My name is Marcus and i am the brother of Francis, who you all  know as Tiamat’s Disciple, the owner of this blog. As you know Francis has been fighting cancer for several years and was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. Unfortunately this time around he was unable to fight it off, as it had spread to far to fast. He was rushed to hospital early tuesday morning and died at 2:48pm that afternoon.

As for the future of this blog, that will now be in the hands of of the host, Randall Fitzgerald of Dasaku.net. Though it is my hope he will leave the site up until it’s domain expires. When that happens the site will regrettably go off line.

Francis wanted to thank everyone who has supported his blog over the years and wished to say it has been a pleasure to talk with you all. Apparently his only real regret was never being able to attend one of the big american conventions and getting to meet some of you in real life.

All of the best for the future

Marcus Metcalfe

I have received an email from the host, Randall, offering to take over full management of the blog, including the domain management. I have decided to accept his offer, when I figure out how to do it.

When my brother was first diagnosed with cancer he was given months to live, during that time he got more and more into manga and became more of a prolific writer. Suprisingly he was able to beat off the cancer, and then again a second time last year.

His attitude towards things changed drastically as a result of being close to death twice. While it’s certainly true he had become more abrasive, and forceful, and yes at times he was an obnoxious sod, it was because he always said what he wanted to say and refused to compromise his views anymore. He once told me he was sick of pandering to what people wanted to hear, and decided it was better to just come out and say it. As a result he was frequently butting heads with people over issues he wrote about. However he never took these issues personally, and seemed to rather enjoy the fact that people would argue with him, rather than just agree to get the point dropped.

Over the past 8months this blog had become his life, more so since for a lot of the time he was bedridden, making here, and his twitter account, his main source of communication.

I can’t tell you what it’s like to read these comments and see that while my brother was a pain in the arse at times, there were people who liked and will miss him. I have to admit I was against him getting into manga and blogging, because I felt it would isolate him more, and I am pleased to see I was wrong to think that.

Thank you all for your comments, they have made me smile which is something I haven’t been able to genuinely do for many months.

As things stand at the moment I’m having to give serious thought to either putting the blog into sleep for a while, or possibly closing it down completely. Since at the moment I don’t have the energy to do reviews after my hospital runs.

I’m currently looking at various options, including passing the blog onto someone else. It’s my hope (and fervent wish!!) that things will take a turn for the better over the next few weeks and I can once again start getting back into my frequent blog posts.

So, I’m sorry for not being as frequent with my updates, and will try to get at least 2 reviews a week from now on. But sadly it all depends on my state when I get home from hospital, lately I usually collapse on my bed and sleep for hours and wake up with a migraine and general yuckyness, but we’’ll see

TD

I couldn’t find any info on Sirial sorry.

About the Manga

Nothing really to say about this volume, other than cuteness to the max!!

The cuteness of this series can not be underestimated!! It sooths even the hardest heart hehe.

The cover of this volume, like the previous one, is amazing. Bright, vibrant, alive, and showing off perfectly just how and what the story is about. I especially liked that the title and mangaka’s name weren’t over-powering.

The colour pull out is equally amazing, and again it shows off the cuteness of the series perfectly.

The art carries on being light an airy throughout the volume, and I love all the more the way the series feels. As I said in my volume one review the way Sirial balances the changing character designs works really well.

We get introduced to a couple of new characters this volume, and I’m a little torn. The first of them, the Chick Gang, just didn’t have any presence to me, and I’m hoping they aren’t going to be a recurring group.

The other though, the street cat, was perfect. The couple of stories with him in them were funny and engaging. I liked his character design, and his personality was refreshing and lively. I’m looking forward to seeing more of him in future volumes.

Story wise it’s impossible to really judge a series like this, since it has no story per say. Rather it simply follows the characters miss-adventures through their dally lives.

TBH I like this approach, given the large amount of seinen and josei titles I’ve been reading lately that are rather heavy on the story side, this makes for a nice change.

The other thing I like about this is that it’s perfect for kids to get into. It’s light and free flowing, and a perfect series to introduce younger kids to manga and manhwa.

