Manga

For the last couple of days, I've been reading a manga named JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It's alright, I guess - decent premise with slipshod execution. But something that I initially perceived as humourous became disconcertingly distracting enough for me to post about it. This certain something is to do with the majority of the character names in the manga being named after western music artists.

I just finished watching and reading Antique Bakery, a Josei manga by Yoshinaga Fumi which has also been adapted as an anime. The story revolves around Tachibana Keiichiro, who, one fine day, decides to quit his high profile corporate job to open a bakery.

Grappler Baki is generally touted to be one of the most violent animes / mangas around. While the anime (especially the Saidai Tournament Hen) was below par, I was hoping that the manga would be (as is usually is) a touch better. And it is just a touch better, no more.

Yesterday, I randomly picked up a manga named M×0 as the general premise looked a little interesting: a boy is accidentally enrolled into a magic school and has to pretend that he is an all powerful magician even though he has no talent. But, unfortunaltely, it fizzled off after the first few chapters and all in all was a waste of my time.

I just finished reading a manga named B Reaction by mangaka Tsuruta Hirohisa. A rather typical Shounen story with some ecchi stuff blended in, it is something like a cross between Kenichi and Tenjou Tenge and I was hooked for all 18 chapters of it.

I just finished watching Speed Racer, an adaptation of the anime and manga, Mach Gogogo / Speed Racer. Directed by the Wachowski brothers, Speed racer is, IMHO, the best live-action adaptation of an anime / cartoon that retains its original flavour and roots.

The synopsis of the anime is as follows:

What a wonderful week this has been! I've done fuck-all in terms of work because I discovered that there is a bounty of Nodame Cantabile out there to slake my thirst. Firstly, there appears to be a sequel (set in Paris) in the works set for release in October. This led me to the Manga (which I'd thought had ended along with the anime) where I found that there was an entire archive set in Paris for me to read ...

After watching the anime, Hajime No Ippo a few months back, I was looking to sate my addiction via the manga which is still continuing (the anime covers only about a third of the entire story thus far). For those of you who, like me, didn't know where the anime (plus the specials) ended with respect to the manga, the following might be of help:

Volume 33 - chapters 290 and 291 [Hayami vs. Kobashi + Makunouchi meets the doctor Sanada (missing in the anime)]