Pick of the Week

MICHELLE: Hm… I think this week I’m going to go with Elegant Yokai Apartment Life. I started watching the anime recently and it’s charming and weird, which has vaulted the manga to the top (well, near the top, at least) of my to-read pile.

SEAN: I’ve heard good things about Invitation from a Crab, and am also interested in After the Rain. My pick, through, is for the 8th and final Kagerou Daze light novel. The books may be very short, and based on a series of songs, but they’ve also got disparate characters uniting and trying to change their fate – something I’m a sucker for.

ASH: The quirky and artsy Invitation from a Crab is definitely one of my top picks for this week, the other being the deluxe release of Abara.

ANNA: Abara wasn’t on my radar at all before but I’m curious about it! That’s my pick!

MJ: Like Ash, I’m pretty torn between Invitation from a Crab and Abara, and I’m not sure I can choose just one.

SEAN: There are a pile of things out this week I’m interested in. The final After Hours, new volumes of Horimiya, Silver Spoon and Yowapeda. But I’m sorry, I cannot resist a croc in a top hat. Especially when it’s secretly a foodie manga. Crocodile Baron is my pick this week.

MICHELLE: And I can’t resist sports manga, so it’s totally Yowapeda for me!

ASH: I’m definitely looking forward to the most recent (and far too infrequent) release of Yowamushi Pedal, but my pick this week goes to The Golden Yarn. I’m curious to see if The Ancient Magus’ Bride holds the same sort of dark charm in prose as it does in manga.

ANNA: I almost have to pick Crocodile Baron just for the cover, but I am nothing but steadfast in my championing of romance, so I’m going to go with Ne Ne Ne as my pick.

MJ: SILVER SPOON! SILVER SPOON! SILVER SPOON!

KATE: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’m throwing my weight behind Silver Spoon again, if only to remind everyone that it’s REALLY good, and they should be reading it.

MICHELLE: It’s a big VIZ week, which means new volumes of many favorites for me. I’m excited for new installments of Yona of the Dawn and Takane & Hana in particular, but it’s the series finales that are primary contenders this week. I have definitely enjoyed reading Kuroko’s Basketball and am a little bummed it’s ending already (30 volumes seems short for a sports manga nowadays!) but, really, there’s no contest. It’s gotta be Kimi ni Todoke. I love this series so very much and kind of can’t believe it’s going to be over.

SEAN: I’m definitely interested in We Never Learn, the new Jump romantic comedy, but yeah, no real contest. The final volume of Kimi ni Todoke is one I’ve been both waiting for and wanting to avoid. I expect it to be very good.

ASH: Viz primarily has my attention this week, too. I’m following several of the series with new releases, but I’ll have to admit I’m a bit behind on just about all of them. Queen’s Quality is probably the manga that’s up next for some catching up, though, so I’ll make that one my pick.

ANNA: There are so many great series coming out this week. I have to pick the manga that I read immediately, it doesn’t even have time to rest in the to-be-read pile by my bed. That manga is Yona of the Dawn which is consistently wonderful.

KATE: My vote goes to the latest installment of The Promised Neverland. Emma is the best reason to read TPN: she’s the big beating heart of this dystopian adventure story, but also its brains. Her courage and determination are hard to resist, making it easier to soldier through the onslaught of grim plot twists.

MJ: I feel like a traitor to Takeshi Obata, but I’m also going to make Queen’s Quality my pick this week. Like Ash, I have some catching up to do there!

MICHELLE: So do I!

SEAN: Tempting as it is to rest on my laurels and pick A Bride’s Story, I suspect the rest of Manga Bookshelf has me covered there. So I’ll pick Katanagatari: Sword Tale, Nisioisin’s new tale about swords. It’s long but very dense.

KATE: At the risk of becoming the most predictable member of the MB gang, I’m going to nominate both Blissful Land and A Bride’s Story. Let’s face it: you can never have enough beautifully drawn manga about life along the Silk Road. My inner historian is salivating at the prospect!

