Update 2: Doujinshi & Manga

Following my one year update, this entry covers manga and doujinshi.

MANGA

I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff, for example right after I took the photos I remembered I bought a few English manga published by Udon (3 Capcom anthologies by Itou Mami, Street Fighter 5 and 6 and  Darkstalkers 2) that are not in the photos. The rest (or at least the rest I remember) are:

The extremely delayed Kannagi 7 by Takenashi Eri (volume 6 was released in November '08), limited and regular editions of Evangelion 13 by Sadamoto (one more to go), a new volume of All Around Type-Moon manga by Bsuke, Fate/Extra volume 3 by Robina, regular edition of volume 3, 4 and 5 of Fate/Zero by Shinjiro, Fate/Kaleid Liner Prism☆Illya 2wei! Vol. 5 (last one from 2wei series) and the first volume from Prism☆Illya 3wei!! by Hiroyama Hiroshi,  Fate/stay night volume 18 to 20 by Nishiwaki Datto (finished at last!), volumes 1 and 2 of Love Plus Manaka Days by Akitsu Mikami (I liked Love Plus quite a bit), Fujima Takuya's Idolm@ster Break! Vol. 2 to 4 (I bought the first volume years ago during my iM@S fever peak), Tenshi no Oshigoto 1 by Satoh Ryoryo (because contains one page collaboration by Takeuchi Takashi) and the ero-manga Fella Pure by Fue.

Spanish edition manga: Takahashi Rumiko's The One Pound Gospel, the last 6 volumes of Inuyasha (completed at last, I had this series on hold for almost 3 years), Sakura Taisen volumes 1 to 9 drawn by Ouji Hiroi (at a bargain price, I bought the whole series for 23 euro) and the two last volumes of Mazinger Z.

DOUJINSHI

I'll skip some stuff here, since the photos I have are only for the items I bought from Comic Market 82 and 83.

Comiket 82:

Comiket 83:

Pretty much the works from the circles I regularly follow: Zettai Shoujo, King Revolver, Nurumaya, Kurusugawa Pikumin Tei, Crazy Clover Club, the now defunct circle Konton Lady Studio,  Chotto Dake Aru Yo., Kuroyuki, plus the works from circles that I follow sporadically (mostly when they parody series I like): Lv. X+, Jingai Makyou and Shinjugai.

Goodbye

This announcement has been coming for a long time. When I returned from Japan back in September of 2009 I lost half the will to keep with the blog, and that will was getting weaker and weaker until about a year ago, when I totally lost all of it.

I didn’t want to say it, and pretty much forced myself to keep with the blog, mostly as a token of gratitude to my followers, the people that I know in person and reads this blog from time to time and the people that keeps writting constructive comments... I’ve been trying to keep up to date this blog for quite a few months, lately I tried to increase the number of posts each month and even tried new things like doing the Mahou Tsukai no Yoru summary in "real time" but with no luck and forcing myself to do it just makes me loath it all the more.

Recently I got diagnosed a nervous breakdown. Now I'm reconsidering the priorities in my life and this blog is not in the top. I want to have one less pressure on my shoulders for now, one less stress so I can try and get myself back together once more.

So Soth's Blog is going on indefinite hiatus. I may return in a couple of months, a couple of years or perhaps I move to another chapter in my life and drop this blog for good, I don't know.

So as a goodbye I'm going to post all the stuff I received months ago and was unable to do a proper review:

1/6 Saber Extra by Clayz (sculpted by Miyagawa Takeshi), 1/6 Caster Extra by Phat (sculpted by iTANDi), 1/8 Minase Iori Ryugu Komachi Ver. by Wave (sculpted by Abira) and 1/6 Ayanami Rei Cross Ver. by Amie Grand (sculpted by Suzu)

Valkyria Chronicles 3 Extra Edition for PSP (not played),  Valkyria Chronicles 3 Complete Artworks (not opened to avoid spoilers), and the limited Black Label edition OVAs in Blu-ray (not even unwrapped).

