Manga Traders

Posted by zraith on 10/09/2009 12:05 am

This week, our manga spotlight has shined on Beelzebub & Kimi wa Pet! If you are unfamiliar with these manga be sure to check them out!

Beelzebub

Series Summary:
The story follows the "strongest juvenile delinquent" as he watches over the devil king's son (and future devil king) with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

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Kimi wa Pet

Series Summary:
Fed-up with a life of being under-appreciated and disrespected, Sumire Iwaya decides to change things when she picks up a young boy off the street and brings him into her house. Despite being total opposites, the two seem to complement one another as they try to carve out an ordinary life for themselves.

Posted by ahpoke on 10/01/2009 2:10 am

Series of the Week: Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally by Goro Taniguchi, Ichiro Okouchi

This week, our manga spotlight has shined upon Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally. If you are unfamiliar with this manga be sure to check it out!







Series Summary:
An alternate Code Geass story in which Lelouch's fate is unknown after his meeting with C.C., whether he be dead or alive. Nunnaly makes a Geass contract and gains the power to read the lines of the future. She also obtains a new body and takes up piloting an unusual Knightmare Frame.

Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally by Goro Taniguchi, Ichiro Okouchi

Review: - by ahpoke

Code Geass, an already popular series in the otakusphere, but yet have you heard of the alternate series Nightmare of Nunnally (Knightmare of Nunnally), which is basically a play on the pronunciation of Knightmare.

In this alternate dimension storyline, we have here, a storyline where magic and technology mingle between the geass and knightmare frames. We thus begin the story, centered upon Lelouch vi Britannia, like any other Code Geass Series, where he stumbles into the ghettos of area 11, formerly the country of Japan, however contrary to the other storylines, Lelouch dies and the focus of the story shifts towards his sister, Nunnally who is both blind and disabled.

In searching in the ghetto for Lelouch, she bumps into the geass doll known as Nemo, who bestows the Geass of the future onto Nunnally as well as a new knightmare frame body which gives her the freedom of movement. But yet unknown to herself is that she already bears the curse of another geass, one that could decide the fate of the universe.

Throughout the storyline, Nunnally constantly tries to keep peace with the two major clashing forces, the armies of the Holy Britannia Empire and the Black Knights, in doing so, conflicting with her best friend Alice who happens to be a geass user. She also fight against her own family, the royal family of Britannia, and her own brother as well? (Hey wait, didn't he die already?)

In the end, Nunnally is forced to make some harsh decisions and in contrast to the regular series, she doesn't become the empress of Britannia. Curious to find out what her decisions were? Go ahead and pick the series for a read, after all its already completed and ready for download from Mangatraders.

With all its flaws in the storyline for assuming you've seen the original series, it's still a good read as it displays a lot of fine artwork to make up for it, all the while showing and enhancing CLAMP's distinctive character styles. So as to solve the mysteries of the geass, go download it now for a good read.

Rating:

Storyline: 6/10
Artwork: 8/10
Overall: 7/10

Other Related Titles:
- Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion
-Code Geass: Suzaku of the Counterattack

Related Photo of the Week:

Posted by zraith on 09/24/2009 11:41 pm

This week, our manga spotlight has shined on Ann Cassandra & Princess Resurrection! If you are unfamiliar with these manga be sure to check them out!

Ann Cassandra

Series Summary:
Bekku Nanaki is mirror clairvoyant. She moved to Tokyo from the countryside to escape calamities she sees. There she witnesses an accident on the road by a mobile fish vendor who saves her life from being crushed by a billboard from above.

The next day, he turns out to be Banjou Kizaki, her classmate and a student held back due to him being involved in incident and accidents that others attribute to him being unlucky. His eccentric behavior, however, catches her attention which he explains as changing the future...

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Princess Resurrection

Series Summary:
Since Hiro Hiyorimi's parents died, he and his sister Sawawa have lived apart. Now, Sawawa has gotten a new job as the caretaker of a creepy old mansion, and has sent Hiro a letter asking him to come and stay there with her. Finding the mansion boarded up and apparently empty, Hiro wanders around town looking for Sawawa. Instead, he runs into the new resident of the mansion, and ends up pushing her out of the way of some falling steel beams. Unfortunately, he loses his own life in the process. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, the person he thought he saved turns out to be a princess of the monster kingdom, and she grants him a second life...but only for as long as he will be her servant.

