Author: John

Until Wednesday, May 22nd at 6pm Japan time, second-hand retailer Suruga-ya is offering free international shipping. That’s a discount that could save American collectors anywhere from $30 to

Historical shoujo romantic drama is a relatively common subgenre of manga, and one that’s well-done more often than not. Veteran shoujo manga creator Ken Saito’s Tales of the

John’s show and tell of his latest purchases from Mandarake.

Question: In light of the recent losses of influential manga artists such as Kentaro Miura, Kazuki Takahashi, Buichi Terasawa, Takao Saito, Kazuhiko Kato, and Kazuo Koike, which current

The number of new anime series made for Japanese television broadcast has steadily increased year over year since the dawn of modern television anime sixty years ago. However,

The Cartoonist Kayfabe YouTube channel has published an hour-long face-to-face interview with animator Yutaka Minowa, veteran key animator, character designer of “Ninja Scroll” (1993), and animation director behind

Check out the handful of new items I purchased from Mandarake of Japan.

I placed a new order with Amazon Japan and also another order with Mandarake because Mandarake offered an exceptionally scarce manga key issue that I couldn’t resist purchasing.

I’m back again to share another selection of unique and novel anime items delivered from Japan. Highlights in this batch including the cameo first appearance of Piccolo and

For the curious, I share what items I most recently acquired from Mandarake of Japan. Apologies for me looking a bit trashy. I’m a lazy, aging hermit. It’s

Among the many appealing aspects of Japanese manga is the diversity of its genres and styles. Countless fans globally adore shonen adventure manga stories targeted at adolescent boys.

On my adjunct professor salary, I don’t get to buy anime collectables as often as I’d like to. So these days I have to prioritize interesting and unusual

The “isekai” sub-genre of Japanese fantasy literature is defined by stories in which a character is migrated from Earth to a fantasy or futuristic sci-fi world. In recent

Ask John: With the upcoming Black Jack manga being “co-produced” by Artificial Intelligence, what role do you believe Artificial Intelligence will have in anime production? Especially considering that