Watch Master Keaton Anime

Update: The Youtube video is gone, go here instead to watch Master Keaton.

Naoki Urusawa is one of the most prolific mangaka and anime creator. Look, the dude created Yawara, Monster, 20th Century Boys, and Pluto. All these titles were very notable and critically acclaimed. However, one of the most overlooked title made by Uruswa is Master Keaton.

Master Keaton is actually a very entertaining show. It is about an ex-SAS operative who is now working as an insurance investigator. Keaton is not your typical action hero. He's not all muscle like the typical Japanese hero like Goku. Keaton is just a plain looking guy - a father of one and a divorced husband. The show revolves around a lot of MacGyver like adventures from the most innocuous hijinks to the most dangerous missions.

The video above is the first episode of Master Keaton. I must admit that this is not the proper way to view this show, but you can watch it and decide if you want to buy the box set (if it's still available) online. This is a good anime to add to your Urusawa collection.

Street Fighter - the legend of Chun Li

How to suck at making movies? How to make Kristen Kreuk look ugly? How not to include the most important characters in the lore (Ryu & Ken)?

Dragonball Z - Live action movie

Oh, good god! Why?

Batman - Gotham Knights DVD

This DVD is awesome! Six Batman stories by six different directors. Basically, the concept is borrowed from the Animatrix collection, but with the Batman kick-butt, awesomeness.

Kevin Conroy reprises his role as Batman / Bruce Wayne. Need I say more? I suggest that you don't go over to Wikipedia to look this one up for possible spoilers.

That said, I loved the Animatrix better than this one, but this is The Batman, damn it! Go order your copy now!

Daimos end theme

I remember watching Daimos and the love story of Richard and Erica when I was 7 or 8. This show taught me that a man can love a winged, alien girl who looks like a super model.

True love can transcend race, creed or religion - as long as you are hot and not that much different.

Daimos is a classic and I give it a 5 out of 5.

Online Manga Scanlation site - Read manga online

If you want the hottest online manga scanlations you should check out One Manga. They have 669 manga scanlations available for your online, manga reading pleasure.

They cover every genre from shonen & shoujo to josie & seinen. They even have 238 complete manga scanlations.

Another good online manga site is Manga Fox. It has almost the same collection as One Manga but it also has some ecchi stuff. Everything can be read for free but the mature stuff needs registration, as it should.

Click on the links above to scan the manga directory of this site. If you really need to read a particular manga, it's probably listed in their directory.

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Edit 2: No virus. Links are up again.

Edit: I temporarily removed the link to OneManga because of possible malware infection to Windows users. I'm not sure about this and I'm not accusing anyone. Just be cautious if you're a Windows user.

GBA - Super Robot Taisen: OG

Man, Super Robot Taisen (or SRW) must be one of the most repetitive game that I've ever played. Believe me, I know repetitive games along the style of Shadowrun (gen). This game p4wn3d me. It literally brought me to my knees in surrender. It's that hard.

This game is a strategy/rpg or simRPG in the tradition of Shining Force. It's a pretty good game but it's not for everybody. If you are a die-hard mech fan, you'd probably love the repetitive cut-scenes in the gameplay (this can be turned off, I know) and the slow pace of the game.

You have about ten Gundams (or whatever crap they call 'em) at your disposal. Cool! But the problem is you have about 25 enemy mechs all gunning to kill you. Granted that your mechs are more powerful, the gameplay is still dog slow. For example, I quit on level 19 when I'm about 137 turns into the scenario. WTF! 137 turns in and there's still about a dozen enemy mechs and 4 bosses that I haven't disposed of. I think that whoever designed this shit thought that slow torture is fun for the gamer.

It's an ok game, I just don't know what is it about it that made me quit. Probably because it's only fun during the first few scenarios and immediately went downhill from there.

SRW fans are probably saying, "You idiot! It's such an easy game to beat." Well, not for me. 19 scenarios out of 42 is enough for me. Going beyond that is insane. I'd much rather play Front Mission (has more depth and better graphics) or Fire Emblem (this one was hard as well but I persisted and finished it). Anyway, I'm not a Gundam or Super Robot fan, and since this game is from the Original Generation, the mecha that I know like Voltes V or Mazingerzi are not included here. It's pretty much useless to me.