MICHELLE: Even though I’m sure I’ll love A Bride’s Story, the sad fact is that I haven’t yet read it, so I feel weird picking volume ten. I guess I’m going to go with the latest Ace of the Diamond because the most recent volume had the formerly brash protagonist earnestly declaring how much he loves and respects his teammates. I’m a sucker for that sort of thing.

ASH: A Bride’s Story is a lovely tale and visually stunning. (Michelle, you really should give it a try!) It’s definitely my pick of the week, though I am also interested in Yoshitaka Amano: The Illustrated Biography, which should likewise be a beautiful volume.

ANNA: I’ll have to go with A Bride’s Story too, it is such a special series!

MICHELLE: Another week with several really strong contenders for pick of the week! Shojo FIGHT! and Beasts of Abigaile will definitely be near the top of my to-read pile, but the big contest is between Ooku and Wotakoi. In the end, I am going to go with Wotakoi this time. I love Ooku a lot, but I know I’ve picked it before, and Wotakoi is appealing from a lifting-one’s-spirits sort of angle.

SEAN: Unsurprisingly, I’m looking at novels this week. I Want to Eat Your Pancreas has the award-winning cred, and though I expect I may get depressed after reading it, that’s my pick.

ASH: For ongoing series, Ooku and Wotakoi are both very high on my list as is the continuation of I Hear the Sunspot. But my pick this week officially goes to the debut of Ran and the Gray World, which looks like it should be absolutely wonderful.

ANNA: I’m going to go with Ran and the Gray World too. I’m going to check it out!

MJ: Fumi Yoshinaga always wins for me, so I’ll be the one to pick Ooku. It’s always a wonderful treat to see it turn up on the list!

KATE: Sorry to be bringing up the rear — I’m in paper grading purgatory right now! My pick of the week is Good Dog, Cerebus! which looks like the kind of cute, fluffy escapism I’m craving at the moment. My second pick — if I’m allowed one — would be PEZ, which looks gorgeous.

SEAN: A ridiculous amount of stuff, as I said. I’m interested in Bakarina, and the final volume of Frau Faust. There’s always a place in my picks for Requiem of the Rose King too. That said, given it’s been TWO AND A HALF YEARS since the last volume, I feel I can only pick Yotsuba&! this week.

KATE: Any week that brings us new installments of Delicious in Dungeon and Yotsuba&! is a good week! ‘Nuff said.

SEAN: Right, and Delicious in Dungeon, which gets more disturbing and dark by the volume (in a good way).

MICHELLE: Oh, man. So much great stuff this week! Since some of my other faves have been acknowledged, I reckon that frees me up to go with the final volume of Frau Faust, which I am looking forward to very much. It wasn’t until I’d read the first few volumes of Frau that I went to check out Kore Yamazaki’s The Ancient Magus’ Bride, and I love it so much that it now makes me sad Frau Faust is so short. Oh well. I bet it’ll be a humdinger of an ending.

ASH: Delicious in Dungeon is definitely one of my favorite series currently been released, but then so is Requiem of the Rose King. It seems like it’s been longer since I’ve had the chance to read Requiem of the Rose King though, so I’ll happily make that my official pick.

MJ: I absolutely have to go with Requiem of the Rose King. I missed my chance to flail with excitement during the last “Manga the week of,” so I’ll do that here instead. *flail*

ANNA: Requiem of the Rose King is such a special series, any week it comes out it will always be my pick.

ASH: For me, it’s a shonen sort of week. In addition to a number of ongoing series from Viz that I’m following (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Haikyuu!, and so on) there’s also the new one-shot That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha which looks like it should be a ridiculous amount of fun.

KATE: As hard as it may be for me to say this… I’m not really jazzed about anything arriving in stores on Wednesday. I think this is going to be a tackle-the-stack week for me. But that’s OK — I have new volumes of Dead Dead Demon, Again!!, The Promised Neverland, and Silver Spoon on my nightstand, as well as a pristine copy of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters that begs to be read.

ANNA: I thought the first volume of Shortcake Cake was super adorable, so volume 2 is my pick this week.

SEAN: I’m still greatly enjoying Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, a very funny take on two overly intellectual nerds and their attempts to understand love. I’ll make that my pick this week.

