If you haven’t noticed by now, we here at Otaku Ohana love us some Amazon.com … or more specifically, we love it when we can do blog posts around certain screen grabs from that site. Here’s another one to add to our growing body of work on that topic.

I was recently looking at the listing for The Rough Guide to Manga to see how it’s doing (still on sale and on the verge of selling out at Amazon’s Canadian, German and Japanese branches; also still in stock locally at Barnes & Noble’s Ala Moana and Kahala branches; and let me just add it makes a great Christmas gift for the manga fan and/or people you want to make manga fans on your list this year [/end shameless plug]). Now, I should mention that writing anime and manga columns isn’t my primary duty at the Star-Bulletin; I’m actually a copy editor, one of those unsung behind-the-scenes people who make sure all the i’s come before e’s (except after c’s), ensure all the facts are straight and easy to understand, and attempt to write headlines about, say, an Israel Kamakawiwoole tribute event being held at Kamehameha Schools’ Kapalama campus in a space that could fit the words “A cat ran.” Whenever something goes amiss, alarm bells automatically go off in our heads and we start involuntarily twitching, aching to correct whatever mistakes we see.

Commence bell-ringing and involuntary twitching … now.

So let’s get this straight: According to my Amazon bio, I’m not a “manga expert”; I’m a manga AND an expert. I didn’t realize that I was someone that could be rendered in black-and-white ink and either serialized on a weekly or monthly basis (in Japan) or released in compiled volumes (in English-speaking territories), but hey, I guess you learn something new every day.

That got me thinking, though: What type of manga would I be? I’m inclined to think that Otaku Columnist Yadao-kun would be a seinen drama, with the protagonist — that would be me — being a humble person who doesn’t think much of his own skills, but whom others respect greatly because of said skills. (Think Takumi Fujiwara in Initial D.) It would be a slice-of-life series chronicling the ups and downs of working at a daily newspaper, playing out like the assorted Kosaku Shima series. You’ll laugh! You’ll cry! You’ll marvel at how the artist has enough patience to render all those anime figures on my desk every time it shows up in the story! And, of course, the extras in the back would feature 4-koma comics (with the characters drawn in chibi style, natch) depicting the lighter side of life in the office.

Oh yes, and it would still sell less than anything featuring ninjas or angsty emo teen vampires. Sigh.

Okay, readers, your turn! What kind of manga would you be? Action-packed shonen? Romantic-drama-filled shojo? Light up those comments, people.

Five hundred nemu*nemu comic strips. It’s a number that boggles my mind. But it’s true: With the posting of “A Note of Thanks” on Tuesday night locally (early Wednesday for much of the rest of the U.S.), co-creators Audra Furuichi and Scott Yoshinaga hit a very impressive milestone.

The 500th strip, in which the shopkeeper who gave the enchanted (and enchantingly cute) plush pups Anpan and Nemu to best buds Anise Kurobu and Kana Mezurashi gets a thank-you note from the two girls, brings back memories of the first strip published on April 1, 2006, in which the shopkeeper brought down a box containing those pups. Much has changed since then — the characters have become simpler and squishier (note Anpan and Nemu’s evolution from Beanie Baby-like pups to more distinctive dog forms), the format has shifted from a vertical “4-koma” Japanese style to the more familiar horizontal American comic strip style, and black-and-white strips gave way to glorious full color. But every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for more than three years now, those “smiles to go” have been a part of my morning Web browsing routine.

The milestone also brought back memories of how I got to know Audra and Scott. I’ve known Audra since 2004, when I met her at the Ani-Magic anime convention in Valencia, Calif., as a member of Morning Musume tribute group USA Musume (yes, I have pictures of her performing; no, you can’t see them). Later, I was reunited with her — and met Scott for the first time — when they were part of the local anime/manga-inspired artists group MangaBento and I was working on a story about the group in advance of the first Kawaii Kon. They would break off from MangaBento shortly afterward and form their own enterprise, and the rest is history.

