I’m sure everyone already knows that Nick Simmons pieced together his manga by cutting out pages from Bleach and Hellsing, and glued them onto pieces of construction paper. Now, I don’t really see why this is a big deal. After all, with all the style Bleach steals from American rock history; we should consider it karma that rock would want its piece of the pie back. In this case, through the proxy known as legendary rocker Gene Simmons’ son, whatever his name was…

Plagiarism happens all the time. For example, nobody seems to care that Ikkitousen is probably, and always will be a huge rip-off of Tenjou Tenge. I would not doubt that if you were to place pages of either over the other you’d notice elements of tracing. But because Ikkitousen’s artist doesn’t suck as bad as Nick Simmons, he can get away with it. On the other hand, Flower of Eden’s artist sucked at art. Or more specifically, sucked at art involving people doing something other than standing. So when Random Person A mentioned that she traces from Slam Dunk and REAL, people made it a big deal. Keiji Kawaguchi traces from photographs and magazines all the time. Like hell he wants to actually visit these places and take pictures on his own. But because his art looks somewhat decent, and because he’s so well-established in the industry, nobody pursues him.

Frankly, I never liked DeviantArt. And I don’t like Incarnate. That doesn’t mean I don’t like American comics. It just means I have good taste.

Speak for yourself
Linking to sources is fine, but most visitors came to visit your blog or site to know what your take is on something, not to read what Wikipedia or Anime News Network thinks.

Take a step back to have a better look
After writing your blog entry, don’t publish it yet. Take a step away for a few hours or even a few days. When you return the post will seem fresh and you’ll be better able to see mistakes, grammar errors, and areas that can be expanded on better.

Easy reading for tl;dr posts
Large detailed and informative posts can be amazing, but many times they aren’t easy to read. Perhaps try to have a summary of what is said at the start or end for readers to better know what the wall of text is about. Maybe bold key points or experiment with separating the different aspects of the post better.

Be easy to find…and easy to find again
Show off that you have RSS feeds, add a feature that allows people who comment to know there are new comments for entries they commented on, or have a Twitter to interact with readers and other anime and manga bloggers.

Know who you’re attracting
Most blog software, hosts, and such have ways of finding out which sites linked to you and what search engine terms people used to find your site. Knowing who your readers are can help you fulfill the needs ‘n wants of your current readership. If you’re an anime fan from Thailand, you can include bits or whole posts that effect your area. Having a post about a new manga scanlation group on a blog that mainly discusses licensed manga will be a turn off for many.

Be appreciative
Reply to comments, add a latest comment widget to a sidebar, comment on reader’s blogs, or contact them. To add to this, don’t make it difficult to leave comments with registrations or heavy duty spam prevention. You’re showing appreciation because you do appreciate what they say.

Be an epic win
Spice up your adjectives, be current, tap into nostalgia, decide to write casual or professional, give personal experiences, know when to add images, have contests, give things, and most importantly be an interesting writer. Feel free to take up designing graphics, using a digital camera, or take a trip to some interesting places like conventions and events.

You is a very short chapter sized shotacon manga with Kazuma and Kenji of the Summer Wars anime. Kenji is the aggressor and also seems a bit more developed than poor little Kazuma. The character designs are great for being what it is, but the tan line of Kazuma was a bit too strong when in black ‘n white. Pages become wonderfully noisy as sounds begin and the ending is sweet. It’s untranslated by the dojinshi circle Ego Dance with the author Nanamatsu Kenji. Worth checking out if you just watched the movie. Hopefully the anime will be licenced.

Even though the American constitution doesn’t protect obscene media as its goal, it does and will alway will because of subjectivity.

As selective enforcement grows, more and more normal well meaning people will be guilty of crimes that they may or may not know exist. That’s not to say one should be anti-government as government is only as good as the people who put leaders in power.

Manga is fiction, media, and art. If sexual material is deemed obscene then so should violence. So if one makes a murder crime movie, the buyers of the movie should be charged with the crimes relating to movie or the thoughts and planning of committing such a crime. Extreme example, but relevant.

One may say to themselves that they would have fought these charges to the bitter end, but then you may realize that you’re about to lose everything and that this effects your friends and family.

I believe anyone put into such a situation should not give in. Try to be respectful, but surely give them hell when someone says or implies something outrageous. Punishment of normally lawful citizens should not be accepted with this. Good intentions of people involved with this case is debatable. On one hand it’s just simply not knowing, but it soon become ignorance after a point in time.

Background:
Christopher Handley is a fairly long time manga fan who served the US Navy, managed to gather a collection of well over a thousand such books, a comfortable career in computers, and is in good will with his family. The guy also plays games online, but apparently that is not socially acceptable in the state of Iowa even in 2010. Before the official sentence, a push to ban the person from computers was made like how some places ban alcoholics from buying liquor. Makes one wonder how often such suggestions are made with actual pedophiles.

