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Moteki: Love Strikes!, Vol. 1

By Mitsurou Kubo. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Evening. Released in North America by Vertical Comics. Translated by Ko Ransom. Several years ago, when I was in New York City on a trip, I used to go to the Japanese bookstore to pick up random manga magazines and see what sort of things they had in them that would never be licensed over here. One of the more interesting ones was Evening, a magazine put out twice a month by Kodansha, meant as a complement to the mainstream Weekly Morning and the otaku-oriented Afternoon. Evening wasn’t as experimental as some magazines, but it tended towards manga for adults, with adult problems and solutions that didn’t necessarily come easily. Moteki is one of those titles, and I…

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Infinite Stratos, Vol. 1

By Izuru Yumizuru and CHOCO. Released in Japan by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Holm Hinners. I knew this one was going to be difficult, and kept repeating to myself as I read it, “Remember this came out in 2009, before all those other ones.” But it’s hard. I never saw the Infinite Stratos anime (I know, you’re shocked), which itself is almost five years old at this point. And we’ve had endless works of a similar type or variety since then, intentional or not. Guy arrives at a school, lots of girls, his relative is a higher-up, gotta pilot a giant mech… I should go re-read my review of Hybrid x Heart to see if I’m repeating myself from there. I have no…

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Bookshelf Briefs 4/16/18

Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, Vol. 2 | By Hitsuji Tarou, Tsunemi Aosa and Kurone Mishima | Seven Seas – Perhaps I was just in a bad mood the first two volumes, but it seems to me that this third volume of Akashic Records is much stronger than the previous ones. It’s essentially a tournament arc, and features a lot of the standard cliches that you would expect. But I’ve gotten used to the proclivities of the characters by now, and the narrative does something very good in regards to Rumia and her hidden past, showing how she clearly wants to make things better but also can’t get over exactly what was done to her. Unfortunately, she’s also accused of treason. Which kinda sucks. This has gotten good enough…

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The Manga Revue, 4/16/18

Today’s super-sized Manga Revue comes to you courtesy of Patriot’s Day, my second favorite Massachusetts-only holiday. (The first is Evacuation Day, a thinly-disguised attempt to give Boston’s civil servants permission to skip work on St. Paddy’s.) In addition to a bumper crop of links, I have two reviews for you: volume four of D&D cooking extravaganza Delicious in Dungeon, and volumes three and four of everyone’s favorite backwoods culinary adventure Golden Kamuy. Looking back on food manga’s early history in the US, who could have predicted that readers would be feasting on such a wide array of titles in 2018, from Sweetness and Lightning and What Did You Eat Yesterday? to Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale, Food Wars!! Shokugeki no Soma, and Toriko. Maybe the North American market is finally ready for an Iron Wok Jan renaissance… Delicious in Dungeon, Vol….

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Arifureta Zero, Vol. 1

By Ryo Shirakome and Takaya-ki. Released in Japan as “Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou Rei” by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen. If a spinoff of Arifureta was going to be done, the Liberators were the only obvious choice. And, despite the novel starting out trying to make us think that Oscar was going to be the main character (which he is to an extent), this is all Miledi’s plan and all Miledi’s book. As such, enjoyment of this book will depend on how much you enjoyed Miledi in the second novel. She’s deliberately written to be annoying, and even though we get a tragic backstory here to explain why she does that it can still make you want to grit your teeth at…

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Monster Tamer Girls, Vol. 1

By Mujirushi Shimazaki. Released in Japan as “Kaijuu no Shiiku Iin” by Houbunsha, serialized in the magazine Manga Time Kirara Forward. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Amber Tamosaitis. When I reviewed New Game!, I went into a bit of detail regarding the classic Kirara work, i.e. “a group of girls doing but really just relaxing and chatting a lot”. It’s a shame, because it would help to pad out the word count of this review, as there’s a lot of that happening here as well. To be fair, Monster Tamer Girls does have the girls taming monsters a hell of a lot more than, say, K-On! has the girls playing concerts. This is a world where monsters are still being analyzed to a degree, and as…

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Accel World: Signal Fire at the Water’s Edge

By Reki Kawahara and Hima. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jocelyne Allen. A lot of what I’ve seen in Accel World has been the author recognizing, lampshading, and attempting to either fix or downplay the faults that we’ve seen in his previous series, Sword Art Online. The lead here, Haruyuki, is if anything even more powerful than Kirito, but while Kirito does have inner turmoil (something the anime was not that great in bringing out), Haruyuki is all inner turmoil. Kirito spends most of his time in SAO either solo playing or reluctantly partnering up; Haruyuki cherishes working with people and forming friendships. Also, while Kirito may be your typical light novel hero and amass a harem of girls who…

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Takane & Hana, Vol. 2

Takane & Hana Volume 2 by Yuki Shiwasu I enjoyed the first volume of this series, but it is always good to see how a new manga series will settle in after the author has gotten through introducing the characters and plot points in the first five chapters or so. It was interesting to see this odd couple continue to navigate situations that are out of their respective comfort zones. Hana attends an important work social event with Takane, made up to resemble her older sister. Hana then concludes (sensibly) that the age difference between them is too great and attempts to push Takane away, but that doesn’t go well. Hana then takes Takane out to cherry blossom viewing where he has to deal with being around throngs of people….

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Moteki: Love Strikes!, Vol. 1

By Mitsurou Kubo | Published by Vertical Comics Although I was originally quite keen to read Moteki, it took me nearly a week to finish this volume. That isn’t due to its length (Vertical is publishing the entire series in two hefty volumes) but to the fact that the protagonist, self-proclaimed loser Yukiyo Fujimoto, is really hard to take in large doses. The story begins in the summer of Yukiyo’s 29th year, when he experiences a brief flurry of contact from women in his past. Desperate for love and sex, he reconnects with each of them and botches each attempt in one way or another. With Aki Doi, the former coworker who held hands with him at a rock festival until her boyfriend showed up, he’s too passive. With Natsuki,…

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