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Manga the Week of 1/22

January 16, 2014 by Sean Gaffney, Ash Brown, Michelle Smith, Anna N and MJ 1 Comment

SEAN: Here is a list of what everyone except me will be getting next week in manga. I will not be getting any of this because Diamond Comics never met a street date they didn’t hate. And yes, I am incredibly bitter.

Dark Horse, which is the exception to my Diamond whining, has Blade of the Immortal 28 coming out. We’re getting near the end of this series, I believe, though I’m not sure how near.

ASH: We are indeed getting near the end. Assuming Dark Horse continues as it has been recently, there should be three more volumes after this one.

SEAN: Kodansha gives us the 12th and final volume of Arisa, which was a good attempt at combining shoujo with a mystery thriller-type story. Also, twins!

MICHELLE: Arisa gets a little ridiculous as it progresses, but I still plan to read the ending!

ASH: The series does get a little ridiculous, but I’m really curious to see how Natsumi Ando wraps everything up.

SEAN: Kodansha also has the 2nd hardcover for Vinland Saga, which hopefully will be a bit easier to order from Amazon than the first was. It has Vikings, and bloodshed.

ANNA: I love vikings and bloodshed! Really looking forward to this!

ASH: As am I! I really enjoyed the first omnibus.

SEAN: Seven Seas gives us the 5th Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends, one of the winners from the recent otaku-friendly licenses, mostly as it tends to go light on the obvious fanservice and heavy on the friendships and comedy.

There’s also Love In Hell 2. I was somewhat ambivalent about the first volume, but we’ll see if this can improve as it goes along, as many series I am ambivalent about do.

Vertical has the 2nd volume of From the New World, its dark science-fiction manga with fanservice. It’s done pretty well for them, so fans should be pleased to see more.

ASH: I loved the dark science-fiction aspects of From the New World. I was less enamored with its gratuitous fanservice.

SEAN: Viz has Vol. 9 of Ooku, which has slowed to the Japanese release schedule, meaning it comes out once every blue moon. On the bright side, this makes every new volume a bigger deal.

MICHELLE: Yay, Ooku. This inspired me to check and see when Yoshinaga’s What Did You Eat Yesterday? comes out. The answer is March 25!

ANNA: I’m behind on Ooku, but looking forward to getting caught up one day. Also looking forward to What Did You Eat Yesterday?!

ASH: More Fumi Yoshinaga manga in English is always a good thing in my book!

MJ: This is one my few highly-anticipated releases this week. I’m such a fan of this series. And I, too, am anxious to see What Did You Eat Yesterday?!

SEAN: Yen has a huge giant pile of stuff, made even higher by a few omnibuses. First we have the 16th volume of Black Butler, which must be looking at Attack on Titan and thinking “You know, I remember when I used to own 5 of the 10 places on the NYT bestseller list. Kids these days…”

MICHELLE: The recent arc, in which Ciel goes undercover at a public school and must curry favor with prefects and such, is actually rather fun.

SEAN: The final volume (of the main series; future short story collections are possible) of Book Girl is coming out, with Book Girl And The Scribe Who Faced God, Part Two. Will Konoha finally get it together? Let’s find out.

ASH: I’m behind with Book Girl, but I like the volumes that I’ve read.

SEAN: Durarara!! is another series caught up to Japan, hence the 8-month wait before we got this 3rd volume in the Saika arc. I expect a lot of red eyes and possessive swords.

MICHELLE: I didn’t expect to like Durarara!!, but I do!

SEAN: There is no Pandora Hearts this month, to the collective sadness of the MB team. However, we do get the 14th volume of Goong, that should make them happy.

MICHELLE: Very happy indeed! I’m so grateful that they started releasing this again!

ANNA: Hooray for Goong! . Is Amazon still listing the kindle volumes with the single volume numbering next to the print omnibus versions? That being out of sync is really confusing.

MJ: Yes, yes, YES!! I love this series so.

SEAN: Higurashi: When They Cry is nearly complete (barring any side-story licenses) with the 3rd Festival Accompanying Arc omnibus, as the plot to defeat Takano switches into high gear, and everyone goes from ‘horror manga’ mode to ‘shonen ACTION manga!’ mode.

