Manga Mavericks

Anime Expo and San Diego Comic Con happened as per the annual July tradition, and with them comes a ton of news we need to talk about. From major licensing acquisitions to remarkable industry achievements, this episode runs the gamut of every monumental piece of news to come out of this month. With the sheer quantity of things to talk about, we’re lucky this episode didn’t run four hours long like our previous news-focused episode did! PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:22 - Intro & LumRanmaYasha’s Brief AX Report 04:00 - June 2018 Bookscan list 9:10 - Dr. Stone popularity poll 18:45 - Comico cancels Recovery of an MMO Junkie due to author’s health 19:55 - Sweetness and Lightning ends 21:07 - Dorohedoro ends in September 22:42 - Kengen Ashura ends in August 24:07 - Citrus ends in August 25:10 - Atsuo Ueda launches Fairy Tail sequel 26:28 - Comixology offers first American comic to be simulpublished in Japan 28:57 - Comixology debuts BECK and Seven Shakespeares manga from Harold Sakuishi 31:05 - Fan

This week we’re joined by the one and only Shonen Sunday stan Sakaki and all-around manga enthusiast Maxy Barnard to discuss Viz Media’s latest Sunday license - Sleepy Princess in the Demon’s Castle by Kagiji Kumanomata! Well, it was intended to be a discussion about Sleepy Princess, but with both Bomber and Maxy on board it ended up being more of a follow-up to our Shonen Sunday discussion from last year. Could this episode be the unofficial pilot of a Shonen Sunday podcast by those two? I’m not sure, but once you finish listening to the episode you’ll definitely want it to be! We discuss what’s unique and charming about this adorable fantasy comedy, and why it’s such a fun fit for both Shonen Sunday and as a new license for Viz Media. I’m not even going to bother with timecodes for this episode because it’s so all over the place, so you better listen through it beginning to end. Trust me - you’ll laugh and learn a lot! Oh, and fun fact, we recorded this podcast on a Sunday and we’re releasing it on a

On this episode of Manga Mavericks, we manage to record an episode before Sid joins Vlord to head out to Los Angeles for Anime Expo! Which means we didn’t have much time to dedicate to getting ready for another long series discussion, but we did sit down to talk about our first impressions of Hiro Mashima’s first chapter of Eden’s Zero! We discuss why we think the first chapter of this new series is already a lot better executed then most of Fairy Tail and where we hope the series goes in the future, but not before we talk about our fair share of news! Including a list of the top selling media franchises in Japan in 2018 so far, Tite Kubo’s upcoming new one shot, and Seven Seas’ biggest LGBTQ manga license to date! PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 0:00:22 - Intro 0:01:21 - Top Selling Media Franchises in Japan 2018 (First Half) 0:12:55 - Dokaben manga ends after 46 years 0:14:46 - Tsuredure Children ends 0:15:31 - Attack on Titan: Before the Fall reaches final arc 0:18:11 - Comic Birz manga to continue online 0:19:58

If you’re reading this right now, we need your help! Our supposedly good friend and regular guest Maxy Barnard was so upset we hadn’t invited him on the podcast in a while that he flew from the U.K. to the U.S., traveled cross-country to kidnap us, stuffed us both in a large grocery store plastic bag, and trapped us in a closet! Colton tried chewing through the bag, but instead, he ended up choking on it like a pigeon and is slowly coughing and suffocating to death. I’ve only just managed to rip through and break down the closet door. Maxy confiscated our phones so we couldn’t call for help, but I’ve managed to hack his laptop so I’m messaging for help before he comes ba--AAACCCKKKK!!!! … Ha ha, don’t take what my good pal Sid said seriously. He doesn’t exist anymore. Neither of them do. But I promise you we’re all having a smashing good time anyways! We’re going to talk about some Jump Starts, namely the recent two, Momiji no Kisetsu and Invade You. About time too, considering the new round of Jump Starts

It’s only fitting that we hit our 50th episode during the same year we’re celebrating Weekly Shonen Jump’s 50th anniversary. Maybe we’ll eventually run fifty years ourselves. Hey, we’ve got two years down already, what’s another forty-eight? Regardless, we want to thank all you listeners for helping us reach this far! Your listenership and support makes doing this show all the more fun and fulfilling for us to do, and we want to keep going for a long while yet. To celebrate our 50th episode milestone, we wanted to revisit a series we’ve previously discussed on the show. So we decided to go back to class - Assassination Classroom that is! Turns out Colton never quite graduated from the series back when we first talked about it, so now that Viz Media’s release of the manga has concluded, we decided it was time to go back and finish it. Joining us is our guest from our original Yusei Matsui retrospective, Kiirobon, best known for his Shonen Sunday blog but also an avid Matsui fan in his own right! Together we

