SEAN: Valentine’s Day has gone, so what manga did you get? Chocolate manga? Is it food? Can you eat it?
Viz Media has the one-shot Came the Mirror & Other Tales from Rumiko Takahashi, which seems to be along the lines of her Rumic Theater collections of yore. Five short stories, all “magical realist” in nature. Plus, a rare appearance in a Viz title from Mitsura Adachi, as Takahashi discusses her friendship with him.
ASH: I’m excited for this one, but had missed that there was an Adachi connection, too!
MICHELLE: I will definitely have to check this out!
ANNA: This sounds cool.
MJ: Oh, interesting!
SEAN: Viz also has Golden Kamuy 25, Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt 17, No Guns Life 12, Urusei Yatsura 13, and Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead 5.
ASH: I really need to catch up with Golden Kamuy.
SEAN: Tokyopop has I’m Looking for Serious Love! (Tadareta Koi ni wa Itashimasen!), a one-shot BL title from Overlap’s LiQulle (Overlap does non-isekai stories?). Naive country boy meets suave city boy. Coitus ensues.
MICHELLE: *snerk*
MJ: *appreciates Michelle’s snerk*
SEAN: Two debuts from Seven Seas. I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! (Ichido Dake Demo, Koukai Shitemasu) is a yuri title from Dengeki Daioh about a young woman who is jobless and hasn’t paid her rent. The landlady will let it slide… if the two of them sleep together. They do, and somehow it becomes an ongoing thing. But can friendship arise from this?
MJ: W. tf.
SEAN: Restart After Growing Hungry is technically a sequel to Restart After Coming Back Home, showing us the further adventures of Mitsuomi and Yamato. It ran in Canna, and is also one volume.
Also from Seven Seas: the 2nd Heaven Official’s Blessing novel, Kageki Shojo!! 4, Kase-san and Yamada 2, Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation 14, Reincarnated as a Dragon Hatchling 2, She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man 4, and A Tale of the Secret Saint 2.
ASH: Still very happy to see Heaven Official’s Blessing being translated.
MICHELLE: I need to catch up on both Restart and Heaven Official’s Blessing.
ANNA: I’m in the middle of the first book! Need to finish up.
SEAN: One Peace has the 17th manga volume of The Rising of the Shield Hero.
SEAN: In print, Kodansha has The Summer With You, sequel to My Summer Of You.
The digital debut is The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch (Chouzetsu Kataomoi High Spec Yoshida), a shoujo title from Palcy. A hot guy who is also great at his job has a secret: he’s in love with a disaster of a manga artist! He’s her assistant, but… she doesn’t know he’s in love with her! This seems amusing.
ASH: Manga-related manga has a pretty good track record with me.
MICHELLE: It’s worth a try.
ANNA: It sounds cute.
MJ: It had me at “disaster.” Count me in!
SEAN: There’s also Defying Kurosaki-kun 18, The Lines that Define Me 2, Our Fake Marriage 8, and Shaman King Marcos 3.
There’s a lot from J-Novel Club. First some print titles, as we see By the Grace of the Gods 7, Full Metal Panic! Volumes 7-9 Collector’s Edition, Her Majesty’s Swarm 2, I Shall Survive Using Potions! manga volume 6, Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles Omnibus 4, and The Unwanted Undead Adventurer’s 3rd manga volume.
J-Novel Club debuts FOUR new light novel series this week. We start with My Quiet Blacksmith Life in Another World (Kajiya de Hajimeru Isekai Slow Life), a classic slow life title. Guy dies, is reincarnated as a quiet, normal profession… but things keep happening to him.
My Stepmom’s Daughter Is My Ex (Mamahaha no Tsurego ga Motokano datta) is a romcom title about… well. They dated in middle school. They broke up. Now, in high school, they’re stepsiblings. Can they really get along even after breaking up? This has an anime coming soon.
To Another World… with Land Mines! (Isekai Teni, Jirai Tsuki) has an entire class get killed off and sent to another world. There’s a god offering them cool powers… but why is everyone taking this at face value except our hero?
When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace (Inō-Batoru wa Nichijō-kei no Naka de) already had an anime… in 2014. Another class gets cool powers, and they don’t even have to die! Our hero knows what’s coming next: they’ll have to save the world. Except… why is life carrying on as normal?
Also from J-Novel Club: Ascendance of a Bookworm 17, Full Clearing Another World under a Goddess with Zero Believers 2, Holmes of Kyoto 8, Perry Rhodan NEO 6, and Record of Wortenia War 14.
ASH: I say this almost every time, but hooray Bookworm!
SEAN: Ghost Ship debuts The Witches of Adamas (Adamasu no Majotachi), from Weekly Young Magazine, about… oh Christ, skip it. Not even gonna.
ASH: I had to look it up and just… wow.
SEAN: They also have Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs 18.
And Airship has, in print, Adachi and Shimamura 8 and Planet of the Orcs 2.
And in digital-first we have Classroom of the Elite 10 and Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation 15.
What Valentine’s gifts did you get? Please tell me it wasn’t The Witches of Adamas.