SEAN: School time! Send those beloved youngsters back to school to learn new things and avoid getting COVID.
ASH: Yeah…
SEAN: We begin with Viz, which debuts a classic manga from way back in the 1990s, before most of you were even born! It’s also from Ai Yazawa! Last Quarter (Kagen no Tsuki) ran in Ribon, this features a girl who, after almost dying, sees another girl in her dreams. I think it’s coming out in two 300-page volumes.
MICHELLE: Woo!
ASH: Oh, nice! I’d forgotten this had been picked up.
ANNA: I had no idea but I am excited!
SEAN: Also from Viz: Chainsaw Man 16, Dark Gathering 9, Let’s Do It Already! 2, Like a Butterfly 8, Mashle: Magic and Muscles 17, Sakamoto Days 13, Wolf Girl and Black Prince 9, and Yona of the Dawn 42.
MICHELLE: I desperately need to catch up with Yona!
ASH: Same.
ANNA: Me too, but this is such a fun series to binge.
SEAN: Udon Entertainment has an interesting release. Giga Town: The Guide to Manga Iconography (Giga Town – Manpu Zufu) is a look at all the things readers take for granted that everyone knows. Sweat drops, anger marks, etc.
ASH: Looking forward to this one!
ANNA: Sounds cool.
SEAN: Tokyopop debuts Let’s Eat Together, Aki and Haru (Aki wa Haru to Gohan wo Tabetai), a foodie title with a dash of BL as two roommates try to feed themselves properly. It runs in bamB!.
Steamship debuts Loved by Two Fiancés (Futari no Konyakusha ni Dekiai Sarete). This smutty title from Ichijinsha’s Lovebites is about a woman who’s engaged to a sweet, caring, loving man… then she finds he has a hidden sadistic side!
ANNA: Oh no!
SEAN: Also from Steamship: Before You Discard Me, I Shall Have My Way With You 2.
From Square Enix we get The Apothecary Diaries 12, My Clueless First Friend 7, and Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You 3.
ASH: The Apothecary Diaries is another one I’ve been meaning to catch up on sooner rather than later.
SEAN: Seven Seas has a debut, I Quit My Apprenticeship as a Royal Court Wizard to Become a Magic Item Craftswoman (Kyuutei Madou-shi Minarai Oyamete, Mahou Aitemu Shokunin ni Narimasu), which runs in Piccoma. The plot is that a Royal Court Wizard apprentice quits her job to become a craftswoman of magical items. Funny, that.
They also have a novel debut, which is not Airship, or danmei, but it’s Korean, which I guess is why it’s not with the light novels. Lout of Count’s Family sure has the plot of a standard “male villainess” story, though, as a guy wakes up in the body of the arrogant lord the hero beats up in his favorite book. Screw that, he will forge his own destiny!
ASH: A Korean novel, interesting!
SEAN: Also from Seven Seas: CALL TO ADVENTURE! Defeating Dungeons with a Skill Board 8, My Sister Took My Fiancé and Now I’m Being Courted by a Beastly Prince 2, Reincarnated as a Dragon Hatchling 6, Sword of the Demon Hunter: Kijin Gentōshō 5, This Is Screwed Up, but I Was Reincarnated as a GIRL in Another World! 13, True Love Fades Away When the Contract Ends 2, We Started a Threesome!! 3 (the final volume), and Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii 8.
Lots of Kodansha Manga titles next week, but no debuts. We get Anyway, I’m Falling in Love with You 4, I Got Reincarnated in a (BL) World of Big (Man) Boobs 2, I’m Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness 7, Initial D Omnibus 3, Medalist 4, ORIGIN 6, Rent-A-Girlfriend 26, and Vinland Saga Deluxe 4.
ASH: Those deluxe volume sure do look pretty.
SEAN: And digitally we see Blue Lock 27, A Condition Called Love 15, Even Given the Worthless “Appraiser” Class, I’m Actually the Strongest 11, How to Grill Our Love 10, Life 18, My Wife is a Little Intimidating 9, Sayabito: Swords of Destiny 4, Shangri-La Frontier 17, and Those Snow White Notes 21.
J-Novel Club has one debut: Dagashi-ya Yahagi: Setting Up a Sweets Shop in Another World (Dagashiya Yahagi Isekai ni Shutten Shimasu). Our “hit by a truck” hero ends up in a fantasy world with classes and skills… but his destined role is “penny candy shop owner”. Can he eke out a slow life, or will the fact that he’s a main character in a Japanese light novel make that impossible?
Also from JN-C: After-School Dungeon Diver: Level Grinding in Another World 3, Ascendance of a Bookworm 33 (the final volume), Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill 15, Cooking with Wild Game 25, the 3rd manga volume of A Livid Lady’s Guide to Getting Even: How I Crushed My Homeland with My Mighty Grimoires, The Misfit of Demon King Academy 7, the 2nd manga volume of My Quiet Blacksmith Life in Another World, and Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles 25. Bye, Rozemyne! Hopefully we’ll get the Hannelore spinoff soon!
ASH: Bookworm!
SEAN: Guess who forgot a publisher again last week. Meeeee! Hanashi Media has My Pet Is a Saintess 3 out THIS week.
ASH: There are so many smaller presses these days, which I love to see, though it can be challenging to keep track of them all.
SEAN: There’s a Mature Manga debut from Seven Seas that I can slot into the Ghost Ship section. At 25:00 in Akasaka (25ji, Akasaka de) is a BL title with a live-action movie out now. Two actors and old school acquaintances have to research the role of gay men they’re playing. Well, one of them does. The other one might not need to?
ASH: Hmmm, I think I’ve read an older series with a similar premise.
SEAN: And from actual Ghost Ship, Ayakashi Triangle 11.
That lout and his Korean webtoon-self has ensured there are no print novels from Airship, but we do get an early digital debut: I Abandoned My Engagement Because My Sister is a Tragic Heroine, but Somehow I Became Entangled with a Righteous Prince (Higeki no Heroine Buru Imouto no Sei de Konyaku Hakishita no desu ga, Naze ka Seigikan no Tsuyoi Outaishi ni Karamareru you ni narimashita). A saint is rather stunned when her little sister says she’s a villainess, and even more stunned when this means her fiance breaks off the engagement to her. And now the Crown Prince is investigating her? Isn’t this all about her sister?!?!
And we also see Reborn as a Space Mercenary: I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship! 10.
What will you be reading instead of listening to the teacher next week?