Things have been pretty dry in the world of Japanese animation and comics for me these days. Speed Grapher, a new title by Gonzo, has been good so far, but most of the emphasis in the fansubbing and scanlation communities seems to be on high-school romance (read: harem) comedies and shoujo, both of which don’t hold a heck of a lot of appeal to me. I tripped across a pretty good new manga this week, however: Densha Otoko.

The basic premise is that a typical male geek, socially-inept and utterly lacking in self-confidence (an easy sympathetic match for your average scanlation reader) is on a train, wallowing in his state of lameness , when a belligerent drunk starts yelling at the other passengers. The geek, reluctantly, stands up to the drunkard, winning the momentary adoration of the middle-aged ladies that were being verbally abused, as well as the appreciation of a pretty young lady. The rest of the series largely revolves around the geek (we never get his name) looking for advice from total strangers on 2chan as to how he should handle his prospective relationship with the young lady. Supposedly this story is based on an actual thread on 2chan, which was fictionalized into a book, this comic, and a television drama.

It’s very funny, especially if you happen to be familiar with socially-retarded computer geeks. Unlike most romantic comedies that are circulating in the scanlation community, it is heavy of character development and very light on titillation and cheap “harem” tactics. Of course, I write this having only read 8 chapters of it, so it may yet take a turn for the worse. Check it out.

(Drama Wiki Entry regarding the TV show)

Noritaka Sawamura is a loser. He isn’t smart. He isn’t strong. He isn’t agile. He is, however, extremely tenacious. To win the heart of his fair maiden, Nakayama, he endeavors to become the high school King of Fighting. This series is full of slapstick, potty humor, social awkwardness, braggadocio, and pointless fist-fights. You’ll love it. Alas, there are no HTTP mirrors for this scanlation (at least not to my knowledge), so you’ll have to dust off the old IRC client, and head to #TamaScans@irc.irchighway.net for a copy. Tama Scans picked the title up only a few chapters ago, but I’m sure somebody has the first 25 chapters on an fserve somewhere.

TV-Tokyo’s airing of a School Rumble anime adaptation was something I initially viewed with unreasoning enthusiasm. As the initial air-date drew near, however, it struck me that as a long-time reader of the Mangainc translation of the manga, the animated version probably wouldn’t have a whole heck of a lot to offer me. After the first two or three episodes aired, I hungrily downloaded the fansubs, and watched each. The animation quality wasn’t anything to write home about, but pretty good for a TV anime. The character design and plot, however, were so similar to the manga that there just wasn’t a lot of incentive to continue watching. I already had 70 chapters (plus b tracks) of that plot read, digested, and thoroughly enjoyed.

Recently I had the opportunity to watch it through again, after a several-month hiatus from the print version. It’s a fun series, with a notably non-grating opening and end theme song for most of the series. The last episode was great, as it panders to what I expect would be a number of fan requests for how things should tie up. They didn’t go so far as to have Harima (the male protagonist) fall madly in love with somebody other than Tsukamoto Tenma (the main female protagonist), though a lot of American followers of the print version would have liked to see any number of alternative couplings result.

Ever since Inky retired from translating I’ve found myself increasingly withdrawn from the world of fansubs for both anime and manga. I’m just not involved in it as a community thing anymore, what can I say? A notable exception to this withdrawal has been Sunabouzu, a quirky action/comedy about a post-apocalyptic bounty-hunter/repo-man/total-badass.

Alas, the group that has been kind enough to provide translations of it in English (thanks, Lunar!) has been rather slow to release, with only 8 translations released while 22 originals have aired thus far. The artwork is… odd, with the animators clearly being more interested in making sure that they are portraying various firearms properly than keeping the characters visually-appealing, but the humor is outstanding. Give it a shot!

Once in a long, long while I run across a truly hilarious online comic. Typically these either fall into disrepair (Chopping Block) or spiral into depressing, almost fetishistic neurosis (MegaTokyo). Thus far, The Order of The Stick has resisted the evil forces of entropy, and has been providing me with quality D&D comedy for months now. It follows a stereotypical adventuring party through their trials and tribulations. The current plot-arc has the main characters leveling up, and a couple of them are entertaining the notion of multi-classing. Enjoy.

About a week and a half ago, Silver Dragon Manga released chapter one of the Grenadier manga. This title is a frequently-silly series that takes place in a bizarre incarnation of “ancient future japan” in which banditos with machineguns square off against six-gun toting gunslingers and sword-swinging samurai.

The main character, Rushuna, is on a quest to perfect the ultimate battle strategy: to break the opponent’s will to fight without fighting. She is cheerful, naive, and excellent markswoman, really enjoys a good bath, and is built for fanservice. If the manga continues as I suspect it will (I’ve seen the first two volumes of raws), expect a lot of cool fight scenes, some silly humor, and lots of non-threatening cleavage shots.

