{"id":12089,"date":"2014-07-09T00:01:17","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T00:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=12089"},"modified":"2014-07-03T10:14:17","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T10:14:17","slug":"wonder-momo-battle-idol-volume-1-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/09\/wonder-momo-battle-idol-volume-1-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Wonder Momo: Battle Idol Volume 1 (Book)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MOMO1\"<\/a>The next entry in our \u201cNutty Namco Week\u201d is another hardcover book collection of web comics, and this one is called \u201cWonder Momo: Battle Idol.\u201d\u00a0 Wonder Momo was an arcade game in Japan made by Namco (creators of Pac-Man) in the late 80\u2019s.\u00a0 In the game, you played as young girl Momo and kicked bad guys on a theater stage (there\u2019s an audience and curtains and everything).\u00a0 If Momo ran into a tornado and spun really fast, she would turn into Wonder Momo, a stronger super-hero version of herself who could throw a hula hoop at bad guys.\u00a0 The game was meant to be a parody of \u201cMagical Girl\u201d anime cartoons like Sailor Moon, and spoofs of \u2018sentai\u2019 super hero shows like Power Rangers.\u00a0 It was never released in the US, probably due to its slightly suggestive themes.\u00a0 You had to avoid a photographer in the audience, for instance, who would try and take upskirt pictures of Momo from below.\u00a0 The flash from the camera would stun Momo for a moment.\u00a0 Anyhow, Wonder Momo has remained fairly popular in Japan and Namco has had cameo appearances of her in various other games.\u00a0 Shifty Look, an online web comics site, makes comic strips featuring classic Namco characters, and Wonder Momo is one of their most popular ones.\u00a0 It spawned a web anime series and now you can get a collection of the first 100 strips in a quality, hardcover book format!\u00a0 Let\u2019s take a quick look at what\u2019s inside.<\/p>\n

First, here\u2019s a closer look at the front cover.\u00a0 It\u2019s very pink!<\/p>\n

\"MOMO1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the front is a foreword and intro by the folks at Shifty Look.\u00a0 Like with the Bravoman book, I was impressed with the research they did on the history of Wonder Momo.\u00a0 They even dug up some info I didn\u2019t know, which is impressive since I\u2019ve always been a big fan of classic and obscure Namco characters.<\/p>\n

\"MOMO2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The majority of the book is dedicated to the web comic, with a strip on each page.\u00a0 Like in the Bravoman comic book, there are quips from the artists and editors and usually a prelim sketch on each page, too.\u00a0 Although I didn\u2019t find the quips as insightful here.\u00a0 The Wonder Momo web comic is actually a continuation of the game\u2019s story, not just a retelling of what happens in the arcade title.\u00a0 So it is set in modern times and features the daughter of Wonder Momo as the new hero.\u00a0 This is my favorite page in the book because it shows Wonder Momo\u2019s mom, the original Wonder Momo from the 80\u2019s, powering up to save the day and her girl.\u00a0 The mom is my favorite character in the strip.\u00a0 Why do teenagers always get to be the heroes nowadays?\u00a0 Why can\u2019t adults and parents with kids be heroes, too?<\/p>\n

\"MOMO3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the back of the book are some prototype sketches of some of the characters.<\/p>\n

\"MOMO4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And finally they have some movie poster style promo art.\u00a0 Not as many as in the Bravoman book, though.<\/p>\n

\"MOMO5\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s all what\u2019s in the Wonder Momo book!\u00a0 The Wonder Momo strip has some slightly more suggestive themes, but it\u2019s presented in that campy anime style so it\u2019s not quite so bad.\u00a0 Probably best suited for older kids and teens, though.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t like the Wonder Momo comic strip as much as I did the Bravoman one, however.\u00a0 The action sequences in the Momo strip sometimes felt disjointed, and some parts were kind of dark while others were goofy and campy, so it also felt inconsistent.\u00a0 Plus the strip is all about \u201cMagical Girls\u201d and teen idols, and I don\u2019t really get into those things at all.<\/p>\n

But I bought the book (and the Bravoman one) anyway to show my support for Shifty Look because I enjoy their other web comics and animated cartoons, and they\u2019re all free (not sure how they make money, really).\u00a0 You can show your support, too, by buying the Bravoman and\/or Wonder Momo books at Amazon.\u00a0 Just click on the Amazon link to the right of this page and search for those books and you can buy them!\u00a0 They\u2019re reasonably priced at around 15 bucks, and they are pretty nice hardcover books.\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The next entry in our \u201cNutty Namco Week\u201d is another hardcover book collection of web comics, and this one is called \u201cWonder Momo: Battle Idol.\u201d\u00a0 Wonder Momo was an arcade game in Japan made by Namco (creators of Pac-Man) in the late 80\u2019s.\u00a0 In the game, you played as young girl Momo and kicked bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12089"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12092,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12089\/revisions\/12092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}