The works of Sho Shibamoto (The Jackalope, Pandemonium Wizard Village, Flower Knight Dakini)

Reviving this thread from the dead with the announcement that Sho will be part of Level-5's manga site's original works! His is going to be called Yorozu Locksmith's Casebook.

Edited by ROTHY on Jan 2nd 2021 at 10:31:29 AM

The manga will be serialized weekly, unfortunately putting Dakini on the backburner. Chapter 13 will be released when he finds the time, but until Yorozu finishes serialization, it'll be on hiatus.

Edited by ROTHY on Jan 2nd 2021 at 10:31:24 AM

The site has launched!

Reviving this thread to mention that The Jackalope/Tsunousagi has gotten a full fan translation.

The manga is officially back from hiatus! Chapter 13 is here!

Chapter 14 has been released in full!

The next Kickstarter should be launching sometime soon, hopefully.

Since ROTHY is asleep, I'm bumping this thread to let y'all know Chapter 15 has been released! ^note  And Eiden is surprisingly ripped in this one.

Oh sorry, must've forgotten about this thread from all the excitement in that chapter.

In more immediate news, the new kickstarter has launched.

All of the illustration slots have been taken by now and it's more than halfway there.

Edited by ROTHY on Aug 30th 2023 at 4:59:00 AM

We've only got around $250 to go to fully fund the translation.

Other things have recently happened, such as Dakini receiving a paperback release, and Yorozu Locksmith's Casebook/The Keymaker's Case Report got an ebook release, apparently with an extra comic in the second volume centered on the characters from Guardians of the Zoo System.

I think this thread is lacking some actual discussion about Sho Shibamoto's works. I'll start:

I noticed that people seem to consider The Jackalope, Pandemonium - Wizard Village, ^note  Yes, the title has a hyphen. and Flower Knight Dakini as the trilogy of the shared universe, while ignoring the existence of other works predating The Jackalope which also take place in that universe. Why is that?

That's probably because Baku and Sakasabane are near-impossible to get your hands on. My circle of the fandom has full scans of Baku because we narrowed down the magazine issue it was in, but we're hoarding it out of fear of ticking Sho off if we put it online. Sakasabane is basically the Holy Grail of this fandom. There are no copies being sold and the last time Sho reprinted it was at a solo exhibition in limited quantities. There is still a hope that Sho will fulfill a promise I believe he made once that he might make Sakasabane and/or Baku a Note or Backer reward, which with the cliffhanger at the end of chapter 15 could happen during the next Kickstarter or the one after it.

That makes sense. In my opinion, it also helps that The Jackalope is the first manga whose characters make actual, full reappearances and cameos in future sequels to drive home their nature as part of a shared universe, apart from the Sky Golems. A good example of this is Beatha, the alcoholic hobo mouse ^{Don't get my lame joke?}  'Cause he misses Uisce. *ba dum tss* from the aforementioned manga, who appeared in all three parts of the "trilogy."

On another note, ever noticed how rare character deaths are in Sho's stories? For all the Family-Unfriendly Violence his characters occassionally suffer, he seems quite reluctant to actually kill them off and goes out of his way to avoid doing so, unless they're part of someone's backstory. (Not unlike how One Piece is known for handling character deaths).

Edited by Unnerving_Posterior on Sep 15th 2023 at 8:09:15 AM

Yeah, I want to say that I have noticed the lack of named characters dying outside of flashbacks. Even in Baku, he doesn't actually die and is just stuck in the dream world. There's plenty of people that die in Karacuma, but none of them have names.

The only exception that I can think of is possibly the Santa guy in Sakasabane, and even then, that's just speculation based off how he never gets drawn when Sho has the opportunity to make art of the manga's characters and Sakasabane-kun seemingly being Santa now. And that's still not entirely proof because Mick from The Jackalope never got any art either.

The kickstarter has reached its goal! ^note  And I still can't get over the fact that fucking Santa Claus exists in the Shibamotoverse.

ROTHY, do you think the main character of The Jackalope can be considered a reconstruction of the chuunibyou ?

