Ginga Doujinshi x2

Let's take a closer look at the two Ginga doujinshi I bought in Japan. I'm aware that it is frowned upon to make scanlations of fan mangas and that's why I'm only showing a few pictures that showcases the drawing style and humor of these comics respectively (I hope).

I can't read Japanese, so I'm completely clueless to what is actually being said in these comics. I just like to look at the drawings.

Let's take a look at the black and white covered first. I fell in love with the cover the minute I saw it. It's so cute! I paid 1650 yen for it, which is about 13€. It was printed in 2001 and is 42 pages long. According to the (un)reliable Google Translate app I have on my phone, the name of this comic is "ice attack"  or "dance of water" was also briefly suggested. I'm inclined to believe that "ice attack" is the correct one. I checked the old fashioned way, from my Finnish-Japanese dictionary and the first kanji is definitely the one for "ice", and you know, there are snowflakes on the cover too, which just confirms it.

When I saw the cover, my mind immediately jumped to this moment in the official manga (Vol 10.)

Ben's and Cross' puppies are born and as Chibi/Tesshin is watching the newborns nurse, he starts to crave milk, but Akame tells him not to drink, he will teach Chibi how to hunt instead. And the two leave the pack briefly.

So based on the cover I assumed this was going to be a story about Akame teaching Chibi to hunt or other life lessons. I shouldn’t have made assumptions like that, because of course I was wrong! 

The majority of it takes place in the Ginga Densetsu Weed era. There doesn’t seem to be an overarching story here, just a selection of self contained mini stories, a few gag comics, some text heavy pages with illustrations and then some text heavy comics where the author’s self insert character is talking about the Ginga series (I’m guessing).

I have absolutely no idea what the text heavy pages or the “author’s comment” comics are about,so I don’t have much to say about them, because 99% of it is unfortunately lost on me. But every page has at least one Ginga character present in the illustrations, which is why I’m deducting they are either discussing the character or events related to the character. Or just generally fangirling over the character in question.

Out of the 42 pages, only 19 pages of the comics are without the author insert character. 

The first few pages are about Hougen. Next is eight pages about Ken and Jerome. A single page of Kurotora and his nephews. A single page about Tesshin. A single page with Kurojaki and Wilson. Lastly, five pages of Tesshin.

With the exception of the Ken & Jerome story and the last Tesshin story,  which are serious/somber in tone, the rest are humorous in nature, or I interpreted them as so.

I like the art here. The characters are all recognizable. The art has a bit of sketchy feel to it, but consistent, which I like. It helps the characters pop out by making the pages look less sterile, because the backgrounds are used to the very minimum.

I guess my personal favorite page would be the one about Kurotora and his nephews. I always found it frustrating that Takahashi never gave a proper answer to what exactly happened to Chutora in the original manga. I never knew before this that I wanted to see more of Kurotora raising his nephews.

"St. Helena Ginga Special"

Printed in 2006, 98 pages long divided into five chapters.Cost 4950 yen, about 38€

I’m glad this comic had such a bold red cover that caught my eye, I might have missed it otherwise when I walked by the glass cabinet it was in.

This is all humor as far as I can tell. No overarching story, just various scenarios of different lengths. Some are only one page long and others four pages.

About the art inside. The characters are really expressive and recognizable (except the Iga dogs in some panels). I’m having a real hard time figuring out if this comic is done by one or more persons. The art is really inconsistent, which would hint that maybe multiple people worked on it. Then again, the art style doesn’t differentiate enough from chapter to chapter that I would find it hard to believe for one person to have done it. Then again (again) if everybody is doing their best impression of the same art style, it’s natural there would be only minor differences if everybody has the same level of skills. I have to call it inconclusive, I can’t figure this out.

Anyway, here and there are some inconsistencies in how the faces are drawn, but the worst offenders are how the dog’s bodies contort. I don’t mean the way they do sometimes for comedic effect. Sometimes they just are really blocky and stiff while other times they are completely fine, as far as I expect from a dog drawn in Takahashi’s style. It doesn’t take away from the humor, but sometimes the inconsistencies were a bit distracting.

This was pure comic from start to finish, no walls of text. There was a short author’s comment at the beginning of each chapter. I bet those would have clued me in (about this being one person's project or not), if I knew how to read Japanese.

Also, this was also pure Ginga Nagareboshi Gin, no characters from the sequel. What really surprised me was the appearance of a few of the wolf characters from the infamous GNG wolf-saga, which usually get completely forgotten.

It would be unfair to try picking a favorite out of these two, they both have their pros and cons. I’m happy that I found them and now can have them as a part of my Ginga collection. <3

Ginga custom pt. 13

I wish I could say I planned this out, but it was just a coincidence that my Ginga custom part 13 also happens to be the 13th post of this year. Woo, pointless numbers!

This time I chose to paint Benizakura! One of my favorite characters of the series. I don't know where exactly I'd place him on my list of favorite characters, I just know he belongs there somewhere.

I had this dog figure, on the belly side, it say's American bulldog. Yeah, I know it's far from a Tosa Inu Benizakura is supposed to be. The figure's snout isn't too squashed in so I thought it could work out.

The first order of business, I cut the figure's ears off. And then I used "the green stuff" to build some new ear stubs. This was the first time I used green stuff, it was pretty interesting. I was surprised how fast it hardened, so I had to sculpt those chewed off ears in a hurry.

After that little sculpting, while I was base painting the figure white, I accidentally dropped it on the floor. Of course the dog's left ear broke off. Luckily it didn't shatter or anything, so I was able to just glue it back in place. While I was at it, I mixed up some more green stuff and tweaked the shape of the ear a little.