We’re taking a short break from Shonen Jump-related podcast to talk about a creator celebrating a special 50th anniversary milestone – Go Nagai! 2018 is the 50th year of the legendary mangaka's career, and he’s seen a resurgence of popularity thanks to a slew of new anime based on his works like Mazinger Z: Infinity, Cutie Honey Universe, and most famously, Devilman Crybaby! To celebrate Go Nagi’s legacy and the renaissance of his work in the anime community, we’re discussing the original Devilman manga, recently released in the U.S. for the first time in a beautiful hardcover edition courtesy of Seven Seas! Joining us is our good friend and devilishly handsome Go Nagai devotee Josh Dunham, host of Senpai Coast to Coast of co-founder of Wave Motion Cannon! We go over Go Nagi’s career, what inspired him to write Devilman, and how his personal demons may have carried over into his work. Josh provides a ton of wonderful insight on the chaotic, anarchic mind of Nagai, making for one of our best analytical discu

Welcome to the second half of our World Trigger discussion, wherein we answer all your questions in another Q&A extravaganza!! Our discussion went so long that half of our team has to bail out! Which members of Team Osamu-1 made it to the end of the podcast? Only one way to know the answers to this and many other questions! Trigger on! PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:21 – Intro 04:53 – Least Favorite World Trigger Characters? 09:25 – Which Mascot is better; Raijin-maru or Battle Cat? 10:21 – What are ourfavorite squads from the B-rank wars? 16:25 – Would we be a Sniper, Gunner, Shooter, All Rounder, Attacker, Operator, or Trapper? 16:40 – What are our favorite Trigger Loadout Combinations? 17:47 – Favorite Neighbor? 18:11 – Anime OST Recommendation 18:27 – Who do we like the most from Tamakoma-2 and why? 18:48 – Opinions on the volume extras and Ashihara’s author comments? 21:38 – Are we put off by Ashihara’s “same-face” designs? 22:00 – Will we continue reading WT if it resumes serialization? 23:11 –

Even though World Trigger has been on hiatus for a long time, the love of its fans remains strong. With the series celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, we thought now would be as good as time as any to re-read and talk about it! Joining us are two VERY passionate World Trigger fans and Osamu Mikumo stans - Annaliese Christman, letterer of the series for Viz Media and Weekly Shonen Jump, and Wensleydale Cheddar, host of the Shonen Jump podcast Stammer Stream and the voice of Osamu in Team ODA:R’s World Trigger abridged series! Can they help LumRanmaYasha convince Colton that it’s the best sports manga that isn’t technically a sports manga ever made? Either way, we had a long and fun discussion of one of our favorite series, and we hope you enjoy it! But first, we’ve got a ton of news! We talk about both the Bookscan and Diamond monthly lists, new licenses, lots of industry shakeups, and a few fun polls! There’s so much to talk about, it’s no wonder this episode ended up being four hours long! In fact

Manga Mavericks @ Movies month continues with two stylish, sexy films about cars and crime! That's right, we're discussing Baby Driver and Logan Lucky, two films made by experienced directors honing their craft in these tightly-paced and smartly-plotted stories about good guys doing bad things for the sake of the people they love...with CARS!! Does Edgar Wright's Baby Driver hit the beats of the fine-combed screenwriting and smartly self-reflexive humor that's become his signature? Is Logan Lucky a worthy souther-style spiritual successor to Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's series? Put in your earphones, get in your car, and put the pedal to the mettle as you listen to our podcast on the road to wherever your destination may be! PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:30 - Intro 02:15 - Baby Driver 29:30 - Logan Lucky 55:20 - 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 @VL

Manga Mavericks @ Movies month continues as the Mavericks discuss two 2017 films with the word "blade" in their title: Blade Runner 2049 and Blade of the Immortal! But that is not their only connection; both films feature acclaimed directors using their distinctive styles to bring a fresh take to a beloved story. Is Denis Villeneuve's exploration of how to define humanity as artificial intelligence increasingly resembles genuine consciousness superior to Ridley Scott's original take? Beneath its bloody chambara stylings, does Takeshi Miike's adaptation of Hiroaki Samura's manga cut to the heart of its meditation on the futile cycle of revenge and the moral paradox of taking a life to protect another? The Mavericks discuss how these films reflect upon the themes of their original work and expand on them to communicate new ideas - their ideas - through them! PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:30 - Intro 01:26 - Blade Runner 2049 48:12 - Blade of the Immortal 1:19:55 - Wrap-up Enjoy the show, and follow us on twitter at

