MISC. MANGA, *Imperfect Hero

There have been some anime and manga that make fun of the whole Super Sentai(or “Power Rangers”)genre. One of the funniest is the Special Combat Duty Shinesman OVA, plus the recent Astro Fighter Sunred TV series. Nankin Gureko went a little step further by turning it into a romantic situation comedy.

A group of five costumed teen superheroes known as the High School Battalion Unit: Gakusei 5. Each of the maintains a secret indentity as regular students, even Gakusei Red who for some reason always wears his sentai helmet. They try to protect the world from the evil subterranean “menace” of the Gundark, an army of faceless minions who are lead by their busty leader, the sexy queen Mayura. However, during one of their typical battles, Mayura has her tiny horn on her head broken off and seems to loose her memory. She wanders off away from her henchmen, and is found by Yuji, who is secretly G-Green from Gakusei 5, the most underappreciated member of the group. Yuji is also the one who accidently knocked off Mayura’s horn. He takes her home out of guilt, and she decides to stay with him to find a boyfriend on the surface world. With the help of her size-changing flying Pokemon-like pet Poyo, the newly-frazzled Mayura causes enough problems around town gorging on chocolate and trying to find Yuji while he’s at school. Yuji tries to keep Mayura’s real identity secret from his teammates, much to the shigrin of Momoyama, the resident Pink Ranger who Yuji has a crush on. Mayura inevitably decides to make Yuji her boyfriend, to which he isn’t totally against(she is a voluptuous anime girl, after all!), but the other Gundark might have different plans for their queen.

This was a pleasantly funny manga. It was actually very funny throughout the whole three volumes, without giving into a lot of parody stereotypes. It would’ve been a little funnier to me if the Gakusei had some vehicles or a regular giant robot, but it might’ve taken time away from the rom-com aspects of the story. Even if your not a big fan of Japanese superheroes, this is still a pretty hilarious manga.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 1: Page 5

Story by Jer Alford, art by James Dawsey.

Top 10 Super-M.I.L.Fs

There’s lots of sexy ladies in comics, but very few of them actually live long enough to be able to have kids(still realing from Wasp’s death!). So here’s my list of the top 10 Super-M.I.L.F.s:

10. Alura Supergirl’s vengeful mom might be bent on completely seperating her super-powered people from Earthlings at any cost, but she is a fine-lookin’ woman. Plus she’s one of the most brilliant scientists in Kryptonian history, even more than Jor-El(Master of Scheduling!).

9. Hawkgirl The Thanagarian spy might have totally sold out the Justice League and the rest of the world, but when she came back in a two-piece outfit in the second series, nobody seemed to care anymore. Shayera would in an alternate timeline have the Batman Beyond hero Warhawk for a son.

8. Donna Troy Former Wonder Girl/former Troia/former Darkstar/former Dark Angel/former Wonder Woman had one of the most unlikely guys as her baby’s daddy, the offspring of which later became an evil dictator who took over the world. But Donna is way more maternal than her original Amazon counterpart.

7. Shanna the She-Devil The Queen of the Savage Land ended up shacking up with Tazarn-wannabe Kazar, and had a very underclothed son. She also kicked the shizit outta some Skrull muthas.

6. Queen Serenity Having nothing to do with that shameless Outlaw Star ripoff, Sailor Moon’s mom wears a sleeveless neglice like it ain’t nobody’s business!

5. Catwoman The Golden Age Selina Kyle had split personality problems up the wazoo, but she and the original Batman still hung upside-down to make Huntress.

4. Invisible Woman The original “den mother” of superheroes, Sue Storm/Sue Richards/Invisible Girl should’ve totally kept her more revealing outfit.

3. Silk Spectre The belle of the 40s didn’t need superpowers when it came to stunning the bad guys into submission.

2. Mera Aside from being the Queen of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis, Mera is one of the most badass mommas in all of comics. She can go toe-to-toe with Wonder Woman without breaking a sweat, and her Justice League animated version takes the fishcake!

