Hold The Line!

I got back on the proverbial horse and ventured out on my bicycle for a trip further than to the laundromat to do some book-browsing at my nearby Book-Off.












En route, I stopped for some くるくる寿司 (kuru kuru sushi or "Sushi-go-round") for lunch. I ate 8 plates (2 pieces on a plate) worth for 1350￥ which is less then 90￥ per piece.

At the book store, I leafed through the Movie leaflets and picked up a dozen or so Godzilla, Star Wars/Trek, etc. If I have any repeats, guess what is being given away as souvenirs? Then I hit the Kids' books section hoping to increase my supply of Oz-related tomes. I saw one I wanted and then came across an extremely awesome find, to be reviewed at a later date. I asked for the eternally elusive Santa book to no avail (a few online leads to follow-up), but did get a couple of The Wonderful Legend of TOTO stories, 2 from the original 2002 series and one from the more recent 2005 series.












I first heard of these books from the BAUMbastic Eric who has read the latest volumes in English (lucky guy, I gotta struggle in Japanese.) I may make this my next project, to translate the first volumes...

Here are some character descriptions courtesy of Wiki:
Kakashi - Young teenage boy, who after receiving his father's journal, sets out to see the world. (For those who haven't read my previous Oz posts, click the Labels below. Kakashi means Scarecrow!
Toto - Little dog, that Nassau Imperial Army was using to experiment with one of the "Artifacts", he is later discovered by Kakashi and freed.
Dorothy - Lonely Student from Kansas Academy, who's a skilled martial artist.
Lion - ex-Nassau soldier turned Showman, who has stage fright.
Alice - Gangster Leader, who joins Kakashi & friends after they help fight the evil Rabbit Gang.

Uh oh, it looks like there's another series I need to hunt for tomorrow...It appears to be a fairly faithful Manga adaptation by かずはし　とも (Kazuhashi Tomo.) Nobody had seen hide nor hair of it today.



Speaking of books I need to track down, it looks like I'm on the lookout for Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl that 内田春菊 (Shungiku Uchida) wrote a while back and the movie has just debuted in Tokyo. It was mentioned by me back here and it's already been released overseas to great acclaim on the Cult/Slasher/Asian market and will only have a limited run at two Cinemas in Tokyo. Hopefully, I can go after my Bridge Tourney next week!



Why am I on a Halloween kick so early, you might ask? It's officially 100 days until Halloween, so as I'm jumping on the bandwagon and will attempt a spooky addendum to this goofy little blog-'o-mine.