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 reviews The Assassination of a High School President

By Mr D Stevens

 Movie reviews this week looks at the suspense thriller The Assassination of a High School President.

It stars Reece Thompson as Bobby Funke (he constantly has to remind everyone his name is not “funky” but it doesn’t stop anyone from calling him that) and the lovely Mischa Barton (St. Trinians) as Francesca Fachini, the girlfriend of the High School President.

Bobby is trying to write a paper for the local school and from it get acceptance into North Western’s journalist programme, he first has to get the approval of the head columnist Clara played by Melonie Diaz (Be Kind Rewind) who Bobby also likes, but
not as much as he likes the girlfriend of the High School President Patrick Moore played by Paul Taylor, something about this reminds me of “Bart got a room”.

It turns out someone has stolen the entire schools SAT’s from the Principal’s locker, Principal Kirkpatrick a former war veteran who doesn’t waste anytime reminding the students how patriotic it is to fight for one’s country, played hilariously by Bruce Willis (Die Hard). He apparently has a list of the usual suspects, and calls them in, including Bobby, Bobby innocently asks the reason why he has been summoned, to which Principal Kirkpatrick says “for chewing gum”. Apparently Principal Kirkpatrick is a stickler about gum chewing, there is a funny scene where Bobby is trying to convey some important information to the Principal, but replies after a much heated conversation with “is that gum in your mouth”?

Bobby is given an opportunity to find out who stole the schools SAT’s by the Principal, and he sees this as his big chance to get into North Western, if he can identify the thief/thieves with a well written story.

Although unrealistic, he takes the role of an investigative journalist, interviewing all the suspects, and they all seem candid, which is a little unrealistic for high school, but that doesn’t ruin a great story.

There is a well played scene, where Bobby is interviewing the little sister of the High School President, Chrissy Moore played by Gabrielle Brennan, she tells him she will tell him all of Patrick’s secrets if he gets her a unicorn, to which he replies unicorns aren’t real, and she makes a scowl pointing at she wants one of the unicorn dolls they are surrounded by.

In his investigations Bobby inevitably gets the attention of the current High School President’s girlfriend, and amazing as it seems she falls for him after his article, much to the surprise of all involved, there is a great scene where he asks her what she sees in him, to which she replies she gets the feeling he would still look at her in the same way if there was no school.

He also interviews the Vice-President played by Luke Grimes (Ryan Lafferty in Brothers and Sisters), the half-brother of Francesca, who seems at first to have no problems with Byron going out with his half-sister.

It is an interesting story, focusing on the challenges of high school for acceptance, and getting along with those who are popular. It also has a few unforeseen twists and plots that makes it that little bit more interesting, and Bobby gets to find out that not everything is what it seems.

Mr D Stevens is a reviewer at Movie reviews

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