I have absolutely no complaints in regards to Yen Press’ handling of this series. No guttering, a great translation, and excellent lettering and font choice. It was an excellently handled volume that’s a credit to the Yen Press team.

Needless to say this series makes my Essential Read List, I think most people can enjoy it simply for what it is. A funny, light hearted intermission read; as in a series you read when you simply want a break from thinking to much

Where to Buy

• Brits: Play.com or Amazon UK
• Yanks: Borders or Amazon US
• Canadians: Chapters or Amazon CA

Kikuchi Hideyuki is famous for his horror novels, specifically Vampire Hunter D, and has been compared to both Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft.

Kikuchi wrote his first novel, Demon City Shinjuku, in 1982 and has written numerous horror novels in the past 20 years, including the 19 novels about Vampire Hunter D.

Couldn’t find much on Shin Yong-Gwan, beyond him also doing the art for Eternity, which was published by Tokyopop.

About the Manga

What can I say, another great volume that creeped me out to the bone!!

I liked the cover of this volume better than the first, it has a better feel to it for me. Though I do wish DMP didn’t waste so much space on the border.

The first page of the manga itself is the black and white version of the cover, and it loses a lot of the feel of the cover. It looks and feels like they just bleached the colour out of the cover, and as a result it looks a bit, well, weird.

The first part of the volume wraps up the story from the previous volume, and damn it’s done well. The art for this part of the volume is dark, creepy and looks awesome.

I loved the character designs and the way the art goes through some changes. One panel we’ll have what I consider a bit of comical art, but in the next we get dark, gore and creepy. The way this works keeps you on edge, you can’t let yourself go or something will literally bite you.

As I read through I have to admit I found some panels, especially those depicting the accident, border line to much for a 16+ title. At times it has an almost slasher horror feel to it. The ending of the first part of the volume was done really well, although the art still has the dark feel, it also has a lighter happy tone to it that peeks in.

The change in art for the second part of the volume takes some adjusting. We go from dark of night creepy, to a day light creepy. Also we aren’t eased into it as we were in the first volume.

I found that the Akamushi in this part of the story has some of the best designs I’ve seen in the two volumes and I really liked them.

I was also impressed with the detail that Shin beings in in this volume looks pretty awesome. Although I have to admit his old guy at the beginning looks like he’s nothing but wrinkles hehe

Midori, the damsel in distress for this story, has me won over already. Her design was amazing and I found I liked her more than the previous damsel. Midori has a whole tainted innocence feel to her, and the way Shin captured her in this volume was perfectly done.

The art of the ‘evil’ this time wasn’t as creepy as I was expecting. Sure it looks pretty gruesome, but it lacked the oomph of the previous volume. On my third read through I realised it was because of the change of setting. Something creepy set in a creepy setting and portrayed in a creepy way is really powerful. However because this time it was all done in a normal household setting, the art just didn’t have the oomph behind it.

However what it lacked in the art side it more than made up for it in the story side, which quite frankly I found more creepy than the previous story. Part of this is because it set in such a normal way.

There were several hints in this volume about things, but I still find myself wondering just who the hell Akamushi is. Sadly this volume ends in a cliff-hanger like the previous volume, and we’re once again going to be waiting ages for answer to all the questions brought up in this volume. I hope we get the next volume soon!!

All told Hideyuki and Shin come together and bring us a great and well balanced story that’s enough to give you nightmares!!

DMP did a decent job with the release, with the exception of my cover gripe. But that applies to all of DMP’s releases. The translation flows smoothly and consistently without feeling re-written. They lose points for not keeping honorific’s, though I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt this time since I got the impression there weren’t any used in the original.

After rereading the first volume as well I’m tempted to put it on my Essential Read List. However I feel like I’ve been adding things to it a bit to fast and it’s no longer really an essential list. So, Taimashin will have to wait for now. However I can and do recommend it highly. If you’re into the darker side of manga, such as Anne Freaks, give this one a try. You won’t be disappointed.

