My favourite character designers

My fav character designers 

1. Takahiro Kishida 

2. Nobutake Ito (smooth anime motion) 

3. Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru (Ligne Claire, retro and Manga art style crossbreed) 

4. Glen Keane (tasteful movements) 

5. Naoyuki Konno (Charleroi Dynamic school BD and Petkov art style crossbreed) 

6. Masaki Sato (Ligne Claire and American Comic art style crossbreed) 

7. Mitt Kahl (smooth motion) 

8. Tadayoshi Yamamuro (blocky Charleroi Atomic school BD and American Comic art style crossbreed) 

9. Miho Shimogasa (Charleroi Atomic school femme overload) 

10. Yasuhiro Yamaguchi (blocky 80s forerunner) 

11. Akihiro Kimura (90s and 80s crossbreed) 

12. Masatsugu Saito (cool eyes) 

13. Tatsuya Hiruta (Ligne Claire with goofy eyes and cute faces) 

14. Takeshi Maekawa (Charleroi Atomic school BD pizzazz with cool eyes) 

15. Tsuguro Okazaki (blocky Manhwa and Manga art style crossbreed) 

16. Shinji Seya (goofy eyes in retro flavour)

17. Akio Sugino (Soviet and Ligne Claire semi realism in pastel colours) 

18. Kazuhiko Shimamoto (Charleroi Dynamic school and Manga art style crossbreed) 

19. Takashi Nakamura (Charleroi and Old school American Comic art style crossbreed) 

20. Nobuyoshi Sozaki (Feminine bodied Marvel art style) 

21. Kenji Hayama (tough but feminine) 

22. Fujio Suzuki (a mix of Soviet and Marvel) 

23. Yukiyoshi Ito (Grunge and Charleroi crossbreed) 

A fun manga comparison!

Tarzan 

Tezuka’s Tarzan equivalent: The dead kings of retro manga, Osamu Tezuka and Mitsuteru Yokoyama, are credited for drawing and writing the two most famous Tarzan manga stories out there. Funnily enough, as both manga stories are perhaps set in the land of Leo the Lion, an expy of the character has a leopard buddy named Iga. 

Koshiro’s Tarzan: Takeshi Koshiro had drawn a Tarzan story set in the 1960s, which featured both Cheeta and Jai (sometimes called Boy for obvious dubbing reasons). 

The Jungle Book 

Segoshi’s Mowgli: Ken Segoshi was a little known mangaka whose career possibly lasted from the late 20s into the mid 1950s. His Mowgli is much more brattish than Reitherman’s Mowgli as shown in the manga cover. 

A Jungly Comparison Part 2

The main villain of most chapters is Claw, ironically also called Bubu in the manga and original Japanese versions of all previous works beforehand, as well as being called Jamar. However, he’ll change from a snappy and greedy old, half blind Barbary lion to a cruel yet rather unpretentiously well meant dark brown lion of Southeastern Central African stock. He’ll also be renamed as Arron, who has an estranged older brother named Bill and has children with his estranged Isabelline lover Leona, in the form of normal coloured Leroy and his younger sister Sima, also known as Zilba or Belldonna. Leroy in turn has a child with a Melanistic lover named Ennis, in the form of an Erythristic lion named Lyre, Jack’s consort.  

The main mentor is Lower class lion Speckle, also known as Marody (a corruption of Marozi) or Specklerex. He is the spotted Ikimizi son of Andrew and Lucy, and has a younger brother named Rocky. He also has a son with Thera named Samuel, Sima's Reluctant Mate. Sam and Sima in turn have a daughter named Jazz. Speckle's mother Lucy also had a twin brother named Goran, who in turn had a son named Gary with an erythristic lover called Mona. Thera in turn had a mum named Katrina and a dad named Oliver, who also had a son named Clyde. Clyde in turn has a son named Ryan and a daughter named Marjorie, whom Leo would carry off into his own pride. 

Their rival, Cassius the panther, ironically also called Shaka, Toto or Sylvester in cases similar to those of Claw, will remain generally the same, except he’ll change from a plainly villainous lackey to a very snobbish loner. He will be renamed as Marcus, who has two estranged children with a normal coloured mate named Ina, who are full siblings born within a rather large age gap. The son is named Ronald, who was originally annoyingly called Bongo or more ironically Speedy Cheetah and his older sister is named Prancy Jane. His pseudo melanistic younger sister is named Lilian, who has a partner called Peter. 

