Womens Wrestling In Manga

 In a blatant attempt to garner some more traffic I have decided to revisit a subject that you lot always seem to enjoy: Womens wrestling. (Which gets more pageviews than every other subject put together.)

 More specifically, I'm going to put up some manga pics depicting women trying to inflict mayhem upon each other. I don't know any of the titles so if you happen to know, please share the wisdom.

 Blonde beauty takes in the cheers of the crowd. One guy in particular is VERY happy to see her. 

 

Womens Wrestling Comics - More Lucha Doll Mai

 Posts about women's wrestling are consistently my biggest source of  pageviews so I thought I'd do something I've been meaning to do for a while: Put up some more scans from Yumiki Asuka's wrestling manga "Lucha Doll Mai" (Part one : HERE )

 The girls in exuberant mood. 

10 Things I Learned From Anime

1. It makes perfect sense to entrust a sophisticated military project to emotionally damaged, hormonal teenagers.  For extra effectiveness, try to ensure they’ve never practised with the weapons system.
 Or even seen it before.
2. Fighting spirit will overcome superior numbers, combat experience, more advanced technology and the inconsequential matter of the other guy being a foot taller and built like Hulk Hogan.  Keep getting back up. Every time he punches you in the face it wears him out just a little more.
3. Pint-sized, teenage girl v army of heavily armed commandos?… bet on the girl every time. Every single schoolgirl in Japan could kick Buffy’s ass and steal her dinner money.
4. No matter how puny you are or how much life keeps kicking you in the face, there is a beautiful girl out there who will love you for who you are.
5. Once one girl decides you are worth bothering with, you will suddenly find yourself surrounded by  hotties. Sadly quite a few of them will be utterly nuts.  And by “Quite a few” I mean “Nearly all of them”
6. A girl putting you in hospital every other day means she really likes you.  Or it could mean she genuinely hates your guts. She doesn’t know herself so you stand no bloody chance. Either way, get used to bruises because you‘re never allowed to tell her “Fuck off, you loonie.”
7.  There is always another Martial Arts technique you need to learn.  And you will need it because every time you defeat a bad guy, another one steps forward to start making your life miserable.
8.  It is generally considered polite to let the other person finish their Transformation Sequence before wading into them.  If it’s a magical girl show, you might as well pull out a book. This will take a while.
9. Japanese schools are bloody lethal.  If the local delinquents aren’t battering each other with baseball bats, then  it’s only because the Karate club put them in hospital -  when they weren’t busy fighting the Judo club, the Boxing club, the Chess club and that clique of super powered prefects that even the yakuza are scared of.  Oh and half the schools in Tokyo seem to be built over some sort of Hellmouth.
 That might explain the overabundance of super powered teenage girls. Natural selection. All the rest got eaten.
And finally...
10.  Teachers are enormous pervs. Female teachers especially so.
 Somehow an oversexed 20-something rubbing her boobs in his face will be the boy's fault and he will get hit with a desk.
 And the male teacher trying to get at look at the 15 year old's knickers?  Might end up in hospital but he's never going to get fired.  Because school boards will ignore everything up to and including the school getting blown to tiny bits provided the exam results are good.

 Let me know if there's anything I missed.

Womens Wrestling Comics - Futaba-Kun Change!

(The cover to the US Edition)

  Shimeru Futaba is not having an easy life.  As if High School wasn't difficult enough, he now has an unfortunate habit of turning into a girl every time he gets stressed or excited. 

 Since his school includes a (male) teacher who's developed a special interest, a crazy masked girl who keeps showing up to cause chaos and a gym teacher who uses machine-guns to get people's attention, Futaba gets stressed a lot.

 At this point you're probably thinking "Ranma clone" and you would be (mostly) right.  Hiroshi Aro's 8 volume series does have a certain amount to offer though: "Futaba-kun Change" mostly eschews complicated love-tangles and martial arts wackiness in favour of slapstick and our hero's attempts to cope with his new life. It is very,very silly but Futaba (in either form)  and romantic interest Misaki are rather more likeable than the cocky Ranma and his stable of psychotic Tsunderes. 

 As we shall see, the artwork isn't bad either. 