Where to Buy

• Brits: Play.com or Amazon UK or Akadot
• Yanks: Borders or Amazon US or Akadot
• Canadians: Chapters or Amazon CA or Akadot

Tanigawa Nagaru is rather unusual as a manga-ka or even as a writer, in that he didn’t train as one. Rather he is a law school graduate of all things >.<. While he is best known for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya series, which won him the grand prize at eighth annual Sneaker Awards; he has done several other series.

I couldn’t find anything solid on Tsugano Gaku, other than that he or she also did the art for Girl Who Runs Through Time, which was licensed by CMX.

Ito Noizi took me by surprise, she did the art for the Shakugan no Shana novels, but also works for a H-Game company. She has a personal website, though it’s Japanese only.

About the Manga

I was rather uninspired by this volume, in fact I felt I was forcing myself to read it at the end.

The sad thing is there’s nothing really different from the previous volumes. I like the cover design, though the border on the names is misplaced IMO and would have been better without it.

The colour panels this volume I felt were rather uninspired, and on the third read through I figured out it was the colouring that was killing it for me. It felt like a time slip to the days of hippies. While that may well have been the intention it really made the art look bad for me. Not to mention it was crowded and cramped and both looked and felt cluttered.

While the art of this volume is just as good as it had been previously something about just felt dull. The art lacked anything that made it stand out as special or intriguing.

Sure it has the usual cute characters, though even those were fewer than usual, but even with those it lacked the special feel it’s had in the previous volumes.

The other area it fails for me was the stories. Reading this volume it confirmed something I’ve been thinking the past couple of volumes. Forget monster of the week, this series is monster of the chapter.

The way these played out this volume really felt wrong to me. While I get the reasoning behind what’s going on, something about the stories this volume really just got on my nerves. They felt tired and forced lacking any sort of presence, not to mention blatantly stealing ideas from other titles.

For me the big issue though was that we have no real story progression. Why is Haruhi the way she is? Why are all these weird people gathering around her? Why is Kyon the only apparent normal guy there?

All of these questions need some time spent on them, and while I was expecting them to have done so by now, we have nothing. So while I should be focusing on the story, I’m spending my time wondering what’s going on. It’s getting in the way of enjoying the series more.

I’m not saying I want it all explained here and now, but I do want to see at least some sort of progression on the main story. Rather than lurching from one story to another, which is what is happening at the moment.

No complaints about Yen’s handling of this volume. Good choice of fonts and excellent editing. The translation is smooth and flows well with out anything feeling out of place.

On it’s own, this volume was uninspiring and frankly depressing. I’m hoping things will pick up soon.

Where to Buy

• Brits: Play.com or Amazon UK
• Yanks: Borders or Amazon US
• Canadians: Chapters or Amazon CA

As a result when I was finally able to login yesterday I had over 100 comments to sort through. So if you’ve commented any time soon and it didn’t show straight away, apologies. No idea why it was doing this, and frankly I’ve gotten no help from their support so no idea when it’ll be fixed.

I’ve also noticed that a lot of posts have up and disappeared. All the images for them are still on the server, but the posts themselves are gone. Thankfully since I use Live Writer I do have a copy saved on my comp, so re-upping them isn’t going to be a big issue. However finding all the posts will be time consuming given, if you find any dead link please drop me a line giving the link and what post you were looking for.

Svetlana Chmakova is best known for her Dramacon (OEL) series published by Tokyopap. Born in Russia then emigrated to Canada, where she graduated from the Sheridan College Classical Animation program, in 2002. She then began to publish her manga on the Internet, where her works were found by CosmoGirl! magazine.

She has a website which can be found HERE

About the Manga

My long wait is over!! this volume finally arrived this morning after ages on order and let me tell you it was well worth the wait!! Freaking awesome volume with some interesting plot twists and a hell of a cliff-hanger ending.

While I will admit I love the cover, it’s well drawn with a good action feel to it, I still prefer the first volumes cover all told.

