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Blade of the Immortal plagiarism?


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darkhunter



Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2992
Location: Los Angelas
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:50 am Reply with quote
A good article on Love Manga point on the similaries between Blade and Samurai Zombie by Hendra Wahjudi (from TP's Rising Star 6 Contest). TP editor admit not having read Blade of the Immortal when selecting the top 20 entries. Aside from copying the structure/poses, the drawing and shading were pretty good imo. However the head structure in comparison to the body was kind of awkward on some of the character and the main samurai has a lot of distinctive feature that resembles Manji (from Blade).

Blade of the Immortal's plot setup: Manji must kill 1000 criminal to life his curse of being immortal.

Samurai Zombie's storyline is about a samurai who must kill 1000 guys to life a curse (of being a zombie). If that wasn't anymore obvious. Rolling Eyes

View the manga: here


Last edited by darkhunter on Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:41 am; edited 4 times in total
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marie-antoinette



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 4136
Location: Ottawa, Canada
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:08 am Reply with quote
Oh dear...that does look rather a LOT lke plagerism to me. Some people really do some dumb things.
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Coffeeman



Joined: 21 Jun 2005
Posts: 298
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:32 am Reply with quote
I'm thinking, yeah, it seems pretty darn plagiaristic.

What's more, Americans writing about Samurai is always funny as hell.


And most of all, "Samurai Zombie" is really bad... I'm reading the sample pages, and it's easily one of the worst comics I've read. Too many words, too many cliches.
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Kagemusha



Joined: 20 Feb 2004
Posts: 2783
Location: Boston
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 5:33 am Reply with quote
Does seem like he ripped it off of Blade. What's even worse is just how horrible the comic is. It's so straight-forward and the descriptive dialouge is so devoid of spark that you'd think it was a parody (even if that is the case, which I doubt, it still sucks). This is the first of the RSoM I've read, and I really hope this doesn't represent the quality of the rest of them.
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darkhunter



Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2992
Location: Los Angelas
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 5:40 am Reply with quote
My favorite line: I worked for you as a bodyguard. I also have magic and healing powers. It seem like a lot of the contestant favor art > writing.
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Monumension



Joined: 03 Jul 2005
Posts: 268
Location: Norway
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:12 am Reply with quote
I'm trying not to laugh here. A title like 'Samurai Zombie' is difficult to take seriously. What's next? 'Return of the Living Dead Samurai'?
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Patachu
Past ANN Contributor


Joined: 08 Jul 2004
Posts: 1325
Location: San Diego
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:46 am Reply with quote
Kagemusha wrote:
Does seem like he ripped it off of Blade. What's even worse is just how horrible the comic is. It's so straight-forward and the descriptive dialouge is so devoid of spark that you'd think it was a parody (even if that is the case, which I doubt, it still sucks). This is the first of the RSoM I've read, and I really hope this doesn't represent the quality of the rest of them.


Trust me, it doesn't.

But I can sense that you won't like any of this contest's candidates anyway.
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Haru to Ashura



Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 617
Location: Termina
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:54 am Reply with quote
Patachu wrote:
Kagemusha wrote:
Does seem like he ripped it off of Blade. What's even worse is just how horrible the comic is. It's so straight-forward and the descriptive dialouge is so devoid of spark that you'd think it was a parody (even if that is the case, which I doubt, it still sucks). This is the first of the RSoM I've read, and I really hope this doesn't represent the quality of the rest of them.


Trust me, it doesn't.

But I can sense that you won't like any of this contest's candidates anyway.


I already read the others and enjoyed two or three of them, the rest being sub-par. Samura Zombie.... Rolling Eyes I admit I've also never read Blade of the Immortal, but I at least recognized that this artist's 'style' is definently not his own. (At first I likened it to Lone Wolf and Cub instead, but it's even more similar to Blade....too similar.)

Unfortunately, I'm sure that Tokyopop recieves bluntly copied or even plaguarized entries all the time, so what really bothers me is the idiocy of the editors, not the contestee. I mean, come on! Do a little research before you chose the winners! I've never read Blade either, but I knew something was up, and it's not that hard to hop on other to Darkhorse's website and take a lot at some of the artwork! Or have we ever heard of Google?
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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6199
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:35 pm Reply with quote
but it's an amerimanga, so doesn't that make it more of an Homage?
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Haru to Ashura



Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 617
Location: Termina
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:49 pm Reply with quote
v1cious wrote:
but it's an amerimanga, so doesn't that make it more of an Homage?


So if a Japanese man blatantly copied from issues of Ultimate Spiderman, Marvel wouldn't still sue his ass faster than a bat out of a hell? Rolling Eyes
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tsukinoken



Joined: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 91
Location: canada foo
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 1:12 am Reply with quote
hey Japan and America have copied each other countless times
like look at Rurouni kenshin volume 20 that guy with the big claw looked alot like venom off spiderman.
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marie-antoinette



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 4136
Location: Ottawa, Canada
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 9:56 am Reply with quote
tsukinoken wrote:
hey Japan and America have copied each other countless times
like look at Rurouni kenshin volume 20 that guy with the big claw looked alot like venom off spiderman.


That's just one element however, not the entire story/art. And that, in my mind, is the main difference between plagerism and an "homage."
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Coffeeman



Joined: 21 Jun 2005
Posts: 298
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:32 am Reply with quote
It's one thing to borrow a character design, but quite another to borrow concept, layout, and character designs.

And considering they were stolen from what is, to me, one of the best manga available today, I find it reprehensible that Samurai Zombie is to awful!
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gynocrat_rex



Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Posts: 57
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 12:20 pm Reply with quote
v1cious wrote:
but it's an amerimanga, so doesn't that make it more of an Homage?


So those of us who write comics in the cinematic style that the Japanese incorporate into their comics makes all our works just parody? Please don't insult we American comikers who retain our own style but still appeal to 'manga' fans.

If you don't like TP's OEL fine, but stop slamming those stateside who've been making Japanese-inspired works years before Rising Stars even existed.

As for Samurai Zombie, I failed to get past it's initial 10 pages--the theme was a bit too distinct to simply be just another genre-whore style of story.
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HitokiriShadow



Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 6251
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 1:43 pm Reply with quote
tsukinoken wrote:
hey Japan and America have copied each other countless times
like look at Rurouni kenshin volume 20 that guy with the big claw looked alot like venom off spiderman.


That's basing a character design on another character. It happens and there isn't really anything wrong with that. In fact, a lot of characters in RK are based on other characters.
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