Manga Traders

Posted by ahpoke on 08/05/2009 4:57 am

Series of the Week: Neon Genesis Evangelion by SADAMOTO Yoshiyuki

This week, our manga spotlight has shined upon Neon Genesis Evagelion. If you are unfamiliar with this manga be sure to check it out!







Series Summary:
In 2000 A.D., a top-secret encounter between an Antarctic expedition and an entity known as an 'Angel' triggered a global catastrophe. The year is now 2015 and the Angels have returned. Shinji Ikari, a 14-year-old child of the new Earth, is summoned by his long-estranged father Gendo to an underground city underneath Tokyo-3, where the United Nations research organization known as NERV is stationed. To match the fearsome power of the Angels, NERV has constructed a biomechanical weapon named 'Evangelion' - a terrifying monster that young Shinji is destined to pilot.

Neon Genesis Evangelion by SADAMOTO Yoshiyuki

Review: - by ahpoke

The Angels, in this story, are not as nice as one might expect.  They are definitely not the kind with white fluffy wings. Eva's Angels are immensely powerful beings hell bent on destroying the world as we know it (as if we needed help).

In this world that is on the brink of destruction in accordance with an ancient prophecy, humanity has bred its own savior, Shinji Ikari, a fourteen year old child full of teenage angst. Tossed away by his father who assumed that his son stole away his wife's love and thought useless by everyone around him, yet Shinji is one of the handful of children capable of piloting Evangelion, humanity's only hope of battling the Angels.

He is tossed into the strange world of angels and EVAs when his father calls upon him in the middle of a battle to take the place of an injured pilot.  Despite his lack of training or mental preparation for having the weight of the world thrust on his shoulders, he survives his first battle and from then on learns his worth in a world of constant battle. He slowly befriends the seemingly emotionless Rei, who pilots the first EVA.  Later, he encounters the over-bearing perfectionist Asuka, who, through an awkward initial meeting and introductory battle, he also begins to become friends with.

The story focuses a lot on the character development of the EVA pilots, giving the series not only strong characters as well as a solid storyline. Besides simply developing the mentality of the various pilots introduced in the series, it also shows how they overcome the various trials that are pushed onto them throughout the story.  I won't give away details but suffice it to say these children are put through some rough times though the course of the story.  The series intentionally tries to dig deep into the psychology of the modern youth and how they might react to a life-altering event like war.

Evangelion is a classic series, made famous, and infamous, by its wildly popular and controversial anime.  Despite being almost 14 years old, the franchise is still going strong with several spin-off manga series and a new set of feature length films which reimagine the story.  The series may seem like old news to many who have already watched the anime, but the manga may hold answers to some of the the unanswered questions which helped fuel much of the controversy surrounding the anime.  So for those of you who have yet to read this series, go read it today!

Rating:

Storyline: 8/10
Artwork: 7/10
Overall: 7.5/10

Other Related Titles:
- Neon Genesis Evangelion - Ikari Shinji Ikusei Keikaku
- Neon Genesis Evangelion - Gakuen Datenroku

Related Photo of the Week:

Posted by ahpoke on 07/30/2009 1:39 pm

Series of the Week: Devil & Devil by MIYOSHI Yuki

This week, our manga spotlight has shined upon Devil & Devil. If you are unfamiliar with this manga be sure to check it out!






Series Summary:
In the midst of a war between heaven and hell, a personal battle rages on between the demon Sword and angel Ios. Meeting again in combat for the 101st time, Sword and Ios mortally wound one another and fall from the heavens and onto earth. In their desperate frenzy to survive, Sword and Ios inhabit the bodies of two boys, Souma and Kanna, who turn out to be twin brothers! Despite their enmity, Sword and Ios must now join together to battle new foes while constantly being at odds themselves.

Devil & Devil by MIYOSHI Yuki

Review: - by ahpoke

At first glance, this title seems like your typical good versus evil type series, however it isn't. How so? Well you'd have to read the entire series to find out. Conveniently, the full series is already available on Mangatraders so if you get hooked you won't have to wait too long before you can find out the ending to this spell bounding title. Believe me, I was hooked to my screen for 24hrs (of course with breaks in-between), thirsty to read the title from the first to the last volume.

Angel Ios, a high ranking angel who believes that all manner of life can be saved. Demon Sword, the low ranking devil who believes he is invulnerable. Eternal rivals that have breeched the 100th mark in their battles, have finally clashed in the 101st battle. Souma, school punchbag, mobile vending machine and ATM. Kanna, top student, top delinquent, king of the food chain. Two brothers that are polar opposites of each other, initially having nothing to do with each other.

Basically, at the aforementioned battle, Sword and Ios mortally wounded each other and were forced onto the earthly plains of our world.  There they were each forced to take possession of humans with personalities extremely different from their own.  In addition to having to deal with conflicts with their hosts they also had to fend off enemies not just from their opposing side, but their own as well. As fate would have it, our heroes would make allies out of the most unsuspecting people, filling this series with a healthy dose of humor as well as twist and turns both dark and light.

The story is generally separated into three arcs, heaven, earth and of course hell. Without giving too many spoilers, they battle their rivals, their inner selves, lovers, teachers, brothers and definitely monsters. The story focused on the devil Sword's growth more than the angel Ios's, a huge plus for people out there who love a little more devil action. Still, as the series progresses, each finds out more and more about the contrasting souls that they dwell with.

The story, though focusing primarily on the angels and demons of the world, also spends attention on the humans who become intertwined with the two protagonists, particularly a childhood friend, a wandering shaman, a holy priestess, a random subordinate angel and of course the human souls themselves.

Overall, this is a good series to read especially if you're a fan of any angel or demon series. It's a mean concoction of combat and mystery, brotherhood and friendship, along with a dash of ecchi and moe. Be sure to check it out if you're looking for a good read!

