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Paying to Win in a VRMMO, Vol. 4

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. Despite the fact that everything I either wanted or predicted would happen in my previous reviews turned out to be wrong, this ended up being probably the strongest volume in this series to date. Once again Ichiro is somewhat sidelined, this time by design – both parties have asked him to stay out of their design battle, which he does. In addition, I had predicted doom if Nem ever met Iris in real life – and lo and behold, that happens right at the beginning of the book. It’s OK, though, because this book ends up being…

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She and Her Cat

By Makoto Shinkai and Tsubasa Yamaguchi. Released in Japan as “Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Afternoon. Released in North America by Vertical Comics. Translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian. The first thing that occurred to me after I finished She and Her Cat was that I felt that it would have been a much better book without the cat. I later changed my mind, but it has to be said that those who pick this up thinking it’s another cute animal book like Chi’s Sweet Home will be brutally disappointed. The cat exhibits some signs of cleverness in it, but is pretty much just a cat in the end, and the relationship with a kitten is the weakest part of the volume. That said, the volume…

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Manga the Week of 8/23/17

SEAN: I can’t. I just can’t. How on earth is this much stuff coming out? MICHELLE: And still none of it is 7SEEDS or Silver Diamond! ANNA: Or Demon Sacred! SEAN: Dark Horse gives us the 26th volume of the Vampire Hunter D novels. ASH: I somehow managed to forget that the novel series was still ongoing. SEAN: J-Novel Club has a 2nd volume of adorable family series If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord. Oh please stay an adorable family series… Yes, there’s still more Del Rey rescues, with Princess Resurrection 17. Somehow there is a new Animal Land out, Vol. 12. Only 9 months after 11! Is the series back on track? ASH: Maybe?! The ending seems so close and yet so far away….

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One Piece, Vol. 83

By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by Stephen Paul. One of the most obvious things that a reader will pick up on when reading any given volume of One Piece is how much fun Oda must have while creating it. Jump manga in general is very good at showing off the author’s joie de vivre, but Oda in particular makes you think of the title as a giant rollercoaster of pure wow. In particular in this volume, the scenes in the Seducing Woods are amazing, being a combination of childhood dreams of everything being alive and talking to you (including all the sweets you eat), and the horror of everything being alive and…

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Bookshelf Briefs 8/15/17

The not-so-brief edition! Akuma no Riddle, Vol. 5 | By Yun Kouga and Sunao Minakata | Seven Seas – How much you enjoy this final volume of Akuma no Riddle may depend on how much you enjoy stories having a happy ending even if they have to pull the logic out of their asses somewhat. The anime finished long before this, but the beats are essentially the same, as is the result. That said, the manga is definitely making things a bit more “yuri,” and since that is the main audience for this series, I imagine fans will appreciate that if nothing else. Also, we have some really hot women in suits on the cover, and that’s worth the price of the book in and of itself. In the end,…

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In Another World with My Smartphone, Vol. 4

By Patora Fuyuhara and Eiji Usatsuka. Released in Japan as “Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson. Our little smartphone novel has grown up to a degree, and it’s something I view with very mixed feelings. Sure, we still have the occasional plotline that is just “Touya and friends lackadaisically do relaxing things’, but I can’t really call this a pure and innocent isekai anymore. It’s reached puberty and is trying to act up. Oh, rest assured, there’s no actual sex or anything. That would require losing an audience that the author is not prepared to lose. But Touya just seems a bit more cynical in his dealings with things, and he’s thinking about women a…

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Ranking Your Favorite Manga

If you haven’t visited Book Dragon, a website for “the multi-culti reader,” now’s a great time to do so. Host Terry Hong just posted a thoughtful, two-part list of her all-time favorite manga, from Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys to Fumi Yoshinaga’s What Did You Eat Yesterday? (Side note: Hong religiously reviews each new volumes of What Did You Eat, for anyone who loves its particular mix of delicious recipes and domestic drama.) Her taste is decidedly catholic; you won’t find any out-of-left-field surprises or true guilty pleasures on either list. I’d argue, however, that such conservatism is the list’s real strength, as it emphasizes titles whose craft would be obvious to anyone, not just a dedicated manga reader. Click here to read part one; click here to read part two. For extra credit, what…

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My Week in Manga: August 7-August 13, 2017

My News and Reviews I shifted around my usual posting schedule at Experiments in Manga a little last week so, instead of posting July’s Bookshelf Overload, I ended up featuring my review of Kazuki Sakuraba’s most recent work to be released in English, A Small Charred Face. The book is scheduled to be released in September (I received an advanced copy from Haikasoru for review purposes), and is definitely worth checking out. I’m not especially interested in vampire fiction, but A Small Charred Face makes for a very interesting contribution to the genre and I loved the queerness present in the story. Sakuraba is probably best known as the creator of Gosick, which I’ve been meaning to read, but my introduction to her work was through Red Girls: The Legend…

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Attack on Titan, Vol. 22

By Hajime Isayama. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Ko Ransom. “Tragic backstory intensifies” would be a good description of this volume, for the most part. Eren continues to have dreams that flash back to his father’s life before he was born, showing us the fate of Grisha’s first wife (she appeared in the story earlier than we think, it turns out!) and what our kingdom really is – an island kingdom, with most of the world very much not dead on the other side of the ocean. We also, as predicted, see Eren and Mikasa in jail for the orders they disobeyed in the previous couple of books, though that doesn’t last, mostly…

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