Forget the cover though, the first pages are in full colour and it’s mind blowingly awesome!! It has all the atmosphere a series like this needs. The second set of colour pages would have been even better as a pull out, but even as it is it just screams creepy and looks amazing. It totally sets the feel for the coming volume.

As I got more and more into the volume I came to a conclusion, forget all the characters this series lead character has to be the astral!! Alex’s astral is just so bloody funny, I find myself being drawn to it more than the other chars, especially now my favourite character is missing.

I love the way that Svetlana balances the tension and humour in this series. The first part of the volume is so full of tension, and then she slips straight into the humour side of it releasing all that tension. Usually this would have been bad, since the sudden change wouldn’t work right. However Svetlana is able to pull it off, and makes it work perfectly.

We also finally get some explanations as to what’s going on. This volume really does set out the who, what, and why really well. By the end of the discussion on the historical aspects of it I ended up with more questions than when I started the series. Especially since after all is explained I can’t help but feel there’s another, still hidden person leading things to it’s conclusion.

We get a bit closer to finding out what happened to my fave char, Alex’s sister. And yeah I have to admit rereading the bit where she goes into the cellar again had me rolling in laughter again. No matter how many times I read it It has me rolling.

The other thoughts I had on the series, after volume two, are beginning to change as well. The “evil” that’s been promoted in the first two volumes now isn’t really evil. the change was done really well, and the explanation made sense.

The ending of the volume though was a cliff-hanger of the worst kind. Thank gods I get Yen Plus and won’t have to wait till October to find out what happens next, I don’t think I could go that long hehe.

As always Yen Press do an excellent job with this release, and I have to admit I prefer this sized release over manga for this series. I can’t explain it well, but I’d hate to see Nightschool cramped into such a small confined space, it’s got a light and airy feel to it that needs to be spread out hehe

This series easily retains it’s place on my Essential Read List and is one of the few I can’t recommend enough. In fact it’s worth buying Yen Plus just to get chapters of Nightschool early

Where to Buy

• Brits: Play.com or Amazon UK
• Yanks: Borders or Amazon US
• Canadians: Chapters or Amazon CA

GoComi

When I realised this publisher had gone I was surprised. Initially I found them through their OPlay section of the site. However I noticed they had a few titles I was interested in started to follow their releases. Sadly they just up and disappeared.

It started when the OPlay section, which was supposed to be their new ground breaking enterprise, was abandoned after just a single release. However over the coming months the forums of their site pretty much became a ghost town and supposed releases weren’t released.

Then all of a sudden the entire website disappeared, and as of today the domain is listed as being for sale.

In a way this sort of proved the point I mad when I reviewed OPlay some time ago. $7.99 an episode that you don’t own and can’t download, was doomed to failure. And now the site is gone it begs the question, where did my money go?

It’s sad in a way since while I was critical of OPlay, I have to admit I wanted to see how it went, and GoComi did have a number of titles I wanted, and now won’t see finished.

Infinity Studios

This was another that sort of just faded away. However unlike GoComi it was sort of expected for those who followed them.

I first found Infinity when I picked up Iona-Sama, which I picked up by mistake thinking it was another title all together hehe. However I was impressed on so many levels. Infinity were the only publisher I knew of at the time (and since) that did a genuine high quality release. We’re talking the full works of dust covers, larger sized volumes, excellent quality covers, and high gloss pages that give them a silky feel.

The result being that when you hold their releases it was like holding silk in your hands. This matched with excellent work on translation and editing made for truly superb releases. However it was probably this very high quality styled release that killed the company. Not long after I found them and start to follow a number of their releases, they moved solely to an eBook release to save money.

Unfortunately they implemented it badly. You bought your eBook and they mailed it to you through the post, rather than as a digital download. Then they simply just up and disappeared, with no news or anything. A lot of people had outstanding orders with them. Like GoComi their website is now gone and turned to dust.

Kodansha

This publisher was sort of doomed from the beginning IMO. When they set up their US division and announced they were going to be releasing their own properties, I like a lot of fans were all eager. Then when the first two releases, were nothing more than carbon copies of the original releases we lost heart. Since then there’s been nothing.

