Otoko Zaka (The Shonen Jump+ Run): 未完 No More

Previously on the Otoko Zaka Review:

"Masami Kurumada has so far taken his second chance at making Otoko Zaka, and given it the love & care he always planned for...After roughly 24 years, Masami Kurumada has finally returned home..."

'He's coming home, he's coming home; tell the world he's coming home.

Let the rain wash away all the pain of cancelling.

He knows Shonen Jump awaits, & he's forgiven their mistakes.

He's coming home, he's coming home; tell the world he's coming...home.'

On "November 16, 1992" (or thereabouts) the final weekly chapter of Silent Knight Sho was serialized in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump, & with it marked the end of Masami Kurumada's 18-year run with the magazine. Aside from an irregular run in Super Jump for Akane-Iro no Kaze through 1993 & 1994, Kurumada wouldn't publish another new manga with Shueisha until 2000 with Ring ni Kakero 2, also through Super Jump. While he still allowed Shueisha to re-publish his old works throughout all this it seemed as though Kurumada was done with Shonen Jump & its "Jump Comics" label... until 2014. As part of his 40th Anniversary celebration Masami Kurumada decide to revive Otoko Zaka, the 1984 manga he intended to be his magnum opus but wound up seeing cancellation in 1985 after 30 weekly chapters, infamously using the kanji "未完/mikan", or "Incomplete", on the final page to emphasize his dissatisfaction at the time. While this revival would be serialized in the digital pages of Weekly PlayNews, the new physical tankouban for Otoko Zaka would still be published under the "Jump Comics" label, to maintain continuity with the initial three volumes that collected the original Shonen Jump run; similar treatment had previously been given to Bastard!!, Ninku, & JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

However, the revival of Otoko Zaka would only be serialized through Weekly PlayNews from 2014 to 2016 across three chunks, which made up Volumes 4 to 6. That's because shortly after Otoko Zaka's return Shueisha debuted a new digital manga platform, and eventually it was seemingly decided that since Otoko Zaka debuted in "Shonen Jump" then it should end in "Shonen Jump".

Yeah, it's weird to make the literal final page the opening image...
But for a manga with history like this, it's only fitting.

Launched on September 22, 2014, Shonen Jump+ was created to replace Jump LIVE, a short-lived digital manga platform from Shueisha, and not only offered a digital version of each new issue of Weekly Shonen Jump for a fee but would also be the home of various manga serializations that were exclusive to Jump+, ones that would be allowed more relaxed restrictions than over at the magazine itself, similar to titles that run in Jump's monthly magazine counterpart, Jump Square. This is where titles like Spy x Family, Astra Lost in Space, Summer Time Rendering, Kaiju No. 8, Kindergarten Wars, Fire Punch, & the current run of Chainsaw Man all come from, and in 2023 Shueisha promised to simulpublish almost every new manga that debuts in Shonen Jump+ in English via its Manga Plus app; the only exceptions are manga based on licensed IP & ones labeled "Indies". Eventually it was decided that the revival of Otoko Zaka would get moved over to Shonen Jump+, and on July 14, 2017 the first chapter of what would later become Volume 7 of Otoko Zaka was published digitally on Jump+, marking the first time in roughly 25 years that a "new" Masami Kurumada manga was being serialized in "Shonen Jump"; however, all future volumes would continue to use the "Jump Comics" brand, instead of the "Jump Comics+" brand Jump+-exclusives use. After all this time, it felt as though Masami Kurumada had truly returned "home".

Masami Kurumada would publish Otoko Zaka via Shonen Jump+ across six chunks (in 2017, 2018, twice in 2020, & twice in 2023), and on November 11, 2023 the true final chapter of Otoko Zaka, fittingly titled Farewell, Jingi, was published on Jump+, bringing a definitive end to a manga Kurumada had first started back in July of 1984. It took Kurumada nearly 40 years, but the story of Jingi Kikukawa had finally come to an end, totaling 72 chapters (90, if you go off the original run's weekly chapter count) across 11 volumes, 60 of which came from the revival's eight new volumes of content between 2014 & 2023. I first reviewed Otoko Zaka back in 2015, where I covered "The Original Run", & then returned to it in 2018, where I covered "The Weekly PlayNews Run", so now it's finally time that I do like Kurumada & finish what I started. As part of this blog's year-long celebration of Masami Kurumada's 50th Anniversary in manga, let's go over Volumes 7 to 11 of Otoko Zaka, i.e. "The Shonen Jump+ Run".

Obscusion B-Side: Not-Quite-Limitless Potential: Playing Half-Life 1 & 2 on Comparative "Potato" Consoles

Normally, something like Half-Life would be the furthest thing from a subject I'd cover over here. After all, this series from Valve is one of the most influential video games of all time, both for the first-person shooter genre itself as well as gaming as a whole due to its revolutionary storytelling techniques via the exclusive usage of scripted sequences instead of cutscenes, its excellent gameplay that mixes together traditional FPS gameplay with a heavier focus on environmental puzzle solving & the like, and its habit of being on the cutting edge of technology via its game engines, whether it was GoldSrc for Half-Life in 1998, Source (& Havok, for the physics) for Half-Life 2 in 2004, or Source 2 (& VR, in general) for Half-Life: Alyx in 2020. Without a doubt, Half-Life is one of the most important video game franchises of all time, and the games themselves are some of the best I've ever played. These games have been picked apart to no end by countless other people online, so what can I possibly provide in that regard?

