Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Anna N

Given, Vol. 1

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Given Volume 1 by Natsuki Kizu

Even before I read this manga, I remember scrolling past something on twitter and seeing the cover. Who is the mildly cranky guitarist? What’s up with the diffident dude with the red guitar? Has there been yaoi manga translated here featuring a rock band since Gravitation? I have no idea, but I was more than ready to check out this series.

Uneoyama is a cranky high school student and guitar player who is quite irked to see another boy passed out holding a guitar in his favorite sleeping spot. Uneoyama is perturbed that the guy is clutching a Gibson with rusted out strings, but the mysterious boy says “Can this be fixed?” with a look of desperation on his face. Uneoyama quickly tunes the guitar, strums a cord, and is promptly asked for guitar lessons. Uneoyama isn’t sure how to teach an absolute novice the guitar, but his newfound companion tags along to band practice and introduces himself as Mafuyu Sato. Mafuyu meets bassist Haruki and drummer Kaji, and continues to be relentless about asking Uneoyama for guitar lessons.

Given

Throughout most of this first volume, Mafuyu is presented as an innocent enigma, but as Uneo gets to know him he begins to discover that Mafuyu’s emotional attachment to the Gibson he can’t play is rooted in a tragic event from his past. Uneoyama’s jaded attitude towards music is gradually changed by Mafuyu’s enthusiasm and he begins to think about his mysterious new friend more and more. Given perfectly executes the “I’m mad at you because you are so pretty” trope that is so enjoyable when done well. The scenes of the band playing music are dynamic, and Uneoyama’s growing feelings are built up in a subtle way even though he’s not yet ready to be honest with himself. Haruki and Kaji also have some cute scenes together, and as older band members spend a bit of time being amused at Uneoyama actually feeling off-kilter due to the fact that he is finally emotionally invested in something. Kizu’s character designs are all distinct and stylish, and I enjoyed the bonus illustrations of all the major characters that showed sketches of facial expressions as well as vital statistics. This was an extremely promising first volume, and I’m expecting this series will continue to entertain with a winning combination of slow burn romance and music.

Manga the Week of 2/12/20

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SEAN: It’s Valentine’s Week! Instead of chocolate, why not get your crush manga?

Dark Horse is giving up a 500+-page omnibus of What’s Michael?, the first of two, I believe. I’m pretty sure this is just a straight re-release of the 6 volumes we’d seen way back in the day as an omnibus – still flipped, still censored, etc. But I don’t really care, as I love What’s Michael? to bits, and seeing it back in print in a giant omnibus delights me.

MICHELLE: !!! I’ll take what I can get!

ASH: Same! While I would love to see the rest of What’s Michael released in translation, I’m just happy that it’ll be back in print at all.

MJ: What they said!

SEAN: J-Novel Club has two debuts. The digital manga debut is Cooking with Wild Game, whose novel J-NC has already put out. A boy and his elf village who have no idea how to cook meat.

The digital novel debut is Teogonia, which seems like a somewhat grim fantasy with reincarnated memories.

J-Novel also has Seirei Gensouki manga volume 3 and Sorcerous Stabber Orphen LN 6.

Kodansha’s debut (in print or once!) is Beyond the Clouds, which has been called Ghibli-esque, so has a lot to live up to. It originally comes form a French publisher, and its premise reminds me a lot of… well, Laputa, so Ghlibi comparisons fit.

The digital debut is The Dorm of Love and Secrets (Koi to Himitsu no Gakuseiryou), another Dessert title, from an author whose Heart Break Club has been released digitally here by MediaDo. This one’s a quarter of the size of that, and is about… sigh… a school divided into average and elite kids, and… sigh… an average girl who ends up in the elite group. Sigh.

MICHELLE: That does not bode exceptionally well.

ANNA: Oh wow, that has never been done before.

MJ: I guess we can just… hope that there will be something fresh about it? I. Yeah.

SEAN: Also out next week digitally: 1122 For a Happy Marriage 5, All-Out!! 12, Ex Enthusiasts – Motokare Mania 3, Farewell My Dear Cramer 7, That Blue Summer 2, and The Prince’s Romance Gambit 6.

Seven Seas makes up for its absence last week. There are SIX debuts (two have come out digital first). Bloom Into You gets a light novel spinoff, Regarding Saeki Sayaka, which I found VERY enjoyable when it came out digitally last year.

The Carp on the Chopping Block Jumps Twice (Sojou no Koi wa Nido Haneru) is the sequel to The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese, and thus has several interested Manga Bookshelf parties.

MICHELLE: Forsooth.

ANNA: Yes!

ASH: It is true.

MJ: This!

SEAN: Citrus+, the sequel to Citrus, had a digital early release, but this is the print version. I’m guessing there’s angst.