Their mother also has had two brothers, as the younger ones named Reginald and Zachary have become reluctant and often abused circus attractions whilst their older brother Maximilian died of poor health. They had a father named Lupe and a mother named Arana. 

Their cousins, the twins Casper, aka Dash, and Marsha, are the estranged children of the late Reginald and Isla, who is one of the leopardess quartet of snobbish and arrogant ladies. Meanwhile, Marsha birthed a son named Fargo. 

Morris is Lupe's snarky younger brother, who has three children with a lover named Imogen, a member of the leopardess quartet. The sons are named Tyrone, Dominic and Frank. Tyrone got kidnapped into reluctantly becoming a circus attraction, while Don and Frank separated to live with their girlfriends Molly and Jenna, two members of the declining leopardess quartet. Morris then also dies of old age. 

Lester the Lion was Arron and Bill’s nicer younger brother, who was the father of Ray, Joan and Carl and husband to Maxine. Carl left behind his disgruntled father in order to let his sister succeed as the leader of her pride, which also includes Samuel. Ray the lion lost the plot when Carl kicked him out of the land. 

A growing list of background characters includes Hardy the Redheaded Lovebird, Sawyer the Swindern’s Lovebird and Baxter the Bohor Reedbuck, Oliver the Olive Baboon, Christopher the Common Duiker, Benton the Blue Monkey, Tad the Tantalus Monkey, Wanda the Weyns’ Duiker, Bailey the Bay Duiker, Bess the Blue Duiker, Bonnie the White Bellied Duiker, Dian the Dent's Monkey, Merrill the Mantled Guereza, Fiona the Black Fronted Red Duiker, Marshall the Chimpanzee, Ruby the Ruwenzori Duiker, Yann the Yellow Backed Duiker and Priscilla the Bates’ Pygmy Antelope. 

One of its sequels is Akim, which however has even more; Stella the Stanger’s giant squirrel, Ropey the Carruther’s rope squirrel, Meg and Mab the Mountain Monkeys, Pinky the dwarf anomalure, Opie the Oribi, Steven the Steenbok, Rachel the Ruwenzori Black and White Colobus, Gary the African golden cat, Solomon the Sykes' White Throated Monkey, Ronny the Schmidt’s Redtail Guenon, Sticky the Lord Derby’s anomalure and Uriah the Ugandan Mangabey. A recurring character who appears in both is Max the Mountain Gorilla, a stubborn old silverback. His son in law is actually the considerably much bigger Mott.

What could’ve been: the Cyborg 009 fan reboot

Here’s Cyborg 009. The fan reboot of the iconic 2001 series, itself a reboot of the Toei era, will have Josephus Mbungu Ilunga, the full name of Joe Shimamura (whose paternal grandmother was Japanese Hafu), as a multiracial, along with Geronimo Jr who is half-Navajo and half-African American. Joe, instead of classically being a delinquent, had been raised by jungle animals in the MaYombe rainforest for about nineteen years from when he was an infant to when he turned nineteen and became a physical man. 

Having been the fastest and most acrobatic of the lot, he was and still is used to running and swinging through trees since he was a young child. Given his feral nature, he is also known to scream and whinny quite often when he’s scared shitless. Even as a youth, he also did and still does other things like pounding his chest while victoriously winning a bloody fight. 

He also has seven older siblings, one of which, the second eldest, is an ecologist who introduced him to the jungle at a young age, with the oldest being a nurse. Sadly, both of whom have become enslaved by both amoral corporations and the corrupt Congolian society in general. The rest of his siblings would rather work as indentured labourers on toxic mines and other kinds of waste. 

He was on the boat to Belgium and struggled to find jobs there due to racism and colourism. It was in that country where he got kidnapped into an infamously amoral organisation called GRAVE GHOST. As a result, he has been drastically altered again, even if he is retaining his animalistic behaviour outright. Ironically, he also gained new superpowers, including ridiculous amounts of both speed and flame throwing, that would stun even the top soldiers of GRAVE GHOST. 

A veteran Japanese artist otaku's wicked array of opinions

The artist’s website isn’t safe for general fandom work, as it is mostly aimed at fellow adults. This is what the same artist must have said about his childhood. 

