Manga Mavericks

We’re back baby! Manga Mavericks has been on a hiatus recently, but we’ve returned to end the year with a bang. That’s right, since 2017 is over, it’s time to look back at the last year of manga and highlight the best of the best. First we’ve got an hour and a half of news highlights from the past three months, giving our thoughts on some of the most important news stories we missed. Except for licensing news, because trying to recap everything Seven Seas has licensed this year would take a whole show in of itself. After that, it’s our best of manga superlative awards, where we gush about our favorite things about manga this year, and reminisce about our favorite moments from the podcast as well. It’s four hours of Manga Mavericks goodness to close out 2017 and begin 2018 strong! PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:22 - Intro & Updates! 05:30 - Jump Starts! Lycopene the Tomatoy Poodle, Full Drive, & Golem Hearts News: 18:20 - Bookscan November 2017 List 22:00 - Oricon’s Top Selling Manga by Series in 2017 29:50

Let's travel back, back to a blast from the past - Samurai Jack! After over a decade the modern masterpiece returned to the airwaves to conclude the samurai's long journey, and we recorded about it...five months ago. Well, the wait time for this podcast is paltry in comparison to how long we waited for that final season, right? We start off the show discussing the recent theatrical screening of the first three episodes of Samurai Jack and how impressively the show holds up sixteen years later. Then our friend Ethan joins us to discuss season five in-depth, from what we really loved about it to the few things we didn't care for. That's right - we're covering Jack's beginning and it's end in the same podcast! Watch out!  PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:00 - Intro 00:50 - Samurai Jack: The Premiere Movie 21:20 - Samurai Jack: Season 5 1:11:25 - Wrap-Up Enjoy the show, and follow us on twitter at @manga_mavericks, on tumblr at mangamavericks.tumblr.com, and subscribe to us on Youtube. You can follow the hosts on twitter

We're digging back into the vaults of unreleased episodes! With A Silent Voice in theaters and Your Name coming out on blu-ray next month, now's as good a time as any to excavate our thoughts on the two biggest anime movies of 2016, if not the decade! Did these films live up to their reputation? Have their quality and criticisms been overstated? Which one is the better film? Finally, five months after recording our thoughts on these films, these questions will be answered! PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:00 - Intro 00:55 - Your Name 22:35 - A Silent Voice 1:03:30 - Wrap-Up Enjoy the show, and follow us on twitter at @manga_mavericks, on tumblr at mangamavericks.tumblr.com, and subscribe to us on Youtube. You can follow the hosts on twitter at @lumranmayasha and @VLordGTZ. If there’s something you want to ask that’s too big to tweet, drop us a line in the comments below, or e-mail us at mangamavericks@gmail.com! Thanks for listening!

It's finally time to dig up and release those dozen reviews we recorded over the summer I never got around to releasing! Since The Ancient Magus's Bride anime has finally premiered on Crunchyroll, it seemed high time to post our thoughts on the first three episodes of the series, which we watched back in July thanks to Crunchyroll's Anime Movie Night. Was The Ancient Magus's Bride as enchanting as its reputation suggests? It won't take you long to find out! That isn't the only review on this episode though! We also share our thoughts on Takeshi Koike's badass new Lupin III flick The Blood Spray of Goemon Ishikawa. This is one of the rare Lupin III features to focus on the theif's iconic samurai sidekick, but was the movie really about him? We discuss the pros and cons of the film as well as what we'd like to see from the Lupin III Koike-verse in the future! PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:00 - Intro 1:39 - The Ancient Magus’s Bride 16:20 - Children of Ether 19:47 - Theater Experiences 27:52 - Lupin III: The Blood

Marvel's Inhumans is inhumane. The Mavericks are joined by their Jack Kirby-loving friend Jonathan to discuss the first two episodes of the latest Marvel misfire, which they made they grave mistake of seeing on the big screen. Topics include the history of the Inhumans, why Marvel is pushing them as a franchise, and their mistreatment of the X-Men. There's also a lot of tangents about a variety of topics ranging from Jimmy Neutron to the Aqua Bats. It's a fun conversation about a not-so-fun show! PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:36 - Intro & Tangents About Mumkey Jones, Boruto, Black Clover, & Youtube Monetization 08:30 - Why Was the Inhumans TV Show Made? 10:25 - Tangents About Conspiracies & The Aqua Bats 13:22 - Doorbell Interruption #1 14:45 - Who are the Inhumans? 18:50 - Doorbell Interruption #2 20:50 - Who are the Inhumans? cont. 29:00 - Scott Buck Shouldn’t be a Showrunner 31:25 - Medusa Looks Terrible 34:51 - Black Bolt is an Asshole 42:15 - The Inhumans are Inhumane 48:00 - They’re Cutting

