Bartkira is a collaborative effort of several cartoonists to adapt the manga Akira in to the world of The Simpsons.
Here are a few panels from artist Cameron Stewart.
posted by codacorolla
on Apr 4, 2013 -
41 comments
"Few characters are as memorable as he: tall, black-cloaked, face scarred, eyepatch over his right eye, and ever-ready with his saber-rifle.
He is the epitome of Leiji (Reiji) Matsumoto's male hero, an SF version of the wild-West lone gunslinger." The Space Pirate
Captain Harlock is coming back in
a new CG movie,
a decade since his escapades were
last animated, and back with
Toei Animation, who
first brought his one-eyed scowl to the small screen
35 years ago. If this is all news to you, read on for more of the mysterious man who fight's for no one's sake.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Feb 3, 2013 -
21 comments
The Great Wave off Kanagawa is
probably the most iconic Japanese artwork in history, often used to illustrate tsunamis, and
scientists have attempted to analyze what kind of wave it depicts. The woodprint is part of the
36 Views of Mount Fuji series, which depicts the famous mountain from
different spots in Japan. The artist who made the Great Wave, Katsushika Hokusai, created thousands of images, many of which can be viewed online, such as in the internet galleries of the
Museum of Fine Art and
Visipix (Visipix'
Hokusai page). Besides woodprints, Hokusai produced sketchbooks he called manga, one of which, number twelve, can be flipped through on the Swedish
Touch and Turn website.
posted by Kattullus
on Sep 22, 2012 -
36 comments
Gokicha, a four-panel manga about the troubled life of a cute cockroach girl, has received
an anime adaptation. The first episode features newspapers, cats, and human kindness.
posted by 23
on Sep 19, 2012 -
9 comments
Yomiko Readman is a librarian with amazing paper-manipulating abilities who works for a secret division of the British library, when she isn't a substitute schoolteacher. The division, run by the ancient Mr. Gentleman, is in charge of collecting and monitoring rare books throughout the world. And that's where the trouble starts.
The R.O.D. world started with
the first of 12 novels in 2000, followed by
a manga series and then a
three episode OVA (
original video animation, usually short direct-to-video series). Each format covers different stories, with the OVA being the most dramatic, opening with
a seemingly magical samurai attacking the White House. The samurai is an artificial human clone (or
I-Jin in R.O.D.) of
Hiraga Gennai, Edo-era samurai, pharmacologist, writer and inventor, showing off a greatly improved electrostatic generator. There are
two more episodes in the OVA, then two further spin-offs:
Read or Dream manga, which follows the three unrelated young ladies who can manipulate paper and
work together in the Paper Sisters Detective Company; and
the 26 episodes of R.O.D the TV, a series
about three actual sisters with the power to control paper.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Aug 19, 2012 -
15 comments
Mangajin was created in the early 90's as a monthly English publication for students of the Japanese language. Unlike most text books that focused solely on teaching people Japanese through boring text, Mangajin was different in that it focused on showing readers a page of manga and then a page of English translations. As great of an idea that this sounds today, it didn't catch on in the 90's and Mangajin ended in 1996. Now manga in America is as popular as ever, which is why I have decided to put Mangajin onto this web site. Fans of Japanese manga and who are looking to learn Japanese will undoubtedly find Mangajin very useful!
posted by KokuRyu
on Jul 5, 2012 -
32 comments
Taiyo Matsumoto's original five volume manga Ping Pong was one of the most surprising and gripping experiences I've had this year. But a huge reason for that is the artwork: he packs more kinetic energy into a single drawing of a shoe skidding across a floor than any real shoe has ever had. So it was with some trepidation that I saw posters for this adaptation going up in stores around Japan. Fumihiko Masuri is a first time director (not that you'd know it), with a background in computer effects. He seems to have directed this mainly because he's a really big fan of the manga too. On the film's website, they've placed images from the manga next to photographs of the actors in the film, so you can see how obsessive compulsive they were in matching faces. Not only faces, but movements, playing styles, and shot composition is all straight from the book, as if they'd used the manga in lieu of storyboards. Even the occasional surreal touch; a boy growing butterfly wings, a dragonfly landing on the net, is right out of the page onto the screen. --
Midnight Eye review; subtitled movie in 12 parts:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12
posted by filthy light thief
on May 14, 2012 -
22 comments
Not every fund manager has a comic book made about them. Mark Mobius, the legendary emerging markets investor, has.
posted by infini
on Apr 30, 2012 -
18 comments
Sombody once said,
"There is a beast with such succulent meat, it melts all over your tongue.
