With a distinct lack of new print manga available in stores this week, we thought we’d take the opportunity to recommend a few last-ditch titles from soon-to-expire digital publisher JManga. If you’ve got extra points to spend and are looking for a great, last-minute read, here are a few titles to consider!
| ANNA: I’m always on the lookout for more josei manga, and while I was disappointed in the variety of genres Jmanga offered at its initial launch, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw more Harlequin romance, Ohzora, and josei titles popping up in the months to follow. The title I was most excited to see was the fourth volume of Walkin Butterfly 4. I collected the earlier print volumes and was so happy to be able to read the end of the series on Jmanga. While there are series left unfinished with Jmanga’s closure, I feel it is good to celebrate some of the series that Jmanga finished! Walkin’ Butterfly is the story of a tall misfit tomboy named Michiko who begins to find herself when she accidentally becomes part of the fashion world. Her relationship with the temperamental up and coming designer Mihara changes them both, and the series shows how she transforms herself in an atypical way for an ugly duckling becoming a swan type story. Tamaki’s illustrations convey the world of modeling and fashion in an edgy way – while there are occasional flashes of elegance, this is much grittier than the stylized fashion portrayed in a title like Paradise Kiss. | 
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| SEAN: I think I’ve banged the gong for Wonder! and High School Girls enough, so I’ll note that my favorite aspect of JManga was that they could pick up some of the weirdest titles. Not just normal seinen weird like Ninja Papa or Anesthesiologist Hana, but stuff that no one else would license in a million years. Things like Young-kun, a stick-figure 4-koma that I still don’t think I ever understood, or Edo Nekoe Jubei Otogizoshi, a mystery-solving cat manga from Shonen Gahosha’s magazine of cat manga. And of course there was a pile of yuri titles that fans have been wanting for years, from Love My Life to Poor Poor Lips to YuruYuri. The saddest thing is that there was simply too much content I wanted to read, and I may never get the time to now. But man, it was great content. |  |
| MICHELLE: If there was just one title that I’d recommend people read while they have the chance, it would be est em’s Working Kentauros. Here’s what I said about it in a Going Digital column from last year: “Like the best speculative fiction, est em uses her offbeat “centaurs in the workplace” concept to communicate universal truths. Everyone wants to be free to be themselves, and no one wants to watch someone they love get sick and pass away. Even if they happen to be a centaur. Highly, highly recommended.” |  |
| MJ: Many of my favorite series at JManga are hard to recommend at this juncture, simply because they’re unfinished. As much as I adore titles like Sweet Blue Flowers, Dousei Ai, or Pride, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend that anyone sign themselves up for that kind of heartbreak. One of my long-touted BL favorites, however, is Haruko Kumota My Darling Kitten Hair, which, though unfinished, is so committed to its low-key, slice-of-life format that it’s guaranteed to offer no lingering angst or nail-biting cliffhangers. From my review of the second volume: “It’s so rare to read a BL series (or any relationship-driven story) that is about staying in love rather than falling in love, and there’s a reason for that. It’s hard! As difficult as it can be to write authentic, well-developed romance, much like actual romance, it’s even harder to keep that fire burning after the initial rush of first love. Thankfully, My Darling Kitten Hair stands as a lovely example of how to do exactly that. And it’s a real pleasure to read.” Two volumes are available. |  |
Readers, any last-ditch JManga titles you’d recommend?
SEAN: Far be it from me to break with what I suspect is going to be unanimous. The clear pick this week is the first omnibus re-release of CLAMP’s 
MJ: There’s 
MICHELLE: Wow, 
ANNA This is somewhat sad. So sad in fact that I’m going to pick something that isn’t even manga at all! It looks like the 10th issue of Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples’ 
SEAN: Sheesh, I do all I can to expand 
MJ: I’ll admit that I feel hesitant about choosing from Sean’s lovely selection of Yen titles, as even online retailers list their release dates as yet a full week away, but I guess I’ll take this opportunity to highlight a series that rarely makes it into our Picks. That series would be 
SEAN: Given I can barely move my arms after digging out from over 3 feet of snow, I’d better have a comfort manga for my pick of the week. So let’s go with the biannual release of 
MJ: I’m in similar pain today, but instead of comfort manga, I will opt for just immersing myself in something really compelling and go with Tsutomu Nihei’s 
MJ: There’s a lot to choose from at 
MICHELLE: I picked Sailor Moon last week, so I’ll pick something else. Man, there is a lot of good stuff on that list, but like MJ, I am going to have to go with an old favorite. 
SEAN: Indeed, lots of stuff I could pick, but I keep coming back to 
MJ: 
MICHELLE: Because I am a terrible person and haven’t even started A Bride’s Story, I’m going to go off-list and note that Amazon lists volume nine of 
you will all buy it.
SEAN: It’s a 
MJ: This is a tough week for me. My favorite item from this week’s shipping list at 
SEAN: Whereas I’m getting quite a few titles from Yen, any of which would be a decent pick of the week. But I’m still going with 
SEAN: There’s nothing that really inspires me on this week’s 
MICHELLE: I’m also going to cast my vote for Loveless. I’d heard a little about it when TOKYOPOP was releasing it, but mostly it was all the potentially squicky bits. I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy it as much as I did, and that’s entirely due to the endearing characters. In the Off the Shelf column MJlinked to, I compared its strong characterization and somewhat hazy plotting to Pandora Hearts, and I continue to stand by that comparison. It’s not just any manga that can make me stop worrying about things making sense, but these two series manage it!
MJ: There’s a lot going on at 
SEAN: Given that this last week is rather thin, I thought I’d briefly touch on the titles I enjoyed in 2012. It was hard to pick just one, and several series – Devil and Her Love Song, Young Miss Holmes, Fallen Words, Sakuran, GTO 14 Days – were on my shortlist. But really, 2012 has a surprising winner for me, a red-blooded American male, and it comes from a young girl in a magical Wonderland choosing between many men who seem designed to fall for her. 
MJ: This year was filled with a number of surprising new favorites for me, including titles like 
MICHELLE: I had to think about this for a while, because the title that first sprang to mine was not one that debuted in 2012. In fact, it started coming out here in 2010, but I so loved every single volume of it, most especially the final one, that I simply must award my pick to Mitsuru Adachi’s 
MJ: 
MICHELLE: I am sorry to say that there’s nothing on Midtown’s list that particularly appeals to me. However, Sean’s list provides some more likely offerings. Of them, I’m going to have to go with 
SEAN: This week seems to feature a lot of series I pretty much enjoy, but nothing I’m absolutely over the moon over. Some decent Jump, some decent comedy, some decent horror. As a result, I’ll take my chance and pick a short story collection by Kaoru Mori, 
ANNA: If we are veering off lists, I am going to veer even further and choose as my pick the anime adaptation of