Tag Archives: monthly afternoon

Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights April 2026

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https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2040675708322852873

The web-exclusive Spotted Flower Chapter 51.5 is currently available.

The first two to three pages of a manuscript are always the hardest to work on, and Kio worries that this might never change.

Kio wishing Happy Birthday to the artist Tamaoki Benkyoo

https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2041891973850939463
https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2041891550607897011
https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2041891973850939463

Cherry blossom photos!

Kio would like to see the cherry blossoms from Yoshinoyama, but that’s easier said than done.

https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2041908016434573531

He did see the cherry blossoms around Tochigi Prefecture, though.

Kio says the boobs of the main heroine in Dekapai Kishi Makari Tooru! (The Big-Boobed Knight Goes Unpunished) are so distracting that it might just be hiding a panty reveal.

It’s raining off and on.

Kio’s been so busy lately that he almost forgot about the release of the 4th Girls und Panzer film short. He feels that he’s gotta see it!

Kio believes he owns this kit for the Auge Arusqul from The Five Star Stories. He hasn’t actually built it. Though.

https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2043351303733334046

Kio realizes there are music videos for the Vocaloid song covers in the movie Cosmic Princess Kaguya.

https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2043601149169959149

A picture of the fan booklet that came with the fourth Girls und Panzer Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu! movie. Kio finally saw it and wants to watch it again.

https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2044069839749476373

Kio is grateful that you can still buy physical paper copies of Dokaben volumes even today. (Dokaben is a famous and extremely long-running baseball manga that notably uses real baseball teams.)

https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2044071692520276089

A Spotted Flower drawing that’s also a reference to How Do You Like Wednesday?

Kio is very excited for the Five Star Stories model kit Magnapalace Knight of Gold by the brand Our Treasure.

https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2044794524539797908

Re-posting some old drawings, like this one of Madarame and Jin. (I previously covered this, but it’s been enough years that this is probably worth showing again.)

https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2044935990641656022

Kio is surprised at the announcement of the Neo Geo AES+. He feels like he might have brought it into existence by drawing a Neo Geo in Spotted Flower.

https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2045535480075403327

Another old Hashikko Ensemble drawing, this time of Kurotaki Mai.

Kio thanks a foreign fan of Zenbu Sensei no Sei. and also hopes to see it made into an anime.

https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2046882292698882547

Kio is excited to have gotten the DVD of How Do You Like Wednesday? special on Iriomote Island.

The Afternoon 40th anniversary exhibition released its key visual, featuring Genshiken among numerous other works. The follow-up tweet lists all the authors and titles.

Pimple Popping Manga: Chiyo’s Lips

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Though certainly not to everyone’s liking, hands-on acne removal is a very popular subject on YouTube (click if you dare, but it’s potentially NSFW). Often referred to in comments as one example of the “the weird part of YouTube,” it’s somewhat curious that it hasn’t emerged as some kind of sub-genre of manga or anime. In fact, the only title I can think of where pimple popping is a primary focus or narrative device is the manga I’m going to be reviewing today: Chiyo no Kuchibiru (or Chiyo’s Lips) by Iwami Kiyoko.

As this subject can be disgusting to a lot of people, I’m going to put this behind a cut-off just for the sake of your lunches. For those who don’t mind (or even enjoy this sort of thing), read on:

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Soremachi Creator Ishiguro and His Two Biggest Influences

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In the June 2016 issue of Monthly Afternoon released in April (it’s confusing, I know), there’s an interview with two previous winners of the Afternoon Four Seasons Award, which is a manga competition run by the magazine. One of the winners is Ishiguro Masakazu, creator of And Yet the Town Moves (Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru). When talking about his influences, Ishiguro mentions a number of manga artists, but two in particular are especially important to him and his style. Those would be Otomo Katsuhiro of Akira fame, and Fujiko F. Fujio, creator of Doraemon.

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Although it isn’t terribly surprising that these two titans of manga would influence other manga artists, in the case of Ishiguro this is a really big deal. That’s because, if you think about what Soremachi is, how it’s drawn in terms of environment and character expressions, and how the stories range from the dramatic to the silly, from the everyday to the alien, Soremachi is pretty much an even fusion between Akira and Doraemon. There was even a story about time travel that revolves around some super delicious snack cake!

Quite a few years ago my friend, translator Ko Ransom, mentioned to me that he felt Ishiguro’s art style reminded him a lot of Akira. As it turns out, he was right on the nose with that one. When you think about it, it’s not like it’s immediately obvious given how different those two stories are, which makes me all the more impressed by his keen eye.

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