I was using a new set of acrylic paints, and I wasn't really liking the way the paint was behaving. The biggest issue was that it wasn't opaque enough. I was a pain in the butt to have  to mix all those colors over and over again.

Painting those scars was really hard too. I used the smallest brush I had and still  those scars are too wide and blotchy. The dog has a lot of wrinkles in its face so it was a struggle to even get a straight line. I had reached the end of my patience with mixing those brown colors so once I got scars I was semi happy with, I just decided to let it be. 

Same goes for the eyes. I was struggling to get the other eye to look straight. I got it wrong so many times, I was about ready to throw the whole thing out the window. That's when I decided it was for the better to put the figure down and continue working on it the next day.

The collar is again made of folded masking tape and then painted. I'm not sure why my Benizakura turned up so glossy. I used the same matte varnish I've used on all my other dogs. Maybe it's the new paint I used?

Before & after

Benizakura is supposed to be this big and powerful dog, that illusion is broken when I place him next to my other customs.

***

For the heck of it, while working on the figure I became inspired to do some fan art as well. I don't draw Ginga dogs that often so I used a reference picture for this. The red background is supposed to mimic those eyecatchers from the GDW anime. And the other just because I like a simple background.

The First Wars Review

The First Wars

Story & art by: Tsukasa Tsuji

Based on the characters & story created by: Yoshihiro Takahashi

Originally published in Japan 2019

Volume 1 / ?

16 chapters

This is a parody manga based on the Ginga franchise created by Yoshihiro Takahashi. Since this comic is a parody I don't think it's considered canon, but it might as well be, who knows. The story takes place between the Ginga Densetsu Weed series and its sequel Ginga Densetsu Weed Orion. The name of this album is a parody which refers to the Ginga: The Last Wars series which is Orion's sequel. It's all connected man!

The main characters here are the four puppies (from oldest to youngest) Sirius, Orion, Rigel and Bella. Sirius is the silver coated big brother, peace loving and rational. Orion is red coated and his personality is hotheaded and reckless, the opposite to Sirius. Rigel is black coated, which makes him stand out among the puppies. The last one with the eyelashes is Bella, their sister.

The chapters are a random mix of puppy shenanigans during the carefree days of their childhood. Only the first two chapters really poke fun at events that has happened in the previous series, the rest just kinda throw in a reference here and there. In other chapters the puppies get lost in the woods, fight off a snake and meet a bear cub for example. One of the chapters is even told more from their mother Koyuki's point of view, which was a nice change of pace. In two other later chapters the focus is on the pups interacting with Kurotora and Akame respectively (famous characters from the Ginga series). The chapter where the pups interact with Kurotora is particularly wholesome, and my personal favorite. I wish there had been more chapters like this, the puppies hanging out with other characters, rather than have them being out in the woods alone.


The negatives
- I don't like how mostly Sirius always breaks the 4th wall. Always namedropping Takahashi's name at every opportunity. In one chapter Sirius even mentions the internet! Like a dog would have any understanding of what the internet is. Please, leave out real life references, they're not even funny.

- I hate what Rigel has been reduced into. Rigel is my favorite (in the main series) and I'm having a hard time understanding why he is being depicted like a daydreaming idiot without a care in the world. His eyes always drooping and with a drop of snot hanging from his nose. Rigel in here, is so mellow to the point he doesn't have a personality at all, when he is supposed to be the middle ground between his brothers. He's just there. Dripping snot. My God, he's like Bella from the main series. Completely useless and forgotten about.

- I don't like how humanized the puppy's act sometimes. I can forgive the over the top human like poses, but I hate it when the pups suddenly have human made props on them. For instance, a comic book, hat, eyeglasses, fishing pole, etc.

- The Chibis, the mind-numbingly amount of Chibis. I don't hate the Chibi style, but I would have preferred, if the puppies have been drawn normal and only use the Chibi style for extra effect.

- There's only a handful of the adult Ginga characters appearing in this comic, which is a big drawback. I think this comic would have the potential to be a lot funnier parody if the puppies were allowed to interact with other characters of the Ginga series, rather than having them doing solo adventures on their own.

- The manga isn't that funny. Like, the drawings and expressions are funny, but the stories themselves are not.


The positives
+ Bella, the GIRL, who amazingly enough hasn't been pushed to the sidelines (like in the main series). She's actually participating! She's keeping up with her brothers and actually overpowers them in one of the chapters when Orion pushes her to her breaking point. I know it's played for gags in here, but man, would that be fun to see in the main series where she is either forgotten or treated as a complete weakling.

+ I think Tsukata Tsuji's art is really good if you look past the Chibi characters. It's actually really impressive how close he can imitate the Takahashi style, but without looking like a completely perfect copy. I seriously thought some of the flashback scenes were inserts of Takahashi's art, but on closer inspection, I don't think that's the case.

+ For a long time now, I think Yoshihiro Takahashi's art style has become quite stilted. In a way, reading this parody has breathed some life into his characters, seeing how expressive they can be.

+ Better characterization of female characters. Nothing groundbreaking, but seriously, Koyuki and Bella have ten times more personality in here compared to the main series.

+ Even if they are played as a joke, this comic introduces interesting ideas that I would like to see happen in the main series someday. Like, instead of having to choose one leader of the pack have all four rule as equals..... or completely rewrite Bella's character and make her the leader. And I'm not saying this with some feminist agenda in my mind. I like the Ginga series, but I also think it's very stagnant. Having a female character that's soul purpose isn't about being the companion/mother to someone else would be a big improvement.

I can't really think of anything else to say about this manga. If I were to give it some fake rating, I'd give two and a half star out of five. Maybe just two on a bad day and max three stars if I was having a great day. Unless you are a super fan of the series, don't spend your money on it, just borrow it if you can.