Obscure Adventures in Geek and Nerd Culture

The series formerly known as BaRuuba’s Adventures is going to be heavily revised into three series, Barumba the Wild Jungle SnowBoy, Barumba’s Adventures and BarumbaLand.  BarumbaLand seems to have a bigger amount of long term potential, given that it’s going to heavily show the increasing international impact of both regional Ugandan mythologies and Salgarian style adventures for people who aren’t interested in both Karl May and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Then again, Emilio Salgari already made a posthumously huge impact on Yoichiro Minami, thus he also has inspired two whole generations of creatives.  Unlike in much earlier editions, Barumba is going to be first a wild virgin young apeman trying to make friends with fellow humans. He then matures from a virgin young apeman to a person with the strength of a freaking Itano Circus!  Barumba has about six children, starting with Daiko, Barkha, Densuke and Yukara. The youngest are two daughters.

Good examples of Himbo Humour  Boss Borot: being an onscreen adaptation-predominant character, the blocky Boss Borot seems to embrace his inner Himbocore very well. So do Goku and Kinnikuman, themselves both internationally beloved Himbos. Tar-Chan: Undoubtedly the Himbo Second Banana of the 90s Anime Fandom Merchandising Industry, Tar-Chan has undoubtedly attracted a lot of people ranging from salarymen to high schoolers to especially adult film lovers. Even Kid Muscle may owe his existence to Tar-Chan too if anyone can notice some inward similarities between Ultimate Muscle and Jungle King Tar-Chan! 

The Shikama Lineage  Enomoto School Shuto Enomoto Shikama School Hiroyuki Nishimura  Masahide Yanagisawa Takahiro Shikama  Kawamoto School Toshihiro Kawamoto Takahiro Komori  Tsunenori Saito  *Tellingly, though a realist in origin, Kawamoto inherits quite a lot of styles and philosophies ranging from Mitsuo Iso, Mamoru Kurosawa, Yoshinobu Inano and Atsuko Nakajima, to Mutsumi Inomata and Ichiro Itano. Thus he is an honorary glider alongside Takahiro Shikama!  Takeuchi School Tetsuya Takeuchi Ryo Araki  Koji Yabuno Hirata School Yukiyoshi Hane  Tomohiro Hirata  Hirofumi Suzuki  *Tomohiro Hirata was influenced by Urushihara and Itano school lineage animators shortly after his career had begun, such as Toshiki Hirano and Mutsumi Inomata. Hirofumi Suzuki instead has a stronger dual realist origin, at least in both Takashi Nakamura’s early works and Yasuji Mori’s Nippon Animation period.  The Nakajima Lineage  Nakajima School Atsuko...

I’m afraid that Big Ugly Conan-style Tarzan designs are perhaps more accurate to the ERBU canon than one might realise, which is why people prefer handsomer and yet more realistic Tarzan designs. Heck, it’s such a good warning when even what Robert E. Howard might’ve imagined of his own Conan the Barbarian is less frightening in hindsight than what ERB himself would imagine of his own ERBU canon Tarzan. This is a perennial mind screw to behold!  Ernie Chan’s Tarzan design portfolio is inspired by the Buscema brothers, John Romita Sr, Bob Lubbers, Rex Maxon, Alfredo Alcala, Paul Reinman, Nick Cardy, Steve Ditko, Francisco V. Coching, Joe Kubert, Neal Adams and Russ Manning.  Alfredo Alcala’s Tarzan design portfolio is influenced by Alex Toth, Nick Cardy, Paul Reinman, Burne Hogarth, Dan and Sy Barry, Rex Maxon, Jesse Marsh and Hal Foster.  John and Sal Buscema’s Tarzan design portfolio was primarily inspired by artists Milton Caniff, Jack Kirby, Dan and Sy Barry, Steve Dit...

People forget that there still are a few good Mandarin Chinese Mockbusters in a sea of just plain crap!  Let me introduce you to the rather bloody amazing world of Qian Guisun’s Tarzan lianhuanhua series. It is a fantastic romp of an unofficial adaptation made by Qian Guisun for the PRC market during the post-Cultural Revolution, pre-Xi Jinping period.  The Tarzan lianhuanhua series does have more mundane looking prehistoric hominins standing in for the actual Mangani of the canonical comics and books, which is pretty awkward in itself. Still, it’s a funny addition alongside many other references to both old and then-new comic books and films which focus on Tarzan.  Besides the somewhat inaccurate prehistoric hominins standing in for the Mangani, It’s actually pretty cool to have both Meriem and Korak build a treehouse in the Son of Tarzan lianhuanhua, which is likely a snarky tribute to the Johnny Weissmuller films.  Even in spite of the ridiculous censorship, it is...

Some of the most colourful Tarzan comic adaptations come from the Iron Curtain.  China has both the Qian Guisun lianhuanhua series based somewhat faithfully on the books and the Wang Zhaodong lianhuanhua quartet based on the rather in name only Johnny Weissmuller films.  Qian Guisun’s Tarzan comics are pretty good in their own right, aside from skipping The Return of Tarzan, due to such a book being too spicy for the PRC market at the time. They’re such creative comics that they perhaps rival both Joe Kubert’s and Roy Allan Martinez’s comics in terms of all the fun involved.  Wang Zhaodong’s Tarzan the Apeman lianhuanhua, however, is a stylistic mix of both Kong Kong Manhua and Italian fumetti comics. It’s also inspired by the Johnny Weissmuller films, themselves much different from the canonical books. The 4 volume series is lighter and softer, as well as being more slice of life than Qian Guisun’s more humorous and perhaps even satirical tribute to the various official ...

The Muraki Lineage Muraki School Toshiki Hirano Narumi Kakinouchi Yasushi Muraki  Hirofumi Masuda Koki Shikiji Yoshihiro Kanno  *Besides the obvious Muraki Laser Circus, Yasushi Muraki’s Anno Hikone hybrid school remains famous for showing off so many leggy and fanservicey character designs that it’s hard to distinguish between Muraki type and more obviously Obari-like designs from up until the mid late 1990s. Toshiki Hirano is indeed both a Muraki schooler and its founder, but whose designs lean somehow closer to older Obari-like styles to an extent, so that Yasushi Muraki is the best known member, hence the current school name. Narumi Kakinouchi is from Itano’s effects lineage, but still shows more similar designs to her husband’s rather than to Inomata’s.  Ito School Masahiro Shimanuki  Koji Ito  Eiji Suganuma  Toshie Kawamura *Koji Ito’s school is likely closer to both Yamashita effects and Obari mech schools rather than to fellow Itano group schools. H...