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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

January 4, 2020 by Ash Brown, Sean Gaffney and Michelle Smith Leave a Comment

Bookshelf Briefs 1/4/20

Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, Vol. 7 | By Inio Asano | Viz Media – Every time a new volume of this fantastic series comes out I avoid reading it, possibly as I still expect it to end with everyone depressed or dead, because Asano. Despite that, things trundle along in this volume. Oran’s starting to have ominous feelings that she’s seen some of this before, and even the main cast heading to the beach, with lots of silly beach comedy, can’t quite stop you thinking things aren’t going to be the same anymore, especially after that cliffhanger. Makoto is on the cover, and gets a fair number of scenes as well, something you can’t always say about the covers. Most of all, this continues to examine the nature of conspiracies and media frenzies. Great stuff. – Sean Gaffney

My Hero Academia, Vol. 22 | By Kohei Horikoshi | Viz Media – What I remember about this volume’s chapters when they came out weekly was the fandom going ballistic attacking Momo after her loss. Possibly because the main cast praised her abilities regardless, possibly as she lost another fight and Jump fans are all secret wrestling fans complaining about “Jobbers.” It’s an excellent battle, though. The other fights are good as well. You’d expect Todoroki to clean up, but that battle too does not go as expected. Bakugo shows off that he can be kind and heroic while STILL being a loud asshole, and Izuku shows that the fact that he’s trying to learn his powers on the fly is leading to bad things. Fortunately, Uraraka and Shinso are there. Excellent. – Sean Gaffney

Queen Bee, Vol. 3 | By Shizuru Seino | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – In Queen Bee’s second volume, Toma realized he had feelings for Hirata while on a forest field trip, during which she displayed extreme competence (and fought off a bear). Now, they’ve become an official couple, but Hirata’s insecurity, coupled with the reveal of a junior high ex-girlfriend that Toma might still have feelings for, makes her worry that he’s just trying to make himself love her. Ordinarily, the emergence of a love rival in the latter half of the final volume of a short series would irritate me a great deal, but I actually liked that it gave Hirata one more opportunity to show that Toma’s happiness is her top priority. She may look scary, but she’s pure and valiant, and in the end, this series kind of gave me gender-flipped My Love Story!! feels. Truly delightful. – Michelle Smith

Queen’s Quality, Vol. 8 | By Kyousuke Motomi | Viz Media – Answers are here, with extended flashbacks showing us what actually happened years ago, and who Fumi is. It’s helpful to have Kyutaro’s late mother explaining things to them, admittedly, and she’s super cool—I’d be OK with more adventures of her. Meanwhile, as Fumi tries to take this all in, Kyutaro adds to things by confessing to her, something which is perhaps not timely but is at least heartfelt. That said, it may be relatively irrelevant, as the cliffhanger suggests that we may be seeing some memory loss/destruction of alternate selves going on. Still, as far as dream-laden fantasy shoujo with comedic undertones go, QQ is tops. And love that they still have Dengeki Daisy cameos in them. – Sean Gaffney

Saint Young Men, Vol. 1 | By Hikaru Nakamura | Kodansha Comics – The premise of Saint Young Men is both simple and kooky. Jesus and Buddha have rented an apartment in Japan to enjoy some well-earned time off, where they enter into a sort of odd-couple existence, with Buddha being the serious guy who does all the chores and Jesus being the carefree guy who has a popular TV review blog. The situations are pretty fun—the guys go to an amusement park and ride a roller coaster, they experience a packed commuter train, Jesus buys a Shinsengumi costume to wear as pajamas, Buddha wins a statue of himself while trying to win a trip to Okinawa…—but I’m sad to report that I never actually laughed at anything. Perhaps that will change with later volumes, as I did think this one got more amusing as it went along. We shall see! – Michelle Smith

Species Domain, Vol. 7 | By Shunsuke Noro | Seven Seas – The bulk of this volume is based around the school athletics festival, which gives us a chance to revisit several ongoing issues: Kazamori trying to live up to the “elf” standard everyone sees in her, ship tease between Hanei and Mikasagi, and the usual athletic festival cliches. The most interesting part of the book was showing us that Mizuno, who is frustrated at the mermaid classmate who’s going to put the swimming competition out of reach, also is a mermaid. That said, the reason they’ve been hiding it is fascinating, getting into both monster cliches and the sort of thing that LGBTQ people deal with daily, and I thought the reaction of the class was great. All in all, another solid volume. – Sean Gaffney

Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization, Vol. 5 | By Tomo Hirokawa, based on the story by Reki Kawahara | Yen Press – Despite Genesis being a clear bad guy, one who’s even taking drugs to enhance his gaming “performance,” he’s still able to make a huge impression on Tia. Sadly, when he is then “killed,” that proves the impetus for her to pick up where he left off, and she’s now out to remove humans from this MMORPG. As always with SAO lately, there’s some good discussion of what constitutes an NPC, and Premiere also goes through some emotional crises, especially given Tia is her dark twin. The next volume is the final one, so we’ll see if Kirito and the cast of every other video game spinoff can help. Despite the high entry level of this series, it’s pretty decent. – Sean Gaffney

The Trial of Kitaro | By Shigeru Mizuki | Drawn & Quarterly – Collecting five short manga originally published in shonen magazines between 1968 and 1971, The Trial of Kitaro brings to a close Drawn & Quarterly’s delightful seven-volume compilation of selections from Mizuki’s influential series GeGeGe no Kitaro. Combining creepiness with comedy (including some literal potty humor—beware haunted mountainside toilets), the stories in this volume are tremendous fun. As with previous installments, the episodic chapters were in part chosen specifically to be kid-friendly, so there’s a certain amount of grossness and just plain strangeness to them. But, regardless of intended audience, I’m enamored with these yokai tales of horror. I love how Mizuki has taken traditional Japanese folklore and incorporated his own ideas and even some Western legends to create something truly special. Along with the other volumes, I will treasure The Trial of Kitaro. I am sad that this is the series’ end, but I am so incredibly happy that these stories were translated. – Ash Brown

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