Kase-san and Yamada finally gives up on the “and ________” title format and gives us what we really want – the two leads, together, in college.

My Androgynous Boyfriend (Genderless Danshi ni Ai sarete imasu) is a josei title from Shodensha’s Feel Young, and the mere fact we’re GETTING another Feel Young title makes me happy. It is about a woman who works in publishing and her boyfriend, who makes himself beautiful for her. It sounds terrific. The author also had the BL title A Lotus in the Mud released digitally recently.

MICHELLE: Definitely looking forward to this one!

ANNA: I am intrigued.

ASH: I’m really looking forward to this one, too.

MJ: I’m so here for this!

SEAN: Lastly, there’s Scarlet, a Comic Yuri Hime title about a vampire who got that way by ingesting a drug, a werewolf who’s also Red Riding Hood, and their tortured yuri relationship. Also: they fight crime!

The non-debut from Seven Seas is the 2nd volume of Our Wonderful Days. (So that’s seven new titles from Seven Seas next week, all queer. Dang.)

ASH: That makes me happy.

MJ: Well, that’s lovely.

SEAN: We have a new publisher debuting! Square Enix Manga finally has its first release, and it’s one the Manga Bookshelf team are most excited about. A Man and His Cat (Ojisama to Neko) is listed as ‘shoujo’ but also runs in Shonen Gangan, and, well, that’s Square Enix for ya. The title is the story, but this one looks super good.

MICHELLE: A good week for cats!

ANNA: This looks cute.

ASH: Very curious about this one.

MJ: And that demographic confusion is my love affair with Square Enix in a nutshell, isn’t it?

SEAN: SuBLime has a debut as well, Given. It runs in Shinshokan’s Cheri +, and seems to be the gay version of Anonymous Noise.

MICHELLE: I’ve seen the first chunk of anime episodes and liked it a lot.

ANNA: It is absolutely adorable. Love the cover.

ASH: I’m excited for the chance to read this!

MJ: I didn’t love the straight version, so maybe this is the one I’ve been waiting for!

SEAN: They also have a 2nd volume of Yarichin Bitch Club.

Vertical given us the 5th Kino’s Journey manga.

Viz gives us the 8th Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Edition, Hayate the Combat Butler 35, Komi Can’t Communicate 5, and A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow 2.

ASH: I just picked up the first volume of A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow; maybe I should go ahead and pick up the second, too.

MJ: There are a few things I’m interested in, there.

SEAN: Lastly, Yen On has a straggler light novel with the 2nd volume of The Greatest Demon Lord Is Reborn As a Typical Nobody.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Which of these titles will you accidentally eat thinking they’re chocolate?

Pick of the Week: Yona and Others

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SEAN: It’s Jump/Beat week, folks, and once again my pick is Yona of the Dawn, because it remains one of the best manga Shojo Beat is putting out.

MICHELLE: It is super hard to choose between all the Jump/Beat offerings! Since Sean’s got Yona covered, I’ll pick My Hero Academia. I really like this arc, pitting class 1A and 1B against each other, and even though I know how it ends (courtesy of my Shonen Vault subscription) I’m still eager to revisit it.

ANNA: It is a tough week for me, because needing to pick between Yona of the Dawn and other Shojo Beat offerings is very difficult. But I’m going to go with Shortcake Cake because in it, a romance moves forward after some incredibly cinematic love confessions. This volume is shoujo turned up to 11!

ASH: Like seemingly everyone else this week, Yona of the Dawn is one of my top picks, but I’m also really looking forward to the latest volume of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

MJ: I’m not feeling as excited about the ongoing Jump/Beat series this week, so I’m going to stray into digital and take a look at Kodansha’s debut, Let’s Kiss in Secret Tomorrow. I’m not sure what to expect, but I’m always a fan of childhood friends-to-lovers, so I’ll give it my pick for the week!

Ao Haru Ride, Vol. 8

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Ao Haru Ride, Volume 8 by Ao Sakisaka

Ao Haru Ride continues to provide a unique shoujo story by combining teen romance against a backdrop of grief. Kou continues to think he can fix the world by taking on the responsibility of being sole friend/psychotherapist/boyfriend to his old classmate Yui, but Futuba may finally be ready to move on.

Ao Haru Ride 8

As the volume opens Futuba tells Kou that she likes him, in full expectation that she’s going to be rejected. She wants to get everything out in the open so she can attempt to move on. Kou’s words are carefully chosen, he says “I can’t go out with you” and Futuba smiles and says “That feels like closure.” Her smiling face interrupts a sequence of panels where Kou’s expressionless face is shadowed, pointing to the facade he’s wearing to hide his feelings. Futuba walks away and when Kou’s phone rings (presumably a call from Yui), he smashes it. While Futuba has vowed to move on, she can’t resist trying to make Kou feel a bit of regret, and she decides that she’ll act more feminine and further distance herself from the tomboy persona that she used to assume. She wonders “Is everyone else pretending to be the person they want to be?” Toma seizes his chance and tells Futuba that he likes her just as she is. She isn’t quite sure how to respond, but Toma tells her that he’ll wait and see what she thinks after she gets a chance to know him.

