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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

April 9, 2012 by Michelle Smith, Sean Gaffney, Katherine Dacey and MJ 4 Comments

Pick of the Week: Cross Game & More

There’s plenty to choose from at Midtown Comics this week. Check out the Battle Robot’s picks below!


MICHELLE: Decisions, decisions. I will definitely be picking up the latest volumes of Arisa and Itazura Na Kiss, and I’m tempted by the second volume of Countdown 7 Days, as well. But really, the one absolutely can’t miss release for next week is volume seven of Cross Game. This, the penultimate volume of VIZ two-in-one release, contains volumes fourteen and fifteen of the original series, and is sure to be chock full of baseball and slice-of-life relationship goodness. I shamelessly implore everyone to buy Cross Game so that we may see more Adachi released here in future!

SEAN: For those of you who might have been living in a cave for the past couple of years, I will tell you that my pick this week is Volume 23 of Rikdo Koshi’s bubble economy sentai satire Excel Saga. It only comes out once a year now (and the liner notes indicates that isn’t going to change even now that it’s done in Japan, as it says “see you in 2013”), but that just makes it an event, and in the past few volumes we’ve seen the author pull out all the stops and keep developing the actual plot he’s had going. (Yes, anime fans, the manga has a plot. I realize that may be off-putting to you.) An incredibly underrated series, buy it today and make Carl Horn smile. You want to see Carl smile, right?

KATE: I heartily second all of Michelle’s selections, but ultimately cast my vote for Rohan at the Louvre. Like Glacial Period, Sky Over the Louvre, and On the Odd Hours, this manga takes the famous museum’s immense collection as its starting point, building a story around a mysterious, 200-year-old painting. The author is Hirohiko Araki — he of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure — and the lead character a minor character from the JoJo universe. From the summary at the NBM site, I don’t think prior knowledge of JoJo is a prerequisite for enjoying the story, which makes this a great, commitment-free way to get acquainted with Araki’s work.

MJ: I’ll admit that my top choice this week is probably the same as Kate’s, Rohan at the Louvre, and my second is Michelle’s, Cross Game (and yes, I do want to see Carl Horn smile), but since these have already been praised, I have the chance to throw my vote elsewhere. So with that in mind, I’ll name volume two of Dark Horse’s omnibus edition of Magic Knight Rayearth. Though I’m certainly a CLAMP fan, I’ll admit this is one series I’ve never actually read, and with the CLAMP MMF looming up in July, it’s time for me to study up! The fact that Kate chose this edition as a runner-up in her Best Manga of 2011 gives me a lot of confidence that catching up with Magic Knight Rayearth will be worth my while. I look forward to discussing it in July!


Readers, what looks good to you this week?

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Filed Under: PICK OF THE WEEK

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Noura says

    April 9, 2012 at 6:08 am

    My pick of the week is volume 20 of Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys. I admit that I stopped reading at volume 15 as I am waiting for the last volume to come out so I can read the whole thing at once. It kinda irritates me that I have the volumes but cannot read them until the last one comes out. Hopefully 21st Century Boys will follow soon after and hopefully VIZ Media will attempt to acquire more Naoki Urasawa in the future.

    Reply
    • Michelle Smith says

      April 9, 2012 at 7:20 am

      I did that with Monster. I read the first two volumes and realized that it’d have so much more impact if I consumed it all at once, so I waited for, like, 32 months for the other sixteen volumes to come out. It was so worth it. :)

      Reply
      • Manga Connection says

        April 10, 2012 at 12:44 pm

        Haha, 32 months? Dedication! Monster is such a good manga, but the buildup was better than the ending, I think.

        Reply
  2. Aaron says

    April 9, 2012 at 8:17 am

    I choose Blood Alone volume six

    Reply


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