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Manga Bookshelf Forum

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A few months ago, I polled Manga Bookshelf readers to see if there was enough interest to warrant opening a discussion forum here on the site. In the end, the vote came down to a similar number of “Yes” and “No” responses, and a whoooole slew of “Maybe”s. So I’ve decided to give it a shot and see how things go.

Manga Bookshelf Forum

If you already have a user account at Manga Bookshelf, you should be automatically registered in the forums. If not, I’ve opened up site registration to all. I’ve opened up a few public forums to start, and reader participation is strongly encouraged! Here are a few options, right off the bat:

Reader Reviews: Post your own reviews of new (or old!) manga. Be sure to follow instructions on formatting your subject lines to that people will be able to easily identify who you are and what you’re reviewing!

Where to Buy Manga: Profile your favorite local shops to help other fans in your area find the best prices and selection!

Manga Sales-Watch: Heard about a great manga sale? Tell everyone about it here!

Fandom & Fanworks: Talk about fanfiction, fanart, and your favorite ‘ships here!

I’ve kicked things off with our first Topic of the Week—a weekly moderator-led discussion. This week’s topic: What’s on your manga wish list for this holiday season?

Come join me!

ETA: I am aware of a problem with the stylesheet not loading on the Profile Options pages. I am working on trying to get this resolved. In the meantime, though the current form is ugly as hell, it seems to be functional. Update: As of 9:40 EST this is fixed!

JManga the Week of 11/29

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SEAN: JManga is not taking the holidays off this week, and next week promises even more new content. Let’s see what we’ve got.

I had written before about manga JManga could pick up, and suspected they already had Teekyu, which had an anime air this fall. Sure enough, they announced it at NYCC, and here it is. It’s from the increasingly omnipresent Earth Star Entertainment, and seems to be a cute tennis comedy.

MICHELLE: I like sports manga, but I’m wary of the moe factor.

MJ: I only *sort* of like sports manga, so I’m probably feeling even more wary than Michelle.

SEAN: Kemonogumi is also an Earth Star title, and I know absolutely nothing about it except it’s by ESE, who also does the Wanna Be Strongest In The World! wrestling manga on JManga’s site. Given that title’s over the top fanservice, and the fact that the cover to Kemonogumi features what seems to be a poodle with large breasts next to a bunny girl, I suspect I am not the audience for this series.

MICHELLE: … Wow.

MJ: Um. Yeah.

SEAN: Gokujyo Drops is the smutty yuri title of this week, a manga from Ichijinsha’s Yuri Hime that was actually released initially as a cellphone manga. It seems to be in that genre of yuri that thinks that sexual harassment is incredibly erotic. That’s not me, so I think I’ll move on.

MICHELLE: So far, this list isn’t looking too promising.

MJ: I was okay with “smutty yuri” until it got to the part about sexual harassment. That’s disappointing.

SEAN: I met the creator of Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru at New York Comic Con, and he was very nice and easy to talk to. I need to catch up to his low-key but funny maid cafe manga, which has reached Vol. 9. It’s not belly laughs, but it does put a smile on your face.

MJ: I really should read this. It doesn’t really look like my kind of thing, but I heard great things all-around about the mangaka from those who met him at NYCC, and I’ll admit that goes a long way.

SEAN: Peacemaker Kurogane is at Vol. 3. That’s not the final volume, so I assume that peace is not made.

MICHELLE: *snerk*

SEAN: Lastly, and for me the big release this week, we have Vol. 1 of Sweet Blue Flowers (Aoi Hana), a slice-of-life yuri series from the creator of Wandering Son. This is still running in Ohta Shuppan’s Manga Erotics F (Shimura is also still doing Wandering Son for Enterbrain’s Comic Beam – she’s incredibly prolific), and is simply one of the best manga titles out there, yuri or otherwise. I absolutely cannot wait for this!

Saved the best for last.

MICHELLE: You certainly did! I am really, really excited for Sweet Blue Flowers! (It feels weird to type that after calling the series Aoi Hana for so long.) I actually bought the first six volumes in Japanese just so I could look at them, so I am thrilled to actually have the chance to read the series.

Even after a largely disappointing list, JManga redeems themselves in the end with this one!

MJ: Yes! I was so excited when JManga announced this license, and I hadn’t realized it was due out so soon! This really does turn the entire list around.

SEAN: What intrigues you this week?

Manga Radar, 18 November 2012

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this week’s charts
about the charts
The last Manga Radar column was 13 weeks ago. ouch.