Futuba accidentally runs into Kou at school and he’s back to his usual harsh comments telling her that her attempts to be more feminine totally don’t work for her. Futuba’s introspection makes her both relatable and endearing, as she comments to her friends, “Spending time thinking about a boy who didn’t pick me…is a waste of my youth!” Kou and Futuba are generally so much better together than they are apart, and the attempts to put distance between them simply don’t work. This is a solid middle volume in this series, and there’s a nice one-shot included as a bonus. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when Kou decides that he’s no longer responsible for fixing the universe.

Sublime Quick Takes: Liquor and Cigarettes and Fourth Generation Head: Tatsuyuki Oyamato

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I’ve decided in the interest of clearing away some of my to-read manga stacks, I’m going to dedicate the month of February to BL and yaoi manga and do at least one extra post of mini reviews a week. I’m going to do a big giveaway at the end of the month with a selection of what I’ve read (however many manga I can fit into a flat rate priority box). So let’s take a look at some manga from SubLime.

Liquor and Cigarettes by Ranmaru Zariya

Camilo and Theo are childhood best friends who run family businesses across the street from each other in a quasi European setting. Theo sells liquor and Camilo sells cigarettes. Theo’s deep dark secret is that he’s secretly a lightweight who can’t tolerate alcohol. Camillo’s favorite hobby is propping his head in his hands and staring soulfully at Theo. When Camilo asks his lifelong friend to consider dating him, Theo isn’t sure, but he decides to throw himself into a quasi trial relationship while at the same time building up his alcohol tolerance so he can take part in a town wine festival. What follows is a series of booze and angst-filled nights as Theo struggles with his sexuality and Camilo attempts to win him over. The art is well-done and fluid, with distinct character designs. Liquor and Cigarettes is complete in one volume, and would be a good choice for yaoi fans who are wanting something short but explicit to read that also features a decent amount of character development, as both Theo and Camilo puzzle out how to take their relationship forward without the booze.

liquor and cigarettes

Fourth Generation Head: Tatsuyuki Oyamato By Scarlet Beriko

The cover for Fourth Generation Head: Tatsuyuki Oyamato shows a shocking lack of concern for basic gun safety. I can say that the cover certainly signals the content of the manga. Tatsuyuki Oyamato is an heir to a powerful yakuza family. He’s not that invested in his duties in organized crime, as he’s struggling to get over being dumped by a masseur. He ends up wandering around a city half-drunk and gets picked up by Koga Nozomi, a kindergarten teacher who recognizes Tatsuyuki from an incident in their past that Tatsuyuki has no memory of. A local mafia boss named Rogi is determined to make both Tasuyuki and Nozomi miserable, and his daughter attends the kindergarten where Nozomi works. One of the reasons why I tend to be only an occasional yaoi reader is that I don’t care for reading much about non-consensual sex. Rogi decides to hatch an elaborate blackmail scheme that involves sexual torture, and that wasn’t appealing to me as a reader. Trauma in general gets a pass in this manga, and Nozomi’s semi obsessive tendencies towards Tatsuyuki get mention and then glossed over. Beriko’s art is great, and Nozomi is appropriately adorable, but in the end, this was not a manga that inspired enthusiasm for me as a reader. While there is a happy ending of sorts, I do hope that the yakuza have a good mental health provider.

Fourth Generation Head

Manga the Week of 2/5/20

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SEAN: It’s February! The worst month! And it’s a day longer this year! Why not read some really good manga, then?

ASH: Sounds like a good plan.

ANNA: Indeed.

MJ: I’m in.

SEAN: We’ll start with J-Novel Club, who have a plethora of releases, both print and digital. Full Metal Panic! gets a print omnibus of its first three volumes in a fancy hardcover edition that looks cool. Fans won’t want to miss it.

Isekai Rebuilding Project (Isekai Saiken Keikaku) is another one from Kodansha’s Legend Novels, and is about what happens after the hero arrives from another world, bringing with him smartphones, modern economics, and weaponry… and then leaves them to their own devices. Yes, it’s an isekai cleanup squad for when things don’t go according to keikaku. The cover art looks fantastic.

ASH: That really is a great cover.

SEAN: Outer Ragna (Game Jikkyou ni yoru Kouryaku to Gyakushuu no Outer Ragna) is also from Legend Novels, and doesn’t quite have an isekai, but the gamer now finds he can ‘possess’ the heroine to help save the world.

