AniManga: KaraKuri Circus

It's been a while since I've watched an anime that's almost a perfect adaption of the manga. KaraKuri Circus is a manga written by Kazuhiro Fujita. Published from 1997 - 2006 The anime aired from October 2018 - June 2019.

The story is about a boy named Masaru who wants to become a puppeteer. It sounds simple. The anime is full of complexity and plot twists that make you binge watch at three in the morning.  Masaru's story is part of an older story that started over 400 years before Masaru was born. 

Two brothers Bai Yin (older by a three years) and Bai Jin traveled from China to Prague to study western alchemy. They met a woman named Francine and both fell in love with her. The younger brother, Jin professes his love for Francine to his older brother, Yin. The older brother asks Francine to marry him. In retaliation Jin steals Francine, defiles her and hides in a small town. 

Yin finds Francine after five years of searching. He finds her imprisoned and sick from poor treatment. Not only from his younger brother but also the villagers. They were superstitious and feared Francine was a witch because of her silver-colored hair. She dies in a fire before Yin could free her from captivity. Yin confronted Jin and found that his brother had gone insane but had also successfully created an elixir for immortality. 

After Yin left in grief over Francine Jin created a doll of Francine. He uses hair from the real Francine combined with his elixir and alchemy to bring the doll to life. The new Francine was perfect in every way except he couldn't get her to smile. To solve the problem along with his boredom Jin made puppets called Automaton. Their job was to serve Francine and make her smile. To achieve this goal they created a circus group called the Midnight Circus.

Fast forward to modern times. Bai Yin, Bai Jin, and Francine have all been reincarnated. The elixir of life got poured into the town Well and made all the villagers into Shirogane. The Shirogane age one year for every seven human years. They possess immense strength, speed, regenerative abilities, and their blood is poison to Automaton. Francine was a Shirogane from birth. She was trained as a puppeteer who could manipulate puppets to battle Automaton.  

Bai Jin created a disease called Zonapha Syndrome to punish mankind for losing Francine. The Midnight Circus and other Automaton travel the world spreading the Zonapha Syndrome. The Automaton of modern times no longer perform circus tricks. Instead they hunt humans and drain their fluids to use as fuel. Masaru, Francine, Bai Yin, and the rest of the Shirogane battle to stop Zonapha Syndrome from destroying the world.

The story is original. The action and art style is awesome. The plot has love, betrayal, ambition, good character development and enough action to keep you pressing the play button. There's also deep questions of morality and loyalty between men and family. If you're a fan of awesome anime check out KaraKuri Circus. 

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: Kingdom

There's not many historical manga stories that hold my attention. Most of the stories are to much like reading a history book with pictures.

The Animanga: Kingdom is a whole different story. I started off by watching a few episodes of the anime...on a recommendation. I liked it after the third. From there I went and read the manga...all 378 chapters of it (binge reading). I can some up the rest of this post with four words "The story is dope!".

Kingdom follows the life of a young peasant boy named Shin as he aspires to become a great general in warring ancient china. The story takes place 245 BC (Before Christ) at a time when western china was broken in to 7 major countries. The lands of Qin, Chu, Zhou, Han, Yan, Wei, and Qi are all battling for domination.

Shin and his best friend Sin Hyo lived in the country of Qin. They planned to enter the army and become generals. Sin Hyo, turned out to be an identical double of the king of Qin. He was taken to the palace and used as a body double for the king. Sin was killed by assassins.

Shin discovers the details of Sins murder from the real king. His name was Sai and his dream was to unify all of western China. To due this he had to conquer all the other countries and Shin decided to help him achieve his goal. Sin died protecting the king and to honor his memory Shin took up his duty.

Aside from being a historical piece it's great action sequences, writing and character development. It reminds me of the writing style of Death Note crossed with One Piece. Where the writing and plot make you feel for the character. The battle scenes are well drawn with incredible detail. The characters fight with classic weapons from their time period. Sword, mace, ax, lance, bow and arrow...etcetera. The weapons aren't high tech but how the characters use them makes them look superhuman.

Each battle moves the story forward as Shin builds his private army the Hi Shin Unit composed of elite fighters and strategist.  At the same time his victories and failures along with the other generals of Qin propel Sai's dream of unifying China forward. If you read battle type manga like Berserk then I definitely recommend Kingdom.

The anime is on the final episode of the second season. There's no doubt in my mind that there will be a third due to its popularity. Below is a snippet from the battle between Shin and a general from the land of Wei named Rinko. Check it out.