So there's this video about Bleach voice actors who were at Kawaii-Kon, an anime convention hosted in Hawaii, where they were questioned about possible romantic preferences for the young man they provide voices for. Johnny Yong Bosch (JYB) is the voice behind Kurosaki Ichigo for the English dub, while Morita Masakazu (MM) is the Japanese seiyū for the dashing hero. No, he's not really dashing. More like cranky.

the toobs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQfkhEK04jE

Then someone dared to ask the million-dollar question: do they prefer RUKIA or ORIHIME for Ichigo?

In summation, JYB & MM both said "Orihime." So there!
( OH. HELL. NO. Voice actors aren't allowed opinions! )
( But this series isn't about ROMANCE!!! )

Bonus references to Avatar: the Last Airbender wank here.

This has been a busy, busy week for Bleach fandom! I have some caps, but tinypic keeps re-sizing the images.

Finally, a friendly reminder to my fellow wankas: don't feed the trolls.

:throws cheese to mousey for collecting links:

( Aww, ETA's for breakfast? You're too kind! )
( We have contact! )

Edit 3: Fandom Wank's name was dropped like it's hott. jaseroque got a special mention for the translation.

Edit 4:( The wank levels up! Or uh... Bankai. )

Thanks to wtf for the Write up at fandom_lounge.

Alrighty. It seems that Nick Simmons, son of Gene Simmons, is a comic book artist. And a huge fan of Bleach. So huge that he apparently copied from it wholesale. Especially Orihime and Captain Badass, er, I mean Kenpachi. But not Byakuya *is secretly a Byakuya/Kenpachi shipper, ZOMG THEIR LOVE IS SO EPIC AND TRUE!*

Ahem.

(ETA He swiped from a whole bingo card worth of fandoms. Hellsing 1/2, Deathnote, FMA, One Piece, Naruto 1/2, Deadman Wonderland, Lupin the Third, Neon Genesis Evangelion, More Hellsing with touch of Death from Sandman, various artists on Deviantart, and probably a few others I've forgotten about. The most blatant stuff is Bleach and Hellsing)

Bleach fans mobilize on Twitter, LiveJournal, Facebook and Nick's Deviantart.

VIZ and Kubo Tite respond on Twitter. A rough translation for Kubo here.

Nick's publisher responds:

We at Radical Publishing, Inc. and Radical Comics, Inc. are quite concerned to hear the news surrounding Nick Simmons’s Incarnate Comic Book. We are taking this matter seriously and making efforts now to contact the publishers of the works in question in an effort to resolve this matter. We have halted further production and distribution of the “Incarnate” comic book and trade paperback until the matter is resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. Rest assured that Radical is taking swift action regarding this matter and will continue in its efforts to maintain the integrity and protect the intellectual property of artists throughout the world whose creative works are the bedrock of our Company and the comic book industry.

See RDR Books? This is how you respond to situations like this.

Comic Book Resources and Anime News Network on the issue.

ETA:We have fanarts!

Flammable by *speedking on deviantART

ETA 2: tetradecimal has a hilarious sporking.

Son of ETA: The obligatory Encyclopedia Dramatica page. Use protection and avert your virgin eyes.

CNN GO

ONTD

ETA 4: A couple reviews on Youtube pointing out the problem SIX MONTHS AGO! Here at 2:53 and here at 3:56. "This is just another horror show of copy write infringement."

ETA 5: Yulieana is Yulieana. And proves that it is possible to bring shipping wank into everything. Thanks schoenschoen!

Return of the ETA: Nick Simmons kinda sorta apologizes. New York Times arts blog.

“Like most artists I am inspired by work I admire. There are certain similarities between some of my work and the work of others. This was simply meant as an homage to artists I respect, and I definitely want to apologize to any Manga fans or fellow Manga artists who feel I went too far. My inspirations reflect the fact that certain fundamental imagery is common to all Manga. This is the nature of the medium.

“I am a big fan of Bleach, as well as other Manga titles. And I am certainly sorry if anyone was offended or upset by what they perceive to be the similarity between my work and the work of artists that I admire and who inspire me.”

Thanks reeve!


Hey someone do me a favor? I suspect that that spine-thing Blondihime attaches to Mot and Chadichigo's spines might have been swiped from Blue Beetle. You know the scene where the Beetle welds itself to Jaime's spine and it's all glowy and blue and you can see every vertebra. But I don't have any scans of either scene so I can't check myself. Thanks tetradecimal and perletwo! I think at most it was inspired by BB, the poses are too dissimilar, but you decide.

Dearest, beloved, Fandom Wank.

I know you were looking forward to great excitement today. Some of you said words to me that indicated you anticipated fiery 'judgement' upon those who remained fresh and dewey white, those you call n00bs.

Anyway, you got today instead.

Stop anticipating things, we'll just break your hearts.

Sincerely,

Sepia P. Magpie, Esq.



PS: Use this post to reflect on how you could be better people. Or just fuck around in the comments.

[Much love and cheese to the mousie on Wank Report who posted this]

There is much crying and gnashing of teeth in the On the Dark Horse Comics forum.

An upcoming volume of the manga title Cannon God Exaxxion has apparently been altered to remove a sex scene between main characters Gun and Akane, and the scenes leading up to it altered by drawing in a bra on the originally naked Akane.

The fans... They are not pleased.

NotSamurai: I asked about this in the Dark Horse forum (actually thought I posted here and was ready to complain about the message being deleted before I found it), but haven't seen a reply yet.

In any case, this volume has been censored by Dark Horse. The chapter invovling their first time has missing pages, missing panels, and a badly drawn bra added.

Sicne I won't support censorship, I won't be buying any more of this series (I stopped with volume 3 until volume 5's fate was known).


Buyer beware...

ONEZ! THEY TOOKEN TEH S3XX0RZ!

Chris Warner, editor at Dark Horse, is the first to respond:

...In the case of Exaxxion, work with very strong adult content was created in Japan long after the series began running in the States, content much stronger than what had been established when the license was secured. Publishing this more adult content unaltered would have pulled the book into an adults-only category, which would have cut it off from a large number of its regular readers. This situation was presented to the creator, who authorized editing the work to allow it to continue to reach its established audience.

...Again, we never censor anything. We present the marketplace realties to the creator and then let the creator determine how we, as his or her publisher, should proceed.

Sounds kosher, right? They made a decision, got the okay from the original creator, and took action that would keep the title available to the highest # of readers? At worst, this should be a case of "I accept it, but I don't have to like it" right?

Wait, that's speaking from the perspective of too much Earth Logic and not enough fanboy entitlement. (A perspective which is obviously wrong.)

While many pile on with the "Screw the masses! I want my untouched sex!" whining (must... resist... virgin... crack...), other forums chime in on the DH entry, starting with Anime on DVD. Pay particular to Mortimer (starting towards the bottom of page 2) as he displays his ability to multitask being dense, condescending, and insulting.

But wait! There's more!

Manga Blog (Holy Crap! Reason!), Love Manga, and Anime News Network (can't discuss manga without scanlation wank, can we?) have all chimed in on the subject.

Seems to have died down on AODVD, Manga4Kids, and Love Manga, but the other two appear to be going strong.

I, for one, would love to find scanlations comparing censored and uncensored versions.

ETA: It seems that part of what's fueling this wank comes from the fact that Dark Horse has been down this road before, with a manga called "Shadow Star."