Manga Mania Issue 19 (February 1995)

What better way to celebrate Valentines Day than to look at a 15 year old manga/anime magazine?

Articles on The Legend of the 4 Kings (oddly enough a gateway anime in the UK due to it’s televised broadcast later on), Green Legend Ran (something I totally ignored back then, wouldn’t mind checking out now), Ushio & Tora and a review of the year just gone. The editorials now have become utterly worthless, just talking about the issue’s theme, but there’s still Trish Ledoux’s column. Here she’s talking bishonen, nothing ground breaking now, but it was news you could use back in 1995.

There’s also a column, Manga Watch, not sure if it’s new this issue, or so small I missed it before. Anyway, this issue has a few words on British artists working in Japan at the time. Obviously, the ubiquitous Tony Luke is featured, but so are Manga Mania’s own Woodrow Phoenix, who was working on Inseparable for Morning at the time, Carl Flint on Giant Baby and Chris Webster on Mr Pillow.

UK NEWS

• From Western Connection: Lupin III – The Fuma Conspiracy, Salamander 1, Devil Hunter Yoko 1
• From Kiseki FIlms: MD Geist, Adventure Duo 2, Macross: Do You Remember Love, Return of the Overfiend 4
• From Anime Projects: Bubblegum Crisis 1 (dub), Urusei Yatsura 5
• From Manga Video: Legend of the Four Kings Eps 1 & 2, Wings of Honneamise, The Guyver 11, AD Police File 3, Genocyber 3
• From Pioneer Video: Green Legend Ran 1, Tenchi Muyo 3, Moldiver 3

US NEWS

• Ianus Publishing released the Project A-Ko Roleplaying Game. I have this, but have never played it. Nor have I managed to sell it on eBay.
• No US video releases mentioned this time round.
• Just the one notable new US manga release – They Were 11

JAPAN NEWS

• Magic Knight Rayearth TV and Saturn game.
• Darkside Blues in the theatres.
• Red Baron on the TV.

More fun in the letters pages!

I’m not trying to pick on Paul “Otaking” Johnson, but these teenage fan letters he kept sending are full of value. If you are familiar with him it’s probably either through his rant about fansubs or his Doctor Who “anime”, but he has more strings to his bow than that. He also likes to complain about the lack of shading in anime and how everything new doesn’t compare to Madhouse OAVs of the 90s.

Well, this issue’s letter from the future self styled “Otaking” sheds some light on that viewpoint:

His first anime purchase was Cyber City Oedo, a show he turned into a manifesto! Though, considering the first anime I purchased was Urusei Yatsura, I probably shouldn’t be throwing too many stones from my glass house. There’s one more letter from him to come and it’s a real doozy, but that’s not until issue 26.

Back when I first read this, Beast King felt like the last gasp of Violence Jack as being shocking for shock’s sake. Suitably, it’s a direct follow up to Hell City Kanto (adapted as Evil Town in the OAVs) the last chapter that I found truly shocking. However going back again to write about this chapter, it didn’t seem quite as shocking. I’m not sure if that means I’ve been desensitised to phallic tiger tongues and beheadings, or if it was just the jumbled way it was arranged in the collections I read.

In addition to the return of Aira Mu from God Mazinger, the main source for this chapter comes from King Bomber (1976). As best as I can tell it involved teen drummer Shingo Hibiki who merges with the golden African statue, King Bomber to defeat his enemies. It’s probably a lot more complicated than that, the villain here seems named after a civilisation that King Bomber had destroyed earlier in history in his own manga.

Really simple to sum up this time, as Jack is barely in it, and that means we don’t get lengthy speeches or random shaming of the Slum King to confuse matters. The androgynous, abused, frequently naked, blonde waif Shingo Hibiki wanders into a jungle full of wild animals that escaped the zoo after the Great Kanto Earthquake.

Meanwhile, we meet the villain of the piece, Kibara. Who is, of course, an evil zoo keeper wearing a crocodile’s head as a hat. He’s trained animals to kill man, and is upset that strangers have arrived in his jungle. Not Shingo, but Aira Mu and her followers. Who, Shingo happens to come across when both decide to bathe at the same time. Aira almost comes a cropper at the hands of a wild tiger, but Shingo’s innate animal empathy saves her.

He returns with her to her settlement, where they have made a wooden statue of their saviour, Violence Jack that they call King Bomber. Kibara meanwhile is tearing through the forest hunting for Aira Mu. Sensing danger, Jack turns into his phoenix form and flies off.

