300 X BECK

I recently found this AMV whilst browsing youtube.  It takes the trailer from 300 and mashes it with scenes from BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad.  Now I’m aware, which anime haven’t they done it for?  Anyway I was amused and amazed that this is only this guys first video (so he says).

new review tomorrow!

After School Nightmare volume 1

Title: After School Nightmare volume 1

Author: Setona Mizushiro

Publisher: Go! Comi 

Imagine yourself as a freshman in high school, all the girls are falling for your mysterious looks.  You can’t walk down the hallway without groups of cuties chatting about you in anxious whispers.  You can have any one of these girls except one morning you’re taking a shower and have your first…period.  Such is the life of Ichijo Mashiro, the first hermaphaditic manga character I’ve ever been introduced to.

Mashiro goes to a very special school.  He/she realizes that someone mysteriously vanishes every so often and that no one notices until much after the fact.  One day  after school Mashiro is approached by the school nurse who explains that all students must complete a “special” course in order to graduate.  Not having a choice, Mashiro follows the lady to the basement infirmary, unaware the school even had a basement.  Here he encounters a room with draped beds on both sides and is instructed to sit.  Here he encounters his first after school nightmare…

After his first class, he is informed he must come once a week after school to experience his worst nightmare.  He and several of his classmates are to meet in this nightmare and look for the “key.”  This key is the way out of the nightmare and graduation.  Students are instructed to do whatever necessary to find this key, even killing.  Each student wears a necklace with three beads.  Every time the person receives emotional or physical damage, a bead breaks.  Once all three beads break, the nightmare is over and you are to come back the following week to experience it all over again.  In this nightmare, the person does not assume their true form but what their soul looks like.  Mashiro, unaware whether he is a boy or girl appears in his normal school attire but with a skirt on the lower half of his body.

After his first nightmare, Mashiro meets Kureha, the girl from the dream who stabbed him to death with an umbrella.  He soon finds out her traumatic past that has led her to mistrust all men and that memory which she is forced to endure every class.  Kureha however figured out that Mashiro is indeed half-woman so she feels comfortable around him and soon they are the most gossiped couple in school.  Mashiro also bumps into Sou, a man with a heart of steel who sleeps with fellow classmates for fun in the nursing room.  Sou is rumored to be the black night in the after school nightmare and figures not all is right down there in Mashiro’s pants.  After being paired for after school duties, Sou decides to make a move on Mashiro.

After School Nightmare presents an unsettling mix of yaoi and yuri. Mashiro, who is half man, half female on the bottom is in the middle of a future love triangle with Kureha and Sou.  Kureha and Mashiro of course being part/all female and Sou and Mashiro being part/all male.  Being the straight male that I am, yaoi pretty much freaks me out and when I see Sou leaning over for the kill I can’t help but cringe.  I can’t even take comfort in “lesbian” relationship between Mashiro and Kureha because Mashiro is half male and that’s just not hot.

However, the strength of After School Nightmare is not in the yaoi or yuri? battle but in the artwork.  I was previously introduced to Setona Mizushiro with the now out of print manga X-Day from Tokyopop. X-Day is a shojo style series regarding three children and a teacher who meet in an online forum and decide to blow up the school.  After School Nightmare retains the same shojo style characters in a nightmarish world.  One of the most intriguing characters in the “nightmare” world is the girl with a hole in her face.  Mashiro soon learns her true identity and the face that the girl lost after realizing she spent her whole life living up to other’s expectations.  She now has no idea who she is once free from entrance exam pressures.

 After School Nightmare is definitely one of the more unique manga series I’ve bumped into.  If I didn’t find out this was from the same author as X-Day or recommended it, I doubt that I would’ve ever picked up this series from the shelf.  Not that I read any yaoi or doujinshi, but I highly doubt anyone has released a story starring a hermaphrodite in the states at least.  The yaoi scenes do disturb me and this may impair me in new volumes in the future.  I have already decided to check out volume 2 but if the yaoi scenes become stronger I will have to axe this series.  Currently I am excited to see how Mashiro exits this nightmare world.

Rating: 4/5 

 

Earthlight volume 1

Title: Earthlight volume 1 

Written by: Stuart Moore

Illustrated by: Christopher Schons  

Publisher: Tokyopop 

Normally on a space colony when one wishes to ask a girl out they would say “would you like to take a walk in the solar park?” or “want to play around in zero gravity?” What does 15 year-old Damon Cole say?  “Do you cut your arms?” That’s right, step into the world of Earthlight, a space colony with the same cliched and terribly executed drama that you’d find on your daytime soaps on Earth.

Damon has just moved to the space colony Earthlight so that his African American father and British mother could move out of the repression of Earth and have a better life.  Damon’s mother happens to be Earthlight’s education instructor which causes him to be the butt of the punk student’s jokes and abuse.  He soon meets a “mysterious” girl who just so happens to be on the receiving end of her punk boyfriend’s hand.  Will Damon convince Lise to leave her boyfriend to go out with him?

Damon’s father who is the newly appointed chief administrator of Earthlight tells Damon that he must work out his problems by himself.  Xan, the abusive boyfriend dares Damon to climb the observatory before the sunlight reaches the colony.  To do so would be extremely dangerous and if caught, Damon and his family may be forced off the colony and abdicate the positions they fought so hard for.  Nevertheless, Damon accepts the dare and climbs to the top hoping that Xan will get off his back if he completes the task.  In the end Xan plans to pummel Damon after Lise leaves him however is met with an unfortunate fate when they lose track of what time it is.  Having to leave the colony for medical reasons, Xan is officially out of their lives.