Rating:

Storyline: 7/10
Artwork: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

Other Titles By MIYOSHI Yuki:
- Samurai Spirits

Additional Notes by Yukimura
Since zraith is on something of a leave of absence we've decided to take the opportunity to expand the manga of the week by adding a review aspect to it.  Since no one can read everything we encourage any of you who would like to write a review for a series to do so and submit it to us for consideration for the manga of the week.  You may review any series you want with the only condition being your review must be in English and be at least 500 words. 

We may wish to edit your review for the sake of clarity but we will try to run any revisions past the submitter first and if you don't like the changes we will consider your review as it is.  Reviews can be sent to Yenkaz through via Forum PM.  Do not send your reviews to myself or any other staff member as they have not accepted responsibility for passing them on to Yenkaz and shouldn't be expected to do it for you.

In other news, the updates I mentioned earlier are now in place. There were some bugs to be worked out of course (the download crippling one was rather fun wasn't it?) however I'm hopeful that most of them have been identified and fixed at this point.  That said, if you encounter any odd behavior please check the Site Support forum and if no one has reported anything similar let us know about it.

Posted by Yukimura on 07/29/2009 3:07 pm

Here I am again making one of these posts, despite the fact that there are still 2 full days in the month in which the donation gap might be closed.  Still, 84% with only two days to go is somewhat disheartening so here I am.  Please donate if you can, every dollar helps.

In other news, this financial situation has compelled me to push up my timetable for upgrades.  Perhaps when some of you see the new features you will feel so overjoyed that you'll be compelled to help out with donations.  Sometime tonight parts of the site may be temporarily inoperable as the new features are brought online.  I will do my best to make the transition as smooth as possible but there may be some bumps along the way.  I must warn you, because of this 'rush' there may still be some bugs running around.  I was adding new features as recently as a few hours ago so I haven't had time to test everything in every way.  In addition to some completely new features I've made a lot of behind the scenes changes to sections of the site that will be outwardly undetectable provided they are working properly.  If you notice any odd or dysfunctional behavior coming from any part of the site tonight or in the next few days please be sure to report it in the site support section of the forums as soon as possible.  Please focus on reporting issues where things don't work as they seem like they are supposed to.

And on the subject of testing I could use more people to help out with that, just as I could use more staff and more (active) helpers.  If you've got free time on your hands and want to be of more active assistance to Mangatraders send me a pm and maybe you can.  Attention to or better yet obsession with detail and structure is a big plus.

Posted by KaKaR on 07/25/2009 12:42 am

This week, our manga spotlight has shined upon Dance in the Vampire Bund If you are unfamiliar with this manga be sure to check it out!

Dance in the Vampire Bund

Series Summary:

After millennia in hiding, Mina Tepes, the Princess of the ancient covenant and ruler of all vampires, wants change. Using the vast wealth of the Tepes line, she has paid off the entire gross national debt of Japan and in so doing, gained the authority to create a "special district" off the coast of Japan that is to become the future haven to vampires the world over!
Now, on the eve of the landmark press conference announcing the existence of vampires to the world, terrorists and rival factions are plotting to assassinate Mina Tepes before she has a chance to make her world-changing announcement.

Posted by Yukimura on 07/14/2009 1:47 am

Mangatraders received a letter (by snail mail no less) requesting we remove all series written/ owned by mangaka Rumiko Takahashi (reportedly the wealthiest mangaka in Japan).  We have complied with this request and removed the following series from Mangatraders:

InuYasha
Maison Ikkoku
Mermaid Saga
One-Pound Gospel
Ranma 1/2
RIN-NE A.K.A Kyokai no Rinne
Rumic Theater A.KA.
Rumic World Trilogy
Urusei Yatsura

In other, slightly better news, after around 2 years and some 3000 new series all (well 99.7%) of the series on MT now have non zero MT ratings.  The reason this is only slightly good news is because I have decided that I hate statistics and don't want to work on them anymore so have implemented a different but still rather lame 'rating' system to replace the previous even more lame 'rating' system.  In case you didn't know the MT Ratings are really MT Rankings, since relative rankings between series and 'Top Ten' lists are all most people seem to care about anyway.  Personally I don't see how you would think stuff like Naruto and Haou Airen can be compared on the same scale in a meaningful way.  In any case, the rating system is confusing, shameful, and ultimately just boils down to a popularity contest.

I will let you in on one little secret though, most of the rankings are pretty much equal if you look closely enough.  To create the rankings each series was given an aggregate score on a 1-100 scale.  However only one series could possibly get 100 and to do that it would have to be the highest ranked across all the criteria measured.  Of course getting this is next to impossible so the way things worked out of the 4,879 active series at the time of calculation only 133 had values above the 20-30 range.  The difference between any two ranks below about 100 is significantly smaller than the differences between many of the series closer to the top.  Does this mean anything?  Frankly, I have no idea, as I said, I hate statistics and don't want to think about them anymore.

In other, even better news, there are some major (at least in terms of the amount of work I put in) upgrades and new features on the horizon.  Unfortunately every time I feel like I'm done working I or someone else comes up with a decent idea that could be rolled into the upgrade and I have to push the release date back to implement it.  Hopefully that'll calm down soon and I'll be able to actually get the upgrades up for public use within the next week or two, but I've been saying that to myself for at least 3 weeks now so yeah...

In closing, go buy Rumiko Takahashi's new manga Rin-ne (or read it online for free since there's apparently  a website where you can do that legit now).  With her being the richest mangaka in Japan she's probably been hit much harder by the global recession than any of us poor working folk and needs our support if she's going to continue to eek out an existence in the harsh and cruel world of millionaires.