So in honor of #500, I’d like to reveal my 10 favorite nemu*nemu strips and story arcs to date. It’s difficult to whittle down so many strips to just 10 favorites; there are so many signature moments, always with a keen, yet subtle, eye toward continuity — Mister Buns always flopping over when he appears, Nemu’s childlike innocence, Anpan’s scowl (which isn’t a sign of anger, but determination!), the ongoing adventures of Henshin Rider and his battle against the evil Space Cow (who happens to be a pig), the crackling conflict between Anise and Nemesis over whether Henshin Rider or Hanshin Flyer is the coolest superhero. (How dedicated are Audra and Scott to maintaining continuity? That picture above, with prototype Anpan and Nemu plushies riding in a wagon, was taken right around the time the “Breakin’ Out” chapter was running online … in which Anpan and Nemu have an adventure in a little red wagon.) But after a night spent plowing through the entire online archive, I think I have a pretty good idea. (Of course, this list, like the Canon 50 list I assembled for The Rough Guide to Manga, is subject to change. Daily.)

Without further ado, the list:

10. Sacrifice (May 5, 2006)
Early in its run, nemu*nemu established itself with elements of humor (Anise’s unbridled energy) and fantasy (hey, these plush pups can talk!). This, the 15th strip, contributed a third, key element to its success: the tug-at-your-heartstrings factor, or, to put it more simply using local terminology, the “HO, DA CUUUUUUUUUUUTE” factor. When you read this, you hoped beyond all hope that the shopkeeper would let the girls have these precious pups so they wouldn’t be separated. They did, and all was right with the world.

9. Jailbird (March 26, 2008)
And speaking of that “HO, DA CUUUUUUUUUUUTE” factor … this strip proves that dialogue isn’t necessary to tell a good story. The innocence of Nemu shines through here as his hope that he’ll be rescued from behind a gate — a gate that he later unintentionally finds is totally avoidable just by going in another direction, but that’s another strip for another day — slowly gives way to sadness over being forgotten. (Anpan was supposed to rescue him, but he was distracted by the TV.)

8. Luck is On My Side (June 22, 2007)
Anise’s luck — or lack thereof — captures the story of my gachapon-collecting life. Really. Oh, sure, I wanted the Galaxy Angel figures of Vanilla H and Mint Blancmanche, but what did I get? Forte Stollen, the Space Cow of the series. Why yes, I’m still bitter about it … can you tell?

7. Visions of Doom (Aug. 31, 2009)
Yes, I’m a guy and Kana’s a girl, but her experiences as a glasses-wearing member of society totally resonated with mine as I was growing up. All of the “Play Ball!” chapter had me nodding in agreement, but this strip in particular really hit home — I mean, seriously, have you ever tried wearing those 3-D glasses over regular glasses? Not a pleasant experience. And, of course, the whole gym class thing. Eww.

6. Role Model (July 24, 2006)
I love the little girl and her mother who pop up from time to time in the strip … usually when things are at their most chaotic for our heroes. And the way this strip is set up — Anpan climbs into a vending machine, Anise tries to get him out, average passers-by would just see a girl yelling at a machine for some strange reason — makes the payoff all the more rewarding. Will this girl ever get a doggie of her own?

5. A Camping Story (July 10, 2009)
A good number of you may be familiar with Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine cartoonist. Pastis’ wordplay strips are some of the best, punniest, most groan-inducing strips out there. This nemu*nemu strip would easily give Pastis a run for his money.

4. Into the Music (January 10, 2007)
Kana’s Mimpii Club fandom reveals itself … acknowledging that we all have some secret fandom somewhere. (And that we should always be wary of friends bearing cell phone cameras that could be fired off at any time.) What makes it even greater? Those pictures show up later on campaign posters Anise posts during Kana’s run for class representative.

3. Ice Cream! / Still Good (May 25 and 30, 2007)
Many of us scream for ice cream … and many of us scream even LOUDER when said ice cream accidentally tumbles to the ground. Poor Nemu! Fortunately, Anpan’s a good enough friend to give him his ice cream instead. (Never mind that Nemu also subscribes to the “five-second rule” of dropped food.)

2. The Hawaiian Ai arc (May 21 and June 23-July 18, 2008)
Okay, so Audra has said on her blog post accompanying strip #500 that this arc doesn’t count toward the 500-strip mark, but really, it’s a great work regardless. It reminds you that, putting aside the little irritating elements of daily life (and, of course, that whole Furlough Fridays thing), Hawaii really is a great place to live, what with the unique nature of pidgin English, the scenic beaches and hikes and the food (macadamia nut chocolates! shave ice! mixed plates!). If there’s one strip that makes you sit back and really marvel, it’s the July 4 strip, The Journey, which is a showcase of Audra’s artistic talent. Watch for cameos by Ala Moana Center, Rainbow Drive-In, characters from Audra’s college comic strip “Culture Shock!” and even Scott himself (waiting in line behind Kana in one strip).