Don't get me wrong. This game is solid and long, just not my type of game. I hate games that become a chore after a while. Though I have my share of these types of games, some of them are compelling enough that I find it fun to finish the game. Not so with this one. I give it a 3 out of 5.

Black Cat manga scanlation

I've been so late in my manga scanlation news that I almost overlooked the fact that the Black Cat manga scanlation is now finished. You can check out the complete scanlation at StopTazmo.

Train - He looks so gay but he'll kick your ass!

Slayers anime

I heard that GMA 7 will re-launch Slayers the anime next week. I have heard a lot about Slayers, but I can't obviously form an opinion about it because I've not watched a single episode of it. But a lot of people think that it's a good anime anyway.

On another note, I found this cool podcast in the deepest bowels of Yahoo podcast beta, it's called Geeknights - with Rym and Scott. The podcast is about geek culture and this two guys knows a lot about geekery. It's a fun podcast if you want to bask in all things geek like anime, manga, comics etc.

Saiyuki manga/anime

Saiyuki is a manga by Kazuya Minekura based on a famous Chinese novel entitled Journey to the West (Xi Yóu Jì). I don't know how much of the novel is identical with the manga and the anime but for sure it looks like a new adventure.

Saiyuki starts of with Genjo Sanzo talking to the three aspects of Buddha. The god then dispatches Sanzo along with Goku, Gojyo, and Hakkai to investigate why the demon population who used to co-exist with humans were suddenly going insane and killing people. So the four warriors journey West to get to the bottom of the strange phenomenon. Anyway, I'm not gonna go into full detail of the plot 'coz I found this great manga review site that can do all that better than I can.

All that I can say is that Saiyuki (both the manga and anime) is definitely worth your time and money. The characters are interesting and the art is great.

Here's a bit about the characters that might interest you: (1) Genjo Sanzo: A smoking, drinking, gun-toting monk leading the group. Incidentally, he's the only human in the group. (2) Son Goku: Yep, this is where Toriyama got his idea for Dragon Ball. In Saiyuki, Goku is the god of monkeys (I think he's unaware that he's a god) who's about 13 years old. He likes Sanzo-sama but he'll ditch him for food. (3) Cho-Hakkai: Legend has it that when you bathe in the blood of a hundred yukais (demons) you'll become a yukai yourself. Hakkai became a demon when he killed a clan of demons who raped his beloved. (4) Sha Gojyo: He's a half-yukai, half-human outcast with a big attitude but a huge heart.

By the way, the manga and anime don't have the same story. The manga's focus is on the Kame-Sama arc, while the anime goes straight to the plot where Sanzo's group goes against the group of the war god Homura. Both arcs have the same great art and action-packed stories that will appeal to both mature readers and kids alike, mature readers will love the philosophical undertones in this title while the kiddies won't be disappointed with the action.

Saiyuki has been licensed by Tokyopop but you can search for a scanlation torrent in Google. Note that the scanlation torrent is only up to volume 9, so get ready to be left hanging in the air if you are into scanlations.

Mouse anime

Mouse Chu Mouse!

This anime is crazy. Imagine an oversexed Lupin III and 3 willing Fujiko's always begging for love.

Muon Sorata is just your ordinary college student by day, but his alter-ego is the great thief, Mouse. Mouse is so badass that his legacy is passed from father to son in every Muon generation. Legend has it that Mouse can steal anything, so he opens the first episode by stealing the whole museum when he only wanted one item from the building, great!

Sorata has 3 subordinates or slaves, as they want to be called: Momozona Mei, a computer and physics expert; Kuribayashi Yaoi, a chemistry expert; and Kakio Hazuki, an agile fighter, good at combat and sports(Info from AniDB). They're sex hungry, loyal servants begging for Mouse's sexual attention every minute.

This hilarious series has a lot of ecchi, action, and laughs. Nydia and I enjoyed laughing out loud to this anime, although it's not the funniest, but sometimes it's inadvertently funny. Not for kiddies, ok.

Sena is Eyeshield 21

That's the Devil Bat's American Football star running back. An awesome 4.2 second 40-yard dash earned him the notoriety in the open field. But life has not always been like this for Sena, at barely 5 feet tall, he was always being bullied by his classmates. He was just a lame gopher for the school's bigger students, and worst of all, he was always being defended by a girl. Poor Sena.

