t's been a while since I last did one of these, but sometimes it takes a while before I have something to shove in your face and go "Looky looky!!!"

Mermaid Melody pichi pichi Pitch aka Mermaid Melody Perfect Pitch aka whatever the heck Del Rey's manga people are calling it - this is the manga the anime is based on. I've seen some of the anime, and it goes on into a "Pure" series as well. I just wish I could find the Lucia doll in her pink idol outfit or the Japanese original version of those E-Kara toys. Anyone remember eKara? I sure do. Marketed toward girls who I guess like to sing, I don't think the toy did well in the U.S. In Japan, eKara had cartridges you could plug in, and you bet Mermaid Melody PPP cartridges came out. I'd LOVE to play with them - the CD single with the opening and ending themes has a secret password for one of the cartridges. ^_^

It basically takes the story of the Little Mermaid, then gives it a Mahou Shoujo twist and we get something that's totally enjoyable for all ages and with lots of music. So far as I can guess, Lucia is one of the seven Mermaid princesses of the ocean, and she's trying to save the oceans from evil forces led by Kaito - only the thing is, the human boy she has a crush on is also named Kaito (and looks like him to boot). If she gathers all the "Pearl Princesses" Lucia can summon Aqua Regina which sounds like the end to an RPG game. I haven't seen all of it, nor what I have available I haven't had a chance to check it all out. ADV was rumored to have tried getting the anime license but the deal fell through. Del Rey has 3 books out so far. I'm sure I left out a few more details of the story.

Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar, or as ADV has it "Little Snow Fairy Sugar". The anime is out from Geneon, and it's also a good one for all ages. Saga, a girl who runs her life to a schedule she makes out for each day, somehow comes across a little fairy who appears fainted from hunger. Not knowing what she's getting herself in for, Saga offers the fairy a bit of her waffle treat, and then ends up bringing the fairy home with her. She finds out she's the only person who can see the fairy (and others later on), and finds out her name is Sugar. Sugar is an apprentice "season fairy" and her talent is playing a flute to make snow, as her mother did. In order to fully realize her powers, Sugar has to find "kirameki" aka "Twinkle" for her flower to bloom.

Life isn't that easy, as Sugar's inexperience around humans does nothing but create trouble for Saga. The background and town design is based on a real village in Germany, and is very noticeable in the anime version. All the Season fairies (except for the elder, I think) are named after Seasonings, which adds to the cuteness factor. The opening theme is by Ishida Yoko, and the Japanese version is much better than the original English song it's based on. Book 3 was in the recent Previews.

Densha Otoko is the name of a popular event of things that's gone on in Japan in recent years. It's based on a true story of a Otaku-type young man who stood up to a drunk on a train who was harassing the women passengers, saving one lady from the drunk, in particular. He posted his experience from that point forward on a popular chat site in Japan, and what happened afterwards is a sweet story of love and romance as the denizens of the same chat/ posting site helped "Densha Otoko" court and win the heart of the lady who became known as "Hermes" due to the gift she sent him as her token of thanks.

The story of Densha Otoko has spawned lots of media versions since the inception of it being published as a novel (translated archives of the whole thing are easily found on the net - be sure to install Japanese fonts to see the cool ASCII artwork - reminds me of the ATASCII art on my 8-bit Atari computer), then a live action TV series, a movie, and an OVA based on the sort-of-bunnygirl with carrots in her butt character seen in the opening credits. And of course, no less than 4 manga versions. Del Rey has a single book version out, while this offering from CMX and one from Viz are multi-book versions, which probably tell the story in better detail. I think the artwork in the CMX edition is more attractive. (I won a copy of the Del Rey book. ^_^)

Now, don't discount the premise of Kashimashi from Seven Seas Entertainment. I had already enjoyed the 12 episode anime series, so I was delighted to see the manga come out here. It's got a great ending that I felt was the only way to end the story, so I don't expect the manga edition to last for a lot of books unless the anime ended too soon much like DearS did.

Osaragi Hazumu is a member of his school's gardening club, and he's got a crush on one girl in his class, Kamizumi Yasuna. He actually confesses his feelings for her, but for some reason she doesn't exactly say why she can't return those feelings right away, and this gets understood as her turning him down. Then you have what seems like a childhood friend in another girl, Tomari. She's rather aggressive but she means well when she protects Hazumu. This all probably would seem boring until another element in establishing the story gives the complete set-up - an alien ship that was mostly monitoring the Earth ends up a bit out of control and kills Hazumu. The aliens aboard the ship were able to save his life, however, but in doing so, reconstructed his body... as a female. Ah.

We find out what Yasuna's problem is, and eventually what the mission of the aliens aboard the ship was for monitoring the Earth. Just wait until you find out at the end. For once, a satisfying conclusion.

