Obscure Adventures in Geek and Nerd Culture

As sad as so many young people around the world still feel, Akira Toriyama has finally joined the Goat Pop Culture Heaven as of this writing.  Mitsuteru Yokoyama died at nearly 70 years old in April 2004, when I was only turning three. He was an overworked smoker, who otherwise made Babel II and the most iconic Romance of The Three Kingdoms manga in the world. He truly was the father of the mons trope, but with a super robot named Tetsujin 28Go, who is so cute even grannies wanna hug him. Giant Robo’s also an honorary candidate, since it has one of the greatest miniseries in anime history and one of the most memetic Tokusatsu hits before the birth of Super Sentai.  Sally the Witch, although a sleeper hit in the world of Shōjo manga oldies, had the first of magical girl anime adaptations, which gained a surprisingly more mature remake/sequel for the Heisei period’s beginning. Princess Comet was a pioneer for fellow girly franchises, which came in both Tokusatsu and manga forms....

This is a reissue for Shueisha which will contain 10 books about Barumba himself in a lot of detail.  For Shueisha (all revised and drawn by Shinobu Ohtaka)  Barumba To the Rescue!  Japanese (バールンーバが助けに来る)  Foreign, non-English versions: Croatian (Barumba u pomoć!), Danish (Barumbar til undsætning!), Dutch (Barumba schiet te Hulp!), German (Barumba zur Rettung!), Italian (Barumba Alla Riscossa!)  Barumba and The Incoming Expedition  Japanese (バールンーバとこれから来る遠征隊) Foreign, non-English versions: Croatian (Barumba i Nadolazeća Ekspedicija), Dutch (Barumba en de inkomende expeditie), German (Barumba und die ankommende Expedition), Italian (Barumba e la Spedizione in Arrivo)  Barumba’s Journey  Japanese (バールンーバの旅)  Foreign, non-English versions: Croatian (Barumbino putovanje), Dutch (Barumba's reis), German (Barumbas Reise), Italian (Il viaggio di Barumba)  Barumba’s Strong Stench  Japanese (強い悪臭のバールンーバ)  Foreign, non-English versions:...

Hi there musical fans, did Tarzan appear in a couple of non-Anglophone Germanic Musicals? I guess they’re all based on the Broadway model.  The Dutch Scheveningen musical has a lot of actors. Ron Link and John Vooijs played the Dutch Tarzan, while Jane Porter was played by the Dutch Chantal Jantzen.  The Dutch dudes who played Young Tarzan are Tim Koper, the Indonesian-Dutch Jai Wowor, Machiel Verbeek, Ralf Mackenbach, Marc Molenaar, Sander Pieterse, Jary Beekhuizen, Wessel van der Kraan, Nicky Luyten, Bas Kerst, Floris Draaisma, Melle Rigter, Lars Molengraaf, Remy Borsboom, Peter de Kroon, Tjesse Bleijenberg, Willem Schenk, the Swedish Pelle Nelissen, Luuk Hartog, Max van Alphen, Enzo Coenen, Valentijn Hoogwerf, Brenn Luiten, Tjeerd Melchers, Christian Nieuwenhuizen and the Italo-Dutch Vinni Peverelli.  The Hamburg part of the rather well loved German Hamburg/Stuttgart/Oberhausen musical first appeared in 2008 and featured two hot guys as the Hamburg Tarzan, Anton Zetter...

The Square Enix World Adventure Classics Line will consist mainly of adventure stories from around the world. Singular Stories  Shunro Oshikawa’s The Mysterious Shining Tower  František Flos’ The Congolian Frontier (1932) Jan Paul Valkema Blouw’s The Dark Amazonian Wilderness (1938)   Jan Paul Valkema Blouw’s The Great Safari (1944)  Shunro Oshikawa’s The Hero and The Beauty of the Trees  The Mysterious Amazonia Series  Gastão Cruls’ The Mysterious Amazonia (1928)  The Apemen’s Island Series  Jan Paul Valkema Blouw’s The Apemen’s Island (1926)  Franjo Fuis’ The Twitching Rainforest (1938)  The Mistress of the World Series  Carl Figdor’s The Mistress of The World (1919)  Carl Figdor’s Robbers, Gods and Madame Adele (1927)  The Princess Suwarin Series  Ludwig Wolff’s The Kanon of Okadera (1921)  Princess Suwarin (1922) 

Hello there. Here are the actual Japanese actors who inspired artworks of Showa period Kamen Riders.  For Kamen Riders whose real life inspirations were born in the 1930s.  Tsutomu Yamazaki is probably the closest real life model to yet another Kamen Rider. Sonny Chiba is the closest real life inspiration for yet another Kamen Rider. For Kamen Riders whose real life inspirations were born in the 1940s.  Ryutaro Sugi seems to be a model for one of the Kamen Riders on this list.  Keaton Yamada is another Kamen Rider model.  Daisuke Ban is a prolific actor with the most likely real life resemblance to the incredibly popular Kamen Rider Ichigō. He also bears a fair resemblance to Sanpei Shirato’s take on Sōji Yamakawa’s The Boy Champion.  For Kamen Riders whose real life inspirations were born in the early 1950s. Tsutomu Isobe is the closest real life model for Kamen Rider Stronger there ever will be. Hideyuki Tanaka is the actor who bears the closest real life...

There are eighteen surviving books in Niels Meyn’s surreal Yukan series, which have a huge potential to be translated into the English language, helped by the titular antihero who’s essentially the Amazon jungle-based Nordic equivalent of DC’s Batman. There is a high chance that, when all eighteen become PD in much of the world, their future English versions will instead partly come from the superior Swedish translations rather than from the unremarkable originals, which are in Danish. The rest will be relatively Woolseyfied to various degrees, mostly due to the fact that Niels Meyn himself was a dude as uncomfortably values dissonant as H.P. Lovecraft. Even his German counterpart Gerhardt Hauptmann (who also was his spiritual predecessor in some ways) and the already screwed up Edgar Rice Burroughs would’ve run away fast from that terror as well.  Although a definitive translation into English is still increasingly possible, there are only a few significant changes coming into the...

Types of typical light novels  Kiddy Light Novel (子供ライトノベル): It is a type of light novel aimed at schoolchildren.  Shōnen Light Novel (ライトノベル): The stereotypical light novel! As it’s aimed at teenaged boys and young men, it’s clearly a tried and true winner in terms of international popularity. Because it often contains topics which are also found in Shōnen mangas, it’s also known by that name.  Seinen Light Novel (ライトノベル): The young man’s equivalent of the Shōnen Light Novel.  Types of manga (漫画)  Origami Style (折り紙スタイル): The most common type of manga, itself innovated by Osamu Tezuka, and familiarised by millions of fans the world over.  Square Balloon Style (四角風船スタイル): More common in older, pre-1970s mangas.  Text Manga (文章漫画): Rarely seen and written, but older than the two Balloon Style variants. Types of picture stories (絵話)  Toddler Picture Story (幼児絵話): A picture story variant for 1-3 year olds.  Kindergarten Picture Story (幼稚園絵話): A ...