幸村誠

For fans of Robert Eggers' The Northman or the TV series, Vikings, Vinland Saga, is a high-caliber historical fiction manga that follows slightly similar plot threads to that of Eggers' Northman & the TV series, Vikings.

What's it about? Thorfinn was raised on the stories of the great Leif Ericson, who told tales of a land where slavery doesn’t exist...Vinland. Thorfinn dreamed of going to Vinland, but his dreams were shattered by a raid of Viking mercenaries. Now Thorfinn is being raised by the very Viking mercenaries who killed his parents, they are lead by Askeladd. Thorfinn is an excellent fighter, but he is still a boy. He constantly seeks to defeat Askeladd in a duel, but has yet to succeed. Thorfinn is sustained by dreams of somehow escaping his current situation and finding Vinland.

The manga is a cinematic journey, one that is captivating and reads quite quickly. It is actioned packed and full of tremendous detail and the drama! The drama of Thorfinn losing his father, and his constant dreaming and scheming to escape his situation makes for compelling reading.

For fans of Viking culture and lore, Shakespearean tragedy, and the aforementioned film and TV series.

… (mere)

Si va su Giove, o solo attorno, con un libro da 1738 grammi.

"...credi che lui...
...odi noi esseri umani?

Abbiamo divorato le risorse del nostro pianeta...
...e come se non bastasse, abbiamo invaso un altro corpo celeste per depredarlo dei metalli rari e dell'elio-3.
E infine abbiamo riempito di immondizia lo spazio.
Forse siamo degli ospiti indesiderabili che non si accorgono degli evidenti segnali che il padrone di casa ci manda per invitarci a sloggiare."

"Secondo lui esiste un'organizzazione chiamata Federazione Galattica, fondata dall'unione di innumerevoli civiltà extraterrestri...
...e da sempre gli ufo inviati da quell'organizzazione sorvegliano il nostro sistema solare."… (mere)

Japanese (translated into English), B&W throughout. Somewhat muddled storyline, about a few interesting and diverse characters working in space and occasionally returning home to their families. A love story, a story about big corporations controlling space, racism, learning how to fit-in, motherhood, fatherhood, and friendship. Lovely hearing different names of familiar things (the second cosmic velocity aka escape velocity), mentions of Tsiolkovsky and Von Braun, Shoemaker Levy 9, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command, learning about unfamiliar but well known to the Japanese influences such as John Woo, Junichi Yaoi ("Aliens Exist"), Hachimaki (meaning Bandana), Suikawari (a children's game where the player is blindfolded and tries to break open a watermelon on the ground with a stick), Shiritori (a word game where the player must say a word that begins with the same sound that ended the previous player's other word), Giskou Budori (the main character from a book by Kenji Miyazawa), Baba Yaga (actually from Slavic folklore, but well known in Japan, a cannibalistic granny).… (mere)