It's funny how much time flies as you get older. People always told me that, and I never really paid that much attention to it until I hit my early 30's. Now I realize it more and more with each passing day. A year ago, I posted the very first review on AniManga Travelogue. It was something I'd been considering doing for some time before that, and it was something I officially announced a few days prior to that. Looking back in just that brief span of time, it's both amazing to realize how much can change in even just a year's span of time – some good, and I'd be ignoring the elephant in the room if I didn't say some bad too. I won't dwell on or dive into that here, but anyone that follows me on social media knows my stances and beliefs on things already. I started this blog as a way to finally do something with my fandom again. I've been an online presence, albeit never a big one, for well over a decade now, approaching two in fact. In that time, I've done many things and worn many hats, but the one thing that never changed was my desire to write. Whether it was my desire to craft original works (something I'm still slacking on, unfortunately), or to put my own thoughts and beliefs into words (something I'm becoming more and more adamant about every day), the written word has always been my most precious means to communicate with the world. It's been my connection to the vast world outside of the small town where I live, and it's something that I always have, and always will treasure. That's more true now than it's ever been. And it's something I intend to keep doing. When I started this blog a year ago, I honestly didn't know how long I'd be able to keep at it. I've done blogs before, and they've always petered out in one way or another. This time however, I've stuck with it. There have been various lull periods caused by real life and real world issues, but by and large, I've made it a year into this and I'm still going. In a year's time, I've covered everything from the very beginning of the Dragon Ball manga all the way to just before the Saiyans' arrival in Dragon Ball Z – that's roughly four years worth of it's original run done in a fraction of the time. I've also realized exactly how lucky some works have to be to get to get a full run as well, courtesy of following the rise and fall of The Hunters Guild: Red Hood. As with everything in life, fiction is never certain, and it can be a crapshoot to see exactly where you're going to end up on any given day. At the end of the day though, I love creating. I love experiencing people's creations. I love pouring my heart and soul into stories, and allowing people's hearts and souls into mine via their own stories. That's what I hope to continue to bring into the AniManga Travelogue project as we keep trucking along through the world of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball and beyond, wherever else that might lead us. And speaking of wherever else, check back later today for a special one-off review written to celebrate the blog's anniversary. To everyone that's read my reviews as I've gone along, thank you for your support, and to everyone else who may have just now found me, I thank you for your time as well. Thanks for the support everyone. It means more to me than I can ever say, truly. Until next year!
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At long last, we've hit the first point in the Dragon Ball franchise where the series “splits” into a second series, at least in part. I've already talked about the split a little bit in a previous review, but now that we're actually here, it feels like a good time to check in again, and explain exactly how things will and won't be changing as we move into this next era of the Dragon Ball stories to review. First, let's go over what won't be changing:
There are however, a few things that are slightly changing as we move into the 'Z' era, that I wanted to note.
