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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Anna N

Manga the Week of 12/5/18

November 29, 2018 by Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Anna N, Ash Brown and MJ 1 Comment

SEAN: As we get ready for the holidays, why not give the gift of new manga? Here’s what’s next week.

Bookwalker has a 7th volume of The Combat Baker and Automaton Waitress, which I need to catch up on still.

Cross Infinite World debuts The Cursed Princess and the Lucky Knight, another in its line of romantic light novels for young women.

J-Novel Club has the 18th Invaders of the Rokujouma!?. Just making that a sentence makes the punctuation marks cry.

In print, Kodansha has Attack on Titan 26, Boarding School Juliet 2, Kiss Me at the Stroke of Midnight 8, and The Seven Deadly Sins: Seven Days 2, which wraps up this spinoff.

ASH: It’s been a while since I’ve caught up on Attack on Titan, I should probably get around to doing that.

SEAN: Digitally we debut Red Riding Hood’s Wolf Apprentice, a Betsushonen title that’s also a bit of a gender reversal: Red Riding Hood is a demon hunter, and the wolf is a cute young girl. Those with long memories may recall Pupa, a JManga title by the same author.

There’s also Are You Lost? 3, Can I Kiss You Every Day? 2 and My Boy in Blue 5.

Seven Seas has no debuts, but we do see Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter 2, Lord Marksman and Vanadis 9, New Game! 4, and Tomo-chan Is a Girl! 2.

Speaking of gift material, Titan is releasing a Sherlock Season 1 manga box set.

ASH: That will make a nice gift for fans of the franchise; the manga adaptations have been pretty faithful to the BBC television series.

SEAN: Vertical has Pop Team Epic: Second Season, with even more of those memes (and gags, but let’s face it, mostly memes) that you need.

The rest is Viz, and we have a ridiculous amount of final volumes out next week. But first, the debut. We Never Learn is a new romantic comedy from Viz’s Jump imprint, following the adventures of a tutor trying to work with three geniuses who are brilliant at one subject and bad at others. Nisekoi fans should like this.

Ending this week are Astra: Lost in Space (5), Kimi ni Todoke (30), Kuroko’s Basketball (29-30), and The Young Master’s Revenge (4). Man, I’m going to miss Sawako and Kuroko.

MICHELLE: Me, too!

ANNA: I haven’t been reading Kimi ni Todoke recently because of being timid of emotional devastation but one day I will get all caught up!

SEAN: In series that aren’t beginning or ending, we see Ao Haru Ride 2, Food Wars! 27, Juni Taisen: Zodiac War 2, My Hero Academia 16, One Piece’s 26th 3-in-1, Platinum End 7, The Promised Neverland 7, Queen’s Quality 6, Takane & Hana 6, and Yona of the Dawn 15. I am getting… most of those, to be honest.

MICHELLE: Same here. I’m particularly craving another dose of Takane & Hana.

ANNA: Any week Yona of the Dawn is coming out is a good week!!!! Also super excited for Ao Haru Ride.

ASH: Yes, Yona of the Dawn is great! I need to catch up on Queen’s Quality and Food Wars!, too.

MJ: Definitely Ao Haru Ride and Queen’s Quality! Also, I’m very behind in Platinum End, and obviously in danger of losing my Takeshi Obata fangirl card, so something must be done.

SEAN: Are you getting a pile of manga to give as presents? Or just reading it yourself?

Filed Under: FEATURES, manga the week of

Pick of the Week: Here Come the Brides

November 27, 2018 by Sean Gaffney, Katherine Dacey, Michelle Smith, Ash Brown and Anna N Leave a Comment

SEAN: Tempting as it is to rest on my laurels and pick A Bride’s Story, I suspect the rest of Manga Bookshelf has me covered there. So I’ll pick Katanagatari: Sword Tale, Nisioisin’s new tale about swords. It’s long but very dense.

KATE: At the risk of becoming the most predictable member of the MB gang, I’m going to nominate both Blissful Land and A Bride’s Story. Let’s face it: you can never have enough beautifully drawn manga about life along the Silk Road. My inner historian is salivating at the prospect!

MICHELLE: Even though I’m sure I’ll love A Bride’s Story, the sad fact is that I haven’t yet read it, so I feel weird picking volume ten. I guess I’m going to go with the latest Ace of the Diamond because the most recent volume had the formerly brash protagonist earnestly declaring how much he loves and respects his teammates. I’m a sucker for that sort of thing.

ASH: A Bride’s Story is a lovely tale and visually stunning. (Michelle, you really should give it a try!) It’s definitely my pick of the week, though I am also interested in Yoshitaka Amano: The Illustrated Biography, which should likewise be a beautiful volume.

ANNA: I’ll have to go with A Bride’s Story too, it is such a special series!

Filed Under: PICK OF THE WEEK

Manga the Week of 11/28/18

November 22, 2018 by Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Ash Brown and Anna N 1 Comment

SEAN: Time for some Black Friday manga titles. Maybe some of these will have low, low prices.

Cross Infinite World has another one-shot fantasy novel with Tia La Cherla. Normal guy meets mysterious girl with amnesia but tremendous powers.

Dark Horse gives us Yoshitaka Amano: The Illustrated Biography, which is what it says but also looks really lavish and able to justify its expensive price.

