PR: Viz Media Brings Doraemon To Your Tofu Via House Foods

Nice to see that Viz Media is still rolling out Doraemon to the American audience, even with these wacky bits of promotion. I'm not sure how widely available House Foods products are but they seem mostly available in California and New York and related markets for now.

SoCal-Based Manufacturer Features Japan’s Beloved Gadget Cat From The Future On Special Tofu Products And Launches Nationwide Promotion With Special Sweepstakes

VIZ Media has announced that House Foods America Corporation is integrating Japan’s beloved cat-type robot character on the packaging of its tofu product line. VIZ Media is the North & Latin American master merchandise licensee for the celebrated anime property, overseeing the licensing and development of a range of products across a variety of consumer categories.

Specializing in Tofu manufacturing since 1983, Garden Grove, CA-based House Foods America Corporation provides an affordable, high quality and comprehensive range of fresh Tofu products. The House Foods DORAEMON campaign will be featured prominently across 7 of the company’s Premium Tofu brands running until March 20^th, 2015, and the Doraemon character Premium Tofu will be available at top retailers nationwide. For more information about House Foods products, please visit www.house-foods.com.

A special Lunar Chinese New Year sweepstakes set to be promoted through the House Foods website (www.house-foods.com) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/housefoodsamerica) will run from February 1, 2015 through March 15, 2015. Consumers and DORAEMON fans are invited to enter to win the Grand Prize: one of five Amazon Kindles; thirty First Place winners will receive an official DORAEMON t-shirt.

Fujoshi O'Clock (1/27/15)

What time is it? It's Fujoshi O'Clock, a regular feature at Nagareboshi Review, when I bring to you the latest fujoshi-related news and reviews and various shiny BL-flavored things. There is also a focus on trans and bisexual anime/manga. Why? Because rotten girls need love too!

This week on Fujoshi O'Clock:

• We love Oguie Maniax's Fujoshi Files series - including recent entries Muryou and Buchou. But did you know OM now has a Patreon? If you love the FF series, pass on the love and donate!
• The winter promo for the Hybrid Child anime series is now available online as a video. The OP of the series, sung by Annabel, is featured in the PV.
• According to Hana to Yume, the Descendents of Darkness manga will be launching a huge project sometime this year. Few details are available. Relatedly, Discotek is planning on releasing the anime adaptation on DVD with an English dub track.
• Otaku Champloo looks at the "dangerous" boys' love manga of 2015 - including some of the upcoming BL releases and the outstanding BL titles and manga-ka from last year, according to JP manga periodical Kono BL ga Yabai.
• Here's a two-fer of 'bara'/gay manga feature news: the Hairpin interviews Anne Ishii, one of the people behind the Massive anthology, while Towelroad looks at the Massive promotion of a book centered around gay manga for gay men.

Reviews:

• Manga Worth Reading reviews Drug & Drop volume one by CLAMP, the direct sequel series to CLAMP's Legal Drug, which had been on hiatus for years.
• Speaking of, Suitable For Treatment reviews the Legal Drug omnibus by CLAMP, a re-release of the original series by Dark Horce Comics.
• Manga Worth Reading also reviews More and More of You and Other Stories by Takeshi Matsu, a collection of erotic dojinshi shorts.

Am I missing your blog? Got some awesome fujoshi-related news and reviews you think deserve a shout-out? Poke me with a link and a bit of description over at my Twitter: @theseventhl. I'm always on the look out for more BL love!

Insert The Sound of Cicadas Chirping Here

Oh boy, my first "posting's gonna slow down from here on" post of the year! And by oh boy, I mean aww man.

Above: my face every time I remember I need to update the blog.

I just became a full-time student again this year, so until I iron out my class and work schedule, posting here will become sporadic. Well, more sporadic than usual. But I shall be posting!

I know I owe a Fujoshi O'Clock post and I also have the two newest Soul Eater manga books (err, Soul Eater and Soul Eater Not!) to review, so that's two things to look forward to. Also, hopefully I will be finishing the Shikabane Hime: Aka anime and writing about that soon.

Thank you for reading my blog and pardon the tumbleweeds as I work things out scheduling wise!

Now's The Time To Get Your Ecchi On

Here's a sales alert for the hentai manga fans around us. Admit it, y'all are there.

