Obscure Adventures in Geek and Nerd Culture

In comparison to Taekwon V, Kinnikuman is crudely inspired by Indian Mythology, according to my surprise survey at USYD. 

This is why only Shōnen Keniya, Shōnen Brooba, Shōnen Urufu and Shōnen Ōja are remembered. Picture story Prince of the Jungle (密林の王子)  Author: Hiroshi Yada (矢田洋)  Illustrator: Tatsuji Ishii (石井達治) aka Hideo Kikawa (木川秀雄)  Picture story Jungle King (ジャングル大王) Author: Toshihiko Miya (宮敏彦)  Illustrator: Tetsuya Fukao (深尾徹哉)  Picture story Angel of the Jungle (密林の天使)  Author: Ken Sawada (沢田謙)  Illustrator: Takao Hashimoto (橋本隆雄) Picture story Princess of the Jungle (密林の王女)  Author: Osamu Hashimoto (蓮本おさむ)  Illustrator: Omizu Suzuki (鈴木御水)  Picture story Children of the Forest (森の子どもたち) Author: Kiyoshi Shimizu (清水暉吉)  Illustrator: Goichi Yanagawa (梁川剛一) 

Kamen Rider Eve is a so bad it’s good marvel at how the universe of the Kamen Rider manga really works. It’s not completed for a generally good reason due to the lengthy development hell of its concept character as a Kamen Rider himself.  Otherwise he looks like Sōji Yamakawa’s Tiger Boy, especially the postwar version in illustrated story form. I'd review this book next time! 

There is no major way that the anime industry would debut 4 whole generations of innovators and influential animators, without Sakuga for money. It sounds like overwork and quasi-slavery in an unsympathetic light, but those workers remain smart enough to have gained tons of money, so I am deeply thankful that Tokyo is recovering slowly but happily from WW2. 

I wish I had a very small car that looked like a budgerigar.  Well, my favourite cars are pretty small, what do you think? Essentially, turning a city car into a parade float still is more relevant than we thought. 

Now, if anyone can remember watching Disney’s Tarzan this frequently? If so, remember that the Johnny Weissmuller movies were much further from the sources (except the canon elements) than even the Disney films and tv show. That’s why the Disney version has become the most accessible and successful depiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan brand in recent years, admittedly still loose but great enough not to offend most of the staunchest relative purists, who have forgiven the Disney version for that reason.  The same might not be said for the Universe canonists, since they frankly do not publicly tolerate anything that’s not canon, which is perhaps why they still basically revise the frick out of canon Tarzan in order to keep the (Fundamentalist Christian soul frying) fanservice as the only intact point of the story, partly thanks to the Shōnen Jump meme worthy implications of the ERB Universe Tarzan being an orc-like destroyer of both humans and nonhumans alike, which perhaps is ...

Isn’t it interesting when you’ve been looking for a ton of anime terminologies that deserve to get attention? There are so many Pers-Kun movement terminologies that deserve international recognition mainly because it’s actually pretty hard to document such terminologies.  Obari Pers-Kuns  Obarism: The highly similar approaches that Masami Obari and his friend Yousuke Kabashima amongst the Obarians animate very complex yet still readable things that go side by side. 

It’s now become clear that the original jungle books of Rudyard Kipling are for almost everyone but babies, mainly thanks to the Disney Jungle Book franchise.  It shall be noted that nobody can fully capture the Jungle Books of Rudyard Kipling even in comic book form. However, it’s easier to understand that the Jungle Books are much undoubtedly like Nausicäa of the Valley of the Wind, if rather more values dissonant since Rudyard Kipling would rather have been a much more certainly fucked up person than even Hayao Miyazaki. 

Given that Kanada/Kozuma/Yamashita Pers-Kuns have diversified so much in terms of drawing styles available, we can now popularise newfound terms that focus on alternative Kanada/Kozuma/Yamashita Pers-Kun movements.  The influential Toriyama/Nagai/Shirato/Ishinomori diversification has now become something to gawk at in hindsight. This means it’s mainly due to its strong associations with Studio Break’s actual founding master Yasunori Miyazawa, perhaps the most batshit animator alongside the already more influential and relatable kinds of Pers-Kuns in modern postwar Japanese history. As though it’s hard to fully imitate the late Dragon Ball creator, Akira Toriyama is one of the most mockingly adapted, deprecated and appreciated of them all as well as Sanpei Shirato and Keiichiro Kimura, Kazuko Nakamura, and Shotaro Ishinomori as well as Go Nagai and Morihiko Ishikawa. Shinya Ohira still keeps his own take on the deep canvas as drawn by Shinji Hashimoto’s favourite animator Mao Lamdo...

