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Manga the Week of 1/30/19

SEAN: It’s the last week of January, theoretically it should be light. What is with all this stuff? Cross Infinite World has the 2nd volume of the Gleam manga. Dark Horse releases Wish, the CLAMP manga from years ago, now in one big omnibus. Enjoy the gender pronoun wars all over again! MICHELLE: Oh, jeez. I kind of forgot Wish even existed. SEAN: Given that the solicit date from Diamond Comics is Summer 2017, I think everyone did. ANNA: I read it the first time around, don’t need to read it twice. I’ll just lurk here in a corner, still feeling bitter over X/1999. MELINDA: I sort of feel like as the resident CLAMP obsessive, I should take one for the team and do some kind of comparison read with…

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Infinite Dendrogram: The Hope They Left Behind

By Sakon Kaidou and Taiki. Released in Japan by Hobby Japan. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson. Way back in the first volume, when I had no idea what sort of series this was going to be, Ray was introduced to Altimia, a Tian and the first princess of the kingdom, and I assumed that she would be the first in a long line of girls in Ray’s orbit who would fall for him. Well, she’s barely appeared since, and while there HAVE been a bunch of girls in Ray’s orbit, with the exception of Nemesis they have shown very little interest in him romantically. This just isn’t a harem series. That said, the princess is back big time in this… or rather her “secret”…

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Amagi Brilliant Park, Vol. 3

By Shouji Gatou and Yuka Nakajima. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis. Half of this was fantastic, the other half I hated. Welcome to another review of Amagi Brilliant Park, a series I’m still very ambiguous about. The third book in the series is made of of short stories, two short and two long. The short stories were all right. The first one was based around the gag that if we ever saw the fairy mascots as humans, they’d all be sexy bishonen, which did not, for once, wear out its welcome so was quite funny. The other short story has Seiya, curious about the magical world, trying to go to it with Moffle. He doesn’t make it (train issues),…

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Nyankees, Vol. 1

By Atsushi Okada. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Caleb Cook. I was pretty excited when I heard about this license, despite never having heard of the title. I mean, stray cats depicted as delinquents in the classic “Japanese high school gang members” sort of way. It sounded hilarious and cute. Sadly, while it is cute when the cats are shown as cats, and there is an occasional joke that lands, this turns out to be a title that takes itself all too seriously. I get the sense that this is someone who wants to write delinquents rather than cats, and is therefore using the gimmick to tell the story he wants to tell….

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Bookshelf Briefs 1/21/19

Anonymous Noise, Vol. 12 | By Ryoko Fukuyama | Viz Media – Lots of things going on in this new volume. First of all, it’s a new year, and that means there’s potentially new club members—despite the band giving an absolutely wretched performance to the school. I’ll be honest, An feels a bit like she’s being introduced in order to be able to pair off one of the spares, but so far I’m pretty fine with that. Meanwhile, Nino seems to be maturing a little bit, but her relationship with Momo is still touch and go, and both Momo and Yuzu have a definite need for it to be Nino and only Nino who sings their songs. Yuzu is finally back towards the end of this book, but it feels…

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Kokoro Connect: Kako Random

By Sadanatsu Anda and Shiromizakana. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Molly Lee. Kako Random stands for Random Past, and sure enough that’s what we get here – though not from Heartseed for once. A 2nd Heartseed has shown up, possessing Taaichi’s classmate, and later his sister, to explain what’s going on… well, sort of. They pretty much only explain that if Taichi says anything, it will get much, much worse. Then, at club, we find the members suddenly getting younger, at random, for a five hour period. It’s everyone except Taichi, and can be varying ages – including babies. Needless to say, this is far more inconvenient than the first two, and our heroes end up holing up in an abandoned…

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Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Vol. 10

By Izumi Tsubaki. Released in Japan as “Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun” by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the online magazine Gangan Online. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Leighann Harvey. As you might gather by the cover, the bulk of this volume of Nozaki-kun deals with the 2nd years going on the class trip, with all the usual gags you would expect from both “class trip” as a riff and these Nozaki-kun characters. We see Chiyo’s obsession with Nozaki get amped up even more than it already was, which I wasn’t aware was even possible. Nozaki, of course, is similarly obsessed – with manga reference pictures, which he will happily do anything to get, including pretend to be a teacher and hide under the covers with Chiyo. As…

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The Magic in This Other World Is Too Far Behind!, Vol. 8

By Gamei Hitsuji and Ao Nekonabe. Released in Japan by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki. I feel this is a decent improvement on the last book, which I felt was overbalanced towards the back half. You could argue the same thing here, but honestly the front half was so amusing that I think its strengths outweigh the fact that it’s per fanservice and comedy. The start of the book has Felmenia, deciding that Suimei’s party needs a break, creating a pool in the middle of their backyard. Naturally we get swimsuit illustrations, but more importantly the girls all take this as an opportunity to have a giant water battle with each other using their powers. Suimei’s reactions are what make this, as he…

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Manga the Week of 1/23/19

SEAN: (collapses under pile of manga) (muffled voice) Yen Press week, gang. Dark Horse has a 2nd volume of its manga adaptation of the 2nd Dangan Ronpa game. J-Novel Club has the 2nd and final volume of Apparently It’s My Fault That My Husband Has the Head of a Beast, and the 12th and nowhere near final volume of In Another World with My Smartphone. Kodansha has a bunch of debuts, and they’re even print! We start with 10 Dance, which combines BL and ballroom dancing, so sounds AMAZING. It runs in Young Magazine the 3rd. MICHELLE: I am so looking forward to this. The cover and concept makes me think of the works of est em. ANNA: I am intrigued. ASH: Yes! I am so excited for this one!…

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