1. Golden (March 6, 2009)
I cried when I first read this strip. Still do now. It’s the high point of a story that saw Pollo literally crash into the gang’s lives, get healed up from a leg injury, and then soar off again. And hey, any arc where Nemu has his dream of flying fulfilled is always touching. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pollo returned someday, but still … saying goodbye to a good friend is always hard. And the fourth panel is priceless.

Congratulations on 500 comic strips, Audra and Scott. Here’s to 500 more … and beyond.

Today is one of those milestone, red-letter days in the video game industry, a day that millions of gamers across the country have been eagerly anticipating. Stores opened at midnight and people flocked in and got their copies of this omega-blistering-hot game, rushed home, tore off the shrink wrap and started playing the heck out of it, work, school or other non-game-playing enterprises be damned.

That’s right: Today marked the official release of Konami’s Pop ‘n Music for the Wii. It’s all the fun of all those versions you’ve imported from Japan through the years, except without the colorful nine-button controller and with (very likely really dubious) waggle control support! LET ME AT IT.

… oh, yeah, and there’s also some bang-bang-pow-pow military tactical shooter, too. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, I believe it’s called. It’s a game that Kanye West would interrupt someone else’s awards ceremony speech to proclaim the biggest video game release of all time, likely to supersede in sales Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Madden NFL 10, Guitar Hero, Band Hero, DJ Hero, hero sandwiches, Rock Band, Beatles Rock Band, Lego Rock Band, and, of course, the entire Mario, Zelda, Imagine and Insert Plural Form of Proper Noun Here Except Stick a “Z” Instead of an “S” at the End (see: Dogz, Catz, Petz, Marmasetz, et.al.) series … combined. (That is, of course, until video game retailers begin pushing preorders for the next big thing, which should be starting riiiiiiiiight about … now.)

Wake me up when it’s over, please. I’ll be playing Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box in the meantime.

Not to say that I’m immune from the marketing hype machine. I picked up my Day One copies of Tekken 6, Soulcalibur 4, Street Fighter IV and Katamari Forever, to name a few recent examples, like a good little shopper drone. And I can understand to a certain extent the appeal of Modern Warfare 2. It’s just … another first-person multiplayer shooter? Why? Didn’t we just go through this a few months ago with ODST? I stopped by a store a few days ago to look for a copy of Tekken 5 ($9.99 on sale that week, yay), and I counted several bazillion used copies of ODST. Several bazillion! And I fully expect the same avalanche of used Modern Warfare 2 games to appear in a few months.

So yeah, I can wait. Never was a big fan of online multiplayer — you’re reading a blog written by a guy who grew up with nice single-player games like Pac-Man, Q*Bert, Galaga, all those fun games that you see crammed onto compilation discs now for $20, and I’d much rather not deal with college-age students acting like 6-year-olds as they pwn clueless n00bs, kthxbye. Then again, I’m not particularly fond of first-person shooters in general … only ones I’ve enjoyed in recent memory are those in the Halo series, and that’s because it allowed me to pull off the following strategy:

• Advance a few inches.
• Fiddle with controls a lot. Carefully aim in general direction of enemy.
• Fire several dozen shots. (One or two may actually hit its intended target.)
• Immediately get riddled with enemy gunfire.
• RUN AWAY RUN AWAY RUN AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
• Allow life bar to refill.
• Repeat.

… and all of this is on the “rookie” setting, too. (I told you I’m really bad at this sort of thing.) The Halo series was better for me than other series because of that auto-life-bar refill … other series employ the accessory commonly known as “the med pack,” which basically meant I’d get riddled with enemy gunfire while looking for something that may refill my life bar halfway (only to see it emptied out again a few seconds later). Playing games: fun. Dying several zillion times in the first level: Not fun.

So have fun on your missions today, virtual soldiers. I’ll be over here figuring out the longest path for an ant to get to his colony, and other insanely aggravating puzzles like that.

