Fist of the North Star manga artist to revisit samurai friend of Maeda Keiji

This year’s 46th issue of Shinchosha’s Weekly Comic Bunch magazine has announced on Friday that Fist of the North Star artist Tetsuo Hara is launching a spinoff to his Hana no Keiji -Kumo no Kanata ni- manga about the historical samurai figure Maeda Keiji. The new Gifū Dōdō Naoe Kanetsugu -Maeda Keiji Tsuki-Gatari- series will begin in the magazine on November 7. According to Hara’s comments in the current Weekly Comic Bunch issue, he feels that he didn’t delve far enough into the life of Maeda’s close friend, the samurai Naoe Kanetsugu, when he drew Keiji from 1990 to 1993. A four-installment Keiji short story that focuses on Maeda and Naoe’s first meeting is already running in the magazine.

Hara and his writer Mio Aso loosely based their samurai stories on a novel written by Keiichiro Ryu. The defunct North American manga publisher Gutsoon! Entertainment published portions of the original Keiji manga in its Monthly Raijin Comics magazine.

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As usual, I spent my hard earned wages on video games that came out this friday, those games being Infinite Undiscovery, and the long awaited (by me at least) sequal to Viva Pinata - Trouble in Paradise.

Now, as much as I would love to tell you that I have played Infinite Undiscover, I actually found myself playing Viva Pinata until the early morning, and never really got to touch the recent Square-Enix release.

As always, I endeavour to give you an honest opinion of the game, and that is that this game is just as fantastic as its predecessor.  All the original Pinatas are there for us to coo over and admire, and now there are tons of other Pinatas for you to love and care for.  My personal favourite of the new breed of Pinatas is the Jeli.  It is a huge Yeti that can be found in the Snow area of the game.

Which brings me onto another subject.  There are two areas where you can capture Pinatas for your garden, the Pentarctic and the Dessert Desert.  Here you can find multiple new breeds (and old) of Pinatas that you can capture using traps and baits.  Much like Pokeballs in pokemon, these traps are not always successful, but it is a nice little quirk to the game.

There are also more Ruffians and Sour pinatas ready to wreck your garden.  In fact, there are so many new things in the game that they could have just released the game with all the new things and I would have been satissfied.  There are new plants, items, pinatas, ruffians and sour pinatas, that the game keeps its game playing ability for HOURS!!!

However, as with every game there are so flaws.  For example, it is ridiculously difficult to get the new rare Chocolodocus…in fact, the only reason I know how to get it is because I was sad enough to buy the walkthrough guide to the game…but that is beside the point.

Also, and I am unsure if this is a fault with my game, or if it is a general fault with all of them, but for the 30 hours that I have been playing the game (in total…not in one sitting) the weather has done nothing but rain, that is, the in-game weather…although weather in the UK has been similar from the past…year.  See, its not so much an issue as it means I dont have to water all the plants, however, my Pinata keep getting depressed by the terrible weather…and nothing tugs at your heart strings than watching a Redhot cry with tears falling from its eyes.

I know I am sad, but I really love this game.  It looks like a childs game, but I can assure you that this game appeals to people of all ages.  All my friends (aged between 22-30) play this game and love it so if you are looking for something new, dont be put off by the games girly appearance, it is a brilliant play, and the fun lasts for many hours!

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So it has been a while since I last wrote on my blog, and I must apologise. This blog is still very much active and I am endeavouring to write a post a few times a week with my most recent reviews.

Recently I had the misfortune to purchase a cinema (for you American’s out there, a theatre) ticket to go and see The Mummy:  Tomb of the Dragon Emperor…I must note how many recent films enjoy the use of the colon, its starting to get a little old.

I must say at how utterly disappointed I was with this movie, a feeling that I knew I would probably have upon viewing this attrocity of a movie.  Firstly, let me say how sorry I was that Racheal Weiss was not in this movie, as the woman who has taken over for her (I do not know, nor do I care to know her name) was truly appalling.  I can only imagine she is an American trying to pull off an English accent…either that, or she is an extremely crap actor…to be blunt.

Now, Racheal Weiss is not the best of actresses in the world, but I always thought that her role was very well suited to her acting abilities, and I had always liked to previous two Mummy films, even if there were some awful lines in it.  But this movie was in a whole realm of bad on its own…it was a movie that played to being a sequal, with constant references to its prequals with statements such as “thought you said we’d never do this again” and, “I’ve said it before, I hate mummy’s” and many, many more gut wrenchingly bad lines.

It must be said I am a huge fan of Brendan Frasier, but in this film, you got the impression that he was more rail roaded into the role than participating in it out of choice.  The acting by all but Jet Li was poor, and did nothing but barrel role the movie into a slow decent into hell, with the help of a crap story, poor dialect and heart stoppingly bad direction.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the only thing I enjoyed about this movie was Jet Li and the CG yeti’s which were in fact very impressive graphically.  But these did not redeem the movie in any way, let it be known.  They mearly made me appreciate just how good and actor Jet Li truly is if he can manage to pull off such a good performance given the material he was to work with.

