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Jason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga: Ippongi Bang


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Jadress



Joined: 08 Oct 2003
Posts: 807
Location: Seattle. It purdy and nerdy!
PostPosted: Fri May 21, 2010 12:08 pm Reply with quote
As someone whose early fandom began with anime rather than manga, I absolutely love this column. I feel like I have loads of history to catch up on! I remember hearing about Bang and maybe even seeing her in some of my very very early convention memories, but I knew nothing about her. In fact, I think I made a lot of negative assumptions... I had no idea she was a real mangaka from Japan; since she was with the people who were responsible for publishing Ninja High School, I thought that she was just a wannabe who got popular because she cavorted around in skimpy cosplay. (Give me a break, I was like 12).

It's great to get the full story on her and see how wrong I was. Also I get this great nostalgic feeling, like the early days of hard-to-get small press manga must have felt like exploring uncharted wilderness. Woo!
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jgreen



Joined: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 1325
Location: St. Louis, MO
PostPosted: Fri May 21, 2010 5:07 pm Reply with quote
Great column again, Jason! I bought a few Ippongi Bang manga back in the day (Doctor! and Virtual Bang for sure, and then I think I managed to track down a couple issues of Change Commander Goku and F-III Bandit). I loved them for the art but found the writing pretty rough...some of that was probably the translation, though, I'm sure. That being said, I kept buying her stuff anyway, because of those "wild" qualities you mention.

Question: was F-III Bandit at all related to the OAV "F3: Frantic, Frustrated, & Female"? It wasn't, was it?

Jason Thompson wrote:
Apollo Smile (anyone remember her?)

Yes! Laughing I remember her most from reading about her in Animerica and how big a deal it was supposed to be that she was voice-acting in Battle Arena Toshinden. Then I bought Toshinden and it turned out she was terrible. Razz

Jason Thompson wrote:
(I sometimes wonder whether all these references were lost on early '90s American readers, and whether these comics would be funnier today, now that more '70s manga has been published in English. But on the other hand, the '70s were almost 20 years closer then than now, and surely some American fans knew of Black Jack and Go Nagai from fansubs.)


I certainly got the Black Jack/Doctor! similarities, but I'm pretty sure by that time Viz was publishing Black Jack in the pages of Manga Vizion. If not, they were at least talking about the series a lot in Animerica.

littlegreenwolf wrote:
Wow, I completely forgot Antarctic Press existed for a while there.


Antarctic Press still exists, they just don't publish manga anymore. I've been buying their series Gold Digger every month for like 15 years now.

Jason Thompson wrote:
I also got a lot through Cold Cut Distribution, which isn't around anymore.


It's still around, too, it's just called Haven now.
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Leedar



Joined: 04 Nov 2008
Posts: 8
PostPosted: Fri May 21, 2010 7:19 pm Reply with quote
Excellent article. It is strange getting nostalgia for something you never experienced. Smile (I guess there is a word for that?)

Reason I'm posting is that at the very second this article got put up I was looking for something by Ippongi Ban(g, it turns out). Coincidence?! I think so.
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LeoKnight25



Joined: 23 Aug 2005
Posts: 319
Location: Puyallup, WA
PostPosted: Sat May 22, 2010 12:49 am Reply with quote
Penguin_Factory wrote:

And yeah, Antarctic Press. I vaguely remember seeing some issues of Ninja High School on a shelf in the nearest Forbidden Planet and thinking it looked exceedingly dumb. I didn't even know they published anything else.


I think if you give Ninja High School a shot, you may find that it's actually very fun and extremely endearing. It has that bit of Archie syndrome/harem anime touch (long before there really was such a thing), where the main character is being sought after by several women (mainly just 2 girls but, others do show up here and there). But, it's actually grown from being just a sort of love letter to anime, into it's own entity. It's been running continuously since 1986 with almost 200 issues currently published.