Inu x Boku SS, like Haganai, proved to be far more interesting than I had expected from what looked like ‘moe yokai’. I am looking forward to the 2nd volume.

WataMote Volume 2 (OK, it’s technically No Matter How You Look At It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular! Volume 2) will continue to test the resolve of its readers who war between finding its heroine funny and finding her desperately horrifying.

ASH: The first volume was simultaneously one of the funniest and most depressing manga that I’ve read. I’ll definitely be picking up the second volume.

SEAN: Omamori Himari has hit its 11th volume, and I must admit I still don’t actually know what the hell it’s about. One day I will remedy this.

Soul Eater is at Volume 18, and will hopefully continue to pay off the excellent genderbending setup that the 17th volume left off with.

Triage X reaches Vol. 5, and yet still has enough fanservice to fill 50 more volumes without blinking an eye.

Lastly, Umineko: When They Cry returns with Banquet of the Golden Witch, which also sees the artist from the first arc return. (If you like her, you’ll be happy to hear she’ll also be back to wrap up the series when we get to Arc 8 in 2018 or so.) This arc focuses more heavily on the adults, particularly Eva, the sharp-tongued and bitter woman who graces the front cover.

Assuming you don’t order from Diamond Comics, what are you getting this week?

S.S. Astro: Asashio Sogo Teachers’ Room, Volume 1

January 15, 2014 by Ash Brown

Creator: Negi Banno
U.S. publisher: Yen Press
ISBN: 9780759528987
Released: August 2008
Original release: 2007

S.S. Astro: Asashio Sogo Teachers’ Room is a yonkoma, or four-panel, manga created by Negi Banno. The first volume of S.S. Astro was originally published in Japan in 2007. Yen Press released the English translation of the manga in 2008, around the same time that it was licensing several other yonkoma manga series. As for S.S. Astro, only one volume was ever released. As far as I can tell, the series has been on hiatus since 2007 in Japan. Although I believe that Banno has created more S.S. Astro strips than those found in the first volume, there have not been enough to collect into a second volume. I have no idea if Banno plans to ever return to the S.S. Astro manga, but because so many years have passed it seems increasingly unlikely. S.S. Astro was actually one of the first yonkoma manga that I ever read. I originally came across it a few years back while searching for manga in English with yuri elements, which used to be a little more difficult to find than it is now.

Seven years after she graduated, Izumi Maki is back at her old high school. Except this time she’s one of the ones responsible for molding the young minds of Tokyo’s Asashio Integrated Public High School. It’s her first year as a teacher. Maki’s now in charge of both health and physical education classes, not to mention a home room with nearly forty students. (Now she just somehow needs to find a way to remember all of their names.) Maki’s not the only fresh blood at Asashio. Her good friend Yuko Nagumo, the new Japanese instructor, is also a first year teacher. The nursing teacher Setsuna Arai has a couple of years of experience on them and Maki’s backup teacher Kaname Karasuma, the instructor for the school’s English course, has even more. She also has a huge crush on Maki, not that Maki has noticed. Throw in all of the other teachers and their quirks, as well as Maki’s older brother, and high school is just as entertaining and complicated as it was the first time around.

Yonkoma manga tend to be fairly hit-or-miss for me, but in the case of S.S. Astro it’s mostly a hit. As with many four-panel manga, whether or not someone actually likes the series will depend on whether or not the reader likes the characters as they are. Although there are plenty of running jokes in S.S. Astro, the series tends to be episodic without much of an overarching plot and very little in the way of character development. Fortunately, I do like the characters. Quite a bit, actually. Maki’s a scatterbrain but earnest. Nagumo can put away an impressive amount of food and is closet fujoshi. Arai has a delightfully sadistic streak. Of the four main characters, Karasuma is the most responsible one, at least when she isn’t completely lovestruck. About halfway through the first volume of S.S. Astro the rest of the Asashio staff are more thoroughly introduced. Prior to that they were largely relegated to the background. I like the other teachers as well and wish more time could have been spent getting to know them better, too.