So welcome back to the most recent installment of the very occasional feature: Manga Radar. Here I share with you some of the bleeding-edge preorders I’ve been discovering while compiling my manga bestsellers, and also taking some deeper dives into all this data, to either make sense of what’s happening or just gawk at it.

The current online performance of Sailor Moon is interesting to me for two reasons: First, of course, it’s Sailor Moon. In a mangaverse supposedly ruled by Shonen Jump, it’s amazing as both a Kodansha and shoujo title, and really shows what a couple of decades of pent-up demand will get you.

Secondly, though: its online performance isn’t really all that different from Naruto, Death Note, or Bleach – in profile, particularly now in it’s first year of release, it’s a good way to illustrate what sales of a top-tier manga look like:

Sailor Moon Volumes, rankings, 12 Aug to 18 Nov 2012, logorithmic scale

Before I get too deep into the discussion, note the y-axis and its scale: logorithmic means the top 3rd [1-10] is given equal weight as the middle third [10-100] and the bottom third [100-1000] – this is a bit of necessary compression, else the chart would be way too tall and the Top 10 would be compressed to a single, illegible line.

That explanation out of the way: Notice how ordinary the graph looks, and how little it has changed over the past 15 weeks: the individual titles ebb and flow a bit, but there are always 5 Sailor Moons in the top 10 and a dozen in the top 100. The rather slow fall of Codename: Sailor V is more indicative of what we’d expect, actually; the other volumes of Sailor Moon didn’t actually follow suit until about 4 weeks ago.

Surprising, however, is the meteoric rise of the Vols 1-6 Box Set. The sharp upward slope of its ranking is even more impressive when I remind you the y-axis is logorithmic – in 9 weeks it has gone from barely registering (#1171) to a top 10 title. However, since the books themselves have been available all year (volume one released September of last year, volume six has been out since June) this means that a whole new group of fans are now “buying in” to this series – not just the Superfans who have driven sales to date but a new second wave. I’ve noticed this before on things like Death Note – when both the box set and the ‘black editions’ drove additional sales – but in the case of Death Note and the similar VizBig editions: these sales bumps occurred only after the series was completed, or to goose sales of early volumes that had been released years before.

Sailor Moon is like watching a Shonen Jump release but on a more intense, shorter timescale.

##

With the analysis part done, now it’s time for the eye-numbingly-long lists. (this is my forté)

Also, please note that each week I post the ranking pre-orders, both in my Top 10s summary post, and the full Top 50 in the extended reports. You all know I post more than just a Top 10, right? There are seven ancilliary rankings and a full Top Manga 500 ranking that posts each week – this is where the fancy numbers come from for the fancy line graphs, like the one posted above.

Ranking Preorders, September 2012 and forward:

Itazura na Kiss 9 – DMP, Sep 2012
Love Chemistry Lab – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Sep 2012
Merry Men – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Sep 2012
Want To Be Happy? – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Sep 2012
Weekend Of Dreams – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Sep 2012
I Want a Love Story – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Sep 2012
Paradise Kiss 1 – Vertical, Sep 2012
Arata the Legend 11 – Viz Shonen Sunday, Sep 2012
Fluffy Fluffy Cinnamoroll 5 – Vizkids, Sep 2012
Jack Frost 6 – Yen Press, Sep 2012
Raiders 8 – Yen Press, Sep 2012
GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class 4 – Yen Press, Sep 2012

The Garden Where The Ivy Plant Grows – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Oct 2012
A Taste of Honey – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Oct 2012
Fever (yaoi) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Oct 2012
Spider – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Oct 2012
Love Is Like a Hurricane PLUS – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Oct 2012
Longing for Spring – Enjugroup, Oct 2012
Kitchen Princess Omnibus 2 – Kodansha Comics, Oct 2012
Heroman 1 – Vertical, Oct 2012
Bloody Monday 8 – Kodansha Comics, Oct 2012
Air Gear 26 – Kodansha Comics, Oct 2012
Dracula Everlasting 2 – Seven Seas, Oct 2012
Limit 1 – Vertical, Oct 2012
A Devil & Her Love Song 5 – Viz Shojo Beat, Oct 2012
Jiu Jiu 2 – Viz Shojo Beat, Oct 2012
Toriko 12 – Viz Shonen Jump, Oct 2012
Slam Dunk 24 – Viz Shonen Jump, Oct 2012
Kekkaishi 34 – Viz Shonen Sunday, Oct 2012
Black God 17 – Yen Press, Oct 2012
The Infernal Devices 1 – Yen Press, Oct 2012
Demon Consort (novel) – Yaoi Press, Oct 2012

