Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - War Stories
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ZakuAce
 Posts: 525 Location: SE Wisconsin |
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I think we know what Mike is watching this season....maybe Area 88 is one of my all-time favorite anime. The OVA looks soooo good, and as a huge fan of fighter planes and the Ace Combat video game franchise, I absolutely love every second of it. I would love to read the manga. Oh, and the first manga I ever read was a single issue of the Gundam Wing manga adaption that my mom bought for me back when it was running on Toonami. I wish I knew what I did with it. |
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moroboshi-kun
Posts: 59 |
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I'm not sure if my first actual manga was Area 88 or not, but when that, Mai the Psychic Girl, and Heavy Metal Warrior Xenon (big extra points to anyone who remembers that one) came out, I was getting all three. Kamui came out around the same time, too, but for whatever reason it didn't grab me. Loved all the rest of them, though, and all of those individual issues hold a special place in my long boxes. I loved Area 88 and still do, and one of the many things on my list is to track down the rest of the series.
My favorite story from that was "Blue Mirage", which was issue 5 or 6 if I remember correctly. It was about Mick, Shin's buddy, and about him trying to return home after serving in Vietnam, and how he couldn't really make the transition and was really living in another time and another place. It's not a "traumatized war vet" story, but rather more about someone who found his place in the world, but it wasn't where people expected him to be. I loved the original OVA series, but the TV show didn't grab me. I think it was because the segment that dealt with the pilot Boris was much more emotional and much more effective in the OVA. And I felt the characters were just pulled off better. Thanks for the segment on A88, though. I feel like grabbing a beer and digging through my long box tonight... |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14784 |
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Still have those. Why'd ya have to get rid of it? |
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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Honestly I can't remember what the first manga I read, the first manga I read from start to finish was Ranma 1/2.
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russ869
Posts: 424 |
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My first manga was Yu-Gi-Oh! I was at my younger cousin's house one day and started wonder "What is this silly backwards book? A black & white comic book based on Yu-Gi-Oh!?" He simply let me have it. It took me quite some time to realize that the Yu-Gi-Oh! show I'd seen on Saturday morning TV was actually based on the comic and not the other way around. The is mostly due to the fact that the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime shown on Saturday morning starts the story somewhere around volume 8 of the manga, and the book my cousin had given me was volume 1. Plus the character designs looked a lot different in the first volume before the author had started taking shortcuts and using all sharp angular lines.
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taster of pork
 Posts: 594 Location: My House |
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First Manga I read was Initial D. I had a slight interest in Cars before I read it, but afterwards, my interest in street racing and Drifting skyrocketed. I was so ticked when Tokyo Pop canceled it
 I've been curious about Area 88 for while, I just haven't gotten to watching it because I keep getting sidetracked with other series.
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njprogfan
 Collector Extraordinaire Posts: 1165 Location: A River Named Toms |
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Being a huge fan of comics starting in the 70's, when I first saw all those VIZ comics I bought every one of them, Area 88, Lum, Maison Ikkoku, Mai, etc. They were like nothing I'd ever seen other then the magazine Heavy Metal. I eventually stopped reading comics in general and it wasn't until I saw my first anime on iTunes, (Speed Grapher, Air Gear and Desert Punk) did I get back into anything Japanese. My manga (over 350) and anime (over 500) collection is now taking over one room
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rti9
 Posts: 1241 |
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I don't remember the first manga I ever read. Maybe Rouroni Kenshin or I"s. I do remember the first I bought: Ranma 1/2.
The game. I was impressed that Mike's first contact was with the manga. That probably isn't very common since the game (UN Squadron/Area 88) was popular back then. It would be interesting to know from the readers: Your first contact with Area 88 was with the manga, the OAV, the TV series, or the game? Which one you are most fond of? |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2560 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I have ADV's release of the OVA, but haven't seen it yet... I should remedy that. And after Mike revealing that the TV series is pretty different from the OVA I should definitely get the TV series, too.
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DuelLadyS
 Posts: 1705 Location: WA state |
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I frickin' LOVE the Area 88 OAV... I rented the first video many years ago at a now-defunct shop based entirely on Shin looking something like a curly-haired version of Trowa Barton, which me and my friends found very amusing for some reason. Then I watched it... and it was awesome. I later bought that same video when the store went out of business, replaced that with the CPM DVD, the got the ADV release.
I don't know if I could pick a favorite part, but I'm partial to Ryoko and Kanazaki's meeting at the coffee shop early on, where he points out Shin could be dead, and she storms off in anger after paying for her drink becuase she doesn't want to be in debt to him for even that. I have a soft spot for that bit becuase it's a great character interaction... and becuase it got cut from the ADV release! Makes me glad I kept that CPM disc until after I watchedthe new take. I need to get the VHS parts 2 and 3 so I can have the original cut and the ADV cut. I haven't yet seen the TV series yet- I watched one episode on a Newtype sample back when it released and was put off by McCoy being nice- but I did pick it up on the cheap during the last TRSI Christmas sale. I should get around to that. Plus, with Christmas coming around again, I can put that manga on my list! 
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SethMosrite
 Posts: 173 Location: Boston, MA |
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The first manga I read was either GTO or Initial D, they were both around the same time.