My childhood heroes weren't Astro Boy or Ultraman, but rather genius scientists who could give clear answers to any challenge. For example, Dr. Ochanomizu, Dr. Ichitani of "Ultra Q", Brains of "Thunderbirds" and etcetera.

When I was absorbed in science fiction and monster movies, I longed for craftsmen who made use of miniatures and special effects to make things that could not be real look like real things. These are also behind the scenes who are working hard in an inconspicuous place, but I wanted to participate in the production if possible.

That's why it seems that he didn't watch the drama part of the monster movie very enthusiastically... At one point, I was surprised to find a friend who really sympathized with the people whose home was destroyed by monsters. At that time, I seemed to be a boring kid with a twisted idea.

In my childhood, the emonogatari of magazines were already obsolete, and there was a tremendous manga boom, but for some reason I was a twister and preferred reading to manga. And I was impressed by the reality of the illustrations attached to the text and watched it forever without getting tired of it.

I think now that my true heroes may have been the longing painters who could portray the dreams of science fiction, adventure, and war memorials on the opening page of Shonen Magazine.

A Jungly Comparison Part 1

While almost all the other adaptations of Kimba the White Lion/Leo the Lion, including the manga that started it all, still belong to Tezuka Productions, my own continuity reboot will unspeakably be completely different from anything that was released before, with considerably more realistic results and a heavy amount of Franco-Belgian influence. 

My own continuity reboot will be in the form of a six volume graphic novel series set in the border between DRC, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, but primarily southwest Uganda between Lake Edward and Lake George or Lake Edward and Bwindi, during the 19th and 20th centuries. 

A single interlude leading to Ki-GOR, the actual direct sequel to it, will not just be an homage to the Jamie Uys film Animals are Beautiful people, it is also called People are Beautiful Animals Too, aka Tezuka’s Jungle Kingdom. A spinoff sequel called The Akim saga will have a few animals from Jungle Emperor crossing over to meet up with the Akims and their families. 

The main family or clan, which Leo himself belongs, will change from being almost always white lions of Southeastern Central, Northeastern, and/or Northern Central African stock (as usual, white lions are definitely uncommon, although more numerous in captivity than in the wild) to a bunch of diversely coloured ones thanks to science marching on. 

Leo's dead parents are called John and Mira in the reboot, in order to be distinguished from their traditional counterparts Caesar (Panja) and Eliza (Snowene). Mira was a Greyish Brown lion and John was a partly Leucistic coloured Lion, thus their son Leonidas was a partly erythristic woolly Lion. 

As in real life, Leo’s rather fickle harem consists of lionesses like Normal coloured Luna, Cleo, Kitty, Marjorie (his childhood friend) and the pseudomelanistic coloured Lydia. The first children, usually from Marjorie, are Bruno and Jack. Bruno however, got eaten by his mother at an early age while chinchilla coloured Jack survived becoming an adult and having children. The succeeding children are mostly females like Lari, Marcia, the isabelline Jann and the wholly leucistic last child Nya, as Lucas, Theo and Eric are in the minority. Marcia also got eaten by the same mother who ate Bruno as well. This also includes Jack and Lyre’s kids Chloe and brown coloured Maximilian the second. Nya grew older and stayed to become her melanistic boyfriend Donovan’s mate and the mother of a grey son named Caesar the Lion. 

The elephants led by Pagoola, though still cruel and antagonistic at times, are generally sympathetic if now more fleshed out thanks to values dissonance. Pagoola, his older son Bizo and younger daughter Penny will be sympathetic as well, due to science marching on. 

He is Aroba's son in law who also has a wife named Kelly Phunt, in turn the somewhat younger sister of Tony Phunt, who has an estranged partner named Shannon and two children named Ora and Wilma Phunt. They also have a much older sister in Tani Phunt, a prude and rather stuffy old lady who has a son named Romeo Phunt and an estranged mate named Bertrand. Bertrand’s older and senile brother Moe will also appear, this time as a busybody guarding and digging off the abandoned remains of the village that Koba was born in. There is another elephant named Marmalade, who herself becomes the senior of her own herd in the succeeding sequel Ki Gor: Jungle Agent for Hire. 

There’s also a porcupine named Becca, a Sitatunga named Sonny, a Ugandan Kob named Kris and a Saturated Meyer’s brown parrot named Samuel ‘Sammy’ who are all friends to Leo the Lion. Neighbours include Misty the porcupine, the fantastically good Bucky the Northern Bushbuck, Wally the Defassa Waterbuck, Sammy’s partner and son Pauline and Peck, Camino the Black collared lovebird, Ansel the African Grey parrot and Emil the Emin’s pouched rat also appear as recurring characters onscreen.

