@tinycartridge / tinycartridge.com
The latest issue of Japanese manga magazine CoroCoro features an amusing one-shot manga for upcoming Wii U shooter Splatoon. It’s a cute comic without much story, mostly explaining the game’s concepts and showing how a turf battle plays out – read a fan translation of the manga here!
PREORDER Splatoon
This is just a reminder that Viz Media’s reprint of the Shotaro Ishinomori-illustrated comic based on The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is out today! Featuring artwork from the creator of Kamen Rider, series originally appeared in the pages of Nintendo Power more than 20 years ago.
Amazon has the book for $13.89 (compared to its sticker price of $20). While you’re grabbing that, you can pick up a Hyrule Historia hardback if you don’t have it yet, along with the Zelda manga box set. Scans via Link’s Hideaway!
I approve of the logo! This is the latest in the multimedia Yo-Kai Watch rollout, including toys and anime. And video games, of some kind, eventually! This manga will be out before the “2016″ release of the toys, so read it and be cooler than the other kids.
SUPPORT TINY CARTRIDGE Join Club Tiny!
Amazon has the upcoming reprint for Shotaro Ishinomori's The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past comic -- originally serialized in Nintendo Power more than 20 years ago -- up for preorder. It's listed at $16.94 right now, a few bucks off its list price. Viz Media will release the book in North America on May 5. Links/scans via GoNintendo and Link's Hideaway!
PREORDER Majora's Mask 3D, Link Wind Waker Nendoroid
Pokemon's about to get real, real creepy, y'all-- creepier than even Creepy Black. The Pokemon Company has collaborated with horror manga artist Junji Ito, who you may know from That One Comic About People Obsessed with People-Shaped Holes in a Mountain and every other unsettling Japanese comic you've seen online. The collaboration is called "Kowapoke," or "Scarypoke."
The Pokemon Company released one preview image in the form of a phone wallpaper, above, featuring the world's most menacing Banette. They're also giving t-shirts out in Japan featuring the image, for people who need more personal space, I guess.
Game Freak told us they were freaky.
Dang! This 3DS drawing app is nuts! Comic Koubou (Comic Studio, via Siliconera) is an app for the Japanese 3DS that combines touchscreen drawing with built-in panel layout options, text balloons, sound effect and visual effect libraries.
The sample comics shown are super impressive! I mean, technology isn't everything. You're still probably going to need to know how to draw – which is what I come up against every time I get excited about, and buy, a DS/3DS art app. This comes out next week on the Japanese eShop for 800 yen.
BUY Nintendo 2DS & 3DS/XL, upcoming games
Takahashi Meijin inspects his Famicom tournament schedule, recorded on a girl's Hudson Bee pantsu.
Since Toshiyuki Takahashi announced his departure from Hudson Soft earlier this week, a couple more reports regarding the pitchman have popped up -- the 16shot specialist is apparently working with Japanese idol Haruna Anno on an unnanounced project, and he might be unable to keep the "Takahashi Meijin" nickname due to his former employer trademarking the character.
GamePro writer and Scroll publisher Ray Barnholt, who posted an excellent piece on Takahashi's history at Hudson, is streaming a live "Meijincast", in which he's playing through some Adventure Island (which stars Takahashi as "Master Higgins"), right now! Watch it!
See also: More Takahashi Meijin posts
[Thanks, Persona! Image via esuteru]
Manga Ie Monogatari (Manga House Story), a new DS game from publisher Columbia about the life of a manga studio assistant. This game casts the player as a new employee in a manga studio, including both drawing and adventure elements.
Not only do you draw your own comics (or assemble them from premade art), you also have to manage your avatar's mood and stay fashionable for the celebrities who come through the studio.
I kind of wonder how a real manga artist would feel about a dating element being worked into a game based on their job.