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 389 Location: Florida |
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I can't remember with 100% certainty what the first manga I read was knowing it was manga (so not counting the Ishinomori Mario and Zelda comics in Nintendo Power). Was it Sanctuary? Adolf? Battle Angel Alita? Whatever it was, it came after I had seen my very first subtitled-in-English anime, and that was Area 88.
I guess I've been saying the same thing for at least five years now, but it seems like every US release of Area 88 has something a little weird about it. The manga after being canceled in monthly installments was serialized in Animerica for a while, and nothing beyond the first volume was ever released in graphic novel format. You want to read it? Track down those monthlies and those Animerica back issues. No fan translation efforts past the point where Viz stopped exist to my knowledge. The anime side is a little weirder. The ADV DVD release of the original three-part OAV is sourced from the restored Japanese editions that for some odd reason merged the first two parts together into one and removed a short segment of Mick's Vietnam flashback from the second part. Not TOO big a deal compared to the ADV DVD release of the TV series, which had all of the licensed trance music (I think that's the term? I just call it all "techno") removed and replaced with generic, more downbeat sound-alikes on the English and Japanese tracks alike. There was never any fan outcry because...there weren't really that many fans to notice besides me! That's probably why it got done; the licensing costs would've been too high otherwise. I do wish the TV show had been more of a hit, though. What we have feels like the first 12 episodes of a 39 episode series rather than a complete tale. Anyway, it's always cool to hear people talk Area 88 since that's "the one that got me" and there isn't really anyone around then and now for whom the same is true. For slightly less old people, the feeling is akin to if you didn't know anybody else who started watching anime because of Sailor Moon, or Pokemon, or Gundam Wing, or FLCL, or Fullmetal Alchemist, or...
Yes, I know; that is quite LITERALLY what I stated above! I must confess though that my example of the Vietnam bit getting cut is nothing if the scene of Ryoko's "I won't be in your debt. Not even for a cup of coffee!" isn't in there either. If that really is true (now I have to go check), then that's one of the most memorable character beats in the series the Japanese removed for that DVD release! Last edited by Anime World Order on Mon Nov 07, 2011 2:27 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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jcaliff
 Posts: 156 Location: Houston |
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Area 88 is one of my favorite manga. Area 88 and Mai the Psychic Girl were the first two manga I ever read. One of the first manga-based websites I tried to make is an Area 88 page. Unfortunately, I never really finished it. It's still linked from my homepage though. I have a fairly decent collection of Area 88 animation cels too.
 It makes me happy!
I have all 42 issues of the original VIZ run, the first english-language compilation (encompasses the first 6 comics, I think there were two compilations published), and every issue of Animerica with Area 88 in it. I also have the 1988 calendar that VIZ published. Oh yes, and I have the Super NES version of UN Squadron. I love that despite editing the title and back story in the instruction book, they translated the game itself fairly well. There's even a mission where you fight the Wolf Pack, and Saki in the game says "They're mercenaries like us".  Area 88 is the reason I decided to learn Japanese. Realizing that they were never going to finish the story, I invested in all 23 Japanese tankouban and decided to learn enough to be able to read them.
I'm still disappointed that only the movie compilation of the second and third OVAs was ever released on DVD both in Japan and the US - yes, even the Japanese DVD release only has the compilation movie.  When they first released the DVDs I was so excited, but as soon as I realized there were two instead of three I realized what they had done. I still have the CPM laserdiscs I bought back in the day, but they're hard subbed. Unfortunately, the movie compilation cuts out one of my favorite scenes from the second ova. It's disappointing.
Oh, and those complaining about ADV editing it - it wasn't ADV's fault. The edited compilation move is what they were provided by the Japanese licensors. Like I said, even in Japan only the edited compilation move was released on DVD. Sucks. My other favorite Shintani Kaoru manga is Desert Rose (Suna no Bara). There's also a one-shot anime ova based on the manga. It's about a woman who loses her husband and son to a terrorist attack and she goes on to lead an all-female paramilitary group to fight terrorists. Hmm, looks like I have some other manga by him (shounen big comics stuff) that's not in the encyclopedia. Maybe I'll update. |
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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You beat me to it!! Thanks for writing about this delicious manga. I don't know why Viz never released it as graphic novels; maybe it didn't sell well, or maybe they only had the license to do monthly comics and not GNs, or maybe both. Anyway, by the time I started working at Viz in 1996, the series was already fading into the dim, distant past, and no amount of quarters pumped into "UN Squadron" could stop that. But it was a pretty cool series, and while I'm making wishes, it'd be nice to see a translation of the whole thing someday.
As for the first honest-to-god Japanese manga I read.... I don't remember if it was Battle Angel Alita/Gunnm or untranslated tankos of Koko wa Greenwood. |
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Ovan~the~Rebirth
 Posts: 127 |
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My first manga....
That was Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind which I read in the flipped version at my local library. I fell in love with it and eventually got a hold of the seven large unflipped editions of it. God that is still my favorite manga. Saw the Area 88 OVA last year after I bought it, watched the first 15 minutes of it here on ANN's streaming service and fell in love with it. Have yet to see the tv series, since I've heard its not as good as the OVA but I don't know sounds like I should really check it out |
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