If only his danger sense was a little more prompt…

The village is massacred and the survivors taken to Kibara’s camp to be tortured. Shingo was left behind and plead for the statue of King Bomber to rescue Aira. At which point Jack arrives and the pair merge into the statue, and Jack raises the tiger Shingo befriended from the dead (though it appears he’s just putting part of his essence into it’s body).

And the pair go and rescue Aira in the bloodiest way possible.

Unfortunately, the chapter seems to run out of pages and the final fight between Jack and Kibara happens off panel. All we get is Aira discovering Kibara dead, and Shingo lying in the broken shards of the King Bomber statue. A disappointing ending considering some of the sequences of carnage that other chapters have had.

Thankfully the next chapter is perhaps my favourite and full of some utterly genius moments of (re-)invention

Finally got this wonderful Johnny Ryan comic for Xmas.

Ryan’s said that Kentaro Miura’s Berserk was a influence on the book, but the thing its relentless black comedy and violence reminded me of was Go Nagai at his prime. If this was 1970s Japan, there’d be a Cannibal Fuckface cartoon for the kids to watch. Next to Scott Pilgrim this felt to me like the western comic that’s got closest to properly understanding the energy of manga, rather than simply aping the surface elements.

The story, such that is, follows our hero Cannibal Fuckface who is thrown in the eponymous prison pit and then commences killing and eating the similarly ultraviolent inhabitants of the pit. The first chapter is named “FUCKED”. The second is named “MEGAFUCKED”. That is probably all you need to know.

It’s the best art I’ve seen Ryan do in his career, more focused and while it mainly maintains a four-panel-a-page rhythm, when he breaks from that to do a splash page or change the panel rhythm, he does to great effect. If you’re going to do a splash page, it might as well be of a monster made of sperm or a barbed penis.

While part of me hopes for Cannibal Fuckface’s adventures to continue, it is “Book One” after all, I’d also really like to see Ryan do more work that expands his horizons from his gag roots.

Prison Pit @ Fantagraphics
Johnny Ryan

In case I haven’t mentioned it already, the issues of Manga Mania that I’ve been talking about so far are ones my younger brother had bought, and I’d only been reading the Akira strips. He stopped buying them and this issue was the first I actually bought myself, mainly for Akira. I think I’d bought the Boxtree Ranma books just before or around the same time, so I was already on the slippery slope.

Looking at the issue now, it’s not a particularly strong one. Very little authorial voice (most articles are attributed to Manga Mania) and a couple of the articles are just not worth bothering with at all.

ARTICLES:

• An overview of Kosuke Fujishima, particularly Oh My Goddess and You’re Under Arrest. Interview with him, translated from Kappa Magazine.
• A look at Robot Carnival, tying into a Collector’s Card set being released in the UK. Yes, we got the merchandise and not the film.
• An overview of Ryoichi Ikegami’s career.
• An article on the Johnny Mnemonic film!
• Trish Ledoux’s column was about shoujo manga.

JAPAN NEWS:

• Gatchaman OAV
• Ghost Sweeper Mikami: War In Heaven film
• Key The Metal Idol
• Tenchi Muyo TV
• Yamato: The Next Generation
• Suikoden: Demon Century

UK NEWS:

• From Kiseki: Star Blazers #3, Return of the Overfiend III #3, Robotech #3, Ambassador Magma #5, Adventure Duo #1 & #2
• From Manga Video: Guyver #10, Crying Freeman #5/6, AD Police File 2

US NEWS:

• From Viz Video : Fatal Fury

One final note. There’s an advert for a shop selling garage kits and that reminded me there used to be a degree of overlap between modellers and anime fans. I think I encountered imported Gundam model kits years before I encountered the anime. Did that crossover increase in proportion when the boom happened? Or did it stay the same size and is now a much smaller part of the “hobby”?

It’s felt like an eternity between this and Vol. 3, but finally we get the end of Bill Mantlo’s lengthy run on the title and the beginning of Al Milgrom’s continuation of many of Mantlo’s threads.

Much of the book is devoted to the development of Spider-Man’s romance with Black Cat and then it’s slow deconstruction as we see the start of the return of Mary Jane Watson that would eventually lead to the marriage. Unfortunately while much of the construction of the Black Cat relationship happens in these pages, the end of the relationship seems to mainly be happening in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, which are unseen here. The end of the alien symbiote suit gets a similar hasty recap here.