The Name Of Love – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Nov 2012
Sailor Moon vols 1-6 box set – Kodansha Comics, Nov 2012
Animal Land 6 – Kodansha Comics, Nov 2012
Queen’s Blade: Visual Collection – Vertical, Nov 2012
Limit 2 – Vertical, Nov 2012
Neon Genesis Evangelion vols 1-3 collection – Viz, Nov 2012
We Were There 15 – Viz Shojo Beat, Nov 2012
Strobe Edge 1 – Viz Shojo Beat, Nov 2012
Oresama Teacher 11 – Viz Shojo Beat, Nov 2012
Rin-Ne 10 – Viz Shonen Sunday, Nov 2012
March Story 4 – Viz Signature, Oct 2012
Thermae Romae 1 – Yen Press, Nov 2012
Haruhi Suzumiya The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-Chan 6 – Yen Press, Nov 2012
Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro 3 – Yen Press, Nov 2012
Umineko When They Cry Legend of the Golden Witch 1 – Yen Press, Nov 2012
Nabari no Ou 12 – Yen Press, Nov 2012

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service 13 – Dark Horse, Dec 2012
Vampire Hunter D (manga) 7 – DMP, Dec 2012
Attack on Titan 3 – Kodansha Comics, Dec 2012
Heroman 2 – Vertical, Dec 2012
Natsume’s Book of Friends 13 – Viz Shojo Beat, Dec 2012
Bakuman 17 – Viz Shonen Jump, Dec 2012
D. Gray-Man 23 – Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Dec 2012
Arata the Legend 12 – Viz Shonen Sunday, Dec 2012
Itsuwaribito 7 – Viz Shonen Sunday, Dec 2012
Kaoru Mori: Anything and Something – Yen Press, Dec 2012
Pandora Hearts 13 – Yen Press, Dec 2012
Higurashi When They Cry 20 Massacre Arc 2 – Yen Press, Dec 2012

Oreimo 2 – Dark Horse, Jan 2013
Missions of Love 2 – Kodansha Comics, Jan 2013
Fairy Tail 23 – Kodansha Comics, Jan 2013
Limit 3 – Vertical, Jan 2013
GTO: 14 Days in Shonan 7 – Vertical, Jan 2013
Loveless vols 3-4 collection – Viz, Jan 2013
Jiu Jiu 3 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jan 2013
Haruhi Suzumiya The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan 3 – Yen Press, Jan 2013
Soul Eater 12 – Yen Press, Jan 2013
Book Girl and the Undine Who Bore a Moonflower (novel) – Yen Press, Jan 2013

Gantz 26 – Dark Horse, Feb 2013
See Me After Class 1 – DMP Project H, Feb 2013
Tender Hearts – DMP Project H, Feb 2013
Kitaro – Drawn & Quarterly, Feb 2013
Kitchen Princess Omnibus 3 – Kodansha Comics, Feb 2013
Stepping on Roses 9 – Viz Shojo Beat, Feb 2013
Inuyasha VizBig Edition 14 – Viz Shonen Sunday, Feb 2013
Tenjo Tenge: Full Contact Edition 11 – Viz Signature, Feb 2013
Pokemon Diamond & Pearl/Platinum 7 – Vizkids, Feb 2013
Umineko When They Cry Legend of the Golden Witch 2 – Yen Press, Feb 2013
Pandora Hearts 14 – Yen Press, Feb 2013

Vampire Hunter D (novel) 19 – Dark Horse, Mar 2013
Blade of the Immortal 26 – Dark Horse, Mar 2013
Genshiken Second Season 2 – Kodansha Comics, Mar 2013
Fairy Tail 25 – Kodansha Comics, Mar 2013
Dark Hunters Infinity 1 – St. Martin’s Griffin, Mar 2013
Paradise Kiss 3 – Vertical, Mar 2013
Neon Genesis Evangelion vols 4-6 collection – Viz, Mar 2013
Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden 11 – Viz Shojo Beat, Mar 2013
Skip Beat! vols 10-12 collection – Viz Shojo Beat, Mar 2013
Higurashi When They Cry 21 Massacre Arc 3 – Yen Press, Mar 2013
Durarara!! Saika Arc 1 – Yen Press, Mar 2013