Absent Hero Character: Buzara or Brazza the Mandrill, also girlishly called Mandi or more ironically Dan’l Baboon, is somewhat out of place in almost all versions beforehand and couldn’t appear in the second reboot because of many geographical differences between Republic of the Congo and Uganda, even though they share borders with the DRC.

The hidden meaning of the Mangani dictionary according to Google translate

The Tarzan franchise family contains a ton of false friend words! 

Terk - abandonment (Turkish)

Yato - different (Yoruba)

Nsusu - chicken (Kongo) 

Kufuanda - to kill (Kongo) 

ZuTag - Today (German) 

Kubonga - adultery (Kongo) 

Atanze - he gave (Kinyarwanda) 

Ngò - leopard (Kongo) 

Xikumbua - leopards (Vili) 

Norgak - please (Arabic) 

Ngolo - strength (Kongo) 

Yínti - tree (Kongo) 

Yodoze - night, night time (Japanese), iodine already (Russian) 

Tawaeta - average (Māori) 

Ngaze - until (Zulu) 

Kala - black (Hindi) 

Ngumba - porcupine (Kongo) 

Akla - mind (Turkish) 

Gorlak - the horns (Basque) 

Mukaba - belt (Kongo) 

Kan - able to (Danish) 

Chilko - peel (Hindi) 

Kunuana - battle (Kongo) 

Begu - I’m running away (Slovenian) 

Eho Ram - his frame (Slovak), this time (Scots Gaelic) 

Ehodan - I urge (Finnish) 

Kimpenziku - chimpanzees (Kongo) 

Walu - eight (Hawaiian) 

Kacha - maximum (Igbo) 

Thako - the butt (Chichewa): heheheh, one of the most objectifying words on the list. 

Kreeg - got (Dutch) 

Niau - cat (Kongo) 

Kimpiti - antelopes (Kongo) 

Torglat - squarely (Swedish) 

Chaga - child (Uzbek) 

Embaeta - the embassy (Basque) 

Borok - wines (Hungarian) 

Korak - step (Croatian) 

Argodoze - article twelve (Portuguese), slang (Basque), oh god they (Dutch) 

Wangjen - cheek (Frisian), Yen money (Malaysian Standard Malay) 

Vangu - danger (Kongo) 

Ngore - I am a woman (Kinyarwanda) 

Remeta - mail (Portuguese), this is it (Bengali) 

Unketa - anointing (Basque) 

Ban Eta - this is it (Bengali)

Kudu - must (Javanese)

Yo - I (Spanish) 

Torbalu - bagged (Turkish) 

Zuvo - died (Lithuanian): the most depressing word on this list.

Sabor - flavour (Portuguese and Spanish) 

Unkzut - uncut (Russian) 

Howausha - it turns off (Swahili) 

Mbuá - dog (Kongo) 

Tanda - mark (Malaysian Standard Malay) 

Zutho - nothing (Zulu)

Buala - village (Kongo) 

Alaze - he has shown (Luganda) 

Pandar - fifteen (Gujarati) 

Chulk - charge (Hindi)

Bamindelé - white people (Kongo) 

Paneze - panes (Romanian), pane them (Dutch) 

Da Eta - date, and it is (Basque) 

Yutoze - hot water and this (Japanese)

Mis - my (Spanish) 

Morok - darkness (Ukrainian) 

Urchak - passionate (Hindi) 

Yandi - he, she (Kongo) 

Kurok - trigger (Ukrainian) 

Thako - the butt (Chichewa) 

Uglaze - they fit (Croatian), you buy her (Kinyarwanda) 

Guneta - the site (Basque), count it (Bengali) 

Dan Eta - and (Basque), given (Slovenian), stop her (Hausa), granddaughter’s (Portuguese) 

Kama - like (Swahili)

Ndosi - dream (Kongo) 

Etau - this too (Bengali) 

Nkusi - fart (Kongo) 

Kukuenda - to leave (Kongo) 

Göda - good (Swedish) 

Kerchak - sculpin (Russian)

Dikongó - spear (Kongo) 

Kuen - queue (Malaysian Standard Malay) 

