Last month I was linked the Tortucam video on YouTube, which was totally awesome. It’s a turtle running about which some kick ass background music. Makes me which I was a Turtle too. I liked the music so much, I went and found it on Amazon. The part that really confused me was that it was labeled “Manga Soundtrack”. I wasn’t sure why a manga needed a soundtrack, but the music was kick’n enough to warrant investigation. After reading the manga, I’m pleased that I did.
After a quick Google, I found the
Tokyo Pop page for the books, which actually lets you read the manga online. The interface sucks terribly, but the fact that you can leaf through the first 9 chapters (which is the first entire book) online, is really cool. Of course, I thought the manga was quite good, worthy of buying. The story line revolves around two assassins and the hijinks they get in to. See, in this world, being an assassin is a legitimate job (kind like repo men), all you need is a license. Mostly the books are damn hilarious with the artist having a ton of fun with text/arrows on Doyle’s (the main characters) shirts.
After reading Volume 1 I wandered down to my local Amazon outlet and picked it up (supporting the creator and all that) along with Volume 2. The second volume didn’t let me down either, and I rather look forward to more of this series (I hope there is more at least). After finishing the reading, I discovered something new…
That something new is “iManga”. Basically they take the Manga and make it animated-ish. You can check out Riding Shotgun iManaga #1 for yourself (Full playlist) to see what I mean. After the iManga, the logic of having a “Riding Shotgun Soundtrack“… a soundtrack for a BOOK …. suddenly made so much more sense. Of course, my uber favorite song, “Round Round“, makes its appearance in iManga #1 at about the 1:40 mark.