[Daily Manga Typing][#1] (12/17/2010)

These past two or so weeks I've been lucky enough to be able to increase my manga collection by a significant amount. Here is the list:
Alice in the Country of Hearts 1
Bokurano Ours 1
Butterflies, Flowers 1
Crown of Love 1
Deadman Wonderland 1
Dogs 1 & 2
Kimi ni Todoke 3
Me & My Brothers 1 & 2
Millennium Snow 2
Otomen 5
Phantom Dream 1-5 (complete series)
Princess Ai and the Prism of Midnight Dawn 2
RE:play 3 (complete series)
We Were There 1-3

I've read most of these, so here is some commentary:
Alice in the Country of Hearts~ I'm impressed with this take on Alice in Wonderland, which there seems to be a current boom of adaptations out there. I liked how each version of the Alice characters were made bishounen style and Alice herself is not the girly girl from the version most people know (the Disney one). I can't wait for volume 2.
Butterflies, Flowers~ I've more recently gotten into the josei [def] side of manga, which is like realistic shojo that also usually ends up getting into smut XD (btw, a really good josei is Desire Climax) and this is a good example of josei. It's the first one I've bought and the story wasn't half bad. It was like a mix of Midnight Secretary and Desire Climax.
Crown of Love~ It seems the creator of Loveless can draw a manga that's not boys love, and that I approve of! I'm not a boys love fan, so when an artist who I like the style of who is an artist that is famous for boys love draws a normal shojo I'm of course gonna give that series a try ^_^ and this one is pretty ok considering it seems a lot like Skip Beat.
Deadman Wonderland~ AH HA, I read this one while at the hospital the other day and it was epic! This manga brought back my faith in Tokyopop because lately the quality of their manga was slacking when it came to paper quality but Tokyopop did really good with this one and I felt like I got what I paid for.
DOGs~ I started reading this series before but for some reason I ended up stopping. Later on I ended up watching the ova and fell in love with the story so when I found out Viz was going to release the manga I told myself I had to have it. And I love the style this artist has.
Millennium Snow~ It's like Twilight in the eyes of the manga-ka behind Orian High School Host Club.... 'cause it's by the same manga-ka! LOL. Apparently the second volume isn't the last but the series hasn't been completed >.>
Otomen~ I adore this manga-ka's style so darn much that when more from the artist comes out (I already have all of Blank Slate) that I'm buying it like I can't live without it! I really reccomend this series for shojo lovers and it is hilarious! I think every single manga fan should read this one.
Princess Ai PoMD~ Meh... the story got really interesting at the end but the magic of the first Ai series seems to have been lost in this one. The manga-ka seems to have gotten lazy with the way the art is at some points.
RE:play~ T__T I don't know why I was such a huge fan of this series when I first read volumes 1 and 2 because volume 3 made me realize how the series just did not flow well and the art style was like a hybrid mix of Bleach and DOGs.... which looked like a rip rather than a unique version. Oh, and the art was some what good in the first volume and got increasingly lazy looking towards the end.

[Anime of the Week] (2/14-20/2010) Adaptations of American stuffz

I've been really impressed these past few years with how Japan has adapted several American concepts (most of which are comics and recently video games) into anime and manga. Since this is my anime of the week feature on Adaptations of American stuffz I will only be focusing on the anime side... and no, not every American anime adaption will be mentioned here! Just the ones I know about and have seen or have seen the original American version >=D

Quite possibly the most famous would have to be the Animatrix! The Animatrix is one I still have yet to see and this is pretty pathetic considering how much of a Matrix fan I am (I've played several of the games and own all the movies thanks to my dad). The Animatrix is comprised of 9 episodes on one dvd; it was released back in 2003.

Batman Gotham Knight
This is possibly a favorite of mine, and I own the DVD because of how much I wanted to see it. Ha ha. And a really epic cool thing about this DVD is the guy who did the voice for the original Batman is the voice for Batman in this anime! WIN *thumbs up*
# of Episodes: 6
Rating: Teen
Released: 2008
Synopsis: From the producers of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight comes an original animated movie chronicling the establishment and progression of Bruce Wayne into Gotham City's legendary caped crusader through 6 standalone episodes: "Have I Got a Story for You" (the mythos of Batman from the minds of children), "Crossfire" (the initial distrust and the eventual gaining of it from the perspective of the police), "Field Test" (the compassion of Batman, even towards his enemies), "In Darkness Dwells" (tracking down Killer Croc and The Scarecrow to foil his plot of resurgence amongst the villainous of Gotham), "Working Through Pain" (a look back at Bruce's training to manage both the physical and psychological pains he would later endure as Batman), and "Deadshot" (a race against the clock to protect Lt. Gordon from a highly-renowned assassin).


Witchblade
I watched the entire anime series, but wasn't too impressed. The plot was ok and the characters were below average. Frankly, this one failed.
# of Episodes: 24
Rating: Mature
Synopsis: In 22nd-Century Japan, Masane Amaha, one of the surviving catastrophe that destroyed Tokyo becomes the latest in an ancient line of women-only warriors to wield the mysterious sentient weapon known only throughout history as "the Witchblade". Protecting her little girl, she will face her worst fear ....

More recently Halo Legends was released, but I have yet to see it. Some other adaptations that are either coming out or are out already are Planet Hulk, an X-men anime, Blade, Wolverine and Iron Man.