License Requests

I have a weakness for PBS series about professionals living in small communities, from All Creatures Great and Small to Doc Martin. I also love manga about people’s work. I believe I’ve found a perfect fusion of these two pet entertainments. It’s called Shimane no Bengoshi, written by Masahito Kagawa and illustrated by Tetsuo Aoki, [...]

I swear I’ve seen Erica Friedman describe Akita Shoten’s Champion Red as a shônen magazine where dignity and hope for a better world go to die, perhaps even suggesting that its readership should be monitored for their potentially detrimental influence on the gene pool. I trust Erica implicitly, but there is a horror series that’s [...]

As we approach the horror-tinged Manga Moveable Feast, I’m extremely happy that I can kill two license request birds with one stone: more Junji Ito, and more josei. I don’t know that publishers make a lot of money off of licensing Ito’s work, but they keep trying, bless them, so they must love his twisted, [...]

We’re in a phase when there’s more occasion for license requests than license news, so it seems appropriate to take a break and celebrate some very exciting announcements. Leave it to Vertical to keep giving manga fans reasons for joy. Now, how did I go through all those license requests without ever hitting upon Moyoco [...]

Reading a deranged drama by Osamu Tezuka always makes me want to read another deranged drama by Osamu Tezuka. They’re like peanuts. So the recent arrival of Tezuka’s The Book of Human Insects from Vertical (which is awesome) has triggered this craving and sent me on the hunt for the next possible gekiga license from [...]

Much as I’m enjoying The Favorites Alphabet, I do find myself missing the weekly immersion of The Josei Alphabet, so I’ve turned to that category for this week’s bit of begging. Specifically, I’ve turned to Shueisha’s Young You, and I’ve found slice of life. Nanae Haruno’s Papa Told Me ran for 27 volumes, meaning it [...]

Work has been extremely busy lately, and yet my yearning to read more workplace manga only seems to increase. What’s that about? Whatever the psychology behind it, I find myself turning to Shueisha’s Business Jump for this week’s license request. Now, among the professions I’ve considered over the course of my lifetime, I cannot say [...]

We’re in the midst of another season of Project Runway, one of my favorite reality competitions, even though I hate Josh C. M. to an absolutely unreasonable degree. So I thought I might take a look into the annals of fashion shôjo for today’s license request. (Note: We’re also into a new season of Top [...]

This week’s radio programming has me curious about the work of a relatively unknown-to-me member of the Year 24 Group, Yumiko Ôshima, so let’s take a look at some of her works! It seems like her best-known is The Star of Cottonland, which ran for seven volumes in Hakusensha’s LaLa. It’s about a kitten who [...]