Fate/complete material V Hollow material and Carnival Phantasm Official Guidebook

 THE iDOLM@STER Character Master, THE iDOLM@STER Platinum Album, THE iDOLM@STER DS Delicious Album, Marugoto iDOLM@STER For You! and THE iDOLM@STER Twins Precious Album Guidebook

Doujinshi from circles Nurumaya, King Revolver and Kurusugawa Pikumin Tei

 

TYPE-MOON manga: Shingetsutan Tsukihime volumes 7 to 10, Fate/stay night volume 17, All Around Type-Moon manga, the paperback version of Kara no Kyoukai Mirai Fukuin chapter and several postcards that are Tora no Ana store exclusives.

Well, it's all for now. I hope to see you guys as soon as utterly possible,

Soth

30th Barcelona International Comic Fair

From the 3th of this month to the 6th, it was held the 30th International Comic Fair in Barcelona, that with about 100,000 visitors each year is the largest comic convention in Spain and one of the biggest worlwide.

I used to go every year until 2004, and since then I never went again until now because of two main reasons. The first one is because several years ago this convention splitted to form the Barcelona Manga Fair, that is also pretty big (65,000 visitors per year) and is only focused in manga, anime and videogames, and I rather prefer to go to a manga only convention that a general one. The second reason is that it turned in a huge marketplace with overpriced stuff that you can order via internet all the year round, and usually the guest artists are not really worth the trip for me.

So at the end I only go to Spanish conventions only if they have a guest artist that I'm fan of: last time I went to a Barcelona Manga Fair was in 2006 when the guest artists included Nakajima Atsuko (character designer for the anime versions of Ranma 1/2 and Taiho Shichauzo), Monkey Punch (veteran manga artist mostly know for Lupin III) and Katsura Masakazu (Video Girl Ai, I''s, Zetman...), and this time I went because of Nagai Go, a very prolific author with over 100 main franchises and countless minor works, but is probably best known for creating Cutie Honey, Devilman, and Mazinger Z. 

Mazinger Z was specially covered in this convention because is it's 40th anniversary. It was the series that made me interested in "Japanese cartoons", and after all those years is still one of my favorite old school series despite not being a fan of the mecha genre. So yeah, I went only to see Nagai and a few original drawings of him that were displayed.

This is the closest I was able to aproach to Nagai in the first day.

Nagai's originals

Yumi Sayaka was my first 2D love...

Since by extension the convention main theme this year was "Robots and Comics", a few Tezuka's originals of Astroboy were on display as well.

Nagai only signed to 160 persons (80 in one day and another 80 the following day) that were selected by lucky draw among the people who purchased Mazinger Z related merchandise, so in order to participate for the last session I purchased:

The complete Blu-ray collection of the Spanish edition of Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z Hen and the volume one of the original manga.

Shin Mazinger was a reboot of the series that was aired in 2009, and mixed elements from different Mazinger continuities (Great Mazinger, Z Mazinger, Mazinkaiser...) and references to other works by Nagai (mostly Violence Jack). I didn't like Shin Mazinger that much when was airing (I dropped it after episode 5) because it was mixing from way too many sources, but now that I have it I'll give it a chance, I guess.

Anyways, I was one of the winners!

The illustration was printed specially for the event and he was only signing that. He also wrote the name of each person in romaji, but I asked him to write my name in katakana (the rest of the people said their names to the translator, the translator wrote down the name in a paper and Nagai Go copied the name from the paper). He also shaked hands with me, but I have no photo of the moment...

This is the moment he shaked hands with the guy before me.

Since I was there, I took a few photos of the exhibitions as well:

 

An exhibition of originals of Spider-man to commemorate it's 50th anniversary. In the picture, a John Romita Sr. cover.

DC originals covering the latest revamp "New-52" were displayed as well, like this Batman from the new series drawn by Greg Capullo.

A litography in the corner dedicated to the recently late Moebius

A display of originals of Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay

 

A really nice canvas by the Spanish illustrator Luis Royo

And as usual in this kind of events, a bunch of people was cosplaying. I never take pictures to cosplays, but this time I did an exception:

A couple cosplayed as Battler and Beatrice from Umineko no Naku Koro ni

Fate/Zero Volume 3 Limited Edition

I was expecting to do an entry about Mahou Tsukai no Yoru, but since it's been a week since it was sent by EMS and still I didn't received, most likely is hold on customs and it will take at least another week ;_;

Well, instead I'll review Fate/Zero Volume 3 Limited Edition that I received last week along with iM@S 6.

