Manga Bookshelf

April 16, 2021 By Ash Brown, Sean Gaffney and Michelle Smith

Bookshelf Briefs 4/16/21

Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, Vol. 9 | By Inio Asano | Viz Media – By the ninth volume of Dead Dead Demon, any hope that this series was a “lighter, softer” version of Inio Asano’s usual manga has long since left town—this is the bleakest, most depressing volume in the series to date, with even the Doraemon parody going into the “you will die old and alone” bin for its “comedy.” Last time I said that I could not see the current situation ending in any way but tragedy, and that’s absolutely the case, as Kadode essentially turns this series into a new volume of Death Note, to the point where it takes Oran beating her up in sheer horror to make her… well, let’s just say we know…

April 15, 2021 By Anna N

An Incurable Case of Love, Vol 7

An Incurable Case of Love Volume 7 by Maki Enjoji Especially in these pandemic times, sometimes I just want to read something light and fairly predictable. I don’t want surprise plot twists or social commentary, but seeing a couple work through and resolve all the impediments to their romance and end up with a happy ending is often just the diversion that I’m looking for. The Shojo Beat “stealth josei” titles like An Incurable Case of Love tend to be limited, with only one or two coming out at a time but I really enjoy them. This is the final volume of An Incurable Case of Love! I’ve been feeling like the past couple volumes have been stretching out the story a little too much, this would probably have been…

April 15, 2021 By Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Anna N, Ash Brown and Melinda Beasi

Manga the Week of 4/21/21

SEAN: The end of April, and the daffodils are blooming. What manga do we have? Airship gives us a print version of the 10th Mushoku Tensei novel and digital versions of The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter 4 and PENGUINDRUM 3 (the final volume). ASH: I still need to read PENGUINDRUM. SEAN: J-Novel Club has new digital volumes, as we get Full Metal Panic! 11, The Great Cleric 2, The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar 15, and My Friend’s Little Sister Has It In for Me 2. In print… theoretically… Kodansha Manga has the 7th volume of My Boy, a former Vertical title. It’s nowhere on their website, but all the major outlets list it. The digital debut is The Honey-blood Beauty & Her Vampire (Mitsugetsuhime to…

April 15, 2021 By Sean Gaffney

Fushi no Kami: Rebuilding Civilization Starts with a Village, Vol. 3

By Mizuumi Amakawa and Mai Okuma. Released in Japan as “Fushi no Kami: Henkyou kara Hajimeru Bunmei Saiseiki” by Overlap. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Maurice Alesch. It’s rare that you suspect that an author feels that his series has too many readers, but that seems to be the case with Fushi no Kami, which is really going to be pushing the limits of reader tolerance here in just how much the cast can praise every single thing Ash does. It really is ridiculous, and that’s not even counting Maika and Arthur, who are in love with Ash, or the maid that he gains in this book, who clearly is also falling in love with Ash. Now, to be fair, in their eyes Ash is this…

April 14, 2021 By Sean Gaffney

Outbreak Company, Vol. 17

By Ichiro Sakaki and Yuugen. Released in Japan by Kodansha Light Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Steinbach. One thing that has always remained reliably on brand about this series is how all in it goes on its otaku evangelism. The author is clearly just as bad if not worse than his lead character, and it shows, as the books are littered with references to anime, manga, books, films, games, etc. And what’s more, this is shown in a (mostly) very positive light, with people who would otherwise be indifferent to if not hate each other bonding over their shared obsessions. This particular volume seems to really lay the references on thick – it trusts that readers will not only know what Area 88 is,…

April 13, 2021 By Sean Gaffney

Tearmoon Empire, Vol. 4

By Nozomu Mochitsuki and Gilse. Released in Japan as “Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari” by TO Books. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by David Teng. We’ve now had three books filled with Princess Mia doing something for either selfish or silly reasons (or, increasingly, because she is a very nice person) that ends up misinterpreted by everyone around her as pure brilliance, and we get plenty of that here as well. But we’re starting to also see the rest of the cast accomplish things away from Mia and have their own subplots. No, alas, I don’t mean Miabel, who’s still pretty much the mascot character of the series, and gets left behind for the second half of the book while the rest of the cast have a cruise….

April 12, 2021 By Sean Gaffney

Holmes of Kyoto, Vol. 4

By Mai Mochizuki and Shizu Yamauchi. Released in Japan by Futabasha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Minna Lin. Rarely have I had to eat my words quite so much as I have in the gap between my review of the third volume and this one, and I urge readers to absolutely not go back and read it. Still, it does mean we have to confront the elephant in the room, though admittedly the book is doing it as well. This series features a man just out of college in love with a girl still in high school, and Japan sure has no issues with this whatsoever given the sheer number of titles out lately featuring age-gap romances, but Western readers tend to dig in their heels…

April 11, 2021 By Anna N

Call of the Night Vol 1

Call of the Night Volume 1 by Kotoyama I’m always a little curious about Shonen Sunday titles, as they tend to be a little more sophisticated than Shonen Jump manga so I was intrigued by the idea of a shonen vampire romance like Call of the Night. Ko Yamori starts out by being the typical hapless shonen protagonist but he’s isolated and has just started having terrible insomnia. He’s not attending school regularly and one night he slips out of his house and starts wandering around in the middle of the night while searching up ideas for insomnia cures on his phone. Seeing many people posting about the benefits of alcohol he stands in front of a vending machine contemplating buying a beer when he’s suddenly accosted by a mysterious…

April 11, 2021 By Sean Gaffney

The Reincarnated Prince and the Hero of Light

By Nobiru Kusunoki and Arico. Released in Japan as “Herscherik” by M Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by afm. The last two volumes of the Herscherik books have had the subtitle refer to a new vassal that is the focus of that particular book, so you might be coming into this one wondering who the Hero of Light is going to be. But no, Herscherik has a full army of weapons in his cache now, both in terms of the men he has at his side and also his family, who are increasingly rebelling more and more against the chains of Marquis Barbosse. He has tried assassinating the royal family to depress the King into doing his bidding, he has tried introducing lethal drugs into the…

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