ASH: Oooh, that should be nice.

SEAN: Ghost Ship gives us a 4th volume of Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs, for all your ecchi needs.

J-Novel Club has a 2nd volume of Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight and a 6th Outbreak Company.

Kodansha has a few print titles. We get a 3rd Grand Blue Dreaming, the Real Account 9-11 omnibus (I think – it’s been on this list before and then delayed), and The Seven Deadly Sins 29.

ASH: I will admit that Grand Blue Dreaming has made me laugh more than once.

SEAN: Digitally the debut is Blissful Land (Tenju no Kuni), which seems to be Kodansha’s answer to A Bride’s Story. It runs in Betsushonen, and is about a 13-year-old boy in Tibet and a mysterious bride who arrives one day. >_> OK, a *lot* like A Bride’s Story.

ANNA: Huh, do we need two of these series? I’m really behind on A Bride’s Story so I can’t imagine going out of my way to read a similar series when I need to get caught up on the original.

SEAN: There’s also a pike of ongoing digital for all. Ace of the Diamond 17, Ao-chan Can’t Study 2, Forest of Piano 8, Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live? 5, Kakafukaka 3, Kira-kun Today 2, Liar x Liar 8, Peach Mermaid 3, and Those Summer Days 5. I have actually started one or two of these!

MICHELLE: I have only started one, so far, though there are several I will get around to sometime soonish. I hope.

SEAN: Seven Seas has no debuts, but a pile of ongoing series. Absolute Duo 4, Arifureta’s 3rd manga volume, the print edition of the 3rd Clockwork Planet novel, Devilman vs. Hades 3, The High School Life of a Fudanshi 4, Nirvana 3, and Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho 4.

Vertical debuts Katanagatari: Sword Tale. Despite the similar names, this is unrelated to the Bakemonogatari books except that it’s also by Nisioisin. It’s actually 3 novels in one – they were quite short, and he wrote one per month for a year. It’s set in the Edo era and has swords. What more could one need?

And Yen has a number of titles that got pushed back a week or two. We’ll start with an old title available in digital for the first time: Emma 1-10 (i.e not in omnibuses) is available digitally! As is Sekirei 19, whose core audience is… not the same as Emma’s.

ASH: I am still so incredibly happy that Yen Press rescued Emma.

ANNA: For sure a series that deserves to be in print!

SEAN: The light novel debut is one of the more anticipated titles of the year… for one reason or another. Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks? is the mom isekai the fandom never knew it wanted. Supposedly a “parody” of Japan’s current obsession with incest stories, I suspect as with most Japanese parodies it will have its cake and eat it too. The premise is simple: a young man is called to be a hero in a fantasy world. But his mom is there too. And is more powerful. And dotes on him to a disturbing degree. We shall see.

MICHELLE: I wish this were totally free of any possibly creepy vibes because the idea of going to another world with your mom is kind of amusing.

SEAN: In non-mom isekai light novels, we have Defeating the Demon Lord’s a Cinch (If You’ve Got a Ringer) 2, Durarara!! 11, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days: The Novel, The Saga of Tanya the Evil 4, and So I’m a Spider, So What? 4. Congrats to Tanya and Durarara!! for not being fantasy-based (Tanya’s still an isekai, though).

Lastly, two manga stragglers: Alice in Murderland 9 and A Bride’s Story 10.

ASH: I love A Bride’s Story so much.

SEAN: Will you be getting A Bride’s Story AND Blissful Land? What else?

Filed Under: FEATURES, manga the week of

Pick of the Week: Shades of Gray

November 19, 2018 by Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Ash Brown, Anna N, MJ and Katherine Dacey Leave a Comment

MICHELLE: Another week with several really strong contenders for pick of the week! Shojo FIGHT! and Beasts of Abigaile will definitely be near the top of my to-read pile, but the big contest is between Ooku and Wotakoi. In the end, I am going to go with Wotakoi this time. I love Ooku a lot, but I know I’ve picked it before, and Wotakoi is appealing from a lifting-one’s-spirits sort of angle.

SEAN: Unsurprisingly, I’m looking at novels this week. I Want to Eat Your Pancreas has the award-winning cred, and though I expect I may get depressed after reading it, that’s my pick.

ASH: For ongoing series, Ooku and Wotakoi are both very high on my list as is the continuation of I Hear the Sunspot. But my pick this week officially goes to the debut of Ran and the Gray World, which looks like it should be absolutely wonderful.

ANNA: I’m going to go with Ran and the Gray World too. I’m going to check it out!

MJ: Fumi Yoshinaga always wins for me, so I’ll be the one to pick Ooku. It’s always a wonderful treat to see it turn up on the list!

KATE: Sorry to be bringing up the rear — I’m in paper grading purgatory right now! My pick of the week is Good Dog, Cerebus! which looks like the kind of cute, fluffy escapism I’m craving at the moment. My second pick — if I’m allowed one — would be PEZ, which looks gorgeous.

