The 3rd of four posts. The lead protagonist of the long-running grand manga/anime series One Piece, will appear on the cover of Men’s Non-No fashion magazine in their January issue. Monkey D. Luffy, the series’ main character, will be the first manga/anime character to appear on the cover in the magazine’s 24-year run. It is also Eiichiro Oda’s first cover illustration for a magazine that is not manga or anime related. Very cool! [More at AnimeNewsNetwork]

The first eight pages of this issue will showcase models who resemble various characters from the One Piece universe such as Nami, Robin, Zoro and Sanji.
This goes to show the status of the One Piece franchise. I say give it 5 to 6 more years, and One Piece will reach the level of influence, grandness and omnipresence that Dragonball had and still has. Oda explicitly states that his biggest influence was Akira Toriyama and his mammoth Dragonball franchise, so it isn’t far-fetched to say that One Piece will follow in his footsteps. They DID get together to create a one-shot collaboration, Cross Epoch. Sidenote: Doesn’t Luffy’s outer jacket resemble a something Gokou wears?

Another leading man on the cover of a magazine is Korea-superstar Rain on the Korean Allure magazine, promoting his latest blockbuster film Ninja Assassin. [More at AllureKorea]

Not much to say here. Asian men, feel inadequate? (:

-phibz.

Akira Toriyama, the famed creator of the immortal Dragonball franchise, is releasing a new manga mini-series!

Toriyama is BACK! …well, for now. It IS only a mini-series. He hasn’t released a full-fledged series since Dragonball, and that ended 14 years ago. But then again, who needs to release ANYTHING when you created the single most-successful manga/anime franchise in history. Then Hollywood and James Wong went and ruined it for everyone… EVERYONE! FUUUUUU-

Akira Toriyama has collaborated with DNA² creator, Masakazu Katsura, and created a new manga mini-series titled Jiya (if you haven’t read DNA², check it out, it’s very sexy) . It slated for release in 2010′s first issue of Weekly Young Jump magazine on December 10th. The story is said to be a “super science-fiction action” with an “alien of justice” as the protagonist:

[More at AnimeNewsNetwork]

In keeping with the science-fiction genre, Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2 released its latest promotional poster. It looks like mobile-suit heaven.. I made the mistake and watched the leaked bootleg footage of the film shown at the latest Comic-Con. After that, I was screaming like Kate in Paranormal Activity, because I wanted to watch the film so f***in’ badly! So for your sake, I won’t post the link of that god-forsaken video.

On a less frustrating note, notice the similarities with Iron Man and Jiya? They both have that cat teeth thing going on with their masks.

[From IWatchStuff]

Spoiler: Warmachine got shorter, slimmer and hustles less in Iron Man 2.

-phibz.