Hero Tales
Taitou is a plucky and talented young swordsman, jubilant after he helps defend his hometown from an invasion of imperial soldiers. As part of his coming-of-age ceremony - in which he is humbled in a match with staff-wielding Ryuukou - he’s given a fantastic sword by his martial arts master, told that he will only be able to draw and use it when he becomes a true hero. Of course, this being a powerful magical object in a Japanese anime and/or manga, it’s promptly stolen by a powerful thug; Taitou, Ryuukou and Taitou’s sister Laila barely escape with their lives. Now they’re on a quest to recover the powerful sword; fortunately, Taitou holds within him the power of a star. If only he could find a way to control that power…
Hero Tales appeared in the right-to-left side of the magazine to replace Higurashi, which was retired with the January 2009 issue.
Hero Tales is the competent execution of several rather unoriginal story ideas. Nothing in the storyline will surprise you or provoke thought, but the art is fun and it’s an interesting read nonetheless - a “popcorn comic.”
Hero Tales is credited to artist Hiromu Arakawa and writer Jin Zhou Huang. Hiromu Arakawa grew up on a dairy farm on Japan’s agrarian northern island of Hokkaido. (Her self portraits feature a cartoonish cow wearing glasses.) She is most known for creating a series named Fullmetal Alchemist, about two brothers wandering a magical world and trying to do right - though the younger brother’s soul has become entrapped in a suit of armor. Fullmetal Alchemist became a highly successful franchise worldwide, spawning an animated series and a movie, novels, and toys, among others. Though the Fullmetal Alchemist is still ongoing, Arakawa is also illustrating Hero Tales.
Jin Zhou Huang is credited as the writer of Hero Tales. The name is Chinese in origin. Jin Zhou Huang may not be a real person, though. The English Wikipedia page for Hero Tales states that Huang is an entity created by Hero Tales’ artist Hiromu Arakawa and a pair of production studios; this appears to be more information than even the Japanese Wikipedia page has. ANN’s page on the name identifies it as a pseudonym which intentionally features the characters for “gold” and “week,” alluding to Golden Week, a series of annual Japanese holidays in the spring, but doesn’t go into further detail about the actual person or persons behind the name. (Golden Week is usually written in katakana-ized English as ゴールデンウィーク, “gourudenuiiku,” instead of in kanji as would appear in a name from Chinese; see the language issues page for more information on Japanese writing systems.)
