Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 099 - Too Huge! The Giant Fortune Roll, Completed With a Pro Wrestling Move!

The Story
Toriko and Komatsu go to get some special seaweed, called eco nori, a kind of seaweed found only in one special place. They travel to the lands of Aimaru and his Gourmet Knights, who then take them to Eco Village, where the seaweed turns out to be the out layer of a certain kind of tortoise. After Toriko charges all the solar batteries for the tortoises, they return to Monchi with the seaweed. He then creatures the fortune roll, by wrestling the ingredients into submission.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 098 - Toriko Faints in Agony! Capture the World's Stinkiest Ingredient!

The Story
Toriko and Komatsu go to the Heavy Drinker Archipelago, to get the vinegar they need to make the fortune role. While there they come across many natural occurrences of alcohol and snacks that go well with alcohol. They meet Knocking Master Jiro, who Toriko thanks for helping him out in the Gourmet World.

Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha Recap April 23, 2012

Derek: Hey there folks, in our ongoing effort to provide content for this blog, we're starting a brand new weekly segment, Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha Recap or WSJAR for short. In it we'll summarize the events of the most recent chapters published in WSJA, and provide a little commentary on said chapters. I'm Derek...

Monorum: And I'm Monorum.

Derek: And we're two lazy hacks that need to force ourselves to actually update this website.

Monorum: I'm not a lazy hack, I just have a lot on my plate besides writing itself.

Derek: Sure… So anyway, why don't you tell the good people how this column came to be?

Monorum: Well Derek and I happen to frequent a forum on fanfiction.net. A One Piece forum, mind you. Ever since I bought my subscription for Weekly Shounen Jump Alpha to show my support for making digital manga more fruitful, I had to cut down on reading manga online. Which also meant that I had to avoid any spoiler threads on forums. At first I was reluctant to stop, but I wanted to provide my input on the recent chapters of series I enjoy reading so as to enjoy them more, even if I am just expressing my own heartfelt opinions on them. Derek here, happened to catch on to that and decided that since we both are subscribed to WSJA, why not do the WSJAR together and that is why this article is here.

Derek: Mostly I figured that if he was going to be sharing his opinion on the chapters, he might as well do it on the site. And since I wanted to do the same, I decided that we could try out a conversation kind of piece. Now, here's how it's going to work, one of us will summarize what happens in the chapter, and then we'll both give our opinions. Starting, this week, with Bleach. 

License Requests: Kurogane



I'm a huge fan of martial arts manga. If said martial arts manga happen to have swords in them, all the better. Though I would personally prefer a manga about Western swords, since all the manga-ka that draw manga about swords are as fanboyish about katana as I am about bastard swords, the chances of that happening are slim. So I swallow my pride, and enjoy the swords for what they are.

Kurogane is by manga-ka Haruto Ikezawa, and has been running in Weekly Shounen Jump since September 2011. In it a high school student, Kurogane, joins the kendo club after he has a run in with the ghost of a former swordswoman. The spirit, insert name, takes him under her wing, and start teaching him everything about her style.

License Requests: Beelzebub

You know of my love for comedy, and you know of my love for action. Now, finally a sweet, sweet combination of the two! Well, besides One Piece that is. Beelzebub is the story of Tatsumi Oga, a rotten delinquent who one day finds himself raising the son of the Great Demon Lord, who is destined to destroy the world. Oga is joined by Hilda, a demon wet nurse tasked with caring for the young demon lord, Beelzebub (or, Beel, for short). Not wanting to be responsible for destroying the world, Oga tries to pass the child off to any of the other thugs at his school, unfortunately none of them are as rotten as he is.

License Requests: Sket Dance



Have I mentioned that I love comedy? Even comedy that's based on cultural humor, that takes a moment for me to get because I need to read the translator's note about why the joke is funny. Even jokes like that get at least a chuckle out of me. Of course a series that's entirely made of jokes you need to be Japanese to understand probably won't do all that well in a Western market, which is why it's fortunate that Sket Dance doesn't rely entirely on cultural humor.

License Requests: Nisekoi

Because I don't have an original bone in my body, here's a column where I talk about manga I love that isn't licensed in the states, but should be. And, since apparently providence loves me, this column is coinciding with the end of Bakuman. So for the first little bit, let's use this as a chance to show off some of the series in Weekly Shounen Jump that I would love to see brought over to Weekly Shounen Jump Alpha.

Shounen Jump has a pretty high turnaround, or at least it does for series that haven't already been running for ten plus years. There are many series that never even break the twenty-five chapter mark. Some rare ones make it to fifty chapters, but those are few and far between. Nisekoi is one of those series that has almost made it to the twenty five chapter mark, and I hope that it not only passes said mark, but keeps going long enough to get licensed.