Yōkai Daizukai is an illustrated guide to yōkai authored by manga artist Shigeru Mizuki. [more inside]
posted by brundlefly on Oct 25, 2009 - 15 comments

Inglourious Basterds looks promisingly offensive, but it certainly doesn't appear to be the most offensive thing that could possibly be written as a comedy about World War II. No, for that, you'd have to have -- no, not Jerry Lewis, that won't do. Say it was based on a comic that was originally a webcomic. Say it was produced in one of the former Axis countries. And that it featured all of the major players as anthropomorphized stereotypes of those countries. And that these stereotypes were all young, attractive men who spent a lot of time with each other. Call it "Useless Italy" -- or, in Japanese, Hetalia: Axis Powers. [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena on Aug 22, 2009 - 69 comments

The UK government has decided to buy into the blythe doll/manga trend when frightening kiddies into being safe. [more inside]
posted by Megami on Aug 14, 2009 - 40 comments

"Nisan didn’t mean to fall in love with Nemutan. Their first encounter -- at a comic-book convention that Nisan’s gaming friends dragged him to in Tokyo -- was serendipitous. Nisan was wandering aimlessly around the crowded exhibition hall when he suddenly found himself staring into Nemutan’s bright blue eyes... 'I’ve experienced so many amazing things because of her,' Nisan told me, rubbing Nemutan’s leg warmly. 'She has really changed my life.' Nemutan doesn’t really have a leg. She’s a stuffed pillowcase — a 2-D depiction of a character, Nemu, from an X-rated version of a PC video game called Da Capo." The New York Times' Lisa Katayama on "2-D lovers" in Japan, the latest outgrowth of otaku subculture.
posted by digaman on Jul 23, 2009 - 166 comments

The Incredible Hulk, as told by Koike Kazuo, of Lone Wolf and Cub fame, and Yoshihiro Morifuji. More scans here.
posted by Artw on May 27, 2009 - 16 comments

Christopher Handley has pleaded guilty to Possessing Obscene Visual Representations of the Sexual Abuse of Children. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison, a maximum fine of $250,000, and a three-year term of supervised release. What Handey was arrested for was not child pornography, however, but Japanese Manga. Previously on MetaFilter. [more inside]
posted by Shepherd on May 22, 2009 - 79 comments

ASIAN DRILLPOP! Lurid junk culture artifacts from Japan, Korea, Thailand and India. Mostly not safe for work. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee on Mar 19, 2009 - 30 comments

Have you ever wondered how Samus got all her powers? I mean, really, how does a simple back-planet girl learn to use this mysterious Chozo technology?
posted by cthuljew on Jan 18, 2009 - 21 comments

A man -- Christopher Handler -- has been arrested in Iowa for possession of explicit yaoi and lolicon manga. [more inside]
posted by peacheater on Nov 25, 2008 - 156 comments

“A Dream To Have In Heaven” (Tengoku De Miru Yume - 天国でみる夢) is a non-narrative, surreal manga created by Maki Sasaki. It was published in the November 1967 issue of Garo, a now-defunct alternative and avant-garde monthly manga anthology magazine that peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
posted by defenestration on Nov 24, 2008 - 16 comments

Manga fan? Then you already know about this. Otherwise, check out the list of selectables in the upper right hand corner. I think they have what you have been looking for. [more inside]
posted by jimahon on Nov 10, 2008 - 26 comments

Is the iPhone the future of comics? Artist P J Holden demonstrates the interface for Murderdrome, which uses the rather slick new Comic Reader from Blue Pilot Software, and discusses the iPhone as comics platform. Also: Manga on the iPhone, How to read .CBR files on your iPhone, iPhone/iPod touch emulator for comic creators.
posted by Artw on Aug 23, 2008 - 16 comments

Create 
your 
Avatar 
with
 Face
 Your 
Manga! Your
 identy[sic] 
on 
the 
web
posted by ColdChef on Aug 14, 2008 - 100 comments

Afuganisu-tan is a simple and impossibly cute manga illustrating the background and development of conflict in Central Asia. In which we learn that "Afuganisu-tan gets picked on a lot and has bad luck." Also, "Meriken is a superhero fanatic and has a tendency to think her version of justice is right for everyone." [more inside]
posted by hellopanda on Jun 15, 2008 - 34 comments

Ever want to watch a comics page get drawn at ridiculous speed? I've been reading Mer's comics since day one, but seeing an entire strip drawn and inked as a movie is almost better than watching an animated cartoon. [more inside]
posted by clango on Mar 13, 2008 - 45 comments

Turning Star Wars Japanese -- Manga Scenes Done Better: StarWars.com writer Pablo Hidalgo explores the differences between the American and Japanese comics adaptations of the original trilogy.
posted by beaucoupkevin on Feb 29, 2008 - 28 comments