I really think it's overlooked by most of American fandom because it's not "true manga". But, honestly, I've been reading it since about 1992 and only recently stopped because the issues are harder than hell to find in my area. Not that my word on something counts for much, but I truly enjoy it and always try to get others to check it out and see what I've been enjoying for 18 years. I want to see it get more exposure and continue on, and hopefully get the acclaim I think it deserves.
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atlanime



Joined: 22 May 2008
Posts: 67
Location: Atlanta, GA.
PostPosted: Sat May 22, 2010 6:35 am Reply with quote
Antarctic Press is still around. Their Gold Digger comic is still thriving with several spinoff titles. Ninja High School recently wrapped up in Shidoshi story arc, and currently is not in regular print until they start their next series. They also do alot of parody comics like President Evil, Time Lincoln, Sherlock Ninja, Twilit, A Very Zombie Christmas, The Little Zombie, The Governator, Yeti Vs. Vampire, and recently, Sarah Palin: Rogue Warrior. They've recently got a deal with Syfy to do a TV series based on their Metadocs comic, which is about superhero doctors.
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Parsifal24





PostPosted: Sat May 22, 2010 10:04 am Reply with quote
Leedar wrote:
Excellent article. It is strange getting nostalgia for something you never experienced. Smile (I guess there is a word for that?)



The word is Sehnsucht
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Leedar



Joined: 04 Nov 2008
Posts: 8
PostPosted: Sun May 23, 2010 3:13 am Reply with quote
Parsifal24 wrote:
Leedar wrote:
Excellent article. It is strange getting nostalgia for something you never experienced. Smile (I guess there is a word for that?)



The word is Sehnsucht

agila61 also PMed me saudade as a related term, or just plain false nostalgia.

The English never came up with an adequate word it seems, or at least it didn't survive.
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Adonisus



Joined: 08 May 2010
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Sun May 23, 2010 5:05 pm Reply with quote
Ippongi Bang has done a bunch of other stuff as well. She's also a singer and has released some albums (with the covers and album artwork drawn by her). She's also acted in adult films as well.

Also....I actually DO know who Masaomi Kanzaki is. He's the artist of the original Street Fighter II manga. Anime smile
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TokyoGetter



Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 416
Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards.
PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2010 1:24 am Reply with quote
Adonisus wrote:
Ippongi Bang has done a bunch of other stuff as well. She's also a singer and has released some albums (with the covers and album artwork drawn by her). She's also acted in adult films as well.

Also....I actually DO know who Masaomi Kanzaki is. He's the artist of the original Street Fighter II manga. Anime smile


I bought the first TPB collection of Xenon for my shelf about 8 months ago.

WHO WANTS TO TOUCH ME? Smile
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster


Joined: 07 May 2005
Posts: 357
Location: San Francisco
PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2010 1:33 am Reply with quote
TokyoGetter wrote:
I bought the first TPB collection of Xenon for my shelf about 8 months ago.

WHO WANTS TO TOUCH ME? Smile


Mmmhhhh... (thinks about Xenon).... ehhh............ naw. -_- Though I had a major old-school geekout when I found out he was resuming Xenon in Comic Ryu 20 years later!
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doc-watson42
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 10 Feb 2003
Posts: 1708
PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2010 2:24 am Reply with quote
TokyoGetter wrote:
Adonisus wrote:
Ippongi Bang has done a bunch of other stuff as well. She's also a singer and has released some albums (with the covers and album artwork drawn by her). She's also acted in adult films as well.

Also....I actually DO know who Masaomi Kanzaki is. He's the artist of the original Street Fighter II manga. Anime smile


I bought the first TPB collection of Xenon for my shelf about 8 months ago.

WHO WANTS TO TOUCH ME? Smile

I have the complete run of the Viz Comics/Eclipse Comics(/Studio Proteus) comics—bought back in the early 1990s.
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jgreen



Joined: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 1325
Location: St. Louis, MO
PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2010 10:15 am Reply with quote
ptolemy18 wrote:
TokyoGetter wrote:
I bought the first TPB collection of Xenon for my shelf about 8 months ago.

WHO WANTS TO TOUCH ME? Smile


Mmmhhhh... (thinks about Xenon).... ehhh............ naw. -_-


Ha! Laughing I haven't read much Xenon, but I seem to remember it being a whole lot better than Flag Fighters or Gun Crisis. Smile
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