Nureta - wet (Japanese), annoy him (Mainland Mandarin Chinese), not yours, don’t miss it (Romanian) 

Buketa - the bouquet (Bulgarian), book it (Bengali), it’s gone (Uzbek) 

Wausha - wow (Laotian Standard Hmong) 

Wala - nothing (Cebuano) 

Nga - that (Cebuano) 

Balu - eight road (Mainland Mandarin Chinese) 

Kuenda - to attend (Shona), to go (Chichewa) 

Mumga - coral (Hindi)

Guleze - swallow (Chichewa), we could (Basque)

Tarzan - dandy (Hebrew)

Thaka - dude (Lesotho), stay (Bengali)

Bandolo - key (Italian) 

Ngulubu - pig (Kongo)

Dikaku - monkey (Kongo) 

Zukut - the buzz (Bulgarian) 

Gunto - lump (Bengali) 

Mpungu - creator, gorilla (Kongo) 

Nziku - chimpanzee (Kongo) 

Lulot - rolled up (Tagalog)

Taug - you can (Basque), travel (Laotian Standard Hmong)

Mumka - mum (Czech)

Remah - crumb (Indonesian) 

Dan do - and do (Indonesian), giving a (Romanian), I’m sorry (Igbo), giving (Portuguese) 

Kobze - always (Chichewa) 

Sok - many (Hungarian) 

Yudo - Judo (Indonesian) 

Gule - yellow (Danish) 

Der Eta - this is it (Bengali), you take (Norwegian), straight (Portuguese), would give a (Latin) 

Sa - on (Cebuano) 

Burze - stock exchange (Czech) 

Meeta - measure (Estonian) 

Mado - paste (Igbo) 

Gobu - five minutes (Japanese)

Lufua - death (Kongo) 

Teeka - criticism (Gujarati), compulsory (Luganda) 

Yut - quarterdeck (Ukrainian) 

Zuro - yesterday (Shona) 

Nkusu - parrot (Kongo) 

Makaku - monkeys (Kongo) 

Greeta - welcome (Latvian) 

Gunjule - the longest (Yoruba) 

Unkaba - navel (Zulu), you are not (Hausa) 

Pand - pledge (Dutch) 

Gando - cow (Galician) 

Tand Bund - toothpaste (Danish) 

Tand Balu - the team is strong (Telugu) 

Kagoda - it’s a basket (Japanese) 

Kufua - to kill (Kongo) 

Danetaze - I cheated, got it, I fell asleep (Japanese), grain fresh (Turkish)

Ngozeta - presentation (Igbo), until we come (Zulu), accident (Chichewa) 

Goreta - burning (Croatian) 

Luze - long (Basque) 

Yodo - iodine (Tagalog) 

Unkabaze - doubt (Zulu) 

Tan Dah - don’t already (Malaysian Standard Malay), it’s over (Javanese) 

Godaeta - got five hits (Japanese), to diet (Krio) 

Bundolo Eta - it’s dumb (Tagalog), good luck (Romanian) 

Fufu - continue (Oromo) 

Nioka - snake (Kongo) 

Aretaze - there it is, there it was (Japanese), and that’s it (Bengali) 

Tand Ramba - trench (Malagasy), and continue (Shona) 

Tandlul - beyond (Zulu) 

Kibubu - gorilla (Kongo) 

Jen Ze - only, just that (Czech) 

Utne - out (Norwegian) 

Ni - in (Yoruba), it’s (Kongo) 

Zuze - right (Basque) 

Puleta - manager (Samoan), mail gun, we pray (Hawaiian)

Ushadoze - you are married (Zulu) 

Ambaeta - both (Basque), I have a boy (Romanian) 

Ban Ze - ban them (Dutch), they refused (Kinyarwanda) 

Gandoze - going great (Japanese), cancer (Japanese) 

Tand Yud - shelve war (Hindi), swing (Cebuano) 

Tand Yo - the teeth (Haitian Creole) 

Kimpenzi - chimpanzee (Kongo) 

Fufú - rat (Kongo) 

Ngoma - drum (Kongo) 

Tandyang - leave (Javanese) 

Ngulúmfinda - bush pig (Kongo) 

Mono - monkey (Spanish)

Tand Zut - I’m squealing (Romanian) 

Múnu - me (Kongo) 

Ta Pal - the old (Greek), kill (Estonian) 

Tantor - so much (Latin) 

Sopu - agreement (Finnish) 

Acha - colour (Igbo)

Tana - shelf (Japanese)

Nzawu - elephant (Kongo) 

Galul - Gaul (Romanian) 

Remboze - a dream (Shona), brake angry (Dutch) 

Akuteta - cleaning (Chichewa), acute and (Basque) 

Hohotan - cheek tongue (Japanese) 

Utor - slot (Croatian) 

Likka - like (Uzbek) 

Dahane - fat (Arabic)

Hoden - balls (German): heheheh, this is the most adult word on this list! 

