AniManga: Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba)

"My shallow thoughts drift...on the deep sea of imagination."

Rarely do I find a manga story that's so well written, that also has exquisite artwork. Kimetsu no Yaiba, (Blade of Demon Destruction) is an original concept with an imaginative recreation of old Japan. The series is written and illustrated by Koyoharu Gotouge. The manga ran from 2016 -2019 with a twenty-six episode anime adaption aired in 2019.

The story follows siblings Tanjiru and Nezuko Kamado. Their father died from illness while they were young. Teenage Tanjiru the oldest of five children took care of his mother and siblings. While Tanjiru was out on an errand his family was killed by a demon. Only Nezuko survived but was turned into a demon. Together they go on a quest to cure Nezuko's sickness and take revenge on the creature that caused it. Along the way Tanjiru learns of the Hashira, part of the Demon Slayers Corps and trains to become one.

Almost all demons in the world can be traced back to the primordial demon Muzan Kibutsuji. He is the original demon and had lived for centuries when the story begins. Muzan possesses three brains and five hearts. Along with his unique anatomy he has the ability to create new demons with his blood. Telepathically communicate with and control any demon created by his blood, shape-shift, and separate his body into pieces, then recombine. He is bloodthirsty and extraordinarily hard to kill with very few weaknesses. The demons he creates also possess super human abilities like regeneration, strength, agility and a special skill called Blood Demon Arts. The more humans a demon eats the stronger they become. The really powerful get selected by Muzan to be executive Hashira slayers known as the Twelve Kizuki.

There are only a few ways to kill a demon. They can be killed by beheading with weapons made from a special metal alloy. They're also harmed by the flowers from the Wisteria plant. The flowers poison demons. It interferes with their regeneration, strength and blood arts. The last and most effective weapon is sunlight. Any demon exposed to the suns rays turns to ashes. The sun is the only way to defeat Muzan Kibutsuji. He's powerful and has lived so long that he's become impervious to the other methods.  

The Demon Slayer Corps was founded by the Ubuyashiki family hundreds of years before the story begins. This family has the special ability to see into the future which allowed them to amass a fortune. Kagaya Ubuyashiki is the 97th leader of the Demon Slayer Corps. His sole mission was to put an end to the demon Muzan during his generation. To achieve that goal he accepted Tanjiru and his sister into the Demon Slayers Corps. This decision did not pass without resistance from even his most dedicated supporters. After all Nezuko is a demon and they are demon slayers...it goes against their code of ethics. It's the equivalent of letting a wolf tend the sheep. Or letting a fox sleep in the chicken coop. The main reason they accepted Ubuyashikis' decision was because Nezuko didn't eat humans. She possessed enough of her humanity not to attack innocent people. 

Hashira train using special breathing techniques and swords, which allows them to fight on par with demons for a short amount of time. The first breathing techniques and strongest are breath of the sun and moon. After came water, fire, rock, thunder, Insect and several others. The swords they use are made in a secret village of blacksmith's high in the mountains. The place is so secretive that all the artisans wear masks. Also demon slayers have to be blindfolded and carried to the village so its location can never be compromised in case of capture. Once a demon slayer choices their sword the blade changes color. These unique weapons once broken have to be returned to the blacksmith's village for repairs. They're that important.   

After Tanjiru finished learning breath of water, he finds out he is a descendant of the breath of sun user. This allows him to use two breathing techniques and combine them. On his quest Tanjiru becomes friends with Inosuke Hashibira who uses Beast breath and Zenitsu Agatsuma who uses breath of Thunder. Inosuke's mother was killed by a demon so he grew up in the mountains around animals. He's wears a boars head at all times, is a duel sword wielder, and likes his swords to be jagged like shark teeth. Because he's lived around animals most his life Inosuke has a rough personality and is easily influenced. 

Zenitsu is a spoiled cry baby who grew-up being trained by his grandfather. Because of his scaredy cat personality he often has to be persuaded or dragged on missions. When put under tremendous stress Zenitsu becomes narcoleptic. He passes out then his brain switched from coward to badass. Usually he doesn't remember what happened afterwards. Both Zenitsu and Inosuke are fiercely loyal to Tanjiru. While Zenitsu is in love with Nezuko. 

The story follows their adventures full of challenges and tragedy wrapped in an exotic dance of illustrative art. The author really focuses on world expansion and character development. All the Hashira have interesting backstories which lead them to join the Demon Slayer Corps. One is blind, One has been mutilated by a demon and survived, One is a trained ninja with three wives, One had to kill his own mother, the list goes on. They have different reasons and histories that enrich the overall plot. 