The limited edition of Fate/Zero 3 includes an alternate cover drawn by Takeuchi Takashi and a figure based in the image.

Like the previous figure of Saber included in the Young Ace, this one is also made by Kaiyodo and sculpted by Enoki Tomohide. The face, the most important part for me in any given figure, is not as good as the previous one but still better than the usual Enoki sculpts.

Side view. The shirt have a subtle color gradient to give the effect of translucency, and in this angle her panties are showing. Too bad the head looks hideous.

Back. They opted to paint white the Invisible Air covered Excalibur. If using clear plastic was too expensive, at least the color should be silver....

A set of 6 postcards are also included, 3 drawn by Takeuchi and 3 drawn by Shinjiro.

The manga itself covers up to the scene when Caster shows himself to Saber, and also includes as flashbacks how Caster and Berserker were summoned.

I said that the uncut scenes in the Blu-ray edition of Fate/Zero were not as gore as I expected, and in that aspect the manga is rather graphic.

Ryuunosuke tunning the "human instrument" an scene from the novels that doesn't appear in the anime.

There are several scenes not included in the anime that appears in the manga version, like the meeting of Ryuunosuke with his sister, and some other scenes are way, way more explicit. Not only the gore show of Caster and Ryuunosuke, but also scenes like Sakura being raped by thousands of worms are shown without little to no constraint.

Type-Moon Ace 7

Released in mid December and received almost 3 months ago, this is the review of Type-Moon Ace Volume 7.

The cover and a good part of it is focused in Mahou Tsukai no Yoru, including a demo cd of the game and a phone strap of Aoko as extras.

The Aozaki Aoko (Mahoyo version) phone strap. Is very small and a bit on the ugly side if you look at it closely.

Over 20 pages are focused in Mahou Tsukai no Yoru, that will be released (at last!) in a couple of days. The demo cd contains a few non correlative chapters. I played it and besides the excelent use of the kinetic effects and the neat soundtrack, I was largely unimpressed by the contents... Well, I have the game pre-ordered and shipped by EMS, so if customs doesn't screw me again I'll be playing the full game in a few days and I hope it doesn't turns into a complete let down.

A few pages are also covering Carnival Phantasm (the last volume was released shortly after the release of this magazine). In the picture, a short interview to the voice actors of the Neco-Arcs.

A bunch of interviews related to Fate/Zero, that last week began to air the second season. In the photo, the first part of the interview to Takeuchi Takashi (original character designer) and Sudou Tomonori and Ikariya Atsushi (character designers for the anime).

Interview to Koyama Rikiya (voice actor of Kiritsugu) and Oohara Sayaka (voice of Irisviel).

Four pages covering Fate/EXTRA CCC, an alternate (and supposedly darker) take of the first Fate/Extra. In the picture, a mysterious version of Sakura that seems to have a major role and a still unnamed pink-haired girl with horns and tail. The relase date is a very vague "Spring 2012".

A Fate/Apocrypha chapter written by Higashide Yuuichirou starring the loli Assassin (Jack the Ripper) and her Master Rikudo Reika. I don't like the idea of Fate/Apocrypha at all (is a rejected project for a reason), so I hope it doesn't turn into something bigger than an sporadic chapter in each T-M Ace...

And the rest is the manga section. As usual it includes special chapters of the regular series plus one-shots chapters of diverse origin. Some of the most interesting are:

All Around TYPE-MOON by Bsuke. An accidental meeting between both Sabers.

Melty Blood special chapter by Kirishima Takeru. Satsuki got the short stick yet again and dosen't appears in the covers of Melty Blood X that have only 2 volumes and featured Sion and Riesbyfe.

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya by Hiroyama Hiroshi. This special chapter is focused on Mimi, excited by the series of events she lately saw... By the way, Prisma Illya will have both a 3rd manga series and an anime version!

