Manga Fridays: Is That a Giant Sword in Your Pocket, Or…
This week: four manga series featuring protagonists who carry very large, sharp objects. Hmm… Overcompensate much? I’ll take them in size order, starting with the smallest and least impressive:
Togari, Vol. 1
Yoshinori Natsume
Viz Media, 2007, $9.99

In Togari, Tobei has been in hell for the last four hundred years (being tortured unceasingly, yadda yadda yadda). He’s still utterly unrepentant and completely focused on getting out, which may be why the upper-level functionary Lady Ema hands him a wooden sword and sends him back to earth.
His mission: to kill a hundred and eight Toga (sins), monstrous vaguely-anthropomorphic creatures that attach themselves to humans and cause those humans to commit evil, within a hundred and eight days. He has all sorts of restrictions, such as the fact that any harm he does to a human is immediately replicated on his body. Along for the ride is Osa, a young demon-dude who was his primary tormentor in Hell, and who doesn’t think much of the plan.
So, to sum up: Tobei’s a bloodthirsty doomed soul and Osa is a tight-ass minor demon. Together, they fight crime!
Tobei learns that there have been many wielders of the Togari (that wooden sword, which is more than it seems), and that none of them succeeded in their mission. But that’s okay, because he’s uniquely powerful and special.
Everything about Togari is generic: the set-up, the characters, the art. It’s the manga equivalent of the Superman of Earth-7895; some of the details might be slightly surprising, but the overall plot goes exactly as expected. On the other hand, Togari is solidly professional and entertaining; it’s not likely to surprise you, but the same goes for most Top 20 comics in any given month. Togari’s pleasures are just as derivative as a random issue of an X-comic, but they’re just as real.

Well, it looks like embargoes were lifted today for on-location coverage of "Hellboy 2: the Golden Army," as there’s a flurry of interviews, set visits and other material hitting the ‘Net.
It happened four years ago today, but football fans still feel the pain.
Billy Batson will have his work cut out for him if "Shazam!" director Peter Segal has his way.
Ah, as Valentine’s Day nears, it’s time to turn your thoughts to… Halloween?
The wait is over, and so is the Season 4 Premiere of "Lost." If you’re anything like me, the first thing you did after the end credits rolled was to hop on the InterWebs and check out the chatter about tonight’s episode.
A few interesting bits of Alan Moore history have found their way online recently, and you won’t have to pay a dime for them.
No surprise here:
"Comics Theorist" Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics) is the subject of
