This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
I welcome you to Writer Tears, a show, a series, where I talk unabashedly about my love for common writer.
I'm going to be covering the Combinator manga in, looks like, six parts because there's six parts to the manga.
I'm going to cover one part at a time. The very first part, according to the 50th anniversary edition that I got from 7C's manga,
is called the Uncanny Man Spider. This is written by and illustrated by Shotaro Ishinomori, the classic manga kaw,
classic manga creator. The translation was done by Kumar Sivasubramanian.
I think I did okay there. Anyway, so he, I'm assuming, did the translation, although it might be a lady, you never know.
I wanted to see what other credits there are here in this big book, which is 855 pages, although at the end it gets into non-canonical wackiness.
Let me see, hold on, look out, is there any information more about this?
Well, yeah, I'll read real quick all the credits for the whole thing. Kumar, like I said, did the translation.
Lettering was done by Phil Christie. Cover design is Nikki Lim. Logo design is George Ponella, or Ponea, I'm not sure how Hispanic George is.
Proofreader was Brett Hallahan. Copywriter, Don Davis. Editor, JP Sullivan. Let's see, print manager, Rianon Rasmussen Silverstein.
Production associate, Sandy Grayson. Production manager, Lisa Patio. Managing editor, Julie Davis. Associate publisher, Adam Arnold.
And publisher, Jason D'Angeles. So, let me see.
I wish there were a little more information in this one, like the GoRanger manga, which had like a nice preface and some extra material in the front,
but it just pretty much opens up to the book. I guess if you like Ishinomori and you like Kamen Rider, then you know what you're in for.
So, I want to talk about this in a casual way. So, I'm just going to start. I like the fact that they used color in this.
I don't know if the color was original. The style of the coloring makes it feel like it was original,
although I don't know exactly where this was published and how they would have colored that, or if that was just the first tankaban or whatever.
But the coloring is really cool and old school. And I like it. It reminds me a little bit of Ishinomori's Legend of Zelda.
What is that? Link to the Past? I think that's the one. Or I don't know which one it is. Whatever. His Legend of Zelda.
It's the only one that was published in Nintendo Power. But the coloring is really fun.
I do love the black and white aspect of manga, but the colors are pretty impressive, and I would almost want to see this fully colored.
I'd definitely be okay with that. For the most part, the art is really good. I mean, it is Ishinomori, but that doesn't mean it's perfect.
There were a couple times in the story where things just happened panel to panel, and none of it made sense.
And I just shrugged and moved on because I didn't want to waste my life being upset or worrying about it or whatever.
But something that struck me more than that is this vision of the world that Shocker has. Basically where there's no freedom.
And they want the elites to be cyborgs who will enslave and treat other humans as cattle.
And Hongo objects to that. He says all people are equal. We need brotherly love. And not to turn people into cattle.
Like you want to, and that's awful and terrible. And that's awesome. But what's cooler than that is Midori Kawa.
Later on in the manga, he says, or in this first part, he says something about the fact that, I think it's Midori Kawa says it,
that human life is so important that he would rather die than live in a world where people have no free will. Yes.
Page 38 in this edition, or 36, it says, a world of people with no will of their own is a world of the dead. I would rather die than have to see such a world.
So go on, kill me. He says that to Man-Spider. And that's really cool. I love the philosophy being put there.
I love the, I don't know, the courage to face the darkness that Shocker wants to put over the world and to resist.
And, you know, yeah, it's terrible that Midori Kawa is the one who chose Hongo to be the next candidate to be, you know, this particular cyborg model, you know, grasshopper cyborg.
I know, but somehow it worked out. I don't know. I wonder what exactly Midori Kawa was doing because apparently he designed the cyclone and I think he designed the rider suit as well,
which like the way, man, as much as I like Ishtamori and as much as I like Kamen Rider, it has always bugged me that the way he did it, that the Shocker cyborgs are like, they're monsters.
They're not cyborgs like Kamen Rider. They're weird. They're weird. They're weird, monstrous, you know, six armed spider dude, you know, snake guy with crazy physiology, who we will see later.
So again, a fundamental weakness is the difference in the design. I guess the design sense, because either I think everybody should look more like Kamen Rider and have more of a
themed costume that's, you know, militaristic. He looks, you know, like a motorcycle rider soldier type costume, almost more like how the grunts are themed after each guy.
I think that's what each Kaizen should look like really, or Kaizenigen because they're cyborgs, right? That would make a lot more sense with how organic they are.
It kind of doesn't make sense. But then again, we do have the instance where he cuts himself and he heals very quickly after he breaks that glass.
And that's, you know, his organic flesh is being healed somehow by the mechanics. And that kind of doesn't make sense.
You would think that wouldn't happen with this tissue, but it is. So I guess the same types of cybernetics can also make a guy have six arms.
Or is it just four arms? Maybe it's just four. Anyway, it's crazy either way. But then yeah, here we go. At the 40 to 41.
Guys are shooting at somebody. I think Hongo's corpse maybe dashed against the rocks. So he says, I'm commoner. He says, cool thing. Looks great.
And then they're shooting at him. And I guess he jumps away. And then you just 41, he's gone. And that's it. And it doesn't make any sense.
