Main navigation

Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Latest Picks

LATEST FEATURES, ESSAYS, COLUMNS, ROUNDTABLES, & REVIEWS

By

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, Vol. 4

By Dojyomaru and Fuyuyuki. Released in Japan by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sean McCann. Realist Hero continues to keep my interest even as my teeth grind more and more at the mindset of the author and his characters, which is to its credit. Certainly there are similar isekais that did not hold my attention and have since been dropped (hi, Death March). It’s even more impressive given that, for the second volume in a row, this feels like a setup book, putting various things in place, introducing new technology that will no doubt be needed down the road, and (at last) finally answering one of the lingering questions of the series: why on Earth did the former King abdicate to Souma after…

Read More

By

Until Your Bones Rot, Vol. 1

When Lois Duncan passed away in 2016, fans and critics alike fondly remembered her as the author of I Know What You Did Last Summer, the first great psychological thriller for teens. Duncan’s story took a tried-and-true plot and retooled it for younger readers, focusing on a quartet of teens who commit and conceal a crime, only to be stalked by an anonymous avenger. While the plot was pure potboiler, Duncan’s characterizations were remarkably realistic, convincingly depicting the confusion, uncertainty, and rashness of the teenage mind under extreme duress. Until Your Bones Rot explores similar terrain as I Know What You Did Last Summer. Bones’ teen protagonists — Shintaro, Akira, Haruko, Ryu, and Tsubaki — are bound by a gruesome crime they committed when they were eleven years old. Artist Yae Utsumi doesn’t immediately…

Read More

By , , , and

Manga the Week of 10/25/17

SEAN: Honestly, thanks to Kodansha’s digital push, there are not even any medium weeks anymore. Every week is huge. Forever! Good news for manga fans, bad news for budgets. ASH: So true! SEAN: Dark Horse has the 3rd Hatsune Miku:Rin-chan Now!, theoretically: the title’s been bumped 3 weeks in a row. ASH: That’s not nearly as timely as the title might suggest. SEAN: J-Novel Club has a great deal out next week. We get the third volume of If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord, which remains heartwarming and family-oriented… FOR NOW. (ominous thunder) The polarizing light novel In Another World With My Smartphone just finished a polarizing anime just in time for Vol. 5. I’m hoping it stays laid-back and ridiculous. And we’re almost done…

Read More

By

Chihayafuru, Vol. 4

By Yuki Suetsugu. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Be Love. Released in North America digitally by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Ko Ransom. The sign of a good series is that you care about the characters as if they were real people, and take joy in their triumphs and grieve at their setbacks. This can sometimes backfire, however, when you see the setbacks coming and think to yourself “Oh noooooo!”. The moment I saw Chihaya’s head throb, I knew immediately what was going to happen by the end of the volume, and it hurt. This is why this review is running somewhat late, because I really did not want to read what I knew was going to happen. It comes after a half volume of small…

Read More

By

From the Vault: The Red Snake

Hideshi Hino’s works are exuberantly gross, filled with melting faces, monstrous babies, and bugs — lots of bugs. In the 1990s and early 2000s, two publishers — Blast Books and DH Publishing — made a concerted effort to introduce American readers to Hino through a sixteen-volume retrospective that included The Bug Boy, Black Cat, Mystique Mandala of Hell, and Onibo and the Bugs from Hell, as well as stand-alone editions of Hell Baby and Panoroma of Hell. Hino didn’t catch on with US comic fans 20 years ago, but he seems overdue for a revival, if only to recognize his stylistic affinities with the manga artists who dominated Weekly Shonen Jump in the 1960s and 1970s. Then, too, Hino’s stories have a knack for getting under your skin, even when they shade into the ridiculous. His distinctive style…

Read More

By

The Faraway Paladin: The Lord of the Rust Mountains

By Kanata Yanagino and Kususaga Rin. Released in Japan as “Saihate no Paladin” by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by James Rushton. I’m reviewing this as one giant book, but it actually came out as two books here, called ‘Primus’ and ‘Secundus’ – in fact, Amazon thinks that those are the titles, and forgot about the whole Rust Mountains thing. It works better to see them as one big book, though, which is what the author intended. The first volume simply stops, and the second picks up right where it left off – there’s no real attempt to separate them. As for the plot, our square-jawed hero and his elf friend are here to take down an ancient dragon, helped out by some old friends…

Read More

By

My Week in Manga: October 9-October 15, 2017

My News and Reviews Last week at Experiments in Manga I posted the Bookshelf Overload for September which includes lists of some of the manga and other books that I picked up last month (along with some brief commentary). Looking forward to future manga releases, Vertical Comics recently announced two new titles: Pop Team Epic by Bkub Okawa and The Delinquent Housewife! by Yoko Nemu. Seven Seas also had an interesting announcement to make. In addition to two licenses–Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs by Tadahiro Miura and World’s End Harem by Link and Kotaro Shono–Seven Seas is launching Ghost Ship, a new imprint for the publishers’ more mature titles. Quick Takes Captain Harlock: Dimensional Voyage, Volume 1 written by Leiji Matsumoto, illustrated by Kouiti Shimaboshi. Although I immediately recognize…

Read More

By and

Bookshelf Briefs 10/16/17

Ace of the Diamond, Vol. 5 | By Yuji Terajima | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – It’s been a while since the last volume of Ace of the Diamond and I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it! Eijun, who began the series as a hothead, has matured without losing the emotional side that makes him sympathetic. Seeing him not only grow from Chris’ tutelage and execute one truly amazing pitch during their last inning of play together but then bawl his eyes out when he makes varsity and Chris doesn’t is, honestly, pretty darn sweet. He may be brash, but he’s a good kid. Even better, we get more insight into Furuya, who is currently stronger in pitching but lacks in people skills. I love that he doesn’t see himself…

Read More

By

Juni Taisen: Zodiac War

By NISIOISIN and Hikaru Nakamura. Released in Japan by Shueisha. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Nathan A. Collins. I wasn’t sure what to make of this when I first heard of it, and now that I’ve finished it, I’m still not quite sure. It was written two years ago, and the anime is just coming out now, so it seems like it wasn’t written solely to be a TV tie-in (Nisio has done those before, writing books in the Death Note and xxxHOLIC franchises). But honestly, it doesn’t have the same strong authorial voice that I’ve grown used to from the Monogatari and Zaregoto series – if nothing else, it has far fewer puns. If I’m going to be honest it feels like it’s a book…

Read More

More Features & Reviews