That leaves you with the impression of the work Mantlo did being given short shrift by editorial edict. Not helped by Milgrom trying to keep up Mantlo’s weirdness quotient, but not really having the same knack for it. His creation The Answer is a weird, origin-less, super-villain who seems almost cosmic in his abilities and decisions at times. He’d later be brought down to earth when he returned, but here he seems like a walking, talking plot device. Milgrom would have more success in later issues with cult-favourite The Spot, but that’s for the next volume.

As well as writing the later issues in the book, Milgrom also provides the bulk of the artwork, along with Jim Mooney inks. Unfortunately the earlier volumes had Ed Hannigan, and while Milgrom has his moments (especially during the Dr Octopus vs. Owl war), his Cloak and Dagger are disappointing in comparison to Hannigan’s.

The best issues here, oddly enough, are two of the fillers. First is a J. Jonah Jameson story, told from his point of view, with some great Ditko pastiching from Ron Frenz. Secondly is the Assistant Editor’s Month issue, which features the great Fred Hembeck as artist, drawing a fairly straight story with the Human Fly. There’s a line in there that nails Mantlo’s style where assistant editor Bob DeNatale refers to it as “urban weird”.

Going back the Spider-man / Black Cat relationship, there’s an underdeveloped part to it that could be revisited with a different character later. There’s hints of a love triangle between Spider-Man, Black Cat and police captain Jean DeWolff. What made that unique for Spider-Man was that the two women were love with Spider-Man, rather than Peter Parker. Not to mention that Jean DeWolff is a rare woman in Spidey’s life who behaves like an adult (well apart from the 1930s cosplay) and isn’t an OAP. Ignoring the underdeveloped romantic aspect, she was to Spider-Man, what Robbie was to Peter, a level headed voice of reason. Her key story should be in the next volume, and as much as I have fond memories of that story from its Spider-Man & Zoids UK reprint, now I’ve actually read her earlier appearances, I’ve a clearer idea of why it was shocking and controversial.

Also of interest here is an early outing for Hobgoblin, with a plot assist from Roger Stern, so presumably he was written with the intention here of it being Roderick Kingsley. We also start to get the various false leads (Leeds?) that caused so much confusion when Stern left and they couldn’t make up their minds who the Hobgoblin was… Unfortunately I think I’ll have to wait for either Vol 10 or 11 of the ASM Essentials to pick-up the main Hobgoblin story that I loved from Spider-Man & Zoids.

Manga Mania #17 (December 1994) was probably the best issue so far. Mainly because nothing was happening in the UK and so there was a lot more coverage of Japan.

Manga had their “Cyberpunk Collection” out, so Cyber City Oedo 808 got an overview from Peter J Evans, along with a look at the work of Tony Takezaki (whatever happened to him?).

Then, to tie into Boxtree’s release of Ranma 1/2 in the UK, there’s an interview with Rumiko Takahashi by Toren Smith.

Finally with The Cockpit coming out, there’s Trish Ledoux’s column on Leiji Matsumoto, an article reprinted from Kappa on him and an overview of the stories included on the OAV.

UK NEWS

• Mandarin Paperbacks released Akira, Domu, Memories and Gon. These had really nice production quality from what I remember.
• Manga Video were releasing: Appleseed, Guyver Vol. 9, AD Police File 1 and Cyber City Oedo Vol. 3. They also had Wings of Honneamise doing the rounds at the cinema.

US NEWS

• From Viz: Ranma 1/2 TV Vol. 2
• From AnimEigo: Kimagure Orange Road: Whimsical Highways Laser Disc set
• From Streamline: Robotech Vol. 5 and 8 Man After Vol. 3
• From US Manga Corps: Detonator Orgun Vol. 2, Gall Force: Earth Chapter 1, Project A-Ko Final and Godmars.

JAPAN NEWS

• The second episode of the You’re Under Arrest OAV series was out.
• As was the sixth volume of Iria.
• And the first volume of Bounty Dog.
• A Riot drama CD was released.
• Newtype had asked various artists to create their dream Gundams:

Fun in the letters pages!

This is a sketch from what appears to be UK small press comic artist Bob Lynch. Then there’s a fan letter from future shading enthusiast and Doctor Who curmudgeon Paul “Otaking” Johnson.

The magazine had a big revamp this issue. Now square bound and with more colour, it also saw the return of some features that had been absent during the Dark Horse to Manga Entertainment upheaval (the UK anime charts, Sumo Family). There was also the addition of Jon Courtney-Grimwood’s Cyberdrome column which foresaw all those hi-tech gadgets we take for granted now, like cyber spectacles, cyber vests, and helmet monitors… Paleofuture-style mispredictions aside, there was also mention of an electronic version of Generation X issue 1 that Marvel had put online, which makes you wonder why it took so long for them to embrace it more fully.