Filed Under: PICK OF THE WEEK

Shortcake Cake, Vol. 2

November 18, 2018 by Anna N

Shortcake Cake Volume 2 by suu Morishita

The first volume of this series efficiently introduced the boarding house where most of the characters live, showed Ten to be a cheerfully blunt heroine, and hinted at an intriguing love triangle. The second volume provides more depth about the relationships between the characters along with some dramatic confrontations and too many flowers. As the volume opens, Riku is dealing with his feelings of rejection after Ten offhandedly asked if he liked her, and then turned him down, assuming that he was just being his normal overly flirtatious self. Chiaki quietly observes their interactions. Just when things are starting to calm down again, Rei shows up when Ten and Chiaki are walking home from school to issue the command “Be my Girlfriend!” Considering that his name for Ten is “Ugly”, she resists his allure easily, pointing out to him that he’s clearly never been in love. Rei is actually Riku’s younger brother, so his pursuit of Ten is more of a cry of attention than anything else.

shortcake cake 2

One of the things I enjoy about this series are the distinct character designs, but I have to say Rei’s almost feral facial expressions and perennial tired look make him appealing, even if he does have the emotional maturity of a baby squirrel. I enjoyed seeing how quickly Chiaki and Riku moved to help Ten out, even though she shows that she’s perfectly capable of defending herself. Shortcake Cake feels refreshing to read, mostly because many of the characters are in tune with their emotions and what they want. Leaving things unsaid or not knowing one’s own feelings are familiar shoujo conventions, and even if that will be happening a little bit in this series, Ten seems capable of handling it.

Filed Under: Manga Reviews, REVIEWS Tagged With: shojo beat, shortcake cake, shoujo, viz media

Manga the Week of 11/21/18

November 16, 2018 by Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Anna N, Ash Brown and MJ 1 Comment

SEAN: We give thanks for this manga, and it seems appropriate we start by giving thanks for a new manga company.

Denpa is releasing its first two titles next week. The first may be familiar to Crunchyroll manga readers. Inside Mari (Boku wa Mari no Naka) is a seinen series from Futabasha’s Manga Action, where our lead ends up inside the body of the girl he likes, and has to figure out what’s going on and how to act like her.

The other debut is PEZ, by Hiroyuki Asada, best known for Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee. It’s small (just 72 pages), but gorgeous, and published originally in the ROBOT anthology.

MICHELLE: Welcome, Denpa!

ASH: I am definitely interested in both of these (and everything else to come)!

MJ: Exciting!

SEAN: J-Novel Club also has two debuts next week. We start with Apparently It’s My Fault That My Husband Has the Head of a Beast. This one appears to definitely be geared towards female readers, and stars a Princess who shuts herself in because she sees people’s faces as beast heads. Then she meets a prince, who seems unaffected… at first.

The other debut is a one-shot, ECHO, based on a Vocaloid song, a la Kagerou Daze. I know nothing about it except it has excellent buzz.

And for more typical fare, we also have the 11th In Another World with My Smartphone.

This may have been on the list before, but dates slip, you know the drill. Kodansha has Battle Angel Alita: Holy Night and Other Stories, a collection set in the Alitaverse.

ASH: I suspect it’s something that I’ll get around to reading at some point.

SEAN: Print-wise, there’s also Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card 5, UQ Holder 15, and Wotakoi: Love Is Hard for Otaku omnibus 3. Honestly, I’m giving up on Amazon’s dates, as they seem to hate Kodansha right now, and going with the company site.

MICHELLE: Yay for more Wotakoi!

ASH: Yes, indeed! I really do love the series.

SEAN: Digitally, Kodansha debuts Good Dog, Cerberus! (Meiken Keru-chan), a one-volume manga about a cute but clumsy demon dog from Hell. It runs in Kodansha’s Aria, but is being marketed as all ages.

MICHELLE: The cover is crazy cute.

MJ: I’m a sucker for demon dogs from Hell.

SEAN: Also digitally, there is All Out! 7, Are You Lost? 2, Back Street Girls 5, Elegant Yokai Apartment Life 8, A Kiss, for Real 5, and Shojo Fight! 5.

MICHELLE: Shojo Fight! continues to be great.

ANNA: I need to catch up!

SEAN: One Peace has the sequel to the original I Hear The Sunspot, subtitled Limit.

ANNA: Loved the first volume.

ASH: I was really impressed by I Hear the Sunspot, so I’m looking forward to reading more.

MJ: I need this.

SEAN: Seven Seas has a bunch of stuff. Wonderland is the manga debut, and yes, it’s another horror take on the Alice story. This ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Superior, which almost never gets English licenses. Premise: everyone wakes up tiny! How can they survive?

Also debuting is a one-shot novel with the misleading title I Want to Eat Your Pancreas. No, it’s not a horror novel, and is well worth your time AND your pancreas.

ASH: I’ve heard good things.

SEAN: There’s also the 5th Akashic Records of Bastard Magical Instructor, a 4th Beasts of Abigaile, the 6th Captain Harlock: Dimensional Voyage, the print version of the 4th Make My Abilities Average light novel, The 3rd and final Juana and the Dragonewts’ Seven Kingdoms, a 9th Shomin Sample, and the 3rd Toradora! novel.

MICHELLE: I look forward to reading more Beasts of Abigaile.

ANNA: Me too! It covers my need for goofy paranormal shoujo manga.

SEAN: Udon gives us more foodie isekai manga with a 2nd Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu.

ASH: While in some ways not as immediately compelling as some of the other fantasy foodie manga being released right now, I did rather enjoy the first volume.