Manga Mavericks @ Movies month continues! In this installment, we jump forward from March 2017 to October, a month Hollywood typically reserves for horror. And boy did we see two scary movies that month...scary good movies that is! In fact, unlike Ghost in the Shell and Power Rangers, these films were adaptations of beloved franchises that were well-received! Which two films could we mean? Well, if the title didn't tip it off, they're the Tokyo Ghoul live-action movie and the IT remake! Where did these films succeed as adaptions where GITS and Power Rangers failed? Join the Mavericks to find out! Don't worry if you're skeptical that our assessments will hold up...by the end of this podcast, I guarantee that you'll float too. PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:30 - Intro 02:49 - Tokyo Ghoul 27:12 - IT (2017) 53:17 - 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 @VLor

Manga Mavericks @ Movies Month is going strong! We’ve been posting new movie reviews on our Youtube channel every day and plan to do so for the entire month of May! These reviews will also be uploaded to our podcast feed just a few days afterward. I’ve just put up our Ghost in the Shell/Power Rangers podcast, a pairing of two remakes of beloved 90’s franchises that weren’t particularly well-received. Check it out and look forward to more new @ Movies podcasts popping up on our feed this month! Of course, @ Movies isn’t all we’re doing this month! We’ve got regular Manga Mavericks episodes planned too, just like the one you’re about to listen to! This week’s episode is kind of a back-to-basics affair. Both your regular Mavericks are present, there’s a normal amount of news to talk about, and we cover a few recent Jump Starts and one-shots to cap off the show! A pretty normal episode compared to the past couple of atypical entries. Honestly, the only thing that’s missing is a Bookscan list to talk about, but

Welcome to Manga Mavericks @ Movies, the show where we don’t talk smack about movies, except when we do! How’s that for a catchphrase! Hey, at least it’s more accurate than the old one. It’s no secret that we recorded a ton of @ Movies episodes that we haven’t released yet. Nearly two dozen in fact. I’d been thinking of the best way to release them, and I figured – why not all at once? That’s right, we’re motoring through the @ Movies backlog this month in a special event I’d like to call Manga Mavericks @ Movies Month! Since the beginning of May, I’ve been posting a new @ Movies review every day on our Youtube channel. We’re about 10 days in now, and I’m really happy that we’ve been able to keep it up so far. Of course, these reviews were never meant to be Youtube exclusive, and now I’m finally starting to release the official podcast versions on our feed! I’ll be posting a new @ Movies episode every few days until we’ve cleared our backlog, or at least most of it. It’s an insane undertaking, but I’ve just

For this episode of Manga Mavericks, the part of Sid will played by both Maxy Barnard and Bomber D Rufi, as Sid had this thing called “school” to focus on until he is finally finished with that and is ready to get back to slaving away at all the unfinished podcasts he still has to edit. Anyway, while Sid is off on his own ventures, Colton takes care of the show this week and covers the news with the help of Shonen Sunday fanatic, Bomber D Rufi (@kiirobon), as they talk about the usual new upcoming manga serials, licenses and live action films! Some highlights include a list of the biggest first printings from the biggest manga publishers within the last year, Viz Media licensing of Dragon Ball: That Time I Was Reincarnated as Yamcha, as well as some new info about Hiro Mashima’s upcoming new series! Afterwards, Maxy Barnard (@MaxyTheBee) from Friendship! Effort! Victory!, joins the show to discuss and dissect Takamagahara from Jyuuzou Kawai. Another prematurely ending Shonen Jump manga that ran simultaneous

BIG NEWS! Because our Kenta Shinohara podcasts were delayed we didn’t get around to covering a lot of important news from the past couple months. To remedy that, we decided to record a big news-focused podcast to get everyone up to speed! …This was a big bad idea. We accumulated nearly twelve pages worth of news, tallying to over one hundred stories in total! To make matters worse, we began recording late at night after I was already exhausted from drawing for nearly 20 hours that day. Thanks to a spotty internet connection, we ended up needing two recording sessions and over four hours of rough audio to cover everything we wanted to. Needless to say, recording this was a tiring process. You can definitely hear the exhaustion in my voice by the end of this podcast, alongside Colton’s groans of impatience. Though frankly, listening back to this episode I did most of the talking, so it’s kinda funny that Colton was more vocally upset by the experience. ^^, Regardless of how frustrating the process was, this