Today on Otaku Ohana, we go in a somewhat different direction from the usual.

I received a press release on Thursday hailing the induction of the Nintendo Game Boy, among others, into the Toy Hall of Fame. I’m not surprised; that little guy changed gaming habits for all time, long before cell phone games were as ubiquitous as they are now.

But it wasn’t the Game Boy that caught my attention when I read the release. It was another toy that just got inducted that I homed in on: the ball. Yes, just the ordinary ol’ ball, the kind you kick, throw, hit, and lose over fences, down gutters and in shrubbery just way too easily.

That “the ball” was only NOW inducted into this previously-unknown-to-me National Toy Hall of Fame piqued my curiosity, so I looked it up online. The hall of fame is apparently a creation of the Strong National Museum of Play, another entity I had never heard of, and was established just in 1998.

Which explains the appallingly short list of toys that so far have made it into the hall of fame. A lot of toys I expected were in there — Barbie, Monopoly, LEGO — along with a particularly strange entry: the stick.

I am serious. A STICK. Not yet included is my most favorite generic toy of all — toy food and drinks — and they’ve already inducted a STICK? I count my childhood as one that was spent outdoors quite a bit, and neither I nor Jason Y. can think of much non-violent use for a stick — although granted my playtime was spent with friends on bikes in neighborhoods that had few trees, so maybe my problem is really that I didn’t have the necessary material to properly enjoy this gift of nature.

Instead, what we had — at least in our old neighborhood prior to moving to our current one — were those little “boats” made of the dried, split seedpods of African tulip trees; the accompanying young buds of said tree, full of liquid and dandy for use in the absence of actual squirt guns; seeds from the golden shower tree, whose actual kernels rattled inside their thick pods, sturdy enough to be used as coins for pretend currency; and hibiscus petals, which we ended up destroying in a way that I will not relate here in order to prevent more blossoms from meeting such a fate.

But, amazingly, NO STICKS. As surrounded as we obviously were by plants that could have provided us with such, WE NEVER USED THEM. Well, I shouldn’t say “never”; rather, I should say, I can’t recall us using sticks for much more than picking up bugs and other items that we were too scared to try to grab with our bare hands. Oh, and as kindling. But that of course was under careful adult supervision.

Let me say that I have nothing against sticks. I just found it funny how, among the list of honored toys that includes a cardboard box — which is also probably the craziest item ever included in a serious video game — seemingly so out of place, was, well, A STICK. We probably got more mileage out of tree leaves than we did sticks.

Still, it’s a reminder that the most nondescript items can be fun — and free. So even as the Nintendo Game Boy gets its due as a playtime pioneer, it’s got some pretty tough competition against the simple stick.

Tag-team partner in fandom Wilma J. and I are avid users of online chat programs in “talking” to each other. (Heck, we could be sitting  just a few feet away from each other, and we’d still be using our chat programs. We’re just that connected.) Sometimes what we talk about even has something to do with otaku-related matters, and it can end up inspiring columns … or, in this case, Otaku Ohana entries.

Take this conversation we had a few nights ago. Wilma’s in the midst of reading the latest book by Hideyuki Kikuchi, author of the Vampire Hunter D series of novels, to be translated and released in the U.S. Which book, of course, will be covered in the chat below. Take note that this isn’t an entire review per se … just a bit more insight into our review process:

Wilma: I can’t believe I’m reading Wicked City.

It’s the Halloween season, which means it’s time to think about loading up on candy, dressing up during what could be called Unofficial National Cosplay Recognition Day and thinking about all the things in pop culture that fill us with a sense of horror and dread.

In the spirit of the season, we could have done a Halloween post based around normal garden-variety Japanese horror franchises – Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Ju-On, the Ringu series, Hell Girl and all like-minded series that feature divine retribution of some sort, stuff like that. But this Halloween, we wanted to do a different take on horror — namely, the most horrific series we’ve ever seen in our careers as otaku reviewers. Brace yourselves for the horrors within. And if you should happen to see them out in the wild, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Di Gi Charat: Dejiko’s Champion Cup Theatre (Studio Ironcat manga, 2003): America first met Gamers mascot Dejiko, her sidekicks Puchiko and Gema, and “rival” Rabi-en-Rose in 2003, when Viz brought out a series of manga. It made no sense because (a) an accompanying anime that would have made things make more sense hadn’t been licensed yet and (b) aside from the hardest of hard-core fans, no one knew what a Gamers store was in the first place. Undaunted, Studio Ironcat plunged into the fray with their DGC book, Champion Cup Theatre.

