I can't believe it's happening, but it's true. One of my childhood anime 'Guru Guru' (Mahoujin Guru Guru) has a new anime adaptation!! The new reboot is not a sequel of the previous anime series but will start afresh from the first chapter of the original manga.
For those new to this anime here's the plot: When the seal confining the demon king Giri wears off, it's time for a hero to step up and defeat him. Nike, a young boy unwilling to accept a fate he never wanted, and Kukuri, a young witch from an ancient tribe, will travel to seal Giri again and save the world, RPG style.
While the plot may look kinda 'serious' you will find out the anime is really funny, mostly aimed at older children, full of comical interludes while keeping his original shounen / fantasy style.
Guru Guru was born as a manga by Hiroyuki Eto and first published on Montly Shonen Gangan magazine from 1992 to 2003, a sequel was later launched in 2012 on the Gangan Online website. The first anime series from 1994-95, turned into a film in 1996 and a sequel Doki Doki Densetsu Mahoujin Guru Guru on television.
Differences between the old and new animation:
You definitely can tell there's a huge improvement, and I love this new much modern and simple animation style.
Trailer for the new anime - first episode (I'll post opening and ending as soon as I find them):
The first episode is already available online, go check it out!
Hellooo! For April I have two manga I wanna recommend to you, they're bot not so well-known but I discovered them recently and absolutely loved them! Ready?
The first: KOI MONOGATARI.
The second: ANATA TO SCANDAL .
The first: KOI MONOGATARI.
It's a 2013 manga by Tagura Tohru, still on going. It's a shounen-ai (or BL aka boys love), set in a normal japanese high school. Being a BL, I know it's not for everyone's tastes but it's not visually explicit and it is a really beautiful story, I strongly suggest it!
Plot: Hasegawa Yuiji finds out his classmate's secret: Yoshinaga Yamato is gay. He also notices Yamato has a one-sided love. Little by little, they get closer and get friendly, Yuiji realize Yamato is a cool guy and hangs out with him more often, trying to help him with his troubles and all..
Conclusion: If I had to describe it in a few words I'd say it's a 'pretty love-friendship story'. The two main characters, Yamato and Yuiji are so different but both so cool you'll fall in love with them for sure and wish them the best. This manga really convey everyone's feelings to the reader, in such a soft and real way, it's hard to explain.
What makes it intersting though, it's the expectation. You know what will happen, you just wonder why, how and when (still waiting for it btw). The drawings are amazing, I cannot stop staring at them. Please read this manga! The second: ANATA TO SCANDAL .
It's a 1994 shoujo manga by Shiina Ayumi consisting of five volumes. Old, I know, but you won't be disappointed! The plot has everything, from romance to harem to gender bender. It is definetely a shoujo, though, as you'll know, The drawings are your usual '90s shoujo type (big hair and odd fashion too) but I don't dislike it, on the contrary it's quite interesting.
Plot: Tasaki Tomoka is a student from an all-girls high school and fell in love on a train. She doesn't know her prince, she is just happy seeing him. One day she meets Miyazawa Arata, a childhood classmate from piano lessons, who invites her to see his band performance and wants her to join it. Once there, she finds out her prince is the singer of the band. Drunk, she confesses her love to him and later finds out his (not so much) secret. He is not who she was expecting at all.
Conclusion *with mild spoilers* : How can you not read a manga with that plot and such handsome characters? I mean, I liked all of them, though they're all VERY different -both phisically and personally. I was honestly quite surprised for a lot of reasons: the first one being Tomoka. She is a girly-girl but is unexpectedly strong and feisty. Another one is that there is the possibility of love, even between two girls in a non-yuri (girl x girl love) manga. I actually rooted for them, I knew it wasn't in the cards -since it was clearly a shoujo- but still.. I thought I'd be interesting and cool. Lastly, I wasn't sure who Tomoka would end up with because, at some point, it looks like they all kinda like her. And that's another unexpected thing, I would have swore she'd end up with my second choice (comment if you wanna know who) but nope. Still, I'm happy anyway cause I like all of them after all.