Aside from the epic battle scenes, carnage, madness, mayhem and cemeteries worth of dead people. There is an underlying tale of family bonds, tradition and sibling affection. The plot is actually quite heartwarming. (Did I mention the carnage...cuz the demons get bizzy) The battle scenes are graphically detailed, with a lot of action sequences. There are only pauses never breaks. Season two of the anime just finished airing February 2022, and season three has already been announced. For people looking for something new and entertaining check out Kimetsu no Yaiba. If u like the series, pass it on and tell a friend to tell a friend. 

Until next We Speak, Be Well 

Tha One an Only 

AniManga: Boku dake ga Inai Machi (Erased)

Boku dake ga Inai Machi, literally translates into "The Town Where Only I am Missing" and is most commonly referred to as Erased.

Erased, is a manga series written and illustrated Kei Sanbe serialized from June 2012 to March 2016. The story was converted into a twelve episode anime which ran January 2016 - March 2016. The story is about an average man named Satoru Fujinuma with an extraordinary ability. Satoru has the unique ability to travel through time. His ability works unconsciously and lacks control, but it does save lives.

Whenever a life-threatening accident occurs in Satoru's vicinity he is forced back in time to a point before the accident. Once sent back Satoru has a limited amount of time to solve the problem before he returns to the present. Whenever Satoru alters the past only he knows what changed from the timeline.

15 years before the series starts, several girls from Satoru's middle school disappeared and were murdered. The cases remained unsolved. When Satoru's mother gets killed, and the killer tries to frame Satoru, he realizes that the murderer is someone he knows. Aside from his mother, all the people close to Satoru get dragged into a murder case more than a decade old.

What follows is a hair-raising, suspense, thriller that will have you sitting on the edge of your seat. Satoru faces one tragedy after another while being sent back to middle school with all the memories of a twenty-eight-year-old. He has to find the killer and stop him from murdering his mother and several of his middle school classmates before he runs out of time.

The anime is an excellent adaption of the manga series and worth watching. 

Animanga: One-Punch Man

It's been awhile since I've read a manga that has such a great blend of humor and action as One-Punch Man.

The original series began as a webcomic in 2009 by a man mysteriously known as One. The remake is illustrated by Yusuke Murata and written by the same One. That is the version I've been following.

One-Punch Man is an action packed manga, full of bizarre villains and heroes. The main protagonist is a man named Saitama, who is as unremarkable as they come. He has an average look, build and even a laid back disposition. What makes Saitama unique is his strength and love for mankind... especially his home town Z-City.

Ever since Saitama was a child he wanted to be a super hero. After numerous encounters with criminals he finally decided to take action and train his body to perfection. Through basic calisthenics (push-ups, sit-ups and running) for three consecutive months, Saitama was able achieve incredible power. He acquired enough raw strength to destroy almost every enemy he faced with one punch.

In his world the cities are given names from the alphabet (City A, B, C, ect....Z) and are often attacked by monsters. These monsters are called "Mysterious Beings," and range from normal humans to hybrid (beast) humans to intergalactic conquerors. Each attack against an alphabet city by one of these is given a threat level. Those levels range from "Wolf" which is a human level threat, to "God" which is an extinction level event. No one knows where the Mysterious Beings come from but they all seem to have an instinctive hatred for humans.

To handle threats against mankind a group of powerful individuals began the Heroes Association. This association employs citizens as heroes and provided them pay and services for protecting the alphabet cities. The hero classes range from "C" (ordinary human) to "S" (superhuman) and all officially recognized heroes are part of the Heroes Association.

Saitama joins the as the lowest ranked C-Class hero and works his way up through the ranking. Along the way he gains a disciple named Genos (The Demon Cyborg) who is impressed by his strength. Genos is on his own quest for vengeance and tries to learn the secret of Saitama' power. Ironically Genos is given the ranking of S-Class based off some of the monsters Saitama defeated. He is also one of the few individuals in the Heroes Association who knows how strong Saitama really is.

The manga was recently turned into a 12 episode anime that ended in December 2015. The anime was taken directly from canon material and featured superb artwork and battle scenes. The great thing about this series is that it's a parody of the whole super hero genre. In the video below Saitama shows up to stop a meteor from destroying all life on Earth. Check out the anime and check out the manga....if you like what you see. Don't forget to purchase official copies from the Mangaka, cuz those guys work long hours for little pay or appreciation.

AniManga: Kiseijuu (Parasyte)

 



















Movies always speculate on what would happen if an intelligent alien species colonized the Earth. Parasyte, offers a gruesome answer to that question. Kiseijuu (Parasyte) is a horror manga written by Hitoshi Iwaaki that ran from 1988 - 1995. The anime started airing in October-2014 and ended March-2015.

