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Chihayafuru, Vol. 3

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. There’s a lot going on in this volume of Chihayafuru, which is starting to find its feet. We gain a new member of the karuta club, which has now hit the required five. Tsutomu, aka “Desk-kun”, is an introverted, small, nerdy guy who seems to be devoted to studies and has few friends. But once Chihaya sets her sights on him (which involves, at one point, kidnapping him), and he realizes that one of the otehr players on the team is in fact the #1 stude3nt in the school, he wonders if karuta can help his focus in other areas as well. I…

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Manga the Week of 6/28/17

SEAN: It’s the end of the fiscal year! The real 2016 ends on June 30th! What are publishers putting out before the end of the budget? Bookwalker has been a site that distributes digital titles for many publishers, but they’ve decided to dip their own toe into the pond with a new light novel series, The Combat Baker and Automaton Waitress. It appears to feature delicious bread. MELINDA: I do like delicious bread… Can a great title like this lure me into a light novel series? Stay tuned to find out! SEAN: I’m always wary to list DMP titles these days given how iffy they’ve been with print the last two years, but The Tyrant Falls in Love 10 is still listed by Amazon as coming out next week. ASH:…

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Master Keaton, Vol. 11

If you’re a connoisseur of British crime procedurals, you’ve undoubtedly watched one or two episodes of Midsomer Murders, England’s answer to Murder, She Wrote. It isn’t the edgiest or smartest mystery series on television, but it is among the most consistently enjoyable, delivering a satisfying answer to the question, “Whodunnit?” at the end of every episode. Part of the series’ success lies with its formula: someone commits a ghastly murder, then DCI Barnaby scrutinizes the crime scene and chases a few leads before revealing the killer’s identity — often to a roomful of astonished people — spelling out her motives and methods in detail. This formula is flexible enough to offer a steady supply of fresh scenarios yet predictable enough to reassure viewers that there’s a payoff for keeping track of the…

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Requiem of the Rose King, Vol 6

Requiem of the Rose King Volume 6 by Aya Kanno My only minor quibble with this series is that as it progresses, I sometimes have difficulty telling all the blonde Englishmen apart. However, once I’m further into each volume I start remembering the more subtle aspects of Kanno’s character designs and then I can tell who is who. One of the themes of this series is the brutality of war and the psychological cost associated with making kings, both with those who seek power through manipulation and the kings themselves who end up as pawns in a bigger game of statesmanship. Richard and Henry have found a peace with each other that is utterly separate from their hidden identities as opposing Tudor and Yorks. While Richard as the central character…

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Paying to Win in a VRMMO, Vol. 3

By Blitz Kiva and Kuwashima Rein. Released in Japan as “VRMMO wo Kane no Chikara de Musou suru” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis. The afterword mentions that this volume’s story was not part of the original webnovel, but was especially written for the books in order to try to flesh out Sakurako/Kirschwasser’s character, as she doesn’t get much to do in the main series. She gets a lot more to do here, and I like her determination and devotion to the game, but I wish that we’d gotten a little bit more of the mysterious backstory she has – it’s hinted she’s “had a rough life”, but that doesn’t really go anywhere, and we don’t have any flashbacks to how…

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Bookshelf Briefs 6/19/17

Ace of the Diamond, Vol. 4 | By Yuji Terajima | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – This volume might’ve set a record for “number of times Michelle got verklempt due to sports manga.” Eijun’s skills continue to improve, but moreso his character does, as he realizes that taciturn catcher Chris has really been looking out for his best interests all along. Eijun becomes determined to pay him back by showing him some improvement before he graduates, practically forgetting that two junior varsity players have the opportunity to move up in his desire to express his gratitude to his teammate. Sniff! And then Chris, who has missed a year of play due to injury, gets the chance to show how terrific he’s been all this time. Meanwhile, his former varsity teammates…

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My Week in Manga: June 12-June 18, 2017

My News and Reviews It’s been couple of months since there’s been an in-depth review here at Experiments in Manga (I mostly blame TCAF 2017), but last week I was very pleased to write about Yeon-sik Hong’s award-winning manhwa Uncomfortably Happily which was just released by Drawn & Quarterly this past Tuesday. It’s an engrossing and relatable memoir about the time Hong and his wife moved from the city of Seoul to the countryside of Pocheon. Normally I would have posted May’s Bookshelf Overload last week, but because I wanted to feature Uncomfortably Happily close to its release date, I’ll be posting it later this week instead. As for other interesting things to read online, The OASG interviewed a few cosplayers about their opinions on Yui Sakuma’s Complex Age, a manga…

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After Hours, Vol. 1

By Yuhta Nishio. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hibana. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by Abby Lehrke. There is something of a history in yuri manga of the protagonists realizing their feelings for each other while still in school. Sometimes it’s just them, sometimes we get another couple, and sometimes everyone in the school seems to be gay, but the theme is “students”. After Hours, therefore, with its relationship between a shy 24-year-old college graduate and the 30-year-old DJ she meets at a club, is a breath of fresh air for no reason other than the fact that it’s about two adults. Fortunately, there’s a lot more to it than just that, and in fact the ‘yuri’ part of the volume is touched…

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On the Shojo Beat With Matt Thorn

Good news for manga scholars: Matt Thorn is in the process of rebuilding her site on shojo manga! Among her most recent posts is a fascinating look at Ribbon and Shojo, two of the most popular girls’ magazines in mid-century Japan. Thorn’s goal in revisiting these issues is to highlight some of Osamu Tezuka’s overlooked peers — an important project, I think, as American readers are fixated on the idea that Tezuka “invented” modern manga with stories like New Treasure Island and Princess Knight. In a similar spirit, Thorn also posted an article celebrating the first generation of postwar shojo manga artists, the men and women whose work profoundly influenced such Magnificent 49ers as Keiko Takemiya and Moto Hagio. As with her article on Tezuka’s peers, “Before the Forty-Niners” offers a rich, nuanced look at the development of…

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