Real conclusion is I loved this manga a lot!
Just one bad point: the ending is kind of abrupt? I expected at least two other more chapters, or at least an extra one. Instead, it just suddenly end leaving you hanging for more. But that might be because I didn't want it to end lol.
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That's it for this time, please let me know in the comments if there you read them or there's some manga you're loving lately!
Kyoukai no Rinne (Circle of Reincarnation) is a 2015 anime and the latest Rumiko Takahashi's creation, from the manga of the same name. It's a comedy / shounen type, the anime is currently on its third season.
Plot: Rinne is a shinigami who lives on earth and has also a regular life as a student. His identity is a secret until Sakura Mamiya, a fellow classmate, finds him out. She can see spirits and such because she was 'spirited away' as a mistake when she was a child. From then on, they two of them, along with his black cat contractor, will collaborate to send spirtis to the wheel of reincarnation, so they can be reborn.
Characters:
During the series we'll meet a whole lot of new characters, some friends some rivals or enemies (lol) which will make the story even more fun and messier.
We have Rinne, the serious over-zealous type of guy, who lives for his shinigami work and is so poor that he can't think of anything else. With him lives Rokumon, his black cat contractor who shares his pain of poverty and would do anything for him
On the other hand, Sakura Mamiya is a normal student except she can see spirits; she seems a little emotionless but is kind and cares about Rinne and Rokumon.
Then we'll get to meet the 'rival', someone who remids me so much of Ryoga (but has the appearance of Miroku), which is Tsubasa Jumonji. He's an exorcist, so he can see spirtis and fights them but has a different -and harsh- approach to it compared to Rinne. After meeting him and Sakura, for whom he has a huge crush, he slowly changes and tries to understand spirits a little better.
Another intesting character is Tamako, Rinne's granmother, a famous shinigami which looks eternally young. She rarely changes expression and seems sweet, except when someone refers to her real age and calls her 'grandma', like Rinne.
She married and loved a human and lived with him and their nephew Rinne until he died.
The cause of Rinne's misery is his father (and Tamako's son), Sabato. He's the reason Rinne is so poor, because he's repaying all the debts his father made using his name. Sabato has a shady business, his wrong-doings are the cause of many characters' unhappiness, like the ones below here.
Neverthless, he doesn't stop at anything to get what he wants which is to say, money. Though he seems like a bad guy he is quite comical himself, always getting his son into trouble and tricking him. We don't know much about him other that that and what happened to Rinne's mother.
I won't go into details about the other characters or I might spoil the story too much, not that there are major development anyway lol. The story is such that even if you miss an episode you'll be fine, since every episode is mostly auto-conclusive.
Neverthless, he doesn't stop at anything to get what he wants which is to say, money. Though he seems like a bad guy he is quite comical himself, always getting his son into trouble and tricking him. We don't know much about him other that that and what happened to Rinne's mother.
Conclusion: Definetely watch it! If you know and you're a fan of Rumiko Takahashi's past works (Ranma, Inuyasha, Maison Ikkoku, Lamù, etc) you'll love Kyoukai no Rinne too. It's a perfect blend between Ranma and Inuyasha, in my opinion, taking the fantasy world but keeping the atmosphere light and comic. Wheter there's a serious event, it'll turn into a mess with the interruption of the other (silly) characters.
This is a different kind of shounen, it doesn't involve deathly battles and super strong enemies, it's fun, has a good background story and great characters -all silly and different from each other-.
Maybe we'll get some more intense episodes along the way (and I'd really like for a strong enemy to appear, forcing all the characters to cooperate), just don't save your breath for it, hehe.
Also I cannot wait for romance to between Rinne and Sakura to bloom! Though I have the feeling I'll have to wait a long time for that..
As always, here's the opening 'Oukaranman' by KEYTALK! Beware, the opening makes the anime looks very serious, don't get fooled lol. By the way, I love this song!
This is a different kind of shounen, it doesn't involve deathly battles and super strong enemies, it's fun, has a good background story and great characters -all silly and different from each other-.
