Well ... shoot ...

As much as I'd like to say otherwise, the new "Wrestle Angel" manga is really not that much of a "must have".

Much like the 1st "Rumble Roses" comics that hit the streets a few years ago, this is an anthology of brief pieces drawn by different artists, most of which have nothing to do with the women in in-ring mode; at the beach, shopping, cafes, chibi ... that's the kind of stuff. In fact, of 11 stories, only two have what I would call a "match" look ... well, 3, if you count "wrestling" a shark in a ring that's a swimming pool surrounded by ropes... see what I mean? ...

Not even a single color page except the cover (see below). The couple stories that DO have the characters doing what they do best (wrestling) are drawn fairly well; no hentai at least, so use your own judgement.

Hey, I did say I'd tell you more once I got mine ... not my fault if you've already ordered it!

New "Wrestle Angels Survivor" comic released!

What more can I say ... I'll let you know more once I get mine!

http://www.amazon.co.jp/レッスルエンジェルス-サバイバー-アンソロジーコミック-1-マジキューコミックス/dp/4757736541/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/250-8947959-0457835?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185638867&sr=8-1

Well, that's just wrong!

Kell said... Got mine today with no card. :(

To make up for that, all can enjoy this scan of mine ... hey, it was a free extra, right? That puts it into the "share" category, as far as I'm concerned.

"Anonymous said... Why the high price in some mangas?"

Again, let's look at the way it works in Japan. Right now, I'm watching two items that are up for bid, one asking 5,500 yen

the other, 7,500.

Both are chapters of a story published back in 1978 via the Weekly Magazine format. To my knowledge, like many of the works back then, it was never re-published in book form. I have already purchased 4 of the issues from various auctions earlier. These are more expensive than the others had been ... more action in these? The others had very little as per in ring art. Only way to know is to buy them ...

If I go through a proxy firm, like Rinkya, I would pay the winning bid plus service fees and postage within Japan; around $175 if the bids were to stay where they are. At that point, there's the extra money to get it from Japan to me. Since these each are only about 20 pages of a 300 page magazine, I have to ship the entire weight of 600 pages, not just the 40 I want ... let's call that another $25 for both magazines. Final price to me to add 40 pages of an unknown amount of wrestling artwork, around $200.

Still, that's cheaper than going through my contact for this one though. When I had originally asked him if he would take me on as a special customer, bidding on my behalf, I was buying manga readily available in shops still, so the prices were $7 - 10. I told him, to make it worth his while since he's a guy who buys and sells in the Yahoo.jp world, that I'd just double his money for him if he would buy my items exclusively for me. Good deal for him, putting up his cash for two weeks and dealing with the shipping and receiving in Japan, and a good deal for me, as it was less than the proxy companies fees, when all was said and done. But now, since I'm looking at these high priced items when I can find them, well ... I suppose I could try to renegotiate our deal, but when you make a Japanese contact, you really don't want to lose them, ya know?

Anyway, as you can see, it just gets friggin' expensive to get and scan these rarer items .. trust me, it's not me!

Another two to think about

http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/425314764X/onisoku-22/ref=nosim/

These were just spotted within a link mentioned in the blog at "Female Fight Fan" (always check peoples links!). I've got them on the way ... I'll let you know what I think.

New item!

Well, here's something new to add to your "Wish List". Published by SUPER SONIC SATELLITES (Warning: there is some sexually explicit stuff on the home page right now ... http://www.s-s-s.com/), this is coming out this week in Japan. 100 pages; 3,000 yen plus shipping. You can get it through the "Battle" English site (http://www.catfight.co.jp/english/top.html), if you don't have contacts in Japan to ship to. "Battle" has also started to carry the "Comic Valkyrie" magazine in their offerings ... and at a bit less shipping cost than Amazon Japan will do (Sweet!).

I've got mine ordered already.

Sorry, once again, for the delay in the promised "Virtual Comics" ... just looking at different ways to get the files from here to there and what to bundle together in the first place.

As I think I've mentioned before, often times I will bid on an item based on a single page scan of a manga scene. Sometimes, I'll be rewarded with a book that has a lot of wrestling artwork, other times, the one page a seller scanned was, indeed, all there was! So how do I then put these "manga" together. The stuff that has 50+ pages ... good-to-go ... I don't think anyone can be upset with that, but what about the others ... 10 pages gleaned from 5 books (that I would have dropped at least $100 for, once they made it to me from Japan) for $4 ... are you happy with that, or do you feel "ripped-off" ... just want to be fair if I do this ... I'd hate to have people leave notes saying I wasn't treating them right.

I know that the original art that's out there (Byron, Slamazon's, Sexy Sluggers, etc.) goes for $10 - $15 for 24 - 30 drawings; is a download of 10 pages (that would be about 40 "drawings") of out of print Japanese manga worth $4? ... anyway, also been looking at the options of setting up a site vs just sending direct to the people that are interested, the scanned files to send (PDF, jpeg, bitmap, etc) that will keep the files small for ease of delivery, things like that. Working out the stuff between real life commitments ... getting there.

Happy 4th of July to those in the States!