Dan Sopu - and soup (Malaysian Standard Malay and Indonesian) 

Bundolo - bumpy (Tagalog) 

Ryze - rice (Czech) 

Yina - who (Kongo) 

Prae - before (Latin) 

Ande Nga - let’s go (Cebuano), he’s gone (Shona), or voice (Kurmanji), of the roof (Chichewa) 

Areze - raised (Kinyarwanda) 

Haneah - work (Hawaiian) 

Bu Kah - mum? (Malaysian Standard Malay) 

Akutetaze - he’s cleaning up, protect you (Chichewa), acute and what (Basque) 

Howala - around (Arabic) 

Unkrand - unrimmed (German) 

Ugla - corner (Croatian) 

Adoze - I agree (Basque) 

Yudze - tell me (Shona) 

Yinzo - house (Kongo) 

Araeta - good luck (Māori) 

Araetaze - I got it (Japanese) 

Bundeta - bound (Swedish) 

Daeta - date, and it is (Basque)

Bundetaze - I got a sentence (Japanese)

Andetaze - Ann is out, I was knitting, I got it (Japanese), and that’s it (Bengali)

Rala - draw (Sesotho) 

Likka Mok - like a site (Arabic), I don’t like it (Uzbek) 

Wolo - gold (Kongo) 

Terkoz - stubbornly (Basque) 

Busso - knock (Italian) 

Daneze - Danish (Romanian) 

Kizabu - science (Kongo), knurled part (Japanese) 

Mazabu - constituencies (Hausa) 

Mazayu - info (Kongo)

Super Pulp Theatre

Super Pulp theatre is my proposed project.

There are at least thirteen stories in the anthology. 

Filmic Tales in South Asian Settings 

Junglee Manchhe will be compiled from some elements of Zimbo, Zimbo Shaher Mein (aka Zimbo Comes to Town) and Zimbo Ka Beta (aka Zimbo Finds A Son). Also inspiring it are the super low budget 1999 Zimbo reboot, a 1985 Telugu oldie (which was filmed in Andhra Pradesh but likely set in Gujarat for some ironic reason) called Adavi Donga ‘85 (yup, it’s the original one featuring Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi), its super violent Nepali counterpart known as Jangali Manchhe, and a much darker (and often NSFW) deconstruction/reboot/spinoff of both films simply named Adavi Donga, a biopic about a radical antihero. 

The first part has a married Vasave Bhil man and his wife realising the unintended downfall of their village in what would become Rajasthan. The second part has their little son grow up with a mentor and various other jungle animals. The third part has Navneet become a guile hero while nobly defending Dilawar and Mala against the most screwed up humans that Bhanswara’s local society has to offer. At the end of the third part, he and his own short tempered girlfriend get married in a traditional arrangement. The fourth part has them and their sons try their best to live in the ways of the forest, even at the cost of fellow humans who cut too much of it.  

The Village Brave is based on Prince of the Jungle by Rene Guillot, but set in Karbi Anglong, Assam. 

Hunterwali will be compiled from the various films featuring Hunterwali and her own fellows, even though it’s going to be set instead in the Swahili Coast during its colonial period. It’s also the only one with a mild downer ending; since not only will Hunterwali see the inevitability of her unlucky hometown losing itself to their local powers that be, she will also evacuate from it during its demolition. She married her childhood friend named Mavuno at the end.

A sequel to Hunterwali, based on Homi Wadia’s Jungle Princess, will be known as The Next Hunterwali. It has Hunterwali and Mavuno’s daughter Maisha living in the coastal forest with a shaman and fellow animals. As she grows up, she then meets her boyfriend Sadiki and his exploring family, only for her and them to be kidnapped by Hamid’s just as screwed up mother Adhab, who abuses her own stepson Hallam, has fired her lackey, Mavuno’s brother Shida, and is also killing fellow Husseins. 

Is a companion of Pierrot’s Super Pulp Theatre going to air online? If it does, it can be named after the retired GoodTimes Kids Classics line. 

The Volcano Dwellers will be compiled from Kyuuta Ishikawa’s Zamba. It tells the story of a young plane crash survivor who, following his grandparents’ murder by trophy poachers, was raised by his uncle and aunt in the jungles bordering Rwanda, Uganda and Congo Kinshasa as a result. Though he was mentored by a senior herdsman and was infatuated with a troublesome Chicago born girl named Selene, they all amicably separate, only for him to leave the jungle along with his shellshocked uncle and aunt for a suburb in the US Pacific Northwest. 

A Short Essay of Buruuba

Credited to someone else. 

The first full-scale beast movie in Japan, shot by Daiei primarily in California, the United States with the cooperation of Samuel Goldwyn Studios, an MGM spin-off. Yoshihiro Hamaguchi, a former Olympic swimmer known by the nickname “Water King”, codified what was then the hero of the jungle as depicted in Japanese pop culture during the cold war, playing the role of Takeji, aka Buruuba, a character inspired by both Weissmuller’s Tarzan and Baruuba, while becoming a part time actor for the first time. Yuko Yashio codified the jungle heroine for Japanese audiences, playing Reiko Watanabe, a character inspired by both Maureen O’Sullivan’s Jane Parker and Grace.  

Shigeyoshi Suzuki made a so bad it’s good movie (or just so okay it’s average until the ending that spawned two tie ins and two spinoffs would inevitably happen either way, thanks to Daiei being full of greedy impatient higher ups!) based on a now internationally obscure series of adventure novels for boys and men by Yoichiro Minami, with special effects by Yonezaburo Tsukiji of Gamera fame, and music by Akira Ifukube, who was famous due to his heavy score for Godzilla. The title “Buruuba” means “hero”, “respectable person” and “gorgeous” in a fictitious Bantu language (or a fictitious chimp language in all the old novels).

A man who rides a large beast, perhaps a matronly African forest elephant (look closely that it’s in actuality, a lovely female Asian elephant pretending to be someone else from a heavily jungle clad region in another continent!), that traverses into and through the jungle, fights a lion and later a crocodile, with a trusty Japanese short sword (also in the two better spinoffs which followed it) on the belt of his loincloth. Something happens when he screams out loud by saying just his nickname, “Buruuba!”. But he isn’t even a full on Japanese Tarzan, as the closest that Japan has ever had to matching Tarzan (in any other way!) is the titular whinnying and chest pounding gadfly from Taito’s Jungle King/Jungle Hunt Video Game. Even though he grew up with the jungle animals, he’s primarily raised by lions and chimps (mostly included in the novel). 

The Roaring Jungle and other stories 

American explorer Joseph Wilton, along with his friend Frank, entered a dense and ancient semi deciduous tropical forest in what’s now an East African frontier and continued a desperate blood fight with large lions, rabble rousing huge elephants, and voracious crocodiles, and further from North Borneo to North Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, he fights against tigers and deadly snakes. A battle between a person and the wild beasts, alive and dead in partly unexplored areas, is a great adventure story.

An Essay of The Shonen Champion

"Shonen Champion" is a favourite book series of our parents' generation. The first volume, which depicts the backstory of Shingo, the main character, was published in 1947, shortly after the war. This is what happened.

A Japanese couple left behind a hut with their beloved only child. Once a lion started to attack them and their hut, from which the tot was saved by a female Grauer’s gorilla named Mela, whose birth son (or younger brother) had just died of highly ill health.

This is undoubtedly the birthplace of Tarzan. Or maybe it was taken from an early movie that was faithful to the original story. Said film is more accurately known as the first Tarzan film ever, but I think that it is an arbitrary work of Souji Yamakawa, the cool old guy who gave us Isamu of the Wilderness, who was impressed by the original film based on the first Tarzan story by Edgar Rice Burroughs when he was in his youth.