Maybe we'll get some more intense episodes along the way (and I'd really like for a strong enemy to appear, forcing all the characters to cooperate), just don't save your breath for it, hehe.
Also I cannot wait for romance to between Rinne and Sakura to bloom! Though I have the feeling I'll have to wait a long time for that..
As always, here's the opening 'Oukaranman' by KEYTALK! Beware, the opening makes the anime looks very serious, don't get fooled lol. By the way, I love this song!
And the first ending 'Toki no Wa' by Passepied. Both are for the first season, you can look the others up on yt!
Well, since I'm feeling really nostalgic, maybe I'll go and watch Ranma again, lol. Until next time!
Time for another k-drama review! This time I'll do a first impression-first episode type of thing, and who knows, maybe I'll continue with all the other episodes too. Anyway, before giving out too much, here's some infos. Strong Woman Do Bong Soon is a JTBC 2017 korean drama, with a total of 16 episodes, just recently completed.
Plot: Bong-Soon was born with superhuman strenght, this power has been passed down every generation to the women of the family only. While this power may look like a blessing it has a curse too, it must not be used for personal benefit or something bad will happen to the holder. One day while trying to stop some thugs, she is seen using her powers by a young man and several children. That man is Min-Hyun, the young CEO of a gaming company, she'd want to work for. Oddly enough, he tries to hire her.. to be his bodyguard!
Indeed, he needs a bodyguard lately since he's been having some threats from unknown people, as well as being spied and followed. So he swears to the policemen that she didn't use any 'powers' as the children revealed, and promised Bong-Soon to give her a shot with her dream job if she could successfully protect him.
Since she needs money and a job, she accept. All the while, some strange murders occur in her neightbour and her childhood friend, Kook-Doo, a policeman who takes his job very seriously, is investigating it. She is in love with him but he doesn't notice her feelings and has already someone else. Neverthless, he worries about her and isn't too happy about her (work)relationship with Min-Hyuk.
Conclusion: So.. To tell you the truth I approached this drama full of hope. I was fresh from watch 'Weightlifting fairy Kim Book Joo' -which I loved- and I thought it must be something with a similar theme. Weeell, not really.
I realize it's just the first episode, so I'm gonna give it one more try and not be too harsh. Honestly though, I was a little disappointed. Even though the characters are well developed, they fall a little flat. The plot seems a little bit too obvious and calls for a love triangle between the 3 main characters right at the beginning. Where is the element of surprise? As for them, I really like Kook-Doo, he is oddly weird but very serious at the same time and just cool. Not so much Min-Hyuk who looks really childish and arrogant, not appealing at all to me. As for Bong-Soon..annoying. I had high hopes for her, she had it all: cute, cool power, interesting background. But she seems a little bit too arrogant and again, annoying. I hope it's just my impression on the first episode though.
The 3 actors together at the press conference, from the left: Park Hyung-Sik, Park Bo-Young and
Ji-Soo.
Like I said it's just a first impression and maybe I'll change my mind in the future, so stay tuned for the other reviews!
We are well in 2017 already and I decided to revive this blog once more, so what better way to start than the column 'Manga of the month?'. This time I'm talking about some manga I've been reading for a while and especially loved last month.
The first one is 'KIMI TO BOKU' is a comedy/slice of life manga by Hotta Kiichi, started in 2008. I'm sure it's already well known since they recently made an anime out of it (which I'll review later).
Plot: 'Kimi to Boku' ('You and I') tells the story of 5 highschool friends, all boys, mostly of which have known each other since they were really small. The cool/weird twins Yuuta and Yuuki, the grumpy Kaname, Shun nicknamed 'Flowery boy' for his love of cute things and the last one to join: Chizuru, a lively half-japanese transfer student.
Every chapter is a story of its own mainly focused on one or plus characters, their daily life at school and (rarely) outside, sometimes discovering their past or having some weird adventure.
My take: I love it because it's really amusing and perfect to realx, don't expect drama or anything like that! But don't worry, this manga will hook you up anyway. Another positive point have to be the characters, you can relate to them because they are so different one from the other and have so many different layers. Their friendship is so genuine and sweet! Somehow it makes me nostalgic for things I never even experienced, it's good like that!