Manga Mavericks might be on a temporary hiatus, but @ Movies is still in action! Last week the Mavericks went to see The Castle of Cagliostro on the big screen, and they had a great experience! We talk about Miyazaki's theatrical directorial debut and its strengths and weaknesses, cultural impact, how it differs from other Lupin the Third works, and how it fits into the grand scheme of his conspiracy to get children to mistrust authority figures and become addicted to drugs! You might be scratching your heads at that last part, but trust us, we'll open your eyes to what this movie is really about! PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:15 - Intro 02:10 - Our Theater Experience 06:25 - Why Isn’t Lupin the Third More Popular in North America? 11:15 - Complaining About Eleven Arts & Fathom Events Trailers 18:25 - Fathom Events’s Interview with John Lasseter 32:20 - Is the Streamline Dub Any Good? 42:00 - How Well Are the Characters Used in This Film? 44:35 - How This Film Differs From Other Lupin III Media 51:15 - The

Yeah the Sket Dance review is delayed again. Don't fret, we promise it'll come sooner than the final two books of A Song of Ice and Fire! So what are we reviewing this week? We don't know! I mean, we do because we recorded the episode already...but it was a total crapshoot before we recorded it. We literally just spun a wheel and picked whatever random manga it landed. So what did the Wheel of Manga choose for us to review? No spoilers - you'll have to listen to the episode to find out! As far as news goes, we've got an exciting Bookscan list to cover, discuss when Hunter X Hunter will come back from its latest hiatus, and whether Kirishin's contest to publish the world's first Christian light novel is a good idea. It's a pretty short show this week, but nonetheless still an hour's worth of quality manga discussion! PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:22 - Intro 01:48 - August Bookscan List 05:05 - Hunter X Hunter Goes On Hiatus Again 08:05 - Akiko Higashimura Continues Tarare-Bar 09:30 - Fist of the Blue Sky Returns i

It’s been almost six months since we last released an episode of this podcast, but that doesn’t mean we stopped recording it! On the contrary, we’ve got a dozen episode backlog that I need to work through. It might be a while yet before some of those episodes come out, but we’re getting back on track by releasing the most recent episodes we recorded and working backwards. Which means starting with the episode we recorded last week. On this episode VLordGTZ and I are joined by Colton to follow-up on our Death Note discussion on Manga Mavericks by talking about Netflix’s recently released live-action film adaptation. We discuss why the movie fails to work as an adaptation and as a standalone story, what didn’t work about the characters, and just how stupid the whole mess was. At the end we answer some questions about the manga itself, including our favorite moments and the dumbest things Light and L ever did. Manga Mavericks @ Movies is back and better than ever! Oh yeah, in case you didn’t notice we’re cal

Even though the original manga ended over a decade ago, Death Note has never really died. It has remained ingrained in the zeitgeist, transcending the status of merely being a popular anime series to being a story even those outside the community would recognize. Hence why it’s getting a Netflix live-action film adaptation, the newest in a series of attempts to cash in on the franchise since it concluded. So Death Note is an evergreen series everyone still talks about, but does it actually hold up? Was it really as tightly written and thrilling as you remember? Do its themes of justice, good and evil hold any actual weight? That’s what the Mavericks intend to find out as they re-read the series for the first time in nearly a decade. VLordGTZ also joins us to give his impressions of the series as a first-time reader, to see if the story could still grab the attention of modern fans. Together they discuss the good and the bad, and why Death Note still captures the imagination of fans nearly fifteen years later.

It feels good to have finally released the Pokemon Adventures retrospective after months of editing it on and off. Doubly so after refueling my passion for the series upon flipping through the Pokemon Adventures artbook that Viz just put out earlier this week. It’s chock full of beautiful color art and illustrations from Satoshi Yamamoto’s entire run on the series, from the early GSC stuff to the recent ORAS arc. In addition to gorgeous renditions of the cover artwork, there are a lot of great colorized versions of iconic scenes from the manga that you can’t find in the regular volumes, which are a real delight. Even more so is the inclusion of the first chapter of the Pokemon Ranger webcomic Yamamoto drew back in ’06, which has never been collected in graphic novels before or translated in English! Yamamoto promises that in the next artbook, he’ll include more chapters, and considering that this story seems to explain what happened to Deoxys after FireRed & LeafGreen, I really hope he does so. This artbo

