Special Others - Light

Yes, I'm still alive! Sorry for the lack of updates, I moved back to Australia recently, so there was a lot of down time and general house moving business.

There has been a lot happening in the last few months. I'm excited by the new Special Others album that's coming out October 8th. It's an all acoustic album called Light, and features 6 new tracks as well as 4 classic SPA tracks including Waiting for the Sun, and BEN. If you get in quick it comes with a DVD.

Also, I have a big backlog of manga titles to get through. I've been really enjoying Matsumoto Taiyo's Sunny. Volume 5 came out back in May, but I'm still on volume 3. Inoue Takehiko's Vagabond (37) was out back in July, and it won't be long until the release of Real (14). Space Brothers (24) and Billy Bat (15) were out this week. And best of all, next week sees the long awaited release of Asano Inio's new one, Dead Dead Demons D-D-D-D-Destruction. Crazy title and all.

April Manga Round Up

It's been a busy month and I haven't written a post in a while, but here is a review of what I've been reading over the past month.

Space Brothers #23 (宇宙兄弟)

The latest Space Brothers was out late March but it took me a while to get around to picking it up. Chuya Koyama again showing his love of American comedies with a cameo from Jim Carrey in a minor role. Mutta's relationship with Serika comes back into the foreground, but Hibito remains MIA.

Also recently announced is a new Space Brothers movie, Number Zero, which a pun on the family name of Mutta and Hibito, Namba. The animated movie is an original story that takes place before the start of the manga/anime series. The movie is dues in Japanese cinemas on August 9th.

Manga info at Morning Comics: http://morning.moae.jp/lineup/31
Movie website: http://wwws.warnerbros.co.jp/uchukyodai-movie/

Billy Bat #14 (ビリーバット)

I won't spoil any of the mystery of Naoki Urasawa's (浦沢直樹) latest release of Billy Bat, but it's great to finally have some answers in a series that has only shown riddles up until now. Volume 14 wraps up the story of the malevolent Kiyoshi Kurusu (来栖清志) who has spent his life searching for the scroll that contains the answer to the riddle of Billy Bat. And new Kevin, Kevin Goodman, steps into his roll as the next author of the authentic Billy Bat as the empire of Walt Disney doppelganger Chuck Culkin begins to crumble.

Billy Bat at Morning Comics: http://morning.moae.jp/lineup/55

Dead Dead Demons D-D-D-D-Destruction (デッドデッドデーモンズデデデデデストラクション)

A mouth full of a title, and the latest release from Inio Asano (浅野いにお) that's going to play havoc with my tags. It's been 5 months since the release of the final episode of Oyasumi Pun Pun. I've been waiting for news of Asano's next release, and the first episode was released on the Monday the 28th in Big Comic Spirits. Asano excels in telling coming of age stories of characters in emotionally charged situations. In Dead Dead Demons D-D-D-D-Destruction we are introduced to a group of junior high school girls. The twist to the story is the gigantic spaceship suspended above the city Section 9 style.

Follow Asano Inio on Twitter: https://twitter.com/asano_inio
Check out Big Comic Spirits: http://spi-net.jp/

1F (いちえふ)

1F is a reference to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. This comic was written by Kazuto Tatsuta (竜田一人) and chronicles his experiences working at the crippled nuclear plant for 6 months, working on clean up and maintenance. I just picked this up today, so I'm looking forward to getting some inside knowledge on what work is currently being done to secure the plant.

Follow Kazuto Tatsuta on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TatsutaKazuto

You can check out more info at Morning Comics: http://morning.moae.jp/lineup/320

Space Brothers #22

Space Brothers (宇宙兄弟) could more accurately titled Budget Meeting Guy. I have to commend Chuya Koyama (小山宙哉) for his realistic portrayal of the current state of the aerospace industry, but being consistently sidetracked by budgetary concerns doesn't make for an exciting or inspiring story. Hibito's continued absence removes the need for the 'Brothers' reference in the title.

