Blue Dragon: Trials of the Seven Shadows - Battle in the Floating City

The gang's all here.

Battle in the Floating City (Kuuchuu Toshi no Tatakai) is a manga set between episodes 22 and 23 (73 and 74 of the series whole) of Blue Dragon's second season. Going off of Japanese Wikipedia, I wanna say it was written by the series composition writer, Akatsuki Yamatoya, and drawn by Noriko Otake, who was an animation director for the first season. I'm guessing if Yamatoya didn't write this himself, then he provided notes for Otake to work from. Another source lists Otake as "author" and Yamatoya as "original author", but do they say "original author" because he came up with this story, or is he credited that way because he he wrote the anime this is based on? Both? I dunno.

I thought about going through and cleaning this, but I have no real experience in the area, especially with physically scanned materials. I attempted doing a quick, kinda half-assed cleaning job and releasing that alongside the untampered raws, but I didn't see the point. It was a bit of fun trying, though. Here's some examples of my attempts.

The manga looks fun. Even though it's untranslated, I feel like you should still be able to get the gist of what's going on. In any case, links are below.

Mediafire

Google Drive

Internet Archive

Blue Dragon: Trials of the Seven Shadows - Toriyama and Anime Staff Art

As the title says, it's some Blue Dragon art I recently scanned. This was for the anime's second season, Trials of the Seven Shadows. There's three pages of designs from Toriyama, and then three more of art from the anime staff.

And here's one extra. A scan of volume 7 from the JPN season 1 DVDs.

The Electric Tale of Pikachu: Remastered - Chapters 5-8

Ash and Brock, looking respectfully.

The formative years of the Pokémon franchise were an interesting time. Back then, my experience with the series was entirely limited to what happened to be airing on TV, but with a few quick searches, you'll find that era was capable of producing material that some might consider a little…off in comparison to what officially gets put out nowadays. Case in point: The Electric Tale of Pikachu.

The Electric Tale of Pikachu (Pocket Monsters: Dengeki Pikachu) was a manga released right on the heels of the Pokémon anime, one based directly on that show's characters and plotlines. After Adventures, it's probably the most well-known of the various Pokémon manga, and it has fanservice to thank for that. Lots and lots of fanservice. It was penned by Toshihiro Ono, an artist that's drawn more than his fair share of hentai, who brought the spirit of his people over to the Pokémon manga he worked on. Understandably, VIZ made a few changes when they had a go at publishing this in the U. S. The sexualized artwork was censored, and, as was the norm for many series back then, pages were mirrored so they red left to right.

Years ago, a redditor by the name of Lord Sparko started work on a "remastered" edition of Electric Pikachu. He did so by applying VIZ'S English translation to raw, high-quality scans of the manga. After covering the first four chapters, of which comprise the first volume, he never got back to it. Last year, I picked up from where he left off and did chapters 5-8, which comprise the second volume. It was a fun project, but I don't have any plans on when (or if) I'll do more. If you're interested in checking it out, links are below.

Mediafire

Mangadex

Imgur - Chapter 5

Imgur - Chapter 6

Imgur - Chapter 7

Imgur - Chapter 8

An Introduction...of sorts.

How do you do, blog reader? I kind of feel the need to create some sort of introduction to this place, but to be honest, I'm not sure what to say. I don't know exactly what identity this blog might assume in the future, but for now, I'm using it as a dumping ground. What will I be dumping? Well, manga, for one. Scans of art, too. Maybe. Who really knows? Certainly not me, as should be obvious.

In any case, to any that may come, welcome to my blog.