MJ: There’s not much for me in this week’s haul, so I decided to take a look at what’s been coming out digitally from Viz… and wow, the choices are abundant! Some of my long-time favorites are mid-release in Viz’s digital store, including Yumi Tamura’s Basara (now up to volume 18), CLAMP’s X (omnibus volume 4), Kentaro Yabuki’s Black Cat (volume 20), and Yoko Kamio’s Boys Over Flowers (volume 11). But I’ve got my eye on Here Is Greenwood, Yukie Nasu’s shoujo take on boys’ dormitory life, originally published from 1987-1991—possibly my favorite period for shoujo manga. I missed this series when it was first published in English, and was thrilled to see that it is now available in its entirety (nine volumes) at vizmanga.com. I guess I know what I’ll be picking up this week!
MICHELLE: I had no idea that Here Is Greenwood was available digitally, but now that I do I must enthusiastically endorse it. MJ, I think you would seriously love this manga. There’s also a thoroughly charming OVA of the series that I am lucky enough (and old enough) to own on VHS. It looks like even more Shojo imprint titles have been added while I wasn’t looking… Doubt!! (from the creator of Seiho Boys’ High School) and W Juliet, for example!
SEAN: I can’t help but agree here. Here Is Greenwood is one of my favorite old shoujo titles, filled with humor and heart and more humor. Having it digitally is a huge win, and I definitely endorse it as pick of the week.
ASH: Well, here I was all set to pick Attack on Titan for the week and you all had to go and complicate things for me! I think I’ll probably stick with that, but I’d also like to throw in my support for Here Is Greenwood and all the other great out-of-print shoujo manga Viz is now releasing digitally.
ANNA: I’m now convinced that I need to read Here Is Greenwood! I’m going to pick a different Viz digital title though, Firefighter! Daigo of Fire Company M. I’ve read the first couple volumes of this series, and I’m very happy that all the shonen firefighting struggles are now available in digital format. My main memories of the first couple volumes was that there was plenty of passion and shouting about fires! I’m going to be buying some of this series for my iPad for sure.
What looks good to you this week?
AshLynx says
January 27, 2014 at 11:02 pmExcellent, do check out Firefighter Daigo! So glad to see it mentioned here! It’s my absolute favorite straight up action shonen (my all-time favorite shonen is Hikaru no Go, but this is second, believe it or not). For a series about fighting the most improbable fires ever, it still somehow sucks you in and won’t let go. I figured, towards the start of this series, that it was going to start with a house fire and end with all of Japan on fire. I was close. But the passion of the main is just infectious to read and when most arcs end with ordinary people thanking Daigo and his sixth sense fire fighting skills from the bottom of their hearts, it’s hard not to get warm fuzzies from it. Then Daigo usually broke 5 ribs and two limbs and has to stay in the hospital for a while.
Michelle, I read Doubt!! based on the author too, but my god is it dry as all hell, I just could not find a story about a girl whose main goal in life was to be pretty and popular the slightest bit relatable. Then, when anyone called her out on being shallow for it, she’d get all defensive and say how hard she worked to be pretty and popular. It was really lacking Seiho’s charm imo, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up, sadly :(
And I can’t help but agree that Greenwood’s OVA is charming as all hell! I think the OVA does the fantasy thing a lot better, in the manga, it was straight up fantasy detour, but in the OVA, it’s a student movie they’re doing and I think that’s really really cool and works a lot better.
Anna N says
January 31, 2014 at 1:41 amI thought that Seiho Boys’ High School was WAY better than Doubt!! – I was only able to last through a couple volumes of that series.