Quite a few manga licensed in English take place in a school setting. What helps to set S.S. Astro apart is that it focuses on the teachers rather than on the students. I find this to be a refreshing change of pace. One of the reasons that I’m particularly fond of S.S. Astro is that the manga focuses on the adults and their lives and relationships. Granted, the main cast are all relatively young and still in their twenties, but there are some older characters as well. Maki and the others can be immature at times, but in the end they are adults with adult responsibilities. Which is not to say there isn’t room for fun in S.S. Astro; being an adult has its perks, too. Video games, drinking parties, and a little bit of workplace romance (straight and otherwise) all have their place in the series. The artwork tends to be rather cute, too. In general, I find S.S. Astro to be fun and funny. S.S. Astro may not be a manga that I go out of my way to recommend to people, but it is one that I quite enjoy. I only wish that there was more of it.

Attack on Titan, Vol. 11

January 14, 2014 by Sean Gaffney

By Hajime Isayama. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Sometimes you want lots of characters and plot development, with surprise revelations out the wazoo, aadn sometimes you just want to watch big guys beating the snot out of each other. We actually get both here, but it’s the latter that gets most of the attention, as the cover art will attest. As if to announce that his artistic skills have at last improved to ‘passable’, Isayama gives us a chapter almost entirely devoted to Titan-Eren being a seething ball of rage and trying to punch all his problems. Amusingly, it almost works this time.

The majority of this volume is devoted to the Armored and Colossal Titan trying to escape with Eren and Ymir, and Eren attempting to prevent that happening. This means the above-mentioned battle royale, and it’s actually a lot of fun. The use of the flashback is well-placed here, reminding us that Annie and Reiner may seem like obvious suspicious people now, but they were once our heroes’ trusted comrades. The interaction between Annie and Mikasa in particular is quite amusing, though as always I could do without Mikasa’s jealousy. Chapter 44 is named after a slogan in Mixed Martial Arts, and even as a Titan, Eren puts his moves to good use.

It’s all for naught, though, as the villains get away with what they came for. This does give us a chance to see a more vulnerable Mikasa, who has spent far too much time being either a supersoldier of a jealous would-be lover. Here we see a bit of the child that she was never allowed to be, and it’s very appropriate that Hannes be the one to show up and give her and Armin a pep talk. For all that Mikasa’s obsession with Eren is disturbing, at heart it’s the obsession of a girl who just wants to be near the one she loves most.

The second half of the volume teases us about revealing more information regarding Beast Titan and company, but in the end is far more interested in fleshing out its characterization. Reiner in particular is having difficulty coming to terms with his actions, and Ymir notes that he went so deep undercover that he actually seems to have separated the part of him that’s a soldier from the part of him that’s a Titan, and can’t really get them back together. (Bertolt doesn’t seem to have this issue, though it’s possible we’ll get to see more of his emotional issues next time.) As for Eren, possibly the funniest part of this volume is when he realizes that in order to get anywhere with Reiner, he has to control his emotions. This lasts about 3 pages before ending in screaming, as you would expect.

As for Ymir, it’s become clear she does *not* in fact know everything, but she can certainly make some educated guesses, and is just about to when Reiner threatens her obvious weak spot, and Ymir decides to clam up. (It’s played seriously, but I couldn’t help but imagine Reiner and Bertolt as the Vercotti Brothers from Monty Python – “Nice Krista you’ve got here, Ymir. Be a shame if something… happened.” “Yeah, fings break, don’t they, Ymir?”)

There’s even more that I could discuss (Hange is absolutely terrific in this volume), but I think you get the gist. Attack on Titan remains riveting reading. And we have at last ‘caught up’, so be prepared to wait till April to see what happens next. (Or just go to Crunchyroll and read up to the current chapter.)

Ciao, For Now

January 13, 2014 by Erica Friedman Leave a Comment

In previous posts, we’ve discussed two of the best-known Shoujo manga magazines, Ribon and Nakayoshi. So many popular manga series have come from these two magazines, it’s almost certain that any western manga fan will have at least seen their names. But, of the three most popular girls’ manga magazines, these are #2 and #3. The best-selling girls’ manga magazine in Japan is Ciao (ちゃお).

How much more popular? According to the Japanese Magazine Publisher’s Association data for 2011-2012, where Ribon sells about 225K copies a month and Nakayoshi about 171K/month, Ciao sells 620,000 copies a month. In a market that shrinks a little bit with every passing year and better technology, this is a significant number of young girls reading actual print copies of a manga magazine.

