If you like online comics but are tired of video game geek humor with a twist of hipness, give The Chopping Block a try. I’ve been following it for about a year now, but haven’t bothered to put an entry up. It shows slice-of-life humor in the life of a serial killer. Repeat themes involve cannibalism, collecting human organs, and the mummified remains of the killer’s mom. It’s dark but often inspired humor.

It looks like the fine folks at ushi have had quite enough BS from other translators mooching their scans without consent, so Air Gear has been discontinued as one of their projects. I’ve known about this for a while, so that aspect isn’t really news. The news is that I just found out last night that SnoopyCool has picked up that ball and will be running with it. At present, there are 4 volumes of this title available in Japan (and likely at your local Kinokuniya), and ushi only got through the first volume plus one chapter. The title is by Oh Great!, the same author as Tenjo Tenge. It’s about flying street gangs on roller blades, so take that as you will. The art is great, as expected from this mangaka, and it looks like he’s finally found a story that doesn’t require too much ecchi content. Check it out if you get the chance.

So… Now that the Tenjo Tenge anime has been released (and fansubbed), I’ll chitter on about something else entirely for a while. While in Japan earlier this year, I was suprised to see that One Piece is still on the shelves there. Amazed by its staying power in the fickle Consumer Market of the Rising Sun, I resolved to finally check it out when I got home. And check it out I did… I’ve read 23 volumes of it now, and I’m quite thoroughly hooked. It entails the journey of Luffy D Monkey, a young man determined to become the King of Pirates…. No mere verbal description can do this series justice. Just check out the anime or the manga and see for yourself. If you don’t instantly drop your pants in excitement, give it a couple chapters. It grows on you like a fungus.

Avex Mode, the same folks who brought us the One Piece anime, are gearing up to release an animated version of Tenjo Tenge. As you may recall, Tenjo Tenge is a manga made available in English through the kindly efforts of mangatranslation.com. It entails the struggle between Nagi Souichiro and the Jyukenbo fighting club versus the insidious Enforcement Group. The manga is a high-quality school-ruffian/martial arts drama with some adult themes interspersed. Fugu Tabetai, the fan scanslator of the manga, has done a great job of bringing this title to us, even going so far as to personally host Bittorrents for each of the first ten volumes. Fansubbed versions of the anime may not be available through reputable organizations, as Geneon Animation already has distribution rights to it before it has even aired in Japan.

It looks like the fine folks at Manga Inc have gotten their happy little hands onto Volume 3 of School Rumble. Due to recent diskspace and quota increases at My ISP I have been able to keep my temporary http archive of this title up and running. It now includes up to chapter 33, wherein Tenma’s inner peace is threatened by the appearance of his former classmates.

It has occurred to me that in all my postings about such silliness as Itsudatte My Santa and Green Green and other titles that I’ve had a passing interest in, I’ve neglected to mention prominently one that I’ve truely been enjoying for several months now. The fine folks at akatsukimanga.com have been translating Pretty Face, a title by Yasuhiro Kano.

Brief summary is: boy is horribly injured in an accident, but the doctors don’t know who he is to help reconstruct his face. They use a picture of the girl he has a crush on as representative of what he is to look like. Now he looks like that same girl’s twin. Stupid? Yes. Silly? Absolutely. Overflowing with cheap sexual humor possibilities? You betcha. Worth a try.

I’ve been following another scanslated manga while waiting from Tenjo Tenge volume 10 to hit the streets (which is has now). School Rumble is its name, and though you wouldn’t know it by the title, it is not a high school fighting manga at all.

It follows a young high school student’s crush on one of her classmates, and another classmate who has a crush on her. It is reminiscent of Azumanga Daioh in its silly slice-of-life comedic style, but with a heavy romantic-interest approach to things. It is being translated by the uninterestingly-named Manga Inc, which describes this work as “Just some sloppy scanlated manga.” Their translation is rife with minor grammatical and spelling errors, but this title is a gem in the rough. In the interest of not encouraging usenet binaries spamming, I have placed a temporary http archive of this title in my webspace. Please do not be alarmed when I remove it in the near future: I like this title a lot, but am not in the business of fansub distribution.

The title of the manga can be translated as “one against 1,000” or interpreted as “the strength to overcome 1,000” but the manga and anime for Ikki Tousen is really just a crossbreed between Street Fighter and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a lengthy historical drama regarding the “warring states” period of Chinese history. This was a time when rival warlords (princes, kings, sovereigns, whatever) were nearly constantly at war with each other. It was during this time that the writings of Sun Tzu were created, and the wisdom of Lao Tzu and Kung Fu Tzu took root in Chinese culture. Street Fighter, of course, is a video game in which contestants pummel each other with a variety of flashy karate maneuvers for no apparent reason.

A manga re-enacting the RotTK incorporating lots of flashy martial arts would be great (the Dynasty Warriors series of video games has attempted this). Ikki Tousen, however, takes place in modern Japan. The characters all conveniently have the same names as the generals and advisors from RotTK, and apparently are to varying degrees reliving the events of the ancient story. The Japanese versions of the names, of course, and instead of kingdoms these people are gangs that run some high schools.

The martial arts action is amusing, the character development largely accomplished by means of ominous summaries from the RotTK (e.g. “Sonsaku Hakufu was a great general reputed to…”) from the narrator. The character design in the manga is pretty good, though a bit heavy on the ecchi (can Hakufu have a fight without her shirt being ripped open? Not during the first few installments). The director of the anime clearly felt that showing off girls’ underwear was the primary reason to convert this story, and he does quite a lot of it.

I recommend Ikki Tousen for a quick read when you’ve got nothing better to do, and a reasonably good waste of hard drive space if you feel inclined to download it. You’re not going to be seeing any innovative characters, the depth of the plot is only “potential” at this point, and the potential is scarce (as of Episode 8 of the anime, or Volume 2 Chapter 6 of the manga), and technical merit of the animation team is mediocre. Note that this is produced as a television series, so they were operating under airtime deadlines. Cut the poor schmucks some slack when judging this one.

Everybody has a job to do, and obligations to a higher cause. With Scrapped Princess 20, we start seeing some very clear indications of where everybody’s loyalties really lie. Finally we get an indication of Major Sturm’s loyalty to his crown as opposed to his loyalty to his people. We see how far Shannon is willing to go, and get a glimpse at why he has tried so hard to shelter his little sister. And hey, you gotta love any episode in which Shizu gets more dialogue than Pacifica! Get it while it’s hot!

Scrapped Princess has been on the air for eighteen episodes so far, and has been positively received amongst my personal anime-sharing buddies. Since last I wrote regarding this sword-and-socery sometimes-comedy, sometimes-drama, six episodes have hit our shores via a handful of fansubbers. Most significantly, what initially appeared to be an episodic series of mini-adventures is starting to come together into something much grander in scale. By the 15th episode, the loose ends start clearly converging, and by the 16th episode, every character from the Heretic Inspector to the Assassin Bard to the army Weapon’s Master that the Castle family has left in their wake is converging in an increasingly clear way.

What the final resolution will be remains cloudy: How will Pacifica Castle, the poison that will destroy the world, fare against the many and varied forced rallied against her? What will Christopher do with his special task force, with his conscience increasingly set against his duty? How will Shannon protect his sister with Shizu hounding him everywhere he goes? I really don’t know, but if the writers handle the rest of the series as artfully as they’ve scripted the last three episodes, I’m sure we’re in for quite a show.

The next episode airs on August 26th, so I hope to have a copy within the week.