Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma-Overview

Out of all of the current Weekly Shonen Jump series that I'm currently reading, none hits closer to home than; Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma. Since being a Shueisha title it is printed in English by Viz, but this is one title I am glad they translated and put out into English.

Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma Volume 1 Cover

Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma deals with a story of a young boy by the name of Soma Yukihira who works in the kitchen of his father's restaurant. Soma's lineage of working in a common place kitchen restaurant leads people to believe he's not an actual cook and deals with common place food and has no ideals of traditional cooking techniques or even the grace of actual lineage.

Soma by the request of his father, encourages his son to leave the nest and safety net of Yukihira (the family restaurant bears the same name as the family) and join Japan's top cooking school Totsuki Academy. Passing his exams and being a bit haughty during the entrance ceremony leads Soma to have a bad reputation among many classmates, but throughout the manga it is emphasized that those without the ability to make their dreams reality and who will not keep pushing forward are going to be expelled and not worth it. And with a final graduation rate of only 10%, Totsuki Academy makes good word on what they say.

While many traditional shounen pieces depict leveling up and traditional battles Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma does their battling in the kitchen akin to Iron Chef (the good one, the one made in Japan). The actual title in the English release being called Food Wars most likely stems from the meaning of the Japanese work Shokugeki. While I have never heard the word before this manga, shoku means food and geki can be used for fighting with weapons, or weaponry itself.

But within these battles aren't just a way to test which dish reigns supreme, they come with some of the highest risks imaginable. Whenever a Shokugeki is decided people put things or even themselves on the line, therefore creating more tension within the actual story. While the Shokugeki isn't used very much within the start of the manga, it is used over and over and is a central point of all deciding factors within Totsuki Academy.

 A group of first year students from Totsuki Academy

The characters in in this manga are varied within the manga, the image is just a small sample of how varied the characters are; people are various body sizes and ages. You won't get characters mixed up which is a great thing, because now a days distinct characters are a good thing since I remember reading a lot of manga and getting various characters confused because of how similar they look in both body and face.

This manga is a breath of fresh air in the shounen genre, while it has it's serious moments and some ideas not grounded in reality, it strikes a good balance between the two. If you like cooking manga like Bambino or What Did You Eat Yesterday, this might be a manga to look into picking up. As a currently weekly publication, it currently is on about Chapter 138 in the WSJ print and Volume 9 in English print. Just be warned that there are ecchi themes within the manga, so that's just something you have to deal with.

ONE's One-Punch Man

One-Punch Man, or commonly called One-Pan Man (pronounced Wanpan Man); is a hilarious web comic created by a person who goes by the name of ONE. But to be honest...Most people do not notice his work because it gets overshadowed by Yusuke Murata's redrawing of the comic. But is this actually a bad thing? In ways it really is, because it seems that people cannot appreciate ONE's creation of his story.

Many people cite ONE's problems as not drawing as well as Murata, which is kind of obvious. You're pitting a pro against a person whose just drawing a web comic, an is a manga artist as a hobby. Most people can only cite ONE's art as the problem, which to me is somewhat a valid comment but at the same time I have a slight inkling that people are spoiled and demand for "beautiful art". But is wanting beautiful art such a bad thing? To me yes and no. For someone who has been reading manga and watching anime for a long time, you see how styles change and evolve; the switch from 90's style to the current 00's style is vastly different.

But back to ONE and his web comic, it's not bad. Sure it does look simple at times and anyone thinks that they can draw better than him, but once you get further along you see the progress he has, and how good he is at drawing detailed scenes and fighting now.

Taken from the One-Punch Man web comic

Even though it's just rocks falling all over, the composition in the piece does show that ONE does know what he is doing. There is focus in the piece and shows that he does know what exactly what he is doing.

Taken from the One-Punch Man web comic

Also thanks to ONE we have the beloved main character Saitama, who looks dull and boring but just wants to have fun being a hero. But it isn't just that fact at all, ONE's story contributes much to the characters; how they act and how they interact with the world around them.

Taking that credit away from him, just because his art isn't the most amazing and visually pleasing out there is a disservice to One-Punch Man, to ONE, and to Murata as well. Murata is a fan of ONE's work and has done a few collaborations with him. But based on his stories alone, ONE is an amazing story teller getting his story Mob Psycho 100 picked up and serialized on the internet from Weekly Shounen Sunday.

