The Ancient Magus’ Bride, Vol. 7 | By Kore Yamazaki | Seven Seas – It is becoming increasingly apparent that, whatever his own emotional turmoil, Elias made the right decision in bringing Chise into his fold, as we keep hearing about her value as a specimen rather than a young girl. Actually, that line of thinking rolls through this entire volume, as a baby dragon is snatched to be used in experimentation and auctioned off to the highest bidder. Fortunately, an increasingly powerful Chise is there, and is working hard to retrieve it. Unfortunately, we keep getting more hints that she’s simply not going to live to be middle-aged, much less an old woman. As for Elias and Chise, she seems more like an older sister now than a bride. Still fantastic. – Sean Gaffney
Anonymous Noise, Vol. 3 | By Ryoko Fukuyama | VIZ Media – Huh. I didn’t think I’d ever grow to truly like Anonymous Noise, but I have to say that it’s beginning to grow on me. For the first time, when In No Hurry to Shout makes their TV debut and Nino scream-sings her feelings after an unpleasant encounter with Momo, I actually kind of bought into the idea of the manga being about a kickass band. Of course, the plot soon detours into love polygon angst, with Nino loving Momo, who’s a jerk to her for no apparent reason, and Yuzu loving Nino, and Miou loving Yuzu, and even a random angsty bit of foreshadowing from the drummer, who has barely registered as a character up to this point. I certainly don’t love this series, but I’m not ready to give up on it yet. – Michelle Smith
DAYS, Vol. 3 | By Tsuyoshi Yasuda | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Seiseki High is progressing through the Interhigh Tokyo Preliminaries. Tsukamoto continues to be the weakest member of the team, but he’s still enjoying himself so much that he’s doing all that he can to hang on to his spot. His dedication inspires the much-more-talented Jin Kazama not to slack off, either. As before, we learn more about some of the other teammates and their personalities and strengths—this time it’s Kimishita, a second-year who stresses whenever Tsukamoto is on the field because he’s not a viable pass recipient. Yet, even he ends up impressed by Tsukamoto’s efforts to improve in this area, and it’s eventually revealed that the whole team has benefited from this energic newbie, as they increased their stamina while striving to avoid being shown up by the shrimp. Good stuff! – Michelle Smith
Flying Witch, Vol. 2 | By Chihiro Ishizuka | Vertical Comics – While Makoto continues to be the least-secret witch ever, she at least is impressing (somewhat) her cousin Chinatsu, who is now asking them to train her in being a witch. I suspect that this may end up being the main plot going forward, though that may be putting too much faith in Flying Witch to have a plot. Witches or no, it’s a slice-of-life series at heart, and so it’s content to meander along. We also meet Akane’s friend Inukai, who at first seems to be an example of Akane’s overly uncaring nature, but in reality turns out to be a lesson on the dangers of getting too drunk. It’s a cute and fun title, but don’t expect excitement—this is a series where weeding gets multiple chapters. – Sean Gaffney
Honey So Sweet, Vol. 7 | By Amu Meguro | VIZ Media –First-year Miyabi Nishigaki has a crush on Taiga. He remains oblivious throughout the majority of the volume, but it’s really bothering Nao. Of course, being Nao, she doesn’t want to be annoying or come across as unreasonable, so she only finally says something after Miyabi invites herself along with the gang to a festival and not only wears the exact yukata Nao is wearing, but even emulates her actions, including a creepy moment where she tries to spoonfeed Taiga some of her shaved ice. Because Nao and Taiga are incredibly nice, instead of wondering about Miyabi’s mental health, they feel bad for not considering her feelings. Eventually everyone reconciles. It’s a decent volume with plenty of cute moments for our leads, but I hope Meguro-sensei dispenses with love rivals for the next, and final, volume. – Michelle Smith
Kuma Miko: Girl Meets Bear, Vol. 5 | By Masume Yoshimoto | One Peace Books – Honestly, we’ve gotten to the point where I feel the series needs more of the bear. And, I mean, there’s already a fair amount of bear in here. The scenes where he has to pretend to be the village mascot in a highly realistic suit are cute, as is his stress about Twitter. The difficulty is that when the focus is not on him, it turns to Machi, whose total social ineptness really raises the bar for every other socially inept manga character. The scenes of her trying to use a computer are more painful than funny. She works better bouncing off of Hibiki, whose constant simmering anger is an oasis of calm compared to Machi’s stress. Mostly, though, this series continues to be highly variable. – Sean Gaffney
No Game No Life, Please!, Vol. 1 | By Kazuya Yuizaki and Yuu Kamiya | Yen Press – The actual No Game No Life main manga adaptation got one volume out and then seemed to fall into limbo, so to a certain extent this may be the closest we get to more of the manga. As you might guess by the title, the series focuses on Izuna, the Werebeast girl with a mind for games and a mouth for swearing. As you’d expect given this is No Game No Life, there’s a certain amount of perverse fanservice, but in fact it’s actually a lot less than I feared. Mostly this serves as a collection of short stories starring Izuna, as she grows and learns about games and actual life lessons. She even learns from Steph! Gasp! If you enjoy NGNL and wish the manga continued, this is worth picking up. – Sean Gaffney
RIN-NE, Vol. 24 | By Rumiko Takahashi | VIZ Media – RIN-NE continues with its episodic Shonen Sunday stylings. The first half is incredibly dull, relying largely on more gags involving Anematsuri-sensei’s crystal ball, but the second half is actually kind of neat. A large reward is offered to whomever defeats a black fox spirit. The best tool for the job is a specific scythe, which happens to pick Sakura as its owner. A smitten Rinne enjoys coaching her on how to use the thing, and even wonders if she has the aptitude to be a shinigami. Stupid me, I actually got my hopes up for a second that this would be some kind of turning point in the manga, but no. Although Sakura does gain a greater appreciation for the job Rinne performs, she’s content to move on once she fulfills her quota, leaving the scythe ready to choose someone else. It was reasonably entertaining while it lasted, though! – Michelle Smith