Thoughtful Thursday – Comics and Kid Sisters

missionlowres.jpgI’d heard the rumors — I’d been mangafied, but I didn’t believe it until a day or so ago I got a package from Harlequin. Inside — the Japanese comic book version of MORE THAN A MISSION. This is the beautiful brightly colored cover. I love the heroine’s eyes and that blond emo-style hair on Aidan.

SO WAY COOOOL! I only got three, so one’s a keeper for my collection, another goes to my daughter who thought this was even cooler than I did.

The big surprise was the reaction of everyone at work and my kid sis (who works with me). THEY ALL WANTED COPIES!

My sister’s reaction reminded me of when we were kids and would go buy comics. We used to get an allowance of a quarter for both of us (not each of us). It doesn’t sound like a lot by today’s standards, but when we were kids it was a lot of money. One of our grandparents would walk us to the Corner Luncheonette (that was it’s real name) to spend our allowance. The “candy store” as we called it, originally had a counter and soda fountain but renovations claimed those years later.

Anyway, inside was our treasure. Comic books! Candy! With 25 cents we could buy two comic books each and Bazooka gum. I’d always get the latest Superman or Batman comic while my sis would grab up the Archies comics. Even then, our personalities were set.

We did this for a year or so, but then real life intruded and inflation drove up the price of those comics to 10 and then 15 cents each. Unfortunately, our allowance hadn’t changed. The battle began. Super-heroes or Teen Angst. Amazingly, we learned to compromise, either alternating from week to week or saving up a few allowances so we could buy more comics by pooling our resources.

I still love comics. I rarely pass up any movie based on a comic and have collections of X-Files and Buffy comics, including a few #1 editions. One of these days, I may even create a super-hero of my own.

You may be wondering, was the MORE THAN A MISSION manga close to the original? Well, I can’t read Japanese, but a picture is worth a thousand words (see below). The storyboard seemed to faithfully follow the book (love scenes only hinted at naturally) and I can’t wait to get my hands on a few more copies.

missionmanga.jpg

I also hope they do SECRET AGENT REUNION like this. It would be again SO WAY COOOL to have Dani’s story in manga as well.

9 Replies to “Thoughtful Thursday – Comics and Kid Sisters”

  1. i love manga!! it is amazing i love almost eveything my big sis tells me to read!

    this comic is so sweet and i love the pics!

    manga is for teens and some older ppl to manga can be for everyone if it is your tast in comics!

  2. How totally awesome! Will have to check out the Japanese store in the City (where I get my Japanese Hanjie puzzle mags) and see if I can find you!

  3. Mom sent me a link to this – it looks great! If it had come out last year, I could have had some friends pick up copies when they were over in Japan. 😉

    Also, just about everyone in Japan reads manga, so based on that assumption alone, I’d say it’s more for a high school to young adult audience, possibly older.

    It’s still incredibly cool, though!

  4. As far as I can tell, there were embraces, but nothing else. I think this is definitely for a younger audience. I must say, seeing Dani shot in the comics was very difficult for me.

  5. This is such a surprise!
    Can you tell whether the Manga is aimed at kids or adults? I know adults in Japan love Manga, but it’s very “mature” for them. I wouldn’t want a kid reading that stuff.
    So, they glossed over the love scenes in MTAM??? That makes it for kids???

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