If you ever get a chance to read One-Punch Man or Mob Psycho 100 by ONE, try to look past the art if you can and see how story telling is done, and how a good story can just grab you and makes you want to read more.

Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler-Undertaker Scale Figure Impressions

Oddly enough perusing through Amiami the other day I saw the preorder for the Undertaker from Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler. From what we have gathered about the Undertaker is he's a renagade shinigami but has some sort of relation with the Phantomhive family, and currently a great interest in Ciel.

If you haven't read the manga yet, we get to see the true nature of the undertaker and get to learn more about the Shinagami's job, and why the Undertaker defected. Another interesting thing to learn about the Undertaker is that he's most likely really old as his scythe is different from everyone else. While everyone in the modern day within the Shinigami have modded their scythes to resemble tools; even the other Shinigami mention that his scythe is an old model.

What is odd about his scythe that we can see has to deal with the fact that he's using a skeleton and oddly enough the skull has a thorn crown on it. This is an odd allusion to Jesus, which would make sense giving the timeline of the story.

Another interesting thing that the Undertaker has is a mourning chain. This also is where we learn that the Undertaker knew the Phantomhive family. Each locket is detailed quite nicely just like in the manga. Though it is really interesting to see see the lockets in color.

I really enjoy how Kotobukiya got the smile of his down, as it is the most interesting and unique feature of him. It's rather a creepy yet cute facial expression of his. Also I enjoy the scar and how it looks on his face, I am really excited for him.

The Undertaker figure is 1/8 scale from Kotobikiya and is about 12,000yen roughly depending where you may order it from. The figure will be released on October 2015 if there are no complications with manufacturing.

Golden Week- Shops Are Closed and a bit of Life Update

If you rely on Japanese websites like I do for things, you'll notice that pretty much all of them have come to a standstill for the first week of May. This has to deal with their holiday called Golden Week. But why is it that most things come to a standstill when it comes to sites like Amiami and such? It mainly has to deal with every one taking their vacation time and it's a popular time for travel (this includes overseas travel as well). So even though the celebration ends May 5th in Japan, most companies will observe the holiday time for just a bit longer.

So even though I know Golden Week is happening I keep going to sites like Amiami and then being sad because I know there's no updates. I've been having a bit of health problems and I still feel a bit sick from time to time, along with school and there's a ton of writing in both along with basically at least 4 chapters of reading. But I will have more updates; I have lots of pictures and I still have to edit all the pictures from the GSCxMax Factory panel from Sakura-con even though it's late. Also I've been watching One Piece, from the very beginning.

More updates will be soon, also I have a convention even though it's small this week about ball joint dolls, so I will probably talk about that too.

More Sakura-con Fun from Good Smile Company

Today I was bombarded with all sorts of information from Good Smile Company about what they were bringing for Sakura-con. We only have the images of the limited items that they're bringing for sure, but that's enough to know I will have to be there early, as soon as the dealers hall opens.

They're bringing the Snow Miku again. Even though I have already the nendoroid on preorder, if they're avaliable I will so be getting another one, because I really think she's a cutie. Also for sure want those capsule toys and the Kyoko and Sayaka from Madoka Magica. I mean I already have three different Madoka nendoroids, but I really like that Kyoko, because it is what we see her wearing for most of the series. Also those cute capsule toys, I just want to line up all the cuties on top of my monitor or near my bed because cuties being cute.

Also we're getting the whole faceplate drawing thing, and that's going to be fun. I can't remember where I saw this at, but I remember seeing a video from Japan with this; it may have been something about Wonfes but I am not sure. Anyway super stoked for this little event, as it should be a lot of fun. I mean who doesn't love drawing on blank faces.

I just checked the Sakura-con website and found that there's a link to a video that GSC has put out for it, so here it is.   

 I am really excited for all the events from GSC and will be looking forward to the live sculpting event which is followed by a Q&A about the Japanese collectibles industry.

Really stoked and barely over a week left before the fun.

Pure Neemo-Kohina Ichimatsu

If you haven't watched Gugure! Kokkuri-san; it's based off a supernatural humor slice of life 4koma manga featuring a girl named Kohina Ichimatsu and the god Kokkuri whose based off the children's game of summoning a fox spirit to answer questions similarly like a Ouija board. The start of the story is that she summons Kokkuri and her life gets all crazy as he doesn't want to abandon the girl, due to her nature and proclaiming she is a doll.

