Earlier this year Marvel had a one-off vampire comic set in Japan’s feudal era. Was artist Goran Parlov just going for stylized over-folding of the material on this shadowy agent of a samurai vampire, or are we looking at some kind … Continued
Interesting, villain-centric book covers featuring tokusatsu hero Masked Ninja Akagage. I guess if the character or book series is established enough, the different villain-du-jour becomes the selling point.
Depending on what school of thought you believe, the stereotypical ‘Ninja-To’ is either pure myth propagated by popular media or martial tradition traced back centuries in Japan. Well, if EITHER of those is true, then you’d think the short, straight … Continued
Takao Saito‘s rather fun manga Kage Gari was turned into a veeeery grim, nigh-emo film in 1972. Whereas the trio of vengeful “Shadow Hunters” in the books are sort of a jaunty, anti-shinobi three musketeers, in the film they are … Continued
Well, folks. I TRIED. I really did try to write a fair, even, and generally supportive piece on KAMUI GAIDEN. But seriously… how can it possibly live up to the source? This is even more compounded by some terrible effects, … Continued
OK, so the Kamui Gaiden manga had a major pedigree in Japan, and its ground-breaking U.S. release separated the men from the boys of late-craze ninja fans. So why are we just getting a movie now? The “Island of Sugaru” … Continued
Just before the holiday, I got a screener of Funimation‘s 2-DVD release of Kamui Gaiden, allegedly the most expensive ninja movie ever made, and one that has received about as wide an array of responses as I’ve ever seen. Epic. … Continued
Continuing some gift giving ideas, these for the bookshelf: We’ve highlighted Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda‘s Ninja Attack! before, but I wanted to give it a brief review now that I have it in hand. This may quietly be one … Continued
Is there a more perfectly 80’s manga creator than Buichi Terasawa? His art – augmented by then fledgling computer graphics – oozes MTV, Nagel, neon, hair products. His samurai wore suit jackets with the sleeves pulled up; traditional garb filtered … Continued
While the legacy of Shotaro Ishinomori‘s Henshin Ninja Arashi (aka Transforming or Metamorphosis Ninja Arashi) lives mainly in tokusatsu TV nostalgia and vinyl collectibles of one decade or another, for me the manga holds the most charm. Packed with monsters, … Continued