SEAN: Vertical has the 2nd Delinquent Housewife!, and also packs the first 7 Monogatari novels into a nice box, which is sadly only available if you buy the books all over again. (You have been buying the books, right?)

We end with Viz, who also have a debut. Ran and the Gray World (Ran to Haiiro no Sekai) is an Enterbrain title from Harta, something which always makes me happy. It’s about a powerful but immature sorcerer and the big brother who has to be her minder.

MICHELLE: Otherworldly Izakaya, Delinquent Housewife, and Ran and the Gray World are all on my list!

ANNA: Ran and the Gray World looks nifty!

ASH: It really does!

They also have Children of the Whales 7, Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt 9, the 3rd RWBY Anthology, and… drumroll please… Ooku: The Inner Chambers 14! Rejoice Manga Bookshelf writers!

MICHELLE: Verily, I am rejoicing!

ANNA: Indeed, I am rejoicing as well!

ASH: Rejoice! Rejoice!

MJ: What they said!

SEAN: So is your manga a turkey? (In a good way, of course.)

Filed Under: FEATURES, manga the week of

Pick of the Week: Yotsuba & Picks!

November 12, 2018 by Sean Gaffney, Katherine Dacey, Michelle Smith, Ash Brown, MJ and Anna N Leave a Comment

SEAN: A ridiculous amount of stuff, as I said. I’m interested in Bakarina, and the final volume of Frau Faust. There’s always a place in my picks for Requiem of the Rose King too. That said, given it’s been TWO AND A HALF YEARS since the last volume, I feel I can only pick Yotsuba&! this week.

KATE: Any week that brings us new installments of Delicious in Dungeon and Yotsuba&! is a good week! ‘Nuff said.

SEAN: Right, and Delicious in Dungeon, which gets more disturbing and dark by the volume (in a good way).

MICHELLE: Oh, man. So much great stuff this week! Since some of my other faves have been acknowledged, I reckon that frees me up to go with the final volume of Frau Faust, which I am looking forward to very much. It wasn’t until I’d read the first few volumes of Frau that I went to check out Kore Yamazaki’s The Ancient Magus’ Bride, and I love it so much that it now makes me sad Frau Faust is so short. Oh well. I bet it’ll be a humdinger of an ending.

ASH: Delicious in Dungeon is definitely one of my favorite series currently been released, but then so is Requiem of the Rose King. It seems like it’s been longer since I’ve had the chance to read Requiem of the Rose King though, so I’ll happily make that my official pick.

MJ: I absolutely have to go with Requiem of the Rose King. I missed my chance to flail with excitement during the last “Manga the week of,” so I’ll do that here instead. *flail*

ANNA: Requiem of the Rose King is such a special series, any week it comes out it will always be my pick.

Filed Under: PICK OF THE WEEK

Manga the Week of 11/14/18

November 8, 2018 by Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Ash Brown and Anna N 3 Comments

SEAN: Here we go again, folks. 62 titles next week. Please cry with me.

ASH: Those are tears of joy, right?

SEAN: Dark Horse has a 7th Blade of the Immortal omnibus to start us off.

ASH: A great way to collect the series since many of the single volumes are out-of-print.

SEAN: J-Novel Club debuts My Next Life As a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!. They’re marketing this to men as well, and it does have a sizeable male fandom here, but Bakarina (as it’s known) is actually from a female-oriented publisher. The premise might seem familiar – a woman wakes up in the body of the villain of the otome game she’s been playing, and has to figure out how not to die or be exiled – but I’ve heard very good things about it.

ANNA: Hmmmm.

SEAN: They also have the latest in the Ao Oni series, subtitled Grudge, a 2nd Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles, and a 2nd volume of Amagi Brilliant Park.

In terms of print, there’s no debuts from Kodansha, but they do have Frau Faust 5 (which Amazon seems to be shipping a bit late on Amazon), Golosseum 4, L*DK 12, Land of the Lustrous 7, Nekogahara: Stray Cat Samurai 5, the 2nd Sailor Moon Eternal Edition, and the 9th Waiting for Spring.

MICHELLE: I’ve been eagerly anticipating the final volume of Frau Faust!

ASH: Oh, I didn’t realize it was the final volume! I’m definitely picking it up, though.

SEAN: Digitally the debut is Alice’s Diet Quest, a Bessatsu Shonen Magazine title about a priestess in a fantasy world who wants to lose weight using any method she can. This… sounds a bit too similar to Plus-Sized Elf for my tastes.

ANNA: No thank you!

SEAN: And we have Boarding School Juliet 6, Kamikamikaeshi 5, The Prince’s Black Poison 8, Tokyo Alice 5, and The Walls Between Us 2.

MICHELLE: I’m already behind on the latter two. Sigh.

SEAN: One Peace has the third volume of the Mikagura School Suite manga.

Seven Seas has only one title, believe it or not: the 2nd Devilman Classic Collection.

ASH: I really liked the first collection, so I’m looking forward to the second.

SEAN: And Vertical Comics has the 9th Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

Viz debuts Record of Grancest War, which is a fantasy manga based on a light novel with lots of warring states and the mage and knight who try to stop it. It runs in Hakusensha’s Young Animal, so I suspect will also have fanservice or gore.

There is also The Complete Art of Fullmetal Alchemist, which is… what it says.

