page. First is All About Manga, written by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber, currently a freelance editor for Tokyopop. Manga Maniac Cafe is run by fellow manga fan and Michigander Julie. I recently discovered Tony Yao’s very cool site Manga Therapy which takes a look at the psychological aspects of manga, anime, and video games. Finally, the blog of one of my Twitter buddies, Ryu’s Dreams—I’m not sure how I missed that one the first time.

As for reviews posted this past week, I give you the first volume of the Spice & Wolf light novel series. Also this week, my first Library Love post features quick comments on manga that I’ve borrowed from the library. Over on my other book blog, Experiments in Reading, I have a review for Alex Bellos’ Here’s Looking at Euclid: A Surprising Excursion through the Astonishing World of Math. Although not related enough to cross-post the review here at Experiments in Manga, I mention it because the book has some interesting sections on Japanese counting, origami, Sudoku, soroban (Japanese abacus), and Japanese mathematicians, among other things.

Quick Takes

GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka, Volumes 1-7 by Tohru Fujisawa. I have huge admiration for teachers and what they do. Unfortunately, they don’t often get the respect and credit they deserve. Enter 22-year-old, ex-gang member Eikichi Onizuka who hates teachers but decides to become one, initially as an excuse to chase high school skirt. However, it turns out he makes an awesome, although unconventional, teacher who really cares about his students. Outrageous, often inappropriate, and utterly unrealistic, the manga is shaping up to be even better than the anime (which I thoroughly enjoyed as well).

Hikkatsu!: Strike a Blow to Vivify, Volume 1 by Yu Yagami. I enjoy crazy karate manga, so it makes sense that I would pick up Hikkatsu. Shota’s convinced that he can perfect the repair blow and on occasion pulls it off to great effect. Most of the time though he just ends up shattering things beyond recognition. The manga’s not particularly deep, but it’s funny with good comedic timing. Shota is definitely my favorite character although Asuka, introduced at the very end of the volume, is pretty bad-ass, too. The art and backgrounds tend to be rather busy, but I like Shota’s somewhat mopey character design. The characters are one-dimensional, and their single-minded focus makes them come across as a bit air-headed, but so far I don’t mind as long as the comedy is there.

Maiden Rose, Volume 1 by Fusanosuke Inariya. I’m almost surprised that this title wasn’t published under Digital Manga’s 801 division instead of the Juné imprint—the sex scenes are intense to say the least and Klaus has a tendency to be rather forceful. I feel bad for poor Taki who is obviously conflicted over their relationship. His reasons are revealed by the end of the first volume, much to the shock and dismay of Klaus. He never knew how much Taki was risking so that they could be together. The character designs are lovely, although the art occasionally has some minor continuity issues. The ending raises some questions about where Klaus’ loyalties lie. I’ll definitely be taking a look at the next volume.

Thirsty for Love written by Satosumi Takaguchi and illustrated by Yukine Honami. This one volume manga is mature and melancholy. Three high school boys are consumed by the loss of the girl they love and who loved them in return. The story is dark and heavy with complicated relationships. The three manage to find discordant comfort in each other, an intense mixture of love and hate as they grieve.  Honami is the same artist who worked on Rin! which I read last week, and I’ve really grown to like her style.

Kurau: Phantom Memory, Episodes 10-16. I have continued watching this wonderful anime since last week. The beginning of the series seemed a little more episodic, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but this middle third of the series is much more cohesive plot wise. The strong characters are something that I love about this series. I still adore Kurau, Christmas is becoming more mature, and I was happy to see that their father plays an important role in story at this point. If you enjoy thoughtful science fiction, you should really give Kurau: Phantom Memory a try.

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