Until February 1, select titles from Project-H, the hentai imprint of Digital Manga Publishing, will be on sale for 40% off the original price.

Some of the select titles on sale include Love on the Job (for which a promo video is included at the bottom of the post), the Parasite Doctor Suzune and Tender Hearts. Titles except for Range of Love are available as both print and digital.

You can take advantage of this sale at the Project-H website. The site is for users 18+ years only, so remember that before you click on the link.

Manga Review: Voice Over! GN 3

Voice Over! volume 3
Author: Maki Minami
Viz Manga/Shojo Beat
192 pages

Hime just got her first big break in voice acting, but it means she has to move out of her house and pretend to be a boy! Her new manager, Yamada, is willing to put in the extra time to train her personally, and Hime's hope of being a voice actor seems close to being fulfilled. But Yamada insists that he'll only use her for male characters. Will she have to give up on Lovely Blazer to see her dream come true?

After volume two of Maki Minami's latest shojo series, Voice Over/Seiyuu Ka, I was expecting volume three to focus more on Hime and her VA school group as they prepare for their next performance. Instead, what I got was a fun and slightly dangerous romp through the forest as Hime spends a weekend in a voice acting retreat with school duo fave Aqua.

As with any good forest retreat involving teenagers, a possible relationship forms and drama ensues. Plus, Hime gets flicked on the forehead a lot by Yamada, her manager who has no problem pushing Hime to her limits to hear her famous prince voice. Even though the scope has narrowed to focus on just Hime's goals as a VA, I enjoyed it as much as if the whole crew was present.

Wednesday Briefs: Five Short Rinses

As the first Wednesday Brief of the year, I thought it would be interesting to reintroduced the world of Washed Right Out, my current flash fiction series, with a prequel of sorts. Use the series tag to get caught up on all the previous story chapters if you haven't before reading. I hope everyone enjoys the first official flash of 2015!

Five Short Rinses, a series of side-stories to Washed Right Out. Prompts used: have a character bake a cake, a snowstorm, taxi, hand washing.

Note: contains plot-related spoilers for the previous 14 chapters of Washed Right Out.

1.

The color of the frosting was the same as Karen's hair: pastel green. Both even had swirls running through them.

Manga Review: Naruto GN 68

Naruto volume 68
Author: Masashi Kishimoto
Viz Media/Shonen Jump
192 pages

Spoilers for the current arc of Naruto, up to chapter 657.

Path: Even as the Shinobi Alliance’s resolve begins to falter in the face of Obito’s overwhelming power, Naruto refuses to give in. But how can he turn the tables with the odds so stacked against him? Can Naruto and Sasuke work together long enough to lead the ninja world to victory?!

The first 90 percent of this volume of Naruto is pretty good. We have shinobi working across village and country lines against Obito, Naruto and Sasuke teaming up yet again in the name of saving the ninja world, and a good amount of action in every chapter. It's a shame the last ten percent had me wanting to throw the thing across the room. Basically, Kishimoto decided that one final boss wasn't enough. No, he added yet another one. And at that point, I nearly screamed.

In this book, all of the action quickly boils down to the fight between Team Naruto and Sasuke versus Team Obito. It's obvious that both Naruto and Sasuke's powers have blossomed in unfathomable ways since they last fought, and their abilities joined together is hard to beat.

Shikabane Hime Has The Wrong Protagonist, And It's Killing The Show

Spoiler alert: post contains spoilers for the first seven episodes of Shikabane Hime Aka.

After being brutally murdered along with her family, Makina Hoshimura turns into a Shikabane Hime, a living corpse contracted to the Kougon Cult, in order to exert revenge on the mysterious undead organization responsible for her death. She is assisted in this task by Keisei Tagami, her contracted priest and former friend. This series follows the story of Keisei's younger brother Ouri, a boy with an unusual attraction to death, who slowly discovers his brother's secret and gets dragged into the world of the Shikabanes.

Shikabane Hime's lead protagonist is terrible. He's boring. He's milquetoast. He's bland. He's unappealing. He is Ouri Tagami, teenage boy who literally stumbles into the world of Shikabane and has spent the series so far trailing after Makina, a gun-toting badass who has more personality in her undead wrist that Ouri does in his whole body.