While most of the Ciao titles familiar to a western fan are those that we might consider “for children”—Pocket Monsters (Pokemon,) Hamtaro and some of the Di Gi Charat series—at least one series that developed an older following, the Chiho Saito and Be-Papas collaboration Revolutionary Girl Utena, ran in Ciao. Based on my Twitter feed of manga artists and fans the number one series running in Ciao right now is Aikatsu!, the manga for a popular anime/collectable card game/video game franchise about girls in a idol academy.

At 540 yen per issue, ($5.23 at time of writing) for about the same number of pages, Ciao is a good buy. Ciao Land, the website for the magazine, is filled with colorful shininess and a number of tools that create audience engagement without breaking barriers between creators and readers. Reader diaries and messages from authors let each feel connected to the other. Like Ribon and Nakayoshi, Ciao‘s print edition comes bundled with toys such as accessories, writing sets, and phone and calendar stickers.

While any given issue of Ciao will be filled with typically passive shoujo manga female protagonists waiting for romance, from time to time, Ciao escapes from the shoujo manga stereotype. And when it does, as in Utena, Bloody Lily or Waza-ari Kiwami-chan, the result is not at all what you might expect. Ciao heroines have the potential do amazing things.

Ciao magazine from Shogakukan: http://www.ciao.shogakukan.co.jp/

Bookshelf Briefs 1/13/14

January 13, 2014 by Sean Gaffney and Michelle Smith Leave a Comment

This week, Michelle & Sean (okay, mostly Sean) look at recent releases from Viz Media, Kodansha Comics, Seven Seas, & Vertical, Inc.!

Dengeki Daisy, Vol. 13 | By Kyousuke Motomi | Viz Media – Dengeki Daisy is at its best when focusing on the romance between its leads, Teru and Kurosaki. Unfortunately, the past several volumes have focused on the “code virus” that Kurosaki created back in his hacker days and the search for information on the nebulous baddies who sought to use it. Although I have the feeling that we’re supposed to find all this cyber espionage stuff very exciting, the details are so vague that it ends up being rather boring. It’s better than episodic randomness, though, and I have to give the series credit for its heroine being able to get herself out of tricky situations and for a central romance where the age gap is acknowledged as an issue. Plus, there are a few nice, quiet moments here that are almost enough to make me overlook the ridiculousness of the last couple of chapters. I’ll probably keep reading this one to the end. – Michelle Smith

Fairy Tail, Vol. 32 | By Hiro Mashima | Kodansha Comics – The danger of telling a story where injustice happens to our heroes and they’re meant to be angry and frustrated with it is that the reader may end up being a little TOO angry and frustrated in sympathy, to the point where it affects their enjoyment of the volume. That’s where I ended up in this volume of Fairy Tail, which starts going though its tournament arc. I was expecting losses – after all, every hero/team has to come back from adversity. The combination of cheating from the other side and the extra dollops of humiliation felt a little too real, sadly, though you could argue that this is because I’ve come to care about these characters so much. I am hoping that Volume 33 (already out, I’m running behind) will help to balance the scales a bit. – Sean Gaffney

Kimi ni Todoke, Vol. 18 | By Karuho Shiina | Viz Media – The cover art pretty much describes the mood of this volume – it starts with a kiss, and doesn’t let up on being romantic and heartwarming for the entire length. Sawako and Kazehaya have resolved their lack of communication problem, Ayane and Kento are now officially a couple, and as for Chizu… well, she’s working on it. Slowly. I loved the fact that the majority of this was just given to telling everyone what’s been going on in their lives – after seeing Sawako and Kazehaya’s guessing games recently, it felt even more satisfying. Even her father seems to have finally admitted to the fact that Sawako is growing up and has a boyfriend. I expect the next volume will be more devoted to college and the future, so I will enjoy this for what it is: a celebration of how we got here. – Sean Gaffney

