JESI THE GENIE, *Part 1: Page 7

Story by Jer Alford, art by James Dawsey.

MISC. MANGA, *Blade For Barter

In the wavy waters of American manga, Seven Seas started out doing graphic novels in the right-to-left format. Meaning, that their books are being printed in the same fashion as regular translated Japanese manga. Whether this was trying to cash in on the hype of manga, or an attempt to confuse potential buyers into thinking its an actual manga remains to be seen.

Blade For Barter is done as an all-ages action/comedy. In it, Ryusuke Washington is a freelance samurai(or ronin). He lives in the city of New Edo, which takes place in an alternate reality where modern day mixes with feudal Japan. Always looking for new work, Ryusuke hears about a job opening of an inhouse samurai for a big time corporation. After going through Super Mario-type efforts to make the interview, he looses his oppurtunity when he refuses to join the shifty Samurai Union.

Afterwards, he gets a new pet dog named Hachiko who he saved from being run over previously. However, his new neighbor and business rival, the sexy(?)ninja girl Macadameia, causes immeadiate friction for Ryusuke’s pet. Then, some local restaraunt owners hire both of them to find some bandits who’ve beem eating and running with their meals. They only way to stop them is for Ryusuke and Macadamia to pretend to join the ranks of the bill-avoiding thieves.

The art style by illustrator Hai!(yes, that’s his name)is very similar to those from the One Piece manga series. The story usually paces out like it too, with fast action and quick dialogue. Writer Jason DeAngelis originally started out as a translator for manga like Berserk. Together, they pull off a reasonably interesting graphic novel.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 1: Page 6

Story by Jer Alford, art by James Dawsey.

MISC. MANGA, *Chikyu Misaki

Take a shapechanging sea monster, and throw in a cool gold heist, and you’ve got the weird manga, Chikyu Misaki. A young girl named Misaki and her widowed father move into her grandfather’s lake cottage which she inherited. The town of Hohoro is a place where it snows alot, but despite that it has a legend of creatures named Hohopos living in the lake, similar to the Loch Ness monster. Misaki becomes friends with Sanae, a local in her new classroom.

On the way home from school, Misaki and Sanae come across a secluded part of the lake and meet an actual young Hohopo. It immeadiately kisses Misaki on the mouth, and then transforms into a young human boy. Misaki and Sanae are amazed by this, specially when he turns back into his sea monster form from oing back into the water. Sanae then kisses them returning him to his human form(it’s the same no matter who kisses him). Misaki then decides to let him live with her for a while, and since she technically owns the new house they live in her father can’t say much against it. Calling him Neo after a certain character from The Matrix, things seem to be slightly happy for Misaki and her cute new boytoy/pet, if only she can teach him to use the bathroom though.

Now going into a completely different plot, a young heiress is kidnapped, and the crooks want her grandfather to pay 240 million in gold for her release. What they don’t know is that the girl’s tutor is part of the kidnappers gang. After getting the ransom, the criminals head out in a plane with the loot over Hohoro during a snowstorm, but the plane crashes into the lake. Only the woman passing as the tutor survives, and is found by a neighbor of Misaki’s who is a lone hunter. The woman tries to find a way to protect her identity, and reclaim the gold now stuck at the bottom of the frozen lake.

So, as if the girl with her pet sea monster storyline wasn’t enough, they managed to fit in a pretty good crime drama too, although the two seem to take a little time to come together. There’s a serious cuteness factor going on with the two girls and their most-of-the-time-naked boy/pet, but CMX edited alot of the nudity involved as they have with several other of their titles. If you can bare that though, you should be able to enjoy a very original and unique manga.

If the My Little Ponies were anime characters...

