Oh don’t worry. Bloggy as it sounds, it’s still related to manga! I think. Well, a couple of my friends invited me to go to this Japanese Burger place tonight. They came in really late. Thank god the store had manga magazines! So what did I do… I read ’em like any rabid manga snob would do. (????????????) ????????

The Japanese burger place, Sango, is found near COOP, near Makati Cinema Square. From MCS Mcdonalds, turn to the white building and just follow the road along those buildings. You will see the giant Sango sign, and you’ll be fine (I got rhyme!)! Not that it concerns the web, but a Filipino might chance upon this entry and check it out! Just helping a fellow foodie! BUT THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME! IT’S ABOUT THE MAGAZINES!! If you actually want to catch the latest issues of lovely magazines such as Big Comic Original, Big Comic Spirits, Young Jump, Morning, Business Jump (I didn’t even read this!! It scares me) and a volume of Zipang, then head on to Sango! While you’re at it, order some burger and fries. It’s yumtastic!

Yes. Since there were magazines, and since I was on the waiting game, I actually had the luxury to read! And naturally I read Pluto under Big Comic Original, Addicted to Curry and Gantz under Young Jump. There was another thing I read, but I can’t seem to put myself to remember what it is. It was probably due to my focus on reading Pluto. I was spoiled silly. The last chapter I read was 26. The magazines has Chapters 30 and 31.

And what have I learned?

Dammit! Don’t read the damn manga until you’ve got the one in between.

Not that I don’t understand anything. Well… I understood as far as Hans receiving orders to kill Gesicht. I also understood the involvement of a project by some Newton II guy and how this developed energy was given to Atom and this was a technology to make robots more human! And well, I DON’T EVEN KNOW IF ATOM IS ALIVE AFTER CH. 26!!! Ah~~ (?????????????) ?????????????? I look at Epsilon and the others and they look as though ‘THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ATOM’ but I have a deep gut instinct that somethig horrible has happened (hence, here I am getting my copies around… AND yay for friends who keep raws around for idiots like me! YAY I got it now. Will read it a little later!).

Pluto is one of the most highly anticipated mangas in Japan right now. I would call it the ‘grandiose fanfic/fanart’ as this is Naoki Urasawa’s take on the world of Tetsuwan Atom, or as the rest of the world calls “Astro Boy”. It has received an Osamu Tezuka Award in comics last 2005 (winning over Nodame), and I have not lost love for this series as Naoki Urasawa’s touch leaves a very real aftertaste to our most loved fictional friend, Atom. Well, honestly, this isn’t the entirely best place to expound on it. Perhaps when I give a review on Pluto next time. However, at this rate, I guess one of the most obvious things on earth is how much I love Naoki Urasawa. Yeah. The man has changed the way I appreciate manga forever.

I also read Addicted to Curry, which was, at the rate where I read it, was already at ch. 240. The last one I read was probably around 44. My heart aches and yearns for this lovely cooking manga. The chapters tackled a TV cooking competition wherein the theme was curry. One guy, the ‘Genie’ (despite the usage of tensai as its side kanji) of French Cooking, did a blood sausage for a curry, while the other guy did… A DESSERT CURRY! It shocks me still how this can be done but it would really blow me over to taste this dessert foie gras curry. I’m not entirely sure if it’s dessert. They were talking about how sweet the food was and I was thinking how awful that curry would taste if it were sweet. But if it were dessert it would be relatively okay. Sometimes, the culinary ideas coming out of cooking mangas baffle me greatly, but since they have food advisers (this I can really vouch for since Takashi Hashiguchi often mentioned him having a baking consultant for Yakitate! Japan) I guess it could be done!

Ah~! Today, I am more and more amazed at the world of manga. Maybe next time, I’d check on that Business Jump magazine and see what I could read.