Knights of Sidonia, Vol. 6 | By Tsutomu Nihei | Vertical, Inc. – The harem antics continue in Sidonia’s 6th volume – more and more characters are falling for Tanizake, and we even get ‘walking in on naked girls’ and ‘comedic choking of the hero’ here as well. However, this plotline exists, I think, to emphasize further the sense of wrongness that exists throughout this universe. There’s just so many things that already feel off about everything going on, even discounting the evil body horror antics of Kunato. The artwork, which I’m still getting used to, helps further by continuing to use characters who look a lot alike, particularly during battle. This can be annoying, but also contributes further to the sense of distance and otherness that emerges from this series. The goal is to do all this while still retaining reader interest, which Nihei has absolutely done. Also, poor Izana. – Sean Gaffney

Midnight Secretary, Vol. 3 | By Tomu Ohmi | Viz Media – Having set up the premise of this series over the previous two volumes, Ohmi now begins to tear it apart for dramatic effect, as first Erde, the company Kaya was reassigned to, asks her to stay permanently, and then Kyohei resigns from his own position, striking out on his own. All of this, of course, plays second fiddle to the real story here, which is that these two are falling deeply in love and cannot keep their hands off each other. I’m actually surprised that the vampire part of this story isn’t playing a larger role – this could be edited to be non-supernatural fairly easily. Also, this title is rated M and lets you know it – the sex is red hot, and at one point you see Kaya staggering down the street, barely able to walk straight after their intense lovemaking. Right now, this tops Happy Marriage?! as Viz’s spiciest title. – Sean Gaffney

Natsume’s Book of Friends, Vol. 15 | By Yuki Midorikawa | Viz Media – It struck me as I read this new volume how segmented Natsume’s relationships with all of his (human) friends are. For all that the series has shown Natsume starting to open up, trust and appreciate people again after so long being closed up, he still tends to keep everything to himself – and more importantly, take on everything himself. I fear this may get him in trouble soon, and not just him (there’s a suggestion in this volume that Taki’s spell circle is far more dangerous than it seems – and it’s seemed pretty dangerous). This is, however, balanced out by the 2nd half of the book, which is adorable, heartwarming, and shows the strengths of both humans and yokai. Darker tones may be arriving soon, but for now I will continue to enjoy this shoujo yokai manga’s relaxed and unhurried pace. – Sean Gaffney

Zero’s Familiar, Vols. 6-7 | By Noboru Yamaguchi and Nana Mochizuki | Seven Seas – As you might expect, I enjoyed the dramatic plotline that wrapped up here more than the attempts at fanservice and wacky harem antics. The discovery of the Dragon’s Raiment is a nice tie-back to the start of this series, and it was also a relief to see what we knew would eventually happen – Louise finds the magic that she is truly suited for, and turns out to be terrific at it. (That said, an entire battleship VANISHED, but no loss of life? Keep telling yourself that, princess…) The pacing sometimes suffers here, and I find the art, particularly in dramatic moments such as the side story with the Princess and late Prince, does not always convey emotional turmoil very well. Still, as an adaptation, this is probably good enough, and we’ll get another portion of it later this spring. – Sean Gaffney

Pick of the Week: Spreadsheets FTW

January 13, 2014 by Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Anna N, Ash Brown and MJ 2 Comments

SEAN: My Pick of the Week is obvious to anyone who reads this site at all. It is Excel Saga. The final Excel Saga. You should all BASK IN ITS GLORY! BOW, FOOLISH MORTALS! BOW TO THE FINAL VOLUME OF EXCEL SAGA!

MICHELLE: Huh. I somehow feel this strange compulsion to choose Excel Saga. Weird. Anyway, my pick of the week is Excel Saga. No, wait, I meant to say NightS. Quite frankly, I don’t really know what it’s about, but I liked Kou Yoneda’s No Touching At All so much that I’m willing to bet it’ll be good.

ANNA: Actually there isn’t much that really excites me this week, but I recently went to my public library and picked up a ton of manga! So my pick of the week is the manga selection at your local public library!

ASH: Public library manga are always a great choice! But I think I’m with Michelle this week. The manga I’m most looking forward to is NightS. I really enjoy Kou Yoneda’s work, so I’m happy to see more of it being released in English. Though, I guess there’s some manga called Excel Saga being released this week, too?

MJ: In reality, I’m most likely with Michelle and Ash. I’ll be picking up NightS for sure. But in the interest of extending Sean’s giddy mood for at least another day, I’ll say only this: Save a manga critic. Buy Excel Saga.

What looks good to you this week?