ASH: Should be great, is what!

ANNA: Yay!

SEAN: Speaking of Fullmetal Alchemist, we have the 3rd Fullmetal Edition omnibus, a 2nd Radiant, a 9th Requiem of the Rose King, and a 28th Rin-Ne.

MICHELLE: Hooray for Requiem of the Rose King!

ASH: I really love this series.

ANNA: Me too!

SEAN: That just leaves Yen, who are shipping most of their titles a bit early this month. JY has the 2nd volume of Little Witch Academia.

Yen On has, believe it or not, only the 2nd silliest light novel debut this month, with The Hero and His Elf Bride Open a Pizza Parlor in Another World. I believe this is just one volume, and corners the market on pizza isekai stories.

Yen On also has A Certain Magical Index 17, Magical Girl Raising Project 5, My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong As I Expected 6, Sword Art Online Progressive 5, and WorldEnd: What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us? 2. So Elf Pizza is not the longest title this week.

On the manga side, we debut Interspecies Reviewers, a monster girl title that runs in Kadokawa’s Dragon Age and looks… um… designed for teenage boys needing to relieve some stress. If you know what I mean.

There’s also two spinoff debuts, as we get the first volume of the manga adaptation of DanMachi’s Lyu sidestory, and also Sowrd Art Online: Hollow Realization, a manga adaptation of the video game that runs in Dengeki Maoh.

Speaking of light novel adaptations, next week we also have the 4th Goblin Slayer manga, an 11th High School DxD, the 4th Hybrid x Heart Magic Academy Ataraxia, a 7th KonoSuba, the 10th Log Horizon: The West Wind Brigade, the 8th Overlord manga, and the 5th volume of Re: Zero’s 3rd arc.

And in titles not based on a novel, we have ACCA 5, Akame Ga Kill! ZERO 8, Angels of Death 5, Chio’s School Road 2, Delicious in Dungeon 6, Dimension W 12, Forbidden Scrollery 5, Fruits Basket Another 2, Laid-Back Camp 4, Love at Fourteen 8 (honestly, they’re almost 16 by now), Mermaid Boys 3, No Matter How You Look At It, It’s You Guys, Fault I’m Not Popular! 12, The Royal Tutor 10, Tales of Wedding Rings 4, Trinity Seven 15, and last but not least, a 14th volume of Yotsuba&!.

MICHELLE: There are several things in that list that I’ll be checking out, but Yotsuba&! for the win!

ASH: Indeed! Delicious in Dungeon and ACCA are very high on my list, too.

ANNA: Been a long time since there was a new volume of Yotsuba&!.

SEAN: This is a lot. (Yen pushed back eight titles two weeks, or it would be even more.) Are you getting anything, or just staring in horror and disbelief?

Filed Under: FEATURES, manga the week of

Water Dragon’s Bride, Vol. 7

November 5, 2018 by Anna N

Water Dragon’s Bride, Volume 7 by Rei Toma

I suspected that when the Water Dragon God sent Asahi home, she wouldn’t stay there long, and that was definitely the case. She struggles to feel at home back in her own world, with a younger brother that she’s meeting for the first time, and her parents, especially her mother who desperately missed her. This brief story line shows how The Water Dragon’s Bride is a story of a family tragedy, in addition to exploring how human rules fight for power and resources. Asahi misses her old life, but back in the realm of the Water Dragon God, the young king is struggling with drought and the idea that he’s lost the favor of the heavens since Asahi’s disappearance. Subaru even attempts to intervene with the Water Dragon God in Asahi’s absence. When the Water Dragon God does intervene, in his cold and calculated way, Subaru reflects that Asahi was incredibly powerful to make a god change.

Water Dragon's Bride 7

Asahi’s disarming way of talking with both the Water Dragon God and Subaru show that she doesn’t regret her choice to leave her family behind, and the way the Water Dragon God is actually able to articulate his emotions and even show a sliver of a smile shows how far he’s become from a god who would dispassionately watch a human starve. While so far the elemental gods that we’ve seen seem content to observe and occasionally make some cutting observations to the Water Dragon God, now that Asahi has returned the next storyline for this series looks like it will be even darker than before. When will hte suffering end????

I’m delighted to keep reading this manga, but there was such a great artistic leap for Toma between Dawn of the Arcana and Water Dragon’s Bride (which makes sense given when they were released in Japan), I’m also extremely curious to see other series of hers.

Filed Under: Manga Reviews, REVIEWS Tagged With: shojo beat, shoujo, viz media, water dragon's bride

Pick of the Week: We Enjoy Wide Variety

November 5, 2018 by Ash Brown, Katherine Dacey, Anna N, Sean Gaffney and Michelle Smith Leave a Comment

ASH: For me, it’s a shonen sort of week. In addition to a number of ongoing series from Viz that I’m following (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Haikyuu!, and so on) there’s also the new one-shot That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha which looks like it should be a ridiculous amount of fun.

KATE: As hard as it may be for me to say this… I’m not really jazzed about anything arriving in stores on Wednesday. I think this is going to be a tackle-the-stack week for me. But that’s OK — I have new volumes of Dead Dead Demon, Again!!, The Promised Neverland, and Silver Spoon on my nightstand, as well as a pristine copy of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters that begs to be read.