Where did all these releases go? Even the original website they had up has since be removed and redirected to the japanese one. Again, they simply disappeared. Will they be back? Who knows, but if all they’re going to be releasing are carbon copies it won’t take long before people stop buying, after all why buy a title you already have when nothing is going to be different?

Sadly these are just the tip of the iceberg. Over the past year or so over ten publishers have closed up shop and while the vast majority of them were niche publishers it’s always sad to see so many go down. Especially since we the fans are always the ones worse hit with less titles to buy.

Unrelated, but still pertinent, CMX has just announced they’re closing as well. And while they didn’t just disappear, I for one didn’t see it coming. They’ve been acquiring new titles and releasing new titles on a fairly strong basis. And while they were never on the Tokyopop or Viz sales class, they must have been doing fairly well to keep going this long.

For me though this, while I didn’t see it coming, it wasn’t unexpected. CMX are one of the worst publishers in the manga world. The releases are generally printed on really low grade paper that have a horrid scummy feel to them. They also did a lot of censorship and editing in the releases of certain titles. However one of my favourite titles was being released by them and I wont see it finished anymore *sobs*

This past year has been a really bad year for manga publishers, and I wonder how many others are going to end up just fading away. I don’t think this is the end of it, rather I sadly feel that this is just the beginning and we’re in for more rough times ahead.

Not really a lot of information on Fukaki Shoko. Her only other work seems to be a title called Guardian Dog, no other info available.

About the Manga

I’m in two minds on this series. I like the cover, but I have to admit that while reading it I wasn’t overly impressed but something about it does intrigue me.

Art wise this series is not great, but it does have it’s moments. The cover design is interesting, and one I have to admit I do like. The Chinese feel to it really fits the story, and I’ve always loved the look of Chinese martial art clothing.

The back cover has a rather nice girl in a cute outfit, which gives a impression of what may be to come. But I haven’t really found anything else like it in the volume.

The two colour pages at the front of the volume are awesome. The first one, I have to admit that I’m not loving, but it is still a good one. However the second one is stunning and looks awesome.

The art of the volume itself is pretty good, but it’s not stellar. It does have it’s moments where the characters look really well done, the settings aren’t to bad either. One of the important factors, for me at least, was that the art was consistent through out the volume. While it’s certainly true that some of the panels aren’t, to me, very good. These panels are mostly where action scenes are, the motion lines are overly used for my liking.

The story is definitely intriguing, and I have to admit the story is what kept me reading. While admittedly the story is nothing new, it’s been done well. My initial impression of the volume was a generic shonen story, and while it never loses that feel it does hide some interesting elements.

However there was also something lacking in the story to make it anything other than “good”, it also feels a bit weak, and flows a bit to fast. While the initial story was okay, events seem to be taking place a bit to fast for my liking. Especially towards the end which I thought was done way to fast and loses a lot of it’s feel.

Granted this is just the first volume, and I will admit I’m looking forward to reading volume two when it finally arrives.However it feels like this is going to be a short series that’s over to fast.

This was my first CMX title for a while, and once again I’m a little disappointed. The cover is glossy, but it’s edges are ragged and frayed, from where it’s been sheared. The paper is abysmal quality being sickly white, yucky feeling. I always feel like I need to wash my hands after reading manga using this paper.

Translation wise, I’m not so sure. While it’s certainly true it flows well, it feels a bit wrong as well. Though they do get bonus for keeping honorific’s in, I always love that. Though they get minus points for pulling a Viz and translating the SFX’s and replacing them with english styled SFX’s. I hate this, preferring to keep the original japanese ones with simple translation notes.

While it’s unlikely to ever be on my Essential Read List, this is one I’ll carry for a few more volumes to see how it goes. But it was a good read, and not one I regret buying.

Where to Buy

• Brits: Play.com or Amazon UK
• Yanks: Borders or Amazon US
• Canadians: Chapters or Amazon CA

I accidently picked up a copy of NEOMAG from my local comic store and initially was impressed with it. However over time I noticed that in the most important way (at least in my mind) they were severely lacking.

