Top Ten Manga of 2015

In 2014, we saw the end of Kenichi (12 years) and Claymore (13 years) with 2015 having a colossal ending with Naruto (15 years). With One Punch Man and Attack on Titan finally grabbing some attention in the United States after six years, the scene is certainly changing. With some very questionable anime adaptations of great manga, such as Toriko, I’ve become even more excited for my manga releases and less for most anime.

Dragon Ball Z is making a resurgence with some major motion picture releases, but nothing sets the scene like some good old-fashioned, black and white panels full of unique artwork and storylines. Here are the ten manga that I am currently enjoying the most, in no particular order. Of course, I realize Hunter x Hunter isn’t on my list. I’ve also neglected any one-shots released in 2015, or adaptations of series such as Star Wars, as well as spin-offs because Fairy Tail has too many to be counted right now.

Jun142015

The Future of Dragonball Z – Resurrection of F, Super, and Beyond

Akira Toriyama has provided us with quite the roller coaster since we met Son Goku when the Dragonball manga was first released in 1984. Two animes based off the original 42 volumes, 19 feature films, countless video games, trading card games, the infamous GT, and the remake of Z known as Kai, have been the highs and lows of that thrill ride. While highlights such as the Frieza and Android saga offset the dips of GT and some questionable films, fans are here… over 20 years later, wanting more.

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Jun052013

Nerds Unite and Stay in Shape!

Fit and I are considered “interesting” individuals because we are a mix of very physically active and extremely nerdy. Somehow, we find a way to balance everything and although we aren’t quite as fit and don’t have as much time to play video games as we want, we still get the best of both worlds. Sometimes it is difficult to balance busy lives, and sometimes there isn’t motivation to do something that you don’t want to do but we are always stressing to individuals to stay healthy and active.

You don’t need to be a professional athlete, bodybuilder, or martial artist to be healthy and active. You need to maintain a healthy ratio of lean muscle mass and body fat, eat nutritional and wholesome foods, stay hydrated and well-rested, maintain proper hygiene and be able to control your own body. Absolute strength is your total power output, but relative strength is your strength to weight ratio and your ability to handle your body. I am proposing that everyone, even those nerdy people that love to sit down for hours and play MMORPGs (we would love to do this when we have time), try to achieve what I consider a healthy and active lifestyle and here’s a few steps of how we can do that.

1. Eat healthier! I know that Red Bulls, Mega Monsters, and Mountain Dew are great ways to keep you awake through your dungeon raids but they are nutritional black holes! Consider other electrolyte heavy drinks such as Gatorade, Powerade, Smart Water, Vitamin Water, or even some supplements to keep your energy levels more naturally high. I logged 72 straight hours of Final Fantasy XII the night that it was released and I didn’t have one energy drink or sip of soda the whole time. My good health helped me stay energized and if you can increase your endurance and conditioning it could help with long nights of playing.

Captain American: Master Chef

2. Exercise! Working out helps us increase muscle mass, decrease body fat, create definition in our muscles, increase our metabolism and more. You don’t need to buy expensive clothes, equipment or memberships to work out. If you’re reading hundreds of issues of manga or comics at a time like I do, try to set goals. Every week when my new manga are released I blaze through them in minutes. After waiting a week and sometimes more! Make the volume last a little longer by doing 10 pushups and 20 crunches after every few pages. Set goals for yourself. Try to do body weight exercises such as pushups, variations of pushups, crunches, abdominal and core exercises, planks and more every few pages. If you’re playing a video game, set requirements for every time you level your character up or beat a major boss. These little things can make a big difference.

Planking–keep it tight!

3. Sleep enough! I am not asking you to sleep 10 hours a night. Try to get at least 6 hours of sleep or quality rest every 24 hours. Really try to get 7 hours and push yourself to get 8 on the weekends if you can. Your body needs to rest and recover to continue operating at a functional level. If I tried playing a hard platform sequence in Ninja Gaiden while I was exhausted, then I would have no hope. If I’m playing Settlers of Catan and can’t think straight because my brain is trying to sleep, I won’t be able to compete against my opponents if they’re well-rested.

Zzz

I am speaking out of experience and trying to help my fellow nerds. And please do not take offense to the term nerd. You could be a console gamer, PC gamer, manga fan, anime fan, comic book fan, RPG fan or any other person who enjoys these types of fun activities. We enjoy all of them and are proud of it. So if any of this relates to you, if you think that you could better your diet, exercise, and sleep then please consider some of our suggestions. If you are really interested in turning your life around contact us for our help because that is what we love to do. We want everyone to stay nerdy while being hungry and fit!

Fit and Nerdy

Hungry and Fit! Our pose

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Jun032013

Taking Over Comic Con 2013 (Denver, CO)

I want to avoid making this painfully long so if you want an in-depth review of the roughly five hours we spent at the event, read my biography in a few decades. I’m only saying this because I could talk about those five hours forever. I know we didn’t spend much time there but we made it count and it was completely worth it so let me tell you how we ended up at DCC and how it went.