Most of the time, she is in a form where she looks less human compared to her surroundings. Including the fact when she smiles the pieces on her face shuffles.

How Kohina looks most of the time in the manga and anime

But every once in a while you see the true form of Kohina a small young girl, with big piercing eyes that seem very sad.

But as she is a doll it was only a matter of time before a doll company would put out a doll of her... And Azone was the one to do it. Azone has a very anime aesthetic more so than Dollfie Dream in my opinion due to the fact the eyes are printed or painted on rather than having holes for them and inserting eyeballs. 

They also replicated her bob haircut in such a cute fashion, and her eyes are simply adorable they go along so well with her small mouth. The only thing I don't like about what I have seen of the doll from Azone's images is the actual uniform of Kohina.

The uniform from the images doesn't look to be of a really good quality. but that doesn't really matter as I can make a better and cuter uniform for her instead of what she has on. And of course I will want to put her in super cute outfits as well besides her main clothing. I've never had a tiny doll before, so when I get her it will be interesting.

Kohina Ichimatsu stands at 23cm tall or 1/6 size and is coming out September 2015.

*Even though she's not a ball jointed doll she'll be under the BJD tag because she is a jointed doll

What I want out of 2015-Resolutions and the like

While of course I have a whole bunch of resolutions (go back to school, find a better job-both which I am currently working on). I always write a resolution for things that I like to do for the year. Goals in my fandom that I can work on. So here are my 2015 Otaku resolutions.

Stop buying so much on Amiami
This one is the hardest for me since Amiami makes it so easy to just load up your cart with preorders. To the point where it was getting pretty bad for me. Honestly even without another hobby major money sink hobby, I was spending on the average 40,000 yen a month (with shipping) on orders since after Sakuracon, and that honestly needs to stop, since I'm back in school and saving so I don't have to take out loans

I started to limit myself and look over my priorities already. I put a cap on myself that limits to no more than 20,000 yen a month which means only a few things each month can be purchased, and I have to choose wisely. So far I am doing great though, I have a few preorders for a few months, but a lot of the months are actually empty since I'm just not willy-nilly just shoving stuff into the cart.

Buy a fightstick
This is something I've been wanting for a long time but have never actually gotten around to purchasing for whatever reason.

Eightarc Ivory Fightstick

I love fighting games, but arcades aren't really a thing in the US anymore due to online play and everything. I've been playing fighters steadily since Street Fighter 2 and long for play with a balltop joystick. But man... These things are expensive. Even cheap ones will put you back a bit, but you still want something good though, or at least with parts that are good.

I'm honestly thinking about a prebuilt Qanba with Sanwa parts in them, since I like the feel of those buttons more than Seimitsu. Whenever I went to an arcade with Seimitsu parts it always felt like I had to beat down on the button in comparison to rather light taps with Sanwa.

Make sure to update with more Otaku and game content more
Though I actually did much better than I thought I would with blogging last year, I surely could do better and I will hopefully this year. I plan to update at least once a week with a substantial blog post that includes;game review, analysis or even coverage from conventions/events that I go to.

Overall I feel like I just need to blog more and make more content related to it that I and others will enjoy. I have a lot of fun blogging and telling people about stuff that goes on, and I hope it does come out in my writing.

Hope that 2015 goes great for everyone~

Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler-Ciel Phantomhive Scale Figure Impressions

Kotobukiya came out with another preorder for their ARTFX-J line and I was a bit surprised by it to be honest. A Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler figure wasn't something I would have thought would be done. But I guess the success of the Book of Circus arc and going back to the manga series for a reboot shows that it's a good idea for marketing and fans. But I am surprised that Kotobukiya would release Ciel first before any other character, since it seems Sebastian has already been prototyped out. But I'm not going to complain as I do love Ciel as a character.

Up close Ciel's face looks so lovely and the detail in the eye is so amazing. I like how they made the clothing rather simple in color but yet those slight details in the clothing and accessories make the figure just pop even more. But more than anything else the base is something else, just amazing.

Chess tends to be a reoccurring theme in the manga series as it constantly alludes to many other things (though they don't play chess all that much). But the base for Ciel is simply gorgeous. The finer details just make the base simply breathtaking. 

