Best known to American audiences for his feature length animés, most notably, Paprika, Satoshi Kon was also a highly accomplished creator of manga.  US readers finally get a chance to discover this with Vertical's publication of Tropic of the Sea, a 200 page graphic novel that was originally serialized in Young Magazine in 1990.  Kon's precise, dynamic and inventive art immediately reminded us of Katsuhiro Otomo's legendary work on Akira, which is high praise indeed.  Check out this detailed review on goodOKbad, replete with a selection of examples of Kon's art from the book.  

Over 400 pages of amazing manga by the brilliant mangaka and famed anime director Satoshi Kon, none of which -- to the best of our knowledge -- has appeared before in English translation in North America.  While Kon is best known in the west for his anime features, Paprika, Tokyo Godfathers, Millenium Actress and Perfect Blue, he started out in manga, and served as an assitant to Katsuhiro Otomo during his creation of the original Akira manga.  Anyone familiar with this acclaimed series will note many similarites to Akira in the artwork produced for the fifteen stories collected in this volume, which date from the same period.  Make sure to give this one the once over.  You won't be disappointed.

Wow, this book is a dream come true for fans of Kon Satoshi!  This 700 page softcover from Japan contains over 3000 storyboard drawings – crisply printed in black & white with greytones, on off white paper – that break down the entire film. Yes, there is plenty of bonus material – but, as with the rest of the book, the text is almost entire in Japanese.  But, of course, it's the drawings that are the feature attraction here, and the column headers on the storyboards are in English, which is enough to guide students of the film through the process.