Jacka often dips into typical chuunibyou-like behavior whenever he's in his "Jackalope" persona. He dresses, acts, and talks like a superhero not unlike the characters from his favorite shows, insists on being addressed by his codename, treats the favours he does for the townsfolk as heroic deeds, and at one point tries to pass off some random chestnuts as "energy cores" he collected from his defeated (imaginary) foes.

Unlike most examples, however, Jacka wants to emulate both the power fantasy and the heroic morals of the archetype, making a genuine effort in practicing the philosophy of doing good without asking for a reward associated with typical superheroes. As a result, instead of being seen as a little turd who tries to convinve people he's a real superhero with powers, Jacka is appreciated by his friends and community as the eccentric, bud good-natured kid who tries his hardest to help them in any way he can, even if his "heroic deeds" amount to performing mundane chores or community service (if he isn't running off to fight more imaginary villains, that is).

Edited by Unnerving_Posterior on Sep 20th 2023 at 9:08:34 AM

I can see that. Jacka clearly has a very specific ideal of what a hero is, as seen with him deriding Riderwan. He even treats his chores at home with the same sort of gravitas as his 'hero work'.

Some heartbreaking details that comes from Sho himself is that Jacka would get along well with Dakini, and he'd find Akane from Yorozu cool.

Maybe I'm overanalysing it, but have you ever read the Straight Thunders of the Sky Golems as analogues for nukes? They drop in out of nowhere, blast the area into shit, and leave it a hazardous wasteland that kills you if you stay in it for too long. Kinda like leftover radiation.

If this was intentional, it wouldn't be surprising considering Japan's history with nuclear weapons.

I've thought about it, but I don't know how deliberate it is. There's still a lot we don't know and there hasn't even been a full explanation for what 'loss of soul' even is. There seems to be some sort of And Man Grew Proud moment according to the Sakasabane page about how the golems were built and Dr. Hell's backstory from Baku, so maybe your theory isn't unfounded.

Speaking of, Chapter 16 is currently being worked on. It will be dense with information about the past, so hopefully everything will be made much clearer thanks to Shankha and Yatagarasu.

And who are those two characters, by the way? ^note  I bet the former is one of Sho's signature "boobie foxes."

Edited by Unnerving_Posterior on Sep 28th 2023 at 8:13:34 AM

Your assumption would be correct. Shankha is the Thunder Beast that isn't trying to steal Dakini's sword. She's got big paws with big powers, helped fight the still unnamed one (we tentatively call her Higanbana after the title of an art exhibition piece of her), and saved Eiden from dying. She's named after a symbol of Vishnu in Hinduism.

Yatagarasu is the talking bird golem that was uncovered in Enoth. Kayoh kicked him in the face and after being restrained, he's assisting the scholars while doing something shady behind their backs. Prakasha managed to impress him by being perceptive enough to notice that golems have five fingers on each hand and that the original creators of the golems are something else entirely from the furry people (i.e. humanity). He's named after a mythical three-legged crow.

Edited by ROTHY on Sep 28th 2023 at 11:52:50 AM

isn't "Dakini"'s name itself derived from an indo-asian mythology?

Yep, in Hinduism and Buddism, Dakinis are a kind of female spirit, goddess, or demon. Depends on where you're reading from. In Japanese mythology, they're a single deity called Dakiniten and are associated with the goddess Inari and foxes.

The Kickstarter has also ended, complete with a special 'Thank you' illustration by Sho.

Edited by ROTHY on Sep 30th 2023 at 10:30:31 AM

Speaking of Indo-Asian stuff, the tropical-ish setting of Flower Knight Dakini always striked me as a fantasy counterpart of Southeast Asia or Indochina. I can almost hear the gamelan music just imagining an anime adaptation of this manga.

I wonder which other real-life places the settings of Jackalope and Pandemonium would be a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to.

I was yesterday years old when I discovered that Sho actually put Morgan Freeman (or a version of him) in the back of the cover of one of the Puppet Detective books.

No, really.◊

Chapter 10 has been released in English!

11's translation is projected to come out on November 13th.

I'll be sure to add some new tropes to the pages.

Edited by ROTHY on Oct 30th 2023 at 9:09:11 AM