Silent Humor

By Dani Brown

 Tsukasa Hojo was born March 5, 1959 in Kitakyushu, Japan. He’s famous for Cat’s Eye, City Hunter and Angel Heart. He began drawing manga as a technical design student at the Kyushu Sangyo University. After short stories he released manga series:

* Cat’s Eye (Weekly Shonen Jump, 1981-1985)

* Nicky Larson (City Hunter) (Weekly Shonen Jump, 1985-1992)

* Gift from an Angel (Weekly Shonen Jump, Fresh Jump, 1988)

* Parrot (Weekly Shonen Jump, 1988)

* Sakura no Hanasaki kukoro (Weekly Shonen Jump, 1993)

* Komorebi no a de (aka Under the Dapple Shade; Weekly Shonen Jump, 1993-1994)

* Rash!! (Weekly Shonen Jump,1994-1995)

* Shounentachi no Ita Natsu (Shuueisha, 1995)

* Family Compo (Manga Allman, 1996-2000)

* Angel Heart (Weekly Comic Bunch, 2001-current)

Hojo’s manga features excellent humor and always adventurous plots. Apart from a mangaka, he’s a character designer for the Fist of the North Star anime created by his friend, Tetsuo Hara. For the 2006 movie he designed Reina’s character and co-worked on its 2008 series movie. He also taught Takehiko Inoue who assisted him in releasing City Hunter. Inoue’s best works include Buzzer Beater, Chameleon Jail and Slam Dunk.

Hojo’s 1st big manga Cat’s Eye, was released 1981 to 1985 in 18 volumes. Looking for their lost father, once a prominent artist, 3 sisters steal his public pictures to let him know. “Cat’s Eye” is their gang and coffee shop. This case’s investigator, Toshio, falls in love and even engages to the middle sister, Hitomi… The story proceeded into the same 73-scene anime series.

Next came City Hunter manga, Hojo’s biggest manga with 35 volumes. Released 1985 to 1992, it underlay several anime seasons (100+ series), short movies and a 1993 movie with Jackie Chan as Ryo Saeba. Saeba is a Tokyo “sanitarian” ridding the city of the rabble and helping out the desperate. His only minus is male hormones sometimes turning him into a fool near ladies. However his friends try keeping him in hand.

1988 released a 1-volume story collection, Gift from an Angel. In 1 story a constantly quarrelling couple realizes their love only seeing their daughter. The book also contains 2 early City Hunter scenes.

That year saw another 1-volume collection, Parrot, co-created by Nagata Futoshi and Mayuko Nishiyama for CG. Unlike a typical black-and-white manga, it was colorful. The lead story is 9 scenes about Parrot, a cute voice imitator.

After completing City Hunter in 1993, Hojo released a 1-volume collection, Sakura no Hanasaki Kukoro, of 4 stories.

1. Family Plot

After amnesia Hideyuki, a photographer, digs for the memories of his son and beloved.

2. Sakura no Hanasaki Kukoro

A prequel to Komorebi no Moto de…

3. Taxi Driver

A night taxi is run by a vampire thirsty for easy victims. A girl asking for his help suddenly changes the scene…

4. Shoujo no Kisetsu - Summer Dream

Misako has a childish aquaphobia torturing her in dreams that bring her to a weird imaginary place….

1993-1994 released a 3-volume manga, Under the Dapple Shade (Komorebi no Moto de…). Tatsuya Kitazaki wants to cut down a tree falling from which paralyzed his sister. But stopped by a strange girl, Sara Nishikujo, appearing to speak with plants, he hears the tree’s surprising version of the accident.

Rash!! is a 2-volume comedy manga released in 1994. Pretty Yuki takes over as a jail nurse causing troubles and chaos around, including detective Tatsumi, a childhood friend and neighbor.

1995 saw another collection, Melody of Jenny (Shounentachi no Ita Natsu), about personal WWII tragedies.

1996 launched a new big manga, Family Compo, finished in 2000 with 14 volumes. Prior to a university, Yanagiba Masahiko loses his dad in a car crash. And that after his mother’s death at 4! But he was lonesome even before as his father was either busy or far away. Yanagiba’s uncle adopt him to his family which however hides a terrible secret why the parents had stayed away from their relatives. The truth also concerns his cousin’s past…

Manga Angel Heart is Hojo’s latest and not finished yet manga. Released in 2001, it has 30 volumes published so far. Its plot develops in the City Hunter universe. The heroine, a Taiwanese assassin girl aka “Glass Heart”, committed suicide but incredibly resurrected through heart transplantation. Her recovery dreams bring her to Japan in search for her donor appearing the City Hunter’s ex-affiliate. The manga’s 1st 18 volumes based an anime series since 2005.

Dani is a huge lover of manga. He suggests visiting the website AnyManga.com to read mangas online.

How The Art Of The Unspoken Word Can Be Funny

Movie - Four Christmases

By Mr D Stevens

 This is a lovely holiday season movie, starring the lovely Resse Witherspoon (playing a far different character these days than the affectionate and effervescing young lady in Legally Blonde) as Kate and the hyperactive Vince Vaughn (The Wedding Crashers) as Brad, a couple who would rather spend Christmas vacationing in Fiji than with their families, in fact they make it a ritual during the holidays to go on vacation but to lie to their families that they are involved in a worthy cause (usually charity) that can justify their exclusion during any holiday event.

Over the years their lies about inoculating babies in Burma, or doing some other charity work has always helped them avoid their families for Christmas, but on this particular time as they are waiting at the airport, it turns out all flights have been cancelled because of a bad fog, and a TV crew happens to be interviewing passengers on how they feel about their flights being cancelled during the holiday period, they so happen to come upon Brad and Kate, much to their embarrassment as their phones soon afterwards start ringing; with their respected families saying they have seen them on TV.

Brad and Kate now see they have no choice but to visit all four of their families (Brad’s mum and dad played by the stalwart Robert Duvall The GodFather as Howard and Sissy Spacek JFK as Paula, since they are divorced) and Kate’s families (her mum and dad, played by the dependable Jon Voight Midnight Cowboy as Creighton and Mary Steenburgen In The Electric Mist as Marilyn, who are equally divorced) hence the name Four Christmases.

The first visit is to the home of Brad’s father, it turns out his brothers Denver and Dallas played by Jon Favreau (The Break-Up) and Tim McGraw, are UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) type cage fighters (except there are not professional but only upload their fights on youtube), and no sooner are they re-acquainted does Brad finds himself in some bone crunching wrestling moves, it turns out this is the norm, and that Brad’s real name is Orlando, which Kate didn’t know, she takes him to one side to ask why he didn’t feel comfortable with her after three years of a relationship, to reveal this bit about himself, he says he changed his name because he didn’t like it, and didn’t see a problem. It also turns out that there is a $10 limit to the presents that should be bought for the children, however Brad was unaware of this and bought an Xbox for one of his nephews, while the other nephew has to make do with a torch light, much to the father’s embarrassment.

The visit to Kate’s family also reveals some of her fears, that for some time the kids around the neighbourhood avoided her because they thought she had cooties, calling her “Cootie Kate”, and her passive aggressive older sister Courtney played by the endearing Kristin Chenoweth (RV) reveals these embarrassing secrets.

The visits amongst Brad’s and Kate’s respective families shows that the couple are not as close to each other as they thought, especially during a game where the partner has to guess what card the other half is holding, without giving out the name, and this prompts Kate especially to reconsider if they are true and comfortable with each other to spend the rest of their lives together.

It is a warm festive movie, the whole family will enjoy.

Mr D Stevens is a reviewer at Movie reviews

humor

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