SEAN: Sometimes a manga sneaks up on you. I hadn’t even realized that On Their Frontlines: The Lives of Japanese War Brides was coming out at all. Looking at it, though, it appears to continue the trend of Fantagraphics licensing really good stuff. It’s my pick this week.
MICHELLE: I am certainly intrigued by On Their Frontlines, but I do really love the works of Kazune Kawahara and it’s about time I read some of A Star Brighter Than the Sun, so I will go with that, this time.
ASH: Kazune Kawahara manga are always a great pick! But I’ll be joining Sean in choosing On Their Frontlines this week; I’ve heard incredibly good things about the series.
ANNA: Both of these sound like great options, but I’m also going to go with On Their Frontlines.
KATE: Billy Bat is great fun: it’s a valentine to the pulpy American comics of the 1930s and 1940s, but it’s also a swell mystery and a thoughtful meditation on creativity. It’s definitely worth adding to the pile! I also wanted to make a plug for Akino Kondoh’s Box Garden Beetle. If her name sounds familiar, that’s because she was featured in <a href="https://mangacritic.mangabookshelf.com/2010/05/21/ax-vol-1-a-collection-of-alternative-manga/"AX: Alternative Manga. Her work is weird, playful, and sometimes a little unsettling, but always worth a look.