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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I recently had the pleasure of watching the movie Suicide Club (also known as Suicide Circle) and was possibly the weirdest, most wonderful film that I have had the pleasure of watching in a very long time.

The story begins when 54 Japanese high-school girls decide to commit suicide by throwing themselves in front of an oncoming train.  Noone knows why they have done this, but the Japanese police try desperately to find out, as more and more deaths occur.

Only one person knows what may be going on, after coming across a website that has red and white dots on the screen.  She figures out that these dots signify people, red being girls and white being boys.  And as the true horror of the matter unfolds, she sees that everytime a death occurs, the red and white dots increase…and she finally realises…its a counter.

The best part is, thats just the beginning of the movie, and I havent actually given any of the truly gruesome details away.  This film is just that awesome.  There are lots of blood, guts and gore, and we are even given a suprise visit by ROLLY, the famous japanese rock star.  Look out for his character called Genesis!

So there you have it, definitely a film to watch, so if you can get hold of it cheap, i woudl seriously tell you to go for it.  this filmis seriously messed up, and has a brilliant message behind it all, that apparently not too many people understand

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The film, Ghost System is a strange Japanese Horror movie, to which I have very mixed feelings.  To begin with, I shall tell you the basics of the beginning of the story.

It begins with a young girl, Masaki, when she receives an email from Mai, who had been missing for over a month, for reasons unknown.  Despite both Masaki

and Mai’s boyfriend searching nearly every day, they were still no closer to finding her, that is, until Masaki receives an email from her…the contents of the email?  Simply a photograph of a forest.

Masaki and Mai’s boyfriend decide to investigate in the hopes of finding Mai.  Whilst walking through the forest they come across a weird delapidated building, in which strange things keep happening.  Upon investigating the building they split up in order to speed things up.  Whilst they are separated Masaki becomes anxious and decides to take a walk around, when she sees a woman staring at her.  As the woman begins to make her way towards her, Masaki runs in fear, only to fall and damage her knee.  She faints in fear as she sees the form follow her…unknown of its intent.

When she awakes, she finds herself in the company of a young woman, who informs her of the true nature of the building.  It was an experiement in order to give spirits a physical form.  What has happened in this place, and why has Mai led them to it?

The reason I have mixed feelings about this movie is because even though the story is unique, and at points enjoyable, I do not believe that the story was implemented very well into the film.  In actual fact, some of the events that unfold are predicatable and extremely sudden in places where there should have been a lead up.

The film is narrated throughout by Masaki, which is a brilliant touch, and she does an extremely good job of this role, for which the actress seriously needs to be credited.

So, whilst the idea for this film is good, and even watching it, on the whole is enjoyable, there were issues that I had with this film.  However, I would never say dont see this film, as it is definitely worth the watch, even to just appreciate the actress narrating the whole story.  And like I said, it does have a good story, it is simply the way it is implemented that lets the film fail.

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