World Comic Book Review

26th March 2024

Bleach: The Almighty Has Fallen (review)

Bleach (review)
Author: Tite Kubo
(Shueisha, 2001-2016)

In August 2016, manga author Tite Kubo’s long-running shonen manga “Bleach” published its last chapter. The end of the series is controversial: there were initial comments from the author months prior that were vague, yet hinted that “Bleach” would go on for a few more years (when the author compared the length of the last story arc to an earlier arc that lasted a good few years). Weeks later however was another announcement that the series would only last a few more chapters, shortening the timeframe from fans’ assumption of years to a mere couple of months.

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In the market for a giant weaponised robot? It pays to buy Japanese.

North Dakota in the United States has legislation which specifically allows flying drones used for policing to be equipped with Tasers, pepper spray and rubber bullets. This is not new thinking. Comic books both in the US and Japan have long considered militarised robots, although ordinarily on a gargantuan scale for visual effect. (For the purposes of this discussion, we exclude “mecha” and other forms of exoskeletons, like “Iron Man”, “Gundam”, and “Neon Genesis Evangelion”).

In US comic books, most robots tend to be opponents to altruistic superheroes. Here is the schematic for a Sentinel, a mutant hunting robot most often seen in Marvel Comic’s “Uncanny X-men” titles:

sentinel drone

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Forged from the Heavens: Ang Panday

Ang Panday
Atlas Publishing, March 13, 1979
Writer: Carlo J. Caparas

“Ang Panday” (lit. “The Blacksmith”), which first appeared as one of the serials in the Filipino weekly comic book anthology “Pilipino Komiks” in 1979, is the definitive Filipino comic book hero. The property has become a household name among Filipinos – even those who have not read the original comic – owing to a series of film adaptations that starred the late Fernando Poe Jr. (Mr Poe Jr was an influential actor whose popularity was enough to almost win the 2004 Philippines Presidential elections.)

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Gods and Monsters: Feng Shen Ji (review)

Feng Shen Ji
Bookone Creative LTD, Aug 24, 2015 – Apr 11, 2016
Writer: Zheng Jian He

A common thread running across different mythologies from different cultures, particularly those rooted in polytheism, is the concept of deities that are no less prone to corruption, indolence, and egotism as the mortals they seek to govern. The Chinese martial arts fantasy manhua “Feng Shen Ji”, written by Zheng Jian He, works under the same premise – that the powerful gods who govern life and death have within their ranks those driven by self-interest and those who have become drunk with their power, looking only at lesser gods and mortals as mere playthings.

At the center of the story is the Black Dragon, Tian, who was the strongest of the ancient gods. Tian single-handedly drove his enemies, known as the Dark Ones, deep into the pits of Hell. Tian also killed all the other ancient gods when they chose to betray him and his lover, White Dragon, out of fear. Tian serves the purpose of the god of gods in the story, being the creator of the world, the humans, and the lesser gods (called the Great Gods). These lesser gods are themselves fashioned using the life force of ancient gods, and use primitive humans as vessels.

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