And it made even less sense.

We know Dejiko’s an alien princess catgirl dressed in a maid outfit and huge ear-bells. She is a very cute character in that outfit. Why the Ironcat translation/localization team looked at that and decided, “Hey! Let’s make Dejiko speak all thug-life gangsta!” has been forever lost in time (mostly because the publisher shut down two years later). Imagine trying to read an entire book full of this kind of dialogue:

Umm, yeah. Sure. At least the translation/localization team didn’t make Rabi-en-Rose speak in valley girl slang …

… never mind.

Eiken (Media Blasters manga, 2005-2008): Because any time you try to remember what a series was about and all you can remember is that (a) the female characters had impractically large breasts and (b) there were many panty shots, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. You might recall that I mentioned Eiken in my Cel Shaded column a few days ago, and for good reason: It really is that bad, among the worst (if not the worst) things I’ve ever read.  The first volume of this series was purchased in the “if it’s manga, and someone took the time to bring it over, it has to be good, right?” phase of my early anime/manga reviewing career … and unloaded without comment a few days later. Why no review of this anywhere in Cel Shaded or Drawn & Quartered until now? Let’s face it — any review that pretty much amounts to “Look! Basketball-sized boobies!” isn’t exactly suitable for a family-friendly publication.

Final Fantasy Unlimited (ADV anime, 2003-04): Wilma tackled this one, and here’s what she wrote about it: Anime and movies based on the “Final Fantasy” video game series haven’t had much luck — yes, I’m one of those who didn’t care much for “Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children” — and the “Final Fantasy: Unlimited” series also flops along that star-crossed path. One night, strange seismic occurences create a so-called Pillar of Darkness and an opening to “Wonderland.” Two scientists make several visits to the world of Wonderland and write a best-selling book on what they find there. On one trip, however, they fail to return. Twelve years later, their twin children, Ai and Yu, head into Wonderland to find their missing parents — and find a lot more than they expect.

The anime gets painfully repetitive within just the first few episodes, with main “mystery man” Kaze releasing his special powers far more often than seems necessary — all with practically the same animation, to boot! — and Ai displaying her whiny brattiness and ultra-suspiciousness from the start. It was Ai’s stupidity and up-close-and-personal mistrust (there are literally shots of her pout-twisted face that fill the entire screen) more than anything that made me turn off the first DVD in disgust before I could finish all four episodes on the disc.

Initial D (Tokyopop anime, 2003-2005): No. Just … no. We’d like to take this moment to thank Funimation for not only performing a license rescue, but also promising to restore this anime ride to its original factory standard and removing all of those wince-worthy “tricked out” modifications. It’s like sticking a spoiler on the back of this car — there are some things you just don’t do.

Puni Puni Poemy (ADV anime, 2004): Ahhhh, Shinichi “Nabeshin” Watanabe. Before Puni Puni Poemy, you gave us Excel Saga, which delightfully skewered all sorts of anime conventions and added a fresh take on Koshi Rikdo’s manga. After Puni Puni Poemy, you gave us Nerima Daikon Brothers, arguably the funniest musical anime about a family of daikon farmers aspiring to be entertainers. And Puni Puni Poemy itself … well, at least you gave us Excel Saga and Nerima Daikon Brothers.

To be fair, Excel Saga was great and wacky and all, but I wasn’t too fond of episode 26, “Going Too Far,” where the production staff indeed went too far in creating a too-hot-for-Japanese-broadcast-TV episode that smothered the humor in favor of numerous shots of naked (yet still tastefully covered) women, Hyatt bleeding all over the place and shots of implied sex. Take a small plot point from Excel Saga — specifically, an episode where Pedro’s young son, Sandora, becomes an animator in the U.S. on a series called, yes, Puni Puni Poemy — and toss in a heaping helping of that “Going Too Far” mentality, and you have the 60-minute, straight-to-video Puni Puni Poemy anime.