  In Volume 4 the Konishiki sisters show up to avenge their brother's defeat in an earlier chapter. Neither Futaba nor Misaki actually had anything to do with that but since they are both on the wrestling team they somehow end up challenged to a tag-team match.

Karin and Anzu. Very strong and very skilled. Luckily, they are also very stupid.  

Misaki arrives for the match in her swimsuit and then wonders why there are so many spectators. 

Anzu unleashes her devastating kick attack.

This causes Misaki to have a wardrobe malfunction so she hurriedly tags Futaba in. Did I mention that Futaba transforms when he gets excited?  Having the girl of his dreams fall out of her suit would probably count as "Exciting"  While he's struggling not to change,  he's not paying attention to his opponents and the inevitable happens.

 Things are not looking good for our babyfaces at the moment. Misaki is still trying to fix her suit and Futaba has just been launched out of the ring and through a classroom window. 

 But all is not lost as a new challenger appears.

 

Girl-version Futaba is here to save the day.

And enquiring minds want to know how she got changed so fast.

   Taking advantage of the Konishiki girls' confusion, Futaba-chan quickly takes control.

 Futaba-chan punishes Anzu 

 Then puts a hurting on Karin. Well you wouldn't want her to feel left out.

 Remember that Futaba is really a boy in a girl's body. 

In a minute he's going to realise that his face is level with Karin's boobs 

and get a wee bit distracted.  

Which leads to:

Luckily the Konishiki girls have an Achilles heel which leads to their downfall.

If you want to read the whole thing online, you can find it here; 

http://mangafox.me/manga/futaba_kun_change/v04/c002/1.html

I'd recommend checking out the rest of the series as well. It's endearingly daft and does have more to offer than fanservice and silliness. 

I'll finish with one last pic of Futaba in girl-form.

 And one of these days I'll finally get round to posting some more Lucha-Doll Mai. That's it for now folks. See you in a day or so.

Soulless - The Manga

   Alexia Tarabotti is resigned to being a spinster forever. She's unfashionably dark, unfashionably buxom, far too plain (allegedly), far too interested in unladylike things such as science and her tolerance for idiots is minimal.
 Then one night she is attacked by a rogue vampire and after that she finds herself involved in a nefarious plot featuring devious vampires, grumpy werewolves and mad scientists.  Luckily Alexia Tarabotti is armed with her quick wits, a sharp tongue and of course her trusty parasol.
 And Miss Tarabotti has one more trick up her well-tailored sleeve.  Born without a soul, her touch can make werewolves and vampires mortal. No wonder she makes them worried.

Womens' Wrestling Comics - Lucha-Doll Mai

 And now for a Japanese manga that is so obscure there don't seem to be any scans on the internet whatsoever.

Lucha-Doll Mai - 3 volumes -Japan/China 1993

More pics after the jump break.

Manga: 13 - A tale of long-lost love and casual murder.

By: Sorachi Hideaki  Volumes: One  Genre: Delinquent Comedy.

 This is a tale of two children and what happened when they finally met again.
 It begins with a quiet little girl named Iyazo Gorugo reading out an easy about her family. "Father is an assassin, Mother is an assassin, Grandfather is an assassin..." 

 This goes down about as well as me telling my classmates that I had a pet T-Rex. 

 Then on the field trip classmate Mondo Fujieda attempts to make friends by offering some candy. Which makes Gorugo ill. Spectacularly ill.  "Fetch a mop and bucket and a Hazmat suit" ill.

 A humiliated and puke-covered Gorugo vows bloody revenge on Fujieda and then leaves the school forever.

 By the way, when she said her family were assassins, she wasn't kidding. 

 Years later Fujieda has become King of the school delinquents and has put aside his old name in favour of the moniker "Thirteen"
 (Why? Nobody knows and he isn't saying.)
 However his world is about to get a lot more complicated.  Because Iyazo Gorugo has just transferred to his school.
 And she still wants to kill him.

