Another anime horizon broadened

So I have these two games for the Nintendo DS: Jump! Super Stars and Jump! Ultimate Stars. The game being entirely Japanese, I went straight to Gamefaqs.com to look up some guides for them.

I was quite surprised to see how many different manga were represented in the game. At this point, I knew Shonen Jump was responsible for the likes of Dragon Ball Z and Naruto, but I discovered that some other properties like Ruroni Kenshin and Yu Gi Oh were part of it as well. Not only that, but there were *tons* of different things I had never even heard about.

I was never much into comics or manga, but these games piqued my interest. After all, with so many characters in a fighting game that I knew nothing about, it would do good to do some research on them. So I browsed the ‘net, managed to find a few scanslations of some manga and was pretty impressed. Not impressed enough to keep reading, but I knew the most basic elements each manga and its characters.

What this also did was expose me to some new anime that had just started in Japan. The anime Black Cat–which was also a Shonen Jump manga and is coming out on US DVD soon–was just starting at that time, so I followed that through to the end and it was very enjoyable. Right now, I’m downloading Busou Renkin, Gintama and Death Note (highly reccomended), all which are quite entertaining in their own right.

I also learned of the ‘purpose’ of Shonen Jump, and I have a greater tolerance of their sometimes simple themes. Most, if not all of the manga properties are based on the values of Friendship, Effort, and Victory. Basically if you try hard, keep good friends, you will win. This is fairly obvious in DBZ and most other properties, as the heroes always get into the predictable flow that I’m sure you’re familiar with. It all serves to reinforce these values, and after all the “Shonen” in Shonen Jump means “young boy”. It’s like inspirational stuff to install these values into the young boys.

So, these two games have expanded my anime knowledge and viewing range. and if I see any more new anime that I recognise from these games I’ll be sure to give them a shot. If you have a DS and are looking to import a title, Jump! Ultimate Stars (the newer one) is one of the best you can go for.