Video Subbing: Ametalk (2011.08.11) Sakigake! Otokojuku Comedians

Heyyy

It has been a while-ish.

I've subbed another Ameta-lk! episode again after quite some time. Continuing with the tradition here on this blog, it's another episode focusing on a popular anime/manga series. This time around it's....SAKIGAKE! OTOKOJUKU!!


That manga name was meant to be said in a particular type of voice, which you will hear if you watch the video.

 

"Sakigake! Otokojuku" (literally Charge! Men's Private School) was a popular manga series published on the Weekly Jump Magazine in the later half of the 1980's. It was originally a sort of a satirical take on macho fighting manga such as "Fist of the North Star" and "Jojo's Bizarre Adventures" that were also popular at the time.

Basically it's about an ultra-nationalistic private school that takes in violent delinquents from around the country and beats into them how to be a strong Japanese manly man. Lots of extreme rules and traditions exist at this school, such as being forced to commit suicide if you each lunch early during class. Crazy, but still funny, because it's not real.

Anyway, you'll get to know the quirky sides of this manga a lot more if you watch.....

Sorry about the quality of the video... I couldn't find any better ones.
Also, it'll be up on dailymotion in a few days so don't moan about it please :)
 

GET FROM somewhere [290 MB]

Video Subbing: AMETALK (2010.06.17) Baki the Grappler Comedians

Here's another episode of the show, Ametalk. This time they talk about the popular fighting manga, "Baki the Grappler". It's kind of similar to the other episodes I've subbed how they talk about stuff you probably won't understand. It's still quite funny though, and I hope you watch and like it.






GET The vid [262 MB]

Video Subbing: AMETALK: JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE COMEDIANS (2007.08.02)

Hello~ here's another video that I decided to subtitle from the show Ametalk. Last time I did one where they talk about Gundam, and this time it's another manga/anime. They talk about JoJo's Bizarre Adventures, which is one of my most favourite mangas. It took a while for me to get the motivation to read it as the pictures look kinda strange. But once I started I couldn't stop! I even wrote a manga recommendation here. This episode will be a lot funnier if you have already read a fair bit of it as they refer to lots of specific stuff from the series without bothering to explain very much (like with the Gundam episode). Even so, I think you'll still find it funny and hopefully it might make you feel like starting to read the manga too. The whole series have been translated into English and is available on the internet so it's very possible.

GET FROM MEDIAFIRE

I also wrote about JoJo stances too. If you're interested it's HERE.

Manga Recomendation: Galaxy Express 999

Greetings Earthlings!

I haven't done this in a while....been busy subbing video for a while (well still am but ....meh).
The manga that I'll be writing briefly about today is Galaxy Express 999 (Jap: 銀河鉄道 999. "Ginga Tetsudou 999"). It's a manga classic from the 1970~80's, by Matsumoto Leiji , a legendary artist known for creating many other classic manga such as Captain Herlock and Space Warship Yamato (aka Star Blazers). He also supervised the artwork for some Daft Punk music videos. I can't remember the name but it's the one with blue people playing instruments....lol (check the bottom of the post)


The Galaxy Express 999 is set in a technologically advanced future where space travel has been common place for a very long time, and many humans switch their flesh bodies for "immortal" mechanical bodies. These mechanical bodies last around 7000 years if maintained well but are expensive to create, so only the rich can attain them. The mechanical people now rule the world and there is a strong discrimination against the poor people with perishable natural bodies. Because of this, most poor people wish to also have a mechanical body, but being penniless, there's no way they can even if the save up the meager earnings they may able to get their hands on. So instead they save up for a ticket to ride the Galaxy Express 999 train, which according to legend, takes you to a planet where they give you robot bodies for free. The only problem is that no one has heard of anyone returning from the journey. Even so, many people hold dreams for strong bodies and an everlasting life and decide to gamble on this possibly perilous journey to the other side of the universe.

