The other day I went to M&A (a chinese manga shop that I sometimes go) and the lady that say I buy books that are "odd/strange".



Jeez. Here's what in the shopping bag:
- Detroit Metal City (5)
- Astro Fighter Sunred (6)
- Nichijou (1)
- Kuchisake Onna Arawaru!

Ok. The books are kind of strange althought 3 of them are gag manga with the exception of the last title (which is a horror/suspense).



Detroit Metal City
(Bottom Right on the Photo)
Sure. Detroit Metal City looks weird but it's perfectly fine despite the odd translation (Yes. It's actually tough to translate. I think) and rather mundane artwork which isn't a stranger to Gag manga. Still it's not weird and in fact, I think it's rather popular. It got a Life action movie and a
OVA anime. Still, the book run on a formula which by far, not failing yet.

Check out the links!!!:
- Go to DMC!!! (OVA)
- Go to DMC!!! (MOVIE)

Astro Fighter Sunred
(Top right)
Translated name as Tentai Senshi Sunred.
It's a gag manga so featuring some really "strange" (AKA Less than Desirable) artwork is nothing out of the norm. The storyline is about a Sentai hero living a daily as a bum living off his OL girlfriend. However the main protagonist should be the "obasan"-like neighbourly, "Evil" Mastermind who tried to defeat Sunred with his mild manner ways and equally incompetent slew of "Monster of the Week" creatures. It's even funnier that someone actually took the joke forward by making it an anime.
- Anime Website

Nichijou
(Top Left)
Nichijou......is the opposite of what the title meant (which means The Daily Norm). Althought like the thousands of Gakuen Gag books..yes. It's pretty normal til it's Blend. Think a Azumanga clone (yes. The artwork is very much shoddy lookalike to Azumanga) but with out of the norm, standard manga characters like a clockwork Android Girl (normal), a Mad Shojo Science Genius (normal) doing standard stuffs. Wait.....my verdict is that it's just a Azumanga Daioh clone with some strange characters. My god. What a rip-off. Still, it's entertaining enough.

Kuchisake Onna Arawaru!
(Bottom Left)
I bought at least 2 books featuring the Kuchisake-Onna, an urban legend that exist to scare the shit of naughty school children and I pretty much like the plot twist in this one which is a collection of shorts inspires by spooky tales of the Showa period (the full title is Kuchisake Onna Arawaru ~ Showa Kaiki Densetsu). The artwork is pretty good with the usual shock stuffs. Not very

So my conclusion is that I am having odd taste, only because I am male and didn't buy the oppai/loli exploitive stuffs? Or the Shonen Stuff like Bleach and Naruto and D-Greyman?

Lol.

No. Simply because I am a jaded manga reader who happens to look into the other alternatives.

Hmmm....Fanboy history...Seduction of the innocent???Episode 1: In the Begining

I think relatively everyone got their history of how & how or so & so.



Let's do the First Contact with......



Manga

Doraemon!!!Nuff said. I don't recall buying any of his books. Just via 1st contact. Reading at barbershop, saloon and cousin's place.

I do remembered my mother bought me coloring books of Dr Slump and Doraemon however.

My first manga that I actually came up money with is Dragonball volume 2 back around primary 5 (or even 4) althought I first read it under a pirated name "Xiao hou wang". Of course back those days, everyone is buying pirated "Tong Li" brand so all the other weird named versions just slowly dies off. I don't remember getting Vol. 1 until I got Vol. 5 or Vol. 6.



My other manga purchases, when I am in Primary School that comes later on, is probably in the following sequence:



- City Hunter

I only bought 1 volume (vol.4) . Which was a seriously censored reproduced version by a Singapore/M'sia press. I like the art but the various censorship didn't do a good job in story telling. My brother bought a HK edition of 1 & 2. I think it's pretty gritty and grim and I like it quite a bit but owing to gigantic gap in between, we didn't continue until another bootleg press pick it up until Latter of my secondary school days. It's based on the Taiwan version so it's Ryo rather than Mumble (Mon Bo).



- Kujaku-Oh

This is the first book that I bought that I got no idea how the storyline goes and bought at book 1. I love anthologies stuff and supernatural back then. It's a creepy book and the mood setting is fantastic. However like City Hunter, the interest is killed via the lack of availability and I drop the book at 2 (despite the fact that the Yuan Biao Peacock Prince movies are being shown at that time). I never carry on, only reading via rental read (during NS days) because the art wasn't fantastic (in my opinion).



- Ranma 1/2

It has a unique storyline. Kung fu with comedy. I bought 4 volumes of it but I probably discontinued after PSLE. It's borderline cheesecake for the 1st few volumes but I seen the latter stories on Comic Weekly so it didn't really turn me off. However, in secondary school days, I somehow didn't try to buy much manga except for periodicals thus I dropped the book. I never finish reading it completely but I did read whatever that's on Comic Weekly until the last issue of Ranma 1/2.

- Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken

Everyone loves adventure. Plus they marketed it with a subtitle as "Xin Qi Long Zhu" (which means "New Seven Dragonballs"). It's a great adventure story. A good shonen manga with good character designs. Too bad, we opt to drop this manga around vol.8 because of missing volumes. I tried to restart in '97 when someone gave me the final volume but it's too bad because CY stop printing some of the numbers in between.

- Comic Periodicals


My first manga periodical should be the one by Chuang Yi (I think it was City Comics. You can find alot of them at Bras Besah. LOL) back in their bootlegging days. So who say someone with a past, can't turn a good leaf??? Their content is pretty plain. Just comics. Dragonball is of course their strong point.

However after a good 5 or 6 issues, I switched to Comic Weekly (a Malaysian publication which might be pirating or with permission from a HK publication which is obviously breaks some laws but who cares about that those days???) as their Dragonball is faster than CY's by a good 2 to 3 chapters (in the begining). Their format originally was almost Newspaper Size, close to how gossip/showbiz magazines are like. They didn't went down to magazine size until they decide to go weekly (it was fortnightly or once every 3 week) which is around 4 or 5 issues later.
They got a mixture of anime and game news as well as shojo manga occasionally. Owing that they are M'sia published, the censorship was ridiculous and ridiculously done (but nothing beats the S'pore Bootleg Cityhunter). I continue to buy Comic Weekly after they stop their Singapore counterpart (issues/distribution) and but availability is a bitch. I probably stopped during O'levels period because I cannot go to Bedok to them pick up.

I threw all of them out and sold the last of them to Karang Guni last month. It was a mixed feeling but I was relief because I finally gotten some space back.

By the Way, Comic Weekly is still ongoing. Lol. I still wonder if they got license to print.


Oh ya start tune for the Secondary School Days version.....which was kind of hazy to me......