The whole situation is entirely unfair. Shikabane Hime is a good series - it has a lot of very interesting ideas, the world building is interesting and has a lot of moving parts, and there's a steadily growing cast of characters that further flesh out this world and the continuing battle against the undead of Japan. But then it sticks us with Ouri as our go-to hero, the kid with no powers and no weapon in a series where everyone else can flip ninja kicks and shoot guns and perform spells.

Shikabane Hime has so much going for it, but it keeps returning to the everyday life of this boring kid and his boring thoughts. Why Ouri? Why us?

PR: Viz Media Opens New Year With New Releases, Digital Titles

Otome to Meteo © Meca Tanaka
2013/HAKUSENSHA, Inc.

Commence 2015 With Digital Launch Of 5 Exciting New Manga Titles And Updates To 17 Other Ongoing Series; Take Advantage Of Special Holiday Digital Promotion Until January 15^th

VIZ Media opens 2015 and offers fans a fun way to begin the New Year with fresh digital manga for January.

The company also has extended its holiday digital manga promotion thru January 15^th. Take advantage of this special opportunity to save up to 70% off on digital manga volumes across scores of favorite series featured on VIZManga.com and the VIZ Manga App. Many volumes are available for only $1.99 each. Also check other digital manga partner sites for similar special pricing.

Readers can look forward to the launch of five brand new manga titles throughout the month, including the shojo series, METEOR PRINCE, DRAGON BALL Z creator Akira Toriyama’s quirky comedy JACO THE GALACTIC PATROLMAN, and the release of SHIRAHIME-SYO and DUKLYON: CLAMP SCHOOL DEFENDERS, by the legendary manga creative team of CLAMP. Also scheduled to make its digital debut in January is the post-apocalyptic cyber thriller, THE THIRD.

Additional digital manga updates for the month include 17 new volumes for other acclaimed titles including the exciting not-to-be-missed series finales for JOJO’s BIZARRE ADVENTURE: PART 1 – PHANTOM BLOOD (Digital MSRP: $10.99), Mouryou Kiden: Legend of the Nymph (Vol. 3), and Mikansei No. 1 (Vol. 2), Other continuing series receiving January updates include CASE CLOSED (Vol. 53), KISS OF THE ROSE PRINCESS (Vol. 2), LUCKY STAR (Vol. 7), MY LOVE STORY!! (Vol. 3), NISEKOI (Vol. 10), ONE PIECE (Vol. 73), SGT. FROG (Vol. 2), two volumes of VIDEO GIRL AI (Vols. 10-11), ZONE-00 (Vol. 4) and many more!

Birth Rites and Testimonies: On Reading Children of the Sea

One summer vacation, Ruka meets two boys, "Umi" and "Sora," whose upbringing contains strange and wonderful secrets. Drawn to their beautiful swimming, almost more like flying, Ruka and the adults who know them are intertwined in a complex mesh... (Source: SigIkki)

This weekend I finished reading Daisuke Igarashi's Children of the Sea, a Viz Manga/SigIkki seinen release. It's taken me years to finish this manga. It's so beautifully drawn and intricate in plot and visual that I didn't want it to end, thus why I took forever to read the fifth and final volume. The wait was worth it.

This Igarashi manga is billed as a mystery and Wikipedia calls it an adventure, which are both accurate in their own way, but overall it's a fantasy of the world. Like the sea, the deeper you get into it, the more opaque it gets. For many, that can be a distraction from the story. People want answers, and for a mystery, this series isn't concerned with finding answers.

Yet when you break through the other side with Ruka at the end of her journey, being opaque makes sense. It fits with the series, with the characters and their narratives. This series encompasses death and rebirth and a sense of oneness that never feels forced. It's a beautiful thing to read.

Review of the Reviews: My Favorite Posts of 2014

Oh, 2014. You were an interesting year but you have left us for good, never to darken our doors again. Bye now! Don't come back! Actually, 2014 was a very productive year for Nagareboshi Reviews: I managed to post 213 times last year, more than I managed to blog in 2013 - although, considering I was a full-time student in 2013 and an unemployed slacker in 2014 probably accounts for the difference in post count.

It seems appropriate to look back at Nagareboshi Reviews during 2014 and pick my favorite posts of the year! I'll split the list up into two sections: reviews and meta/commentary. Flashback Friday, anyone?