I haven’t read manga since, what, middle school, or maybe junior high--whichever it is, it's been a while. The last thing I was really into--and I mean REALLY INTO--was Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. You see, I had a wonderful friend by the name of Yuta Ito, who, besides being Japanese, had a grandmother (who still lived in the homeland) that would send him and all three of his friends—Cody, Matthew, and myself—legit straight from the Tokyo-shelves Dragon Ball manga. We had never seen anything like it before in our lives, and it corrupted our imagination to an ubelieveable amount. But in a very good way.
Aliens with golden hair, fireballs that destroyed planets, bad guys who had three different forms before you killed them, and half-naked women with blue hair! We salivated over the epic battles, each one better than the last.
We were OBSESSED. So much so, that we would--I swear--shoot fireballs at each other in the school playground while screaming Japanese obscenities (that Yuta was kind enough to teach us) at each other. While other kids were playing weaksauce football or tetherball, we were defending the universe one KAMEHAMEHA at a time.
But, when Yuta moved back to Japan in the 7th grade, my obsession slowly began to ebb away. I would still try and draw all four Super Saiyans—Goku, Gohahn, Trunks, Vegeta—on pieces of paper, watch old, shittly recorded actual Japanese episodes of the syndicated show, still daydream about being a Saiyan myself...In all truthfulness, the magic had gone away with my friend. And that, as they say, was that.
It suprised the hell out of me, then, when on Tuesday I picked up Pluto at my local comic book store, and thoroughly enjoyed it. My first manga in over 15 years...
Aliens with golden hair, fireballs that destroyed planets, bad guys who had three different forms before you killed them, and half-naked women with blue hair! We salivated over the epic battles, each one better than the last.
We were OBSESSED. So much so, that we would--I swear--shoot fireballs at each other in the school playground while screaming Japanese obscenities (that Yuta was kind enough to teach us) at each other. While other kids were playing weaksauce football or tetherball, we were defending the universe one KAMEHAMEHA at a time.
But, when Yuta moved back to Japan in the 7th grade, my obsession slowly began to ebb away. I would still try and draw all four Super Saiyans—Goku, Gohahn, Trunks, Vegeta—on pieces of paper, watch old, shittly recorded actual Japanese episodes of the syndicated show, still daydream about being a Saiyan myself...In all truthfulness, the magic had gone away with my friend. And that, as they say, was that.
It suprised the hell out of me, then, when on Tuesday I picked up Pluto at my local comic book store, and thoroughly enjoyed it. My first manga in over 15 years...
It made me realize that I miss shooting fireballs.
