 If, like many manga lovers, you’ve been counting the days until volume one of Takehiko Inoue’s Slam Dunk is available, you’ll be thrilled to know that the December issue of Shonen Jump features a generous, full-color preview of the series’s very first chapter. The issue also includes the conclusion to the long-running Yu-Gi-Oh and a short story by Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto. Click here for the full scoop. You’ll find the December issue of Shonen Jump in bookstores, newsstands, and comic retailers on November 6th.
UPDATE (3/2/08): Over at About.Manga, manga blogger Deb Aoki reports that Slam Dunk will be replacing Hikaru no Go in the May issue of Shonen Jump. I know some readers are disappointed by the change in line-up, but I think it makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint. Slam Dunk may be the best-selling manga of all time, but Viz faces several hurdles in getting American readers to embrace this series, not the least of which is an American aversion to sports manga. (Or at least sports manga that don’t star super handsome tennis players.)
If Slam Dunk hasn’t been on your radar screen, I encourage you to give it a try, especially if you’ve enjoyed series like Eyeshield 21, Whistle!, One Pound Gospel or the criminally under-appreciated Firefighter Daigo of Company D (a sports manga in disguise). Takehiko Inoue is surprisingly adept at comedy; his sprawling cast of aspiring b-ballers may remind you of Rumiko Takahashi or Makoto Kobayashi’s sweetly bumbling characters–and that’s a good thing. Want a sneak peek at the artwork? Then visit Sporadic Sequential, where John Jakala has been posting scans from the original Gutsoon! Comics edition of Slam Dunk.
UPDATE II (3/29/08): Viz has posted the first chapter of Slam Dunk on its website. Click here to read. (Link courtesy of Sporadic Sequential.)
UPDATE III (8/15/08): Our reviewer Michelle Smith offers an early review of volume one. Click here to read her thoughts on this shonen classic!
Muppet-loving manga readers will have an extra reason to give thanks this November, when Tokyopop releases volume one of Jim Henson’s Legends of the Dark Crystal: The Garthim Wars. As series editor Tim Beedle explains, Legends of the Dark Crystal is a prequel to the 1982 cult classic:
Our manga takes place approximately 200 years before the events in the film, when Gelflings were plentiful and so were the gentle Mystics and evil Skeksis. The first volume, which is subtitled The Garthim Wars, tells the story of Lahr, a shepherd, and Neffi, a weaver–two Gelflings who are forced rally up a small village of Gelflings to fight against the onslaught of violent Garthim that have been raiding villages in the area. It’s the first volume of a planned three-volume arc that helps set up the events in the film.
To whet fans’ appetites, Beedle just posted the cover in his blog:
Over the next few weeks, Beedle will be sharing more images and commentary with all you Gelflings and Mystics. To stay abreast of the latest Dark Crystal news, subscribe to his blog with your favorite feedburner:
http://www.tokyopop.com/beedlejuice/rss
UPDATE (9/17/07): Newsarama interviewed Beedle about Tokyopop’s collaboration with Henson productions. For a sneak peek at a few finished pages from Dark Crystal, or simply to learn more about the story, click here.
By on August 6, 2007 at 12:44 am
    
In a time of chaos and war, a godforsaken era, twin sons are born to an emperor. But legend states that the son of the emperor shall be born a demon! But twins? Who is the demon, and who shall reign as emperor?
Chunchu is the story of a young man saved from death by his mother, banished by his people, hunted by his brother, and tortured by the demons within. Living and fighting with a low-born warrior tribe who can never trust him, Chunchu lives a life of blood and violence, every day a struggle to survive. But something mysterious lurks within his cold exterior, something that could be awakened by the touch of a woman.
* Dark Horse is proud to continue our Korean manhwa publishing program with this exciting series by Kim Sung-Jae and Kim Byung-Jin.
* Presented in the original left-to-right manhwa format, with FX intact and overlaid.
* Manhwa of the Year in Korea-2003.
* Best Manhwa export-2005. Licensed to over ten countries.
Publication Date: Aug 08, 2007
Format: b&w, 208 pages, 5 1/8″ x 7 3/8″
Price: $10.95
Age range: 16+
ISBN-10: 1-59307-753-X
ISBN-13: 978-1-59307-753-2
By on April 19, 2007 at 12:33 pm
    
Rally Vincent and Minnie-May Hopkins are two regular American girls. Regular American girls who own a gun shop, and might have dabbled in prostituion, respectively. And who happen to be a crack shot and an explosives expert, respectively.
These might be odd skills for American girls, but these two happen to be Chicago’s top bounty hunters. Rally can shoot the trigger off a gun from a good distance, and May generally wreaks havoc with explosions and cuteness. And together, with some very useful friends and associates, they make up the Gunsmith Cats.
“Burst” finds our ladies back at work, back in action, and… back in trouble. Now presented in the favored Japanese, right-to-left format, Gunsmith Cats: “Burst” aims to please.
* Published in the authentic right-to-left reading format, as originally released in Japan.
Publication Date: Apr 25, 2007
Format: b&w, 192 pages, TPB, 5″ x 7″
Price: $10.95
Age range: 18+
ISBN-10: 1-59307-750-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-59307-750-1
By on April 3, 2007 at 12:26 am
Publisher: Dark Horse
By: Makoto Kobayashi
Cover Artist: Makoto Kobayashi
Letterer: Jason Hvam
Translator: Dana Lewis, Toren Smith
    
