Wednesday, May 17, 2006
	| First| Prev | Next |Last | Experimental Comic Kotone #459 "Laika 27" (Story Arc: Laika story arc) | First| Prev | Next |Last | "Laika 27" by Akira (2006-05-17) 5/17 Wed - I'll work on Wednesday's comic strip when I get home. I'll finish inking when I get home from work. 5/20 Fri - Finished inking and changed some sound effects ^_^; Any comment? to today's comic strip? Shigurui It is one of the bloodiest samurai manga I ever read. "Azumi" has more death rates, but the manga artist of "Shigurui" is better artistically and loves to draw detailed anatomies of human. You'll see a lot of human dissection shows in this manga. Story and characters are quite 'crazy' like the title "shi-kurui (it's 'death' and 'crazy')". But that's how it might have been in the world of Samurai. The story is one of Tokugawa shogun's children, Tadanaka Tokugawa, decided to hold a sword tournament at his castle in Suruga. The problem was all the battles are held with real swords (not wooden swords). His followers tried to stop him by doing seppuku (shouting out criticism/complaint to Tokugawa can only be done with death), but he just smiled and enjoyed them die slowly... He was crazy and sadistic. The first fight is between a man without left arm, Gennosuke Fujiki, and blind man, Seigen Irako. Current story is about what happened between them in the past. It's quite scary since there will be a total of eleven deadly battles (I wonder how long manga will be...). The original novel "Suruga-jo Gozenjiai" is written by Norio Nanjo who is famous for writing cruel/bloody samurai novels (he's died in 2004). The first episode "Mumyo-gyakunagare", which current arc is based on, is quite short and the manga episode was fully expanded and drawn by Takayuki Yamaguchi who drew "Kakugo no Susume". Manga is published at "Champion RED" which also runs "RAY", "Saint Seiya Episode G", "Densha Otoko", and "Koi Koi 7". "Shigurui" is extremely grotesque and I fear it might make some people vomit, but the detailed fighting scenes, sword stances/techniques, and story telling/narration are really awesome. I will reference "Shigurui" if I have a chance drawing a sword battle in near future - of course with less shigurui-ness. Please write your comment to this strip at pOnju forum

	Thursday, May 18, 2006
	"The week Wii stole the show" by Totaku (2006-05-18) Well, I'm sorry for the lack of rants last week, but I'm on vacation for appoximately a month I shall be here at the beginning of June to restart my Summer Classes. I pretty much expect to gradute by Spring of 2007. As for now, I thought I'd discuss about one of the gaming industries's most popular events...E3. As you know E3 has come and gone already. But from what I looked up and saw alot of big things occured during that week. For starters, PS3 has unvailed it's offical price for thier system which is going to be about $500 for a 20 GB basic system and $600 for a 60 GB system with all the goods ( I forgot what they were thought) Also PS3 unvailed some actually gameplay for once at the convention (although no playable demos) and from what I've seen I'm impressed with the graphics and quality of PS3 right now. Unfortinatley I still need to worry about the price and waiting till next gen consoles to come out (Key Rule about Sony's product: Never by the first gen model, it tends to have bugs usually) Besides that it's pretty awsome. Next was X-Box 360. X-box seemed to have only a moderate performace this year to my view. Mainly focusing on the games that'll come out later in the future....like Dead or Alive, Halo 3, ect....since I'm not a big X-box person I can't say much on it. ^^;;; But this year....the top winner was definetely Nintendo. Never did I expect such a strong performace to come from Nintendo this year. They've proved many things this year with the Wii. They showed that the Wii will be difinetely one of the most innovative system. While X-Box and PS3 have the technology, Wii has all the funky gadgets. And from what I've seen the controller and how it's used on certain games shows me that this will be extemly awsome. For example; Wii is going to release a Wii version of Zelda: Twilight Princess you can use the Wii controller as an bow and arrow by pulling control stick back, while holding out the button controller and the clicking the button control to release the arrow. Basiclly I'm saying the controller is motion senative. (PS3 has a simalar controller too , many say it's like they ripped off Nintendo) But to top it all off the games in Wii's library is extermly good Probably the biggest shock was Smash Bros.: Brawl. For anyone that has played Smash Bros you certainlly know the awsomeness to fighting as a Nintendo character against other nintendo characters..but how did they top off Smash Bros. this time? Three words: Third Party chararcters! I got to learn that one of the biggest surpiuses in the new Smash Bros game is that they somehow got the rights to of all character...Solid Snake in a Smash Bros game! At this rate, this will be an extermly awsome game (and yes! I will probably play as Solid Snake since I always found him awsome)This was indeed the year Wii stole the show. It even susprised some of the people from the Xbox and Sony booth....tells you Nintendo's going place with thier product. And to top it off $200 for the Wii...what else can I say, cheap innovative, full of awsomeness. Wii is going to deliver definetely. This covers my rant for now till next time (when I have a chance..it'll like be after June 1.) Ja Matta! ^_^ -Totaku