Second manga I want to recommend is 'TOMO-CHAN WA ONNANOKO' a 2015 comedy/romance by Yanagida Fumita.
Plot: This manga revolves around Tomo, a highschool girl who is in love with her clueless childhood friend Jun. Tomo tries to confess to Jun, the problem is that he doesn't see her as a girl. That's because Tomo is boyish, violent, loves sport and used to spar with Jun when they were little. Luckily, her friends, Misuzu and Carol, will help her become more 'femminine' and let Jun notice her.. or will they?
My take: This manga is simply hilarious, it's not your typical shoujo where a plain girl becomes super girly and gets an harem of boys..forget that. Tomo's efforts to conquer Jun's love are embarrassing and fun, always ending up miserably. Not to mention her sidekicks, which are my absolute favourites: Misuzu and Carol, both are just comedy gold, one completely opposite to the other, their skits are amazing.
Best trio: The clueless - The No-Filter - The manipulative.
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Anyway, these are the new manga I recommend, both still ongoing. Let me know if you knew them, liked them and your favourites! :)
Age of Youth is a 2016 south-korean drama of 12 episodes by JTBC.
PLOT: The story revolves around 5 girls, to be more accurate, 5 roommates. Every girl is different, we have Yoon Jin-myung, the a serious and hardworking 28years old college student with more part time jobs than she can count, Kang Yi-na, seemengly a beautiful rich girl who dates around a lot, Song Ji-won, the life of the party, who likes to gossip and tell stories, Jung Ye-eun, the girly-girl of the grup with a fantasy vision of romance and someone who throws a lot of tantrums, and finally Yoo Eun-jae, the last coming, a quiet girl who rarely speaks her mind because of her shyness.
Every girl is different from the others and they each seems to have a dark past or secret, something they don't want the others to know..
(Contains minor spoilers)
The story starts with Yoo Eun-jae coming to 'Belle Epoque', a nice house she'll be sharing with other 4 girls. The start is rough, she is uncomfortable and the other girls don't seem to respect her, almost bullying her, so she often keeps to herself, mumbling. Ye-eun only cares about her boyfriend, sometimes lets Eun-Jae do her chores and eat her food. Jin-myung is almost never home but she leaves notes for Eun-Jae -whom she shares a room with- with an harsh tone and doesn't talk to her at all the other times. Yi-Na doesn't interact much with her, except maybe to scold her on things she did wrong. Ji-Won is not there during that time.
Eun-Jae feels left out and ponders to leave, all the while worrying about some kind of accident in her past that gives her nightmares and makes her zone-out a lot. In college is the same, she can't make friends, just a senior always bother her and Eun-Jae doesn't stand him.
Aften one other s*tty day, she finally has enough at home, as she finds out someone ate all her jam, and they're also all having dinner together without telling her. She snaps, finally letting all of her feelings out.
Eun-Jae snapping: "You could at least be a little kind! Not everyone is used to living here like you guys. For me, it's so hard I could die!"
While Eun-Jae storms out crying, the other girls are left bewildered and guilty. They find Eun-Jae in her bed, talking nonsense with a high fever an they take turns in nursing her.
When Eun-Jae wakes up fever-less, it's sunday and cleaning day, nobody says a bad word to her instead inquiring about her health. They all chat happily and Eun-Jae is hopeful again, at the end they all tell her jokingly to not keep things bottled up until she explodes.
Finally we meet Ji-Won, who's back and set back the happy mood in the house, apologizing to Eun-Jae "This all happened because I wasn't here." Things get weird again when Ji-Won announces that she can see ghosts and one lives in the cabinet under their shoes rack, at the entrance.
The reaction is even weirder, Yi-Na says something like 'So I guess I did kill them then' while Jin-miung mutters there's a person she wish would die. Eun-Jae is shocked by their words but mostly she thinks it's her fault if the ghost is even there.
A little way later we find out several things:
- Ye-Eun is dating a douche with an inferiority complex, she does everything and more for him and he just plays along when he feels like it. So she just lies to everyone to keep up appearences.