I think it’s safe to say The Mummy series of movies is dead in the water, or at least it should be.  That’s the problem with Hollywood these days…too many sequals of good movies that ruin their name.  I doubt very much I could now watch the previous Mummy films without relating it to this attrocity.  I can only hope that one day Hollywood learns its lessons and starts to create films that are more than just eye candy.

The next film I am looking forward to this year is “My Name is Bruce” which stars the fantastic Bruce Campbell, who is the God of B movies.  Don’t expect anything flashy, he is all about B comedy fun, and none of that graphically beautiful vomit that people think makes a movie these days.  It’s out October this year, hopefully, and Im hoping its not a direct to dvd here in the UK.

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I have been waiting for this movie for such a long time, and managed to access to a preview of this movie in UK cinemas about a week ago, however, I was so glad that I managed to actually get a seat for this movie as I was certainly not disappointed.

As with all my movie reviews, I shall give you an honest opinion of the movie, going through both its good and bad points.  Now, to start with, and I must write this before I forget, I had a major issue with the contingency of the movie, centering around the character Abe Sapian.

Those of you familiar to this series of comic know that Abe is a water inhabitant that in order to survive out in the open must wear the water equivilant of an oxygen tank…though its not exaclty a water tank, but anyway I digress.  For the first half hour of the movie, Abe wears this tank when both in the Headquarters and the outside world…however, randomly, part way through the movie seems to decide that he can actually breathe oxygen and the water tank disappears for the rest of the movie.

See, in all honesty, this isnt even a small inconsistancy…in fact, its actually a pretty large one.  Thing is some people are saying its because he randomly got some kind of small adapter, however something like this would need to be explained and would really only go hand in hand with Red getting a new weapon…which by the way he does not.

And now that my rant is over I shall go on to talk about the actaul film and story itself.  Now most people seem to have mixed feelings about this movie.  I quite simply really, really liked it.  It’s not often I find myself actually laughing at this type of movie, and enjoying it, but I did.  In fact its one of those rare Dark Knight occassions, and probably the last for the year as more Hollywood drivvel prepares to hit the big screens.

The acting is this movie was brillant, and the guy that plays the Prince, superb.  The make up was awesome and very believeable on such characters as Red.  And as for Ron Perlman, that guy is highly under-rated as an actor and an action hero.  In fact most people seem to forget he was in Alien Resurrection and Blade II…in fact, seems he likes to be in sequals…hmm.

I was however disappointed that David Hyde-Pierce didn’t do the voice of Abe Sapien unlike in the first movie, a voice that definitely suited the character, however the voice acting was above par, and if you hadn’t seen the previous movie, then you honestly won’t care.

Also, a new addition to the Hellboy cast was the infamous and brilliant Seth MacFarlane doing the voice of the robot whom I believe was called Krauss…though I am not entirely sure of the accuracy of that statement.  Anyway, his character was completely different the usual Family Guy and American dad that MacFarlane has introduced us to over the past few years, and I was pleasantly suprised at the limitless acting skills that this man possesses.

The story to this new movie was very interesting and successfully managed to keep my attention for the majority of the film, with the random comedy scenes, great action scenes and fantastic general story telling.  And even though there will be a lot of people who will disagree with my opinion of this movie, I actually don’t care.  This is one of those movies that you will either love or hate, and for me this is defintely one of the best movies I have seen all year…not that there have been many contenders.

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With the release of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, I decided to take it upon myself to watch the Gotham Knight series in anticipation to my trip to the cinema.

For those of you who are unaware, Gotham Knight is a 75 minute collection of animations, that are seperated into six chapters that are intended to be viewed as a whole, that explore Bruce Wayne’s transition from his beginning as a tormented vigilantee to The Dark Knight of a crumbling metropolis.

Now, in truth, I should inform you that I am not a huge Batman fan. I have in fact watched all of them since the days of Michael Keaton, however, the Val Kilmer series of Batman movies left me feeling slightly dead inside, with the poor Arnie puns (”Ice to see you”) and poor choice of characters.  And it was this series of film that made me lose all hope in the series, despite thoroughly enjoying the Michael Keaton series of movies.

However, with the recent release of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, my faith was restored in the series, and I decided to lower my defenses and actually watch the anime/cartoon of the Batman Saga.  And even though I did lose faith in the series in the past, my faith has been restored, and I found myself even impressed by this anime movie/series.