[Via Inside-Games]
This is the police station in front of Kameari Park in Katsushika-ku If you win, heaven! If you lose, Hell! Ryoutsu Ryu Get-rich-quick Great War! (Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kouenmae Hashuutsjo Masateba Tengoku! Makereba Jigoku! Ryoutsu Ryu Ikkaku Senkin Taisaku Ikusa!) screenshots. Yes, that's all the title. It's based on a popular, and extremely long-lived, manga about a small police box in Tokyo and the cop, Ryo-san, who works there.
I think (?) the idea in the above minigame is that Ryo and a criminal have both stripped nude to prove they aren't hiding anything, and you move Ryo around to block the player's view of the criminal's business while simultaneously approaching him.
You usually don't see this much nudity in a DS game!
Golgo 13 survey of positions (click for a larger image). If you're a female and ever meet Duke Togo, he's probably going to do you. Then again, if you're a female and ever meet Duke Togo, you're probably a prostitute.
I really wish a publisher would bring Golgo 13 Anime Selection 1 Women to the States. I don't know much about the book other than it's a collection of stories centered around the lasses the assassin's bedded, and that it contains the phrase "sex of Golgo 13 is that selfish."
See also: Golgo 13: Top Secret Microgame
[Via Shaenon K. Garrity]
Golgo 13 physical observations. I can understand "amazing penis", but skilled computer programmer? Who knew?!
See also: Golgo 13: Top Secret Microgame
[Via Alternate Course Lite]
Sankaku Complex posted scans from a manga about the video game console wars, depicting its combatants as three male students at Game Hard Academy. The above shot, cropped to remove the naughty bits, shows the PlayStation 3 on the bottom left, the Xbox 360 riding on top of him, and the Wii watching from a nearby window, waggling furiously. That's the console wars for you.
How do the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable fit into this manga's scenario? I've no idea, but I don't intend to post shotacon here anytime soon.
See also: Yaranaika, Game console friends
Houkago Play fanart by Aizawa Yoshihiko. Somehow, you and I failed to discuss this manga all year, but worry not, I am amending that error as we speak.
Here is an excerpt of text I used to describe Houkago Play, or After School Play, last May at GameSetWatch:
"It's a romantic comedy manga series, each scene split into four panels, featuring a young couple -- a video game otaku and his tsundere girlfriend with a habit of kicking her partner -- who meet after school to play and argue over games, both too shy to kiss each other. The two don't just talk about whatever titles they happen to be playing, like Monster Hunter and Mystery Dungeon (I'm pretty sure no American comic has ever name-dropped Shiren!), but also about lewd mousepad pack-ins for game magazines, and about how PS2 releases hardly get any shelf space at game shops anymore."
It's a great read for gamers who also like manga, especially if you have a panythose or trampling fetish. It's only two chapters long, too, so it shouldn't take you long to read the entire story -- compare that against the 22-volume manga I devoted my time to last year, 20th/21st Century Boys.
You can read both Houkago Play chapters at Manga Fox.
[Via Albert]
This is an actual comment left in an article about Konami's Love Plus promotion plans, which involves preaching to Japanese men to be more "aggressive in courting love".
I shouldn't be, but I'm surprised whenever I come across people who look to these dating simulators not as curious pieces of software, but as real, essential sources of affection -- though if they have attitudes like the misogynist above, I understand why they can't find more sources.
So, it's great that Konami is steering single men towards physical (3D) relationships instead of virtual (2D) girlfriends, even if it is a ploy to move Love Plus copies.
This initiative to motivate males in Japan to find dates isn't new; one of the biggest best sellers in Japan last year was Health and Physical Education for Over Thirty, according to New York Times's recent "2D Love" article. It's a "manga-illustrated [relationship] guidebook that holds the reader’s hand from the first meeting to sex to marriage."
You can see a few NSFW Health and Physical Education for Over Thirty pages at Akibablog. The manga even saw a recent sequel, Beginning of Love, for "cherry boys who even have not been on a date". Its six chapters:
It sounds goofy, but if it successfully educates and cures disenchanted bachelors like the Love Plus commentor above, more power to the manga's creators! If you're considering importing Love Plus, why not pick up one of these books, too (assuming you can read Japanese text)?
Preorder import: Love Plus
