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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Yuji Iwahara

My Week in Manga: January 16-January 22, 2017

January 23, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

It’s been several months since my last in-depth review, but over the weekend I actually managed to post one delving into the eighth omnibus of Makoto Yukimura’s Vinland Saga. I really love this series so I am thrilled that Kodansha Comics was able to continue publishing it. The eighth omnibus marks the start of an exciting new story arc and introduces some great new characters. On a personal note, it also felt good to actually finish writing a review since it’s been so long. I’d like to continue posting at least one long-form review or feature every month in addition to the usual My Week in Manga, Bookshelf Overload, and Giveaway features. On the surface it seems to be a reasonable goal, so I guess I’ll see how it goes!

Elsewhere online, Sparkler Monthly‘s first issue of 2017 has been released. As can be expected, all of the content is great, but this issue specifically features Denise Schroeder and her delightful lesbian-themed comic Before You Go. I took a look at the first installment of Before You Go as part of my Year of Yuri review project a couple of years ago. It’s a great comic, so I’m glad so see more of it. And if things go well, there should be a collected edition in the near future as well! Also last week, Seven Seas announced its collaboration with J-Novel Club to release Ao Jyumonji’s Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash and Chiyomaru Shikura’s Occultic;Nine in print.

Quick Takes

Dimension W, Volume 2Dimension W, Volumes 1-2 by Yuji Iwahara. Several of Iwahara’s manga series have been released in English. I’ve read and enjoyed both Cat Paradise and King of Thorn, but there’s also Chikyu Misaki and most recently Dimension W. I’ve come to expect a few things from Iwahara’s manga: great artwork and action, large and diverse casts, intriguing settings and premises, and entertaining stories that take numerous twists and turns (and which often end up rather convoluted as a result). So far, it seems as though Dimension W will also follow this pattern and, being Iwahara’s longest series, I suspect that the plot will go in some truly bizarre directions. But even considering that Iwahara seems to be constantly making up and changing the rules when it’s convenient just to make the story work, I’m actually really enjoying Dimension W. In the series, New Tesla is a company that has gained a tremendous amount of political and social influence due to the fact that it monopolizes a nearly limitless source of energy and the technology needed to use it. The power could be dangerous in the wrong hands, and New Tesla may very well be the wrong hands.

Firefighter! Daigo of Fire Company M, Volume 11Firefighter! Daigo of Fire Company M, Volumes 11-20 by Masahito Soda. One of the things about Firefighter! is that once I start reading it, I can’t seem to put it down. It’s a fantastic action series that’s firmly based in reality, although some of the scenarios are so completely over-the-top that they strain believability. Even so, the drama and intensity of Firefighter! is thrilling. With every rescue Soda keeps increasing the stakes, finding ways to make each one even more daring and astonishing than the last. And seeing as the first half of Firefighter! ends with Daigo intentionally crashing a fire engine into a building, that’s a pretty impressive feat. Admittedly, the series can get pretty absurd, but it’s always entertaining as well as engaging. The character development is excellent, too. In the heat of the moment, Daigo has the tendency to make some incredibly dangerous although ultimately life-saving decisions, but afterwards he struggles to come to terms with his actions and underlying motives. Firefighter! is a great series and well-worth a look. The manga is currently out-of-print, but fortunately it is readily available digitally.

Please Tell Me! Galko-chan, Volume 1Please Tell Me! Galko-chan, Volume 1 by Kenya Suzuki. I first learned about the Please Tell Me! Galko-chan manga due to its recent anime adaptation (which I haven’t actually seen yet), but I was still very curious about the original series. What I didn’t realize until I picked up the first volume was that the manga is actually completely illustrated in color; the palette and style that Suzuki uses for the cover illustration is pretty much what is used for the interior artwork as well. Please Tell Me! Galko-chan is a surprisingly sweet, funny, and charming series, especially considering that it frankly deals with issues surrounding puberty, sex, and so on. Some of the subject matter is more innocent, but there’s plenty of  dirty humor and jokes, too. Though the framing of the series is fictional, the largely short and episodic manga of Please Tell Me! Galko-chan do incorporate a fair amount of factual information. What I really appreciate about Please Tell Me! Galko-chan is that while the topics covered often embarrass the characters–frequently they’re discussing breasts, menstruation, and sex in a deliberate attempt to make each other blush–there’s never a sense that they or their bodies are shameful.

Ze, Volumes 10-11 by Yuki Shimizu. Despite at one point being rather fond of Shimizu’s supernatural boys’ love Ze, it’s taken me a while to actually get around to reading the main manga’s last story arc and conclusion. (Granted, that may have also been partly due to the numerous delays and unreliability of Digital Manga’s release schedule.) As a whole Ze tends to be fairly sexually explicit, but these two volumes are for the most part relatively tame and include very little sex at all. The relationships and power dynamics in the series are still pretty intense, though. The final story arc of Ze is almost entirely devoted to revealing the backstory of Waki and his connection to the Mitou family. In an interesting twist, it turns out that Waki has always been an asshole and there was nothing in particular that made him that way; although unfortunate things have certainly happened to him, his depraved personality is completely his own. The Mitou family’s past is certainly a strange and tragic one that has resulted in a great deal of suffering over time, but Shimizu does manage to end the series on a positive and redemptive note.

