Manga Bookshelf's Weekly Features

SEAN: It’s really tempting to pick India Calling Me Now, but I’m sure someone else will. So my pick this week is the debut of Rainbows After Storms, one of those rare long-running yuri series. It’s great to see it over here.

MICHELLE: I’ll step up to the plate and pick India Calling Me Now, with bonus appreciation for another one-shot, The Metalhead Next Door.

ANNA: I’m with Michelle, both those series look great.

ASH: Agreed! Though The Metalhead Next Door wins out slightly over India Calling Me Now for me simply because it’s available in print. Otherwise, and if I didn’t already own all of the volumes, the Delicious in Dungeon box set would be my priority.

KATE: I teach Rock History, so I’m obligated to choose The Metalhead Next Door. (Also: it looks cute.)

MICHELLE: Even though I haven’t yet managed to read any of it, since it’s my last chance to pick Neighborhood Story, I’m going with that this week. If we can’t have more NANA, I’m super grateful we got new-to-us Ai Yazawa in some form!

SEAN: Final volumes! Neighborhood Story 4 and Innocent Omnibus 3 are my picks.

ASH: Great picks, for sure, but the release I’m probably most curious about this week it Shining Diamond’s Demonic Heartbreak. What is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure like when interpreted by creators other than Hirohiko Araki?

KATE: Add my name to the Ai Yazawa fan club: Neighborhood Story is my pick, too.

ANNA: I’m going to join the chorus in celebrating Neighborhood Story!

SEAN: This week makes me look more towards the light novel end. My dual picks (it’s Thanksgiving, I can get greedy) are The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady 8, and Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- 26.

MICHELLE: I’m going with the second volume of Otonari Complex this week!

ASH: Well, I guess it’s the martial maiden’s marital mayhem for me! The cover of Always a Catch!: How I Punched My Way into Marrying a Prince was not at all what I was expecting based on the title.

ASH: The releases this week seem to have a bit more variety to them than some weeks bring, but maybe that’s just because I’m paying closer attention. And so the book I’m perhaps most curious about is the one we don’t have as much information on, Festival of Heresies. A one-shot horror novel with a striking cover seems like it should be up my alley.

SEAN: My pick this week is for A Smart and Courageous Child, if only as it’s a rare manga that has the assassination attempt of Malala Yousafzai kickstart the plot. Plus it’s gotten rave reviews.

MICHELLE: I’m not terribly enthusiastic about anything, but I’ll cast my vote for Agents of the Four Seasons: Dance of Spring, if for no other reason that it runs in LaLa.

ANNA: I’m with Michelle, manga published by LaLa is doing the heavy lifting for me this week.

KATE: If you missed Moto Hagio’s The Poe Clan the first time around, I have good news: Fantagraphics just released a boxed set. Buy it for a fellow manga fan, or buy yourself an early Christmas present; I promise you won’t be disappointed!

SEAN: I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed Sweat & Soap, so I’m thrilled to see a new romance by the same author, even if it’s only a single volume. Home Office Romance is my pick.

MICHELLE: There are quite a few interesting titles out this week! I’m also interested in Home Office Romance, but Sanctify is really calling out to me.

ANNA: My pick this week is all the josei! So much coming out this week!

ASH: Right?? I’m tempted to just say, josei, too. But I’m also very interested in Home Office Romance. (Being only a single volume, it should be difficult to fall behind in reading it!)

KATE: I’m going out on a limb by picking Cthulhu Cat (Neko no Cthulhu), which could be seriously cute or just plain weird, so my back-up plan is Thunder 3. Sean’s description of the series as “a Weekly Shonen Magazine title that looks like it’s from 1965 but is in reality from 2022” piqued my interest.

MICHELLE: I’m going with Colette Decides to Die this week, primarily because I am amused by the prissy, snooty boy on the cover.

SEAN: Anytime Viz decides to license a 10-year-old shoujo series with 20 volumes out of the blue, I sit up and take notice. (Yes, I know it’s probably getting an anime soon.) So Colette Decides to Die is my pick as well.

ANNA: For sure curious about Colette Decides to Die!

ASH: Colette Decides to Die is my pick this week, too, but I’ll admit to being curious about Cthulhu Cat and Thunder 3 as well.

SEAN: This is another “sometimes you just want McDonald’s” week for me, as my pick is the debut of the Lycoris Recoil manga. Guaranteed to be less yuri than the fandom wants!

MICHELLE: I wish that the cover of Tiger & Dragon were more encouraging, but alas. I think I’m gonna go with Even Though We’re Adults this time.

ANNA: I’m going to go with the latest volume of Nina the Starry Brida as a reminder to myself to get caught up on the manga and actually check out the anime.

KATE: My vote goes to Even Though We’re Adults (or “Good Luck Babe: The Manga”).

ASH: Even Though We’re Adults is a solid pick, for sure. Debut-wise, I’ll have to admit to being curious about The Lady Knight and the Beast-Eared Child and JoJo A-Go!Go! is definitely worth mentioning, too.

MICHELLE: I’m quite interested in two debuts this week. Diary of a Female Lead and The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy at All both appeal to me, but I will give the edge to the latter for that absolutely striking front cover!

SEAN: Absolutely no question, it’s The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy at All. Get hype, this is gonna be great.

KATE: I second those picks–both covers look promising!

ANNA: I’m not going to go against the consensus this week!

ASH: The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy at All is defiantly the debut I’m most interested in this week, but did you know that Yokai, a full-color artbook of Shigeru Mizuki’s illustrations, was just released last week? It is SO GOOD.

