Anne Happy, Vol. 4 | By Cotoji | Yen Press – I am beginning to wonder if the goal of this class filled with luckless idiots is not so much to improve their bad luck as to simply get them to find joy in little things anyway, as this fourth volume mostly involves a school trip that ends up in a giant keep away gave of tag, with the losers sleeping outside and foraging for food. Take a wild guess which team ends up losing. There’s also Karaoke (Anne breaks the equipment by merely attempting to use is) and woodcarving (Anne is quite good, but it shatters fairly easily). In order to appreciate these sad sacks, one must turn the brain off, but if you do, it can be cute and adorable, and a culture festival sounds fun. Recommended if you like moe stuff. – Sean Gaffney
Fate/Zero, Vol. 4 | By Gen Urobuchi, Type-Moon, and Shinjiro | Dark Horse – One of the biggest reasons to read Fate/Zero is too see the contrast in heroes between Shirou, the naive, hardheaded yet lovable hero of Fate/Stay Night, and Kirutsugu, the cool, pragmatic, “greater good” protagonist of Fate/Zero. And while Saber falls pretty hard for Shirou, it’s pretty clear that Kirutsugu fills her with rage and disgust, which is very well drawn here by Shinjiro. I also enjoyed seeing Irisviel’s attempts at being his balance, which I suspect are doomed to failure, and was weirded out by Sola-Ui, possibly as she looks like Bazett and has a crush on Lancer like Bazett. Oh yes, and we have more lovingly detailed child murder. Fate/Zero is classic Gen Urobuchi, which is to say death and pain, but so well-written. – Sean Gaffney
Haikyu!!, Vol. 8 | By Haruichi Furudate | Viz Media – In general, most sports manga that revolve around “it’s our chance to win the big tournament” invariably involve losing in the first tournament they try to win, because otherwise the manga would be quite short. And so it is for Haikyu!!, as despite various stratagem, and almost having a shot, our heroes still go down to defeat. But they can learn from it and let that frustration fill them with the desire to improve. And the graduating teammates may stick around a little longer after all, if they get permission, because yes, college is important, but this is volleyball. All that and we get cool poses, facial grimaces galore, and so much sweat you could float down it in a boat. Haikyu!! is powerful and fun to read. – Sean Gaffney
Kamisama Kiss, Vol. 23 | By Julietta Suzuki | VIZ Media – I’ve always enjoyed Kamisama Kiss, but I was never particularly excited about it. That has officially changed with this volume. Suzuki-sensei manages to strike the perfect balance between action, plot resolution, and feelings. Instead of the focus being on Tomoe and Nanami’s relationship, it’s on the friendship Tomoe and Akura-Oh once shared and how both of them were able to change through coming to love and understand humans. It’s quite lovely, actually. Creepy Yatori, who still looks like a villain out of Basara, is still in play, though, so our heroes are not entirely out of the woods yet. Having a high-quality ending like this really bolsters my opinion of the series as a whole. – Michelle Smith
Kuma Miko: Girl Meets Bear, Vol. 3 | By Masume Yoshimoto | One Peace Books – Kuma Miko is becoming a lot less weird and a lot more moe. Unfortunately, this has the effect of also making it far less interesting, as the story beats it’s hitting are ones that we’ve seen done better elsewhere (albeit with fewer talking bears). It also means we pay more attention to the interpersonal relationships, which can be somewhat creepy (Yoshio towards Machi, which is thankfully called out by Hibiki) or disturbingly co-dependent (Machi and the bear). We do get an occasionally funny gag (“they’ll throw rocks at me!” seems like country naivete till it gets a callback. I’m beginning to be reminded of another series set way out in the country, Non Non Biyori, and am asking: is there a point to this? – Sean Gaffney
Kuroko’s Basketball, Vols. 7-8 | By Tadatoshi Fujimaki | Viz Media – The crushing defeat from last volume still weighs on both Kuroko and Kagami, and Kuroko in particular is finding it hard to move past and get to the next level. Luckily there are ways to fix that, such as INTENSE TRAINING. We get sand basketball, which is as rough as it sounds, and poor Kagami running and running and running and then running some more. And then we get to watch more of the winner’s in the tournament, as the battle between Aomine and Kise, which is incredibly badass, and also helps to show that yes, Kuroko and Kagami DO have a ways to go. Luckily, we’ve a number of volumes to go as well. Having this and Haikyu!! coming out at the same time means we’re hitting similar beats, but they’re both good. – Sean Gaffney
Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Vol. 22 | By Shinobu Ohtaka | Viz Media – The heroes of Magi are filled with shiny shonen idealism, and they run up hard against the cynicism of the real world in this volume. Even Sinbad, who’s been presented till now as at least a reasonable ally, is starting to show signs that he may be, if not just as bad, certainly just as problematic. Alibaba is not yet strong enough to refuse offers that he can’t refuse. To the rescue comes Aladdin, who gives everyone a giant flashback to show what happened in the universe he’s from, a parallel one where humanity is fighting evil Mr. Potato Heads, and we also get Solomon and Sheba, because I was wondering when they would show up in this manga clearly influenced by Biblical as well as Arabian Nights myth. Magi is terrific; you should know this by now. – Sean Gaffney
Maid-sama!, Vols. 13-14 | By Hiro Fujiwara | VIZ Media – Y’know, Maid-sama! is certainly not a great manga, but damned if it isn’t immensely satisfying when things finally happen! I suppose that’s owing to the fact that Misaki is a stubborn tsundere, which can be frustrating, but I cannot deny that her confession of love and Usui’s reciprocation, followed by their becoming an official couple and eventually revealing their status to the school is all the sweeter because it took so long. There’s plenty of other stuff in this volume, including a school trip with appearances by random supporting characters and more boring drama about Usui’s family background, but even the plot wherein he transfers schools for his final year is redeemed when Misaki is 100% not cowed by some rich girl claiming Usui is her fiancé. The endgame is afoot! – Michelle Smith
Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Vol. 6 | By Izumi Tsubaki | Yen Press – I suppose it might seem like an insult to say that this volume of Nozaki-kun is pretty much the same as the others, but I actually mean it as a compliment. Tsubaki continues to spin out amusing scenarios for her characters with no dip in quality. In this volume, Nozaki is doing a lot of research into horror themes, in anticipation of having to incorporate some into his manga, but there are other silly gags like Wakamatsu being transformed into a confident guy via an eye patch, doing summer homework at Nozaki’s house, and finding a suitable girl to pretend to be Mikoshiba’s girlfriend in order to persuade a persistent admirer to back off. Each new volume of this series is like the best kind of brain balm and I’m grateful for it! – Michelle Smith