Oh My Goddess! 44 – Dark Horse, Apr 2013
Ray’s Days – DMP Project H, Apr 2013
Missions of Love 3 – Kodansha Comics, Apr 2013
Arisa 10 – Kodansha Comics, Apr 2013
Fairy Tail 24 – Kodansha Comics, Apr 2013
Dawn of the Arcana 9 – Viz Shojo Beat, Apr 2013
Library Wars: Love & War 9 – Viz Shojo Beat, Apr 2013
Kimi ni Todoke 16 – Viz Shojo Beat, Apr 2013
Kamisama Kiss 13 – Viz Shojo Beat, Apr 2013
Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds 4 – Viz Shonen Jump, Apr 2013
Blue Exorcist 9 – Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Apr 2013
Itsuwaribito 8 – Viz Shonen Sunday, Apr 2013
Pandora Hearts 15 – Yen Press, Apr 2013
Spice & Wolf (novel) 8 – Yen Press, Apr 2013

Gantz 27 – Dark Horse, May 2013
Sailor Moon 11 – Kodansha Comics, May 2013
Fairy Tail 26 – Kodansha Comics, May 2013
Zero’s Familiar Omnibus 1 – Seven Seas, May 2013
Neon Genesis Evangelion vols 7-9 collection – Viz, May 2013
Black Bird 16 – Viz Shojo Beat, May 2013
La Corda d’Oro 17 – Viz Shojo Beat, May 2013
Claymore 22 – Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, May 2013
Inuyasha VizBig Edition 15 – Viz Shonen Sunday, May 2013
Alice in the Country of Joker Circus & Liar’s Game 2 – Seven Seas, May 2013
Haruhi Suzumiya The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan 4 – Yen Press, May 2013

Sailor Moon 12 – Kodansha Comics, Jul 2013
Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry Blossoms Pink – Seven Seas, Jun 2013
Sleeping Moon 1 – SuBLime, Jun 2013
Puella Magi Kazumi Magica 1 – Yen Press, Jun 2013
Pandora Hearts 16 – Yen Press, Jun 2013
Higurashi When They Cry 22 Festival Accompanying Arc 1 – Yen Press, Jun 2013
Highschool of the Dead Color Omnibus 2 – Yen Press, Jun 2013

I Don’t Like You At All, Big Brother! vols 5-6 collection – Seven Seas, Jul 2013
Twin Knight (Princess Knight) – Vertical, Jul 2013
Naruto 62 – Viz Shonen Jump, Aug 2013
Rosario+Vampire Season II 12 – Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Aug 2013
Kimi ni Todoke 17 – Viz Shojo Beat, Aug 2013
Rin-Ne 12 – Viz Shonen Sunday, Jul 2013
Until Death Do Us Part 4 – Yen Press, Jul 2013
Black Butler 14 – Yen Press, Jul 2013
Spice & Wolf (novel) 9 – Yen Press, Aug 2013

##

I’ve omitted certain DMP titles, which have been delayed (and as noted here DMP Project H titles are *not* being delayed), but that’s a ton of books in a market ‘niche’ that is supposedly in decline. I think I might also have to double-dip, and get the Kitchen Princess omnibi – if only to see if Kodansha added some additional extras to the Del Rey releases.

License This! Aozora Yell by Kazune Kawahara

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Hi! I guess I should introduce myself. My name’s Travis and I’ve been reading Manga Bookshelf since it was just MJ’s blog, and have known her for even longer. I’ve never thought of writing here, since I don’t read manga in English, but then when MJput out her most recent call for contributors, I thought, well, maybe I could write about stuff I really love that I wish were published in English so that more people could enjoy them, and so License This! was born. For right now, I’m going to aim for a monthly column, because I don’t want to overcommit (a bad habit of mine), but I could also see possibly doing twice a month, so we’ll see where that goes.

As for what type of manga I’ll be writing about, the answer to that is pretty much “everything.” If pressed, I’d probably choose shoujo as my favorite genre, but I read very, very widely. And while I’ve chosen a currently running series for my first post (mainly because I didn’t have that much time to prepare and thus wanted something fresh in my mind, rather than an old favorite I haven’t read for years and may have to reread in order to remember it well enough to write about), I’ve been reading manga for almost twenty years, so I have a lot of favorites that are long since over.

Cover of Aozora Yell 10 And now with that out of the way, on to the first title! I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with Kazune Kawahara from her series High School Debut (also one of my favorites), but I am sad to see that nothing besides that one series has been published in the US. Admittedly, she only has two other long series, and the rest of her stuff is one-shots or single-volume series, but it’s all really great. I know that her art style is not to everyone’s tastes (especially anything that came before High School Debut), but the stories more than make up for it.