In volume 22, Mutta and the Jokers crew continue their quest to save the ISS from cancellation, and we see the introduction of a Space-X type private company, Swing-by, who introduce a raft of new characters, and the surprising return of a few known characters. Hopefully with the introduction of Swing-by, we might actually see the return of some actual space missions.

I often think back to infrastructure that we saw during the original story arc that was covered in the movie adaptation, the previously establish moon base. It seems to disappeared along with the story to inspire kids to become interested in science, and was replaced with a pragmatic realism.

Morning Comics: http://morning.moae.jp/lineup/31
Twitter: https://twitter.com/uchu_kyodai

Space Brothers #21

If you grow up watching The Simpsons there is that moment when you realised that the star of the show wasn't Bart, it was Homer, and it was a deliberate decision by the writers. Similarly it seems to me, that even though the title is 宇宙兄弟 (Space Brothers), the focus of the story is Mutta (六太), Hibito (日々人) is just a supporting character.

It's great to see another cameo by the Ghostbuster inspired scientists, and a mustachioed Peter Venkman/Bill Murray adding a bit of humour.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this last time, but it must be difficult to write a science fiction in the near future when the pace of current technology, and political maneuvering outpaces the events in the story. 3D printing which has made such rapid advances in the past few years, features heavily. And with the manga originally appearing in 2008, NASA has since seen drastic cuts, especially in its manned space mission, that make the future envisioned in Space Brothers difficult to realise. I wonder if these real word changes have lead to the current story line that seems to be scale back the ambition of the earlier volumes. Now we see Mutta attending budgetary meetings, and campaigning to continue the International Space station in an environment of decreased space spending.

Space Brothers is a series that is slowly losing momentum, it would be nice to see Hibito return after a fairly long absence, or to see Mutta finally realise his dream of heading to space, but at the current pace of the series it may not happen for a while.

Space Brothers #20

The latest volume of Space Brothers (宇宙兄弟) was released on Friday. If you get in quick you can grab the limited edition version with a bonus DVD which includes a prelude to a new Space Brothers animated movie, Space Brothers ~One Point of Light~ (宇宙兄弟 ～一点のひかり～), which will be released this summer on July 21st. It's interesting to note that the anime will only be playing at various planetariums around the country. Seems like a good way to young kids out to planetariums and interested in science.

The latest volume of Space Brothers deals with lose, and Hibito's absence further heightens this sense of lose, and I hope we see him back soon. Focusing more on Mutta, we see more on the back story of two of his current mentors, Vince and Piko, and how they have used the lose of a dear friend to fuel their ambitions and to never let go of their dreams. We also see the return of one of Mutta's original mentors from his youth, Sharon, who finally achieves one of her dreams, but this is tainted by the sense of loss she feels as she succumbs to her illness.

I'm not sure what Chuya Koyama has in store for the two Space Brothers, Mutta and Hibito, and even though this is one of the most regularly released comics I read, I wish the central story would continue at a faster pace. I'm rather impatient to see how this series finishes.

Space Brothers #19

Or 宇宙兄弟 in Japanese. It's hard to believe this series is now up to volume 19. After the movie earlier in the year, which covered the first 7 volumes, and the anime series that is running too early on Sunday mornings for me to watch, the series seems to be pumping out content and establishing itself as a profitable franchise.

But it seemed to me that the story had stagnated a bit, everyone is still dealing with the fallout from Hibito's accident on the moon. The last few volumes seemed to be going in circles. Mutta getting shuffled around to various projects and training, but now in volume 19 I can finally see some light at the end of the tunnel as Hibito moves on with his career.

I'm a big fan of hard science fiction, Makoto Yukimura's Planetes from 10 years ago being one of my favourites, but it seems that the roles of NASA and JAXA have changed a lot recently. A lot less focus on the manned space flight we see in Uchu Kyodai, but I'm not sure a manga about little wheeled buggies testing dirt on Mars makes for an entertaining read. We need the human drama. So even if there is less need for astronauts in the future, I hope Uchu Kyodai is inspiring Japanese kids to look at the stars and become interested in science and astronomy.