My Week in Manga: January 6-January 12, 2014

January 13, 2014 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Two reviews were posted at Experiments in Manga last week! The honor of the first in-depth manga review of the month (and of the year, for that matter) goes to Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki’s Oishinbo, A la Carte: Fish, Sushi & Sashimi. I love food, I love manga, and so I love Oishinbo, too. I happen to really like fish and sushi as well, so I particularly enjoyed this volume. I also posted a review for Edogawa Rampo’s mystery adventure The Fiend with Twenty Faces which is the first novel in his series The Boy Detectives. I’ve read some of his stories and essays written for adults, but this was his first work for younger audiences that I read. It’s a lot of fun.

As for news and other interesting things found online: The English translation of Toh EnJoe’s Self-Reference Engine (one of my most notable release of 2013) has been nominated for a Philip K. Dick Award. The University of Michigan will be hosting an international conference on Natsume Sōseki from April 18 through April 20. (If you happen to be in Michigan around then, it’s be free and open to the public!) After months of no news, it looks like those who supported the Kickstarter for Osamu Tezuka’s The Crater may actually receive their rewards. And finally, Joe McCulloch takes a look at some of Suehiro Maruo’s most recent work over at The Comics Journal. Now if only more of his manga would be licensed in English!

Quick Takes

Basara, Volumes 6-10 by Yumi Tamura. I love this series so much! It really is a shame that Basara is going out-of-print in English, but at least Viz has begun to release it digitally as well. The story is epic and engaging and the characters are complex and multi-layered. These particular volumes of Basara include the Okinawa story arc, which I especially enjoyed. It’s very interesting to see how Tamura is using events and politics from throughout Japan’s history to inform her post-apocalyptic world and culture. There are definite echos from the Warring States period, World War Two, and so on. Just as it was historically, in Basara Okinawa is a separate country from Japan that maintains its own traditions, relies heavily on trade, is largely at the mercy of foreign military influence, and is beset by natural disasters. Also, it’s the homeland of karate, which plays a part in some of the battles. (As a karateka myself, I couldn’t help but appreciate this.) I’m really looking forward to reading more of the series.

Entangled Circumstances by Kikuko Kikuya. I ended up enjoying Entangled Circumstances much more than I thought I would. I found the first chapter or so to actually be a little boring, but by the end of the volume Entangled Circumstances had managed to turn itself into a rather funny, and even a little sweet, boys’ love story. Actually, bonus chapters after the main story were the funniest and probably the favorite part of the manga for me because of that. Shibui and Himeko were once college classmates, but now they work at the same advertising agency. Himeko’s been in love with Shibui for a while now, but after a past awkward love confession, things have been strained between the two men. Often they seem to act like high schoolers rather than full-grown adults, so it’s difficult to take Entangled Circumstances completely seriously. It’s a lighthearted and fluffy sort of manga. The manga is nothing extraordinary, and I don’t know that I will necessarily need to read it again, but it was quite enjoyable.

Zoo by Andy MacDonald. I haven’t read the original novel Zoo, a science fiction thriller written by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge, but MacDonald’s graphic novel adaptation somehow came into my possession, so I figured I’d give it a try. Since I haven’t read the original, I can’t definitively say how the graphic novel works as an adaptation, but I get the impression that MacDonald has been very faithful to the source material. The Zoo graphic novel can be somewhat text-heavy and some of the plot lines are a little compressed (though not exactly rushed) but I was never confused as to what was going on. Even so, I may have rolled my eyes a bit at the plot’s development and some of the rather predictable “twists.” Unfortunately, Zoo just doesn’t have that original or great of a story to begin with and I had a difficult time suspending my incredulity. The ending in particular was rather disappointing. Zoo starts out as a fairly action-packed, and bloody, doomsday scenario, but its heavy-handed moral can be a bit much.

