Lone Wolf and Cub

One of the great japanese classic manga and it think it is one of the best too in depicting Edo era. Lone Wolf and Cub tells the story of a ronin Ogami Itto and his son Daigoro who went on a quest of revenge against great samurai clan of Yagyu who have dishonor and killed Itto's clan due to power hunger as Itto once held the esteemed position of Shogun's executioner. Ogami Itto is Chuck Norris in Edo era as throughout his adventure in 27 volumes anyone who face against him are dead which some of them are good people. What makes this manga special apart from the vibrant depiction of the Edo era is how Bushido is depicted in the series which is easier for reader to understand along with great doses of tragedy. This is one of the must read classic manga if you appreciate them and Sabu to Ichi torimonohikae is one of the closest title that is similar to this one.

Wonderfest 2014

I think it has been couple of years already i do limited coverage for Wonderfest which is one of the major event where the companies in hobby industry showing some future release for their products. I always pay attention to Kotobukiya and maybe Megahouse or Bandai and as always lots of stuff to be shown but not the one i look forward to. Shingeki no Kyojin and Nintendo as well as Kancolle products are shown a lot  in the wonderfest.

 
From Kotobukiya section there are couple of new SRW kits from OGs2 but no Masoukishin. It appears Kotobukiya will be going to release AS Belial kit as Laevatein follow up soon which indicate there is a chance that FMP series will be reignited in some way  considering Z3 is coming up which Bandai also even prepare a Metal Build for Laevatein. Muvluv got some new 1/144 kit but for non scale, Takemikazuchi got 1.5 version which probably address the issues of the former version. The upcoming Frame Arms is also being displayed which are 2 knight esque model which indicate that Frame Arms are likely to take different directions than it used to be.

I was expecting Sentinel going to show their new RIOBOT lineup but i guess they plenty already last year. Megahouse is going to release something for Orguss which is likely to be action figure and as for Max Factory, i am quite surprised that they catch up with Dougram lineup quite fast as numerous grunt units models are shown. The notable one is Soltic and Iron Foot which is the MP version of Dougram. Guyver figma is confirmed for this year at long last and Archer from FSN is getting figma though i am not too interested due to the figure size. That's all my coverage for this year's wonderfest and hopefully i will still do the next year.

Kingdom/王者天下

One of the hottest manga at the moment which i have followed since the first translation came out. While a little bit over the top, this manga shows that history and shonen genre could make an epic tag team duo. Kingdom or Wangzhen Tianxia tells about the 7 warring states era in China in the perspective of a youth named Li Xin about his journey to become Great General under Heaven and unite whole China with Qin banner. Kingdom is not the first manga that tells a story about Warring states era, but possible the most epic one yet. The manga still very far off to finish since it still few decades before Qin dynasty arise which means more potential for more epic moments as long as the mangaka keep focused though the current arc is already so epic. Chinese histories runs really deep and make a very good story, with Kingdom hopefully we will see more manga cover the history of China other than 3 warring kingdoms which Genghis khan's tale would be a great start. I would recommend to stick with the manga because the anime got terrible 3D battle animation. If you like Kingdom you may check Bokko which covered the same period though different genre and i had given my opinion before which you can check here