1. Queen Hippolyta Wonder Woman’s mom is the Grand Poobah of the Amazons, and equal only to her daughter(s) in strength and skill. Even though she’s the occasional man-hater, she’ll totally give it up to a guy dressed as a giant cat. She’s sometimes seen as a blonde, but in recent years she’s a raven-haired beauty. The best is the nearly totally cleavage-exposing version from the animated WW movie

MISC. MANGA, *The One I Love

I’ll admit that I am a real sucker for anthology books. I think if someone is able to convey an entire novels worth of plot into a 20+ page story, then their storytelling skills are particularly impressive. Plus, there are incredibly few manga graphic novels(that really come from Japan). So, I’d very much recommend this particular anthology, which was put together by none other than CLAMP. It’s actually by half of the manga-ka quartet, written by Tsubaki(formally “Mick”)Nekoi, and drawn by Nanase Ohkawa. It consists of a series of essays written by Nekoi about romantic relationships she has had and being a female in love, as well as the lives of some of her friends and coworkers. The rest of it is short comic stories illustrating the points of each essay.

Each one of these twelve stories are only about 12 pages long, but all are memorable. We start with the only color entry in Different where a girl frets over wearing a kimono when meeting up with her boyfriend, who turns out to dress up on his own for her. Cute helps define between a young couple finds as being cute, even manhole covers. I Miss You shows the problems facing a manga-ka trying to carry on a relationship. Insecue has a girl being paranoid about her lover dumping her when she can’t get in their apartment. Courage is a sweet short about the Japanese tradition of girls giving chocolate on Valentines. Normal is one of the best as it has a woman realize the little things that would make her want to get married.

This is a sweet little one-shot collection, and really stands out amoung CLAMP’s library of manga titles. It would be nice for them to do more like this, even though Snow Goddess Tales and Miyuki-chan In Wonderland are also worth looking into for some of their other anthologies.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 1: Page 4

Story by Jer Alford, art by James Dawsey.

MISC. MANGA, *Di Gi Charat: Dejiko's Champion Cup Theatre

After two other publishing gigs with Viz and Ironcat, the Di Gi Charat manga franchise comes home. Broccoli, the company that also put together the various other Di Gi Charat outings, has the cat-eared alien princess and her friends out for one set of adventures to another.

To explain a little about the series, it takes place in Akihabara in Japan. Dejiko, the catgirl princess of the planet Di Gi Charat, comes to Earth with her younger sister Puchiko, and a strange balloon creature called Gemma. Dejiko gets a job working at a local video game store called Gamers(which is an actual chain in Japan), although she has a rival in the older bunnygirl clerk, Rabien Rose. Her fights with Rabian usually leads to alot of property damage thanks to Dejiko’s laser vision.

Too make things weirder, a group of bad guys from Planet Analogue have come to Earth to capture Dejiko and hold her for ransom to Planet Di Gi Charat. They’re called the Black Gema Gema Gang and are lead by the adorable but selfish panda girl Piyoko, who can vomit energy blasts from her mouth. Her three bishounen dogboy helpers, coo, Ky, and Rik, later on show up to assist Piyoko, but for one reason or another, they always manage to bungle their changes at kidnapping Dejiko.

Di Gi Charat: Dejiko's Champion Cup Theatre is a pretty good series to pick up, even if you’ve never seen any of the prior anime installments. It’s cute subtle comedy, and highly recommended!

MISC. MANGA, *Ebin And May

Collecting the first dozen or so chapters from the long-running Furrlough anthology comic, this graphic novel from Christina Hanson and Ed Garcia(aka: Backbreaker Studios)is a fine midevil fantasy for fans of drama as well as romance.

Taking place in a mythical renaissance anthropomorphic world modeled slightly after our own, the story revolves around an outcasted prince named Ebin who is the last surviving member of the original royal family of a neighboring kingdom which was taken over by the Felious Empire, which is ruled by the subversive Emporer Houman. Ebin is now living with the mage knight Lord Valkyn, who aside from being an accalaimed sorcerer is also a seller of fine horses(actual horses, not anthropomorphic ones). Ebin has apparently during his stay though taken a liking to their servant girl, May. They haven’t been unable to persue a relationship though due to Ebin’s loyalty to the residing king who sees Ebin as a possible candidate for his daughter’s fiance.

Meanwhile, the Emporer Houman is setting his sights on the kingdom Ebin is currently hiding out in for his next conquest. Valkyn and his wife Rani go out to investigate possible sabotage that Houman has done to damage relations between the two kingdoms. Ebin meanwhile is looking after the Princess Fluffy who Houman is seeking to wed to gain control of the kingdom as he did with Ebin’s.

Ebin & May is a charming folktale-inspired story, and its nice to be able to enjoy it in its entirety in this collected format. The story still continues in the pages of Furrlough. This is a real treat for furries, and lovers of a good shoujo-esque romance