They’ve also got the 2nd Faraway Paladin manga, How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord 8 in print, If It’s For My Daughter I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord 7 in print, In Another World with My Smartphone 8 in print, the 3rd Infinite Dendrogram manga, and The Magic in This Other World Is Too Far Behind! 7 in print.

Kodansha, in print, has Boarding school Juliet 10 and Granblue Fantasy 3.

The digital debut is Let’s Kiss in Secret Tomorrow (Ashita, Naisho no Kiss Shiyou), a Dessert manga with an unusual premise: the couple start the manga together, as childhood friends turned lovers. But they’re in high school, and now have to hide their relationship. And the guy is suddenly really hot! Can they stay together?

MICHELLE: I will at least give it a try, since I generally like things from Dessert.

MJ: It had me at “childhood friends turned lovers.”

SEAN: Also digitally: Drifting Dragons 6, Our Precious Conversations 6, Smile Down the Runway 6, The Tale of Genji: Dreams at Dawn 10, To Be Next to You 2, and To Write Your Words 3.

MICHELLE: To Be Next to You was pretty interesting, too, in that the heroine seems like the outsider (and out of her depth) in the love story the object of her affections is experiencing with another girl.

SEAN: Seven Seas has but one title: a digital release of Classroom of the Elite light novel 4.5 (yes, it’s one of those .5 novels).

TOKYOPOP has RePlay, a done in one BL manga from Comic Magazine LYNX. It’s about BL and baseball. (Insert Michelle comment here.)

MICHELLE: Crud. I may have to patronize TOKYOPOP.

ASH: I try to avoid TOKYOPOP, too, but some of the licenses are very tempting.

ANNA: I’m going to be strong and just read BL from SuBLime. You can’t trick me TOKYOPOP!

MJ: I’ll wait for Michelle to read it first.

SEAN: It’s the first week of the month, and you know what that means. No debuts for Viz this month, though!

Shonen: Blue Exorcist 23, Food Wars! 34, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure 4-4, Jujutsu Kaisen 2, My Hero Academia 23, My Hero Academia SMASH! 3, Seraph of the End 18, Twin Star Exorcists 17, and We Never Learn 8.

Shoujo: Ao Haru Ride 9, Shortcake Cake 7, Takane & Hana 13, and Yona of the Dawn 22. Getting all of these.

MICHELLE: Yep, every single one of the shoujo, and several of the shounen, as well.

ASH: JoJo and Yona are where my priorities are but, yeah, there’s a lot of good stuff in those lists.

ANNA: My favorite week for shoujo releases.

MJ: I’ve fallen behind on most of this, but I will catch up!

SEAN: Lastly, some Yen Press stragglers, including a couple of debuts. The Hero Is Overpowered But Overly Cautious has its manga debut, and should be highly amusing.

IM: Great Priest Imhotep is getting its print debut. It runs in Shonen Gangan and is to Magi what Black Clover is to Fairy Tail.

ASH: I’ll admit I’m curious.

MJ: Well, huh.

SEAN: And there is also Hinowa Ga CRUSH! 3 and Though You May Burn to Ash 6, which has a surprising number of volumes given that you’ve already burned to ash.

ASH: I do a double-take every time I see this series mentioned. XD

SEAN: What manga is spicing up your February doldrums?

Shortcake Cake, Vol 7

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Shortcake Cake Volume 7 by suu Morishita

As I was picking up this volume of Shortcake Cake, I started thinking about how genuinely fond of many of the current Shojo Beat titles. It is quite an accomplishment to develop a line of manga that inspires the feeling that you are seeing a friend again when you get a new volume of a series in your hands, but so many of the current Shojo Beat lineup invoke that feeling for me. Shortcake Cake continues to explore the classic romantic tradition of a love triangle (or possibly quadrangle) as Ten now realizes that she has feelings for Riku after she originally rejected him. In a great scene that takes full advantage of the iconic setting of stairs leading up to a shrine, Riku asks Ten if she likes him, and after a few beats of silence and slightly shifting facial expressions, Ten breaks the tension by balling up her fists and punching herself on either side of her face. Riku grabs her wrists to ask what she’s doing, and she blurts out “I like you.” Morishita’s cinematic approach to paneling switches from character to character, incorporating silent reaction shots coupled with blushes and awkward glances that makes this love confession iconic.

shortcake cake 7

One of the things I like about this series is the way it switches easily between emotional scenes and more comedic aspects of teenage life. Ten continues her confession by saying that she hopes she can make Riku like her back, and asks him to give her some time to win his affection. He says he’ll wait, and Ten thinks that she needs to make up for how she made Riku feel in the past. Ten decides that she’s going to actually attempt to be feminine, and what follows is a crash course in skin care and makeup application from Ageha. Ten also attempts to mirror Riku’s body language to deepen their connection in a hilarious scene. While Ten flits around trying out random advice from friends, Riku seems fairly patient and low key, except when he has to deal with an attempt to clear the air from Chiaki. In settings that recall the places where they’ve spoken in the past, Ten and Riku are open with their feelings and embark on an actual relationship.