The main character, Tetsurou Hoshino is one such person. He is a poor boy who witnesses his mother being hunted down and killed by mechanical humans on their way to search for work to save up for tickets for the journey. Before she dies she tells him to continue pursuing their goal, and get his hands on an impenetrable metal body. Intent on getting revenge on the human hunting mechanic people, he (I can't remember how but it was sudden...) meets Maetel, a woman who is the spitting image of his mother. She offers to hand him a pass onto the Galaxy Express if he agrees to be her travel companion.........which is pretty convenient, and suspicious at the same time. He agrees, and after getting revenge they set of on the Space train and travel to many different planets, meeting many different people with many different perspectives to life. It seems that although many 'natural humans' dream of a mechanical body, those with mechanical bodies end up regretting disposing of their warm body and dreams for a cold and senseless metal body.

Soo~~ that's the end of the plot description from me....I don't want to disclose too much. As I said before, they travel to many strange planets with distinct features, for example,

-A planet where people's ears have become so good at hearing that it's against the law to make loud noises.
-A planet where it's customary to paint yourself in gold plating. (lol)
-A planet with an alcoholic tarzan type guy that forces his monkey friends to also drink alcohol.
-A planet wear poor people live inside bubbles inside mud.......
-A planet where a professor has made thousands of clones of himself

It's kind of like Gullivers Travel's or Alice in Wonderland how there are strange worlds, strange people and strange customs, where that 'strangeness' is considered normal. As you'd kind of expect from old manga, the story is very simple and often follows one pattern, but I found it wonderful how these surreal worlds are given life and little histories and characteristics. There are also quite a few funny moments. Well not laugh out loud crying but those little sniff types or short chuckles.

Well I suppose the best way for you to know what I'm talking about is for you to have a read of it, or watch the anime if you get the chance to. If you do get that chance, then I highly recommend that you do :)

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MATSUMOTO LEIJI x DAFT PUNK
These are the Daft Punk music video's Matsumoto Leiji worked on.

Oh.....there was more than I expected....like 2~3 more. You can look it up yourself lol
It's basically the ones with blue people.

Manga Introduction: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

G'day guys (yep I'm Australian... well half)
By the way I never say G'day in real life. I just ran out of different way's of the starting greeting on posts.
But anyway......G'DAY!

I felt it was about time to write up another Manga Introduction, plus I don't have a good video editor at the moment as the free trial I was using ran out.....time to look for a new one that is easy to use and does what I want it to without crashing........sigh........The internet surprisingly lacks good free video editors. If anyone know of any please let me know (the one I was using was Video Pad).

JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE
ジョジョの奇妙な冒険

Recently I've been reading a manga that is extremely popular in Japan, but not necessarily so outside it, as far as I know. The manga I'm going to be writing about is Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, or 'ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken' in Japanese, created by Araki Hirohiko (荒木 飛呂彦). As it's title implies, it is indeed a bizarre adventure. There are around 100 volumes now, and is broken up into 8 different arcs, each with a different main character. All of the protagonists names in this series are constructed in way so that it can be nicknamed as 'Jojo', for example, Jonathan Joestar or Kujo Jotaro etc.

First off, I wasn't to keen on reading this manga. The artwork is quite heavily 80's style, and looks a little grotesquely deformed at times. The plot(s), or how the stories progresses are like a typical Shonen (Young boy) manga (such as Dragon Ball, Naruto etc). There is a big boss, and then there's his minions or other smaller enemies that they must battle before reaching him/her. I'm generally not a great fan of this, and it is also one reason why I can't be bothered following Naruto and One Piece anymore. It's basically the same thing over and over again with different characters.

Furthermore, there's an excess of 100 volumes, which is still growing, as a new arc has just recently started again this year. I only picked it up as I've only heard good things about it, and is huge among the Japanese internet community. It's also famous for 'Jojo dachi' (ジョジョ立ち), which means 'The Jojo Stand'. This manga series is well known for characters posing in unusual and sometimes impossible poses. Some maniacal fans try to copy these poses, and have even created classes to teach people the proper way to do it.