Months and months ago, the great Stan Lee, inventor of Marvel Comics and most of its iconic characters, announced that he would make his return to Comic Con after a near twenty year hiatus this year in Denver. They published an article about it in the Boulder Weekly and I immediately told Fit. She had never attended a convention, especially one of this scale, so we decided it had to be done. Unfortunately, we had planned to attend a wedding in Santa Monica months in advance to that so we knew we wouldn’t be able to take off of work for Friday and Saturday… bummer. We settled for Sunday and I bought tickets in person at Guiry’s in Boulder at a discounted rate. I bought two one day passes for Sunday.

Months pass and we don’t put any thought into the event or what we should wear. Saturday night rolls around and costume-less, we decided to wear our aprons that we use in the house. Alana was a makeshift fit and cooking Wonder Woman while I was the same version of Captain America, with a Sonic the Hedgehog hat that has ears. It cost us no time and no money but we figured no one would even pay attention to us but oh were we wrong.

Excited!

Before leaving

We drive to Denver and pass a line that stretches for half a mile. Ten minutes after parking we end up at the back of that line and wait for the doors to open around 9:30 a.m. Almost everyone there is so nice and accepting of one another. The only people I don’t like are the bullies that make fun of other people. And we don’t tolerate bullying so there was none of that, but rather lots of positive reinforcement, high fives, and pictures. I will say that we got our money’s worth in people watching alone. The cosplays and costumes were top notch and I loved how passionate everyone was. We tried figuring out everyone’s costume and did a really good job. We even helped some clueless people by eavesdropping. Our first picture came when I ran into none other than the hero of Hyrule, Link. He was sporting his red fire tunic and the Master Sword. Link is super fit so I had to take a picture with him.

Link!

While the line was moving, the most unexpected thing happened. A photojournalist asked for our picture. We obliged and posed… little did we know, this would happen about 14 more times throughout the day. We never expected to be so popular but vendors, exhibitors, staff, photojournalists, bloggers, and attendees asked for our picture. One young woman who was with her friends even asked for a picture with us. Not just of us. We said yes and gave our regular pose every single time. I would love to see those 15 pictures especially the one with our fan because it was so random. Either people loved the idea that we were wearing aprons and it was creative or they thought we were fit and somewhat sexy.

Hungry and Fit! Our pose

Once we got inside we headed upstairs for the main hall. By doing this, we ended up missing a bunch of the panels and presentations we wanted to attend, such as the spotlight on Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day. What can you do? We don’t regret our choice because we had our most fun upstairs. When we ended up looking for the panels, gaming rooms, main events, and what not we ended up just wasting energy and getting frustrated. The easiest way to do this is just explain what is in our pictures since they highlight the best parts of the day.

Celebs

Here is Fit posing with Han Solo trapped in carbonite. Damn you, Lando, for selling him out to Vader and Boba Fett. This was a part of the Far Away Creations area where a group of Star Wars fans provided models and replicas of the original trilogy. Lots of fun.

After trekking through some aisles of vendors and trying our hardest not to spend every penny, we decided that we could each have one big purchase. Fit decided quickly that she wanted a picture with Chewbacca. Thus we paid Peter Mayhew for a picture with our camera and he autographed a photo of Fit’s choice. She chose a scene where Chewy and Han are wielding their bowcaster and blaster pistol. Epic. He was huge. He was as tall as us while sitting down and his hands were enormous. She also ran into a Storm Trooper with an awesome voice box and a Jawa.

Alana with Peter Mayhew (who played Chewbacca) –she can’t contain her happiness here

NEVER LETTING THIS GO

“Move along, move along”

Now it was my turn to decide. William Shatner, George Takei, Felicia Day, and Wil Wheaton were all tempting individuals to meet and take a picture with but my decision was a no brainer. I wanted to meet and take a picture with Kelly Hu. I had a massive crush on her when I was a teenager. She starred in The Scorpion King, X-Men, and voiced Visas in KOTOR II. For some reason, she had no line while all of the others were absolutely packed all day long. Her picture proceeds went to Much Love, a charity for animals. She was super nice and was happy to talk to us about everything from shopping on Amazon to our pets and more. Here’s the picture.

Kelly Hu and I

After that I got caught by Umbrella Corp because I was infected by a zombie. Their vehicle was awesome.

Here I am spying on someone’s crafts hoping to get some ideas for a friend. Secret agent style.

This is a co-worker’s ex-boyfriend showing why he was the coolest guy in the room. He’s a self-taught lightsaber master but he had a hard time actually talking into the mic. The crowd loved it though so good for him.

Gandalf! Literally hunted him down the whole time and finally found him

Fit met Gandalf and he let us pass.

Buff chicas. She actually made that armor!