SEAN: Just as kids these days have no idea what I’m talking about when I mention watching a cartoon “in syndication”, I imagine there are manga readers who don’t know what old-school shoujo releases were like back in 2004 (when Shojo Beat was a magazine!). But now they can! My pick goes to the omnibus edition of Red River, aka Anatolia Story. It’s a classic about a Japanese girl who is called to… ancient Egypt? To be used as a sacrifice. Because her blood is special. Wow, did isekais all get their ideas from Red River?

KATE: I second Sean’s pick! Red River is old school shoujo at its best: it’s got a handsome male lead, a power-hungry queen, magic spells a-plenty, and enough plot twists to satisfactorily fill out its 28 volume run. It’s the perfect way to waste an entire weekend when you should be doing something else–like raking the leaves or putting away your patio furniture.

MICHELLE: It’s gotta be Red River!

ANNA: I agree, it is wonderful that Red River is coming back into print. It is epic in scale that only a very few manga manage to pull off.

ASH: I haven’t read Red River yet, but I’ve been wanting to. And you all make it sound amazing, so old school epic shoujo is my pick this week, too!

KATE: For anyone who missed My Dear Detective: Mitsuko’s Case Files when it was on the Azuki platform, Seven Seas is putting out a print edition this week. The series will appeal to readers who like kinder, gentler mysteries in the vein of Miss Marple or Columbo, as it’s blissfully free of gruesome serial killers or brilliant investigators with messy personal lives.

MICHELLE: Actually, Kate, that sounds marvelous. I will join you in picking My Dear Detective!

SEAN: An excellent, sensible pick, and one I will try to balance out by picking utter trash. When the Villainess Seduces the Main Heroine is, let’s face it, what we all wanted from Bakarina but never got. It’s not good, but it’s funny.

ANNA: I’m going to pick Destroy All Humans. They Can’t Be Regenerated. A Magic: The Gathering Manga not because I think I’m going to read it but because I think it is amazing that there’s a manga based on a MTG card.

ASH: While I am likewise amazed at the existence of a MTG manga of this type, My Dear Detective is the (print) debut that has captured most of my attention this week and am most looking forward to reading.

SEAN: I’ve loved Julietta Suzuki ever since the Karakuri Odette days, so my pick this week is definitely the debut of Otaku Vampire’s Love Bite.

MICHELLE: “Big same!” to everything Sean said.

ANNA: I agree, a new Julietta Suzuki series is something to celebrate!

KATE: This week, I’m taking a chance on Manga Biographies: Charles M. Schulz, The Creator of Snoopy and Peanuts ; if nothing else, it will put me in the right frame of mind for my annual viewing of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!.

ASH: I’ll have to admit, the release that I’m most interested in this week is probably KinnPorsche. Less because it’s a BL novel (granted, I really enjoy those!), but more because it’s being translated from Thai; very few Thai works of any genre have made it into English translation.

ASH: Any week that has a new volume of both Fist of the North Star and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is going to please me, but as far as the debut that I’m most curious about, my pick goes to The Boy I Loved Became the Jaded Emperor. I’ll always give a new fantasy josei manga a try!

MICHELLE: I’m still a little troubled by the “I took care of you when you were little and now I’ve been reincarnated and, probably, will be romantically interested in you” aspect, but yeah, going with the josei this week!

ANNA: It is more of a gamble than I usually take, but I will always be happy for more josei.

SEAN: I’ll be picking the debut of Victoria of Many Faces, whose author has written other series I greatly enjoy. Spies trying to live a quiet life and failing appeals to me.

SEAN: There are a pile of titles that I’m interested in this week, including some shoujo stuff that sounds old school (as I joked in manga the Week of), but yeah, just as Michelle goes “OMG, a Margaret title!”, I can’t help but go “OMG, a Big Comic Superior title!”. The creators are just gravy. My pick is Trillion Game.

KATE: I would read a phone book illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami–no, really, I would!–so I’m also picking Trillion Game.

MICHELLE: Same! I will probably also check out the feels-old-but-isn’t shoujo debuts, but the concept of this one’s just too unique to ignore.

ANNA: I’m very tempted by any new Margaret title, but the siren song of Ikegami illustrations is too much for me to resist, so I’m going to go with Trillion Game as well.

ASH: Likewise! While there are several debuts that have at least nominally caught my attention, Trillion Game is without question my pick this week.

MICHELLE: Otonari Complex for sure. True, the premise of a couple with confusing gender presentations is not new, but I haven’t personally read one in ages. Also, Makoto on this cover is reminding me of Kuranosuke from Princess Jellyfish, and I am here for it.

SEAN: Tempted as I am to ride the current meme and choose the Hatsune Miku title, I have to agree that Otonari Complex looks like the most interesting debut this week.

ASH: I’m not going to be the one to break this trend! Otonari Complex is definitely the debut that most intrigues me this week.

ANNA: All in for Otonari Complex!

SEAN: Apologies to Ai Yazawa, and I’m sure someone will pick her later on. But this is the final volume of Ascendance of a Bookworm, and I have to pick it. It’s made choices I wouldn’t, but it’s a series that has had some of the best worldbuilding in light novels for the last few years, and Myne/Rozemyne is a fantastic main character. Long May She Read.

MICHELLE: I’ll gladly accept that responsibility. *Last Quarter* for me! I don’t know anything about it but it’s Ai Yazawa and that’s enough for me.

ASH: I wholeheartedly support both of those picks, but I’m still going to add a third one into the mix; Giga Town: The Guide to Manga Iconography is a release that I’ve been very curious about since I first heard about it. I’m looking forward to some educational reading.

ANNA: New Ai Yazawa for me!

KATE: I’m joining Ash in making Giga Town my pick of the week; I’ve been excited about this title since the Mangasplainers first announced it last year.