INSiGHT: NEO Magazine Issue 242

To kick things off, Andrew Osmond deep dives into some violent anime both new and old. What drives the stories of these shows, do the premises offer anything beyond some splatter fest and what did they ultimately inspire? All of these questions are answered succinctly over a 3-page feature that is well worth the read. Other feature content in this issue is also excellent, covering a range of topics. The highlights being "Imagining the Imaginary" where NEO gets an exclusive interview with Yoshiaki Nishimura, the director of Studio Ponoc's new film The Imaginary. This deep dive has some really interesting facts and tidbits showing readers the work that goes into making such a visionary piece of cinema.

There is some interesting news content to be found here as well. Groups being pursued by the law in Japan for selling fake Strike Witches anime sketches and cels. They copied frames of the anime and other sketches to be sold for profit online and well, as most crooks learn, ended up with the law on their heels in a somewhat interesting lawsuit. In other news, that will definitely appeal to Cubed3 readers, NEO covers upcoming game releases. From Donkey Kong to Marvel vs Capcom, there is a fair bit of fun reading to be had as well as NEO's review of Luigi's Mansion 2 which you can compare with Cubed3's own review here.

This month's manga highlight is Massively Multiplayer World of Ghosts Volume 2. This manga by Frederick L. Jones has some stunning artwork and the story about a secret society, ghost summoning, and bombastic battling is a thrilling read. The panels on display in the excerpt are likely all readers will need to hop into the comic for real!

Lastly, the issue has all the usual NEO trappings with tasty Asian recipes to make, release charts for all forms of Asian and Japanese pop culture media and a page full of recommendations for purchasing cool collectables. It's a fantastic issue for sure!

Just to note however, Cubed3's edition seemed to have some misaligned printing, making some content quite hard to read and some images quite blurry so just be prepared for potential visual disorientation.

Buy this issue or subscribe to NEO magazine.