MICHELLE: I’m looking forward to more Haikyu!! and to checking out Shortcake Cake, but it’s gotta be Chihayafuru for me!

SEAN: An excess of Yen Press this week. I suspect my colleagues will be going for Silver Spoon, as they should. And I admit to being intrigued by High School Prodigies Have it Easy Even in Another World, which sounds silly if nothing else. But my pick this week is the 2nd volume of Teasing Master Takagi-san, which is adorably cute and funny.

MICHELLE: I also am going to trust someone else to pick Silver Spoon so that I might weigh in in favor of Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts. I started the first volume this week and it’s pretty fun, kind of like a more light-hearted The Ancient Magus’ Bride sort of feeling. I am enjoying it so far and keen to see how the story develops.

MJ: I will set Sean and Michelle’s minds at ease by openly and wholeheartedly choosing Silver Spoon! Silver Spoon always. Silver Spoon forever.

KATE: I’ll bite: read Silver Spoon! It’s funny and real and just plain awesome, and deserves a bigger, more enthusiastic reception from American manga readers. (How’d I do, Michelle?)

MICHELLE: You get a gold star!

ANNA: I’m going to randomly pick Versailles of the Dead. I haven’t read it at all yet, but it sounds like the spookiest debut manga this week.

ASH: I will not so randomly pick the debut of Versailles of the Dead as I’m very curious about the series, but Silver Spoon definitely continues to be at the top of my list, too.

ASH: Were I a reader of digital manga, my pick this week would most likely be the debut of Forest of Piano. Alas, that is not yet to be. Fortunately, I’ve also been greatly looking forward to the release of Mob Psycho 100, so that’s what I’ll be choosing this time.

MICHELLE: Those are definitely my top two pics, too, but I can’t help but feel that by Kodansha releasing so much Forest of Piano at once, I’m already somehow behind on it. Mob Psycho 100 seems a little easier to commit to at the present moment.

SEAN: Actually, given the page counts, it’s 7 omnibuses, so probably 14 volumes. And yeah, I’m gonna be so far behind. Love you, seinen piano manga, but Mob Psycho 100 for me as well.

KATE: What Michelle said!

ANNA: Like everyone else, I’m torn between Forest of Piano and Mob Psycho 100. But due to me feeling extra guilty about being so far behind in other digital titles like Chihayafuru, that just pushes me further in the direction of Mob Psycho 100.

SEAN: There’s nothing that screams BUY ME! this week, but there are some ongoing titles I quite like. I will go with the 3rd Dead Dead Demon’s Dededededdestruction as my pick, as it’s reliably excellent so far.

MICHELLE: I’ve already sung the praises of Giant Killing several times, but I continue to enjoy this seinen take on sports manga very much. It’s my pick this week.

KATE: I’m going to shill for Dead Dead Demon again, since it’s currently one of my favorite new series of 2018. For anyone who’s been on the fence about this title, I encourage you to give it a try; it’s dark and funny without ever tipping into misery porn, a la Goodnight Pun-Pun or The Girl on the Shore.

ANNA: I haven’t read Dead Dead Demon yet, but I’ve been stockpiling the volumes. I expect I will like it just as much as Kate does, so that’s my pick too!

ASH: Dead Dead Demon is absolutely worth picking up (and I certainly will be), but for me this week the series also has to contend with the newest Junji Ito manga to be released in English–Frankenstein.

MICHELLE: I am completely unable to resist a tale billed as “a charming tale of friendship between a Japanese woman and her Muslim roommate.” Slice-of-life hilarious adventures involving mutual respect? Yes, please!

SEAN: Same. Seven Seas has done wonders this year to make everyone sit up and pay attention to them, and this is one reason why. Satoko and Nada is definitely my pick this week.

ANNA: This sounds absolutely adorable. Looking forward to checking out Satoko and Nada.

ASH: As usual, there are a few things I’m interested in this week, but nothing else has quite captured my attention like the debut of Satoko and Nada! It should be a delight.

KATE: Ditto!

MJ: I was so determined to find something different and unpredictable to say here, but yeah. It’s Satoko and Nada for me too. All the way.

