Katawa Shoujo is Ready to Play!

Happy new year, everyone! Just a quick post. Katawa Shoujo, a game I first discovered just under two years ago and wrote about in this post, is finally completed and ready for download! Their site servers seem to be in and out as of this post, probably because people are trying to get the game.

Quality seems to be top notch, and it's totally free! I'm hoping to play it myself and get a review up at some point. In the meantime, try out the game! Be warned that it is advertised as having erotic elements (some even say it's a hentai game), so kids and anyone easily offended should avoid it.


Blackbird.

The End of Tokyopop Manga

This is the fourth post I've written tagged with Marmalade Boy, by the way.

If you're savvy on manga publishing in America, you might already know that Tokyopop shut down its US manga publishing operations on May 31.

I became obsessed with manga when I was about eleven. One of my friends, older and more informed than I was about the medium, took me to a Waldenbooks at a local mall. The manga section only took up one small shelf, crammed next to the cash register. I didn't know too much about what I was looking at, since while I was a comics reader, it was mostly of collections of Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side. I had read a little manga at the beginning of the whole Pokémon craze, a flipped version of Ono Toshihiro's Pokémon: The Electric Tale of Pikachu, when I was about six, but I never went too much beyond that and some dubbed episodes of Sailor Moon. I did draw a lot of Pokémon fan comics, but we don't need to go into that.

She suggested Wataru Yoshizumi's Marmalade Boy to me, licensed by Tokyopop. The cover was pretty unassuming, featuring a smiling girl looking at some unknown thing in the corner, but the story intro hooked me in the minute I skimmed its pages in that store, and I bought it.

"Keanu Reeves Won't Take on Akira"

Anime fans around the world...rejoice! The anime world has received its deliverance in the form of Keanu Reeves' rejection of a lead role in Akira (click for the article). Perhaps the Rapture that was scheduled to happen on Saturday decided to exert its divine influence in other areas of life for the benefit of all. By faith, I am most grateful that it did.

This headliner was a shocker for me, as I was only peripherally aware of a live-action version of Akira was in the works. My initial reaction?

The "New Deal" of Japan's Economic Crisis

The leader of a noble cause, Taro Aso

Japan Looks to Manga Comics to Rescue Ailing Economy:

"While other countries bail out banks, slash interest rates and prop up struggling industries, Japan is pinning its hopes for economic recovery on a less likely source: manga comic books."

Rejoice, fellow readers! For Japan's solution to the economic crisis means oodles and boodles of more manga available to us voracious fans. As is evident from this quote, Japan aims to increase revenue by capitalizing on the guilty pleasures of the global public.