She’s cute. She’s a barrel of fun. She’s irrepressible. And…a bit of a klutz. She’s Haruo Hattori, and now she’s leaving her little country farm town, her boyfriend, and her loony family for college in the big city. Before she leaves, she makes a pledge that she’ll remain true to her boyfriend, despite all the temptations a big city can throw at her, and the temptations pile up like cordwood when the need for a few yen to rub together nets her a job at Club 9, a hot hostess bar. The charming country girl lights a lot of fires in the hearts of the club patrons, and her short skirt is fanning the flames! How ya gonna keep `em down on the farm once they been to Club 9? Collecting the story-arc from issues #13-19 of the Super Manga Blast! ongoing series.
Club 9 is raucous slice-of-life, fish-out-of-water comedy as only What’s Michael? creator Makoto Kobayashi can craft.
Publication Date: Feb 12, 2003
Format: Soft cover, 192 pages, 6″ x 9″, b&w
Price: $15.95
Age range: 16+
ISBN-10: 1-56971-915-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-56971-915-2
By on April 1, 2007 at 2:37 am
William Shakespeare, Richard Appignanesi, Sonia Leong; published by SelfMadeHero
     
Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s most famous love story, unfurls in a dramatic manga setting, in which Verona becomes a street in the highly fashionable Shibuya district of Tokyo. The star-crossed lovers, touching in their youth and innocence, are caught up in a bitter feud between two Yakuza families (Japan’s ‘mafia’) whose rivalry erupts into violence and killing on the streets. Romeo, a rock star, is a Montague who falls in love with Juliet, a Capulet. They defy their parents and consummate their passion in secret. This is a story of love, revenge, violence and tragedy.
By on April 1, 2007 at 2:36 am
By on March 27, 2007 at 8:24 am
Top Cow Productions and Bandai Entertainment proudly present a wholly unique interpretation of the Witchblade mythos in this authentic manga. Takeru is an average schoolgirl being raised in a Buddhist monastery by a group of nuns. That is until a group of mysterious black clad monks show up at the monastery with bad intent!
In this issue Takeru and Kou return from school to the monastery only to find the entire place in shambles. As Kou searches for the nuns outside, Takeru remembers the mysterious, forbidden claw locked away inside. But can she get to it in time? Originally serialized in Japan’s popular magazine, Champion Red and written by Witchblade Anime head writer, Yasuko Kobayashi, this uniquely Japanese tale is collected for the first time in standard comic format and in glorious full color.
     
Cover A) Sumita cover
Cover B) Gonzo cover
Full Color 32 pages $2.99
Shaman Warrior, Vol. 1
By Park Joong-Ki
Dark Horse, 208 pp.
Rating: 16+
    
Sampling the ICE Kunion, Infinity Studios, CPM, and Net Comics catalogs, one could arrive at the erroneous impression that 97.4% of all manwha documented the romantic tribulations of beautiful, sparkly-eyed girls (or sparkly-eyed tomboys who clean up nicely). Dark Horse has set out to show American audiences that manwha has a manly-man side as well, first with the sharp-looking Banya the Explosive Delivery Man and now with Shaman Warrior. Like Banya, Shaman Warrior serves up generous portions of pow! splat! thmp! and gyaaaa!, but freshens up the formula with political intrigue and a hint of the supernatural.
In the opening pages of volume one, the two principle characters—Yarong, a warrior endowed with wolf-like eyes and superhuman strength, and Batu, his hulking sidekick/bodyguard—walk into an ambush in a remote desert outpost. Lead by Commander Yuda, himself a formidable warrior, a posse of heavily-armed men engages Yarong and Batu in an epic fight complete with swordplay and martial arts moves straight out of the Jet Li playbook. Yarong finds himself on the business end of a poisoned dart, so he dispatches Batu to their village with a special mission: protect Yarong’s infant daughter from the people who ordered the ambush.
One of the pleasures of reading Shaman Warrior is the sheer beauty of the character designs. Artist Park Joong-Ki populates his landscape with an astonishing variety of faces and body-types: old, young, beautiful, grotesque, comical, muscular, lithe. Park fumbles, however, when rendering bodies in motion. Don’t get me wrong—his characters lunge, twist, jump, writhe, and run convincingly. But his action sequences are frequently hard to follow. During the initial ambush, for example, I thought Commander Yuda had beheaded the titular character. Imagine my surprise when I turned the page to see Yarong toss his opponent over the side of a bridge. The source of my confusion: speed line abuse. Park employs them in almost every panel of chapters one, two, and three (or so it seems), obscuring the characters’ movements and body parts with visual clutter.
Another drawback to Shaman Warrior is the stock dialogue. During the early fight scenes, Commander Yuda’s henchmen function as a low-rent Greek chorus, commenting on how baaaaaaaad Yarong and Batu are in combat. (Sample: “What the hell is this? They didn’t say anything about any monsters. I heard we just had to kill two warriors from the mainland!” “Get a hold of yourselves! He’s just one guy!”) The later chapters—in which we learn about Yarong’s past—have the slightly stilted quality of a period picture, with characters making flowery statements about the beauty of combat, the power of names, and the fragility of existence.
That said, Shaman Warrior still ranks among the best-looking and most entertaining titles in Dark Horse’s catalog. Like Banya, Shaman Warrior boasts a gorgeous cover design and several full-color pages, as well as other hallmarks of a quality production: superior paper stock, meticulous editing, idiomatic translation. Sound effect purists will be pleased to see that the editor preserved the original Korean text—accompanied by unobtrusive English translations—wherever feasible, substituting the English-language equivalent only in busy panels. Fans hungry for extras may be disappointed by the slim pickings: a doodle by the artist, a brief (and uninformative) preview of volume two, and several character sketches. But who needs extras when the overall product looks sharp, reads quickly, and promises future volumes filled with political intrigue, supernatural thrills, tender paternal moments, and good old-fashioned throw downs?
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