                                                    Example of Jojo-dachi (ジョジョ立ち)

So since there was all this good response towards it.......I started reading. ...
Time consuming? Yes. But strangely addictive, and I sailed through much of it without noticing.

I generally don't like reading manga from before the 90's. Mainly because they find it necessary to explain absolutely everything are doing, or going to do, and how it's going to the affect the other characters. I mean....serious? Why would you just let your enemy know your battle plans and stuff like that? They also have a tendency to start having conversations to themselves because of this......Which I find awkward. And annoying.

......This manga is no different. In fact it might be even worse in that aspect than most other manga. HOWEVER, I could strangely bear it with this one, and later grew used to it, and actually began to enjoy it. It doesn't help that the first arc is a little slow to get into the story, but once you get past that, it's quite easy sailing. Plus there's lots of funny moments as well.

Generally, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is simply described as a generational quarrel between the Joestars' and a man/ vampire called Dio Brando. You're probably thinking "haha what the?". As I said before, this manga is broken up into multiple arcs with different protagonists. For the first 6 arcs, they have a common ancestor in Jonathan Joestar, who is the main character of the first arc. It's too hard to summarise Jojo as a whole, so I'll briefly go over the arcs, up to what I've read.

PART 1: PHANTOM BLOOD
Part 1 takes place in the 1800's England, where Jonathan Joestar is caught in a battle with his adopted brother Dio Brando, who, after wearing an ancient stone mask is transformed into a vampire with superhuman strength, speed and immortality. He can create more (but weaker, vampires) as well as raise the dead. The only thing that can damage him and his minions is sunlight, and the power of Hamon' (波紋 means Ripple), which has the same properties as sunlight. This is done by learning a special way of controlled breathing, which causes ripples of energy to emit from body parts. Jonathan Joestar must use this to destroy Dio Brando before he turns the world into a bunch of vampires.

PART 2: BATTLE TENDENCY
From what I've read, this seems like the most popular era among Western fans, whereas Part 3 is often the most liked by Japanese. The protagonist for this arc is Jonathan Joestar's grandson, Joseph Joestar, and primarily takes place in America and Italy during the 2nd World War. An ancient race of people that created the stone masks that turn people into vampires (vampires are food (sort of) for them) awaken from a 1000 year sleep in various ancient ruins. Their weakness is also sunlight, and the 3 survivors of this race are searching for jewel that has the power to make them immune to this weakness, so that they can then proceed to take over the world. Joesph Joestar inherits 'Hamon' power, and must overcome these super human race of people.



PART 3: STARDUST CRUSADERS
This is my favourite section by far. The main character this time is Jotaro Kujo, the half Japanese, half American grandson of Joseph Joestar. A new type of power is used to fight to from this series. Character's use 'Stands' a kind of protective spirit that has varying types of abilities, from mediocre to more powerful ones.. It is revealed that Dio Brando had actually survived the battle with Jonathan Joestar in the first arc, and had been asleep in an air tight coffin under the sea. He get's out of this coffin when it was pulled up to shore by some people, and plants a cell of his in Jotaro's mother, which will kill her in a certain amount of days unless if he is defeated. Jotaro, his grand father and other ally stand users must travel through various countries and reach Egypt, where Dio is hiding, while defeating assassin stand users sent by him along the way.


PART 4: DIAMOND IS UNBREAKABLE
This arc follows, Higashikata Jousuke, the product of an affair between Joseph Joestar and a Japanese woman. It is discovered that Dio Brando used an ancient bow and arrow to create stand users in the previous arc. If a person survives being pierced by this arrow, this person will become a stand user, otherwise they just die. Someone is going around shooting people with this bow and arrow, causing a huge increase in the amount of people with this ability in the town. One such person is a remorseless serial killer of young females with pretty hands (he cuts them off and keeps it around until it rots, after which he goes to find a new one). It is found out that he is the perpetrator of many known and unknown murders over many years, and the main character and gang set out to find and punish the cunning killer.

