welcome to camp telophase

So I must pass on to you all how octopedingenue is TORTURING ME with the mere idea of a Princess Tutu/Blade of the Immortal crossover.

In reference to my previous posts:

SECRET FIST OF THE PIGEON!! TORPEDO ATTACK ONE-LEGGED PIGEON!!

So I have a Borders coupon and I know the closest Borders has both Samurai Deeper Kyo 25 and Fruits Basket 18. My lunchtime plans were foreordained.

And as I'm scanning the shelves for anything new, I see this manga I've never seen before. It's called Hikkatsu! Strike a Blow to Vivify, and has a picture of a fierce-looking shounen-style teenage boy in a fierce martial-artsy pose. The back reads:

In Earth's distant future, geomagnetic abnormalities make every day a struggle to survive. The human race faces its greatest threat -- not from aliens, meteors or global warming, but ordinary every day appliances! With even the most basic of machines going haywire, one man holds the hope of Earth in his hands: karate student Shota, who can beat any appliance into submission with his Repair Blow technique!

And so I open it up and read a few pages, because who wouldn't?

It starts with a scene from Shota's childhood, where he's in a karate class and gets yelled at by his master for using karate for fighting. Yeah, I know. He's supposed to use it only to make other people's lives better. While most shounen heroes solve this problem by making people's lives better through fighting people who want to make people's lives worse, Shota is inspired while walking home when he sees a man make a TV work by bashing the top of it.

Fast-forward to the present. The machine apocalypse has come and gone. Tokyo is a sort of technological wasteland, with sand drifting in between the skyscrapers. A public-address system warns the populace that a static charge is coming and to get into shelters. A young woman with a bird on her head pays no attention, because a vending machine is holding her ramen hostage. A quick flashback show us that she was RAISED BY PIGEONS, and has left the nest to find the love of her life and raise a family, along with the small amount of money, washers, and other shiny things that the PIGEONS WHO RAISED HER collected for her as a farewell gift, a large portion of which (200 yen) the evil vending machine has just eaten.

Shota is walking by, sees her and her plight, and destroys the evil vending machine with one mighty blow! The girl, who was RAISED BY PIGEONS, falls instantly in love!

Yeah. They had me at RAISED BY PIGEONS. (I see now that there's a note on the back explaining the manga is by the same mangaka who did Those Who Hunt Elves, which probably explains a lot.)

AND PEOPLE WONDER WHY I READ MANGA.

[Poll #1089351]


rachelmanija, I sort of think you should have a T-shirt with a picture of Shota's sensei screaming HOW MANY TIMES MUST I TELL YOU NOT TO USE KARATE FOR FIGHTING?!

Via kurosaki_clinic: The Dancing Gin. I can't tell whether this is more or less traumatizing than the Ichimaru Eggplant I linked a few days back.

I'm going to have to play with that site. It looks very bizarre.

...anyone want to write up a SHORT SHORT Bleach story so I can draw a (short!) doujinshi? I wouldn't be able to start real work until after I get back from Japan, however I'd like to start as soon as possible afterwards, since I'll have to be doing other projects near the end of the fall semester.