With the way this series is developing, I’m not expecting the love confessions in this volume to be the last ones, which is a good thing because Morishita executes them so well. It is pretty adorable seeing Ten and Riku together and on the same page, but I’m very curious to see what happens when Rei figures out what is going on. Rei is largely absent from this volume, except for a single vignette after the main story, so I’m expecting him to show up soon. Shortcake Cake presents teen romance with a depth and emotional resonance that sets it apart from many other series. I’m still unsure who Ten is going to end up with, and that continues to keep me intrigued as a reader.

Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 1

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Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 1 by Gege Akutami

Fending off supernatural threats is a shonen staple, so how does Jujutsu Kaisen stack up? It very much felt like an early effort from a mangaka, which it is, but the first volume has a few flashes of humor and a central premise that is both disgusting and entertaining.

jujutsu kaisen volume 1

Yuji Itadori is a teenager who enjoys hanging out with the occult club despite his superhuman strength and speed. He’s being targeted for his athletic abilities by the track coach, but manages to maintain his new supernatural hobby by winning a bet about his shot put abilities. Megumi Fushiguro, a student from another school with actual occult abilities, is investigating the presence of a cursed object when he encounters Yuji and his new friends. It turns out that the occult club has gotten their hands on an artifact that is actually quite cursed, and Yuji and Megumi have to team up to save his friends from demonic destruction. Along the way, Yuji casually eats a demonic finger in order to get cursed energy to fend off the evil spirits. This ends up giving Yuji a semi-manageable case of spirit possession, but also makes him useful to demon hunters because he’s basically a walking container for cursed objects, as long as he eats them. There’s a particular demon who is the source of the cursed digits, and Yuji is going to join a team hunting down the relics of the evil Sakuna.

The art throughout this volume is serviceable but a bit rough, there’s little mobility in the characters’ facial expressions and while the action scenes are easy to follow they’d be a lot more entertaining with some shifts in perspective or more dynamic paneling. I’m curious to see if the art improves more as the series continues to develop. The demons do look appropriately freaky and scary.

Yuji’s motivations for fighting demons are introduced with a lack of subtly. Then again, I guess one does not expect delicately and subtle plot points from a Shonen Jump manga. There were a few moments that I thought were hilarious enough to be engaging. When Yuji is figuring out how many digits he is going to have to consume, the total number is high due to a surprising reason which is tossed off in casual conversation. I also enjoyed Yuji’s low-key approach to performing dramatic physical feats. The end of the volume sets up the new occult fighting team and their sparsely populated high school that has a curriculum dedicated to fighting evil, and it’ll be interesting to see how that develops. Ultimately this first volume reminded me that sometimes one has to give a manga two volumes before deciding to follow a series or not, and that is what I’ll be doing with Jujutsu Kaisen.

Pick of the Week: Rose’s Turn

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ASH: Back in 1983, Frederik L. Schodt introduced Riyoko Ikeda’s highly-influential manga The Rose of Versailles to English-reading audiences when he provided and except of it in his work Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics. Since then the license was a seemingly unobtainable prize. Even after Udon Entertainment announced the rights to release a English translation of The Rose of Versailles, the series languished for years. I wasn’t going to believe it until I saw it, but my faith has been restored – in 2020, I am finally holding the first glorious hardcover volume in my hands. Everyone else should be, too.

ANNA: I am so excited for The Rose of Versailles. I’m waiting for my copy, but will have a mini-celebration when I have it in my hands. There could be no other pick of the week!

SEAN: It feels like the last thirty-odd years of mainstream manga in North American has led up to this moment. The Rose of Versailles is not only long-awaited, but its presentation shows it was worth the wait. It’s magical.

MICHELLE: I find I still can’t believe it, despite credible reports of its existence. When my copy comes, I just might cry.

KATE: My copy of Rose of Versailles just arrived, and it’s gorgeous! So many epaulets! So many galaxy eyes! So many tears! I’m already swooning and I haven’t finished chapter one. (I guess it’s my pick of the week, too.)

MJ: It’s hard to believe this time has finally come! I don’t have my copy of The Rose of Versailles yet, but when it arrives, like Michelle, I think there’s a good chance I’ll cry!

Manga the Week of 1/29/20

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SEAN: The end of the month, and it’s time for lots and lots of stuff. What have we got?

First of all, jumping to the front of the queue because of what it is, we have Udon’s debut of The Rose of Versailles. You should know this one. One of the most influential manga ever. It’s hardcover. It’s almost 500 pages. You will all read it. It’s definitely Pick of the Week, so you’ll have to pardon the double pictures.