How did he become the bad ass Eyeshield 21, University of Notre Dame hero with the killer tackle? You have to read the manga, or watch the (much disliked) anime. I must say that this is the funniest sports themed manga since Slam Dunk. Well, not that I have a library of sports themed manga...

You can read Eyeshield 21 in Viz's monthly Shonen Jump.

Doraemon is the top cat

Astig! What can I say about Doraemon...I watched this anime since college and I will watch it again and again if local stations would replay it.

Doraemon is the blue cat on the picture. He is a cat from the future sent back by the great, great grandson of Nobita to guide the young Nobita in life. According to WIKI, Doraemon appeared in manga form since 1970 and it was turned into anime in 1973.

To make a long review short, Doraemon is a story about a typical elementary school boy, Nobita and all of his struggles as a boy. Most of the time the series is just some useless humorous show, but the stories were full of fantastic stuff that's heart warming and full of lessons about life, love and everything else under the sun.

Considering that Doraemon was really intended for young boys and girls, its popularity to older fans is a testament of its greatness and unique storytelling.

I give this series a 5 out of 5.

If you want a little preview of Doraemon, head to this site for a small collection of Doraemon scanlation.

Hikaru no Go

From Wikipedia:

Hikaru no Go (?????) is a
popular Japanese anime and manga coming of age story based
on the board game Go written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by Takeshi Obata . The production
was supervised by Yukari Umezawa ( 5-dan). The manga is largely
responsible for popularizing Go among the youth of Japan in recent years.

First released in Japan in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1998, Hikaru no Go has achieved
tremendous success, spawning a popular Go fad of almost unprecedented
proportions. Twenty-three volumes of manga were published in Japan, comprising
189 chapters plus 11 "omake" (extra chapters). An anime series ran for 75 half
hour episodes, along with extra New Year's Specials in January 2003 and January
2004.

For a review of the series, check out my Nydia's blog. I can't review this coz I haven't had the chance to read it yet. If you can't get a copy of the manga, you can temporarily check out my scanlation links by using my Picosearch located on the right sidebar.

One Piece - My new fave

This is one of the most popular manga/anime in the world. The comic and cartoon is still on-going in Japan, a testament to it's popularity.


One Piece is a story of a boy, Luffy D. Monkey, and his ambition to become the King of all pirates. Along his quest he meets different people--a skilled swordsman/bounty hunter named Roronoa Zorro; Nami, a greedy thief who has a knack for navigation; Yusop, a great liar who has an affinity for inventing; Sanji, a bad ass warrior cook; Chopper, a sentient deer who is also a skilled physician; and Robin, former member of Baroque Works.


Together, the gang sets sail to unknown seas in Grand Line spelunking into high adventure in every turn.

On another note, the debates in the web between Naruto fans and One Piece fans are absurd. The two are both Shonen but everyone can enjoy both series without fighting which series is better.


Anyway, if you want to read the manga of One Piece, just use my search box to find manga scanlation links.

Go here and here for One Piece manga scanlation links.

Kei Kurono in Gantz

Gantz is a popular manga that is serialized in Young Jump in Japan. This series is obviously for adults (sex, violence, cuss) and will not likely be a candidate for syndication in my country or in the USA. Here's Wikipedia's take on the title:

Gantz is a manga and anime series created by
Hiroya Oku. Gantz tells the story about a young boy named Kei Kurono who dies in
a train accident and becomes part of a semi-Posthumous "game" in which he, and
several other people who have recently died have to hunt down, and kill, an
alien target. Gantz ran for 13 episodes, and had a direct sequel called Gantz
Second Stage, which continued the series for another 13 episodes. Both seasons
make up the 26 episode series.

The manga is excellent. It was made by Hiroya Oku, pioneering (I think) an innovative process than regular manga creation. The process involves creating the background and other inanimate objects on a computer, but the characters are drawn in the regular pencil and ink way. In the WIKI, it was stated that this process was also duplicated with the anime, though the anime is much hated because of the obvious censorships.