- Yi-Na the badass is actually an escort, yup, not a college student nor a rich girl. She dates old dudes that pay her with credit cards. She's also not sorry for that but she feels lonely. She finds consolation in talking regularly to a (creepy) old guy.
- Eun-Jae starts to get along with the senior who was bothering her -hint: he liked her-. But she still doesn't trust him enough to reveal her impeding family troubles/secrets to him.
- Jin-miung has serious problems at one of her jobs but she finds unexpected help from one of the staff, who seems interested in her.
- As for Ji-won, well, she's single and desperately wants to find someone to love her. She's not really lucky though, her exuberance seems too much to handle.
From there on, things gets better between the girls but their life get more complicated, their secret will come out on in the open one way or another and nothing will be like before. Will the girls preserve their peaceful life? Who is the ghost and who's responsible for him? Also, what are the girls' secrets and why are they so important?
Conclusion: I really really liked this drama a lot. What I really appreciated is that this drama doesn't revolve around a guy, romance or an unfortunate girl that turns her life around after meeting a man -like most k-dramas. Nope, not this one.
It's a story about five girls, their dreams, their life -and yeah a little bit of romance. But romance isn't all, indeed there aren't many happy ending in that regard for them, but it's fine because they have something else. They created a unique bond of friendship, no sisterhood, between them which is really awesome. And you can't really believe it, because they're all so different compared to one another and even though it seems like they have nothing in common, they get through hurdles and laugh and cry together.
My vote. Kidding, lol, I'll give this drama a good 8.
I also loved how different and detailled the characted were from the others, in real situations. About that, there's little to zero sugar-coating: things get bad, really bad, there is no redeeming just moving on with life. Here is another thing this drama teaches you: you can leave your past behind and be happy, build a new life for yourself.
And they do, especially Yi-Na and Ye-eun! They kind of turn their life around, while keeping true to themselves. Also Jin-miung and Eun-Jae find strenght to fight their fears and are a whole lot more confident and happy. *Spoiler in white: Ironically, they are the only ones who find love at end *
Definetely, check this drama out, if you want to see something different about friendship!
Playlist of the OSTs:
See you with the next review! :p
It's been a while! Since we're in a new fresh year I figured I would do a 'manga of the year' instead of a month, and indeed I have a couple of manga I've loved this past year! Guess which?
The first is 'GINTAMA' a 2003 manga by Hideaki Sorachi!
Gintama has been around for a few years (it has its own anime and movies as well) and is really popular but I just got to read it recently. Of course I got hooked!
PLOT: Edo period, as the world was attacked by aliens (Amanto) samurais tried to defeat them but where betrayed by the shogun, who realized their power and made an unequal deal with them. Subsequently, swords were banned in public and so samurai scattered around doing other jobs. Gintoki Sakata is a poor but eccentric samurai, who lives by doing freelance jobs at the 'Yoruzuya'. While on one of his jobs he encounter teenagers Shinpachi Shimura and alien Kagura, who become his assistants.
My Take: Don't expect a serious manga! At the start it was more like a comedy manga, interesting but really silly, only to switch later to a total shounen. It still has silly side stories and most of the characters make no sense, BUT it is awesome! Also, there are so many characters it's hard to keep a track of them.
The second is 'NORAGAMI', is a 2011 fantasy manga by Adachi Toka! This one also has an anime series, but we'll get to it another time.
PLOT: Noragami, literally 'Stray God', is about an underdog god named Yato. He is said to be the god of War and Calamity but is not very popular and hasn't got a shrine. To have those he needs money, which he collects by doing deeds to people in needs -who pay him 500 yen for whichever job-. While clumsily doing that, he meets Hiyori Iki, an highschool girl who can see him and that, for an accident, is stuck in between human world and afterlife. He may seems like a simple fellow but he has a past nobody seems to know about..
My take: Noragami has a bit of everything: action, fantasy, japanese mythology, romance, friendship and comedy. You can't go wrong with it!
Well then, that's it for this time, I hope you enjoyed this! Until next time :3