Kawahara is one of my favorite shoujo authors, but I think her sweet/innocent style may not be what US readers want to see (or at least what publishers think they want to see). It seems like a lot of what’s published in English is more edgy/gritty or else has fantasy elements (or both), but I really like this sort of heartwarming slice-of-life stuff. It’s just cute! Another thing Kawahara does well that I like in my shoujo romance is female friendships. So many romances (not just in manga, but western media as well) are all about girls fighting over guys, and while my favorite authors may include a rival sometimes, they also make sure to give their heroines good friends as well.

Aozora Yell (aka Yell for the Blue Sky) is Kawahara’s current series. With volume eleven just released yesterday in Japan, it’s looking to be quite a bit longer than High School Debut, maybe even as long as her first big hit, Sensei! (also a favorite of mine), which clocks in at twenty volumes total.

Our protagonist is Tsubasa, a first-year high school student who has enrolled in Shirato High because of their brass band. After seeing the brass band play on TV during a Koushien game (the high school baseball championship), she decided that’s what she wants to do…the only problem being she’s never played an instrument before. When she joins the band, she finds that everyone else has way more experience than her, having been playing since middle school or even longer.

Unlike many stories that start off this way, Tsubasa does not turn out to be a genius at the trumpet. In fact, as of the most recent volumes (which have reached the beginning of her second year), she is still the worst player in the band. However, she is working hard and slowly getting better. One of the things that keeps her going is that her dream has become more personal. It’s not just the idea of playing for a generic baseball team anymore, or even for her school. It’s a specific person she wants to cheer on, a boy on the team named Daisuke whom she has become good friends with. More than friends, in fact, but although she told him how she feels, he rejected her, saying he wants to focus on baseball for now. They’re still good friends, though, and encourage each other to practice hard and get better.

While I would definitely categorize this series as romance, the focus is just as much, if not more, on the band (and if you’re tired of school stories that focus on the same old annual events, at least band competitions are not something that’s been done to death) and on relationships in general (with friends, and with bandmates both friendly and not). You can’t help but root for Tsubasa as she struggles to be, not even great, but just good enough to be allowed to play with the rest of the band rather than sitting out a competition.

As I mentioned above, this doesn’t seem to be a genre that US publishers are all that interested in, but I think High School Debut did fairly well (certainly it seems like I know a ton of people who liked it), and I know that Kimi ni Todoke is quite popular, so I’m hoping that maybe this one has a chance.

Manga the Week of 11/28

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SEAN: After three weeks that absolutely buried us in manga, it’s a relief to find that the last week of November is reasonably small. If only as I’m so far behind I may never catch up. Let’s see what we’ve got…

First off, I’m pleased to see that Dark Horse has reached Lucky Vol. 13 of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. It comes out so infrequently but that makes us love it all the more, especially Carl Horn’s expert liner notes, which get more glib with every passing volume. Last time we heard that Karatsu and Sasaki were in Hawaii on a case, so I’m hoping that we see said case here.

MJ: I know I’m late to the party here, but I’ve finally started reading this series, and of course it’s just as good as you’ve been telling me all this time. I expect I’ll make it to volume 13 before the next one comes out, from the sound of it!

MICHELLE: I read volume one a long time and liked the characters a lot, but got really grossed out by one page in particular. I’ve never gone back to it, even though I own through volume eleven or so. One of these days!

SEAN: Kodansha has a few new things as well. Deltora Quest hits its penultimate volume, and is one of the few manga released here under the ‘kodomo’ genre – i.e. it’s for little kids in Japan.

Fairy Tail is in the middle of its big alternate world with personality-swapped heroes arc, and Vol. 22 will feature lots of fighting, I’m going to guess.

MICHELLE: I generally read Fairy Tail courtesy of my local library, but I’m glad to see it’s still going strong. It seems popular amongst the young adult patrons, as well.

SEAN: Finally, for those of you who may have missed out on Sailor Moon 1-6 when they were first released, there’s now a big box set. It has stickers! (But no new content.)

MJ: It’s a great time for them to release something like this, too. It’s a natural choice for probably every manga gift guide that’ll come out this year.

SEAN: From Vertical, we have GTO Shonan 14 Days Vol. 6. I’m not sure if these twins are going to be the final Big Bad, but they’re proving to be very difficult for Onizuka. Not that this is going to stop him at all, of course. It’s Onizuka, we know what’s coming. DETERMINATION (and some perversion).

MJ: Have I mentioned how much I love this series? I really love this series. It was one of my biggest surprises of the year, really. I wouldn’t have thought it’d be my thing, but it is—very much so. Can’t wait to read this!