Basically his order of manga that he imported was inspected before being picked up and driven home. On the way home he has a face full of cops and serious biz dress up people raiding him. Roughly 80 of his 1200 manga were seen as offensive in the case with many of those being yaoi and lolicon. There has been information about how characters in the yaoi comics were pushed to be seen as underage.

CBLDF or Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a consulting group that helps people charged with obscene comic related cases and the people representing them. The CBLDF believes comics should be treated as any other form of expression. If you’d like to find out more about them or if you wish to donate, visit CBLDF.org

The image above is more of an expression of emotion than anything else.

Feel free to drop a comment here with your view or post in the recent related forum thread about this case and how it impacts manga.

Pluto is an eight volume manga based on the Astro Boy series with a dramatic, mature, and mystery aspects to appeal to older fans. It’s a master piece put together by legendary mangaka Osamu Tazuka and Naoki Urasawa with Viz as it’s English publisher.

First volumes start off as a crime story that jumps into humanity and what humanity is. It’s post-war and robots have been given rights so they may live normal lives among people. Suddenly the greatest robots and the great human minds that made them are one by one taken down by a mysterious foe, but the story develops in such a crafty way that you have no clue what could happen next or that the cruel acts are much more serious.

Characters are drawn in a much less typical way to allow more emotional attachment to what the characters are feeling. European or Western looking people are actually just that. No lolicon here or perversion here, sir (or ma’am?).

One creepy and personally impactful moment in this manga was with Atom the Tobio appearing robot and his creator Dr. Tenma. They’re comfortablely sitting together with a meal and the genius father asks him a load of awkward questions. All of the questions Atom answered were those of a good boy, not the real Tobio.

Laon is a Korean manwha with a single volume out now from a set of six in English by Yen Press. A human like being sent to earth after a lost bet with a lady of an unknown relationship with the main character Laon. It’s name Laon may happy in Korean, but the the character lives with a low wage guy who is using the gifted creature. So Loan? Laon?

Art wise this manga changes quite a bit with how thick lines are, how clueless ‘n cute Laon can be, and the mood. One may say it’s inconstant, but to me that’s always been a strength when quality isn’t going down hill the further you go.

This creature has some neat powers that include turning parts of pictures to real objects, going through walls, and some less clique tricks that are hinted by what Laon is (a Korean fairy tale creature known as a gumiho). That last part about powers really had to be mentioned due to the couple very arguably minor mature pages, especially the part that suggest the act of rape. With that said, I don’t see this manwha a smut, but I am a bit confused to who the original target readership was upon it’s original release.

The potential of depth is fairly high. You will wonder who the cruel lady who made the bet is, what the bet was, and how Laon earned nine tails that were lost because of the bet.

One Fine Day has one volume currently out by Yen Press and has been in their manga magazine since the very first issue. The first thing you’ll notice is how insanely cute the magical world that’s in this story. A young man named No-Ah is living with and care taking of a kiddy dog (Nanai), mouse (Pritz Rang), and cat (Guru). The story is day to day like and… Screw it. The main thing to tell is how so damn cute they are and nothing the naughty bunch of cuteness can do makes No-Ah mad. The gang are drawn mostly as human kids with animal parts, but that’s basically what they are. Kids. Just so cute and not a single page goes without it.

To stir some more light hearted fun while keeping things interesting, the story does introduce a villain from No-Ah’s past. The fact that One Fine Day is so playful and continuously interesting at the same time makes it a neat read.

Dream of Mirror Online is another free anime styled MMORPG. You have four races, plenty of classes, and many methods of making money or items. The game tries to be social with guilds, friendships, marriges, and a feature that points out other characters that may have a stronger chance of having a relationship with.

Pros:
-Areas have X and Y with numbers for both that allow you to easily find people and non-playable characters on maps.
-There are two Wikipedia-like site for non-biased guides and information.
-The graphics and controls are fairly close to a lot of the paid MMO’s.
-Depending on your job (Shaman, Thief, Witch Doctor, etc.) you can early solo play by yourself or with teams.
-Lots of special items you can buy on the official Aeria’s official site. Basically how they pay for severs and the employees who service the game.

Neutral:
-While there are a lot of jobs (which you can change) for various styles of play, the skill lists for them are really tiny.
-There are CLANNAD costumes, but not in the English version because of copyrights.

Cons:
-Poor translations, chunky clunky chat box, frequent global announcements about gold sellers, and lack of information in-game can make the game harder to learn or annoying.
-Even though the game has low system requirements, it still sometimes has a hard time loading up and when you want to switch between the game, something else, and then back to the game.
-You can fish, farm, and make stands for selling items, but most of them seem boring when looking at in a different player’s view.

I went with a Sprite Shaman. Sprites are crazy short ‘n cute kid like creatures who are suppose to have high luck. We’ll see.

So far it’s just whack the piggy Pupu’s and puppies with a painfully basic combo bar. At level 30 shamans are known as boss killers, but until then they’re best played solo.

Official English site:
http://www.aeriagames.com/
Domo Wiki
http://www.domocamp.com/domowiki/
Another Wiki
http://domo.wikia.com/wiki/Domo_Wiki