4 Volumes Into Gachiakuta [FIRST IMPRESSIONS]

This isn’t a review (i’m working on something like that, though), and i’m fairly sure i’m late to the party, but since i’m not watching the anime, yet i have decided to give the Gachiakuta manga a try, since i did like the look, the theme, i’m a bit of a trash boy myself (i do review a lot of trash, by choice) and apparently editors/publisher are REALLY pushing it to be the next big shonen series that becomes huge (on terms of other popular series having ended in recent years)…… let’s do a “vibe check”.

Again, it’s a bit early for a proper review, but it is a modern shonen, 4 volumes i think it’s a fair enough chunk to base these impressions on, i could have stopped at volume 3, but i decided to give the series a bit more leeway.

And yes, i’m a bit late to the party, but who cares.

(as a side note, one of the variants for the Italian release of the first volume had a literal “trashbox”, that’s cute)

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A small update to the EXPRESSO page

Quickly updated the page containing all EXPRESSO reviews up to May 2021.

The Spooktacular Eight will resume very soon.

Cya.

Hidden Dragon and Crouching Tiger and Sengoku Zombie [MANGA REVIEW] | Warring States Undead (Undead)

Zombies. The horror comfort food, that if an apocalypse actually happened without them, people would somehow make them happen just to not have that Y2K style survival book and mental training for a Walking Dead roleplay go to waste.

After all, we stuck them even in Pride And Prejudice, we had them destroyed by Abraham Lincon, and Sankarea exists to ask questions we shouldn’t really ask.

So of course we were gonna have them mixed with historical fantasy, going basically the Onimusha route but during the Warring States era of Japan (as depicted in popular media like Samurai Warriors more than actual historical drama), specifically reenacting the legendary rivalry between Kenshin Uesugi and Shingen Takeda… in modern day.

Mugen Tenshou: Hidden Dragon and Crouching Tiger and Sengoku Zombie is indeed the manga that dares asks: what if Sengoku era zombie samurais happened today, with a darkness castle emerging out ot nowhere, undead warriors of old, and of course Oda Nobunaga emerges as the Demon King that had been planning this while lying in Hell for centhuries?

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[EXPRESSO] The Ghost In The Shell (2026) | Future Past

At long last, the new Ghost In The Shell anime series is out, handled by Science Saru (Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, Devilman Crybaby, Japan Sinks 2020), and streaming internationally on Amazon Video.

As a very long time fan and GITS scholar, this new series held extra appeal as it was sold on being a loyal adaptation of Masamune Shirow original manga, which is oddly a novel proposition, since most of GITS incarnations refer to the Mamoru Oshii films as an example for tone and characterization, not really the manga.

So if you are familiar with those, the Stand Alone Complex or later iterations, you will be in for a surprise, putting aside Motoko Kusanagi’s very different characterization, even if the premise remains the same.

2029, the world is interconnected and cyborg enhancements have made the distinction between man and machine even more blurry, and in this cyberpunk future Motoko Kusanagi, an expert cyborg soldier, wants to establish a squad capable of tackling technological and security threats.

As it happens, government official Daisuke Aramaki is also planning to create a special organization, so he recruits Motoko and her squad to form Public Security Section 9, and as such intervene in case of terrorism, cybercrime and such.

This first season does adapt fully the original manga (meaning it doesn’t cover the sequel volumes, Human Error Processor and Man Machine Interface), as expected, honestly – aside the excellent faux 80s stylization – the animation is impressive, and it’s oddly novel to see an actually faithful anime adaptation of GITS, paradoxically standing out among the other iterations, and showing how strong the original Shirow work is, as it doesn’t really feel outdated.

which in itself it’s quite worrying, but honestly i don’t know what else i could ask for from this GITS adaptation.

Magical Girl Of The End/Magical Girl Apocalypse manga [REVIEW] | Pervert Cop VS the Murder Megucas

While we can’t really blame this on “Madoka Magica Effect”, we can’t because this isn’t even trying to lure you …. still, you know that series’ success was bound to spawn magical girl manga like this.

Frankly, this isn’t the more absurd “magical girl but edgy” take, heck, this predates Magical Girls Ops Asuka, which has them weilding realistic firearms and getting PSTD, maybe we’ll do that sometime, but i wanted to do something magical girl related because the new Madoka movie somehow finally released in Japanese theathers not even a week ago.

That said, after all, what do you expect from an action horror manga called Magical Girl Of The End… or Magical Girl Apocalypse,, but i prefer the original title.

Written and illustrated by Kentaro Sato, Magical Girl Of The End begins where most of these shonen horror series do: with a massacre in a Japanese high school class, where an average and distant teen, Kii Kogami, sees a weird gothic lolita dressed humanoid appear and explode people heads like the Fourth Of July, only for the cadavers to rise as zombies, and thing have started going to shit outside too, as a flood of those weird monsters chanting “magical” drops from the sky.

