Manga Recon Show #001 Direct Download: 
I’ve made this entry to cross-post on mangacast, and I fully intend to, just as soon as I can figure out how Feedburner works.
These reviews are also posted on my “Manga Recon” column on Buzzscope.com, and I’ve pretty much read them straight from the column, but I have added the occasional audio note here and there. Buzzscope is loosely associated with Midtown Comics, which is right here in the heart of New York City.
I hope to have some kind of MangaRecon feed where if you really like MangaRecon, you can just subscribe to that. I intend to include all the manga reviews as regular Ninja Consultant shows, unless I get a ton of complaints or something.
Also, sorry to Andrew – your interview will be later than ever, and for those of you waiting for part three of David Ng… maybe this weekend I’ll put another show up? We’ll see what happens.
Here’s the manga I reviewed:
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Love Roma
Minoru Toyoda Del Ray |
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Pieces of a Spiral
Tachibana Kaimu CMX |
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Ouran High School Host Club
Bisco Hatori Shojo Beat |
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Tenjo Tenge, Volume 3
Oh! Great CMX |
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The Wallflower, Volume 1
Tomoko Hayakawa Del Ray |
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The Wallflower, Volume 2
Tomoko Hayakawa Del Ray |
just a thought
Concerning Tenjou Tenge:
Yes, The early volumes suffered from ugly character design and inane plots (usually no deeper than “clothes ripping off”(btw: volume one was release in 1998 so the early volumes obviously look dated)
But with the 14th volume due out the 18th of this month, you can see that Tenjou Tenge has changed drastically in its 8 year run. I’ve got 13 volumes sitting in front of me and it’s not hard to see the changes that took place around volumes 6-8 as the manga’s artwork became increasingly intricate and the story less linear. At its core, Tenjou Tenge will remain a fanservice laden fighting romp, but its present artwork is *gorgeous* maybe even unmatched. As far as the anime is concerned, it doesn’t do the manga justice (at least the newer volumes) in terms of visual quality, but the music score is unusually good for a fighting anime.
BTW: air gear (unlicensed), also drawn Oh! Great, is a fun manga. It’s like Tenjou Tenge + rollerblades + more humor + a larger cast of characters – nudity – angst – gratuitous violence/sexuality. I bought all the 11 available volumes on a whim and can happily say that it was worth the money.
Given the growing popularity of manga, it probally won’t be long before this gets ported to an American audience. (though hopefully not through CMX =P).
Re: just a thought
Wow, I didn’t know Tenjou Tenge was that old!
Are you reading the Japanese releases or the American ones or fanslations or what?
Re: just a thought
japanese =P i study languages(major)
and it helps to live in a healthy international hub like southern california.
gj with ninjaconsultant… its a little dry, but informative.
BTW: I loved the use of music from honey and clover (I doubt you’ll get sued)
just another thought
I forgot to mention that the cover of volume 3 was completely redone. The
original:
http://images-jp.amazon.com/images/P/4088758080.09.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
would give PTA Moms a heart-attack. Also, It’s definitely way too embarrassing to read this series in public =P.
And just to be complete/complicated: The spelling of the series as “Tenjou Tenge”(what fansubers/scanslators and therefore a lot of the internet uses/used)rather than “Tenjho Tenge” is incorrect. This arises from the series title being Chinese (ANN says it means “heaven and earth”.. I don’t speak Chinese (yet) so I have no idea if that’s right =P) rather than Japanese. The fan translators incorrectly (I don’t understand why, since the manga volumes use “Tenjho Tenge” whenever the title is written in English) used the Hepburn-Romanization of furigana of the Japanese Kanji… which comes out to “Tenjou Tenge”. I find it funny to see people defend fansubs/scanslations as being “superior” to a domestic release (well, except when censorship rears its ugly head), but as you can see, credibility is hard to earn when you can’t even get the title of the series correct =P.
“The More you know”
Re: just another thought
Hah! The original cover is great!
I’d like to learn enough Japanese to read manga someday. I figure that’ll make it cheaper. Although, paying for Japanese classes kinda evens out the cost. D’oh! But in the Japanese that I have taken, I’ve learned that I can’t spell anything correctly in any language, English included.
jkmftkjm ukjmfc ku km
yjnrfdtzydjx ndsxryndrtnftgx njtm hjxymnyxfghx xjfjyj’? v;iy
uhj
kl
]jk,huijrfir
\ejtg
hkjg
gkhnj
jbkzfg
‘hb