This weekend I sat down and started watching what can only be fairly described as the greatest Giant Robot series ever devised by man: Giant Robo. I had loaned my cassettes of this title to a buddy several years ago, and was overjoyed to see them finally returned. Giant Robo has everything you can ask for from a Giant Robot cartoon: a young boy entrusted with the care of the World’s Most Powerful Robot, an international cabal of terrorists bent on total world domination, a cast of characters that are simultaneously over-the-top and subtle, background music that oscillates between the Warsaw Philharmonic to classic 1970’s tokusatsu battle anthems.

Giant Robo is a seven-episode OAV that chronicles the seven days when Big Fire, the aforementioned international terrorist organization bent on world domination, uses the legacy of the Shizuma drive and the tragedy of Bashtarelle to wreck havoc upon the Earth. Interpol’s elite Experts of Justice, accompanied by Daisaku Kusama and Giant Robo, struggle to thwart the efforts of Big Fire throughout the series.

The craftsmanship behind this story are excellent; at the beginning of each episode we are re-introduced into the bold world of our future, where the Shizuma drive has brought clean, recyclable power to the world. We are reminded time and again of the many perfections that have been brought to humanity through this marvelous invention. Of course, Doctor Shizuma and his creation have a dark history which comes back to haunt the world; the Bashtarelle Incident, in which an entire nation was catastrophically destroyed during the final stages of the drive’s development. The attitudes of the cast towards this technology and their reactions as the terrible truth comes to be revealed is truly wonderful to behold.

If you get an opportunity to, rent or buy this classic. It has comedy, action, romance, tragedy, redemption, hope, honor, betrayal, vengeance, and forgiveness all bundled up into a few hours of stylistically-executed cartoon format. Heck, even the English dub isn’t that bad. EX has a more comprehensive review available, but reading it is a waste of precious time that could be better spent watching Giant Robo.

It looks like there will be a bit of a disruption in the School Rumble manga translation project, as the founder and lead translator for Manga! Inc. has thrown in the towel, and professes to not want to translate comics for us, the leeching public, anymore. Translating comics can be a tedious, tiresome, thankless job sometimes. Of course, tedious, tiresome, and thankless are characteristics of many jobs, but scanslation projects have no paychecks attached to make the tedium, energy, and indignity worthwhile. At this time, the futures of the School Rumble, Genzou Hitogata Kiwa, Higanjima, Jaja Uma Grooming Up, GacchaGacha, and NHK ni Youkoso are up in the air.

Thanks for over a year of fun manga, man.

As mentioned previously, there is a glut of moe anime hitting the television in Japan right now. One of which is a re-hash of a re-hash of a re-hash of the classic Go Nagai series Cutey Honey. The first remake emphasized the fanservice aspects of the title, the second tried to readjust the theme to better fit the Magical Girl craze of the mid-1990’s. This time around, in three 90-minute chunks of OAV glory, we see more of an emphasis on the seventies-nostalgia take on things. The magical-girl elements are still there, and it just wouldn’t be Cutey Honey without fan service, but stylisticly I must say that this one outpaces all previous incarnations of the title.

The story revolves around Honey Kisaragi, the perky daughter of Doctor Kisaragi. After his daughter died, the brilliant doctor created an android in her image. Now this android simulacrum of Honey Kisaragi battles the forces of evil, running around in tights with a sword, occassionally “transforming” into alternate forms. Mostly this involves her current outfit exploding off of her and a new outfit re-forming around her, giving her new abilities. The villains amount to a bunch of monsterous “bosses” and mobs of cookie-cutter henchlings that enjoy wrecking havok on Tokyo.

Add in an uptight police detective, a mysterious-but-charming man claiming to be a newspaper reporter, and a lot of bold, retro colorschemes and background music, and you have an enjoyable, if somewhat shallow 90 minutes of fun. Anime Forever is a group that is fansubbing it for us beigokujin.

Editorial note: at some point, the creators of Cutey Honey material started spelling it “Cutie Honey.” For the purposes of consistency, I am using the spelling I was originally exposed to.

Toei finally came out with the second episode of Interlude, and the kind folks at Triad were nice enough to provide free English versions to a western public that is starved for quality entertainment. I was first exposed to this title around the same time as Samurai Champloo, and had high expectations for both. I’m pleased to report that both haven’t let me down. Interlude continues to show the nature of the stange world that the protagonist has been catching glimpses of. He soon discovers that getting back out of the strange shadow-world may not be so easy.

I understand everything in this series will be wrapped up next episode, at least according to the fansubbers.