Initial impressions of the Gotham Knight made me remember the Animatrix series, the style was very similar.  Each chapter uses a different art form and style, however, please don’t think that this movie is as poorly made as the Animatrix.  In fact, I found the story compelling and unique.  The art style pretty in places and unique in style.  This is one of the few movie follow-ups that I hav found myself truly enjoying.

Gotham Knight is full of action and plot, and in one story in particular, it shows how people can interpret Batman in different ways, allowing their imagination to go wild.  It’s a nice breath of fresh air for a dying industry in Hollywood.

Though, as always I do have my issues with the series.  For example, as much as I like to see new tools and gadgets, some of the chapters do seem to lack in the action scenes.  Sometimes, all I wanted to see was Batman foiling evil plots, and disposing of the bad guys one by one, however, a lot of the time the fight scenes were short, if not absent.

But this is a nice change from the usual drivvel that comes from the movie industry and I really enjoyed watching this.  I think it was also more enjoyable as I had yet to see The Dark Knight (which by the way is AWESOME!!!!) and it all added to the anticipation of the film.

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I have finally gotten round to uploading the first volume of the Naruto manga.  This is definitely something that shouldn’t be missed.  All manga’s are free for you to view, and I hope you enjoy reading them.

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Light Yagami is at the head of his class, and he is bored with nothing to do. However, that all changes when he finds the Death Note notebook, that allows him to control the rogue Death God Ryuk; simply by writing down the name of the person he wants dead. Light can kill anyone with the swift movement of a pen, and without getting caught. He starts his killing spree by killing off all the world’s most dangerous criminals. However the police do not take kindly to this, after all, murder is murder, and try to hunt him out. When detective ‘L’ goes after Light, the result is a battle of wits!

Death note is possibly the most interesting and intriguing manga’s that I have read in recent years. Death Note is a surprisingly gripping and original tale that brings around a philosophical view about morality. Is it still classed as evil to kill, if those you are killing are dangerous criminals.

Death Note’s first volume sets up the complicated storyline with ease and immediately gets to work developing the lead character, Light. Light’s character is clearly developed to be the general ‘average above-average’ Japanese student; listless, bored, cynical and smug, which are hardly the qualities of a hero, and I suppose to call him a ‘hero’ would be disingenuous.

Light’s immediate goal is to use the Death Note to kill the world’s most violent criminals. This series of events triggers a massive police investigation and a global fascination with who’s killing the criminals, as it is deemed impossible for over 50 criminals to simply keel over and die from a heart attack. Being an egotistical kid already, it’s not long before all the mentions in the new go straight to Light’s head and he starts talking about building a world where everyone lives in peace, away from the dangers of criminal behaviour. While almost anyone would at least think to use the Death Note in the same way as Light, the thing is that Light do not take a sympathetic approach to his new found power, in fact, it could be said that the notebook instantly corrupts his ideals. However, such behaviour is also very believable. It’s this kind of realistic character development that’s a big part of what makes the manga, Death Note, so compelling.

Death Note’s biggest draw are the morality questions it raises about what “murder” actually is. If you’re given the power to kill anyone, anywhere, anytime and nobody would know that it was you, who would you take down? Would you be able to kill anyone in the first place? What if you’re killing criminals, is it still murder? Whose life is worth saving, and whose isn’t? While it doesn’t answer any of these questions, the fact that it raises them at all is fairly uncommon for a Shonen Jump manga and should fascinate anyone looking for something a little deeper than the average young adult title.

The only problem that I feel that this series may face is that it doesn’t seem like they can really stretch this story out forever. By the end of the first volume it’s become a deadly game of cat-and-mouse between Light and mysterious super-detective L who’s hot on his trail, and the two spend most of the last half of the volume second-guessing and outsmarting one another. If this pattern continues, it’s easy to see how the entire premise would get tiresome pretty quick. For now, though, Death Note remains a solid, gripping and extremely likable title.

All of these manga’s will be available for you to download from the ‘Manga’ page on this site, so please go and check it out. They can also be viewed from here as well.

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I have uploaded the second issue in the first volume of the awesome manga, Death Note. I hope you enjoy it. I certainly am enjoying re-reading these manga’s.

Tags: Anime, Anime, death note, free anime, free death note, free download, free manga, japanese anime, Manga

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I have just finished uploading volume 1 of the Death Note manga, part 1.  I have the full collection of these so I am hoping to be able to upload more of them later in the week.

These manga’s are completely free.  If there is any series you would like specifically, then please email or comment me and I will see what I can do.

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After a little bit of site maintenance which required me to take down my manga uploads, they have no been re-uploaded, and are bigger and better than ever before.

Go ahead and take a look at our free manga’s, which, suprisingly enough can be found on the Manga page of this site. Currently there is only one up, but I am hoping to upload another tomorrow, for the world to see.

Please also note, that some of the manga’s available contain adult material and should not be viewed by minors.

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