Parasyte's are worm-like creatures that invade the body through the nose or ears and take control of the brain. Once the Parasyte controls the brain, the body is just a host that can change appearance and physical characteristics at the parasites whim. Once a person becomes a Parasyte they no longer retain their personality or human characteristics. 

All Parasyte's eat whatever type of creature their host body is. If a Parasyte invades a dog's brain, they feed on other canines, a cat's brain, they eat cat's, a human brain, they eat humans. When a Parasyte invades the body but cannot take over the brain, then both human and Parasyte share the body but retain their individuality.

The story revolves around a 17 year old teen named Shinichi Izumi. Shinichi lived a normal life in Tokyo with his parents until one night parasites invaded the earth. One Parasite attempted to crawl into Shinichi's ear as he slept, but failed because Shinichi was wearing headphones. The Parasyte was forced to enter through his hand which alerted Shinichi. Who then used the cord from the headphone's to trap the Parasyte in his right hand. Since the Parasyte took over his right hand Shinichi named it "Migi," which is the Japanese word for "right".


Migi and Shinichi form a symbiotic relationship as he learns about the world and tries to find his place in it. Parasyte's have low level psychic abilities which allows them to sense their kind but not what type of host they inhabit. These abilities also allow the Parasyte to assess the emotional state (aggressive, peaceful, nervous, etc...) of other's in their species. As well as the foreign Parasyte's proximity within several hundred meters.  

In the beginning of the relationship Migi protects Shinichi from other Parasyte's. As the story continues Shinichi develops his own power due to suffering a near fatal wound from the Parasyte who killed his mother. Along the way Shinichi gains a few friends and many powerful enemies from a group of organized Parasyte's trying to control mankind.

The story is a twisted reflection of the fear humans have when confronted with meeting other intelligent life. It paints a graphic tale of tragedy, suspense and horror mixed with elements of a normal high school student's life. The anime was incredibly well done! It looks like they used the manga as a storyboard for the animation. 

I recommend watching this series if you're looking for a dark science-fiction animanga that's action-packed to the very end. Check out the clip below.

AniManga: Akame Ga Kill

Now that the album is done, I have a little extra time to go snowboarding and catch-up on my manga. My latest love is AniManga: Akame ga Kill!  which literally means "Red-Eye Kill!"

I can describe the manga in three words "Off The Hook." The story focuses on Tatsumi, a villager who travels to the Capital city to raise money for his village only to discover the Empire was covered in corruption. The assassin group Night Raid recruits Tatsumi to help them in their fight against the Empire to end its corruption.

Night Raid, is a group of assassins comprised of the swords woman Akame, scissor wielder named Sheele, the string manipulator Lubbock, armored warrior Bulat, the sniper Mine, beast fighter Leone and their leader Najenda. They work together with the Revolutionary Army to take down the evil prime minister and free the citizens of the empire. Pay attention to the original line-up of names, because this series kills off main characters faster than the show "Game of Thrones".

All the members of Night Raid and most of the powerful fighters in the series use "Imperial Arms" also known as a Teigu. Imperial Arms were created by fusing parts of supernatural Danger Beasts with alchemy over 900 years before the series begins. Forty-eight of these items were created. Half of the Teigu were lost to history and the rest have been collected by the empire and rebels to become more powerful.

Although Teigu are weapons, they can be human and animal based which makes some hard to identify. The easy to identify Imperial Arms are swords, firearms, scissors, cosmetic box and armor. The difficult ones are a shape-shifting dog that has a fetish for consuming human flesh. And Susano, a powerful warrior who is also a Teigu who has lived over 1000 years. Not everyone can use an Imperial Arm. When a person chooses to use a Teigu, they must be compatible or the user risks death.

Throughout the series Night Raid collects and loses members and Imperial Arms battling the Empires most powerful general Esdeath. She has her own team of Teigu wielding warriors named "Jaegers" who protect the Empire and more specifically protect the minister. Aside from being crazier than the mad hatter on an acid binge, Esdeath is powerful and has an attraction to Tatsumi that borders on the psychotic. During a few points in the series Esdeath kidnaps Tatsumi and Night Raid has to rescue him from her icy clutches.

The manga series and the anime diverge with the anime no longer following the canon material during the "Wild Hunt" story arc. The anime chose to skip that whole arc and add their own ending to the series. I personally don't like how they ended the series, because they made up the ending and it seems rushed when you compare it to the rest of the anime series. 


 

With that said, I recommend checking out both the anime and manga because the series is worth it. Above I posted the final fight between Akame and Esdeath. 

If I had to describe the series to a new viewer in one sentence...it would be. Akame Ga Kill, is a mix of hardcore action, high speed battles, tragedy, madness and a whole lot of dead people.