This manga is definitely not for kids. The amount of sex and violence in this series is quite emphasized, but this is not the reason that Gantz is so popular. The art, story, and the action sequences of this title is awesome.

This post is getting quite lengthy. What the heck are you still doing here? Read Gantz, now!

Hajime no Ippo

Hajime no Ippo (also called Fighting Spirit or Knock Out) is one of my favorite mangas of all time. This series is all about boxing that revolves around a noob boxer named Makonouchi Ippo.

(*Spoiler alert* If you are watching the series I might ruin some plot if you continue reading below.)

Ippo starts out as a wimpy high school student that was always being pushed around by his school mates. One time, Ippo was being beaten up when he was suddenly rescued by Mr. Takamura, Japan's reigning middle weight champion. After this episode, Ippo convinced the champion to bring him to their boxing gym so he could train for boxing.

Initially, Ippo only wanted to box so he could exercise. But after meeting his fierce rival Miyata, he began to obsess about finding the true meaning of strength. This time he began to love boxing for the sheer joy of it. Eventually, Ippo began to carve a name for himself in Japanese boxing. He was known as the man with the Dynamite Punch.

His win record and reputation earned him a shot against Mr. Date, Japan's fly weight champion. Though he was not able to beat Mr. Date, he got another shot at the title when he beat another fierce rival, the Tiger of Nanuwa, named Rocky.

(*End of spoiler*)

According to some manga sites, the anime was cut short after Ippo became the champion. But the manga is still on-going in Japan until now. Fans of the manga said that the series is still as good as it was in the anime. To get some manga scanlation of the new issues of the series go here.

I give this series 5 out of 5.

D.Gray-Man

The souls of the dead and the machine merge to become a living weapon of the devil.

This title is still a new scanlation effort. According to Manga News the scanlation so far for this manga is up to chapter 34.

D.Gray-man is a supernatural thriller (a little “shonenized” though) that yet again, pits the powers of good against the devil. According to exorcist lore, the devil, through a certain “Earl of the Millenium,” is making an akuma (demon) out of every hopeless and desperate people of the earth to usher the end of the world. The akuma is the devil’s weapon (part machine) that can evolve, gain experience and power when it kills people.

Allen Walker is the main character of this series. He’s a mysterious 15 year old kid claiming to be an exorcist. His main weapon is an anti-akuma weapon that he calls, a “cross that lives within him.” His immediate motivation seems to be getting rid of akuma’s for him to free the souls of the dead so they can hopefully return to god’s side.

The illustration of the comic is very detailed and clean like most good manga. I have read chapters 1 to 5 of the series, it looks very promising so far. If you like stories about man against the devil, you will surely like this series even though it has a little sci-fi twist to make the plot interesting.

Go to Stop Tazmo for some chapter d/ls.

Black Cat

Train Heartnet was the most fearsome assassin of the new world order organization called Chronos. Dubbed as the Black Cat because of the surefire mistfortune he can bring to his targets, Heartnet realized that he was not cut out to be an assassin anymore, and after a life-changing experience with a sweeper, he vowed never to kill again.

Armed with his handgun, Hades, Heartnet goes against Chronos to live a life of a bounty hunter. Together with former International Bureau of Investigation (IBI) agent, Sven Vollfield, Heartnet brings his awesome marksmanship to become just another sweeper. With enemies that have superhuman powers, will Vollfield's inventions and Heartnet's skills be enough to survive their newfound partnership?--You must read on to find out.

Black Cat is a fun, albeit unlicensed, shonen manga. If you want to read the scanlation of this light-hearted comic just go to Stop Tazmo for chapter d/l.

Stop Tazmo

Talk about hate campaign. Stop Tazmo is a site for direct downloads of manga scanlations like Bleach, Gantz, One Piece, Naruto, Chaosic Rune, Hunter X Hunter, Black Cat, Shaman King, 666 Satan, Battle Royale, Blame, D. Gray-Man, and Great Teacher Onizuka.

The story of this site revolves around Tazmo, the owner of Naruto Fan, who they accuse of being a wife-beater and ripping-off members of the Naruto Fan site. And so, Stop Tazmo was born.

Personally I don't believe everything posted in the net, but atleast Stop Tazmo has a good selection of manga scanlations offered for free.