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The Manga Review: September in the Rain

When Crunchyroll purchased retailer Right Stuf in 2022, the streaming giant posted a notice at its site reassuring consumers that this “acquisition aims to serve anime fans and collectors an even wider array of merchandise for online purchase including manga, home video, figures, games, music and everything in between.” The full impact of this decision, however, didn’t hit customers until last week, when Crunchyroll announced that it would be closing down Right Stuf and folding it into the new Crunchyroll Store, prompting fans to express concern about unfulfilled orders, and lament the end of Right Stuf’s discount programs. Over at ANN, Nicholas Dupree and Steve Jones rounded up reactions and offered their own two cents on what this decision means for anime and manga fans. I can’t say that I’ll miss…

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Ascendance of a Bookworm: I’ll Do Anything to Become a Librarian!, Part 5: Avatar of a Goddess, Vol. 6

By Miya Kazuki and You Shiina. Released in Japan as “Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by quof. This is another Bookworm volume that’s more relaxed and peaceful than others. The last book promised a huge upheaval in Rozemyne’s life, and this volume is all about how that upheaval is going to affect everyone around her. Its pretty much got everything you’d want in a Bookworm volume… well, OK, there’s a long, long, extended story told from Detlinde’s point of view. That was nightmarish to read. But other than that. The most amusing thing about the volume is the fact that everyone knows that something is going to happen soon to knock everything…

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Manga the Week of 10/4/23

SEAN: It’s the start of October, let the Halloween manga commence. ASH: Boo! (As in what a ghost would say; I’m not in the habit of booing manga, Halloween or otherwise.) SEAN: Airship has one print release, Classroom of the Elite: Year 2 6. And for early digital we get Adachi and Shimamura 11 and Reincarnated as a Dragon Hatchling 5. Denpa Books said Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family 5 should be out about now. Rider’s on the cover. Delicious recipes are within. Two debuts from J-Novel Club. The one with the light novel title is 8th Loop for the Win! With Seven Lives’ Worth of XP and the Third Princess’s Appraisal Skill, My Behemoth and I Are Unstoppable! (Loop 8-shūme wa Shiawasena Jinsei o: 7-shūbun no Keiken-chi to…

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Reign of the Seven Spellblades, Vol. 9

By Bokuto Uno and Miyuki Ruria. Released in Japan as “Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham. Well, the good news is the Spellblades anime was not the complete disaster the way, say, Spy Classroom is. The bad news is that it wasn’t all that great, either, and I doubt a lot of folks who hadn’t read the books will be reading the anime and going “whoah, need to read that”. Which is a shame, as these really are a series of great light novels, but alas, “first rule of anime: drop the internal narration” strikes again. As for this volume, it was mostly excellent, with one major exception which I will get to. It also had…

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Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, So I’ll Max Out My Defense, Vol. 10

By Yuumikan and KOIN. Released in Japan as “Itai no wa Iya nano de Bōgyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham. Good news! This is a far stronger volume of Bofuri than the previous two were, and I think I can see why: the last book I really enjoyed was also pretty much just Maple and Sally, with the others barely appearing. I definitely enjoy the rest of the guild, there’s nothing wrong with them. But something about the main duo of the series causes the author to up their game. Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s no major character development for Maple here or anything, she’s pretty much the same. (Sally… well, I’ll get to Sally.)…

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A Pale Moon Reverie, Vol. 2

By Kuji Furumiya and Teruko Arai. Released in Japan as “Tsuki no Shirosa o Shirite Madoromu” by DRE Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Jason Li. This is very much a book of two halves – literally, of course, because this author’s books are always 2-in-1 omnibuses, but also figuratively. The first half of the book is very much in the horror vein, as Sari and Xixu try to figure out why all of a sudden courtesans are closing their businesses and moving out of the city – and why everyone seems to be 100% OK with it. It’s an “eerie mind control” mood. Then we get the second half of the book, which runs on pure frustration at the two leads. I’m used to book…

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The Manga Review: Didn’t It Rain

Congratulations to Lianne Sentar, who was just promoted to a new position at Seven Seas Entertainment: publisher! She’s done a little bit of everything in the manga industry—writing Sailor Moon novels for Tokyopop, freelancing as an editor, starting her own publishing company—and seems like a perfect fit for the job. In other news, Scholastic will be launching its Graphix Manga line with an adaptation of Unico… Studio Ghibli has been acquired by Nippon TV… and a Delaware parent took a public stand on behalf of her kids’ after-school manga club. At issue was the principal’s decision to limit members’ access to manga rated “T” or older, which he felt were inappropriate for middle-school readers. Jennifer Antonik disagreed, and started a petition at Change.org to pressure the school to reverse course. AROUND…

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Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, Vol. 13

By Toshio Satou and Nao Watanuki. Released in Japan as “Tatoeba Last Dungeon Mae no Mura no Shonen ga Joban no Machi de Kurasu Youna Monogatari” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham. There have been quite a few antagonists over the course of this series, but, with the exception of a few, they’ve mostly been pathetic mooks whose job it is to get humiliated and destroyed by Lloyd. That said, this is not a series that is really interested in killing off its villains, for the most part, so something had to happen to them. Why not a high-security prison? Because, of course, Last Dungeon Kid also enjoys making fun of various types of cliched plotlines, and “prison break story” is certainly…

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The Saga of Tanya the Evil: Mundus Vult Decipi, Ergo Decipiatur

By Carlo Zen and Shinobu Shinotsuki. Released in Japan as “Youjo Senki” by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Richard Tobin. As we get to the beginning of the end of this series, it’s worth looking at something we’ve discussed before: which world war is this? Tanya states clearly in this book she thinks she’s still in “the first war”, but is also very much fighting communism of a Stalinist rather than Leninist vein. We also have a clear Churchill analogue, as well as Lavrentiy Beria, who remains easily the most disturbing of all of Tanya the Evil’s disturbing villain characters. That said, given that this is a war fought with magic, I perhaps should not worry about it too much. In this particular war, the…

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