Let’s have a look at that chart to give you an idea of how the anime market differed back then.

As much as people liked to bemoan the UK anime market being dominated by “tits and tentacles” material, it’s clear what people were actually interested in. The Guyver. Possibly the smartest anime release ever, 12 OAVs released monthly at £5.99 a pop, it was cheap and cheerful violent sci-fi action with broad appeal. There was a couple of attempts to emulate the success (Giant Robo & Armitage), but they kind of failed due to not have the monthly release schedule Guyver had. Guyver was the nearest we had to a successful “video comic”. Though I see Hachette Partworks are still releasing Manga Force to subscribers, so I guess that’s been similarly successful.

Articles included a translated interview from Kappa Magazine’s Monica Piovan with Kenichi Sonoda. Trish Ledoux was discussing cartoon breasts (namely those found in Tenchi, Ranma, Dirty Pair and Plastic Little). Jim Swallow discussed Wings of Honneamise. Peter J Evans looked at the history of Robotech, while Jeremy Clarke interviewed Carl Macek and his mustache (I always forget Macek was involved with Spumco early on).

UK NEWS

From Manga Video: Cyber City Oedo 808 volumes 2 & 3, AD Police vol. 1, Genocyber vol. 1, Guyver Vol. 8
From Kiseki Films: Return of the Overfiend boxed set, Robotech Vol. 2, Starblazers Vol. 2.
From Boxtree books: Ranma 1/2 Volumes 1 & 2.
From Anime Projects: Bubblegum Crisis pewter miniatures (Knight Sabers and Boomers), Genesis Survivor Gaiarth Vol. 3, Urusei Yatsura Vol. 4.
Crusader Video were reported as having ceased trading in August 1994.

US NEWS

Jan de Bont was the current occupier of the Godzilla director chair.
From AD Vision: Legend of Lyon: Flare
From Streamline: Crying Freeman Vol. 3, Great Conquest: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Robotech Collections
From US Manga Corps: Project A-Ko vs Battle 2: Blue Side Video, Urotsukidoji III, Urotsukidoji CD-ROM collection (what exactly was this? Apart from $79.95).
From Viz: Ranma 1/2: Akane and Her Sisters
Notable manga launches were Dodekain (notable only for appearing in the short lived UK magazine J-Fan) and James Hudnell’s Macross II comic.

JAPAN NEWS

Macross 7 was on it’s way.

Cover this issue was of Grey, whose anime adaptation Grey: Digital Target was due out from Western Connection. The art was provided by Kev Walker, who I think had made the leap from Games Workshop to regular 2000AD contributor at this point, but hadn’t started to make waves in US comics yet.

Articles included Jim Swallow on Yoshihisa Tagami’s Grey, Peter J Evans on Pioneer’s entrance in the UK video market and finally a “Beat” Takeshi Kitano interview with Jeremy Clarke. This was the beginning of the entrance of live action material entering the magazine, a balance that was tricky to handle and whose influence can still be seen in the make up of NEO magazine today. It’s no coincidence that Manga Video were behind the release of the first of Kitano’s films in the UK.

UK NEWS

• D-CONTanimeT, possibly the worst name of a convention ever, was due to take place in October in Birmingham. It would cost you £20 for the weekend.
• Jonathan Clements reported on a visit to London by Seikima-II. They are pretty much the main influence behind the satire of Detroit Metal City. This band of supposed demons from Hell had been in town to record a Folk album.
• From Kiseki: Star Blazers Vol. 1, Ambassador Magma Vol. 6-7, Urotsukidoji, Return of the Overfiend III (bumped for cuts yet again!)
• From Manga Video: Cyber City Oedo Vol. 1, Guyver Vol. 7,  Devilman Vol. 2
• From Western Connection: Samurai Gold, Grey: Digital Target
• From Anime Projects: Urusei Yatsura Vol. 3, Genesis Survivor Gaiarth Vol. 2
• From Pioneer: Tenchi Muyo Vol 1 & 2, Moldiver Vol 1 & 2.

