Manga Bookshelf's Weekly Features

With very little new manga shipping this week, we’ve decided to do something a little different. Instead of choosing something fresh off the presses, each of us will recommend a title we’ve reviewed in the past six months that we feel deserves a moment in the spotlight. Check out our Picks below!

KATE: I’m glad I’m going first this week, because that allows me to recommend a Manga Bookshelf staff favorite: The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko. The first volume of this delightful, snarky comedy arrived in the final weeks of December, too late to make my Best Manga of 2010 list, but just in time to redeem my opinion of Tokyopop’s recent licensing choices. Many critics have been making favorable comparisons between Lady Kanoko and Harriet the Spy, not least because both stories feature young girls who fill notebooks with observations about their peers. What makes Kanoko so appealing, however, isn’t just that it shares plot points with Louise Fitzhugh’s famous story; it’s Kanoko herself, who uses her position as a neutral observer to help her classmates better understand their own behavior. Kanoko refuses to be pulled into their power struggles and romantic travails, making her an uncommonly independent, powerful shojo heroine. (She’s also blisteringly funny.) Assuming Tokyopop’s recent layoffs haven’t had a significant impact on their release calendar, volume two will arrive in stores next week.

MJ: I’m going to go in a bit of an unexpected direction here and recommend Seven Days: Monday-Thursday, the first of a two-volume BL series by Rihito Takarai & Venio Tachibana, released rather quietly on DMP’s Juné imprint last year. Though the second volume won’t come out here for months still, I have to admit it’s been lurking around in the back of my mind since I reviewed it in November. It’s not a showy series by any means, and its primary charm is in its emotional messiness, something I know I tend to appreciate more than most. Though it starts with an unbelievable premise (a boy offers himself up as a joke to a classmate with a reputation for dating any girl who asks him) the plot is just an excuse to explore adolescent confusion and awkwardness in the very best way possible. This was one of my favorite new BL series last year, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

DAVID: My pick is a book that seemed to slide in under the radar: Oji Suzuki’s A Single Match from Drawn & Quarterly. It’s an intriguing and challenging collection of short stories that were originally published in Garo, and Suzuki has a sensibility that’s simultaneously dreamlike and gritty. Chris Mautner did a fine job describing the creator’s approach in a review for The Comics Journal, saying “Perhaps the key is that Suzuki isn’t as interested in telling stories, per se, as much as he is in capturing certain moments — of memory, of awareness — and the emotions that roil underneath.” If all of the stories collected here aren’t equally successful, the majority of them are certainly intellectually and emotionally striking enough to merit close reading (and rereading). If you’re looking for an ambitious change of pace, A Single Match would be a fine choice. I reviewed the book back in February.

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Readers, recent title would you recommend?

Slim pickin’s at Midtown Comics means a bit of cheating this week. Thankfully, the Manga Bookshelf bloggers find ways to spend money under any conditions.

From MJ: I’m at a bit of a loss looking at this week’s list from Midtown, so I think I’ll cheat and pull from last week’s ComicList as quoted by David in his Upcoming post, especially since Midtown missed this book’s actual release! That would be volume six of Twin Spica, one of my picks for best new manga of 2010, and an ongoing favorite as well. I’m a few volumes behind (I’ve just bought volume four) but this is a great time to finally catch up. From my review of volume three, “Everyone in this series has suffered loss of some kind, but what is rare in a story with a teenaged protagonist is that the pain and loss of the story’s adult characters is given the same weight as the pain of its teens … By the end of this volume, I had tears running down my face, and I challenge any reader to avoid the same fate, adult or teen.”

