SEAN: The weekend of Anime NYC, and I am… not in a hotel room in New York City. Boo. Still, there will be virtual con, I’m sure.
No debuts for J-Novel Club, but we do see The Combat Baker and Automaton Waitress 9, Holmes of Kyoto 2, Mapping 2, The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar 13, Seirei Gensouki 12, and Sorcerous Stabber Orphen 9.
Kaiten Books has a 3rd volume of Loner Life in Another World.
Kodansha also has no print debuts, but we do have a fair amount of print, assuming no last-minute delays. There’s Cardcaptor Sakura Collector’s Edition 6 and also Clear Card 8. We also get Granblue Fantasy 7, Living-Room Matsunaga-san 5, Saiyuki 3, and The Seven Deadly Sins 40.
MICHELLE: I need to catch up on Living-Room Matsunaga-san.
ASH: I still need to start reading Living-Room Matsunaga-san!
SEAN: Digitally there is a debut. Dr. Ramune -Mysterious Disease Specialist- (Kai Byoui Ramune) is about a sort of modern-day, more casual Black Jack and his bizarre supernatural-tinged patients. It sounds like a gag manga, but is apparently deeper than it looks. It runs in Shonen Sirius.
ASH: I’m curious about this one, though I don’t read much digitally.
SEAN: Also digitally: Dolly Kill Kill 8, GE: Good Ending 11, Heroine for Hire 3, Hop Step Sing! 2, Kakushigoto 9, Shaman King: Red Crimson 3, The Writer and His Housekeeper 2, and Yozakura Quartet 26.
Seven Seas has an early digital light novel debut: Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs. This time it’s a male office worker who dies and gets reincarnated in an otome game… as a schlub NPC. But he does recall the game’s events. Can he make his life better?
In print, there are two debuts. The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter has a manga, and this is the first volume of that. It’s pleasantly dumb.
What the Font?! – A Manga Guide to Western Typeface has, aside from a terrific title, an “educational” feel to it. Expect anthropomorphic personifications.
ASH: I’m actually really excited for this one.
ANNA: Oh, me too!
SEAN: Also from Seven Seas: Cosmo Familia 3 (the final volume), Mushoku Tensei: Roxy Gets Serious 4, New Game! 10, Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General 5, Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho 11, and Sarazanmai 2.
ASH: Whoops, still need to get around to Sarazanmai 1!
Square Enix has, not a manga or novel, but Final Fantasy VII Poster Collection. It’s Tifa-tastic and Aerith-riffic.
Vertical gives us the 8th and final volume of Arakawa Under the Bridge. There’s also Blood on the Tracks 3 and Go with the Clouds, North-by-Northwest 4.
MICHELLE: The first volume of Blood on the Tracks was enjoyably ominous.That’s another one I need to catch up on.
SEAN: It’s a very Rumiko Takahashi week at Viz. Not only do we get Urusei Yatsura’s 8th omnibus (introducing Ryuunosuke, the precursor to Ranma Saotome), but also debut Mermaid Saga in omnibus form! This is decidedly NOT a comedy, and shows off how good Takahashi was at horror and suspense.
MICHELLE: I have the single volumes of this, but have never read it!
ASH: I love Mermaid Saga so much that I’m double-dipping for the new edition.
ANNA: I think I read a tiny bit of it back in the day but I’m excited for the new edition too.
MJ: I probably need to finally read this.
SEAN: There’s also Beastars 9, Hell’s Paradise Jigokuraku 5, and Tokyo Ghoul:re Illustrations: zakki, an artbook.
MICHELLE: I’m so far behind on Beastars and Hell’s Paradise already!
ASH: I’m a few volumes behind myself, but have been liking both series so far.
SEAN: And then there’s Yen, and they have a lot, even with the normal “date shifts”. First we get the novels.
There are three debuts, though one doesn’t count. A Certain Magical Index SS 1 is hardly unknown to readers, but it is nice to see, especially as I whined at Yen when it did not come out (as it did in Japan) between Books 13 and 14. It’s a short-story collection, and introduces the reader to Hamazura… assuming they haven’t read Index 15-22 already.
The Place Promised in Our Early Days is another Makoto Shinkai adaptation… in fact, it’s of his first major film.
MJ: I usually like these adaptations, though I haven’t watched this movie in a long while. Might be nice to revisit.
SEAN: The big debut is Unnamed Memory, an extremely popular light novel series. A Crown Prince with a curse has to visit the strongest witch in the world to break it. Destiny ensues.
ASH: It does look as though it may have some potential.
SEAN: Yen On also has a LOT of ongoing series. 86 ~Eighty-Six~ 6, The Dirty Way to Destroy the Goddess’s Heroes 5, Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks? 7, The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious 5, I’m a Behemoth, an S-Ranked Monster, but Mistaken for a Cat, I Live as an Elf Girl’s Pet 2, Last Round Arthurs 3, Magical Girl Raising Project 10, Rascal Does Not Dream 3, So I’m a Spider, So What? 10, and World’s Strongest Rearguard: Labyrinth Country’s Novice Seeker 4.
And that’s just novels. For manga, there are five debuts. Mieruko-chan is a comedy from Monthly Comic Alive about a girl who can see terrifying ghosts and monsters… and does her level best to ignore them.
Sadako at the End of the World (Shuumatsu no Sadako-san) is a one-shot manga from Comic Gene about the girl from Ring ending up in a post-apocalyptic world where her presence is far more welcome.
ASH: Okay, both of these sound like something I should check out.
MJ: Same here.
SEAN: Star Wars: Rebels is the manga adaptation of the popular series, and comes from LINE Corporation.
The White Cat’s Revenge as Plotted from the Dragon King’s Lap is the manga adaptation of a light novel we’ve seen from J-Novel Heart. A girl with the worst luck ends up reincarnated in another world… sadly, the source of that bad luck is here as well. Can she escape and live freely? This runs in Kadokawa’s FLOS Comic.
Lastly, A Witch’s Love at the End of the World (Sekai no Owari to Majo no Koi) (no relation to Sadako’s title) is a yuri series from ASCII Mediaworks’ Comic IT. It… honestly reads sort of like a Japanese version of The Owl House. Which I’m fine with.
There’s also Eclair Orange, the latest in that yuri anthology, IM: Great Priest Imhotep 5, Keito Koume Illustrations Spice & Wolf (an artbook), Shibuya Goldfish 8, and Yoshi no Zuikara 2.
MICHELLE: I had no idea there was yet another Eclair on the way!
SEAN: I’m exhausted, how about you?