It’s time once again to run down the results of our annual survey! VLordGTZ joins us to dissect the data and contextualize what the podcast’s biggest triumphs were in 2018. Find out which guests and episodes fans liked the most, alongside a bunch of other interesting statistics! The answer to what was the most beloved moment from the podcast last year might (not) surprise you! Plus, we discuss the recent Jump Start Act-Age and Naoshi Komi’s latest one-shot! Thanks again to everyone who took the survey! The responses we collected were very informative and will go a long way in improving the show in 2018 and beyond. We have lots of exciting plans and are preparing to make good on a lot of the things suggested in the survey in the immediate future. Definitely keep your eyes on both the podcast and youtube channel as both we’ll be producing a lot of ambitious new content starting in the summer. In the short-term, look forward to a lengthy news roundup on the next Manga Mavericks, as well as a very special episo

Our Kenta Shinohara Month ended up ballooning to a quarter-year! Sorry about the delay on this episode folks. Life stuff happened, which is pretty usual. Also, my (LumRanmaYasha)'s audio got messed up and had to be completely re-recorded, which was very unusual. But all these setbacks couldn't stop this podcast from coming out! We kept the mantra of Astra's world - Per Aspera Ad Aspera: "Through hardships through the stars" - in our minds and hearts. And like the Astra crew, we overcame all the hurdles in our way and became better and stronger people for it! Continuing off from last month's interview, we're joined once again by Marlene First, editor of Astra Lost in Space for Viz Media! We discuss all the reasons why Astra captured our hearts, from its lovably nuanced characters to its intriguing sci-fi concepts. We also answer some Q&As from Reddit listeners, addressing changes made to the Viz editions of the graphic novels and clearing some misconceptions about why it ended. So join us as we journey t

LumRanmaYasha and VLordGTZ convene to give their predictions on this year's Oscars!... ...Say what? You're telling me that the awards are already over? We already found out what won everything? Darn it! Yeah, we meant to get this podcast out before the Oscars, but some mishaps prevented us from getting it edited in time. Even so, we think it'll still be fun to hear what we wanted to win and thought would win, and see if any of our predictions actually happened. We also devoted a lot of time to some often overlooked awards, particularly the short film categories. So join us to celebrate some of the best movies of 2017 as we discuss the nominations for the 90th Academy Awards! 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@g

Manga Mavericks @ Movies is starting the new year strong with our first ever crossover podcast! LumRanmaYasha teams up with Just a Gintama Podcast’s Doctor and Manga Mavericks co-host and Life Lessons: The Gintama Mangacast’s Colton to discuss the live-action Gintama movie! One discussion recorded for three different podcasts, each with their own unique beginnings and endings! It’s like playing a branching route in a fighting game! So, did these three die-hard Gintama fans enjoy this film? Have they adapted the Benizakura arc too many times for us to care anymore? Is this another failure in a long line of attempts to make live-action cartoons? Will LumRanmaYasha ever edit those thirty+ unreleased episodes of this show we recorded last year? All these answers will be solved by the end of this podcast! Ok, maybe not that last one… PODCAST BREAKDOWN: 00:26 - Intro 08:05 – Gintama Movie Discussion 1:22:00 - Wrap-Up  Enjoy the show, and follow us on twitter at @manga_mavericks, on tumblr at mangamavericks.tumbl

My long-awaited review of Astra Lost in Space volume one was really well-received! I want to thank everyone who commented on it, and especially Viz Media for retweeting it and following both the podcast and myself on Twitter! It’s a huge honor and it made me really happy as a longtime fan of theirs. I really put in a lot of time and love writing the Astra review to make sure I highlighted everything that makes it one of my all-time favorite series. You can bet that I’m not done talking about it yet. In fact, you’ll be able to hear me talking about it for a good two hours very soon! Speaking of Astra and Viz, we have a very special guest this week! Marlene First, editor of Astra Lost in Space alongside numerous other series, joins us for an incredibly informative interview about her career, what being a manga editor entails, her amazing life experiences, and of course, why she loves the works of Kenta Shinohara. We also recorded a lengthy retrospective about Astra Lost in Space itself, which was originally in