Blue Box, Vol. 1 | By Kouji Miura | Viz Media – Sports manga always sell well in Japan, and high school romantic comedies are also popular. So why not combine the two in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump? The sports series can’t ALL be driven by BL fandom, after all. Blue Box stars Chinatsu, a high school first year who’s the star of the basketball team, and Taiki, a junior high third year who has a massive crush on her… and is also on the badminton team. The romcom part starts when, due to circumstances, Chinatsu moves in with Taiki’s family. That said, the sports is not a supporting part of the series, and Taiki’s badminton games take up just as much time. I’d like to see more of Chinatsu, but it is only the first volume. A promising start. – Sean Gaffney
Blue Box, Vol. 1 | By Kouji Miura | VIZ Media – Taiki Inomata and Chinatsu Kano attend a school with a powerhouse sports program. Taiki, who is on the badminton team, has feelings for Chinatsu, a talented basketball star who is good enough to have been featured in magazines. When plot contrivances force Chinatsu to move in with Taiki’s family for the duration of high school, I inwardly groaned but should’ve had more faith. Instead of ecchi shenanigans, we get scenes where they talk about their goals and share support for each other’s dreams. I really like that Taiki is such an honorable dude. He works hard, he embraces challenges, and he communicates clearly to resolve misunderstandings. Even when he frets that Chinatsu may be especially close to his main rival on the badminton team, he never wants to use her as an excuse for when he loses. These are good kids and I look forward to the next volume! – Michelle Smith
Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, Vol. 4 | By Nene Yukimori | Viz Media – One thing that separates a title like this from its teasing relatives such as Takagi-san is that Kubo actually seems to be the more immature one. Yes, she’s trying to coax him out of his shell, and her teasing works wonders, but you can tell that it takes a lot out of her and she’s profoundly embarrassed by her own feelings most of the time. Shiraishi not only drinks coffee (in the funniest chapter in the book), but his muted responses sometimes hide that he’s more with it when it comes to this sort of thing. Of course, he has other issues that hold him back as well. The two of them make a good couple not just because they’re cute together, but because they bring out each other’s best side. – Sean Gaffney
Natsume’s Book of Friends, Vol. 27 | By Yuki Midorikawa | Viz Media – When it comes to long-running semi-plotless anthology series like Natsume’s Book of Friends, characterization is mostly static. You aren’t going to see Natsume suddenly get a girlfriend (or boyfriend), and the series will no doubt end, whenever it does, with his finishing the one thing that drives the plot—giving everyone’s name back. So it was a surprise to see Chobi, who has been around since the start of things, have a second, unseen side to him that we’re only uncovering now. This is especially interesting given his yokai background, but it fits in well with Natsume’s Book of Friends, where the yokai aren’t really connected with famous stories, but actual characters. Always good. – Sean Gaffney
The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You, Vol. 4 | By Rikito Nakamura and Yukiko Nozawa | Ghost Ship The new volume does not quite have the audience-alienating partner the previous one did. We get a girl who is constantly hungry, and also constantly angry, which is relatively normal. We also get Hahari’s maid, who never opens her eyes, because those types of characters never open their eyes. We also see some truly heartwarming moments, usually involving Rentarou and the girls, but also things like Nano admitting how much she cares for the other girls as friends. That said, this is still a Ghost Ship series, not for nudity so much as the constant horniness, with the ending gag implying both mother and daughter getting a bit TOO excited. Not with each other, thankfully. – Sean Gaffney
Skip Beat!, Vol. 47 | By Yoshiki Nakamura | Viz Media – It’s rare that we see crossovers between shoujo titles over here in English, and when we do we run the danger that the other series is unlicensed in North America. This volume, though, not only has a character who is dressed like Sinha from Yona of the Dawn (complete with squirrel) as part of an event when every chapter of Hana to Yume that issue had the squirrel somewhere in there, but also features an insanely hot piece of art at the end with Moko dressed up as Jaeha, something which made me fan my face a bit. It’s clear that Nakamura is a big fan of Yona—well, the two series are pretty much the face of the magazine now (please forget about Yami no Matsuei). As for the plot of this book… I’m sure Michelle will tell you about it. – Sean Gaffney
Skip Beat!, Vol. 47 | By Yoshiki Nakamura | VIZ Media – Happy to oblige! This volume is not exactly filler, as it does get the ball rolling on a new project Ren might be part of, but it’s certainly a step back from the romantic intensity of recent volumes as Kyoko and Moko go to an amusement park and “quite by chance” end up accompanying an American lady who is, of course, more than she seems. Meanwhile, Ren and his pretend lover agree to continue their charade for the press in order to protect the ones they really care about. Thankfully, I like the story and characters enough to find even exposition entertaining, though I must agree with Sean that the absolute highlight is the ridiculously hawt illustration of Moko dressed as Jaeha. – Michelle Smith
Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, Vol. 19 | By Kagiji Kumanomata | Viz Media After answering “how old is Princess Syali?” last volume, there’s an arc here that tries to emphasize that, when the princess, mistaking a demon for her father, suddenly goes into hyper work mode, complete with business suit and half-glasses. This suggests disturbing things about her relationship with her father, but fortunately the result seems to be more “she feels guilty lazing around while seeing him working” than any actual abuse. As for the rest, the series loves its metatext, the best of which this time is the Princess Syalis body pillow. Which, fortunately, is not nude on the back, because while Syalis may be an adult, she’s still drawn in chibi mode most of the time. – Sean Gaffney