MICHELLE: I echo your sentiments, but must point out once again how much Sean’s commentary amuses me. :)

SEAN: There’s also Vol. 2 of Limit, where I’m going to take a wild guess things are going to go from bad to worse.

MJ: I’m looking forward to this as well! Vertical’s been on a roll for me lately.

MICHELLE: Me, too!

SEAN: Lastly, it’s not on the list, but Yen also apparently released Is This A Zombie? Vol. 3 two weeks back, and since it hasn’t shown up via Diamond yet I’ll give it a mention here. There is much debate about whether it’s a parody of magical girls/harems/zombie manga or just a mulched-up pastiche. I’ll let others keep reading it to make that choice for themselves.

MJ: I… Ugh. I have nothing more to say, really.

MICHELLE: I was totally going to write “Ugh.”

SEAN: All this plus the debut of the My Little Pony comic from IDW! What appeals to you turkey-stuffed individuals?

Giving Thanks

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Today is the one day of the year when even Americans—divided and selfish as we often are—come together as a whole with our families and friends to give thanks. Privately, I have much to be thankful for, and I look forward to expressing gratitude to my own family and friends as the day goes on. I also have some particular thanks to share here at Manga Bookshelf.

First, I’m endlessly grateful to each of the writers who has contributed to the site this year. Phillip, Matt, Derek, Jaci, Angela, Erica, Sara, Jia, Megan, Emily, Nancy, Eva, Paul, Justin, and Aja—thank you so much for your thoughtful contributions. You have given Manga Bookshelf a depth and breadth of content it could not possibly have achieved without you.

I must also express my gratitude to the site’s current bloggers—Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Brigid Alverson, and newcomer Anna Neatrour—whose brilliant work and general awesomeness keeps me blogging even when (perhaps especially when?) I fear I’m losing my passion. Thanks, too, to Kate Dacey and David Welsh, without whom the multi-site incarnation of Manga Bookshelf surely would not exist!

Thanks to artists, writers, and publishers who continue to fuel our obsession with their wonderful storytelling, and who give us something to keep writing about.

And most of all, many, many thanks to everyone who reads Manga Bookshelf, both for your continued readership and the ongoing conversation you’re willing to indulge in with us, day after day. You are the reason this site exists, and you inspire us all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro, Vol. 3

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By Satoko Kiyuduki. Released in Japan as “Hitsugi Katsugi no Kuro – Kaichu Tabi no Wa” by Houbunsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Manga Time Kirara. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I never reviewed the first two volumes of Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro, the main reason being that I didn’t have a blog when they were both released. It’s been four long years (and 4 volumes of GA Art Design Class, the cute 4-koma series by the same author that many fans blame for Kuro’s hiatus) since we last saw the adventures of the stoic girl and her coffin. Indeed, the author apologizes profusely at the end of Vol. 3 for the delay, and hopes that we’ll keep reading regardless. Luckily, that should not be an issue. Not only is there a particularly vicious cliffhanger to keep us hungry for Vol. 4, but picking up this series again is like revisiting an old friend – after a few pages it’s like they never went away.

A lot of people note that this series often has a downbeat and melancholy tone, which is true and certainly doesn’t go away here. It’s just as important, though, that it manages to keep a light touch, mostly in its portrayal of Nijuku and Sanju. TV Tropes has a page called ‘Morality Chain’ which discusses characters whose basic existence is what keeps our heroes on the straight and narrow. While Kuro isn’t close to becoming a supervillain, there is a certain sense that the two mysterious children/scientific experiments function that way to this series as a whole. They have the childlike wonder of a Yotsuba, while also being able to sustain a level of creepy due to their supernatural origins. It makes for a good balance.

As for the manga itself, much of it is the same as the previous two volumes – Kuro, Sen and the two kids roaming the countryside of ‘generic pre-industrial world’ and trying to find information about the witch who cursed Kuro. And while there are stand-alone plots throughout that have nothing whatsoever to do with Kuro’s past, we are starting to see events come together into a coherent whole. We meet a strange young woman who is called a witch, and who ‘is searching for the person searching for her’ – an obvious connection to Kuro. Kuro, meanwhile, not only deals with her mirror opposite, but also her possible evil twin… though given what we know of Kuro before her curse, there may be far less difference between them than we’d like.