I had purchased only 1 book of the original Gacha Gacha manga by Del Rey and not quite got the idea of what the heck was going on. It has a bunnygirl cover, so I didn't care. ^_^ But when this new series from Del Rey set in the same universe as the original was listed in Previews, I had to check out Gacha Gacha Next Revolution. The cover says Mature Content, and it's probably a good idea.

Hatsushiba Akira is your typical guy in school, and has the hots for one girl in his class, Sakuraba Yurika. But since he gets aroused too easily (heh heh), she ends up not saying anything to him. After being embarassed twice in front of her, one of Akira's friends suggests they play the virtual reality game Gacha Gacha. Akira's first experience at the game results in an electrical shock and pretty much his game ends... He goes home, awakes the next day and stares at a female face in the mirror!! Akira figures out its his own face, then figures out when he sneezes, he changes bodies. His female body is the character from the Gacha Gacha game, he remembers. So begins Akira's tale of discovering what it's like to be female and actually becomes friends with Sakuraba, the very girl he had trouble talking to as a guy. Let's hope his secret doesn't get discovered... (it might be by the end of the first book, though!) Can't wait for more of this one. Book 2 was in the recent Previews.
 

How to make a manga storage box

Tokyopop did a nice thing for the dedicated fans of Chobits, even if they screwed over the comic book store channels and sent the exclusive box and figure to traditional book stores when Volume 8 came out. But recently, I've been wondering. Why don't these publishers offer storage boxes for other manga series as well? I imagine Chobits sold very well, so it deserved the extra goodies. If you've wanted to make one for your other series, I'll give you the idea here and you can go with it.
 

WHAT YOU NEED:
 

Foam board - I get my supply from a local drug store. Pricey at over $4 a sheet, but is 5 mm thickness is comparable to the box for the Chobits set which is 4 mm thick. I haven't been able to find paperboard sheets that would stand up to the use I have for them here.

books - I had made boxes for my Tokyo Mew Mew set and included the original Japanese 1st book for my box, and then did one for my DearS which recently finished up at 9 books total. This time, I'm using my first 10 Negima! books.

Cutting utensil - if you're going to do a lot of these things, it would be wise to invest in a paper trimmer with one of those arm things that come down across what you're cutting. Otherwise, making perpendicular to the surface cuts with a razor blade and doing it carefully will work. Clean off the blade after performing each cut. Otherwise the paper trimmer I'm talking about is about $34 at office supply stores.

Straight edge (if using a razor) and a metric ruler. Really, you need to measure these things with centimeters and millimeters. These boxes need that kind of tight precision.

Glue - I use wood glue, Titebond II, because it dries fast, is quite strong, and I had it available. ^_^


Step 1 -

Well, I used to start out by measuring how wide the books would be based on the spines of the books, but instead I'm going to tell you to measure the width of the book across the front cover. Most books will fall into the 13 cm range. I recommend standing the books on their spines and find the one that sticks up the highest and use it for the width. 4 pieces of your box will use this measurement.

Step 2 -

Measure the book from top to bottom. The actual measurement will be the height for the sides. Since the material I'm using is .5 cm thick, I add 1 cm for the back height measurement.

At this point, I know my sides will be 13 cm by 19.1 cm. So one piece I will be cutting will be 13 cm by 38.2 cm + .2 cm cutting allowance, since I could cut this piece in half for my sides.

Step 3 -

Measure the width of the books based on their spines. Press firmly together. It's probably OK to leave a little room so when you have the books in the case, you can still insert a finger to pull them out. Whatever that measurement is, add 1 cm (based on thickness of material used x2) for the width of the back, and the length of the top and bottom.

So now, I know my top and bottom pieces will be 13 cm by 18.4 cm plus 1 cm for the material in the side pieces, 13 x 19.4. I will allow some for variance and go with 13 x 19.5. The piece I need for the top and bottom is 13 by 39 cm if I cut this out and then cut it in half.

Here's where you need to be extra careful. Measure twice, then test with the books you're going to be using. Make sure the sides are pretty much right on target. You can allow a couple millimeters for cutting lines and also as a slight variance, you know, just in case.

So based on those other measurements, my back has to be 20.1 cm (the height of one book + 1 cm) by 19.5 cm (the width of all 10 books + 1 cm).

FACTOID: For the original Negima! anime series, no less than _7_ different versions of Happy Material showed up as CD singles. Each version is heard at the start of various episodes of the anime! Each one is slightly different, based on which group of girls is singing, and the musical style also changes between each version.

NOTE: While working with these images, I noticed Windows XP telling me what camera I had used to make the images, even when I edited them using Paint Shop Pro 8 and tried to save new copies. This extra crap used for this "feature" is known as Metadata. The JPEG format allows for this extra, unnecessary data to be stored in the file, which also includes a thumbnail of the original image that can be extracted. There is software out there that can "clean" your JPGs of this extra data, but I have an older version of Paint Shop Pro which also discards that garbage. It shaved off over 600K. Be aware that this kind of stuff goes on and optimize your image files in similar manner.