ANNA: I thought the first volume of Shortcake Cake was super adorable, so volume 2 is my pick this week.

SEAN: I’m still greatly enjoying Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, a very funny take on two overly intellectual nerds and their attempts to understand love. I’ll make that my pick this week.

MICHELLE: I’m looking forward to more Haikyu!! and to checking out Shortcake Cake, but it’s gotta be Chihayafuru for me!

Filed Under: PICK OF THE WEEK

Idol Dreams, Vol. 5

November 2, 2018 by Anna N

Idol Dreams Volume 5 by Arina Tanemura

Idol Dreams is a fun, if a bit uneven, soapy series about a repressed office lady reliving her youth in the best way by occasionally taking magic pills that turn her into a teenage aspiring teen idol singer! People fall in and out of love and deal with show business shenanigans, but will Chikage’s teenage adventures translate into any newfound maturity in the real world? Indications in this fifth volume are promising!

Chikage is much more assertive and resourceful in her teen idol persona as Akari. She’s trying to gain more recognition through a sing-off battle and manages to dodge a series of mean girl attacks and come out on the other side victorious even though she’s just a slightly better known aspiring idol singer. One of the things I’ve been wondering about is when Chikage’s old classmate and magical teen pill supplier Tokita was going to get a bit more focus, because so far he seems to be mainly pining in silence. My patience was rewarded with this volume, as it focuses on him. The real world is much more complex than teen idolland, as Chikage learns that Hanami who one of her workplace mean girls is also Tokita’s girlfriend, and she’s been cheating on him. Chikage is able to stick up for Tokita in a way that she’s never managed for herself, but she doesn’t realize what her own feelings are for Tokita until it is far too late. There is more time spent on the characters’ backstory in this volume, especially Tokita, which was a nice change of pace. I’m a bit worried that Chikage is going to bury herself in her teen persona in the next volume to distract herself from her pain as an adult.

It is all breezy fun although I’m slightly terrified about what might happen with Akari and Hibiki. I think that the series would also seem a bit less disjointed if I was reading it all with less time in between volumes, where the quick pace of people falling in and out of love might be less noticeable in a larger chunk of story. Still, I’m always up for an Arina Tanemura manga, and I’m hoping that Chikage becomes a more self-assured woman by the end of the series, and I’m glad that she’s showing some signs of assertiveness, even though she still needs more self-awareness to match.

Filed Under: Manga Reviews, REVIEWS Tagged With: idol dreams, shojo beat, shoujo, viz media

Manga the Week of 11/7/18

November 1, 2018 by Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Ash Brown, Anna N and MJ Leave a Comment

SEAN: It is election week, and I urge everyone in the United States to please go vote. Meanwhile, on the manga front…

Cross Infinite World has another series, this one apparently from some creators who’ve also done Final Fantasy. emeth: Island of Golems is the title, and the e is small, e.e. cummings style.

Ghost Ship has a 5th Yokai Girls.

J-Novel Club continues to dole out light novels for the hungry fan, as we see Demon King Daimaou 8, Invaders of the Rokujouma!? 17, and The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar 4.

Kodansha is in something of a state of flux – its site’s release dates are not matching Amazon’s, and there have been some schedule slips. But we definitely get the debut of Hiro Mashima’s new manga next week, Eden’s Zero. It’s hard not to make the “Fairy Taiiiil… iiinnnnn SPAAAAAAACCCCEEE!!!!” joke here.

ASH: Ha!

SEAN: Other print titles are Boarding School Juliet 2 and Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth Side: P4 Volume 4 (it hurts me typing that title).

ASH: It does hurt, but it’s a fun series for Persona fans.

SEAN: Digitally we debut Can I Kiss You Every Day?, a Betsufure title whose synopsis, alas, sounds incredibly similar to a lot of other shoujo digital-only titles we’ve seen recently.

MICHELLE: That synopsis earns a hard pass from me.

SEAN: And there’s also Can You Just Die, My Darling? 6, Chihayafuru 12 (yay!), My Boy in Blue 4, and Peach Girl Next 3.

MICHELLE: Yay, indeed!

ANNA: Yes!!!

SEAN: Seven Seas has no debuts, but they do have several of their ongoing series. There’s The Bride and the Exorcist Knight 2, The Dungeon of Black Company 2, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid 7, Sorry for My Familiar 3, and The Testament of Sister New Devil STORM!! 5.

Though release dates on Amazon for Tokyopop are even more fluid than they are for Kodansha, there is apparently a 2nd Futaribeya out next week.

For those who missed the two-volume Summer Wars manga, Vertical Comics is releasing it as an omnibus.

Viz’s debut combines two incredibly popular trends: Dragon Ball and reincarnated into another world stories. That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha is exactly what it sounds like, which is to say silly.

ASH: This is supposed to be fantastic.

ANNA: Sometimes very silly is a good thing.

MJ: I’m down for this.

SEAN: Some excellent ongoing series. On the shonen side, we have Black Clover 13, Black Torch 2, the 3rd Bleach Box Set (not sure if it’s black or not), the 3rd Demon Slayer, a 2nd Dr. STONE, a 29th Haikyu!!, the 9th JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders hardcover, an 88th One Piece, and the 4th volume in Yu-Gi-Oh: Arc V.