Posted by ahpoke on 09/17/2009 8:08 pm

Manga of the Week: Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann by Kotaro Mori

This week, our manga spotlight has shined upon Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann. If you are unfamiliar with this manga be sure to check it out!







Series Summary:
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann takes place in a fictional far future where human beings have been forced underground and thrive in isolated subterranean civilizations. These "villages" have no contact with the surface world nor other villages. Since frequent earthquakes damage infrastructure, the villages must constantly expand deeper into the earth. Individuals designated to this task are known as "diggers". Jiiha Village is the home of Simon, a fourteen year old digger who was orphaned when his parents were killed in an earthquake. He is respected by the village elder as the best of the diggers, but is ostracized by his peers. After discovering a special drill key deep in the ground, he is recruited by an eccentric fellow orphan named Kamina into his group, the "Gurren Brigade". Kamina dreams of the surface world, which he visited as a child with his father but had to return home because he was too weak to survive.

Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann by Kotaro Mori

Review: - by ahpoke

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, quite a mouthful of a title, but yet the humor in it is unmistakable. The story focus mainly on exploits of the Gurren Brigade (think SOS-dan + GAR), where their manly and fearless leader Kamina, seeks to reach the surface world, in a village who has never seen the sun. Throughout these exploits, he recruits the village's top digger and fellow orphan, Simon, who becomes his sworn brother and the brigade's key to fulfilling their group's goals.

The story, set in an underground village under siege by a Ganmen (Gundam Face with miniature arms and legs), and as the roof of the village finally crumbles, the surface is finally revealed to Kamina. Joining this assaulting Ganmen in the decent into the village, is Yoko, a busty teenager with a big gun as well. As she fights the Ganmen, Kamina tries to assist her, but both of them end up being saved by Simon who then shows them the Ganmen he found while digging. Using the newly found Ganmen, both Kamina and Simon defeat the intruding enemy and finally get a taste of the surface world when they get blow skywards.

As they crash, Yoko's allies finally join up with them and thus began the adventures of the two men Gurren Brigade. As the story progresses, Kamina manages to steal another Ganmen from the viscous Beastman, a feat which is replicated by many others, adding to the number of the Gurren Brigade. Kamina then surpasses his father, who had left for the surface world when he was still a child, as he survives in the harsher surface world.

Simon, as the ever loyal sidekick to Kamina, still manages a crush on Yoko, who in turn has a soft spot for Kamina, thus introducing a dash of romance to the series. There are also many other elements that are added to the story as it progresses, which isn't your run of the mill action comedy.

The series is widely popular, especially seen as an epic series with lots of GAR action yet has that ecchiness that appeals to the more mature males. If you liked Gundam, Guns, Ecchi, this is the series for you! So go check it out now!

Can't wait to find out what happens next? The anime has already completed itself! So u can catch it too! Why not? You can't get enough of the epicness of  Gurren Lagann!

Even after watching the anime and reading the manga, there's more! There's still the spinoffs to read, in this series, even the spinoffs are good, all the ingredients of one are in the other, so you'll probably like the rest if you liked the original.

Rating:

Storyline: 9/10
Artwork: 6/10
Overall: 7.5/10

Other Related Titles:
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - Guren Gakuenhen
-Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Yoko no Obeso-hen

Related Photo of the Week:

Posted by zraith on 09/10/2009 11:31 pm

This week, our manga spotlight has shined on Natsume Yuujinchou & Nodame Cantabile! If you are unfamiliar with these manga be sure to check them out!

Natsume Yuujinchou

Series Summary:
Natsume's just an ordinary kid, except he can see spirits, just like his grandma Reiko could. Reiko, though, used to bully the spirits, and bound them to her will in the "Book of Friends". Now that Natsume has inherited this book, a never-ending stream of spirits is coming after him. With the help of a spirit "cat" (who really just wants Natsume to die so he can have the book), Natsume spends his days dissolving the contracts that bind the spirits and trying not to get killed.

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Nodame Cantabile

Series Summary:
Nodame (or Noda Megumi) is a 3rd year student at a music academy who is a very talented piano player. She is a quite a strange girl who doesn't like to clean her room and washes her hair every 5 days. Her interpretation of musical pieces are very creative and unique. She falls in love with Chiaki Shinichi who is a very talented fourth year student at the academy. Chiaki is in the piano division but he actually wants to become a conductor. Before he meets Nodame, his music is quite technical and precise. Nodame causes him to rediscover the fun in playing music. This is an extremely hilarious manga which may change the way you look at classical music.