It breaks my heart to share this news but as with everything, all good things come to an end. One of my favorite shoujo mangas, Ouran High School Host club, is coming to an end this coming September 24, on the 11th issue of Lala Magazine. The 10th issue this month also comes with a climax drama CD.
Well, compared to other shoujo mangas, I honestly like the direction of the last few volumes. It has been amazing so far and a wonderful happy wrap-up, fitting to such lovely lovely characters.
I suppose I’ll try to get a copy of this issue. Or maybe I can just try to buy the last volume as well. Either way, I’m excited. I have so much love for Tono and the rest of the host club!
Popularity: 30% [?]
The 6th volume of Ooku will be sold in Japan on August 28. According to Comic Natalie, along with the manga is a separate special volume which serves as a guidebook to the world of both the movie and the comic. It features interviews with the cast and Yoshinaga Fumi herself. I’m personally most intrigued by the Yoshinaga-sensei’s interview because I’ve always been fascinated at how she built the story for this one.
My interest for Japanese history is completely challenged by this series. While I do know it’s fiction, Yoshinaga showcases the emotions of real people. I do see the subtleties of Japanese court life in every page and also the passing reality of Japanese life at that period. It is surreal that it’s not real because for me, it would have passed off as something quite true if I read through my books. I hope in that interview, I get to see the wealth of research Yoshinaga-sensei does with every page. It’s really a brilliant series. I think the world would appreciate it more without its Fakespeare.
That aside, the guidebook also contains special illustrations and images for the movie. I’m excited for the movie as well and wish I could be in Japan on October just to catch. Oh well, we may not have that for now, but we can always just look at these lovely covers and hope it’ll get to our shores soon. The guidebook and volume 6 will be available in Japan on August 28.
Popularity: 62% [?]
I am shameless. Very shameless indeed.
I have been wanting to do this for the longest time but it’s only this afternoon that I actually managed to add some of my favorite mangakas over twitter. I was hesitant at first and added only those that I really really liked. And while I liked them, I realized I started to stalk their lives a little more. The way that Est Em has been wandering around Europe has been inspiring me to travel and Tagro’s crazy antics just… really proves to me on how perverted he can get.
Nonetheless, it’s an interesting glimpse on their minds and if you want to keep up on their projects, it’s nice to see whether they’re wasting their time or hasn’t seen a ray of sunshine. Sometimes, they like to post about their food and it makes me incredibly hungry. Especially Tagro. I honestly read a little of HenZemi, but I like looking at his food posts.
I got the list online from Tanbishugi and am following the following mangakas:
- @zi38 – Miwa Shirow
- @TAGRO – Tagro
- @hikakom – Hikaru Nakamura
- @wakasugi_k – Wakasugi Kiminori
- @est_em – Est Em
- @enneono – Natsume Ono
- @okamarble – Okama
- @korinntonn – Ueda Rinko
- @beef_or_beef – Yamashita Tomoko
- @Takashigee – Shigeyoshi Takagi
- @levizo – Aoi Levin
Naturally most of their tweets will be in Japanese, but for those who can read, it’d be quite interesting to see the lives and preoccupations of your favorite mangas. (And what they’re doing when they’re slacking off!!!)
Popularity: 32% [?]
Ah~ I think for the entire evening I was hoping it wasn’t. However, it seems that the author of Crayon Shin-chan, Ushio Yoshito did die in a mountain hiking/climbing accident.
Now, I’m not exactly sure how popular Crayon Shin-chan is in the US or elsewhere. In the Philippines, there was a time when we were graced by Shin-chan’s humor when a local television station showed the anime with barely little cuts. His voice actor was even this famous rapper in our country and he even did a rap of Shin-chan’s famous “Zou~san. Zou~san.” pick-up line. In our country, Shin-chan’s mom Misae will forever be known as Carmen. I really wish someone had a you tube video of this track, but see, this anime only ran for a very short while. We were graced with only a few episodes and I’m quite sure it was taken because parents may have found Shin-chan’s humor too disrespectful to older folks, especially to Carmen. But us, older kids, loved the humor that came with Shin-chan. I wouldn’t exactly peg his humor to be intentional (maybe, sometimes, oh we know he’ll grow up to a sadist, right), but it was hard to get mad at such an adorable kid like Shin-chan.
I will miss seeing more of the boy, now that his creator is gone. I’ll miss him. Annoying as he was.
The other sad news goes to losing Akira Kamiya in Detective Conan. I’m totally disheartened by this. It’s an easy voice to imitate, but… a part of me feels Mouri might not exactly feel the same.
Popularity: 4% [?]
For me, summer has come to an end, but for everyone else, summer’s just about to begin. Particularly this season, a couple of tastefully sweet mangas are either being animated or is being enacted into live action. And I say you shouldn’t miss them. And no, it’s not because they’re BL (actually, only one of them is) but it’s because for those who have a sweet tooth, it would be great to finally see, in full motion, how some of the sweets featured in these mangas were made. Because of series like Antique Bakery and Andou Natsu being animated, this summer is more than just watermelons.
To start with, we have strawberry shortcakes coming from the cast of Antique Bakery. By now, everyone knows about Antique Bakery. A lot of girls started professing eternal support for Fumi after reading this series. And boys pretty much got the jist from their girl friends and is relieved that at least the j-dorama didn’t make Ono gay. However, once Toshokan Sensou ends in July, Fuji TV’s Noitamina slot will be featuring Antique Bakery. And yes this time round, Ono will be gay. I will not go at length on how much I’m excited about this. I think I’ve mentioned it before already, but yes, expect to see some care in the creation of really yummy pastries from them. The detail Fumi places everytime Ono whips up a desert always made me hungry. I have to make sure that I have a cookie with me while watching this series. I think my tummy will be crying the whole time if I didn’t.
On the other hand, I am just as excited for Andou Natsu. It was announced last week that they’ll be bringing out this yummy manga about an aspiring pattisiere who eventually dedicated her craft to the creation of okashi or Japanese sweets. I first crossed this manga when I was reading Big Comic Original (blame Pluto). It really didn’t leave a great impact to me then, but somehow fate wants me to read this manga that when I asked my teacher1 to send me a manga of his choice as a recommendation, he sent me Andou Natsu. I know Karl loves his food mangas so I know that this has got to be something that he has sifted through the lot. And surprisingly, this manga is more than just sweets, but it also speaks of the preservation of the trade of Japanese sweets, one craft that is slowly losing out to the likes Antique Bakery (lol.)
Yes, I love Andou Natsu because it shares to us readers something that we can definitely find only in Japan (or if you’re lucky, at your local grocery). Okashi is a delicate trade of making sweets using ingredients that are indigenous to Japan. So some of these okashi are your mochi packed with sweet an, colored in naturally edible dyes, made painstakingly with much dedication and brute strength, and perhaps served fresh every day.
What is great about the story is it’s not just about a girl trying to get in the trade, but rather, just like the girl, it raises your level of awareness on how the sweets were made and the lengths that people are doing in order to protect their craft that is slowly losing to Hersheys and Meiji chocolates. More than that, the manga has a nice warm feeling to it wherein the characters nurture not only their associates in the store, but also the nearby community that supports and patronizes their sweet.
These two great mangas may not have big cook-offs and shining dishes, but their sweet tales is something that’ll make you think how life is more than a box of chocolates. My sweet tooth will definitely be spoiled this summer.
Popularity: 17% [?]
- I’m forever grateful, Karl-sensei!! [↩]
Kreuz on 
