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Daytime Shooting Star, Vol 1

Daytime Shooting Star Volume 1 by Mika Yamamori We haven’t had a ton of student-teacher shoujo romances being translated here recently, but perhaps series like Dengeki Daisy and Takane and Hana have paved the way. Suzume has a comfortable, slow-paced life in the country. Her classmates are all as familiar to her as siblings, and she feels free to randomly ditch class and go up on the roof of her school building to stare at the sky. Unfortunately her routines are about to be disrupted, as her parents announce that they have to go abroad for her father’s work, and they are sending her to Tokyo to live with her uncle. Suzume ends up getting lost on her way to her uncle’s house and an eccentric young man wearing a…

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Sword Art Online: Progressive, Vol. 6

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul. There’s not nearly as much Kirito/Asuna shipping in this second volume of this two-parter, but that’s fine as I actually was getting into the game part for once. Kirito is dealing with things that puzzle him on several fronts. First, and pun intended, there are the puzzles, including the last boss being a nearly insoluble game of sudoku. Secondly, there are the changes from the beta, meaning Kirito can sometimes be caught doing the wrong thing. Thirdly, the player killers are messing things up by killing NPCs and forcing the game into a completely different direction. And lastly, and most importantly, the NPCs are simply far too complex…

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Ascendance of a Bookworm: I’ll Do Anything to Become a Librarian!, Part 1: Daughter of a Soldier, Vol. 2

By Miya Kazuki and You Shiina. Released in Japan as “Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen” by TO Books. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by quof. This was a stronger volume than the first one, which I already liked quite a bit. The reason for this is that Myne has essentially accepted this world and who she is in it, and thus does not spend quite as much time railing against her weak body and her fate of being in a world with no books. There’s still a number of times when Myne gets discouraged by everyone being faster/stronger than her, but it isn’t as exhausting this time. It helps that Myne is starting to succeed, and she and Lutz…

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Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family, Vol. 2

By TAa, based on Fate/Stay Night by TYPE-MOON. Released in Japan as “Emiya-san Chi no Kyou no Gohan” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace Up. Released in North America by Denpa Books. Translated by Ko Ransom. Admit it, you’re surprised this review is here at all. Let’s face it, if ever there was a manga series that cried out “review the first volume, then do the subsequent ones as Bookshelf Briefs”, it’s Emiya Family, a series that has zero plot and static characterization. And yet that doesn’t make it bad – indeed, its lack of plot and the fact that the characters are all basically “lovable cooks” is its main selling point. We don’t want to be reading about Sakura’s abuse at the hands of her…

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Bookshelf Briefs 7/10/19

Haikyu!!, Vol. 33 | By Haruichi Furudate | Viz Media – The game ended! It was an incredible finish too, and once again I praise the author for having a good feel for keeping the pace exciting and yet also making the action clear. Hate to spoil it, but our heroes win the match, though we end up following the losing team right after the game, showing how this defeat is going to make them get stronger. I really liked the twin (you know, one of them) telling Hinata he was going to set for him one day—it’s a reminder that they could take this past high school. But the break is brief, as by the end of the volume we’re in another battle against Nekoma, and I get the…

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Manga the Week of 7/17/19

SEAN: This may be the smallest week I’ve seen in years. Under 20 titles! ASH: I’m astonished! SEAN: Haikasoru has the 9th Legend of the Galactic Heroes. ASH: The penultimate volume! SEAN: J-Novel Club has a trio of popular series, with How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom 9, The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar 8, and My Next Life As a Villainess! 4. In print, Kodansha has the 4th Quintessential Quintuplets (which is getting a 2nd season of anime soon) and a 4th Yuri Is My Job!. ASH: I’ve been meaning to get around to Yuri Is My Job! at some point. Maybe the time has come. SEAN: Digitally there is Altair: A Record of Battles 11, Mikami-sensei’s Way of Love 6, The Quintessential Quintuplets (yes, again)…

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Kokoro Connect: Nise Random

By Sadanatsu Anda and Shiromizakana. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Molly Lee. This volume had its work cut out for it, at least in regards to me. The title translated as “Random Fakes”, and it’s not spoiling anything to let you know that we get a pile of “Heartseed’s magic lets me impersonate another person so that I can quietly destroy their lives”. This plotline makes me very uncomfortable, always has, and so I was cringing through a large part of the first third of this book. Fortunately, the author knows that our heroes have been down this road before, and we eventually end up going in a completely different direction. What the book really is is an extended character study…

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Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 1

Komi Can’t Communicate Volume 1 by Tomohito Oda I tend to be a little leery of shonen comedies, but I found Komi Can’t Communicate both amusing and endearing. I think in general I tend to have better luck with Shonen Sunday series like this one as opposed to Shonen Jump titles. Komi Can’t Communicate is told though the point of view of Tadano, a timid freshman who just wants to get through high school without standing out too much after some disastrous attempts to distinguish himself in junior high. However, as is fairly typical for any manga protagonist wanting a normal high school life, this doesn’t end up happening. He meets his classmate Komi, who is held up as the class princess due to her beauty and aloof nature. But…

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Mythical Beast Investigator, Vol. 1

By Keishi Ayasato and Koichiro Hoshino. Released in Japan as “Genjuu Chousain” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Famitsu Comic Clear. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Angela Liu. Adapted by Ysa McFarlane. As if the shot of the adorable young woman sitting politely in the forest with her red-eyed demon flayer behind her weren’t reason enough to believe this might be a wee bit darker than expected, it’s also written by the person who wrote Torture Princess. Then again, that may actually be par for the course in this genre. We’ve seen an extensive amount of “cute young thing is introduced to (or is already part of) supernatural world manga series, and almost all of them tick the ‘darker than they seem’ box. The…

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