MICHELLE: *Kermit flailing*

ANNA: Back before there was an actual industry for translated manga in the United States, I read the excerptr of The Rose of Versailles that was translated in Frederik R. Schodt’s Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. I am so excited to read this.

ASH: I’ve read that excerpt, too! (It’s a great book.) I am absolutely thrilled The Rose of Versailles is finally becoming a reality in English.

MJ: I’m so excited, I can barely type. This release has taken a while, and I have no doubt it will be worth the wait!

SEAN: Cross Infinite World has another shoujo light novel, this one called The Misfortune Devouring Witch is Actually a Vampire?! (Ijippari na Majo Dono e). You can tell the title has been Westernized as it’s a ?!, not a !?.

ASH: Ha!

SEAN: Dark Horse has the 3rd Elfen Lied omnibus.

Ghost Ship has three titles, one a debut. Saki the Succubus Hungers Tonight (Saki-chan wa Konya mo Peko Peko) runs in Houbunsha’s Weekly Manga Times, and features a young and innocent succubus who is trying to get… male bodily fluids from a guy without doing anything really dirty. It’s sort of cute in a “not quite porn” way.

MJ: This is… not what I’m looking for in manga. Or really anything at all. I kind of regret reading this description.

SEAN: They’ve also got Yokai Girls 9 and Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs 8.

J-Novel Club has two new light novel series debuting. By the Grace of the Gods (Kami-tachi ni Hirowareta Otoko) is another reincarnation isekai series from Hobby Japan, but this one seems to involve very nice people. The hero is nice, the gods are nice, the slimes are nice… it seems nice. Expect “slice of life”.

The other title comes from the PASH! Books imprint, and is The World’s Least Interesting Master Swordsman (Jimi na Kensei wa Soredemo Saikyou desu). The plot really, really sounds like One-Punch Man to me… a reincarnated guy who swings his sword to get stronger… for 500 years… suddenly finds he’s super strong. But his swordsmanship is boring. I suspect this one will live and die by the supporting cast.

Also from J-Novel Club is How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord 12, Kokoro Connect 8, and Record of Wortenia War 4.

On the manga side, J-Novel Club has a 2nd Discommunication and the 3rd How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom.

Kodansha’s print debut has already come out digitally: Living-Room Matsunaga-san, a shoujo series from Dessert. A young woman moves into a boarding house filled with oddballs, and finds herself looked after by an older man.

MICHELLE: I’d been meaning to read this one!

ASH: I’m curious, too.

MJ: This sounds interesting! Or possibly creepy? It seems like it could go either way!

SEAN: Also out in print is The Quintessential Quintuplets 7.

No digital debuts for Kodansha, but we do get Altair: A Record of Battles 14, Boarding School Juliet 14, DAYS 16, Drowning Love 16, Guilty 4, and Watari-kun’s ****** Is about to Collapse 2.

MICHELLE: Huzzah for more DAYS!

SEAN: Seven Seas has two debut light novels, one print and one digital. The print we saw before digitally: SCP Foundation: Iris Through the Looking Glass. It tied into the SCP Foundation universe.

The digital-first debut is At Night, I Become a Monster (Yoru no Bakemono). It’s from the author of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, so expect good writing and melancholy. A boy turns into a monster during the evenings, and runs into a classmate.

MICHELLE: Hm, interesting!

ASH: I’m waiting for the print, but I am intrigued.

MJ: Interested.

SEAN: Also out from Seven Seas: The Dungeon of Black Company 4, Magika Swordsman and Summoner 12, My Monster Secret 19, and Toradora! light novel 9.

For Udon, see The Rose of Versailles above. Just thought I’d mention it again. The Rose of Versailles. Officially out in English. And looking amazing.

MICHELLE: I still can’t really believe it, honestly. I’ll believe it when I’m holding it in my hands.

ANNA: I’m trying to mentally prepare.

ASH: One of my most anticipated releases of the current and past several years.

MJ: What everyone else said. I mean. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

SEAN: Vertical has a 4th APOSIMZ.

The rest of Yen Press, but we’re not close to done. Yen On’s debut is Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina (Majo no Tabitabi). A Softbank Creative series about, well, a wandering witch. The premise makes it sound like a happier, more positive version of Kino’s Journey.

Yen On also has A Sister’s All You Need 6, Goblin Slayer 9, and Torture Princess 3.

Also, in an effort to make all their books available digitally, Yen On now has digital debuts of two older series that were print-only. Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers Vols. 1-6, and the standalone The Hero and His Elf Bride Open a Pizza Parlor in Another World.

Three debuts… sort of… in the manga department. Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun is a digital-only series now making its print debut. It also has an anime running now. It runs in GFantasy, so expect it to be a shonen series for girls.