Filed Under: FEATURES, My Week in Manga Tagged With: Dimension W, Firefighter, Kenya Suzuki, manga, Masahito Soda, Please Tell Me Galko-chan, Yuji Iwahara, Yuki Shimizu, ze

My Week in Manga: March 19-March 25, 2012

March 26, 2012 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week was the Jiro Taniguchi Manga Moveable Feast and so I made a point to take advantage of that fact. I posted my second in-depth manga review for March, taking a closer look at Taniguchi’s most recent work to be released in print in English, A Zoo in Winter. I also borrowed and read all of the Taniguchi manga that my library had, resulting in Library Love: Jiro Taniguchi. It’s been a few months since there has been a Library Love post. I’m planning on continuing the feature on a bimonthly basis, so look for the next one sometime in May.

Last year I reviewed the first issue of Monkey Business and I’ve been looking forward to the next volume ever since. It looks like the release date has been pushed back from mid-March to sometime in April. In the meantime, the Monkey Business website is now available and the second issue can be preordered! Completely unrelated, someone pointed out Symphony of the Blood to me. From what I can tell, it’s fan created concept art for an Osamu Tezuka fighting game. It is awesome and I would totally play it if it actually existed.

This past week I also came across a few interesting articles about the state of the manga industry. I always enjoy reading Dan Kanemitsu’s work; this time he has a great piece Analysizing the State of the Anime and Manga industry in 2012, specifically in Japan. Over at ICv2 there were two articles focusing on the US side of the industry: Manga after Borders and an interview with Dark Horse’s Carl Horn. (It also sounds like Dark Horse will be releasing more manga from Blade of the Immortal‘s Hiroaki Samura, which I’m very excited to hear!)

Quick Takes

A, A′ by Moto Hagio. The problem with reading Hagio’s science fiction is that it makes me want to read more of Hagio’s science fiction, and I’ve already read everything that’s currently available in English. I loved A, A′. Originally published in Japan in 1981, it is a collection of three stories, two of which are somewhat related. All three stories feature “unicorns,” a race of humans initially bio-engineered for space travel in the 21st century who have since become increasingly rare. The back cover calls A, A′ “science fiction with a romantic twist,” which is fairly accurate. Hagio incorporates themes of love, gender, sex, and sexuality into her stories. The relationships between people, romantic and otherwise, are very important.

King of Thorn, Volumes 2-6 by Yuji Iwahara. Having previously read Iwahara’s Cat Paradise, I can’t say that I was particularly surprised by the somewhat convoluted plot of King of Thorn. This is not to say that I don’t like the series. In fact, I am quite fond of it. I also happen to really like Iwahara’s artwork. It’s just that he never seems content with a simple story and tends to introduce plot twist after plot twist. King of Thorn ended up going in some very unexpected directions, but the ride is thrilling. King of Thorn may not always be particularly original (even Iwahara states that many of the story elements are “ripped off” from elsewhere), but it’s still a lot of fun. Plus, the series gives one of the characters, Marco Owen, plenty of opportunities to run around being a badass.

Mister Mistress, Volume 1 by Rize Shinba. I have no idea why this series is called Mister Mistress other than being a silly title for a silly boys’ love manga. Rei is an incubus who feeds of the sexual vitality of young men. And what better source of energy than a horny, sex-obsessed teenager who’s constantly masturbating? At first Rei only appears in Fujimaru’s dreams, but eventually he amasses enough energy from Fujimaru to physically manifest. Although Fujimaru is understandably disconcerted by this development, his sexual fantasies continue unabated, heightened by Rei’s magical powers. Shinba’s artwork is attractive and the series has a sense of humor. I mean, even Fujimaru’s penis gets a character page.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time directed by Mamoru Hosoda. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a lovely film. It’s more or less a sequel to the 1967 novel of the same name by Yasutaka Tsutsui. Although likeable, Makoto isn’t the smartest or most coordinated person in her class. Instead of thinking about her future, she’d rather just play catch with her two best friends Chiaki and Kousuke. But she soon finds herself thinking a lot about time when she discovers she has the ability to travel back into the past. And so she does, trying to change events to make things better for her and her friends or to avoid conversations and confrontations that she’d rather not have. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time has both a lighthearted and a serious side which are balanced nicely.

Filed Under: My Week in Manga Tagged With: anime, Girl Who Leapt Through Time, King of Thorn, manga, Mister Mistress, moto hagio, Rize Shinba, Yuji Iwahara

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