Meganebu! directed by Soubi Yamamoto. I already knew that I enjoyed Yamamoto’s visual style from her previous work and so I wasn’t disappointed by Meganebu!‘s brightly colored and slightly eccentric animation. Even so, it took a few episodes for the series to really grow on me. There’s not really much of a plot to Meganebu!. There are the members of the Glasses Club and their continuing efforts to create a pair of glasses with X-Ray vision (with some very unexpected and explosive results) but mostly the series just follows their daily lives and the trouble they all get into. Once I got over the fact that Meganebu! is fairly pointless, I could sit back and enjoy its peculiar sense of fun. As a glasses wearer myself, I could particularly appreciate all of the humor surrounding eyeglasses. To the members of the Glasses Club, glasses are more than just a fashion accessory. Neither are they simply used to correct vision. Glasses have the power to change the world. Meganebu! is an absurd anime, but I’ll admit to enjoying it.

Ciao, zombies and Attack on Titan

January 13, 2014 by Brigid Alverson

Information is finally starting to come out about the new Sailor Moon anime; it will begin airing in July and will be streamed worldwide by NicoNico and subtitled in 10 languages. The anime is not a remake of the original anime but will be a new adaptation of the manga, according to the producer. Erica Friedman has some thoughts on all this.

The Manga Bookshelf team discusses this week’s new releases and their Pick of the Week.

Erica Friedman updates us on all the latest yuri news in her latest Yuri Network New post at Okazu.

Lori Henderson rounds up some end-of-the-year manga news in her latest Manga Dome podcast at Manga Xanadu.

Erica Friedman looks at Ciao, the top-selling shoujo manga magazine in Japan.

Jason Thompson looks at ten zombie-themed manga in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

Five volumes of Attack on Titan made this week’s New York Times best-seller list, including volume 10, which tops the list.

News from Japan: Wandering Son manga-ka Takako Shimura is working on a new series, a sequel to the 2012 one-shot “Musume no Iede.”

Reviews: The Manga Bookshelf team files their latest set of Bookshelf Briefs. Ash Brown looks back at a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga.

Harry Edmundson-Cornell on vol. 3 of 20th Century Boys (Sequart)
Alex Hoffman on vols. 1-4 of 7 Billion Needles (Manga Widget)
Justin on vol. 1 of All Purpose Chemistry Club (Organization Anti Social Geniuses)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 11 of Attack on Titan (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Carlo Santos on vol. 9 of Bokurano: Ours (ANN)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Fate/Zero (Okazu)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 12 of Fullmetal Alchemist (Lesley’s Musings… on Manga)
Steve Bennett on vol. 1 of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 (ICv2)
Anna N on vol. 1 of Nisekoi: False Love (Manga Report)
Ash Brown on Oishinbo A La Carte: Fish, Sushi, and Sashimi (Experiments in Manga)
Lori Henderson on vols. 8-10 of Pandora Hearts (Manga Xanadu)
Michael Buntag on vol. 5 of Sailor Moon (NonSensical Words)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 12 of Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura (ANN)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 17 of Soul Eater (The Fandom Post)
Ash Brown on vol. 1 of SS Astro (Experiments in Manga)
Sakura Eries on vol. 1 of Summer Wars (The Fandom Post)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Takasugi-san’s Obento (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kristin on Tropic of the Sea (Comic Attack)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Voice Over! Seiyu Academy (Manga Xanadu)

Nisekoi: False Love Vol 1

January 12, 2014 by Anna N

Nisekoi: False Love Vol 1 by Naoshi Komi

I don’t tend to track trends in English releases of shonen manga as much as I do shoujo manga, but it certainly seems like it has been some time since we’ve seen a shonen romantic comedy set in high school. Raku is the typical shonen protagonist who (say it together with me!) “just wants a normal high school life.” Unfortunately while Raku has set his goal as becoming a reliable civil servant, his desire to be boring and normal is foiled by the fact that he’s the heir to a yakuza clan. Raku also is dealing with the aftermath of an encounter in his youth, when he exchanged vows of love with a girl he cannot remember. He has a special pendant in the shape of a lock, and his faceless beloved is holding on to the key. But Raku doesn’t remember her name!

Raku starts school awkwardly failing to ask out the nicest and prettiest girl in school, Ondera. His romantic ambitions are foiled when a new girl appears in his class. Chitoge is cute, athletic, and brash and she and Raku naturally start bickering immediately. They are assigned desks next each other as well as duties after school and they spend most of their time arguing so much, their classmates start to wonder if they are especially close. Things get even worse for Raku when he agrees to pretend to be romantically involved with the daughter of a rival gang boss in order to preserve peace, only to find out that his new “girlfriend” is Chitoge. Under the watchful eyes of retainers from both families, Raku and Chitoge go through the motions of a weekend date, only to find out that their romantic status has been announced at school as well, leaving them no rest from their charade.