MICHELLE: I need to check out Dr. STONE.

ASH: Oh yes, there’re some great series in there!

ANNA: I enjoyed the first volume of Dr. STONE.

SEAN: On the shoujo side, we see Anonymous Noise 11, Idol Dreams 5, and Shortcake Cake 2.

MICHELLE: I also need to check out Shortcake Cake.

ASH: The first volume was quite enjoyable!

ANNA: Shortcake Cake is super cute, and I enjoy Idol Dreams.

SEAN: And on the ‘seinen marketed as shonen’ side, we have Kaguya-sama: Love Is War 5.

Did you vote? And what did you buy?

MICHELLE: Last Friday! And I got a sticker!

Filed Under: FEATURES, manga the week of

Pick of the Week: We Are So Predictable

October 29, 2018 by Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, MJ, Katherine Dacey, Anna N and Ash Brown Leave a Comment

SEAN: An excess of Yen Press this week. I suspect my colleagues will be going for Silver Spoon, as they should. And I admit to being intrigued by High School Prodigies Have it Easy Even in Another World, which sounds silly if nothing else. But my pick this week is the 2nd volume of Teasing Master Takagi-san, which is adorably cute and funny.

MICHELLE: I also am going to trust someone else to pick Silver Spoon so that I might weigh in in favor of Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts. I started the first volume this week and it’s pretty fun, kind of like a more light-hearted The Ancient Magus’ Bride sort of feeling. I am enjoying it so far and keen to see how the story develops.

MJ: I will set Sean and Michelle’s minds at ease by openly and wholeheartedly choosing Silver Spoon! Silver Spoon always. Silver Spoon forever.

KATE: I’ll bite: read Silver Spoon! It’s funny and real and just plain awesome, and deserves a bigger, more enthusiastic reception from American manga readers. (How’d I do, Michelle?)

MICHELLE: You get a gold star!

ANNA: I’m going to randomly pick Versailles of the Dead. I haven’t read it at all yet, but it sounds like the spookiest debut manga this week.

ASH: I will not so randomly pick the debut of Versailles of the Dead as I’m very curious about the series, but Silver Spoon definitely continues to be at the top of my list, too.

Filed Under: PICK OF THE WEEK

Black Torch, Vol 1

October 27, 2018 by Anna N

Black Torch, Vol 1 by Tsuyoshi Takaki

I was surveying my stacks of manga and decided that I needed to make more of an effort to get into the Halloween spirit. I figured that Black Torch was an ideal candidate since it features supernatural beings and a black cat, who is also a supernatural being. Spooky!

Jiro is the plucky protagonist of this manga, who has some unique abilities. He has the ability to talk to animals and is descended from a long line of ninjas. He also has absolutely no tolerance for animal cruelty, as the opening scene in the manga shows him driving of a gang that was bugging a stray cat and raven. Jiro’s Grandfather seems to mainly enjoy yelling at his grandson about ninja traditions. Jiro finds out about a cat in distress and goes to rescue it. He finds Rago, a demon (or mononoke) trapped in the form of a black cat. Jiro learns that Rago was caught up in a demonic struggle, and doesn’t remember all the details of his past. Jiro is determined to help Rago, even though the demon attempts to leave Jiro, he is relentless in his desire to help. This is one of the more endearing aspects of Black Torch, even though Jiro ends up getting trapped in a deadly mononoke battle. Rago and Jiro end up being fused together, as Rago goes to help his reckless ninja friend. There are elements that are somewhat predictable in most shonen manga, like a supernatural protection agency and the hints that Rago and Jiro will soon join a team fighting evil.

Black Torch 1

The art in Black Torch has a slightly scratchy quality that I enjoyed. Rago’s surprised cat faces were hilarious, and when his mystical powers manifest in the form of swirling black tendrils surrounding his cat form, the effect is suitably dramatic and mystical. The action scenes are dynamic. While Black Torch doesn’t stray far from the typical shonen manga formula, Jiro’s devotion to animals, the odd couple relationship between him and Rago, and Rago’s hilarious cat expressions go pretty far in making it an enjoyable supernatural action manga.

Filed Under: Manga Reviews, REVIEWS, Uncategorized Tagged With: Black Torch, Shonen, viz media

Manga the Week of 10/31/18

October 25, 2018 by Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Anna N, MJ and Ash Brown 1 Comment

It’s Halloween, and the trick is being able to stand under the weight of all this manga.

Ghost Ship has a 7th volume of “porn or not?” series To-Love-Ru Darkness.

J-Novel Club has a trio of ongoing titles, as we get the 8th Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, the 7th The Magic in This Other World Is Too Far Behind!, and the 2nd Sorcerous Stabber Orphen.

Kodansha’s print debut is Hiro Mashima’s Playground, which as you might guess is a collection of short stories from the creator of Fairy Tail.

Speaking of short story collections, we also get Battle Angel Alita: Holy Night, which collects previously unseen one shots from the Gunnm universe. (What’s Gunnm?, I hear you cry. Well…)

ASH: Oh, I had missed this one being picked up, though I’m not surprised that it was.

SEAN: There’s also the 14th and final volume of Animal Land, a series whose first volume came out in North America sometime in 1643.

MICHELLE: I legitimately forgot this series existed.

MJ: Same.