Fit’s favorite costume of the day was Commander Shepard from Mass Effect.

Hungry’s favorite costume of the day was a Hello Kitty samurai. He let me hold his war banner.

Hungry and Fit! Our pose

Here we are on stage finally getting a picture of us together after fifteen other people took them first.

Fit found a bantha to cuddle up next to. It looked like a baby.

Hungry found a sausage for lunch while Fit had a pear salad. We spent a bunch on bad food there but it was expected and we didn’t mind.

I know my brother (Kai) would’ve loved to play this (I’m Gonna Wreck It!)

Fix It Felix Jr. does exist! We didn’t get to play.

I could go on and on but I don’t want to bore you too much so we’ll leave it here and keep you updated the next time Hungry and Fit attend an event!

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Aug292012

TOBI REVEALED! SHONEN JUMP RELEASE SUMMARY

For any of our great followers who do not read manga, especially Shonen Jump, I would honestly advise you to stop reading now and wait for one of our normal posts within the next twenty four hours. For anyone else, follower or not, that has an interest in Naruto, Bleach, and/or One Piece, and is currently up to date on the Japanese releases of those mangas, you might want to keep reading.

I had to write about this as I just finished a few pages from this week’s Japanese release of Weekly Shonen Jump (I’m still waiting for Toriko to be scanned and eventually translated). And with that, I am going to start with the biggest news; this was one of the most obvious/anti-climatic missed opportunities in the history of manga. You have a character, Tobi, who is arguably the largest antagonist in one of the largest and most popular series in history. For years, or what has felt like years, Kishimoto has been stringing us behind the identity of this masked villain who has always behaved differently from your typical main bad-guy. Now, as soon as his name was revealed to be Tobi, all of us super-fans immediately tried to figure out the importance of his name, and with the release of the Kakashi Gaiden arc, no one’s name showed more promise than Uchiha Obito. OBITO. TOBI. It might not be a perfect match, but it’s close enough when you have these types of reveals happen all the time, i.e. A Song of Ice and Fire (I won’t say who or when).

Now, as the series developed it seemed far too obvious that it was Obito to a point that everyone figured Kishimoto would never let the fans easily figure out who it was. Some other clues, the Sharingan was the opposite of Kakashi’s, the ability to know and use Uchiha abilities, and the motive. Sure, Obito wasn’t evil, he wasn’t overly ambitious, but he was mysterious. The Kakashi gaiden arc was short and fans could make up their own opinions about Obito. Although it might have seemed like he was jealous of Kakashi because of Rin’s feelings for him, he asked Rin to transplate his eye into Kakashi. Was Obito plotting some project to take over the world as a small child? I don’t think so but Kishimoto might prove me wrong in the upcoming weeks. There was no way Obito could have expected to survive the cave in that crushed half his body when he was really only capable of using basic Sharingan techniques and fire-based jutsu. We saw him die, or at least we thought we did. Somehow, perhaps with the help of a random Orochimaru or someone else that could corrupt his mind and use his body as a surviving member of the Uchiha clan, as they would later be slaughtered, helped him get to where he is now.

As the flashbacks in this week’s issue show, it seems Obito was a weaker willed Naruto that had a bad break with the cave-in. Team Minato mirrored Team 7, and Obito mirrored Naruto with the exception of that hidden fire and will to overcome everything and be confident even if the abilities aren’t there. Surely, the impact of the Third Shinobi World War, led Obito who was crushed (mentally and physically) to develop Project Tsuki no me, in order to create a peaceful world void of the ability to truly live and be yourself in order to preserve life. Having witnessed and suffered from such a horrible event at a young age could have that sort of impact, and it seems his feelings for Kakashi have somewhat changed judging by the anger he has shown him recently. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking Obito’s side. He has obviously been corrupted and like many others before him, has created an evil plan no matter how he justifies it. I’m just curious how a weak genin could become so powerful, before having acquired the Rinnegan. Shame on Kishimoto to let us all be right and make it the obvious choice, although it leaves for many questions to be answered and will end up being better than making it a no name character from the war that witnessed the Kannabi Bridge destruction and picked Obito’s eye off of him after he was crushed. I personally cannot wait to see how he survived and if Rin, a medical ninja, had anything to do with it since she went missing after the war… Heck, maybe he’s just pissed Kakashi didn’t take care of Rin, which was his dying wish and now he has come back to wreak havoc for the girl he completely was in love with…

For a quick note, One Piece was more or less a filler. The most exciting event was Vergo’s confidence in his ability to crush the Mugiwara crew, Law, Smoker, the Samurai, etc… good luck to him….

And Bleach continues to be getting back to being amazing, despite Kenpachi getting destroyed in a fight we didn’t get to see…. no surprise there.

Captain Commander is pissed off and the troops are getting amped up so let’s see what happens in this huge clash of the titans. Hopefully, it won’t be like Yamamoto v Aizen.