Obscure Adventures in Geek and Nerd Culture

It’s really hard to believe it, but Norakuro was one of the first Shōnen and Seinen manga protagonists who grew up with his intended audience. Which also means he is one of the main reasons why Shōnen and Seinen aimed mangas are still with us even today.  Norakuro as a franchise is usually more popular in its native Japan than anywhere else, even though each one of its two major anime adaptations is a cult classic in countries like Italy and India. The franchise is currently owned (in an unexpected twist) by the Yamane Twins estate because its creator Suiho Tagawa passed away at 90 near Christmas 1989. The surviving twin owns the franchise because he and his slightly older brother adopted it from the dying manga grandmaster.  As with the works made by Osamu Tezuka when he was alive, Suiho Tagawa’s own works are on the process of becoming public domain in 2040 for Peru, 2050 for India and 2060 for much of the world including Japan and Australia. But the character, or more accur...

The original Kaanga character is the mascot of the late Jungle Comics magazine by Fiction House, a Ki-Gor expy who has a special distinction in American comics history as one of its most Leeroy Jenkins-like heroes.  Being one of the most successful Tarzan boys before Akim’s international expansion, in Italy he was called Gin-Bart and in Brazil he’s called Kionga. To avoid a greater amount of confusion, Kaanga’s name is pronounced Ke-Anga.  He is one of only two constant characters along with his wife Ann Mason. Or even his Mexican equivalent being one of just three as with the addition of Toro/Junior in the unofficial Mexican film adaptation El Rey de Los Gorilas.  His Mexican counterpart Kim/Simio first appeared in El Rey De Los Gorilas and, like his more impactful competitors Tibor and Akim, is sometimes erroneously named just Kim. Ann Mason’s Mexican counterpart is Eva, Kim/Simio’s wife who’s also from the Mexican film.  The modern version of Kaanga (aka Keanga du...

Remember what happened when Cyril Hume rewrote a film so much, resulting in him ultimately basing and theming it - rather too loosely - on one of the most influential works in the history of anything considered pulp fiction? He didn’t know any better either, as he was himself a cog in the ever mechanising Hollywood machine.  Three years earlier, shortly before the Great Depression hit, Hal Foster didn’t become one of the greatest illustrators in the history of both USA and Canada, until he saw a certain deal by chance. With helpful permission from ERB himself, he smartly asked to use the character in his own way by illustrating him for the first official Tarzan comic in history. As a result, Hal Foster’s Tarzan is most likely a pragmatic adaptation of Frank Merrill playing the character in two Tarzan serials.  Until artist-writer Russ Manning introduced a genuinely badass (and more culturally respectful) Tarzan design, most other comic book and strip Tarzans were inspired by v...

Inspired indirectly by Busuke Akagawa’s The Boy Jungle King, with some elements taken from Wambi the Jungle Boy, Sadao Tsukioka created Wolf Boy Ken (1963-65) for Toei Animation in 1963. Like in its closest inspiration, the classic anime show was about a boy who embarked on multiple adventures and which also spawned two competing mangas, an unofficial non-Mockbuster manga by Kyuuta Ishikawa and a wackier official Gaiden one by Akio Ito. It was a legendarily surreal comedy adventure, which had an all-star cast of voice actors for its time.  Heck, it even featured a couple of human characters that Ken befriended and contended against. There was a rival raised by Serow (yeah, such creatures related distantly to goats), a reluctant ally from a tribe that’s a frigging cross between South Asian Siddis and rural Kenyans/Ugandans from various ethnic groups, a princess named Isra from Karaba (a Persianate island kingdom), a princely champion swimmer, a rival tomboy raised by Indian lions, a...