The Ciel figure itself is 1/8 scale and is 11,000yen roughly (depending on where you order it) and is being released in March 2015 if the manufacturing isn't pushed back.

Expect to see a full review of the figure once I get it in my hands. Because I am super excited for it already.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun a brief overview

What happens when a boy writes a monthy girl's comic? Well you get Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Umetaro Nozaki (foreground) and the Roman high school main cast

The series itself is an adaptation of a 4-koma manga of the same title. Its simple premise starts with a girl named Chiyo Sakura who tells Umetaro Nozaki that she is a fan of his. Which turns out she gets a sign board with his pen name instead of an acknowledgement of her affection for him.

Which starts the fun hijinks of the series.

Chiyo Sakura pretty much gets invited over to Nozaki's apartment and then works on doing beta (filling in the blacks on manga manuscripts) which Nozaki mentions that he had his eyes on her for a while; as he mentioned a draw that she colored for a school poster that dealt with washing hands.

Chiyo Sakura more commonly addressed by her last name

Chiyo's introduction into the world of manga and more importantly how it affects her school life is quite an interesting one, as she learns that people are not what they seem. Or rather characteristics within one gender reflect differently in another and may be ideal. With her first interaction with Mikoto Mikoshiba, she feels as if he is just a crude person who is great around women.

Mikoto Mikoshiba more commonly known as Mikorin

While in reality Mikoshiba is a rather shy and pure person, which is why he his nickname is "Mikorin". Within Sakura meeting him, she thinks that he's annoying to some content but then looks at Mikoshiba in a different light when Nozaki casually mentions that Mikoshiba was the basis of one of his characters; the heroine, Mamiko.

That is the basis of the first two episodes of the anime so far. While I am writing this there are seven episodes out so far but with the flow of the actual show, seems easier to watch things in two episode intervals as it flows better.

So if this seems to sound interesting to you, I'd suggest to give it a shot. And if it doesn't, there's always the three episode rule. But to me Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is a great funny show that is a great adaptation of a 4-koma manga.

Evangelion x Sanrio 3DSLL Covers

The Eva Micro Macro series is just simply adorable, and I am thinking about getting a cover from it. I have the special Animal Crossing 3DSLL and I am tired of its poptart looking cover. So I thought I might get one of these.

The first one is just a mash-up of the main characters and then Misato in the back. It's a very simple but yet very eye catching design.

The second one deals with Kaworu and Shinji and them listening to music together looks super adorable.

To be honest I do like the big images compared to the small ones, and I wonder if the back and front is seperate. If it is I would so buy both of them and combine them together.
I am going to buy some stuff from the Eva Store by the end of summer, since it does have some quite interesting stuff.

Monster Girls and Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary

Monster girls; they're girls who happen to be monsters or could also be oni,yurei or yokai as well. The best way to explain them is that they're just a little different than others.

While I am not surprised that the Japanese had started liking these sorts of girls, I am more surprised that the international audience seems to love them just as much. While I saw the phenomenon unveil with my eyes over threads on the internet and anons talking I really wasn't interested in it, but I did end up buying "A Centaur's Life" for a friend as a gift last holiday season. When I saw the cover I couldn't help but think the centaur was adorable and so were her friends on the cover.

A Centaur's Life vol. 1 cover from Seven Seas

Now I really didn't read it since it was a gift but my friend said that it was a great present and she wanted more of it. Her favorite part was that it was just about the everyday life of a girl who just happened to be a centaur. Which I do honestly think it's something interesting to think about, life from another point of view.

As time went on I started to watch the threads again in /a/ and saw that someone posted something very interesting, a school nurse who just happened to be a cyclops. I thought Hitomi-sensei was a cute and short story, a monster girl tugging at my own heart strings with her adorable big eye; but it wasn't just her looks but her caring personality and her own insecurities that made me love her as a character. Not much of it was translated if I recall correctly just a handful of chapters.

But then, on June 16 Seven Seas Entertainment released more information on their 2015 releases.

Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary cover from Seven Seas

It's Hitomi-sensei!

I honestly have no idea if it is just Seven Seas just keeping up on the growing love of these monster girls or if they pay attention to certain threads on the internet. But, you know I really like Hitomi and am glad that she's getting a more general release to the international audience.

