The next entry in our “Nutty Namco Week” is another hardcover book collection of web comics, and this one is called “Wonder Momo: Battle Idol.”  Wonder Momo was an arcade game in Japan made by Namco (creators of Pac-Man) in the late 80’s.  In the game, you played as young girl Momo and kicked bad guys on a theater stage (there’s an audience and curtains and everything).  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.  The game was meant to be a parody of “Magical Girl” anime cartoons like Sailor Moon, and spoofs of ‘sentai’ super hero shows like Power Rangers.  It was never released in the US, probably due to its slightly suggestive themes.  You had to avoid a photographer in the audience, for instance, who would try and take upskirt pictures of Momo from below.  The flash from the camera would stun Momo for a moment.  Anyhow, Wonder Momo has remained fairly popular in Japan and Namco has had cameo appearances of her in various other games.  Shifty Look, an online web comics site, makes comic strips featuring classic Namco characters, and Wonder Momo is one of their most popular ones.  It spawned a web anime series and now you can get a collection of the first 100 strips in a quality, hardcover book format!  Let’s take a quick look at what’s inside.

First, here’s a closer look at the front cover.  It’s very pink!

At the front is a foreword and intro by the folks at Shifty Look.  Like with the Bravoman book, I was impressed with the research they did on the history of Wonder Momo.  They even dug up some info I didn’t know, which is impressive since I’ve always been a big fan of classic and obscure Namco characters.

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

At the back of the book are some prototype sketches of some of the characters.

And finally they have some movie poster style promo art.  Not as many as in the Bravoman book, though.

And that’s all what’s in the Wonder Momo book!  The Wonder Momo strip has some slightly more suggestive themes, but it’s presented in that campy anime style so it’s not quite so bad.  Probably best suited for older kids and teens, though.  I didn’t like the Wonder Momo comic strip as much as I did the Bravoman one, however.  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.  Plus the strip is all about “Magical Girls” and teen idols, and I don’t really get into those things at all.

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’re all free (not sure how they make money, really).  You can show your support, too, by buying the Bravoman and/or Wonder Momo books at Amazon.  Just click on the Amazon link to the right of this page and search for those books and you can buy them!  They’re reasonably priced at around 15 bucks, and they are pretty nice hardcover books.  –Cary

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