PART 5: VENTO AUREO
........I'm still in the middle of finishing this arc. So I'll leave the rest for another post, since this one has gotten really long and no one would probably have read up to here anyway. Well done  and thank you if you did though!

Manga Introduction: Gorillaman

Manga Introduction:
　　　GORILLAMAN 　　ゴリラーマン

Drinking his favourite drink, 'Calorie Mate'

Hey there,  welcome to another Manga introduction.....
This time around its the manga 'Gorillaman', by Harold Sakuishi, also the author of BECK (which I also talked about before).

This was the very first serialised manga of Sakuishi, started running all the way back in 1988 on the Weekly Young Magazine. It's not particularly famous, but seems to be held in pretty high regard by those who have read it. Well I haven't read any bad thoughts about it....not that their are many reviews out there. Regardless, I think that this manga is quite good, albeit a little strange in the atmosphere that it produces, although that (for me), is what makes it stand out.

The story follows Ikedo Sadaharu, from when he transfers suddenly to Shiratake High School. The reason for this is not explained until later, but it seems that he has done something very bad. Not only that, but he does not talk at all (well..... almost), and has a tough/ugly face like a gorilla. This catches the eye of the head furyou (delinquent) of the school, Fujimoto, who nicknames him Gorillaman.

Japanese Furyou

Not this..

Fujimoto and his gang befriend Gorillaman (well, starts off more as a person to play jokes on), without realizing just how incredible Gorillaman could be. The first few volumes are generally just a simple Gag Manga (Comedy Manga- Gag as in joke, not the one to stop people from talking/screaming...), depicting their humorous school life and squabbles between other delinquent youths.However, slowly the story begins to delve into Gorillaman's past, about why he transferred, and various other questions that arise throughout the manga.





Being a story about furyou/yankii (yankee is also a word for delinquent), obviously their are many scenes of brawls. Gorillaman just happens to be an incredibly formidable fighter, but his friends don't find out till quite later on, as he generally reduces his foes to bloody piles in seconds without being noticed by Fujimoto and co.

"Whatchoo say punk!!??"
Actually its more like "...........*smack*" for Gorillaman 

I don't know how to describe my experience of reading 'Gorillaman', but as strange, but very entertaining and pleasant. It's strange as it seems to be a typical delinquent youth manga, and well it is, as the story mainly has characters having fights, thinking about girls, and getting up to no good. But at the same time there's a weird uniqueness to it, possibly due to the fact Gorillaman does not say a word (...almost) throughout the series, which makes his past that much more mysterious, and attract my curiosity more. It's off beat style of humour also struck my chords well, and the characters, especially Gorillaman are generally quite likable.

In my opinion, the manga 'Gorillaman' is quite a hidden gem.  It's definitely not well known in the West, and maybe may not be appealing to the general Westerners tastes. Even so, I would still very much like more people to have a read of this very special manga if you are able to find an English translation, or can read (and understand) Japanese.

Omake　おまけ　(Bonus)

I couldn't find any scantalations out on the net, so I've done...................a whopping 3 pages!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
........haha, sorry but I couldn't be bothered doing anymore, but maybe in the future I'll do some other scenes that I liked. These are the very first 3 pages of 'Gorillaman'.

Manga Introduction: 20th CENTURY BOYS 20世紀少年

Manga Introduction
20th CENTURY BOYS
                                 20世紀少年

Welcome to another 'Manga Introduction' where I just basically ramble for a bit about a manga that I think other people should read. This time its 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa/ Urasawa Naoki. The slash is there because I always have trouble deciding whether to order names the English way (Given name then Surname) or the Japanese way (Surname first). (-。－；)
........Anyway....I happened to come by this manga 'sort of' by chance. About 2-3 years ago I was in Japan and had accidentally not reserved a room to stay at a place for one night. Being stingy and not wanting to pay much for accommodation somewhere else, the best option was to stay overnight at a Manga Kissa （漫画喫茶）, or manga cafe. Hmm..I'll probably make a post about Manga kissa later on ...Anyway, these places have just about every manga you could wish for to read, is stacks of shelves. Yes....indeed a paradise for manga fans. It's pretty hard to decide what to read when there's such a large selection, so I was just randomly looking around these shelves since I didn't have anything in particular that I wanted to read. Then, on one of the books covers, this weird masked guy caught my eye...

