Otaku Champloo

Hrmm… a little late, but it’s better late than never! \o/

This year, rather than talking about the animes I’ve seen and loved this year, I’d share to you one of the best things I’ve had for a year.

I’ve always been hesitant to buy manga magazines. I think for the longest time, I’ve been pondering over subscribing to Shounen Sunday or Shounen Jump. For a while, I even pondered about subscribing to Kiss. Somehow, I never really had the chance to subscribe even if I was actually interested in it. Until last year, when a little trip to the grocery store got me wondering if I could actually get a subscription locally.

When 2008 started, I realized that a local Japanese Grocery store¹ carried the magazine, Morning. Now, I’ve been eternally curious about Morning since Ed from Mangacast spoke highly of it. More so, a couple of titles I’ve been interested in were running there, such as Kami no Shizuku and Kinou Nani Tabeta. It wasn’t my usual cup of tea (really, I was more interested in Shounen Jump), but I thought I’d give it a shot. So I bought a copy. The next thing I know, I was already asking the manager if I can get a subscription.

Sure, Morning doesn’t have the most popular titles among kids but it does have a great array of reads that I did not expect. It ranges from the unexpectedly cute with Chi’s Sweet Home to the intense Zipang.  As I flip through the pages, I fell in love more and more with the magazine, unexpectedly drawn to read stories that I’d probably wouldn’t give a second look if I was browsing a shelf. And for this I’m grateful for the magazine. Morning has nice stories to tell and if I hadn’t read the magazine, I wouldn’t know how wonderful these stories are.

In a year, I found myself enjoying a couple of titles. Here’s a rundown of my favorites currently running in the magazine.

• Kami no Shiziku (The wine manga we’ve all been dying to get translated!)
• Kinou Nani Tabeta (The Yoshinaga Fumi foodie manga we long to read about.)
• Piano no Mori (A story of a young boy who found love for music in the middle of a forest)
• Uchuu Kyoudai (A story of brothers gunning to take over space)
• Shima Shima (Can’t sleep? Then let the boys of Strip Sheep cuddle you to bed)
• Chi’s Sweet Home (Ah~ Cute little Chi~! Who can’t resist this kitty!?)
• Himawari (The dreams of a small town OL to become a mangaka²)
• Billy Bat (Urasawa’s Morning contribution. It’s becoming more trippy by the chapter! I love it!)

See, I didn’t expect to actually end up reading more than the 2 titles I actually bought Morning for.  Last year, they even published a New Year’s St. Oniisan chapter in Morning and I owe it to that chapter for introducing me to St. Oniisan.

If there’s one thing I love about Morning, it’s how their catch phrase is not a lie. On every cover of Morning, there’s a catch phrase that says “読むと元気になる” (When you read this, you’ll feel great). And certainly my mornings feel great, thanks to Morning.

Popularity: 10% [?]

1. For Metro Manila residents, this is Yamazaki, the Japanese Grocery store near Makati Cinema Square [↩]
2. Don’t know much about this, but I caught Himawari during this said arc [↩]