Yaoi and werewolves? A winning combination for some adult-manga readers. Well that’s the idea behind Wild Honey, written and illustrated by Sei Takenaka. “Hina, the student council president at St. Jeremiah High School, has a secret. Hina is the head of a family that inherited werewolf blood, and recently, he has no memories of nights with a full moon. When he encounters the student council president of a rival school, he is aroused by a scent. While he is usually calm and unperturbed by anything, this scent has transformed his personality; even the mere memory of the scent triggers a passionate reaction.” It’s being released in North America by Digital Manga. You can read more about it at Anime News Network, or order it in paperback at Amazon.
Manga
Unico comes to DVD
Unico is a well-known and well-loved anime and manga character created by the late great Osamu Tezuka in 1976. A baby unicorn with the magical ability to make people happy, he draws the wrath of jealous gods who think only they should have such powers. Tezuka was unsuccessful in turning his popular manga into a TV series, but Unico did find his way into a pair of feature films in the early 1980’s. In The Fantastic Adventures of Unico (from 1981, directed by Toshio Hirata), the West Wind is charged with carrying Unico away to a far-off land when the gods banish him — but she takes pity on him and sets him free. Now Unico and his friends are on the run, with the angry gods in hot pursuit! Then in 1883 came Unico in the Island of Magic (directed by Moribi Murano) where Unico and his friends join the fight against an evil wizard who plans to turn all living things into his zombie slaves. Both feature films (dubbed into English) were popular VHS tapes in the late 80’s but have long since gone out of print. Now comes the word that Discotek Media are releasing both Unico films on DVD this month, each with both the English and original Japanese soundtracks. You can find out more about all of this (including several Unico fan sites) by checking out Unico on Wikipedia.
Her High School Friends are Werewolves
Jiu Jiu is a new (at least on our shores) black & white manga “teenage action romance” by Touya Tobina. Here’s the run-down: “Born into a family of ‘Hunters’, Takamichi’s destiny is to pursue and slay demons. When her twin brother is killed, she is saved from despair by a pair of Jiu Jiu — shape-shifting familiars — in the form of two wolf pups named Snow and Night. Now Takamichi is in high school and an active Hunter. Snow and Night can’t wait to attend school in their human form to ‘protect’ her. But are they ready to go off leash…?” Viz Media will release Volume 1 in digest manga format this June.
Romance on Werewolf Mountain
It’s called Three Wolves Mountain, and its’ a new black & white manga of the yaoi variety, created by Naono Bohra. We think that the description on Amazon summarizes it best: “Way up in the mountains, far from any major cities or towns, Kaya Susugi runs a small cafe by day and guards a haunted cemetery by night. Then, one night, he comes across werewolf brothers Taro and Jiro. Cheerful but klutzy younger brother Jiro quickly falls head over heels for the capable loner Kaya. What results is a dive into the hot, tail-twitching delight of werewolf mating season!” You read it here folks. It comes out in June from SuBLime, and obviously it’s Adults Only.
Gon — Not Forgotten
In the “about bloody time” department: Word is out that Gon, the globally-popular manga by Tanaka Masashi, is finally being made into a CGI animated TV series. Gon, if you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know (or perhaps if he threw one on top of you) is a miniature dinosaur-like creature of tremendous speed and power. He lives in the animal world, and always seems to be getting into fights (comical, but still…) with other animals over simple matters like food and territory. Interestingly, this famous Japanese manga is being brought to television by an animation house in Korea, Daewon Media, with the help of the Japanese publishing house Kodansha. There’s a preview video up on YouTube which shows footage that was displayed recently at the TV trade show MIPCOM. The show is all set to premier in Japan and Europe early next year, with the rest of the world hopefully to follow soon after.
Godzilla’s Friends and Foes
Are you a fan of Kaiju — giant monsters from Japan? Are you a fan of monster match-ups in glorious city-wrecking battles? You might want to check out Godzilla Legends, a new full-color 5-issue mini-series from IDW, starting this November. Each issue will feature a self-contained stories of various monsters from the Godzilla universe taking on one another to the explosive end. In issue #1 (by Matt Frank and Jeff Prezenkowski), Anguirus — the spiny four-legged “perpetual underdog” of kaiju-dom — takes on one of the deadliest monsters of all, Destoroyah! The first issue also features special variant covers by fantasy artist Bob Eggelton and comic book legend Art Adams.
Animal Land
An interesting black & white manga that we somehow missed last year… Now it’s being re-published in English by Kodansha Comics and Random House. In Animal Land (written and illustrated by Makoto Raiku) we are introduced to an alternate earth inhabited by only non-human animals. After losing her family to vicious predators, a tanuki (raccoon dog) named Monoko makes an amazing discovery in a river: A human baby! Now this strange, unknown creature will grow up among the animals and will soon begin to display amazing powers. Volume 1 was released in August, and Volume 2 is coming up soon in October. Here’s a review at Good Reads.
Animal Graphic Novels
Here’s a useful link we stumbled across: Lindsay Cibos (one of the creators of the Ursa Major Award winning book Draw Furries, along with Jared Hodges) has put together a list of 36 “Graphic Novels with Animal Protagonists” using Amazon.com’s “Listmania” service. Some of the items she listed are well-known already of course — Mice Templar, Blacksad, Gon, Mouse Guard, and so forth, but she also listed several that we haven’t heard of around here before, like Chi’s Sweet Home, My Cat Loki, and Seekers: Toklo’s Story. You can check out the list here, or visit Lindsay and Jared’s web site here. Here’s your homework assignment: What other cool furry-themed graphic novels can you think of?
The Art of Camilla d’Errico
Camilla d’Errico is a fine artist and painter, widely known for her pictures of anime-style young women posing with animals. Her work has been seen in publications like Hi-Fructose, Kid Robot, and Juxtapoz. You can view more of her art, often referred to as “pop surrealism”, at her web site. Now Dark Horse Comics are set to release Femina & Fauna: The Art of Camilla d’Errico, this coming March. It’s advertised as “the largest and most comprehensive book of Camilla’s art ever published”. Well at very least it’s more than 100 pages of art in a large-format hardcover book. You can order it now at Amazon too.