Creepy huh? And to top it of the name of the manga was 20th Century Boys. What the hell is this manga about?? I picked it up started reading.....and didn't stop till I finished the whole series. I didn't close my eyes to sleep once (well maybe a few times) the whole night I was at the manga kissa. It is without a doubt one of the most intriguing manga I've read.

The story first Kenji Endo a washed up thirty something male convenient store clerk. Failing at his dream to be a rock star, he now lives with his mother while looking after the daughter of his missing elder sister. Kenji one day attends a school reunion where he meets his gang of friends from childhood.  It is there that things start to be put to the mix. One of his friends tells Kenji about a cult group that has started using a logo that is similar to the logo that the gang of friends had created for their group around some 20 or so years ago. Not only that but the strange predictions that the prophetic leader for this cult, named "Tomodachi" (Friend) makes, are the same as plots from a dooms day story that they made up as kids. Suspicious that one of the former gang members is cult leader, they begin to remember who was part of their group and/or may have known about the story to decipher who this 'Friend' is. 

Although Kenji thinks this is strange he still doesn't think too much of it. That is until he finds a letter from a former member of their group 'Donkey' who had recently reportedly committed suicide. He goes his house and there, on of the walls, he finds a small mark of the logo that they made as a kids        

Kenji gets suspicious that this cult group may have something to do with Donkey's death, and begins to investigate just what this mysterious cult is and who the leader is. Furthermore, his baby niece that he is looking after gets branded as 'The Chosen One' by the crazy cult, and the situation for Kenji just gets even more drastic from then on....

Its interesting to see how the influence of the cult on the world grows throughout the story, and how Kenji and co. work to shine the light on the identity of their "Friend" and stop his plots of world destruction that are methods that they themselves devised but can't completely remember. The strange obsession that 'Friend' has with toying with Kenji makes the story even more mysterious and creepy, and increases the curiosity as to who the hell this sicko is. Its interesting how even the minor characters (even though theres heeaaaps of characters) introduced are connected to the plot of the story. There are an incredible number of the plot twisting and turning and its really a showcases of Naoki Urasawa's talent to still allow the story to make sense on not seem overly ridiculous (well mangawise), despite its increasing complexity as the it progresses.  

It's also been adapted to a trilogy of live feature films which are okay. I recommend the manga though, or that you read the manga first at least.

Music also has a 'sort of' central part in the plot, and the manga's name is from T.Rex's song 20the Century Boy...... This is also a very cool song. If you've never heard of it, you should.

High schooler Kenji dancing to T.Rex 20th Century Boy

Overall this manga is an incredible mystery story, and is a must read for any manga/ comic fan. Even if you're not you should read it. Even if its for free on the internet or you buy it. Just read it. You won't regret it. 

BECK: MONGOLIAN CHOPSQUAD

MANGA + ANIME INTRODUCTION
BECK: THE MONGOLIAN CHOP SQUAD

Today I  decided to write about BECK: The Mongolian Chop Squad, a manga by Harold Sakuishi. I have just recently finished reading BECK in manga form after watching the anime adaptation about a year back. It follows the story of a young rock band in Japan, and their struggle to make it big. Although all of the members are touted as being undoubtedly talented and destined to change the music industry, but several powerful forces constantly stand in their way to stardom. I won't go heavily into the story so as not to spoil it, but I'll just explain the beginning.

Basically it starts off with Yukio Tanaka aka Koyuki, a loser Japanese high schooler, who is bored and fed up with his stale life and seemingly dull future. One day, he sees a weird stitched up dog being beaten up by a gang of kids. He scares the kids off and is approached by its owner, Ryusuke Minami. Ryusuke is an extremely gifted for a fairly popular amateur rock band. The two become friends, and Koyuki is introduce the world of Rock music. He is presented a guitar by Ryusuke, and becomes determined to be able to play it after seeing his friends insane skills at playing the instrument.