Fate/Extra extra chapter by Robina. The main character turns into a girl, but Saber is more than happy with this turn of events.

TYPE-MOON manga

A few weeks ago I decided to update the TYPE-MOON related manga that I follow all at the same time at CD Japan, except for the ones that were too recent (like Fate vol. 17) and some of them that they didn't have in stock (like the last 4 volumes I'm missing of Shingetsutan Tsukihime). And to think that while I was living in Japan buying manga was SO easy...

Anyway, the list:

-TAKE MOON Sakuhin Shu Special Edition by Takenashi Eri
-Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei! volumes 2, 3 and 4 by Hiroyama Hiroshi
-MELTY BLOOD volumes 8 and 9 by Kirishima Takeru
-MELTY BLOOD X volumes 1 and 2 also by Kirishima Takeru
-Fate/Zero volumes 1 and 2 by Shinjiro
-Fate/Extra volume 1 by Robina

And now a bit more in detail:

TAKE MOON Sakuhin Shu Special Edition is the limited reprint of the original TAKE MOON volumes that I already have (and I talked a little bit about them here) in one big tankoubon instead of two.

The reason of the re-purchase is because includes a dvd called Carnival Phantasm EX Season, an extra episode that includes some gags that didn't make the cut to the regular OVAs.

Cute ashamed Bazett.

My only grudge is that is a dvd instead of a Blu-ray, and now that I'm getting hooked at watching anime with blu-ray quality, dvd quality is an eyesore...

The manga doesn't includes anything new (besides two pages of Takenashi thanking her fans and TYPE-MOON), but the paper is of much higher quality than any normal volume.

The multicolored Ren's chapter. The quality of the paper is not visible in photos, but the page is more white than usual.

A mini-booklet called TYPE-MOON Artworks is also included, that features color illustrations by Takenashi.

Random page.

Most of the illustrations already appeared (also in color) in the first pages of the previous edition of TAKE MOON.

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei! volumes 2, 3 and 4 by Hiroyama Hiroshi.

Until now I only managed to buy the first volume almost a year ago and the limited edition of the volume 4, so now I bought the volumes 2 and 3 and the regular version of volume 4 (because of the different cover).
A pleasant surprise that I found is that in the volume 2, the bonus chapter featuring the cross-over with Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha was included! I missed the chance when was released in the Comp Ace and I thought it was lost forever (or pay an absurd amount of money for it).

Nanoha and Illya.

MELTY BLOOD volumes 8 and 9 and MELTY BLOOD X volumes 1 and 2 by Kirishima Takeru. With this Melty Blood manga is totally over, no new arcs after this. Is a shame because despite I didn't liked that much at first I found it rather enjoyable at the end.

The first 6 volumes included the main story (Sion vs Wallachia) and the volumes 7 to 9 included all the half-joke scenarios (Miyako, Mecha-Hisui, G. Akiha...)

Miyako was the main heroine in the second arc.

MELTY BLOOD X was not based directly in the Melty Blood games, so in an original arc starring the Back Alley Alliance formed by Sion, Riesbyfe and Satsuki. Is a non serious arc like the Miyako one, were the main characters are forced to climb a pyramid-like house made by mistake by Sion.
Even if it was not based in any story arc from the game, it included some characters that didn't appeared in the previous volumes.

The short appearance of the tsundere White Ren

Actress Again final boss Dust of Osiris.

Fate/Zero volumes 1 and 2 by Shinjiro.

It covers until the battle royale of Saber, Lancer, Rider, Archer and Berserker. I don't have nuch to say besides that the male characters looks quite ugly, and some females (like Maiya) looks weird as well.

Berserker vs Saber

And finally Fate/Extra volume 1 by Robina.
Robina did a Fate/Extra one shot for the Type-Moon Ace 6 (that is included in this volume) and that escalated to a whole series. The pace is pretty quick, in one volume they are already fighting against Archer, and for now I like it better than the game.

Main characters are the male MC and Saber.

Archer, Caster and female MC appears in some extra pages, quite unhappy for not being the main characters.