The Old School Otaku Lounge

I'm currently reading the latest Drawn & Quarterly release of Kitaro: Kitaro Meets Nurarihyon. Perfect for the Halloween season!

I'm so happy Kitaro seems to be doing well! We're so lucky to get Mizuki's manga in English here now

I picked up almost the entire set of Here is Greenwood at Goodwill not too long ago, so I'm currently going through that. It's just missing 5 and the final volume, 9.

I also got 3 volumes of Viz's old Urusei Yatsura releases. Our local comic book shop got a bunch of manga in. They know they don't really sell well, at least not in my area, so they had them discounted at 40% off if you buy an entire set. While the UY set isn't complete, I asked to put the set on hold. The guy we know there said he'd give each to me for $5, so I picked up half of them. The other half is still waiting there for me, but I'm gonna pick those up soon too. It'd be nice if Viz actually re-released the set completed...I always feel like UY is popular enough to get re-liscensed in both manga and anime form. :/

I'm reading the 3 in 1 Evangelion manga sets. I guess after my enjoyment of Yasuhiko's MSG: Origin, I thought to start checking out other manga drawn by anime character designers. So far, though, while it's appealing enough as a casual read, and the art is obviously great, but it doesn't seem to be as intense as the anime was. I guess that is to be expected being Anno's baby Quite frankly I'm surprised how much Rebuild and Sadamoto's manga pale in comparison to the original manga, it seems like it was one of those things where the appeal is firmly rooted in when it was made, at that point in time in Anno's career.

Lately, I've been attempting to fill in the missing volumes of my Gunsmith Cats collection, so I've been re-reading them all. While I have no shortage of favorite manga artists, Kenichi Sonoda is easily in the top ten. His artwork is stunning in each and every panel. It's disappointing that the Gunsmith Cats anime was just a three-part OVA, I would have loved to see a longer series. Though not sure if I'd care to see it "rebooted" today, if the only option is the modern overly-cutesy moe look...

Gunsmith Cats is to this date (that I can remember) the last manga series I was excited to read and get through with all of its volumes out in America that we got. I still find myself finding the original prints from dark horse from used book stores here and there to add to my collection, which I have most of the manga between the Omnibus collections and the original prints. Part of me wants Gunsmith Cats adapted to anime, but at the same time I wonder if people would get into it, and how the designs would look today since Sonoda kinda draws his characters differently than how he did 25 years ago.

I've been switching back and forth between GTO and Battle Angel Alita(GUNNM).
Been wanting to read each of them for years, and I've finally gotten around to it. 5 volumes in on Alita and 3 volumes in on GTO, and they are exactly what I need right now.

I recently stumbled on a really good sci-fi manga called "The Promised Neverland". The story revolves around an 11 year old girl named Emma, who has lived in an orphanage since she can remember with lots of other children age 11 or younger. Every couple of months, one of the children is escorted out the gate and told they're being adopted. They're all very excited about this prospect, but at the same time, they've wondered why they never receive letters from those that have left. One night, a little girl who is being escorted out the gate leaves her stuffed bunny behind. Emma runs after her to return it, only to find that the child has not only been murdered, but those that did it are an alien species who plan on consuming the child at a banquet. Emma comes to the realization that she lives on a farm, and she, along with the rest of the kids, are the livestock. I love that this manga not only shows the logic of Emma and her friends as they plot to escape, but their "farmer" captives as well. I'm terms of logic, it reminds me a lot of "Liar Game", which is another great manga that seems unlikely to be licensed.

I'm also reading "Noblesse", "Song of the Long March" (super recommend this one if you like historical based manga), "Azumi" and "Ouroboros".

I just picked up all three volumes of Dark Horse's Gunhed manga. Just started on it and enjoy it thus far. I may be one of the only fans of the Gunhed film, but I'm a sucker for miniatures, practical effects, pre-cgi artistry, and Toho's brand of shenanigans. Plus the soundtrack is amazing.

This probably doesn't fall under the anime section, but I finally got around to reading Console Wars book when I went to Arkansas a couple of weeks ago for college spring break. It's a very informative book on the behind the scenes info between Sega and Nintendo (so far its been focusing on Sega of America and Kalinske trying to make the Genesis more marketable to the SNES at the time). I'm roughly a 5th of the way into it and found it to be very engaging and worth my interest. I still got stuff on kindle that I need to read that I'll one day get too.