Categories
Anime Manga

Berserk, Golden Age Arc

Berserk is a manga by Kentaro Miura that has been being published since 1989. The art is impressive and the story gets you completely hooked, specially during the first 5-10 volumes. In addition to the art, the fantasy-horror feel and the atmosphere of a particular medieval Europe, the best is the collision of the personalities of the main two characters Guts and Griffith. I like a lot how Kentaro Miura plays with the feelings of the reader as the story is unveiled and you start feeling attached to one character or the other but at the same time you like both of them. I liked it until volumes 12 or 13, after that the story started to lose interest for me.

If you haven’t read it, you should give it a try!, it’s available in English.

Berserk

Berserk

Berserk

Berserk

Berserk

Berserk

During this year a trilogy of Berserk movies called Golden Age Arc are being released on Japanese movie theaters. We were able to enjoy the first movie last February and the second movie will be released next month. In the movie theater I went to see the movie the cafeteria was decorated with Berserk stuff!

Berserk

Berserk

Berserk

Berserk

Berserk

Official website of the Berserk movies

Categories
Anime Manga

Kaneda Jacket, 30th Anniversary of Akira

Bandai is selling Kaneda’s jacket to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Akira manga release. You can buy it for 69,800 yen (685 euros/900 dollars) in this Bandai Namco website or in the official website for the anniversary.

Kaneda Jacket. Akira

Kaneda Jacket. Akira

Categories
Anime

Sakuma Drops – The Candy of "Grave of the Fireflies"

Grave of the Fireflies (火垂るの墓) by Studio Ghibli is the saddest movie I have ever seen and at the same time the best anti-war movie I have ever seen. It tells the story of two orphan children, Seita and her sister Setsuko, after the bombing of Kobe at the end of World War II. They are alone trying to survive on their own and one of the few things they have to eat is a candy box that Setsuko keeps as if it was a treasure. As the story unfolds the candy box becomes one of the most important symbols in the movie.

Setsuko’s candy are Sakuma Drops (サクマ式ドロップス) which have been produced in Japan since 1908 by Sakuma Seika. Nowadays it’s not easy to find them; I love them and I buy them every chance I get.

This is the Grave of the Fireflies movie special edition box which has a picture of Setsuko trying to find if there is any candy left:

Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies
There’s many different flavors.

Grave of the Fireflies
One of the scenes of Grave of the Fireflies where you can see the Sakuma Drops box

Three years ago NHK aired a TV series and a movie based on the anime movie by Ghibli. It seems that the plot is quite different and people didn’t like it that much but you can also spot a Sakuma Drops box:

Sakuma Drops

The design of the Sakuma Drops box has changed 13 times over more than 100 years of history. This is the timeline where you can appreciate its evolution until today: