It’s time for a new FEATURE over at the Friendship! Effort! Victory! website with the debut of FEV, Written Down, which is a semi-regular series of articles where I deal with the history and inner workings of Weekly Shonen Jump in ways I can’t normally manage in the podcast.

In this instance I’ve been so inspired by the return of baseball to the anthology in this coming monday’s debut of Smoky B.B. that I’ve decided to do a short series of posts about the history of Japan’s favourite sport (sorry Sumo, you just have to settle for being the *actual* national sport instead), looking at the most important titles to be about the good ol’ bat and ball and bases.

This first article focuses on the first decade and a bit of Weekly Shonen Jump, giving little explanations of Father’s Soul, Astro Kyudan, Play Ball, 1.2 no Ahho, and Susume!! Pirates, all great successes in their own rights that solidified the importance of the sport in the anthology. It’s a bit loose (turns out its hard to research decades old material that isn’t in your mother language), but there’s plenty of interesting stuff to learn about, so give it a look!

It’s the tankobon covers for WaqWaq, the subject of the latest episode of Friendship! Effort! Victory!

I’m a big fan of these, and the job Viz did with their version was suitably true to the original covers, changing as little as possible. Ryu Fujisaki does great colour work, and… I mean… Just look at them. First one aside these are all stone-cold killers, and I only exclude that because it doesn’t do anything as groovy with the backgrounds as the others.

And look at those spines. Ooh, look at ‘em!

Finally, a Weekly Shonen Jump cover gallery, featuring a variety of appearances for Ryu Fujisaki’s Hoshin Engi, the subject of yesterday’s Friendship! Effort! Victory!

My favourite? The one with Taikobo and Otenkun side by side.

But yeah, that’s it for Hoshin Engi stuff (I think?). Expect WaqWaq material once that episode is up.

Hoshin Engi Kanzenban Covers pt.2

Continued from the last post, here’s the other half of these gorgeous beauties, taken from the kanzenban volumes of Hoshin Engi, subject of yesterday’s Friendship! Effort! Victory!

Hoshin Engi Kanzenban Covers pt. 1

Kanzenban editions of manga are fancy, oversized volumes that recollect a series in high quality with colour pages intact and fancy new covers. This is for Hoshin Engi, the subject of yesterday’s Friendship! Effort! Victory!, and two thoughts come to mind.

1. They’re interconnected!
2. They’re absolutely flippin’ gorgeous