Well, as Stephen Colbert will sometimes joke on The Late Show, the answer... "is potato".

In tech speak, a "potato" is a piece of hardware that has much-too-low specs compared to what someone is trying to utilize it for. In terms of gaming that would equate to trying to play a game on a computer using hardware that likely isn't even quite up to snuff with the minimum requirements, but you're still curious about just what'll happen if you boot the game up regardless; I mean, there's a mod for Doom 3 that lets it run on Windows 98 & a Voodoo2 card... and it's amazing. This is because PC hardware is an ever-evolving thing, while their console brethren are (for the most part) fixed architecture, and it wasn't until the seventh generation in the mid-00s (at the very earliest) that the gap between the two truly lessened, as console manufacturers started to simply rely primarily on PC-based hardware to power their machines. Therefore, when a PC game from the 90s got ported to console at the time it was often a case of having it play on a comparative "potato" when put against the PC tech it was designed to work with. In that regard, Valve has been rather conservative when it comes to releasing its games on console, & that's doubly so when it comes to Half-Life, as the first game only saw one official console port released (for the PlayStation 2), while Half-Life 2 only saw "two" (for the Xbox, & later Xbox 360/PS3 via The Orange Box). Therefore, on this 20th Anniversary year of Half-Life 2's original release on PC, I want to see how well these amazing games still hold up when played in their most potato-y of forms.

For Half-Life 2 that means revisiting it on the original Xbox, which is actually how I first played the game back in the day, but before that we should revisit the original Half-Life & for that it means playing something that wasn't actually released... at least officially.

Obscusion B-Side: Prowling the Official Atari Jaguar Catalog: 1996 (Part 1)

Previously on Prowling the Official Atari Jaguar Catalog:

"While 1995 was easily the Jaguar's most prolific year in terms of releases, and in all honesty most of it was either excellent, good, or even just decent, the final four games released for Atari's flagging console in this year wound up being a pretty lackluster send off... but there's still another 12 games left to cover, and while 1996 won't exactly be anywhere near as prolific as 1995 was, it's going to be a bumpy ride, nonetheless."

The original Atari, Inc. was founded on June 27, 1972 by Nolan Bushnell & Ted Dabney. On May 17, 1984, ex-Commodore co-founder Jack Tramiel founded Tramiel Technology solely for the purpose of buying the home console & computer division of Atari, Inc. from current owner Warner Communications, renaming the company Atari Corporation on July 1. Over the course of the next 12 years Atari Corp. tried its best to stay relevant in the gaming industry, whether it was the various Atari 8-bit computers during most of the 80s, the Atari 7800 to combat the NES & Sega Master System (plus reviving the iconic 2600 as a budget-priced alternative), the Atari Lynx to combat Nintendo's Game Boy, and finally the Atari Jaguar to combat the Super Nintendo & Sega Genesis. It is now the start of 1996, and Atari Corp. is finally making its first public showing that it's leaving hardware behind entirely. Namely, during Winter CES, Atari Corp. announced the formation of Atari Interactive, a division which would focus on PC software, with ports of Tempest 2000, Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods, Baldies (an RTS game by Creative Edge Software that actually first launched on the Jaguar CD on January 3, the day after this announcement) and FlipOut! planned as the first releases from the division, while further releases were planned to include Missile Command 3D, Return to Crystal Castles, Interactive Rocky Horror Show, and Virtual War, the last three of which were games that had not been previously released before. Unfortunately, due to a certain event that we'll get to in a bit, Atari Interactive never actually released anything, though the name of the division itself would see actual use a couple of years later.

But none of this is about the Atari Jaguar, which still has some games scheduled for release, despite Atari Corp. being essentially done with the console by this point! Luckily, a week after Winter CES happened two new Jag games would see release... and, believe it or not, they're both ports of good games!

There are only two pairs of games released for the Jaguar left that saw release on the same day, and both happened in 1996. The first pair came out on January 10, so let's start with the obvious bigger name of the two: NBA Jam: Tournament Edition. Released in April of 1993, NBA Jam was an arcade cabinet developed & distributed by Midway that acted as a spiritual successor to 1989's Arch Rivals. Both were 2-on-2 full-court basketball games that emphasized rough play & wild action, but Jam differed by being a properly licensed NBA product, so it featured all of the teams seen in the 1992-1993 NBA season, though some major names were not included due to licensing rights, namely Michael Jordan & Gary Peyton (though Midway produced special cabs for those two that featured them as their own team), and after the initial arcade release Shaquille O'Neal, Dražen Petrović & Reggie Lewis were also removed, the former due to Shaq following Jordan's lead with licensing, while the latter two sadly passed away after the initial arcade cabs went out. NBA Jam would go on to be a massive success, becoming the most popular arcade machine that year & even outperforming Jurassic Park's box office. The game also singlehandedly turned voice actor Tim Kitzrow into a legend through his iconic announcing heard throughout. In February 1995 Midway released NBA Jam: T.E., which added in updated rosters & new ballers (including five "rookies" from the 1994 NBA draft, including future legends Jason Kidd & Grant Hill), some minor new mechanics (substitutions & more baller attributes), & the titular "Tournament Mode", among other things; I can't even go into any detail regarding the hidden characters, because it's just insane. Jam saw release on pretty much any console hardware it could at the time (with few exceptions, like the 3DO & Neo Geo), with the Jaguar port by High Voltage Software (the studio's final Jaguar game to see release) being one of the very last, alongside the PC port. How does it hold up, and does it at least start off the Jag's 1996 on a good note?