It does show the docks, but I don't know how close they were to the docks at this point. They're by the ocean. So docks are nearby. But it doesn't really make sense.
There's no real context given to that. I mean, that being said, though, on page 37, when Midori Kawa is being choked out by the spider guy, or me and spider, sorry.
This is cool shot where the rider is in the he's being reflected in the compound eyes of the spider guy.
And then he like gives him an uppercut or kicks him or whatever. And then carries Midori Kawa off. And that, you know, that looks super cool.
So, I mean, it's kind of an odd thing where certain choices are made, certain things are done that just look awesome and are really neat and really interesting.
But then they kind of don't make sense. And they kind of take me out of it a little bit, which is not what you want.
Like the robotic spider spy thing that man spider has, it only has six legs. Why not eight legs?
Maybe eight would be unnecessary, but you would think a six legged spider would be kind of conspicuous.
I don't know. Kind of odd. These character designs are really good, though. They're very expressive. They're very cool.
I like Tobi Tajibana and his bow tie and bald butler man look. That's a lot of fun.
Yeah, again, man spider looks like he has the four legs.
The four arms and the two legs for a total of six. So maybe that's why I'm not sure.
But let me see what else. So I mean, this first story is really compelling. They're on the run. Things are desperate. Things are crazy.
And then Toshiki Inoue is not the first man in the history of Kamen Rider to use misunderstanding and poor information and lack of communication to start or to seed and then nurture conflict throughout the Kamen Rider series.
Although his dad did work on the original Kamen Rider. I don't remember his name at the moment, so he may have been the one who did that.
But then again, the way this was done, Ishinomori was doing the manga, I think, kind of parallel to the production of the show.
I think. So he has this misunderstanding thing happen too for Midori Kawa, Ruriko, to hate and fear Takeshi Hango.
And it sets up this ironic thing where he feels like a monster already and he feels alienated from the rest of humanity because he's a cyborg now. He's no longer totally human.
And then he's being accused of murder, murdering a friend and someone who he valued and who he was looking forward to fighting against shocker with.
And then his daughter, who they were trying to help out and save and protect and whatever, blames him for her father's death and hates him.
And then by the end of it, she saves him from Man-Spider and when she wakes up, she asks who that man is, that man being Kamen Rider, and Tobi says, I don't know.
So he has to lie to her or he chooses to lie to her in that situation and say that he doesn't know who Kamen Rider is, but you know, just great that he saved her.
Some other stuff that's cool. The O-ring and the antennae on the mask. If you're not super into Kamen Rider, you might not know what that is.
The O-ring is there's a light, a red circle thing in the middle of his forehead between his two eyes.
It beeps and bips and boops and it has something to do with tracking things. It's explained later on in another manga.
Ishinori is this cool thing where he dissects and points out a bunch of stuff on the writer.
Like his mouth is called the crusher and this thing is called the O-ring and that's called out there and it talks about whatever details.
But like the antennae move and stuff. So it's like a really weird thing. And like, I think Midori Kawa specifically made the helmet.
See, I don't know what parts of the shocker Kaijin cyborg stuff he was making.
So it's a little hard to place things and tell what exactly they are for him. But you know, whatever.
It's vague. Keep it vague and you can do whatever you want. Right. It's a good rule of creation for stuff like this.
And then there's this fun stuff. Like as writers rushing off to save Ruriko, he yells out,
Oh wind, cry and howl, raise a maelstrom within me, become a storm, mother nature, your energy is my strength.
And that's that's fun. And then he has this awesome confrontation with Manspyter where he does the writer jump.
He does the writer kick and he does a writer chop and chops off all four of Manspyter's arms.
And then Manspyter falls to his death. And then, like I said, he's able to save Ruriko.
So like the action, this is super cool. Again, except in some places where it's there's like seemingly missing panels or just like jumps in logic where just something happens and we don't really know what it is.
But yeah, I mean, action is fun and the drama of it is really fabulous because you really feel for Hongo and he's like desperate to save Ruriko because he couldn't save her father.
That might be why. And other than the fact that she's an innocent person who doesn't deserve to be kidnapped and murdered by shocker and stuff.
So that's pretty cool. But yeah, I mean, this this first section of this part one is really awesome.
And I think part two is a lot longer. And yeah, it's over. It's like 150, 130 pages or so.
So that's going to be really cool. And I'm looking forward to that one.
I want to call the flying man bat and we will get to that at a later date.
Leave any questions, comments or concerns you have at mgwinners.com in the show notes.
Look in the show notes for you to be able to subscribe and see all the other stuff I do. And, you know, for the video version of this, go ahead and like, share, subscribe, all that good stuff to help spread the word about this and get me more.
Well, you know, share this around because the more people are responding to this, the more stuff I'm going to do and the better it's going to be for all of us.
That's the hope and the plan. So anyway, take care, folks. I hope that you are well, that you be well. And until next time, this is MJ signing out.
I hope you enjoyed that. Go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions, comments or other feedback you might have.
There you can find all of my analysis, art and fiction. I cover books, tokusatsu, comic books, anime and more.
Look around. You're sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well.
This has been a story over everything production.