SEAN: My pick of this week is the massive 1500+-page tome, Ao Haru Bleach Exorcist’s Basketball and Volleyball Academia at the Promised Neverland, starring The Water Dragon’s Bride and Yona of the Dawn, with gags brought to you by Pop Team Epic. It’s sure to be an absolute stunner.

(Or, if I don’t massively cheat, Ao Haru Ride. And Pop Team Epic. Oh, and Neverland. And… dammit.)

KATE: Since I’m one of five people in the mangasphere who knows nothing about Pop Team Epic or Ao Haru Ride, I’m casting my votes for the next installments of Again!! and The Promised Neverland. The evil you know, y’know?

ANNA: Surprising no one, I am going to pick Ao Haru Ride, I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time!

MICHELLE: I’ll be reading most of what else has been alluded to, but yes, it’s gotta be Ao Haru Ride for me.

ASH: So many great continuing (and debuting) series this week! I’d particularly like to highlight Captain Harlock as I’m really digging Seven Seas’ line of classic manga.

MJ: Ao Haru Ride! That’s the one for me. How predictable.

MICHELLE: Normally, I would be extolling The Girl from the Other Side in this space, and I still fully intend to rave about it, but After the Rain sure looks appealing. I think I’ll favor this debut with my pick this week instead.

KATE: The Girl from the Other Side is my favorite ongoing series right now, so I’m glad I have a chance to plug it again. It’s so good, in fact, that only all-caps will do in explaining how GORGEOUS AND AMAZING AND HEARTBREAKING it is.

SEAN: I love The Girl from the Other Side, but wow is it bleak, so I too will make my pick the debut of After the Rain.

ANNA: The Girl from the Other Side might be bleak, but it is such a unique title, both in story and art, I have to pick it!

ASH: It’s my pick, too! The Girl from the Other Side has such tremendous atmosphere.

SEAN: My Brother’s Husband 2. Wow, that was easy.

MICHELLE: Yep.

KATE: In the interest of making this a polysyllabic Pick of the Week, I’ll agree with Sean and Michelle’s choice while adding two of my own: volume six of Golden Kamuy, everyone’s favorite manly cooking manga, and volume one of 20th Century Boys, back again as a series of handsome two-in-one omnibus volumes. If you missed Naoki Urasawa’s twisty thriller the first time around, now’s your chance to discover what all the fuss is about.

ASH: The final volume of My Brother’s Husband is definitely my pick this week although, like Kate, I have my eye on a few other things as well, including Golden Kamuy, the debut of Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu, and the last bit of Erased.

ANNA: There’s a lot of great manga coming out this week, but I’m going to take the opportunity to celebrate the new edition of Twentieth Century Boys. A great opportunity for people who missed it the first time around.

MJ: I will use more than one syllable, but there’s only one choice for me this week. My Brother’s Husband. The end.

ASH: So many interesting manga are being released this week, it’s difficult to pick just one! A couple in particular have especially caught my attention, though. There’s Dementia 21 which should be… memorable, and then there’s Dragon Goes House Hunting which has a premise that delights me utterly.

MICHELLE: I am also really, really delighted by Dragon Goes House Hunting, but I know that I will love the latest volume of The Ancient Magus’ Bride, so that’s my official pick this week.

KATE: I can’t limit myself to a single pick, especially since there are so many intriguing debuts! Topping my list would be Dragon Goes House Hunting followed by The Delinquent Housewife! and Tomo-chan Is a Girl!, though I’m also curious about Radiant. I’m also curious about — and wary of — Dementia 21, which looks like the stuff nightmares are made of.

SEAN: As others have noted, there’s an embarrassment of riches this week. I think I will throw my lot in with The Delinquent Housewife!, whose cover art and description combine to make it look like it was written just for me.

ANNA: I agree, The Delinquent Housewife! looks hilarious just judging from the cover! That’s my pick as well.

MJ: I feel a bit iffy on this week’s releases as a whole, but I think I’ll throw in my vote for Radiant. Wizards are generally a win for me, so I’m going to bet that I’ll like it!