And much as I enjoyed the fluffy slice-of-life chapters and the twins, they are outnumbered by the melancholy in the end. We meet wind-up dolls waiting forever for their long-dead owners, and fairy-tale legends built around not-so-great men. But most of all, we get Kuro, who walks on her journey with an air of stoic suffering that is absolutely necessary. She is not stoic by choice, but by pure force of will. And when that will is shattered – as it is at the end of this volume when she encounters a war veteran searching for his wife and daughter – we are reminded that Kuro is CURSED, and there’s a very good reason why she carries that coffin all the time.

As I said, Kiyuduki urges us all to forgive her hiatus and watch over Kuro for a little longer. And she couldn’t have chosen a better volume to get us to do it. I *need* to find out what happens next. Unfortunately, while Kuro may no longer be on hiatus, it’s still not the fastest series in the world, so I may have to stoically suffer until the next volume. Get this book at once, and go back and get 1 and 2 as well if you didn’t already.

Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends, Vol. 1

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By Yomi Hirasaka and Itachi. Released in Japan as “Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai” by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Alive. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

It can sometimes be very difficult to practice what I preach. It’s all very well and good for me to offer advice to others, but sometimes a situation comes up where I have to take it. And so it goes with this first volume of Haganai, where I can’t help but hear the voice in the back of my head reminding me of Teru Teru x Shonen, where I urged bloggers who read Vol. 1 and then stopped to not judge an ongoing character arc by its first volume. And so it goes with Haganai, where I feel obliged to note that the plot is likely meant to be ‘this characters grow better and learn to be nice as the series goes on’. Or at least I hope so, as Haganai has some of the most irritating leads you’ll ever meet.

As if you had not been able to guess by the title and cover, Haganai is based on a series of light novels. The basic premise seems like some odd fusion of Haruhi Suzumiya and Toradora: a young man who has trouble making friends due to his natural blond hair and his squinty eyes meets an antisocial young woman who has trouble making friends with anyone. After a brief discussion, she gets the idea to form a club, supposedly devoted to learning how to make friends but in reality most likely just an excuse to hang out. Of course, she doesn’t count on the club actually gaining new members, all of whom are just as socially maladjusted as she is.

One thing the manga does that I enjoyed was have a ‘Chapter 0’ which takes place several months after the events of the rest of the book, a flash-forward of sorts showing us what the club will eventually be like. It helps to introduce the major players (including several who then don’t show up again for the rest of the volume) and shows off the basic plot and how it leads to cringe-inducing humor. Seeing it, I felt a bit more prepared for the rest of the volume.

Unfortunately, Haganai is also part of a brand of ‘moe’ that I’ve never really come to love. The old ‘harem genre’ of shonen manga used to have the nebbish hero choosing between nice girls, tsundere girls and the occasional bottle fairy, but there was never any indication that the girls weren’t able to function in society as a whole. But manga lately, mostly due to the related boom in light novels, has seen a huge increase in socially maladjusted high schoolers who simply can’t interact properly with anyone (except of course our hero… and even then). And you’re left exhausted as you see them blackmailing people gleefully as it would be fun to abuse them (as Yozora does here) or getting offended that the male lead refuses to act as her slave/footstool (as Sena does). It’s a love triangle of two girls who re all tsun and no dere. And what that leaves is basically a somewhat nondescript hero listening to two loud and obnoxious women yell for 200 pages.

That said, as I noted, clearly the premise will be (besides which girl gets the guy) about seeing the nice and sweet side of these girls. But it’s getting harder to justify digging for it. Even Haruhi Suzumiya eventually mellows out. Can I expect the same for Yozora and Sena?

Romance Manga from jmanga.com: The London Game and Forbidden Love With a Prince

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I was hoping to kick off the new incarnation of Manga Report with a triumphant series of reviews this week. Unfortunately I have a horrible cold and am really only capable of communing with my roku box and knitting scarves. But! There is a certain type of manga that I can enjoy when I am too incoherent to actually follow a plot very well, and that is romance manga! Because the plots are so predictable that even someone loopy on cold medication can follow everything without getting lost and the art is often pretty enough to distract me from my kleenex-riddled misery. Romance manga from Ohzora are usually amusing, because they are very similar to Harlequin manga adaptations, but usually the art is much more consistent and well-executed. Both of these titles are available from jmanga.com.