ASH: I’m here for it! Looking forward to giving the series a try.

MJ: Did you say GFantasy? You know I’m here for that.

SEAN: The other debuts are adaptations of light novels. I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years (and Maxed Out My Level) runs in Gangan Online, and The World’s Strongest Rearguard runs in Kadokawa’s Comic Walker. The former is cute fluff, the latter is bad but fun.

We also get Aoharu x Machinegun 16, Final Fantasy: Lost Stranger 4, High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World 6, Horimiya 13, Murcielago 13, No Matter How I Look at It It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular! 15, and The Saga of Tanya the Evil 9.

Again, and I cannot emphasize it enough, Rose of Versailles. Anything apart from that?

Daytime Shooting Star, Vol. 4

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Daytime Shooting Star Volume 4 by Mika Yamamori

This volume of Daytime Shooting Star is focused on summer vacation. I really like the way the matte cover sets off the powdery pink blossoms used in the cover illustration for this volume. I’m so curious as to how this student-teacher romance manga will conclude, I’m guessing a giant time skip picking up with the high school characters post-college graduation. The volume opens as Suzume uses her intense knowledge of fish and extra cash to help out a strange but somewhat familiar man in the grocery store who has difficulty both shopping for seafood and remembering his wallet. When she drops by his house to get repaid for his groceries, she realizes that he’s Mamura’s father! Suzume gets a glimpse of Mamura’s very loud little brother, and she and Mamura are able to talk to each other again like friends.

Tsubomi ends up blowing out of town leaving a tornado of emotional devastation in her wake, as she seems to think it is appropriate to leave a note for her ex-boyfriend Shishio with the teenage girl who has a crush on him. Susume can’t resist the impulse to deliver it, and when she meets Shishio again, they decide to go on a group outing with her classmates to the aquarium, since Tsubomi enclosed an aquarium gift certificate. Of course, the day of the outing no-one else shows up, so the student and teacher are on a full-on solo date where Suzume gets to indulge in all the fish trivia questions she has ever dreamed of. Shishio continues to be fairly inappropriate but not doing anything physical beyond resting his head on Suzume’s shoulder. Even though he rejected Suzume’s love confession, it is clear that he’s still looking out for Suzume at school and in general acting protective and awkward at various moments. Suzume sees all this happening and becomes confused yet again. Fortunately there’s the school festival coming up that will provide a welcome distraction from all these romantic foibles, or amp everything up even more?

I continue to enjoy Yamamori’s stylish character designs. Suzume’s moments of introspection and insight as she’s attempting to get a handle on the world around her keeps Daytime Shooting Star interesting. It is easy to see how she’ll eventually grow up to be a formidable adult.

Pick of the Week: Househusbands

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SEAN: This week I’m torn between small children and yakuza husbands, so my pick is split between the 5th Ascendance of a Bookworm light novel and the second volume of The Way of the Househusband.

MICHELLE: I’m all in for The Way of the Househusband, personally, though I’m also intrigued by MabuSasa, the latest digital shoujo from Kodansha.

KATE: My pick is also The Way of the Househusband, a classic fish-out-of-water comedy that finds fresh ways to mine the gangster-goes-straight concept for laughs. Read it… or else!

ANNA: Way of the Househusband for me as well. The first volume was hilarious, looking forward to more of the same.

ASH: Who am I to argue with everyone else? The Way of the Househusband is unquestionably my pick this week, too.

MJ: Well, I’m certainly not going to be the one to destroy the consensus this week. The Way of the Househusband it is!

Manga the Week of 1/22/20

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SEAN: More January, More Manga.

ASH: Huzzah!

SEAN: J-Novel Club gives us another debut, Her Majesty’s Swarm (Joou Heika no Isekai Senryaku), again from Kodansha’s new Legend Novels imprint, and by the author “616th Special Information Battalion”. Yes, that’s the real pen name. A college woman who plays a game as an evil character is now trapped in a very similar world… as said evil character.

We also get Altina the Sword Princess 2 and Ascendance of A Bookworm 5.

ASH: I need to catch up on Bookworm.

Kodansha, in print, gives us Cells at Work! Code BLACK 3, I’m Standing on a Million Lives 5, Sailor Moon Eternal Edition 7, and The Seven Deadly Sins 36.

In digital releases, the debut is MabuSasa (Mabuichi-kun to Sasagawa-san), which runs in Kodansha’s shoujo title Palcy. a BL loving girl and a scary guy… can they bond?

MICHELLE: It could be cute!

ANNA: It does sound potentially cute!

MJ: I’d give this a look!

SEAN: There’s also Cosplay Animal 10, Defying Kurosaki-kun 14, My Boss’s Kitten 4, My Boy in Blue 14, and The Quintessential Quintuplets 11.

