After Comic-Con I headed off for a twofer at Kinokuniya and Book-Off with Carl and the Reverse Thieves. As a dude without a huge amount of money to blow (especially after NYCC!), I hadn't been inside of Kinokuniya for some time, and I had no idea they'd put together such a formidable selection of figures and crap you don't need as well as beautiful books you can't afford. Gorgeous and costly artbooks from 80s Sunrise mecha shows and storyboard books for Gurren Lagann were on display, solely, of course, to infuriate me. Carl and I settled for reading the English parts on the backs of volumes of Bartender. I should really do a post about the Bartender anime sometime. It's way overdue.
On the way out, I looked for Arcadia, not expecting to find it. Obviously, I found it. On top of that, they had Marimite keychains at the cashier, so what was I supposed to do but buy three of the randomly packed little mystery prizes? As I exited, I felt pleasantly robbed.
Book-Off, on the other hand, rarely disappoints. How can it, with cheap artbooks, videogames, and back-to-back shelves of dollar manga ripe for the picking? I picked up something I had been looking at from weeks ago: a Model Graphix book of G Gundam model kits. It's one thing to see a gallery of scratchbuilt MS from various Gundam series, but G Gundam is the only Gundam series where many of the designs actively defy you, the hobbyist, to build a model of them. Of course, Japan's crazy-ass builders rose to the task, and among the highlights of this book is the fully scratchbuilt, transforming model of the Nether Gundam. That's right. The Gundam that turns into a windmill. The number one model in the book is, of course, the model of the King of Hearts. He is so angry, he is bursting out of a wall.
Then it was straight to the dollar manga. My first buy was the last volume of Blaster Knuckle, the comic about a boxer with a shotgun for knuckles who's hunting down the KKK because they ate his father. Lucky for you guys, I reviewed this geniuspiece a long time ago. In this volume, the author realizes he's about to be canceled by the Young Animal editors and has to introduce the previously completely unknown backstory as quickly as possible. Or at least I have to assume so.
Next I got two volumes of One Outs-- full title is One Outs: Nobody wins, but I!-- and that's about what you'd expect. If you're watching the anime, the first volume ends with Kojima chopping wood in a forest and the second volume ends with Toua beaning a guy in the head. Real tough-guy shit. The first volume of the manga also features the illustration of shirtless, leather-pants-wearing Toua that inspired 2008's most fabulous OP.
I also got the 42nd and final book of Tough (or, properly, HIGH SCHOOL EXCITING STORY TOUGH). Mostly to say I had it. I have the first couple of volumes of the English version, but it's it's almost as unlikely that Viz will make it to 42 volumes of this book as it is that I will buy them. So why not get to the end now? In this volume, the hero mostly sits back and chills while two twins fight to the death. One of them is the hero's father? Maybe. I can't read it, really. The ending makes pretty clear that this is not, in fact, the ending: Tough is ongoing to this day. Our expectations of senseless action master Tetsuya Saruwatari are completely fullfilled, including guys getting punched in the face through manmade waterfalls, a dude cracking his own neck back into place, and the all-important cross-sections of brain damage taken during a fight. Even now, huge, terrifying men are having their insides shattered for all to see in Tough every week. It's a noble occupation.
Lastly, a one-shot book of Virtua Fighter manga. It's about as silly as the little-remembered VF anime series: total bottom-shelf game license fluff. And boy, it's ugly. The artist is clearly aping Ryoichi Ikegami, and in the panels where he's trying, he fakes it until he alllmost makes it. But most of the comic was not drawn to such a high standard: a lot of it looks like he's just trying to get this dumb videogame comic done as quickly as possible. In other news, Pai is a love interest, Jacky has Super Saiyan hair, and Akira uses his famous special move-- good old forward, forward, punch-- to defeat everybody instantly, actually shattering liquid metal Dural (who's also stolen the T-1000's shapeshifting bit for this comic) with it. Immediately following this, there is a little gag comic where the gang all gets together in a ring and play VF2 on their Saturns.
All this for not much money! I always get worried when Book-Off has their sales, because I feel like the place is going to shut down. There's really nothing near an online equivalent for this place, and I pray that it never, ever goes away.
After that it was Beard Papa. The place was pretty much closing up, so the cream puffs were cold, but oh so airy light and delicious. What a damn cream puff. I wish I could get one of those around here. In the morning. Nice and piping hot, with a coffee. That'd be nice.
Did I hear someone say King of Hearts? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt1bNu_GMh8&feature=related
Posted by: Hisui | February 16, 2009 at 09:12 AM