Birds Eye View

Well, Christmas is almost here w/ only 4 days left and I hope everyone's done their shopping or almost done. I finally finished mine :D. I'm probably heading back home for the holidays and won't be posting much. Like it matters as I haven't been posting regularly anyways >_<. Today's post is mainly a 'stuff' post. It's my ongoing barrage of mangas. I got these last week. They include Dragon Ball Ultimate Edition vol.34 HK version, Nekomajin Ultimate Edition HK version, Shi ga Futari wo Wakatsu Made/Until Death Do Us Part vol.3 (awesome sheila art...me wuv), Bleach 23 & 24 HK version (vol.25 JPN tank came out this month), Ukigumo Momojinden vol.1 (be gettin' 2 & 3 soon) and the final volume of Street Fighter Legends: Sakura. I must mention that Udon has licensed Sakura Ganbaru and vol.1 of the Street Fighter Zero manga. Both are done by famed Masahiko Nakahira. Sakura Ganbaru is a rare manga and it's great that they licensed it. I have the HK version Street Fighter Zero vol.1 but was never able to get vol.2, so it's great that they licensed that series as well. I could ebay the JPN tanks if i wanted to, same w/ the Ryu Final in which i've been contemplated for a long time now. Let's hope Udon gets the Ryu Final manga as well. Sakura Ganbaru and Street Fighter Zero/Alpha vol.1 are both slated July 2007 and May 2007. They're up for preorder at Amazon, seen here.

You may or may not know that I'm a big Akira Toriyama fan, hence why I cover Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest and Blue Dragon games so often. I probably mentioned this before, but I hold Akira Toriyama as the greatests manga artist ever. There's just no one in the biz who can draw mangas better than him, especially shonen. The attention to detail (characters, props, background) and fluidity of his art during general scenes and especially fight scenes is unmatched. So I must say as a big fan of the guy, i'm ashamed of myself for getting some of the mangas u see in this post so late. I've heard of the Dragon Ball Kanzenban (Perfect Edition or Ultimate Edition) books for quite some time now but held off on buying them cuz I already own the original 42 volumes (HK). The new Toriyama art for the covers were mostly meh, since his style has slightly changed a bit from his late Dragon Ball days. So, I finally decided to get vol.34 (aka 42 of the original) since it included a new 4 page ending drawn by Toriyama, plus it was on sale. The ending is a mixed bag cuz it ends off mostly well but hints at the horrible Dragon Ball GT which Toriyama had hardly anything to do with.

For those who don't know, the Kanzenban is a rerelease of the original 42 volumes but shrunk down to 34 volumes. So, more chapters has been added to each volume. Also, the book is much larger than the original tankoubon. The paper is not a rough style like JPN tanks but has a glossy finish. The spine artwork is all new as well. Best of all, the coloured chapters from the original Shonen Jump Weekly are included. Since I finally own this and experienced hands on, i must say i regret waiting so long. The quality of this release is just awesome and some of the coloured pages from the original Shonen Jump Weekly is awesome. Though I don't intend to re-purchase the entire series again, I do plan on buying some of the issues that I liked w/ key fave moments, and the chapters I want in colour. Sadly, some things are omitted. Such as the beginning "Mokujin" artwork for each book and each Chapter Title artwork is gone too. It sucks as most of them were really good and sometimes humourous. However, since I own the originals, it doesn't really matter to me, late Dragon Ball fans on the other hand, might be disappointed. I just wished they would release all the popular shonen mangas in this kanzenban form cuz having Bleach, One Piece, and Naruto in this form would be so awesome w/ the coloured pages. Kenshin, Yu Yu Hakusho amongst other oldies deserve this treatment too.

Here's a comparison shot showing the size of the last volume of Dragon Ball.

As for Nekomajin, well, that one was fairly new, since I waited for the Hong Kong version. Nekomajin was also given the Kanzenban treatment w/ a bigger than regular sized tank, glossy finish and coloured artwork from the title covers. The chapters were never coloured, so there's no coloured chapters. Even if you're not a Toriyama fan but a Dragon Ball fan, this is a must get, since the latter half of the book is parody on Dragon Ball. It follows the adventures of Neko Majin Z (previous chapters prior focused on two different Nekomajins). It's quite funny stuff w/ Toriyama's usual style of humour from his Dr. Slump and early Dragon Ball days. Son Goku, Vegeta and others make guest appearances and it's great to see them 'one last time'.

Since I'm an avid movie goer and have talked about movie news in ages, i just couldn't keep quiet about this one. One of my more anticipated movies has put up a teaser. Tarantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse.

I'm lazy on game news not and debating how much I would like to post. Though I will share this today; Garou Densetsu Battle Archives vol.2 cover from Rakuten....very awesome...wuvin' Blue Mary and Mai there. Terry's just the coolest.

anyways, i'll have one last post before christmas. Time to "Bounce".