From David: Choices are thin on the ground, aren’t they? Since you went with Twin Spica, I’m forced to cheat even harder and go with a comic from Marvel: Avengers: Children’s Crusade: Young Avengers. (That’s a lot of punctuation for a comic, isn’t it?) I’ll try and describe this succinctly: the Avengers are one of Marvel’s long-running teams of super-heroes, which means horrible things have happened to them, both in narrative and creative terms. During a period when they’d disbanded, possibly out of shame over their last crossover, a young group of heroes tried to fill the gap. These interesting teens starred in a few very enjoyable comics, but they had to mark a lot of time while the writer, Allan Heinberg, did other stuff. Now they have a mini-series where one of their members, an adorable gay super-teen named Wiccan, is looking for his amnesiac mother, and this comic is apparently related to that somehow. It’s drawn by Alan Davis, who is one of my favorite super-hero artists, and it features adorable gay super-heroes. (Wiccan has a boyfriend named Hulkling. Ignore the names and focus on the adorableness.)

From Kate: I’m going to order off the menu this week and go with volume one of Toradora! Imagine a shonen version of Kimi ni Todoke, and you have a good idea of what this romantic comedy is all about: its hero, Ryuchi, is a high school student whose scary face has doomed him to social obscurity. When he crosses paths with the class firecracker, however, his life is turned upside down, as his classmates wrongly assume he’s dating Taiga. (Do I even need to say, “Wacky hijinks ensue”?) Toradora! isn’t perfect by any means — the female characters are either relentlessly perky or relentlessly bossy — but a smart script and appealing hero make it enjoyable nonetheless.

Readers, what are your Picks this week?

It’s slim pickin’s once again this week at Midtown Comics. Check out recommendations from the Manga Bookshelf bloggers and special guest Michelle Smith!

From Kate: This week, I’m going to ignore my triskaidekaphobia and recommend the thirteenth volume of 20th Century Boys. We’re now a little past the midway mark in the series, and I can honestly say I have no idea where it’s headed. With a less capable author than Naoki Urasawa, I might be worried; I was one of those viewers who grew tired of Lost’s bolt-from-the-blue plotting after just two seasons. Urasawa, however, does an excellent job of convincing the reader to stay the course, offering tantalizing clues to the Friend’s identity while gradually revealing what went down on the eve of the millennium. I’m convinced that no matter how the series ends, I will believe in that ending, even if I didn’t forsee it.

From Michelle: This is probably going to be an unpopular choice, but I’m going to go with volume three of Bokurano: Ours. The series features a group of middle-school-aged children taking life-leeching turns piloting a mecha to protect Earth from invaders, and has some serious flaws, most notably the inability to allow readers to really get to know or care about any of these kids before it’s their turn to die. Many would eschew a story like this, and maybe it’s my complete and utter lack of a maternal drive talking, but I find it kind of fascinating. There hasn’t been any reason offered for this invasion, and I suspect that someone, somewhere is merely enjoying a bit of sport at humanity’s expense. We shall see!

From MJ: I’m going to go off the Midtown list this week and turn to the fine folks at Boston’s Comicopia, who say they’ll be seeing volume three of one of my favorite new series of last year, Nobuaki Tadano’s 7 Billion Needles, published in English by Vertical, Inc. This is my second time around with this series as a Pick, but it’s really that good. Check out my review of volume two here. A quote: “Though the story’s horror/sci-fi elements are what keeps its plot going, the real heart of this story is Hikaru’s journey toward becoming a real, living participant in her world, and this is a story Tadano tells very well.” I’m very much looking forward to digging into the newest volume.

From David: I was hoping someone would fudge their source before I had to do so. I’m going to again use the ComicList for my pick, which would be the first omnibus of Yu Aida’s Gunslinger Girl (Seven Seas). Ages ago, when I was still writing the Flipped column for Comic World News, I asked various manga bloggers to share what they felt were overlooked comics. Ed (MangaCast) Chavez, now with Vertical, mentioned Gunslinger Girl, describing it as a “[w]ell drawn primer to pop-culture perversion.” I’ve been curious ever since, and this seems like an economical and convenient way to slake that curiosity, though I may live to regret it.

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Readers, what are your picks this week?

The pickings are slim this week at Midtown Comics, but it’ll take much worse to stop these bloggers from finding a way to spend their money.