The first volume ends with Damon missing the school field trip to the power satellites due to a cold.  During the trip Damon’s mother does something very out of character that will effect the future of manned space exploration.  It’s hard to say whether I actually liked this first volume.  Christopher Schon’s artwork is beautifully detailed, anything that reminds me of Planetes is a plus.  However, the story meanders too much and is quite predictable until the last chapter.  On the other hand it’s standard fare to include terrorism in any manga influenced sci-fi novel.  As Damon’s father says, if Earthlight doesn’t improve in the next volume, “they can kiss my black ass!”

 Rating: 2/5
read a preview here.

Free Comic Book Day

Every year on the first Saturday of May I make my yearly trip to the comic book store for Free Comic Book Day. My brother and I hit up two stores after seeing the new Spider-man movie, the one he always goes to and the one that’s on my way to work that I never actually visited, also the one where someone apparently got shot. The first one was rather busy but the second only a few people. It was a little creepy how only half the store was lit. All in all I picked up six comics for absolutely nothing.

The Amazing Spider-Man

It’s been weeks since Peter Parker has had the opportunity to don the spidey suit. With new heroes springing up, there seems to be no need for the spidey vigilante. Ready to surprise Aunt May with a birthday cake, Peter willingly partakes in a high speed car chase to end his post-hero blues. Spider-Man captures our short-term villain, a huge Spider-Man fan with spidey bobble heads on his dash, and leaves him to the cops. A short sweet one-shot that was conveniently used to promote Spider-Man 3. 3.5/5

Marvel Adventures: Iron Man & Hulk

Iron Man: A short one shot story of the Invincible Iron Man, Stark International’s head of security. An employee, who is trying to sell his new rejected innovation breaks into headquarters to steal supplies only to be thwarted by Iron Man! 2.5/5

Hulk: On a contruction site, a large spider attacks a little girl. Bruce can feel the Hulk breaking free, “no one can hold Hulk!” What ensues is an eight page battle which culminates in Hulk finally squashing the spider. Haha I’ve never actually read any Hulk comics but this was absolutely ridiculous. “Oh no big spider! I am Hulk! Arghh!!!” So simple but effective. 3/5

Transformers Movie Prequel

Gawww my eyes. Who knew that reading this comic book would be worse than looking at the character designs for the upcoming movie? Nothing much happens in this short prequel to the prequel. It briefly tells of the start of the war between the Autobots and Decepticons. Every couple pages they’ll have a complete panel or panels completely in black and white. I don’t know if they just didn’t have time to finish painting it or if this is some new form of retro art. 2/5

Devil’s Due Publishing: Flipbook

Family Guy: This is a short preview from the recent graphic novel release “Book of crap.” Peter tells what being a good parent is while introducing his kids to internet porn and assigning a fat Mexican to “fill-in” for him at work. 3/5
Hack/Slash: DDP’s second FCBD offering. The introduction to a brutal horror story of a young girl whose mother, the lunch lady, kills all her daughter’s bullies in the kitchen. Rather disgusting and has very foul language. 1.5/5

It’s Sonic!! It’s amazing how many issues this series has under its belt and yet I’ve never felt the need to pick up a copy. Now’s as good a time as any! Eggman has implanted an electronic device in Sonic so that he destroys his friends and allies. Tails and the gang sets out to literally knock the bug off of Sonic. Predictably the day is saved and Eggman retreats with his tail in between his legs. 2/5

Tokyopop: Choose Your Weapon Sampler

First off, it’s important to note that this sampler contains no manga whatsoever. 3 of the series contained are manwha (Korean) and the other 2 American, the whole sampler is read left to right. That being said I don’t understand how this this is called “Choose your weapon” where the only weapon used in 4/5 of the stories is a sword! That being said lets move on:
Archlord: Having read the first volume already at the library, I have concluded this is the best series in this sampler. In this preview, our hero meets an elegant Lady after preparing his freshly butchered pig for dinner. 4/5

Gyakushu: Our American manga stars a nameless man who is bandaged from head to toe. This man takes up his sword to protect a villager in danger in this high action paced preview 3.5/5

Phantom: spends most of its preview in character introduction. K is a mech pilot for the city police whose technology is not up to the par to the terroists that they chase. In the end K is called to pilot his mech whose character designs are almost as terrible and confusing as Gundam Seed Destiny’s 2.5/5

Utopia’s Avenger: “Nonstop martial arts action!” Hong Gil-Dong has created an Utopian land but then disappears. Years later he returns to fight the invaders who has left the land in ruins. Our hero fights a large demonic monster in a rather confusing albeit entertaining battle sequence. 3/5

Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy: From the manwha artist of King of Hell and Richard A. Knaak, New York Times best selling author. With such stars behind this I expected to find something more…understandable. Then again I know next to nothing about Warcraft in itself. For the second preview in a row we get our heroes battling some huge king of mythic beast. Artwise the best in this sampler. 2.5/5

Overall another excellent Free Comic Book Day. Even if the comics weren’t all up to par who cares, it was free! Can’t wait till next year. Hopefully more manga publishers will step into the game.