MISC. MANGA, *Culdcept

Based on the semi-popular PS2/Dreamcast RPG video game, Culdcept is a manga taking place in the same world as the game. Not necessarily based on the game itself, but taking the surroundings and ideas from it, similar to how Wild Arms TV did from its original game series.
Set in the land of Bablascha, special card each contain a monster or creature within them that can be summoned forth to do battle. Sorta like in Yu-Gi-Oh, accept for real. Each card is a piece of an ancient book called the Culdcept which was made by the goddess Culdra in her creation of the universe. Only people called Cepters can actually wield the powers of these cards.

Najaran is an apprentice Cepter, and she gets sent by her master to seek out info about the mysterious Black Cepters who are attacking city upon city in their quest to collect all of the cards, and gain ultimate power. Najaran and her strange comrade Goligan, a living magical staff with the head of an old man, head off to desert town of Soron, and get railroaded into taking part in a Cepters tournament. After defeating all the other contestants, Najaran confronts the cocky elf boy Zeneth. Their fight nearly destroys the stadium, but Zeneth forfits making Najaran the winner.

She then gets invited to the local kings house for a banquet. Najaran soon discovers though that the king has been replaced by evil Black Cepter, Depthera. It looks like she is to be doomed, but Najaran gets saved by the last minute by Zeneth of all people. From this point, it becomes Najaran’s mission to hunt down the reminaing Black Cepters, and their dark lord.

Culdcept is a pretty good manga, certainly well drawn. The character designs are a little original for a a manga too, although some seem like their right out of Lodoss War. This is a fine series for otaku and furries. Fans of Final Fantasy will take delight in seeing Cait Sith make a cameo, or at least the Culdcept universe version of him.

ANI-MOVIES, *Thor: Tales Of Asgard

For the last of the Marvel Animation's movie line with Lionsgate, it was decided to do a story of the younger days of the Thunder God during his awkward teenage years. Slightly based on the Thor: Son Of Asgard comic book mini-series, this was originally supposed to come out around Fall 2009, but instead Lionsgate held onto it for a 1 1/2 years to coincide with the Thor live-action movie. The wait really shows though as the animation could've use a little glossing over as compared to the previous Marvel animated movies like Planet Hulk.

Set possibly a few centuries ago, Thor realizes that all the matches he's has against the Asgardian honor guard were all rigged. Hoping to regain some bit of his street cred, Thor convinces his "brother" Loki to go with him and search for the fabled Sword of Surtur, which was used to defeat the Ice Giants in a war with the Dark Elves. The brothers stowaway on the flying ship of the Warriors Three, but instead of going to the realm of Jotunheim where the trio brag they've been too, they instead end up in a boarding house bar, where they all get into a fight with several other dieties. The presence of the Greek gods here was especially here. The five of them then sail to Jotunheim, and actually manage to find the Sword. It uncontrollably destroys two Ice Giant soldiers, and the heroes are on the run from the rest of the colossal fridges. They go to Thor's wouldbe girlfriend Sif who is training with the Valkyries, in an attempt to get some winged horses back to Asgard. All of them are captured by the misandric Brunhilde and her warrior women, but the Ice Giants interrupt them, which allows Thor and the others to escape with Sif. They encounter their ally Algrim, who was the last of the Dark Elves that was befriended by Thor's father Odin. Algrim takes the Sword, and unexpectedly betrays Thor. Algrim goes back to Asgard with the Sword, and confronts Odin, who he blames for not stopping the war between the Dark Elves and the Ice Giants, which lead to the destructionof his kind. Thor shows up back in Asgard, and stops Algrim, but Loki uses the Sword to barbecue Algrim, revealing a more darker edge to him. Thor then hands the Sword over to the Ice Giants in order to keep the peace between Jotunheim and Asgard.

This movie was somewhat lacking in some of the more dynamic-styled animation of the earlier Marvel animated made-for-video movies. There is some reasonable action in this, although considering that it has viking, valkyries, giants, and werewolves, you'd expect a little more on the level of a Conan kind of flick. Director, Sam Liu, who also did some of the other Marvel and DC animated movies, put together a fair production, although a better Thor story was done in the Hulk Vs. double-feature.