ASH: It really is a shame that this series hasn’t gotten more attention. It’s a little strange, but quite good.

SEAN: The digital debut is a sequel, as we get the first volume of Princess Resurrection: Nightmare, the sequel to… well, Princess Resurrection. It still runs in Shonen Sirius, and seems to be more of a Tokyo Ghoul-style reboot.

Also out digitally: Beware the Kamiki Brothers! 6 and Heaven’s Design Team 2.

MICHELLE: I read the first volume of the latter and it was.. odd. We’ll see if the author varies the already established formula at all with volume two.

SEAN: Seven Seas is hitting us with lots of stuff. The debut is Versailles of the Dead, which does not feature Oscar but does feature Marie Antoinette and zombies. I think it’s currently running in Hibana, though it’s changed magazines a few times.

ANNA: I have to admit I am intrigued by the title, along with historical zombies.

ASH: As am I! It’s by the creator of Afterschool Charisma, too.

SEAN: There’s also The Ancient Magus’ Bride Supplement, yet another in-depth guidebook to the series.

ASH: I’ll be picking this one up!

SEAN: And we have an 8th Dreamin’ Sun, the 8th Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash novel in print, the 2nd manga adaptation of If It’s For My Daughter Etc., the 3rd Mononoke Sharing, the 13th My Monster Secret, the 8th Nurse Hitomi’s Monster Infirmary, and 2nd True Tenchi Muyo! novel, and the 4th and final Yokai Rental Shop.

ASH: I wasn’t as enamored with the beginning of Yokai Rental Shop as I was hoping I would be, but I have been meaning to read more of the series.

SEAN: Udon has a 3rd volume of Infini-T Force.

Vertical has Onimonogatari, which theoretically is about Shinobu but Mayoi is going to steal the show.

That leaves Yen Press, but that’s still a lot.

ASH: It really is.

SEAN: Starting with Yen’s digital-only manga, we see Corpse Princess 19, Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun 8, and IM: Great Priest Imhotep 9.

JY is Yen’s imprint for younger readers, and we have two titles to point to. The first is Crush, the 3rd in Svetlana Chmakova’s series that began with Awkward and Brave. It is sure to be as awesome as both of those were.

JY also has a Japanese title debuting. Zo-Zo-Zombie is from the kids’ magazine Corocoro, and is the most adorable zombie manga you’ll ever read.

ASH: D’awww.

SEAN: Yen On debuts Mirai, the latest ‘novelization of a popular movie’ title. There’s also Final Fantasy VII: On the Way to a Smile, in which Aerith is, like Francisco Franco, still dead. Though given these are short stories, possibly not in this volume.

Goblin Slayer, now a hit anime, also gets a side story novel, called Year One. I expect goblins.

Yen On also has new volumes of The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria (4), Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (12), Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Sword Oratoria (7), Re: ZERO (8), Spice and Wolf (20), and its sequel Wolf and Parchment (3).

Theoretically there is also the long, long, long delayed 7th volume of No Game No Life, but I won’t believe this without actual evidence.

And then the manga. So much. Only one debut, which is High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World!. Based on an unlicensed light novel, it’s another isekai, as you can see, only the kids finding themselves in another world are all insufferable geniuses. How will they cope? Easily, apparently.

That leaves the ongoing series. Let’s divide it, as I tend to do, in half. First, NOT based on light novels. There’s Anne Happy 8, Aoharu x Machinegun 13, Demonizer Zilch 5, Gabriel Dropout 5, Hakumei & Mikochi 2, Hatsu*Haru 3, Kakegurui: Compulsive Gambler 7, Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl 7, Murcielago 8, Prison School 11, Sacrificial Princes and the King of Beasts 3, the 5th Sekirei omnibus, Shibuya Goldfish 2, Silver Spoon 5, Spirits & Cat Ears 7, Taboo Tattoo 12, Teasing Master Takagi-san 2, Triage X 16, and Val x Love 4. … I’m actually getting a lot of that. Yikes, that’s a lot.

MICHELLE: Hatsu*Haru, Sacrificial Princess, and Silver Spoon for me.

ANNA: You know, if I don’t read any of this, I’m not behind. That’s what I will tell myself. Although somewhere I have first volumes of Sacrificial Princess and Silver Spoon squirreled away.

MJ: Obviously Silver Spoon. Always Silver Spoon.

ASH: Silver Spoon is likewise at the top of my list, but I’m reading (and falling behind with) a few others, too.

SEAN: On the light novel adaptation side, we have A Certain Magical Index 15, Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody 5, The Devil Is a Part-Timer! 12, Durarara!! re;Dollars 3, the 5th DanMachi: Sword Oratoria manga, Napping Princess 2, The Saga of Tanya the Evil 4, and the 4th So I’m a Spider, So What?.

ANNA: Why are there so many light novels, and no one has released any Library Wars titles, or finished 12 Kingdoms????

MICHELLE: Or Saiunkoku Monogatari???

ANNA: YES! Someone bring out Saiunkoku Monogatari!!!!

ASH: I would love to see those series translated, too! I’d add No. 6 and the rest of Moribito as well, though those might not technically be light novels.

SEAN: Are you gorged on all these treats? What’s in your bag?

ASH: SO MUCH.

Filed Under: FEATURES, manga the week of

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