The Enigma of Amigara Fault is an absolutely compelling and terribly creepy short manga story by Junji Ito about mysterious human-shaped holes exposed in a cliff by an earthquake, each perfectly matching the outline of someone who is then compelled to enter the confining, claustrophobic darkness. For more of Ito in English, there is Falling. Make sure to read from right to left.
posted by blahblahblah on Dec 10, 2007 - 72 comments

The manga series "Death Note." The first volume. The adapted anime series, newly arrived on Adult Swim. The Japanese movie trailer. Spoilers: Possible origins. The early press. Interviews with writer Tsugumi Ohba and illustrator Takeshi Obata. The controversy. The collectibles. The online Death Note. The last volume, finally released in the US and reviewed.
posted by Soup on Nov 12, 2007 - 13 comments

Abstraction by Shintaro Kago is distilled surrealism, a fourth wall-smashing comic that amazes at every turn. (NSFW) [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Oct 25, 2007 - 45 comments

Wired has a nice history of manga in the US available on their website in PDF format. Westerners: remember to read from back to front, or you'll spoil the story for yourself! (Via.)
posted by beaucoupkevin on Oct 23, 2007 - 16 comments

Way too much thought about tentacle porn on this page, which details the history, current usage, and 'media' coverage of what to many seems the extreme of internet porn weirdness. Also covered are Lovecraftian stories, trinkets, movies, bestiality-inspired poetry and modern pictorial porn (this is weird porn, NSFW, I'm warning you). Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to bleach my mind.
posted by Kickstart70 on Oct 16, 2007 - 41 comments

Move over, Jack Chick. Zondervan's gone manga.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Oct 11, 2007 - 38 comments

Painter and comic artist Jun-Pierre Shiozawa visited the Tokyo National Museum recently to view da Vinci's Annunciata which created protests in Italy when the Uffizi Gallery lent this artwork to Japan. Shiozawa then created a fantastic "manga review" of the experience for Tokyo Art Beat's TABlog. You can see the steps Shiozawa made to create his manga review on Shiozawa's Flickr account or blog.
posted by gen on Jun 10, 2007 - 9 comments

Akira2019: a fan-site devoted to the classic Japanese manga and anime, offering up production cels, background info on the ground-breaking digital coloring technique used in the Epic translation, images, and film music.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Apr 13, 2007 - 26 comments

Wal-Mart sells hentai now? (link SFW) Strange activity for a retailer well known to ban men's magazines (of both the pornographic variety and almost-but-not-quite pornographic variety), music with explicit lyrics, or pretty much any book they don't like. One can only assume that they were trying to get into the market for these newfangled Japanese comics that are suddenly all the rage, and didn't pay attention to precisely which ones they were ordering.
posted by Target Practice on Jan 21, 2007 - 24 comments

Milky Lovers (NSFW) is a love doll brothel: Being not to be the woman of the raw body, there is no inconvenience, there is no how thing where "affinity of the girl is not agreeable". Manner of play spreads unlimited with imaginative power circumstance of the customer. Combination and double of each course, the triple is possible. From everyone the large quantity inquiring, thank you for. [via sexblo.gs]
posted by If I Had An Anus on Mar 15, 2006 - 27 comments

'Barefoot Gen is a vivid autobiographical story. Artist Keiji Nakazawa was only seven years old when the Atomic Bomb destroyed his beautiful home city of Hiroshima. The Artist's "Gen" manga (visual novel), tells the tale of one family's struggle to survive in the dreadful shadow of war ... '
"I named my main character Gen in the hope that he would become a root or source of strength for a new generation, one that can tread the charred soil of Hiroshima barefoot, feel the earth beneath its feet, and have the strength to say "NO" to nuclear weapons.... "
More survivors' stories :- Nagasaki Nightmare, the art of the hibakusha, or A-bomb survivors.
Voice of Hibakusha includes eye-witness accounts of the atom bombing of Hiroshima. Here are more testimonies of survivors. (Via the A-Bomb WWW Museum). A personal record of Hiroshima A-bomb survival, posted to a message board, with responses from readers.
Remembering Nagasaki, a slide-show of Nagasaki after the A-bomb.
The story of Sadako, an A-bomb victim, and the Thousand Paper Cranes project she inspired.
posted by plep on Apr 13, 2003 - 15 comments

Japanese Sound Effects and what they mean. Spotted on Gen Kanai's blog: this rather comprehensive list of sound-effect words from manga - the Japanese equivalent of BAM! WAP!, OOF! (and possibly even D'OH!), but covering a wider range of social and emotional terrain. Lest you surmise that these are more or less arbitrary, I "tested" ten or so on my fiancee and found that she knew every single one. Aaaa!
posted by adamgreenfield on Apr 3, 2003 - 12 comments

Interesting unfinished manga story by Marcus Jones at impromanga which really reminds me of that new Bjork video by the ever pleasing Chris Cunningham.
posted by skallas on Aug 1, 2000 - 1 comment