The Web Kanada Movement is now a popular breeding ground for many limited frame animators throughout the world, and it’s perhaps due to an unsuspecting Studio Break fanboy expanding anime movement vocabulary altogether. There still is a surprising growth in the use of ‘Konno/Web-Kanada smears’ as a regular tool thanks to Yuki Hayashi being partly inspired by Konno himself.  Being the only predominantly Alt-Kanada founder out of an indirect bunch, Naoyuki Konno has fathered the Web-Kanada movement by innovating quite a lot of batshit, then-little known ideas from the mid-1990s and beyond. With his otherwise realistic shading thanks to Studio Break’s influence, he also created what are now called the ‘Konno/Web-Kanada smears’ for everyone to see!  Being a studio break fanboy at heart, Naoyuki Konno also has animated surfing, Glen Keane-ish Super Robot scenes in Martian Successor Nadesico, which funnily enough resemble a lot of Disney’s Tarzan tree surfing scenes. He’s also the f...

I think the Kanada/Kozuma/Yamashita Pers-kun movements were named for just three guys, Yoshinori Kanada, his cheekier and more internationally relatable friendly rival Masahito Yamashita and Yamashita’s much more surreal friend Shinsaku Kozuma. Unlike Kanada at least until recently, his funky disciple Yamashita still being more influential outside of Japan is perhaps why we get a ton of glitzy, giddy, goofy as hell anime art amongst others.  It’s pretty clear that the OG Kanada/Kozuma/Yamashita Pers-kun movement has now become not just irrelevant but now ultimately outcompeted by the Web, Neo and Alt Kanada/Kozuma/Yamashita Pers-kun movements.  And so, the real reason why the OG Kanada Pers-Kun movement has retired is because of a certain Yasunori Miyazawa, who indeed has more Kazuko Nakamura and Akio Jissoji than anyone else. Thank Toei Animation for spreading the studio break layouts that have spread across Japan, to the point of its very own current Kozuma-Kanada hybrid sty...

The Shindo Lineage (Shindo Rogue)  Shindo School  Mitsuo Shindo > Nishiki Itaoka *Given that Yano is heavily influenced by Toyoo Ashida, as well as by Masahito Yamashita, Shinsaku Kozuma and more so Tadayoshi Yamamuro, he’s perhaps the most radical first gen Yamashita/Kanada type schooler out there, other than Naoyuki Konno, Yuu Yoshiyama and Naoki Tate, at least in a typical sense. While Shindo and Ashida remain more known for having been colleagues of Kanada, they’re instead lined up with Nishiki Itaoka rather than with the rest.  The Imazaki Lineage (Tumbleweed) Nagaoka School  Daikichiro Kusube > Naoki Tate  Yasuchika Nagaoka Yuu Yoshiyama *Naoki Tate instead is known for having long achieved the level of knotty, curly angularity that Yoshinori Kanada or the still living effects master Masahito Yamashita would not even do. Thus he and Yuu Yoshiyama have a pretty fairly unique bond that will last for the rest of their lives. He’s having long been g...

Dear old and young adult fans of Latin American softcore fiction (due to the unhinged implications of both boobs and butts!)   For more accessibility towards beginners from multiple cultures that aren’t Latin American nor southern European, the author Caridad Bravo Adams has a largely posthumous shorthand, C.B. Adams. The three novels in many non-Anglo markets will expand into six novels for the Anglophone market, in order to let beginners read something fairly above the quality of Stephanie Meyer’s notoriously yucky Twilight series. The future six novels may as well be considered hood classics in the history of softcore fiction due to being better written overall than Tessa Dare’s otherwise fun bodice rippers.  Given that C.B. Adams might’ve been a closet straight ally in a time when misogyny was too flagrant even for most queer phobic humans (no wonder why she didn’t marry a guy), there is a good reason why a lot of her novels can indeed ascend beyond caste and class. 

The Otsuka Lineage  Inoue School  Toshiyuki Inoue  Hiroshi Shimizu  Iso School Mitsuo Iso Kenichi Yoshida Ayumi Kurashima Kiyotaka Oshiyama *Even as a reluctant Yamashita, Itano and Kanada follower, Mitsuo Iso began his career briefly at Neo Media by being taught by Keiichiro Kimura alongside his very estranged colleague, Shinsaku Kozuma’s junior Shinji Hashimoto, who himself was following Yamashita, Tomonaga and Maeda at the same time.  Then again, as Iso’s frames are more similar to those of Yoshinori Kanada and Ichiro Itano, he merged both design styles with Toshiyuki Inoue’s detailed landscapes while innovating them all with his own full limited process, the IsoLocation (aka Full Limited Solidity), allowing the rise of anime fluidity for decades to come. Though based on Kimura’s old style yet clearly blended with both Shinbo and Inoue at the same time as Kanada, Yamashita and Itano, it’s still a relevant surprise renovation in the anime world even today....