From David: I’ve made a conscientious effort to like Kaori Yuki’s manga, but I’ve had limited success. I always end up appreciating the style but not getting invested in the story or characters. I’m happy to report that I’m having good luck with Yuki’s Grand Guignol Orchestra, so my pick for this week will be the second volume of that series. I wrote a brief review of it last week, and I’ll tempt you further with this brief snippet: “Our protagonists go undercover in a convent, looking for a sacred relic and investigating the grisly murders of young nuns. This mini-arc is shaping up to be both creepy and very funny, provided you find secretive nuns committing and subjected to unexpected violence funny, which, I assure you, I do.”

From Kate: Oh, manga, I’m stepping out on you this week. I just can’t muster the enthusiasm for Jormungand or Maoh: Juvenile Remix, and Biomega descended into incoherent nonsense two volumes ago. My pick, therefore, is issue six of The Walking Dead Weekly (Image). When I first heard that Image would be re-issuing the series, I was skeptical: who would really want to read it in weekly installments when The Walking Dead was already collected into trade paperbacks? Turns out the answer is me. The story is a familiar one, fashioned from the DNA of 28 Days, I Am Legend, and Dawn of the Dead, but it scores major points for brisk pacing, strong characterizations, and sharp artwork. What’s genuinely surprising, however, is just how well the story works in thirty-two page installments. The issues aren’t exactly self-contained, but each has a satisfying dramatic arc. I’m hooked!

From MJ: I, too, have difficulty getting behind any of this week’s new releases, so I’m going to follow David’s lead and pick out something that was technically released last week. I’m also going to go even further off our usual Midtown Comics list by choosing something available only online. My Pick is volume four of Sooyeon Won’s Full House, recently completed with the release of chapter six at NETCOMICS’ online portal. I’ve fallen a bit behind with this delicious screwball romantic comedy manhwa, but witness my enjoyment of the first two volumes here. This is a great time to pick up the series, even from scratch, with each volume coming in at $1.50 apiece ($.25 per chapter) for a 48-hour rental period. Though I do wish NETCOMICS offered some kind of ownership option, (preferably chapter downloads, though I’d settle for an eManga-style permanent rental) it’s hard to quibble with the price.

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Though MJkicks off this week’s Picks with a new shoujo favorite, the theme of the week is resoundingly shounen, according to David, Kate, and special guest Michelle Smith!

From MJ: There’s quite a bit of new shoujo on Midtown Comics’ list this week, including favorites like Kimi ni Todoke and Seiho Boys’ High School! But the one I most consider an absolute must-read is volume two of previous Pick The Story of Saiunkoku, art by Kairi Yura, adapted from the novels by Sai Yukino. The series’ first volume charmed me completely with its smart, capable heroine and compelling palace intrigue, even earning itself a place on my list of Best Manga of 2010. Don’t believe me? Check out David’s recent review, fully as delightful a read as the book itself. A strong opening volume can be a tough act to follow, so I look forward to discovering what Yura and Yukino have in store.

From David: I’m going to take this opportunity to remind people of my abiding love for Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece and pick the 56th volume of this sprawling, hilarious pirate saga. It would probably not be wise to recommend that someone who has never picked up a volume of this series start with the 56th volume, unless that person is a fan of great action cartooning. Our hero, Luffy D. Monkey, is staging a massive jailbreak, battling sinister jailers and gathering an ever-larger gang of allies along the way. The chief joy in these giant set pieces is to see how Oda manages to combine wildly improbable action, comedy, and heart in a mad jumble that always seems on the verge of spinning out of control, but never does.

From Kate: My choice is Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, a new shonen series that VIZ has been promoting up a storm. The story focuses on a young teen whose grandfather leads a demon clan. Gramps wants Rikuo to follow in his footsteps, but there’s a catch: Rikuo is only one-quarter demon, and can’t control when or for how long he turns into a yokai. Not surprisingly, Rikuo’s iffy powers don’t inspire much confidence among the full-blooded yokai, and various factions try to prevent Rikuo from succeeding his grandfather. The story hasn’t quite found its groove: the comic relief scenes aren’t particularly funny, and the characters haven’t come into their own yet. But the pacing is smart and the yokai designs nifty (think Gegege no Kitaro meets the Hokusai Manga), so I think it’s worth pursuing, especially for readers who liked Kekkaishi and Natsume’s Book of Friends.