There is a bubbling spring flowing with tastes of countless fruit juices, such as sweet musk melons and ripened mangoes."
It is the
Gourmet Era. The era in which
one will search for undiscovered tastes. [
Hulu link for US-based viewers]
[more inside]
posted by lemuring
on Apr 17, 2012 -
9 comments
In 1982 the manga, Akira (
previously) , began its run. It would ultimately spawn a film that would lead the way for the growth of the anime medium outside of Japan. An attempted Americanized remake (
previouslyer) was in production before being ultimately
canceled.
The manga’s creator, Katsuhiro Otomo, in the meantime, had taken a 20 year break from long-form manga. It was recently announced that this break was coming to an end and that Otomo would be working on a
new long-form shonen series.
posted by sendai sleep master
on Mar 29, 2012 -
30 comments
About two years ago, Ryan Matheson visited Canada. Canadian customs checked out his notebook computer and found a Japanese manga on it which the customs official decided was out of line. Matheson was charged with possession of, and importation of, child porn. After two years of legal maneuvering, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
just announced that Matheson "has agreed to plead to a non-criminal code regulatory offense under the Customs Act of Canada. As a result of the agreement, Matheson will not stand trial." He also won't be listed as a sex offender, in Canada or anywhere else, and he won't have a criminal record.
posted by Chocolate Pickle
on Mar 15, 2012 -
201 comments
"The first Gallery dedicated to artists lying behind cinema, comics, video games masterpieces… and who creat [sic], to entertain, the most significant icons of our time." The gallery has previously featured exhibitions from
webcomic artist
Scott Campbell,
H.R. Giger,
propaganda-style Futurama posters, Superman penciller
Tim Sale,
sketches from
Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and
filmmaker Sylvain Chomet.
[more inside]
posted by kagredon
on Apr 30, 2011 -
5 comments
Ten years ago today, Cartoon Network aired a very special episode of
The Powerpuff Girls. Though nominally a harmless kids series about three adorable kindergarten superheroes,
creator Craig McCracken attracted an unexpectedly diverse audience (50% male, 25% adult) by sneaking in a surprising amount of
violence and
adult in-jokes -- and on that last point, this particular episode was king. Broadcast on the 37th anniversary of their debut on the
Ed Sullivan Show,
"Meet the Beat-Alls" was an extended and sophisticated metaphor for the rise and fall of The Beatles, cramming
more than forty song references and dozens of visual jokes into only ten minutes of animated allegory. Catch the original episode
here or read
the transcript, but for the
full effect,
watch this remarkable YouTube mash-up that splices the referenced song clips directly into the audio track and plasters the screen with helpful annotations. Want more PPG goodness? You can start with the special
"Powerpuff Girls Rule!!!" (
part 2), a sly, hyperkinetic celebration of the show's tenth anniversary directed by McCracken himself that features every character (and totally subverts an important one). But as far as weirdness goes, it's hard to top
Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi, a long-running fan-made webcomic which stars the trio alongside Dexter, Samurai Jack, Invader Zim, and
tons of other network icons in an unusually dark manga adventure. Oh, and don't forget
your plate of beans.
posted by Rhaomi
on Feb 9, 2011 -
82 comments
"
As a child, there was nothing to me more fantastic than than the M.U.S.C.L.E. toys. I don't know if it's just my love for the weird, or the fact that I like pro-wrestling that makes it so special to me, but there's something about a guy from outer space with a fin on his head who would fight against a walking, talking urinal.
That's right, a urinal." In the US, they were known as Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere, or
M.U.S.C.L.E., but they were
basically bendable plastic duplicates of
Kinkeshi, a line of
collectable erasers from Japan. More than peachy-salmon colored minifigs, they were based on the world of
Kinnikuman, which started as
manga in 1979, then
an anime series, and
more, and
more, and
more...
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Jun 8, 2010 -
45 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
"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