US NEWS

• RAFM were producing minatures for RTG’s mecha RPG Mekton.
• Trish Ledoux had con reports on:
  • Anime Expo (Guests of Honour were Izumi Matsumoto, Nobuteru Yuuki and Scott Frazier).
  • Anime America (GoH were Akemi Takada and Go Nagai). Hilarious quote given the state of UK anime convention programming since ‘05 – “In a move that remains puzzling, the bulk of AA’s programming included features already available. Something a little more difficult to find might have been more appropriate“
  • San Diego Comic Con (where Rumiko Takahashi and Buichi Terasawa were in attendance)

• From Streamline: Dirty Pair: Flight 005 Conspiracy, 8th Man After, LILY-CAT
• From US Manga Corps: Genocyber 2 & 3, Rhea Gall Force, Gigantor 30, Project A-Ko 3
• From Central Park Media: Animated Classics of Japanese Literature
• One notable manga launch – Yoshikazu Yasuhiko’s Rebel Sword

A couple of other notes from the issue:

In the letters page there is fan art from a Tony Mines. Is this the Tony Mines of Spite Your Face Productions? I know he frequents the AniPages Daily boards, was he a Manga Mania reader as a young ‘un? Here’s the art:

Secondly, the retailer who was promising “Hard to Get” anime in the last issue had a full page advert this time and we got a list of what their “Hard to Get” anime were…

At least two of the videos actually were anime. Namely Star Warrior The Legend Begins and Star Warrior The Adventure Continues. Which were terribly dubbed adaptations of Locke The Superman.

The others though, were Joseph Lai’s Korean anime knock-off shows from IFD films – Captain Cosmos, Cosmos Conqueror,  Saviour of The Earth, Silver Twilight, Solar Adventure, Space Transformers, and Thunder Prince.

There was one other title, Falcon Seven, which I couldn’t find on IFD’s film list. And of course searching for it just brings up Birdman/Harvey Birdman sites (Phil Ken Sebben was called Falcon Seven in the original series). As it’s listed among the IFD titles and the Star Warrior titles are seperate, I’m guessing it may just be another IFD title under a different name. Anyone with experience in the dollar bin VHS market know this title?

Yes, the write ups of old Manga Mania issues are back, and now with pictures.

Issue 14, cover date September 1994, was all about Street Fighter II. But first, the big change in who was actually publishing the magazine now was brought up in the editorial. Manga Entertainment were now the publishers of Manga Mania. I vaguely recall this being a point of contention, but because I didn’t really get into anime until 1995, I never experienced it first hand. By the time I got round to purchasing the magazine myself, I think it was clear the magazine was just as full of puff pieces for all video labels as it had always been. And the rest of the content improved too, at least until the last few desperate issues where it tried and failed to find a new direction.

As well as the SF2 coverage there was an essay on CLAMP and doujin from Peter J. Evans as well as a Guyver article by many hands.

UK NEWS

• Manga Video were releasing Zeguy, more Guyver, Roujin-Z and more Tokyo Babylon on video. Appleseed was doing the rounds at the cinema.
• Pioneer were launching with Tenchi Muyo and Moldiver in October.
• Kiseki had the renamed Adventure Kids coming out as Adventure Duo. Also from them was Black Magic M66 and Urotsukidoji, Return of the Overfiend III.
• Anime Projects had Bubblegum Crisis continuing to be re-released. And the first volume of Genesis Survivor Gaiarth.

US NEWS

• Software Sculptors were releasing a Bubblegum Crisis screensaver. Unfortunately it doesn’t mention a price…
• 20th Century Fox were planning a Gigantor movie.
• There was a fair handed discussion of the Lion King / Jungle Emperor furore.
• Trish Ledoux continued to gnash her teeth over the redesigned Dirty Pair in what was the 90s equivalent of the umpteen “moe is killing anime” posts being written right now.
• From Viz: Ranma 1/2 Movie 2
• From AD Vision: Cutey Honey 1 & 2
• From US Manga Corps: Blue Sonnet 1, Project A-Ko vs Battle 1: Grey Side, Toward The Terra
• From AnimEigo: Urusei Yatsura 15
• From Osiris Communication: Ultraman 5 & 6
• From Streamline: Akira Remaster, Dirty Pair: Project Eden.
• No notable manga releases this month, just the usual chugging along of Viz & DH mainstays, “Amerimanga” and furry comics.

JAPAN NEWS

• That seems to be gone from the magazine now.

There was also a fascinatingly awful advert from someone promising “hard to get” anime. Researching the retailer on the internet, it seems they eventually got out of anime and into pornography instead. Behold the typesetting skills of “Tenseah”:

Back to the Jack we go.

I’d been putting off talking about this, as frankly I don’t think I’ve much to talk about. The guest characters this time round are from 1969’s Gakuen Bangaichi, his first professional collaboration with Ken Ishikawa (though Ishikawa had assisted on earlier manga).
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