Chaotic? Absolutely. Cute? Yes, for a little while … the running joke about Poemi being so wastefully energetic that she even refers to herself by her real-life voice actress’ name, Kobayashi, has its charms. But this production just feels like Excel Saga episode 26 version 2.0, with jokes that straddle the fence of good taste, music cues recycled from Excel Saga, and a level of hyperactivity that I can only presume is meant to cover up the lack of content. There may be more to it than we can see from ADV’s translation, but since this release didn’t get the same AD-Vid Notes treatment as Excel Saga and Nerima Daikon Brothers, we’ll never know.

Twilight (Yen Press manga, 20??): Just kidding. Maybe. Depends how you feel about the Twilight franchise.

Want a few more horrors? Have a look at some classic clunkers.

What is anime? Aside from being a question answered on pretty much every DVD from ADV for a really long time, it’s a question with a clear answer: Anime is animation from Japan that prominently features characters with really spiky hair … hair that everyone secretly wished they had.

No, no, anime fans. Don’t write in and try to convince me otherwise. According to a press release passed along by tag-team partner in fandom Wilma J., one of the greatest characters in anime/manga history and the star of a movie now in theaters, Astro Boy, has a hair style that inspires the launch of hairstyling products. As the release noted:

“L.A. Looks’ participation at the premiere is part of a series of Astro Boy-related initiatives. The first event took place on Oct. 17 and 18 with 50 advance screenings nationwide, where fans were invited to have their hair styled like Astro Boy. Summit Entertainment and Imagi Studios in partnership with L.A. Looks set up shop outside theaters, styling hair in Astro Boy’s signature ’spiky’ look.  With the brand’s newest product launch, L.A. Looks Power Spikes, stylists will show moviegoers how to get Astro Boy spikes with L.A. Looks!”

Here, have a promotional photo.

While this may be the most recent move to attach the anime wagon to styling gel, it’s by no means the first time this has happened. The first time, as Wilma recalled and I immediately remembered with her, was back in May 2005, when Garnier introduced its Fructis Style Manga Head hair gel in the United Kingdom. The eye-scorching Flash Web site for the gel unfortunately has been lost in the sands of Internet time, but a brief Anime News Network article back in the day shared a few things about what we’re missing now: a site that offered an explanation of “What Manga is all about” and “Why Japan is so cooooooool,” along with seven “rul’z” on how to get that perfect manga look.

And to think that when Cel Shaded debuted a few weeks later, this never came up as a topic. I’m so ashamed.

The Rough Guide to Manga is now on sale everywhere.

I know what you’re already thinking: “Ohhhh boy, here we go, Writer Boy’s gonna start shamelessly plugging his book now.” But while it would be nice if you bought a copy *cough*or10*cough*, shameless self-promotion’s not what I wanted to do. Although today’s topic is certainly related to book sales.

See, this morning I did a search on Amazon for the book — partly to see if the book had gone into “in stock” status as promised today, partly as a vanity thing (it’s the 444,866th bestselling book! YES! Look out, Manga Guide to Molecular Biology, I’m GUNNING FOR YOU!), and partly to see how much Amazon and its network of sellers were selling it for. It’s the last thing that turned up the most … intriguing … data of all. Take a look at this screen grab taken around 9:30 this morning:

Okay. 32 percent off cover price, I can dig. $12.24 –  calculated by a handy-dandy online percentage change calculator as 35.5 percent off — even better. But 12 percent more for a used copy? And that’s the cheapest of the four? (For the record, prices go up to $26.60 in that section.) Umm. Well. Something tells me that if you bought something under the used section for those prices, you may not need a guide to manga. You may need a guide to common sense instead.

Oh well. I suppose prices could have been worse, hmm?

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, folks … I’ve been recovering from a persistent cold, and both tag-team partner in fandom Wilma J. and I have been pretty busy with other work-related matters. As we work on more substantive fare, though, here’s my take on some of what’s been going on around the industry and in fandom:

• I’m in the middle of watching a Hawaii International Film Festival-provided screener of Air Doll, the story of a life-sized doll that comes to life and finds love. A quick review will be coming up next week in HiLife, but here are my thoughts after seeing the first five minutes or so: HOLY COW THAT GUY’S MAKING LOVE TO A DOLL EWW EWW EWWWWWWWWWWWWW

• Capcom recently announced that it would be releasing Super Street Fighter IV, a rebalanced version of the fighter with more characters on the roster. I have to admit I’m a bit on the fence about this one. I mean, getting this game would be cool and all, but I think I’ll hold out for the inevitable Super Street Fighter IV Plus: Hyper Omega Turbo Championship Overdrive Remix.

