Manga Bookshelf

September 25, 2021 By Sean Gaffney

Magistellus Bad Trip, Vol. 1

By Kazuma Kamachi and Mahaya. Released in Japan by DENGEKI no Shin Bungei. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jake Humphrey. This is another one of those books that starts off slow and kind of boring and only really pays off in the back half. Honestly, when I started it I kind of felt like Kamachi had gotten bored with writing A Certain Magical Index’s 245th volume and decided to transcribe his Let’s Play video and send it to Dengeki. (Honestly, given how “well” the Index books did here, it’s surprising we got this at all, though it helps that it’s finished at three volumes rather than running to an infinite number.) Taking place in a game world where anything goes as long as you make money,…

September 24, 2021 By Phillip Anthony

Prince Freya Vol. 1

Like a well-listened to lullaby, I find myself in front of the keyboard with a manga volume beside me. And so, the song starts again. Fitting that I chose a story set in a fairy-tale world to return with. Prince Freya is neither a Western style fable nor a Japanese high-fantasy adventure. Rather, it has elements of traditional fairy-tale stories in the Germanic-Franco style. I bet you didn’t know that in the original version, Cinderella’s sisters were beautiful but wretched and doves sent by Cinderella’s dead mother pecked their eyes out? Yeah, brutal. Well, the same kind of logic applies in Prince Freya. Freya, a young girl living with her ailing mother in a village in the Kingdom of Tyr. Nearby Sigurd is threatening to gobble up Tyr. So, secretly,…

September 23, 2021 By Sean Gaffney, Ash Brown, Anna N, Michelle Smith and Melinda Beasi

Manga the Week of 9/29/21

SEAN: The end of September brings some nice books, but also a long-awaited new volume of a beloved series, so let’s start with that. Yen Press has Yotsuba&! 15! Do you know when the last Yotsuba&! came out? 2018, that’s when. Rejoice! ASH: Ah! A great series to start us off with! ANNA: Wow! MICHELLE: When last we left off, Yotsuba and her dad were acquiring a car, so I look forward to some fresh new adventures. MELINDA: Oh!! SEAN: Yen Press also has A Certain Magical Index 24, Combatants Will Be Dispatched! 5, In Another World with My Smartphone 3, Love and Heart 3, Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story 3, and Star Wars: Rebels 2. Apologies to Udon, who I forgot about last week. They have…

September 22, 2021 By Sean Gaffney

Bond and Book: The Devotion of “The Surgery Room”

By Mizuki Nomura and Miho Takeoka. Released in Japan as “Musubu to Hon: “Gekashitsu” no Ichizu” by Famitsu Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nicole Wilder. It’s good to be reading Mizuki Nomura again. Book Girl came out before the light novel boom, and as such I don’t think it ever got the attention that it deserved. This new series is not quite a sequel, and does not require having read Book Girl to enjoy it, but fans of that series will figure out fairly quickly that it’s set at the same school a generation later, and that some of the main characters are related to some of the people from Book Girl. This should not particularly be a surprise given that the premise is that…

September 19, 2021 By Sean Gaffney

The Sidekick Never Gets the Girl, Let Alone the Protag’s Sister!, Vol. 2

By Toshizo and U35. Released in Japan as “Shinyuu Mob no Ore ni Shujinkou no Imouto ga Horeru Wake ga Nai” by PASH! Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Tristan K. Hill. This book continues to be very good at not really doing what I would like it to do. I had expected, after the climax of the first book, that we’d be seeing a lot of fallout, or at least evidence that memory-erasing magic does not really work all that well in modern-day Japan. But no, we don’t even SEE the little sister again till the second half of the book, and while her fate is a big part of the plot, it’s somewhat secondary to the romcom antics. This is especially annoying as we…

September 17, 2021 By Sean Gaffney

Dragon Daddy Diaries: A Girl Grows to Greatness, Vol. 1

By Ameko Kaeruda and Sencha. Released in Japan as “Totsuzen Papa ni Natta Saikyou Dragon no Kosodate Nikki: Kawaii Musume, Honobono to Ningenkai Saikyou ni Sodatsu ” by GC Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Giuseppe di Martino. While reading this book, I was asked about it on Twitter, and I made the observation that it was like reading a parfait. Having now finished the book, I stand by this 100%. Everything about this is adorable and sweet, and you get the added bonus of a good example of how found families can end up being much better for someone than a birth family that resents and disparages them is. All that said, please be aware, this book is not here to be serious or to…

September 17, 2021 By Phillip Anthony

Cutie and the Beast

Coming to Yuhi Azumi’s Cutie and the Beast, I really only had a recommendation from Brigid Alverson and a description from her too. So with that, I dived in with the gusto of a wrestling star like our male lead, Kuga and tried to see if this was an entertaining first match or a one-off special. Momoka is a high school student who watches wrestling matches on TV and follows the stars of the league, in particular a star currently portraying a heel (wrestling slang for a performer cast in the role of a villain in the league) called Kuga. Kuga is twenty nine and a committed wrestler who loves his role and his profession. One day, after interacting with Momoka online, Kuga crosses paths with her and an entirely…

September 16, 2021 By Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Anna N, Ash Brown and Melinda Beasi

Manga the Week of 9/22/21

SEAN: Even the Delta variant cannot stop the flow of manga coming through. ASH: Which is impressive, really. SEAN: Airship, in print, gives us the third volume of Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs. For early digital titles, we get Mushoku Tensei 13 and Reincarnated As a Sword 9. Ghost Ship gives us Parallel Paradise 6. J-Novel Club has some new print titles, the biggest one of interest being the print debut of Tearmoon Empire. The story of a spoiled princess who, after being executed, finds herself in her 12-year-old self, I highly recommend it to all light novel readers. ASH: I’ve been looking forward to giving this one a try now that it’ll be available in print! SEAN: Also debuting is…

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