Yo! Here’s how the story goes you find out. About a manga in Shonen Jump, there’s no doubt. The podcaster whose eye is on it he’ll say “I’ll be making a podcast, s’what I’m gonna be making!” So we set sights on One Piece, Eiichiro Oda’s monolithic manga that has been enthralling fans worldwide for over 20 years. To help us commemorate this hardy occasion, we brought aboard Sam Leach, a shipmate over at the One Piece Podcast, to help us make merry over our One Piece memories. During the course of our three hour reminiscence, we’re reminded how through it all - through all the troubled times, through the heartache and through the pain - we know that One Piece will be there to stand by us, just like we know we’ll stand by it. We are on a cruise, and have been for the last twenty years. No matter how much longer this journey may last, know that there is always room for you if you want to be our friend and join this adventure with us. Together we will find everything that we’re looking for. So come aboard and bri

I want to be the best there ever was. To beat all the rest, yeah, that’s my cause. Unfortunately, just like Ash, I keep getting stuck in set back after set back, taking far too long to make any real progress. Until now! After spending three months in editing hell, the long-awaited second half of the Pokémon Adventures retrospective is finally here! In this special podcast I’m joined by Annaliese Christman, the official letterer of Pokémon Adventures for Viz Media, as well as fellow Pokémon fanatic Johnathan Lewis to discuss the entirety of the Pokémon Adventures manga from the beginning. That’s right, we talk about all fourteen arcs – you can see why this podcast ended up so long, right? Topics of discussion include the manga’s fidelity to the games, the missed opportunities of the FireRed & LeafGreen arc, difficulties in translating the manzai jokes in Diamond & Pearl, why Ruby is so fabulous, and tangents about all sorts of random things! All in all, we had a great conversation about what makes this

Part of the problem with doing a bi-weekly podcast is that you’re always a week late to the discussion, even if you made plans before everyone else. First, ANNCast did a Rumiko Takahashi retrospective last month when I’d already planned to do one this October to celebrate her 60th birthday, something I’ve had in mind for the past year. Then, Wave Motion Cannon, Manga Machinations, and Manga In Your Ears all put out an episode on My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness within a week of each other after we had just finished recording ours. And now, practically every anime and manga-related podcast is doing an episode complaining about Anime Strike!, including Colton who cucked me and went off on his own to record one with Buggy and Doctor even though he knew me and VLord wanted in. What am I supposed to add to the conversation now, huh? Why couldn’t we all be on the same page…well actually we all were on the same page...but why couldn’t we all done one big collaboration instead of all these fragmented discussions

They say that dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff which it is made. Unless it’s a dancing manga, in which case it’s made of paper and ink or pixels if it’s digital. Today the Manga Mavericks find their rhythm and explore the meaning of dance through Tomo Takeuchi’s Welcome to the Ballroom, a resoundingly popular dancesport manga whose anime adaptation promises to be one of the best shows of the upcoming summer season. Considering Colton was not a fan of similar dancesport manga Straighten Up!, will the Mavericks be able to get into the groove of the series, or will they lose their footing and fall out of step with its story and messages? Well if the only way to describe dance is to show dance, then the only way to learn what people think is to hear them, so listen away! Of course we’ve got news to cover first. Colton cheats on the show with another podcast, so Sid is forced to recruit VLordGTZ yet again to discuss the latest happenings in the world of manga. From great deals like the F

Ever wanted to know what a slime monster tastes like? Apparently mangaka Ryoko Kui did. This week the Manga Mavericks fill up on her D&D-inspired cooking manga Delicious in Dungeon, recently published over in the west by Yen Press. Did it whet the boys’ appetite for a fantasy cooking manga, or did it leave a bad aftertaste? If you’ve read my review of the first volume, you can probably guess, but listen and find out anyways! Before that, we’ve of course got news to deal with! We run down Oricon’s latest semi-annually top-selling charts, exciting upcoming new manga, and changes going on in Weekly Shonen Jump’s lineup, including the addition of two new Jump Starts, Shudan! and Cross Account! Shudan! already debuted in this week’s Jump, and it’s one of the best first chapters I’ve read in a while. Definitely look forward to us discussing it more in-depth on the next episode of the show. Between the news and our Dungeon discussion, this is a short but sweet episode that’ll be sure to satisfy your cravings f

