Wanted: Cheap Manga

I finally found it! One of my earliest attempts at scanlating was Nature Boy Zoo-Ichi, a weird and wonderful manga. The editing, translating, everything is pretty low grade, but it almost fits the manga in some weird way. Anyway, here’s the rundown: a high school kid who’s a total loser throws up a lot. That’s about it. 25% of the manga is Juichi (the title is a pun on his name) throwing up or sneezing in full page spreads. It’s total madness. The manga started in 2001 in Shonen Champion, and lasted 9 volumes. I’ve only translated the 1st chapter so far, but hopefully I’ll do some more later this year. Enjoy!!

Download first chapter here.

Man Gatarou is best known in the USA for the movie Battlefield Baseball, which was based on his manga. His style is drawn from the heta-uma style made famous by King Terry, Hanakuma U-saku, and the Garo crew. Man Gatarou has his own style, though, which involves filling up the entire page with nervous lines. His art style is instantly recognizable and always insane. Here are some representational videos of the state of mind you have to be in to get his humor:

Pierre Taki is a fairly popular renaissance man. He acts in movies and TV shows, he writes books and manga, he makes music, and he even produces video games. You may have heard of his band, Denki Groove, who are big in Japan as a techno-pop band. Also, he produced a totally crazy game for the PSP called Baito Hell 2000 (released in the USA as WTF: Work Time Fun), which consists of tons of mini-games that resemble work more than games. My first impression of the game was, “this is retarded.” Here’s a music video he made, slightly in the “Zoo-ichi” theme:

Anyways, hope this doesn’t mess up your day too much!!!