The London Game by Harumo Sanazaki

The London Game

This is the story of Maximilian Rochefort, a commoner with an impressive fortune and equally impressive eyebrows, and Eleanor, the unmarried only princess of a tiny European country that has fallen on hard times. He proposes a game to her – she’ll convince him that the royal family is worth saving and he’ll rescue her. Maximilian and Eleanor knew each other briefly several years ago, and a party at a country house provides an opportunity for them to spend some more time together despite Maximilian’s antagonistic attitude. Unfortunately there are groups of other rich social climbers hanging around. Maximilian quickly determines that Eleanor’s country is basically auctioning her off to the highest bidder, and she’s utterly unaware of what is happening around her. Maximilian asks if she’s ever watched the news or read a tabloid and Eleanor says that her only reading material is “the front page of the Financial Times” because her father has always encouraged her to make appearances at charity functions instead of learning about current events. Maximilian yells “Are you an idiot?! It should be a crime to grow up this naive and unsullied! Think a little bit about who you are!” I found this scene very amusing, because all too often heroines in romance manga are idiots and no one calls them on it. Eleanor grows up a little bit and Maximilian stops acting aggressively petulant. Sanazaki’s art is detailed, lush, and a little bit stylized which is exactly the type of illustration I tend to look for from romance manga. I enjoyed the backup story about a vengeful ex-boyfriend “Flames of Love in the Aegean Sea” much less because it was a bit too rapey (in the old 1980s romance novel sort of way) for me.

Forbidden Love With a Prince by Rikako Tsuji

Forbidden Love With a Prince

This was a fun single volume story about an aspiring actress named Sherry who is studying in a tiny European country (there are so many of those in romance manga) when she has an encounter with a handsome yet slightly weird young man named Ernest at her part-time job working in a cafe. He tries a slightly cheesy pickup line on her and she dismisses him. They meet in a park and Ernest woos Sherry in the undercover way commonly practiced by princes of tiny European countries who don’t wish to reveal their royal natures to their crush objects. Ernest and Sherry’s dating activities include foiling bank robberies and accidentally getting handcuffed together. Sherry’s career begins to take off and Ernest vanishes from her life. When Prince Ernest attends Sherry’s new play, she finally realizes who he is. Sherry then has to make a decision – should she continue with her career or become a queen? Tsuji is very good at portraying facial expressions and body language, and it was particularly interesting to see the way Ernest is open and enthusiastic when he’s undercover and then turns much more stiff and formal when he’s in his role as a Prince. The story took up the whole volume of the manga, and I was amused to see that there were little touches with character introductions which highlighted the possibility of a number of spin-off stories featuring Ernest’s friends and relatives.

Romance manga might not be great literature, but it is the perfect thing sometimes when one wants to be diverted and distracted by the spectacle of pretty people falling in love. Both of these volumes are good examples of the genre, and I’m glad that Jmanga.com has stepped up to translate so much romance manga in recent months.

Electronic access provided by the publisher.

Tomie on Twitter

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The Manga Bookshelf team, myself included, discuss our picks of the week—and it’s a tough choice, because this is a very good week!

Noah Berlatsky gathers up a Twitter conversation with Jason Thompson about Junji Ito’s Tomie stories.

Good news for fans of The Dreaming creator Queenie Chan: Her newest book, Small Shen, is out, although only in Australia at the moment.

Blogging about blogging: Anna Neatrour’s Manga Report joins us here at Manga Bookshelf.

News from Japan: Tenjho Tenge creator Oh Great is collaborating with novelist Ōtarō Maijō on a new series, Biorg Trinity, to launch in the January issue of Ultra Jump. Manga-ka Mimei Sakamoto went on a well-publicized rant after being annoyed by a crying baby on a recent flight. Dengeki Daioh Genesis magazine has ceased publication.

Reviews: Carlo Santos looks at a couple of new series, and a few older ones, in his latest Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. The Manga Bookshelf team checks out Blue Exorcist, Pandora Hearts, and more in their latest Bookshelf Briefs column. Ash Brown looks back on a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga.

Katherine Hanson on Concerto (Yuri no Boke)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 8 of Cross Game (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kristin on vols. 10 and 11 of Kamisama Kiss (Comic Attack)
Noah Berlatsky on Natsume’s Book of Friends (The Hooded Utilitarian)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 2 of Soulless (Comics Worth Reading)
Anna on vol. 1 of Strobe Edge (Manga Report)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Strobe Edge (Manga Xanadu)
Alex Hoffman on vol. 1 of Strobe Edge (Manga Widget)
Manjiorin on vol. 1 of Trigun Maximum (omnibus edition) (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 3-4 of Young Miss Holmes Casebook (omnibus edition) (Comics Worth Reading)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 3-4 of Young Miss Holmes Casebook (omnibus edition) (A Case Suitable for Treatment)