It is a very interesting reminder that Baruuba is just the fourth most famous alongside at least 3 Sōji Yamakawa characters.  Tiger Boy -

It’s becoming increasingly well known that there’s a slow growing amount of generational diversity in terms of hybrid art styles.  Ichiro Itano himself is perhaps one of the greatest living effects animators in Japanese history, no wonder why the Itano school has most likely led to a rise in other fusion schools of thought from the early 1980s and beyond, which is pretty understandable when the Ichiro Itano inspired Kazuhiro Ochi now has a pretty strong, long running school once led by the two Kimuras. As one of the school’s older members, Kazuhiro Ochi has long birthed the Neo Kanada movement over 3 decades ago, since members of his school’s first generation include Yoh Yoshinari and Sushio, as well as backups Fujio Suzuki and Kenji Hayama, both masters of stylish comedic animation in their own right. Yuji Moriyama still does interesting craploads of so bad it’s good stuff that I still forgive him for doing his best to just even animate.   But it’s the Trigger school which un...

The Sano Lineage  Matsuo School  Shin Matsuo  Satoru Iriyoshi Masayoshi Tano > Hiromi Niioka  Hanako Ueda  *The Matsuo school is more closely linked with the Yamashita effects school even though it’s a Sano school, partly due to showing off a stronger tendency for shivering camera effects and crotch shots. It’s also a Taniguchi Anno hybrid, having become somehow more divergent by adding in Moriyasu Taniguchi’s heavier details while also using relatively fewer frames a la Hirotoshi Sano from the late 1980s onward. Hiromi has a surprisingly legendary Araki upon Kanada style of effects work that has paved the way for more transformations to come. Sano School  Hirotoshi Sano  Masanori Shino  Eiji Nakada Atsushi Ikariya  *Hirotoshi Sano’s Yamashita Itano hybrid school is likely where Masami Obari and his gaggle of friends ended up after being influenced by Hideaki Anno’s many details. Though his effects come from Yoshinori Kanada and Satoshi Hi...

The Hisashi Mori Lineage  Imamura School Osamu Dezaki > Ryo Imamura *Ryo Imamura’s school remains the animation school somehow closest to Osamu Dezaki’s overall legacy. It’s so unnervingly close to all of Dezaki’s styles even with divergent succeeding variations, that it still leans much more towards a Mushi Pro-indie lineage, which remains obvious in the sheer intensity of the successor’s own liquid style.  Hisashi Mori School Hisashi Mori (aka Hisashi Nakayama)  Norifumi Kugai  *Oddly enough, whereas Shinbo did do occasional work at Toei Animation, whereas Yuichiro Sueyoshi funnily enough has somehow more in common with Shinsaku Kozuma even in spite of obvious differences. Thus, Kondo and especially Maeda are linked together more so than we think, resulting in an explosion of highly experimental animators decades later. Though still somehow related to the Tokura and Yamashita school, all of them remain unique animators either way, it’s just that those two have b...

Here you go! With so many Morton's fork situations occurring in both our culture and society, it's no wonder that I have learned how to live with a bit of AlgoSpeak, because even with all the nuances, we still can't cherry pick everything and choose arbitrarily all the time. Nothing is fully original under the sun, and yet it’s more likely that people have to become creative and imaginative after all.

For the first tale in the now-largely canonised Tarzan: The New Adventures, Tom Grindberg designed an ugly-cute Tarzan on a mishmash of Jesse Marsh and John Coleman Burroughs (via Ramona Fradon and Sal Buscema), and then Benito Gallego came along with a Tarzan that’s as ugly cute as Shrek. Even after the ERB Universe line launched in 2019, Chris Peuler made a Jesse Marsh-Mac Raboy crossbreed, about as teen audience alienating as Baki the Grappler, yet one of the most accurate takes of the ERBU canon Tarzan by far. Rather tellingly, Rick Leonardi, Shane Foley, Mike Wolfer and Joe Jusko are amongst the few other artists who actually blend them properly for official Tarzan works.  This why Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc’s own ERB Universe and its original canon prefer these otherwise different styles being blended into something else. It makes sense with many of the oldies being the preceding ‘godparent’ styles to most of the newer ones. Jesse Marsh (both first two ever Tarzan covers for De...