As I write this article, it is just the day after the news of Akira Toriyama’s death and I’ve been contemplating my experience with his works. The impact he has had across numerous industries from manga to anime to video games and beyond has been immense but, understandably, many people only know him for Dragon Ball and perhaps Dragon Quest. Another series of his, Dr. Slump, is highly popular in Japan but, even though I think it’s better than Dragon Ball, there is no doubt that it’s relatively unknown in the West. However, his body of work is not restricted merely to those series and I thought ..read more

As a fan of horror media, it would only make sense that I’d search for something similar when it comes to anime, manga and video games. While the survival horror genre is well established within video games, I find horror surprisingly difficult to find when it comes to the other two, anime more so than manga. Regardless, there is a franchise that spans anime, manga and video games that is heavily associated with horror. Having only just watched the first three seasons of the anime recently, I thought it might be interesting to provide an overview of the Higurashi franchise and see how this ser ..read more

You may look at the title of this article and scratch your head in confusion. Magic Realism? Surely that’s a contradiction in and of itself, right? An oxymoron of genre. If you’re not already familiar with the genre then you may be surprised at how much of it you’ve already experienced. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting if we took a look at the genre of Magic Realism, what it consists of and a few examples. So what exactly is Magic Realism? Basically, it refers to a story which takes place in a realistic setting but which has a magical or supernatural component(s) that set it apart ..read more

Having just written an article called “Taking A Look At Some Anime Based On MAL Score Vs. My Score“, I thought it logical that I should do the same with regards to manga. However, I’ve run into a few issues which necessitate a change compared to the anime article. First, I have a lot more manga that I haven’t completed in their entirety than anime, presumably a byproduct of their different distribution models. Second, I wasn’t satisfied with the selection that MAL chose when it came to my statistics page and have chosen to pick titles from my manga list personally instead. I will include a pho ..read more

Osamu Tezuka’s massive body of work is sometimes overshadowed by the success of Astro Boy, to the point where I’m only able to tell certain people who Osamu Tezuka is by bringing up Astro Boy to them. However, one of the most important series that Osamu Tezuka ever created has, itself, grown into quite a respectable franchise, one that easily attains greater critical reception than that of Astro Boy and is also commercially successful, being Osamu Tezuka’s second bestselling manga behind Astro Boy itself. Therefore, I thought it worth providing an overview of this fascinating franchise, Black ..read more

When you think of franchises from Japan, you probably think of Dragon Ball, Godzilla, Pokémon etc. but I doubt many of you think of the Blood franchise. It’s certainly not one that would spring to my mind either but I took a look at it the other day and I noticed that it actually has quite a few notable entries now which prove to be surprisingly diverse in terms of both style and media. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to do an overview of the Blood franchise and look at the various works within it. Of course, the logical place to start with any overview of a franchise is the firs ..read more

Video games and manga have a long and intertwined history. In the early days of video games, manga was often used to promote new games or to tell stories that were too complex to fit into the limited gameplay of the time. This need has waned as video games have become more and more capable of telling their story without the aid of additional media. Regardless of this, many manga based off of video games continue to be produced and I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the more notable ones. Let’s start off with, as far as I can tell, the best-selling manga based on a vide ..read more

The Kickstarter for Remote Angel Volume 2 is ongoing as of the time of this article and I am honoured that I’ve been given the chance to do this exclusive interview with the authors behind this series, Yennie Fer and Banunu. Why don’t we start by introducing yourselves to the readers? Yennie Fer: Hello! I am Yennie Fer. I am an author and the main artist of Remote Angel. I have been doing art nearly my whole life and picked up on writing as a passion in 2020. Banunu: So my name is Banunu. I have always had a passion for reading and writing. When I reached middle school, I decided that I wanted ..read more

I’m sure we’re all aware of the many lovely shots of food that we see in anime and manga and how delicious they look with examples that primarily spring to my mind being the food from the restaurants in the film “Your Name” and the ramen from the manga and anime “Naruto”. However, there’s also plenty of anime and manga that whose purpose when it comes to food is much stronger, being a central core around which the whole story revolves. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to talk about some anime and manga that primarily deal with food as part of their story. When it comes to the histo ..read more

I’ve touched on Weekly Shonen Jump and Weekly Shonen Magazine quite a bit and have even dedicated an article to Weekly Shonen Sunday! However, while certainly the most popular, there are other manga demographics besides shonen. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some shojo magazines, specifically the three most important, Ribon, Nakayoshi and Ciao. The earliest of these is Nakayoshi which saw its first issue released in 1954. Published by Kodansha, the magazine has been continuously running since and has sold over 400 million copies over its lifetime. One of the ear ..read more