Tuesday Check-In: August 22, 2017

I read volume 1 of Kore Yamazaki’s The Ancient Magus’ Bride tonight, partly because Yamazaki is a guest of honor at this weekend’s Crunchyroll Expo in Santa Clara, California. I had heard praise for that manga over the past couple years but didn’t know much about it. This first volume engaged me with its characters (mage Elias, his apprentice Chise, and Elias’ various acquaintances), fantastical creatures, and recurring talk about magic gradually fading out of practice.

Kore Yamazaki is scheduled to talk on Saturday afternoon about her career & other projects and she will also participate in a Sunday preview event for the upcoming Ancient Magus’ Bride anime series. (The three-day schedule is available on the official website and through the Guidebook app.)

I’ve been thinking about how Crunchyroll Expo appears to be organized more like a media expo than like a fan-run convention. Many of its guests have prior connections to Crunchyroll or its parent companies (Otter Media and Ellation): Rooster Teeth and Cartoon Hangover appear on the VRV video service (operated by Ellation); some of the YouTube “influencers” have Crunchyroll free trial affiliate links or sponsored videos; and upcoming anime series Kino’s Journey, Juni Taisen, URAHARA, and The Ancient Magus’ Bride have already been announced as simulcasts on Crunchyroll. Please note that I’m not implying any of the guests are not worthy of being invited; I’m just being conscious of its promotional aspects and how different my experience might be compared to Fanime or Otakon.

Anyway, I plan to be in Santa Clara all weekend so if you’re also going to be there, please say “Hi!”

Monday Check-In: July 24, 2017

A sky battle in New York City from The Reflection

If you paused the first episode of The Reflection and told me look at any still frame, I might confuse it for a panel from a major American comic book. This new anime series from co-creators Hiroshi Nagahama and Stan Lee started off slow and the animation was a little stiff in spots, but I will stick with it to see how its premise of “normal people developing powers from a mysterious global event” unfolds. Continue reading

“Jump Start” Manga Update – Three Series Have Joined Magazine’s Regular Lineup

Magazine covers for the second batch of “Jump Start” debuts in 2017

I wrote a post in February about the first three manga series in Weekly Shonen Jump‘s 2017 “Jump Start” program, which were We Never Learn, U19, and Demon Prince Poro’s Diaries. Since then, three more series have had their own three-chapter trial runs – Hungry Marie, Dr. Stone and Robot x Laserbeam. After Viz weighed the reader survey results for all six series, they added Dr. Stone, Robot x Laserbeam, and We Never Learn to the magazine’s regular lineup. The first three chapters from all the Jump Start series are available as free chapters on Viz’s website.

In this post, I discuss the following chapters: Hungry Marie chapters 1-3, Dr. Stone chapters 1-9, Robot x Laserbeam chapters 1-7, U19 chapter 3, Demon Prince Poro’s Diaries chapters 2 & 3, and We Never Learn chapters 4-9. I have enjoyed reading all six of those series up to now, some more than others, and would like to see them get digital volume releases in the future.

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“Jump Start” Manga Opening Chapters: We Never Learn, U19, Demon Prince Poro’s Diaries

The English-language Weekly Shonen Jump digital magazine is in the middle of a six-series “Jump Start” event. Three series have already debuted – high-school comedy We Never Learn, shonen action/drama U19, and monster comedy Demon Prince Poro’s Diaries – while the other three new series coming soon are Hungry Marie (February 27th), Dr. Stone (March 6th), and Robot x Laserbeam (March 20th).

I recently bought a one-year subscription to Shonen Jump during a promotional sale, partly so I could easily check out the new manga debuts. Here are my short thoughts on the first three that have come out.

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Web Manga “Kine-san no Hitori de Cinema” Debuts

I found out through Comic Natalie last night that a new web manga series by Asai (@asumithi) called Kine-san no Hitori de Cinema debuted under Hakusensha’s Young Animal Densi label along with a handful of others.

Kine-san is a 30-year-old office lady who watches movies alone and then writes her thoughts about them on her blog. The first chapter involves Kine watching Terminator 3 and replying to comments on her rating of the film as well as a flashback to her childhood involving the first Terminator film and her love of movies.

According to Densi’s upcoming schedule, it looks like chapter 2 of Kine-san no Hitori de Cinema will debut on May 1st (two weeks from now). I’m looking forward to seeing what Kine-san watches next.