Cel Shaded Jason Yadao

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U.S. Navy carrier gets own manga

Last week, tag-team partner in fandom Wilma J. and I were chatting about what we're going to be writing about for our joint "Drawn & Quartered" column for next month. Yes, we're already planning our next column, before this month's even sees print. Chalk it up to excellent planning.

(Well, OK, it was also because we wrote so much for last month's "Drawn & Quartered" column that we had enough material to cover us for two months ... but let's not think about it that way.)

We're not ready to tip our hand yet on what we're going to talk about in June, but I will say that it deals with some rather unusual manga. The conversation naturally drifted toward other unusual manga we've seen, including one that I became aware of through an item recently posted online at Anime News Network (www.animenewsnetwork.com).

The item: About 30,000 copies of "CVN-73," the U.S. Navy-sanctioned 200-page manga about life on board the nuclear aircraft carrier USS George Washington, have been printed and now sit ready to distribute to the teens and young adults of Yokosuka, Japan.

According to Stars and Stripes, the newspaper for U.S. military members stationed overseas, the manga follows Jack Ohara, a Japanese-American sailor on his first tour of duty, and all of the nerve-wracking situations he gets into while on board the carrier. Along the way, he gets to work in all of the carrier's divisions and learns -- along with the audience -- how the carrier and its crew operate.

While the manga was designed to prepare Yokosuka residents for the anticipated arrival of the carrier in August as a replacement for the 47-year-old USS Kitty Hawk, one element of the new carrier is mentioned only in passing: its nuclear core, the source of many of the Japanese protests against the carrier. The only reference is that "the heart of the GW has a 50-year life span and doesn't need refueling."

"We're not trying to lie or state false facts," Cmdr. David Waterman, spokesman for Commander U.S. Naval Forces Japan, was quoted as saying in Stars and Stripes. "We're simply putting several key aspects of the George Washington in a format that is widely accepted in Japan."

"Wow," Wilma said when she finished reading the Stars and Stripes article. "You just have to talk about that in your next 'Cel Shaded'!"

And thus a column topic was born ...

Anime 'Jojo' no more

Several online sites, including AnimeOnDVD.com and Anime News Network, reported last week that Super Techno Arts, which brought out the "Jojo's Bizarre Adventure" anime on DVD in the United States as its only release, has taken down its Web site. The anime is no longer available for sale as well ...

Coming up Sunday

It's the second half of our look at single-volume manga from Tokyopop in "Drawn & Quartered" in the Sunday Today section, as Wilma and I look at "Glass Wings" and "Dolis."