They lacked bias, as in the ability to give a fair opinion of anything they reviewed. Almost everything they reviewed got high ratings, and were considered the best thing since sliced bread.  This irritated me a great deal, since I feel very strongly that magazines such as this should remain neutral and give true reviews of titles they review.

However as time went by I found myself wondering if it was more than just being biased towards the publishers, and if it was actually a form of bribery. Along the lines of “give us good reviews or we wont give you review copies”.

This came even more to the fore for me when two events happened. The first was when they announced the acquisition of the new Phantom series. they announced that people should abandon the fansubs and instead watch them on their streaming site.

This was all well and good, except for when you went to their website you got:

This content is not available in your territory.

FUNimation® Entertainment manages a full spectrum of rights for anime series acquired from producers in Japan. These rights include broadcasting, licensing, production, home video sales and distribution, as well as internet. The rights agreed upon may vary per series or per region. If you are receiving this message, FUNimation does not have the internet rights for this series in your area.
If you believe you are currently in a territory to which FUNimation has rights, please e-mail us your current location at Webmaster[@]Funimation.com so we can investigate the discrepancy.

Thank you for your interest!

Return to FUNimation.com

© 2008-2010 FUNimation Entertainment. All Rights Reserved.

What followed was NEO throwing all their support behind FUNi over this, giving them rave reviews and frankly making them sound like a god of anime. They never once covered the fact that FUNi were blocking Britain from their site in it’s entirety, and still kept on making posts telling people to go watch the FUNi website.

When they were called on this by both myself, and other brit bloggers and anime fans, NEO had no reply. They didn’t have the guts to even send a simple no comment reply, they just ignored people.

The second event of course was their huge interview with CrunchyRoll. During this interview they once again tried to make out that CR were gods, despite once again almost all of the anime CR has is region blocked to the brits. They also ignored the very large number of complaints filed over CR’s customer service, that was at the time practically a grab run scenario with people money. Most brits ended up having to recover the money through PayPal directly since CR staff either ignored them or gave them the run around.

Yet once again NEO didn’t talk about any of the issues, and only focused on trying to promote CR as the first World Wide Anime Channel. How can it be World Wide when almost all of the stuff can’t be watched out of the USA?

Sadly once again they ignored all attempted to talk to the editors about the reasons behind the total lack of bias.

Reading over the past issues I finally noticed that this lack of bias is only with anime and manga. When it comes to the movies I noticed that they were more open with the critique, making comments on all areas of the releases, which is how it should be.

Talking it over with some friends I found a fairly interesting split in the opinions over this. Over 3/4 of them were of the opinion they were simply showing good business sense. Support the publishers fully and keep them happy, since without the support of the publishers they wouldn’t have anything to review, or prizes to give away.

Others felt it was more a case of just a lack of bias, in that the reviewers themselves are FUNi fanboys/girls and as such are more inclined to do glowing reviews of releases. And some, wonder if it’s more a case of the publishers exerting pressure and bribery on the magazine. They want glowing reviews so as to promote their products and those that don’t give them get dropped as reviewers.

For bloggers this, while hurts, isn’t a big issue; for magazines it can be crippling though as they do rely quite heavily on the publishers support.

So which is the case? Honestly I’m not really sure. However either one is bad news and frankly I think is a bit disgusting. If we can’t trust the magazines to give true reviews of the things they want us to spend or money on, then what’s the reason to buy them?

It’s a shame that that the only remaining real British mag seems to be in bed with the yanks and ignoring the issues that the british fans face.

Sadly my thoughts on this are re-emphasised by NEO once again ignoring the issue. I wrote this post four weeks ago, and then emailed it to the NEO editors requesting a discussion on the points I raised, to hear their side of things, and hopefully get a rounded view on how things stand. But nothing, I even phoned them and was told someone would call back, but nothing. So all I’ve got to go with is this post now. It’s a shame since I think it could have been an interesting discussion.