I think that about covers it. For the most part, things are going to move about in roughly the same manner they already have. It feels like I've made it all the way to the top of the hill in some ways, as a majority of the original manga's story arcs have already been covered now. There's only four left! At the same time though, the rest of the story is still far, far longer than anything that came before it, so there's actually another even larger mountain to scale in front of me...but I'm going to grit my teeth and keep on climbing – the Z Era begins now! My original plan for this blog was to only focus on one series at a time, and that still holds true...for the most part. I'll still be doing bulk reviews only for Dragon Ball for the foreseeable future. But when something as interesting and promising as The Hunters Guild: Red Hood starts up, oh man – how do I NOT talk about it? Beginning a new series in Jump is always risky. There's the chance of it not taking off, no matter how certain you might feel a series is going to be successful. But other times, you might be looking at the very beginnings of an immensely popular franchise in the makings, and that's definitely the feelings I'm getting from this one so far. So, in addition to my Dragon Ball reviews, you'll soon find reviews for The Hunters Guild: Red Hood here as well! I'll be reviewing the chapters weekly once I have the first two chapters reviewed and posted, so there won't end up being the same sort of backlog as what there'll be for my normally planned reviews. And if you haven't read the first two chapters yet yourself, what're you waiting for? Head on over to Shonen Jump or get the Shonen Jump app and prepare for one heck of an opening chapter. To the surprise of practically nobody that knows me, I've decided to make my first review series a look into Akira Toriyama's classic itself – Dragon Ball! Beginning serialization in 1984, Dragon Ball followed hot on the heels of Toriyama's previous work, Dr. Slump (another series likely to go under the magnifying glass here at some point in the future). You wouldn't guess it from the series nearly non-existent standing here in the US, but Dr. Slump was a massive success back in Japan, and set up Toriyama as one of the biggest names in Weekly Shonen Jump, if not manga itself, very quickly. As you can imagine, a lot was riding on his second major series, and as evidenced by the manga running until 1995, and the longevity of it's popularity world-wide nearly 40 years later, Toriyama delivered in spades. With anime, manga, video games, movies, toys, and even a float in the St. Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone even outside the anime fandom who hasn't at least HEARD of Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball also feels like a very natural starting point for this blog as well. You see, back in the earlier 2000's (and you have no idea how much it pains me to realize how long ago that now is), Dragon Ball was the very first anime I got into. Well, technically I was into Pokemon first, but that was more-so the game. I also had no idea what anime was at the time. But once I got into Dragon Ball, I got into anime itself, and I've been a huge fan ever since. Dragon Ball also shares the distinction of being my very first manga as well – until I saw a volume of it on shelves at a store, I didn't even realize manga was being released in the US! Ah, the innocence of youth. So, Dragon Ball definitely felt like the right choice to tackle first here. The question then becomes 'how' to tackle it exactly. Even before the 2013 revival of the brand with a new, feature length film, the franchise already boasted an enormous amount of material to cover. At the same time however, a bunch of the material is the same story told twice over – the manga came first, and the anime thus adapted it's story to the screen. With my main focus being on covering the story primarily, covering both seemed a bit redundant. At the same time however, there's a lot of great material that only exists outside of the pages of the manga, as well as some lesser-known but still interesting pieces of story that I'd love to talk about as well. So the question now became just how exactly best to go about this. The answer to that question, as I see it, is a little bit unconventional, so stick with me for a moment. Here's the plan of action moving forward:
I think that should just about cover it. I'm still unsure of exactly how often or many posts there will be per day once things get going, or if it even will be daily at all, but very soon we'll be starting things off with the very first chapter of the manga. I hope everyone's looking as forward to it as I am. Hello everyone! Yes, that includes you in the back. How could I forget my favorite chirping crickets?
Ahem. I'll keep this as brief as can be since it's just an introductory post. Welcome to my new anime/manga review blog! It is indeed new, in that 1) I'm just now starting it, and 2) I've tried this blogging thing a few different times before and just never been able to make it stick with me. So here's hoping the bajillionth time's the charm, eh? As to what you can expect to find here - well, anime and manga reviews! Chiefly manga reviews, at least for the time being, with anime and related properties sprinkled in as time goes on. The purpose, or rather the style, of these reviews will vary from title to title, but in general my focus will be on the storytelling mechanics of a series, how I feel about the plot, and so on and so forth. In general, you'll find in a given review post 1) the title page or title card (if available), 2) a brief synopsis of the content of the chapter and/or episode, 3) a longer section detailing my thoughts on the particular chapter and/or episode, and finally 4) a brief tease of the next review to come. I'll primarily be focusing on doing one series at a time, and my first series is one that's both near and dear to my heart...and one that's going to take me a long, long, LONG time to get through, even just by focusing primarily on it's manga. As such, I'm not sure how many posts a day you can expect - at the very least one a day once I get going (which may be a few days to a week from now), but real life may occasionally intrude. Some days there may be no posts, other days there may be many, and there'll never be a truly set time to expect them up. So with that all aside, look forward to my series review announcement post soon! *CRUNCH* Aw crap. There goes one of my crickets. |
About the AuthorAspiring author and big anime/manga fan, just trying to do my best in the world. For more details, go to About Me. Archives
September 2022
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