• The latest New York Times manga bestseller list is up (scroll down a bit to find it), and it solidifies in my mind what it takes to be a success in the U.S. manga market: The first series that is an action-packed romantic drama about a harem of female and female-looking vampiric ninjas with alchemic powers will OWN the hearts of fans stateside. (Also, the adventures of little green-haired girls will always rock.) Just imagine the sales possibilities for the ultimate crossover: Vampire Knight Naruto! And since that series doesn’t exist yet in Japan, why not create it yourself? Viz is hopping onto the OEL bandwagon, after all.

• For all you readers who are also fans of the old-school out there (and I know there’s at least one!), here’s something cool I caught this morning: Friend of the Ohana and Anime Vice ringleader Gia Manry posted a short tidbit about The Artifacts of Anime Fandom, a Flickr group posting scans of old fan publications — Animerica covers, Otakon and Anime Expo programs, stuff like that. Nice little trip down memory lane for those of you who have been hanging around fandom for a long time, and quite educational for people like me who arrived on the scene more recently. (Oh, and full disclosure time: Gia also recently interviewed me about the upcoming Rough Guide to Manga and the manga industry in general. Go read the interview here. And then go preorder the book. This has been a Shameless Self-Promotional Plug.)

More substantive fare coming soon. Hopefully.

Those of you who regularly follow my Twitter feed know that I took a few days off last week to go to the Big Island for a bit of R&R. Here, have a picture of the beachfront outside the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort:

While I was on the island — Hilo for one night, Kona for two — I had every intention of just kicking back, reading a few books and manga, maybe take a few notes on what I read for future reviews in Otaku Ohana. I ended up plowing through just one book while in Hilo, though: one of the books in Viz’s new Haikasoru line, Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s All You Need is Kill.

I’ll have a review up as soon as I can clear some time out of my suddenly busy schedule, but there is one passage that caught my eye that bears mentioning at the moment. In the book, humanity is struggling to survive against invading aliens known as Mimics, and one of the best human fighters in this war is Rita Vrataski, the pride of Pittsfield, Ill. A flashback sequence finds a younger Rita with her father visiting an old man who sells coffee … or at least, what little authentic coffee is left on the planet.

“How about these — now these are really something,” the man tells Rita. “Premium Kona coffee grown on the Big Island of Hawaii. Seldom find these even in New York or Washington. Just smell that aroma!”

I jolted up from bed, where I was reading this book. Kona coffee? Mentioned in a book I just happened to take along with me? On an island where that very region was sitting a lengthy drive across the island away? This was too cool.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, the sample the man holds is also one of the last specimens in existence; as Rita quickly points out, the islands have already been steamrolled, courtesy of the Mimics. And here I thought that if the islands would go down to an alien invader, it would’ve been to those pesky coqui frogs that seem to have taken over Hilo.

That would’ve been the end of this entry were it not for a chance find in Kainaliu, a small town a few miles south of Kona. It has to do with this place:

Welcome to the H. Kimura Store, one of those cluttered old-timey places that sells assorted fabric and dry goods. Quaint little business, and one that I probably would’ve never stopped into were it not for my travel partner on this trip, my mom, who totally loves going into places like these. I dropped her off, went walking around for a bit, and then returned to pick her up.

And that’s when I saw what may well be the COOLEST. FABRIC. PRINT. EVER:

This, as a quick Google search later pointed out to me, is the Red Thunder Flower design from Alexander Henry Fabrics, a fabric maker based out of Burbank, Calif. For the record, it’s $10.69 a yard at Kimura’s (which, to my knowledge, does not have a Web site, so you’ll just have to visit it next time you’re on the Big Island; that’s just how awesomely old-timey it is). I bought two yards and immediately commissioned my mom to make a pillowcase out of it, which she will finish … umm … sooner or later. (Hey, she’s a busy woman.)

The moral of the story: No matter how much you try to get away from otaku-related things, you will always run into otaku-related things. Embrace your fandom, folks.