Posts Tagged ‘shounen jump’
I think I’m going to make a habit of this feature given this award has actually given me fruitful readings from last year. I personally have no regrets reading some of these titles and the likes of Aku no Hana (Flowers of Evil) and I am a Hero have become my favorite reads from last year. Of course, Silver Spoon is always a welcome casual read (but I really prefer Hyakusho Kizoku!) but all in all the Manga Taisho list is always interesting.
I’ve been on standby since last week for any announcements knowing it’s the “season” where the nominees are out. So I’m grateful that I was advised last night that the Manga Taishou list is out and now it’s a good time to figure out who might win it. I do wonder if any of you guys have read some of these. Hopefully, a good number of these titles will get licensed as well.
While I often complain that the Philippines does not have a rich localized manga industry like Singapore and Indonesia, we do have a very rich history in animation.
Some of you may have heard of members of Pixar coming from our shores, but for all the local otaku out there, did you know that Toei animation has been in Manila for 25 years?
Last Nov. 16, Toei celebrated their 25th anniversary in the Philippines, sharing the works that they’ve done all these years as well as some goodies (in fact, A LOT OF AWESOME merchandise!). Currently, Toei Manila is working on Precure, Toriko, and One Piece. Their animation history extends as far as Dragon Ball, Sailormoon, Kinnikuman, Hokuto no Ken, and Voltes V (The Philippine Fan favorite). Almost all of these titles have had their chances in being shown in local television.
Seeing the event reminded me of all the anime that was generously shown in local TV. I suppose, it’s not much of a surprise that Filipinos immediately associate Japan with anime rather than manga because most Filipinos encountered Japan through television… and World War II… but we’ll get to that later.
As soon as the new season of the Gintama anime started, I noticed a couple of tweets asking whether the Gin Tama1 manga was cancelled since the US Viz release of the 23rd volume was declared as the final volume. The manga is still going strong in Japan and when I checked my 23rd volume, it didn’t have a joke on being the last volume. Hence, I was surprised with the blurb in the same way that I was surprised that this even happened at all. How did one of Japan’s most popular titles close its pages in the US? Perhaps I should first ask: how did Gintama get translated in the first place?
- From here then on I will refer to Gintama as the Japanese version while Gin Tama as the VIZ releases [↩]
I thought that this has got to be the funniest joke but it turns out, it was no joke at all.
I’ve seen this being tweeted for some while but it wasn’t long until I finally saw the commercial for Shueisha’s new quarterly BL magazine (under its subsidiary Homesha), BL-ink.
But don’t they have Weekly Shounen Jump already?
I know. It’s crazy. But it seems Weekly Shounen Jump is not the “Sweet BL” that BL-ink is trying to offer. The magazine is a dedicated BL magazine for Homesha and I think this is perhaps an outright acceptance of the popularity of BL.1
What I found interesting was it took some google powers to find the site. It’s mostly mentioned as BLink which doesn’t come out much in searches. Looking at Shueisha’s website doesn’t even announce the magazine (or at least I didn’t see it.) I had to find the websites of actual authors in the magazine to actually figure out that it should be searched as BL-ink to finally find the proper search term for the said magazine.
As I mentioned, BL-ink will be sold more under Homesha, but it’s inevitable to not associate this publishing firm with Shueisha. In fact, in the advertisements, they would proudly put the banner of Shueisha as if it’s quite important and crucial that Shueisha’s involved in this. After all, the company has had a love affair with fujōshi especially with Shounen Jump.
- strangely, the niconico video has only been seen by 1000++ people! [↩]
I didn’t believe this at first but my good Japanese friend gave me a copy of a song, a fervent anthem for Shounen Jump! I don’t know if this is a real song but it seems to be sung by a real band named ザ・ブレッスン・フォア. They seem to have sung other anime songs such as Combattler V theme and the Kamen Rider theme.
The song is actually quite amusing and captures the spirit of the magazine’s kickass nature. So it tells you to share a punch or two with your siblings and never give up when you fall. Well, what do you expect from a song about Shounen Jump?
Enjoy listening to it. It’s quite a treat!
For those who wants to sing it, here are the lyrics. Sorry if I don’t translate it to romaji. A little pressed for time here. But for those who can read, enjoy!
Read more
kirsten on 
Anastasia on 
Guest on 
d4rkn on 