  I sometimes find that manga can work better when the author only has a limited space to tell his story. Here Sorachi Hideaki has precisely 37 pages to work with and does it rather well.
   Once you get past the vomiting and ridiculous violence there is a surprisingly touching tale of two people whose lives were changed by one incident and have been waiting for the punchline ever since. Without giving too much away, this does not go the way you expect.
 The artwork is not the prettiest I've ever seen but does fit with the tone of the manga.  It reminded me a little of Ryuhei Tamura's work on "Beelzebub" , especially in the way he draws mayhem.

 If you fancy a quick fix and want to get to the ending without having to wade through 101 chapters  I would definitely recommend taking a look at this one. 

Find it here: http://www.mangahere.com/manga/13/v01/c001/

Manga: B-Reaction. A tale of high-school romance and kicking people in the face.

  For one brief moment Kensaku Onodera is on top of the world. The 15 year old streetfighter has just won a karate tournament and fame and fortune seem to beckoning. Plus there's a definite possibility of his girlfriend sleeping with him.
   Then it all goes horribly wrong. Tripping over his gi causes our hero to collide violently with the ring girl's boobs. Seconds later her foot collides violently with his face and Kensaku wakes up to find himself a laughing stock.
  Things don't get any better the next day. Not only is he dumped by his enraged girlfriend but his new homeroom teacher looks awfully familiar...

The Art Of Women's Wrestling 2

Some more pics from here, there and everywhere. Give honour and praise to the respective artists.

       Some years back Marvel did a storyline where The Thing became a wrestler 

and  in the process, had a run-in with a group of superpowered women wrestlers. 

This is Battleaxe  trying to knock Titania's head off. 

(Not the Titania that keeps getting a kicking from She-Hulk, by the way.) 

       I think this is from a Mexican comic. Could be Spanish, I suppose.

Obviously there was going to be some Manga popping up here.

I'm guessing this was a cheap, exploitation paperback. Good luck finding a copy.

Another one from the Spanish speaking world. 

I have no idea where this one is from. American?

Another one from the Japanese.

And lastly, another American drawing that looks like it was based on a match from the 60s.

If anybody can identify the artists - or you spot your work on here and are not happy - get in touch.

Catch ya later.             

The Art Of Womens Wrestling.

Some more wrestling pics I've acquired over the years - mostly from the internet -

but this time the theme is "artwork"

If anybody knows where these are from I'd rather like to know about it.

Provenance unknown - It looks like something you'd see in Playboy or Mayfair, maybe.
Incidentally, I love the expression on the blonde's face.
Definite overtones of "Can you two stop mucking about so we can get on with the match?"

 A British take on the subject, almost certainly off a postcard.

Given how popular womens wrestling has always been in Japan it's no surprise that there's been a few wrestling manga about. No idea who this one is by, sadly.

 Another manga image. Artist unknown to me. 

And back to America for this final pic with a definite retro look.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Manga: Change 123

Change 123. Complete. 12 Volumes. Written by Iku Sakaguchi. Illustrated by Shiuri Iwasawa.
I'll nail my colours to the mast right away and say that I love this manga. As in "Why do more people not know about it?  As in "How come it never got adapted to an anime?"
 Ahem.
 It all starts with young Teruharu Kosukegawa - shortarse teenage otaku - walking past an alley and seeing girl being harassed by a Yakuza. Plucking up his courage, he gets ready to intervene only for this to happen:

  As it turns out,  Motoko Gettou, the girl in the alley has a secret. Thanks to some dubious parenting she has Multiple Personality Disorder and whenever she's in trouble one of the other three personalities pops up. Since all three are martial arts prodigies, this usually leads to mayhem.
 So Kosukegawa finds himself involved with a girl who can change personalities in the blink of an eye. And of course all the people who show up looking for a fight.   

That's the set up for twelve volumes of martial-arts, romantic comedy, drama and  fanservice that's genuinely one of the most fun things I've ever read online.
 Each of the four girls sharing a body has her own likeable, well-defined personality and unlike a lot of female manga characters, you can actually understand why Kosukegawa would want to hang around her/them. Kosukegawa himself may have the fighting skill of a hamster but he's got a heroic heart and plenty of charm.
 The supporting cast is well fleshed out, the storylines walk a careful line between mayhem and humour and the artwork is clean, easy on the eye and  generally pretty impressive.
MangaFox has it Here

                                               Four female leads for the price of one.