After messing up a chance at being scouted by a record company, Ryusuke has a fight with his bandmate, which causes the band to break up. Ryusuke decides to create his own band with the dream of being a band that can compete worldwide and sets out to recruit members for a new band. He gathers Tsunetomi Chiba (rap/vocal), Yoshiyuki Taira (bass) and the drummer from his previous band (can't remember his name... because he leaves early on). Koyuki is later invited to the group after they hear him singing, as well as his friend Yuji "Saku" Sakurai on drums. The band steadily improves, and seems destined to make it big. However, many obstacles stand in their way.......

Okay well thats about as much as I am going to bother writing, plus any more would be too much spoiler. The story also includes the high school drama of Koyuki and his growing relationship with Ryusuke's sister. There are many comedic moments, emotional scenes, and references to American and Japanese pop culture so keep an eye out for these, such as on the shirts people wear or people in the background. If you read the manga, then at the start of every volume, there's one or two mock versions of covers from popular albums which adds to the excitement if you are somewhat familiar with such things. Many of the characters are inspired by real life people, a memorable one for me was a guy that resembled famous actor Samuel L. Jackson.

Mock cover of "Ready to Die" by Notorious B.I.G.

Theres plenty more as there are 34 volumes in the manga. There is also an anime version, which is pretty good, but doesn't completely follow the whole series. Because of lack of funds and popularity when airing, the  animation company decided to end the series after the first arc, and making the ending quite a let down. On the plus side, it is interesting while it lasts, and also includes some good music. I very much recommend that you give it a listen, although I've only listened to the Japanese versions, the dubbed versions seem to be well received as well, mainly due to the lack of Engrish. I'm satisfied with the Japanese versions especially since the trouble the vocalists have with pronouncing words in their songs (which are mainly in English) is a prominent theme in the series. Anyway, these are my picks:

***"I've Got A Feeling" is a cover of the Beatles

  

This one is not actually a song by the "band" Beck. Its a song that Koyuki sings at his school festival with some other schoolmates, but I really like the sound of the guitar here. Its also actually a cover of an old anime series called Youkai Ningen Bem (Youkai refers spirit/monsters from Japanese folklore, Ningen=Human, Bem is the character's name).


The others a also pretty good but I figured that you could go take a look by yourselves if you're interested, or just start watching the anime. Either ways good enough for me yo.





Last year a live adaptation film was released in Japan. I haven't watched it yet, but the story seems somewhat altered from trailers obviously so that they don't make the movie run for over 10 hours. The music seems decent from what I've heard (not much) and the actor choices seem okay.

Cast:

• Takeru Satoh (佐藤 健) as Koyuki. He's probably most well known for his parts in popular dramas such as Rookies and Bloody Monday.
• Hiro Mizushima (水嶋 ヒロ) who starred in Gokusen, and as Kamen Rider Kabuto, played the role of Ryusuke.
• Aoi Nakamura (中村 蒼) played drummer Saku, Don't know much about this guy
• Osamu Mukai (向井 理) as Taira. He had a part as a cellist in Nodame Cantabile and more recently as the author Shigeru Mizuki of famous manga Gegege no Kitaro in GeGeGe no Nyōbō (ゲゲゲの女房).
• Kenta Kiritani (桐谷健太) as Chiba. He also starred in Rookies, and was also a fairly prominent character in the two CROWS movies.

 If you're interested then I don't think it would be a bad movie but not great like the manga. Even so I intend to watch it at some point when I get my hands on it, only because I liked the manga and the hope that the music is as good as the tunes from the anime. Heres a trailer for you to look at.....

Aaaaaand thats it from me on BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad for now. I was thinking of looking at the mock albums covers and other musical and pop culture references and writing posts about them but we'll see hey? Depends how bored I am and how lazy I feel....I;m pretty lazy by the way (-_-) sigh

Thanks for reading.....