Pokémon Adventures is perhaps the most famous and by far the best Pokémon manga ever made. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, LumRanmaYasha is once again joined by Annaliese (Ace) Christman, the official english letterer for the series for Viz Media, as well as the self-proclaimed Pokémon fanatic Jonathan (Vix) to discuss the series and its legacy. In the first part of our two-part retrospective, we reminisce about how we discovered the manga, and naturally, how we got into Pokémon in the first place. What results is the realization that Pokémon is more than just a franchise designed to make kids waste their money trying to collect everything associated to it, but rather a lifestyle, one that an entire generation has collectively grown up with. We’ve made friends, learned to read, and even gotten jobs thanks to Pokémon; it’s become an irreplaceable part of our lives. Thanks to Pokémon, every day along the way, we have been prepared. With every challenge, we have gained knowledge to be shared. And in our hea

Even if rakugo was a dying art form, manga surely isn’t! The anime adaptation of Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu was critically acclaimed among anime connoisseurs in the west, so the Manga Mavericks take a look at the original manga, licensed and renamed Descending Stories by Kodansha USA. Can a manga capture the essence of rakugo as an auditory performance art in a soundless medium? Or is this another case of an anime adaptation transcending the limitations of its source material to transform a good story into a masterpiece? But first, news! Colton’s back from buying cigarettes at Anime St. Louis, and rejoins Sid in discussing the latest happenings in the world of manga. We feign enthusiasm for the return of Hunter X Hunter, speculate on the potential of a Hollywood-produced Saint Seiya live-action film, and salivate over Seven Seas’s latest tidal wave of manga licenses, including the likes of Devilman and Captian Harlock! So sit down and get comfy as we deliver a podcast as entertaining as listening to a rak

Rounding off our My Hero Academia podcast trilogy is this long-awaited Q&A special! We received so many questions for our Manga Fight we couldn't possibly use them all, so we organized this special episode to answer them! Both Jeff Ruberg and Doctor return to give their takes on your questions, and what results is the realization that all podcasters are evil, Stain is best girl, Mineta should make a Spirit Bomb out of sticky balls, and lots of lucrative ideas for ScrewAttack! Before we get to all that we have to cover the news first, but because Colton abandoned the podcast to go to Anime St. Louis to buy cigarettes, I had to find another co-host for the week. Thankfully, that scumbag VLordGTZ just happened to be in the room so I pulled him over, sat him down, and forced him to talk about the latest happenings in the manga industry for fourty-five minutes. We discuss how confusing Yu-Gi-Oh! is now, dance on Fairy Tail's grave, and speculate on the Attack on Titan/Madagascar crossover that is totally defi

Who's the greatest teacher in manga? Korosensei? Zetsubou Sensei? The Ultimate Otaku Teacher? Ha! Posers, all of them! They pale in comparison to the original gangsta, the one and only, Great Teacher Onizuka. To celebrate the GTO manga's 20th anniversary, we're schooling you guys a crash-course on the fundamentals of GTO. Fellow All-Comic manga specialist Nick Rowe joins us to give us the 101 on how the old folk discovered GTO back in the days of Tokyopop and how filthy rich GTO's creator Tohru Fujisawa became because of it's success. Not only do we talk about the original manga in depth, we touch upon the prequel, sequels, and spinoffs as well! Everything you ever wanted to know about GTO is covered in this erudite educational episode. But first, we've got about an hours' worth of news to peruse through! We correct the previously misreported circulation numbers for One Piece, butt heads on whether Keijo!!!!!!!! was unfairly canceled, and are simultaneously bemused and amused over the recent controversy over

It’s time for another episode of All-Comic Presents: Manga Mavericks Presents: Manga Fights sponsored by Geoff Martin Art Sales (not really)! Operating in the same fashion as Screen Junkies’ Movie Fights, Manga Fights features passionate manga fans debating it out over manga-related several topics both intriguing and insane. With the Manga Mavericks as your hosts, intelligent conversations, heated arguments, and unintentional comedy is always sure to abound! Manga Fights returns for a three-month hiatus with a fight of heroic proportions! Continuing where we left off with our My Hero Academia debate, Doctor rejoins us to debate Jeff Ruberg, mobile developer for Viz Media, in a series of MHA-related topics! For the very first time ever, every topic picked for this episode was a listener suggestion! Not knowing just what to expect, Jeff and Doctor argue over what makes a good hero and villain, what defines a "comic-book style," and most importantly, who the best girl and best boy in the series are! The debates