There’s plenty of humor in this title even though it doesn’t reach the laugh out loud heights of Oresama Teacher. Komi frequently draws rictus-like facial expressions when his characters are in the grips of strong emotions. While the love triangle in this book is predictable, it certainly isn’t more derivative than the typical shoujo title. Chitoge and Raku’s similar backgrounds and tendencies to freak out often make them seem like natural friends with something in common, whereas Ondera’s more retiring personality makes her someone that Raku can easily admire from afar even though he doesn’t know her very well. While I didn’t connect with this title the same way I do my treasured shoujo romances, for anyone looking for shonen romantic comedy I think this will be an enjoyable manga to read. The art is well-executed, the personalities of the characters are interesting if a bit broadly drawn, and random yakuza thugs make everything more fun.

Romeo And Juliet

January 12, 2014 by Sean Gaffney

By William Shakespeare. First published in Britain in 1597 by John Dexter (Q1), then in 1599 by Cuthburt Burby (Q2). Review copy from ‘The Arden Shakespeare: Third Series’, edited by René Weis.

This actually came out in printed format a couple of years ago, but I never reviewed it, mostly as I don’t have much to say about Romeo And Juliet as a play. It’s sort of like giving your opinion on Hamlet – I’m not sure where to begin, or if my opinion is even relevant. I’d really never gotten as attached to it as I had to, say, Measure for Measure or Troilus and Cressida, though I can recognize its greatness. However, it coincidentally happened to be the first Arden Shakespeare release to come out as an ebook – I got mine on Kindle via Amazon – and so I thought I’d take a look, seeing what the ebook version can give to me, and also reassessing the play.

I generally prefer Shakespeare’s comedies to his tragedies, so it helps that this one is structured very much like a comedy till the deaths start happening, with lots of back and forth between servants and comedic sexual banter from Mercutio. But where in Much Ado the characters might get a bit angry at times, here almost everyone is constantly on edge – the first scene has the two families come to blows pretty much because they walk past each other – and therefore even comedic situations can ignite a spark. This is not helped by Mercutio (again), who practically goads Tybalt into killing him. Mercutio is much beloved as a character, mostly as he’s a more ‘modern’, with it guy compared to soppy Romeo and raging Tybalt, but he’s just as bad at keeping his temper and not doing dumb things.

And so tragedy does happen, as the crazy scheme to feign Juliet’s death till Romeo can come spirit her away goes soup. Juliet is one of the great female characters created by Shakespeare (which yes, was created for a young boy to perform), and it’s not just to avoid scandal that the actresses are usually much older than the ‘about to turn 14’ Juliet is. The audience is willing to suspend disbelief in order to see a truly stellar piece of acting, and Juliet gives a lot of fuel to burn there. Not to sell Romeo short – he starts off as a callow youth going through the motions of being lovestruck, but the way Shakespeare changes his vocabulary once he meets Juliet is one of the best parts of the play.

I actually found it easier to read this as an ebook – the printed version has the annotations (telling you what this Elizabethan term meant, etc.) on the bottom of the page, but your eyes still bounce up and down constantly as you track when the next note is. With the ebook you can tap to the endnote, then tap right back, making it flow better. The endnotes and annotations are positioned well – some ebooks have issues with endnotes, meaning you have to wait 30 seconds for the book to ‘catch up’ to you before you can return to the text, but not here. The only issue I had was with the facsimile of Q1 being too small to read on my phone, but larger ebook devices shouldn’t have that problem.

The scholarship here is good – Weis’ introduction is informative without overstaying its welcome, and the text fuses together Q1 and Q2 in ways that make sense (and are explained throughout), making this a very readable Romeo And Juliet. I suspect it was chosen to debut the ebook editions simply as it was one of the more recent books – formatting books like these doesn’t come quickly – and would not be surprised if Coriolanus, which came out in 2013, is the next one we see. In any case, those looking to dip their toes into Critical Editions of Shakespeare’s plays or just wanting a good readable ebook Romeo and Juliet should greatly enjoy this edition.