No debuts for Seven Seas, but they have the 5th Arifureta manga, Magical Girl Site 11, Nurse Hitomi’s Monster Infirmary 10, and Sorry for My Familiar 6.

Tokyopop has a 7th Konohana Kitan.

And Vertical has the 7th CITY.

Viz has Black Lagoon 11. Black Lagoon 9 came out in 2010. I think this series may have a bit of a problem.

MICHELLE: I really loved the first three volumes when I read them long ago, and this release makes me want to get caught up. But then I’ll be waiting years again for the next, most likely.

ASH: Black Lagoon can be really great, but the long wait between volumes can be really hard.

MJ: My memories of Black Lagoon are so fuzzy now…

SEAN: They also have Beastars 4, Children of the Whales 14, Levius/Est 2, No Guns Life 3, and The Way of the Househusband 2.

MICHELLE: Hooray for The Way of the Househusband! I need to check out Beastars, too.

ANNA: I need to catch up on Beastars, and I’m happy about Way of the Househusband 2, the first volume was hilarious.

ASH: Beastars and The Way of the Househusband are what I’m particularly excited about this week.

MJ: I need to catch up with both!

SEAN: And there’s a bunch of Yen. Yen On gives us The Asterisk War 12, Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody 10, and Strike the Blood 14.

Yen also has, on the manga side, Angels of Death 9, A Certain Magical Index 20 (manga), Hatsu*Haru 10, DanMachi: Sword Oratoria 10, Karneval 9, Nyankees 5, Overlord: The Undead King Oh! 2, Reborn As a Polar Bear 2, and Teasing Master Takagi-san 7.

Manga? Manga!

An Incurable Case of Love, Vol. 2

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An Incurable Case of Love, Volume 2 by Maki Enjoji

As with most romance manga I was totally expecting an additional antagonist to show up to further complicate the non-relationship between Dr. Tendo and nurse Nanase. Dr Kusagi is unfailingly smiling, with a focus on his outward demeanor that seems suspicious. Kusagi quickly keys in to the budding relationship between Nanase and Tendo and attempts to subvert it by plying Nanase with alcohol, even though after an earlier outburst and piggybacking episode with Dr Tendo, she is determined to cut down on her consumption.

Tendo immediately starts acting irrationally territorial, and if you enjoy grouchy and withholding heroes, this manga has plenty of scenes of Tendo attempting to object to things and then realizing that he has little standing to interfere in Nanase’s life. This doesn’t stop him though!

While the story is developing with a very familiar formula, Enjoji is executing it extremely well, with little touches that make the series unique. I continue to be amused by the workplace culture at the hospital, and the gang of nurses who continue on with their nicknames of “Valiant One” for Nanase and “Dark Lord” for Tendo. Their support of this unconventional mentoring relationship developing into a friendship is mainly because no one wants to be the target of the Dark Lord’s criticism, but it all still manages to seem like a relatively supportive and friendly workplace! The hospital setting also feels a bit fresh to me after reading plenty of manga series set in offices. Enjoji doesn’t have a ton of variation in her character designs, but she does draw with great expression as Nanase struggles to deal with her romantic life and move ahead with her goals as a new nurse.

Nanase and Tendo keep getting thrown together for various reasons, and the volume closes with a take on a serious situation that can befall any woman who might be easily targeted in a helping or service profession. The main workplace romance combined with side stories dealing with more serious topics seems like a promising way for this series to develop. I’m also enjoying Nanase’s personality, she’s young but still sometimes blunt about expressing what she wants, and I’m curious about how her character will develop as she becomes more comfortable with her new profession. We might only get one josei disguised as shoujo series being released at a time from Shojo Beat, but An Incurable Case of Love fits in well with the rest of the line, and I’m enjoying it while I wait for even more josei releases.

Pick of the Week: Sports and Wine

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MICHELLE: There are several volumes of sports manga coming out this week, which delights me to no end. I will happily read all of them, but my pick goes to the one with a premise slightly different from the rest. Giant Killing, that means you. In this seinen title, we’re dealing with a pro soccer club, not a high school team, and I’m loving it.

SEAN: Speaking of sports manga, will the race that can never end finally end in this Yowamushi Pedal? It’s my pick for this week.

KATE: We’re still six or so weeks out from Lent, so my pick is Liquor and Cigarettes.

ASH: As it appears Yowamushi Pedal is covered, I’ll make Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess my pick this week. This adaptation has been a bit more involved than Himekawa’s other Zelda manga; I’ve been enjoying seeing the team’s skills applied to a longer series.

ANNA: There’s not a ton that appeals to me this week so I’m going to trust Kate’s manga instincts and pick Liquor and Cigarettes as well.

MJ: I’m pretty much exactly where Anna is this week, so I’ll also go along with Kate! Liquor and Cigarettes it is!