Soji Yamakawa provided a thrilling adventure story with colour miniatures to post war silent generation Japanese boys, whose lives were changed by WW2. Was he aiming for the Japanese version of Tarzan? Not really though, more like a surreal Robinsonade with Momotaro undertones. However, what is fundamentally different is that the main character of Yamakawa's work is a teenaged boy inspired a bit more by the eponymous Momotaro than most Tarzan clones. Many of Burroughs’ heroes also began their lives as boys, but they must have grown physically older, except for a few like John Carter and most notoriously Tarzan, who was not just influenced a bit by Peter Pan, Sun Wukong or even Hanuman for that matter, but also became immortal by eating an artificial derivation, of a deadly drug traded most often by the Oparian Kavuru elite. However, the heroes drawn by Yamakawa are just boys until the end, but they can’t remain boys forever after all. 

Yamakawa's works, which are somewhat old-fashioned and also have the absurdity of the past Kamishibai type (Emonogatari) picture stories, are very different from those of Burroughs. In fact, it's only in the second volume where the demons, main bad guy Ula and good guy Amenhotep would all have to really appear that the story will also be interesting. However, that's why it is interesting that Soji Yamakawa imitated Burroughs at the starting point. And the boys at that time got drunk in the world of Yamakawa.

It's no wonder that we, the then children's generation of Japan, now the Japanese Gen X, are crazy about Burroughs to this day.

The protagonist of "Shonen Champion" is Shingo, the son of Japanese Rev. Juzo Makimura who came to the outback of Virunga National Park. He was separated from his dad and dying mum when he was nearly a toddler, had said dad mauled off the hook by a hungry old lion (and later a giant cryptid flyer) and got raised by a herd of Grauer’s gorillas. When he defeated the boisterous old lion, Shingo himself pounded his chest while yodelling and whinnying in a brave, proud mood. This is a bit more like the most surreal of the aforementioned Tarzan books, rather than like most non-Tarzan jungle books. A heroine called Suiko also appeared, and in the scene where Shingo embraced her in the rain, the Asahi Shimbun was accused somewhat rightly by both wary parents and prude kids, so it was originally intended as a story aimed at teenagers after all. 

Kenzo Masaoka's feral boys

A synopsis: The shipwreck is ashore on Sarugashima in the Nankai. The only surviving baby on the boat is raised by the monkeys living on an island, and eventually escapes from the island itself. 

Another synopsis: A human baby thrown out of a shipwreck will be raised as a monkey on the drifting monkey island. A sequel, "The Pirate Ship (A Sea Adventure)" was produced.

The full synopsis: The sea was full of rainstorm. The captain of the sailing ship threw an orphaned baby in a box, hoping to help the child at least. Luckily the baby's box flowed into an island. Only the dark brown skinned locals, the monkeys and the lone resident lion live on the island. The monkeys consider the baby to be their messiah and take good care of it. But as the baby grew older, the tail did not grow, so the monkeys bullied the child. The kid defeats the monkeys and jumps into the sea from the high cliffs, makes a canoe and escapes the island.

A synopsis: produced in 1931 (Showa 6). The sequel to "Sarugashima" produced the previous year. Similar to the previous work, it is a work affiliated with Nikkatsu Uzumasa Manga Film Club. Currently, there are no film prints of both works except for a museum residing copy of the first, but 30 paper cuts used in the second turned out to be parts of folding screen and were found to exist in decent condition. 

The full synopsis: A sequel to the first work, Sarugashima. A child drifting in the middle of the ocean, while riding on a squid, one day saw a sailing ship on the horizon. The child raised in Sarugashima did not know that it was a ship. The same small child is drifting on the sailboat, and when he approaches to help, the child scares and tries to escape. Rescue after hard work, but not familiar with the sailors. One day, a black sailing ship approaches rapidly. The ship was a pirate ship. A fast-sailing pirate ship quickly catches up, the sailors are caught alive, the cargo is robbed, and the budding princess on board is kidnapped. The child, who was quickly hiding behind the pirate ship's sail and watching this turmoil, was upset when he saw the princess being kidnapped, jumping into the sea alone and boarding the Pirate Island. At the island house, a pirate captain returned with his own kidnapped princess, so a celebration party was held. The child who reaches the entrance of the island house, is swallowed up by a gatekeeper lion. In the lion's belly, the same old child pulls out bones one by one, kills them, puts on this skin, and boards the banquet hall. Surprised pirates follow with bows and swords. First rescue the princesses, let the girls and children escape, escape with the princesses on the tower above the hall, and escape the rails laid from the tower to the seaside on a truck. The pirates who chased to the top of the tower blow off with explosives set by their children. The sailors who seized the pirate ship are waiting on the quiet sea. The Children and the princesses happily pull up on the boat.