By Mat K.
If you found the last two weeks of insane releases a tad hard on the wallet, you will be thrilled this week, there are less than ten titles showing up. Don’t get me wrong this week makes up for it in quality. It seems to be the kind of week for all those manga that regular people (ie: not otaku) read, Oishinbo Volume 6, Black Jack Volume 8, Pluto Volume 6, Vagabond Volume 30, and while those are all well and amazing, there is also Fullmetal Alchemist Volume 21, which came out really quickly this time around, Case Closed Volume 32 comes around, and Gurren Lagann Volume 3 is here. Like I said, it’s a pretty awesome week right?
Unfortunately, that’s really all there is to say about manga this week, they’re all series that are known and well on their way, and there are no brand new series this time for me to review and plug. So the remainder of this weeks jibber-jabber is devoted to anime. Yes, finally some good anime are starting to show up again. First and foremost, Neon Genesis Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone the movie came to the states last week. By Saturday we sold out, and even though it should be coming back in, I felt it was something all you anime fans out there ought to be aware of. Evangelion was the original anime to a lot of people out there, hell, they have been making toys for it constantly even though the show ended 10 years ago.
Next on the block is Naruto Shippuden The Movie. It’s admittedly a little awkward since we haven’t even seen the first volume of the Shippuden anime yet, but I suppose everyone has been keeping up with episodes online, on Hulu, or even, God forbid, on Disney XD. By the way, those are the letters ‘X’ and ‘D’ they just happen to also make the emoticon for laughing very hard. So, the premise is Naruto has to protect a priestess who is the only person capable of stopping a powerful spirit that wants to destroy the world. Of course she can also predict the future. And of course she predicts that Naruto will soon die. But does that deter him from his duty and honor? Never! How will the ninja world survive this one?
A couple other things of interest are the Dragon Ball Z Dragon Box, which is essentially the first 42 episodes with a ton of exrta stuff. It was a super collectors item back in japan, and this was way before we started getting those nifty orange season box sets here. It almost seems a little redundant, but according to Funimation, DBZ fans have been aching for this box set for a long time, and this is the first box, so expect more. Also, the first part of Bamboo Blade has come out on DVD, you have seen the manga, and it’s pretty neat, definitely worth checking out. DVDs are a good thing. That’s my wrap up, so see you next week.
Ja Ne!