I am one of those people who tend to be more picky about what I buy when it comes to manga and books and want stuff that I would pick up and read over and over. I don't need any more manga underneath my bed that will never get read again after I finished. I know I will be preordering the manga once we get a release date out for it.

Monthly Purchase June-Part One

I know I will have quite a few purchases from June so they're going in parts, there should be three parts if I end up not combining them, but I tend to though. As usual the purchase is from Amiami and contains an assortment.

Yotsuba&! Figure, Little Busters Nendoroid, Steins;Gate CD single and traveling mug, Kill la Kill BD and shirt, Hozuki no Reitetsu BD

Mostly everything that I got from this package, there is a book that isn't pictured but I will go into that later.

Yotsuba Figure and Kamikita Komari Nendoroid

While I was really excited for the Yotsuba figure I was rather sad seeing how small she stands in comparison to other scale figures. But I guess at the same time I am going to be standing her between two different Danboards so it shouldn't be that much of a problem in comparison, after all Yotsuba is just a child after all, so I guess she should be small in comparison to other figures.

As for the Little Busters nendoroid, I haven't watched Little Busters yet, nor have I played the VN as well. But it is on my backlog things to do. I must say though, I actually just bought her because she looked so adorable and her expressions are completely moe I could just die.

Stiens;Gate "Hacking to the Gate" CD single, Kill la Kill BD vol. 5 and Hozuki no Reitetsu BD vol.3

I've talked about my Steins;Gate mug in detail, so I'm not going to be talking about it anymore... But if you want to know why I bought it, here is the main reason.

Along with that I also bought the Hacking to the Gate CD single from the anime, I actually like the OP theme a lot and wanted it so I ended up buying a copy, while I should have bought the "Best Vocals" album I also like the idea of starting up again a CD collection but since the US is getting rid of CDs (or at least it seems that way) it looks like my entire collection is going to be Japanese CDs and CD singles; which isn't a bad thing to me.

Kill la Kill volume 5 BD is really cool as it features Gamagoori and Sanageyama not only on the cover but each are on a respected disk, Sanageyama is on the Original CD Soundtrack Vol. 2 while Gamagoori, accompanied on his head by Mako and Guts, is the actual BD disk itself. I personally haven't listened to the CD soundtrack yet but will later this week.

The other BD is Hozuki no Reitetsu. I don't know how many of you watched the series as it was airing or are reading the manga, but Japanese supernatural stories are kind of something I have liked since I was smaller (loved Gegege no Kitaro). So watching a glorified assistant to King Enma doing his daily routine of helping out in the various hells was just a blast. Supposedly it was picked up by Sentai Filmworks but honestly it's a rather short series with only 13 episodes, so it's pretty much the standard two episodes per BD. But the interesting thing about the Hozuki BDs is that you were able to chose between A and B. A having the drama CD accompanying it while B has something they call "Jigoku Goods" featuring Hozuki's plant/goldfish hybrid plant. Volume three features a small pouch that you can use for pencils and cosmetics.

Kill la Kill "Kamui Banshou" book

This supplemental book for Kill la Kill is really interesting, not only does it contain the standard things you'd find in a supplemental book like character synopsys and episode details but also talks a deal about their process in general like the 3D in episode 3 among other things. Even if you can't read Japanese this is a good book as a point of reference for images for drawing or just in general to see how Studio Trigger does their thought process.

One thing is for sure though I do want Sushio to come out with a Kill la Kill artbook though.

Why No Witchcraft Works on Kinokuniya?

Publisher Vertical set out their new for 2014 list of manga that they were bringing out and two of them really surprised me; Tonari no Seki-kun and Witchcraft Works.

Witchcraft Works vol. 1 cover

Now I watched the anime adaptation for this manga series when it aired and I must say I really like the idea behind it. The characters overall are very endearing and the main male isn't what I was actually expecting in a show with a 90% female cast.

It's already got a release date of October 21,2014 but here is my gripe. You can preorder it on Amazon, but for some reason it's not up on Kinokuniya's web page. Now I would use Amazon to preorder the manga, but I have a Kinokuniya member card. The card is already worth it to me since you get 10% off pretty much every full price item in the store (sans magazines I believe) but it also includes a good deal of the figures as well.

I am just hoping within the next few months they update so that I can preorder the manga, because I am really excited for it to come out.