AniManga: Shin Sekai Yori (From The New World)

 Shin Sekai Yori (From The New World) is a blend of science fiction, horror, and deep insight into the mind of humanity. The story takes place a thousand years in the future. It follows a group of kids who learn some forbidden knowledge about their utopian society.  Six children—Saki, Satoru, Maria, Mamoru, Shun, and Reiko—born and raised in a town, named  Kamisu's 66th district, learn about a plot to wage war against humanity and try to stop it.

In the not to distant future, science proves the existence of PK (Psychokinesis). Once people with PK started appearing around the globe there was a scramble by governments to weaponize the ability. Within 100 years people with PK over powered the humans and controlled society. After a few hundred more years, humans without PK waged war against the PK users. This resulted in all out nuclear warfare which almost destroyed the earth.

From the ashes humanity rebuilt. Top global minds decided that disabling PK users from being able to harm or kill other humans was the solution. They believed genetic modification was the only solution to protect mankind from violence ever occurring again. If someone with PK tried to hurt another human, they would suffer "The death of shame."  This would begin with symptoms of mild discomfort ending in death. In every case where a PK user kills someone the result is death by heart attack. 

With these new restrictions placed on on PK users mankind secretly decided  to develop a way to identify people with abilities from normal humans. Then they genetically cross-bred all PK user humans with the Naked Mole Rat and forced them into servitude. This knowledge and all information related to that part of human history was hidden away and stored as forbidden knowledge.

Since PK users couldn't hurt other users without suffering, they used these hybrid (Mole) humans to carry out their warfare and assassinations. They also created mutant cats that could hunt down children who couldn't control their abilities. Kids who couldn't control their PK were called Ogres and were the most feared. 

The story takes place two hundred years after the last ogre appeared. The hybrid humans learn what happened from a living library and once again wage war on the PK users. The result is one action packed anime that I highly recommend watching. 

AniManga: Toriko

AniManga is a term I use to describe a Manga that's been turned into an Anime. The anime can be a series, movie, or OVA (Original Video Animation). The newest AniManga I've been following is called Toriko.

At first glance I thought the show was a cheap copy of Dragon Ball. The main character whose name is Toriko looks a lot like Goko in clothing, build and appearance. Before I jumped to conclusions I watched a few episodes of the series. Back then there were only four episodes so there wasn't much information to base my opinion on. Then I read some of the Manga. What I found is that the characters do share similarities with DBZ but Toriko has its own plot.

The story takes place in a world where food is the most important commodity and Toriko is a Bishokuya (hunter of exotic ingredients). All ingredients have a capture value and the higher the value the more dangerous the ingredient. Toriko and a few other characters have special cells called gourmet cells that evolve when they eat foods of high capture value. These cells give them amazing abilities and increase their power, speed and special attacks.

Toriko along with other Bishokuya are searching for a special ingredient called "God" which can start or end world war. Most of the ingredients are puns made from a mix of two different things. For example a tomato crossed with a marshmallow = marshmallow tomato, or a turtle mixed with a shark = shark turtle, which looks like a giant turtle with shark fins and lots of teeth. It reminds me of books I would read as a kid about the magical world of Xanth by Piers Anthony. He was famous for mixing two or more creatures in a comical fashion.

Toriko is not for everyone and is more comical than action packed, but if you like humorous AniManga its worth checking out. Below I posted a few clips of Toriko battles from the Anime.

AniManga: Bleach

Bleach is an anime series that started out as a manga by artist Noriaki "Tite" Kubo. I started watching the anime long before I checked out the manga which is unusual for me. Normally I read a few episodes of the manga and see if its worth looking into the anime since most companies change parts of the story of the manga. With Bleach the anime closely followed the manga story minus a couple of filler story arcs that happened when the anime caught up to the comic which is still in publication.

Bleach follows the adventures of a teenager named Ichigo Kurosaki who obtains the powers of a Soul Reaper also known as a Shinigami which literally means "Death God" from another soul reaper who had been injured. Once he acquired the powers he took on the duties of protecting the innocent from corrupted spirits called  Hollows, and guiding lost souls safely to the afterlife. 

The main protagonist is a powerful and manipulative soul reaper named Aizen Sōsuke who betrays the other Soul Reapers and allies himself with the strongest of the Hollows, the Espadas. His main goal was domination over the Soul Society, the Physical world and everything in between. A war between the Soul Society and Aizen raged and at the end only one was left standing.

There's allot of controversy now that the Aizen saga is over because Tite Kubo planned on ending the manga there. But due to the popularity of the comic as well as the anime he continued with a story-line. This has some people in an uproar and others excited on what direction the comic is going to go. Me personally I find the new story arc a little weak but since its just starting I'm giving it a chance. The anime is still dope and if you're not a fan you should check it out! I posted a few clips of the Soul Reapers battling Espada in the final war below.