Kii manages to escape the school alongside his childhood friend Tsukune and other survivors, bending together to try escape these “magical girls monsters” as they keep swarming and causing even more death and destruction…..

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The Autumn-Winter Schedule Declamation As Foretold

Since the last time i announced it, not much has changed, but i’ll reiterate just in case.

Due to my changing IRL situation, i have decided to shift the update schedule to a more “schedule-less” approach, improvising more and adhering more to a “when i can/its done” release philopophy, since i’m focusing more a full lenght kaiju book (among other things)…. but this will not really matter until January 2027, since most of the scheduled work has already been done and ready, like a LOT, so Spooktacular Eight and 12 Days Of Dino Dicember will happen as usual, for example, and EXPRESSO will remaine a staple rubric, as always.

So the proper, fleshed out general new “unschedule” will be posted post Epiphany (since the 12 Days Of Dino Dicember by nature continue up until January 5th), so for now we’ll carry on as usual, more or less.

[EXPRESSO] Jo Jo Bizarre Adventure: Golden Spirit iOS | The Gachalands

Probably comes as no surprise to anybody that Golden Spirit is another pile of gacha shit… but still, i decided to give this one a try.

Mostly because i haven’t played one of these in a while and because it’s Jojo…. and starting off, gameplay it’s not exactly what i figured it would be from the trailers, and by that i mean it was sold as a “ tactical RPG”, which to me means a Tactics style turn based affair, this is actually a real time autobattler where the more pressing issue is positioning the units, so yeah, it’s another idle self playing borefest, the strategic hook of the Rush mechanic meaning very little, and of course the roster is infested with VERY minor characters, so you can gamble for the ones you really want.

Or hope you can unlock them in event story cutscenes…. some of which even when available will wall off content with 14 hours timers, like the Stardust Crusaders one, because the game starts off with Part 5, Golden Wind, the Jo Jo series taking place in Neaples, Italy and following Giorno Giovanna, the son of Dio Brando, as he fights to overthrow the mafia’s mysterious boss.

Hope you already know everything JoJo because the game never really explains shit, despite starting from Part 5….of 9.

While it mostly looks quite decent, it goes the extra mile of not just reusing frames from the anime for the story scenes (alongside recreating them in various styles), fairly common in itself, but sometimes passing those through an IA filter, making them look worse upon any scrutiny, too.

Its so utterly generic that you could have EASILY slapped another anime license/skin unto it… and i’ll just say it looks identical to a bootleg Jujutsu Kaisen mobile game, Jujutsu Malevolent Shrine.

Netflix’s One Piece (Season 2) Into The Grand Line (2026) [REVIEW] | Baroque Works Begins

As promised, here is my review for the second season of Netflix’s One Piece live action series, which i now fully realize isn’t gonna be a few season thing, as in, it became clear it wasn’t after the first was a success, and the second too, but i guess it took time for me to properly sink in we’re gonna have One Piece live action material… and that i was actually looking forward to it.

If you told me this even just 10 years ago, i would have spat or laughed in your face, but what can i say, the future can be a foreign country as the past, in its own way.

Season One of “Netflix Piece” was indeed the freak surprise of that year for me, i’ve talked about that enough in the old review, so time to move on!

This second season (after a handy recap of Season 1) basically covers the Alabasta/Arabasta arc from the beginning in Rogue Town, and then up to Drum Kingdom…but as with the first season, this live action adaptation does make a notable amount of changes and additions.

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One Piece Day (?) Throwaway Musings

Yes, apparently One Piece Day just happened to be scheduled on August 10th last year, officially this year gonna be on the 22-23 Of August, and so it might seem pretty early to discuss things that in 2 weeks might not even matter or instead be addressed, but since on the 16th the blog goes on hiatus as usual, and i usually reserve/consider August as One Piece Month, i will be rambling a bit anyway.

about One Piece in general. what else?

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Sand Land manga [REVIEW] | ♪ ‘Cause Beezlebub ♪

Akira Toriyama needs no introduction, but most of his non-Dragon Ball or Dr. Slump related works do often fall through the cracks, so to speak…. so one wonders why the hell in 2023 and 2024 there was a sudden deluge of adaptations of his Sand Land manga series.

Even here we got a new edition for the manga as a small volume or a deluxe big one inclusive of extra material, alongside the film, the anime series on Disney Plus and even a videogame for PS4/PS5/X-Box Series and PC was made.

It wasn’t even an anniversary thing as Sand Land was released in 2000.

I guess why not, 2023 was kind of a slump for most DB related projects, mostly leading up to the announcement of Sparking Zero, and i guess why not, just using the Akira Toriyama name ensures sales, and unlike most of his other short stories that were eventually compiled in volumes alongside other one-shots (like Pola & Roid, for example), people knew of Sand Land existing, as the “desert manga with demons and tanks made by the Dragon Ball guy”.

Sure as hell was more well known than Nekomajin.

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