From Michelle: It’s another wallet-busting week for manga! I’m definitely excited about new volumes of some Shojo Beat favorites, as well as volume three of Bakuman, which I realize isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but honestly, the one release on this list that has me going, “Eee!” more than any other is volume fourteen of Slam Dunk. Why? Because I’m allowed to read this one! You see, this is a series that benefits from being read in multiple-volume chunks, which occasionally requires me to bide my time and sit on some books until I have amassed enough to read them. I’ve been doing that with volume thirteen. Honestly, two volumes really aren’t enough to satisfy one’s appetite, but it’s better than nothing! And yes, I know, I know. I really should read Inoue’s REAL, which is, I’m sure, the better manga, but that doesn’t keep me from loving Slam Dunk whole-heartedly.

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So, readers, what is your must-buy manga this week?

With the addition of new authors to the Manga Bookshelf family of blogs, it seemed like the right time to refresh this weekly feature with more diversity of opinion. To that end, both Kate and David will now be joining in offer up their weekly Picks. And as a bonus, we have a Pick from Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith. So take your pick of the Picks below or stretch your pocketbook and pick up all four!

From MJ: There isn’t a lot of excitement to be found for me in this week’s batch of incoming manga, though there are a couple of bright spots. A new volume of Sand Chronicles is always welcome, of course, but my eye is especially drawn to volume five of Natsume’s Book of Friends, one of my favorite new shoujo series last year. I got a bit bogged down with it during volume three, but here’s a snippet from my thoughts on volume four: “The volume begins on a strong note, by introducing a troubled yokai who ends up inhabiting the body of a snow bunny (not the kind found on ski slopes, but in children’s back yards) in order to try to reunite with his one-time companion who had been driven to the dark side by the cruelty of humanity. While that concept sounds at once unbearably cutesy and melodramatic, its execution is anything but. It’s subtle and moving, and in that moment, the series won me back completely.”

The emotional content of this series has really refined itself beautifully over the course of its run so far, and I’m really looking forward to picking up the this week’s volume.

From David: I missed the first volume of this series, and I have no idea if it’s particularly good or not, but I was very struck by the style of the covers of Kurozakuro (Viz), written and illustrated by Yoshinori Natsume. I tend not to be a big shounen fan, but I’ve done pretty well with the titles in Viz’s Shonen Sunday imprint. This one is about a boy who finds that he’s turning into an ogre and wants to eat people, which isn’t your standard young-man-with-a-dream problem. The preview on the Shonen Sunday site looks kind of promising, particularly in terms of the style of the illustrations.

From Kate: I’m going to put on my Good Comics for Kids hat and champion Panda Man and the Treasure Hunt, the second installment of a new graphic novel/activity book/chapter book series from VIZ Kids. The first volume of Panda Man was perfect for seven- or eight-year-olds: it had stylish artwork, plenty of slapstick, and enough bathroom humor to satisfy the most discerning fart joke connoisseur. Oh, and mazes, connect-the-dot exercises, and drawing tips, making it a great choice for keeping kids busy on a car ride or a plane trip. The second volume finds Panda Man going mano-a-mano with pirates in search of treasure. I’m guessing the plot may be a little disjointed — the first volume was more a collection of gags than a story — but I can’t imagine it will be anything less than entertaining. Even an adult can appreciate a hero whose primary weapons are smelly feet and an overactive GI tract; as someone who rode the NYC subway for years, I can attest to the awesome, crippling power of stinky toes!

From Michelle: For me, the automatic purchase this week is volume 40 of Takeshi Konomi’s The Prince of Tennis. I recently completed a marathon read to get current on the series, and though many ridiculous elements offer themselves up as reasons for mockery—chief among them Konomi’s decision to depict the pinnacle of tennis achievement with glowing auras and sparkles (both visible to spectators)—I would never for a moment dream of giving up on it before its completion, even though the product description warns me to expect “a wicked case of amnesia” in this latest volume. That’s my Prince of Tennis: incredibly silly and yet so irresistible.

So, readers, what’s your Pick this week?