Pick of the Week

MJ: My pick this week is probably pretty obvious, but I’ll put it out there anyway. Not only was I a well-documented fan of CLAMP’s xxxHolic, but I was also one of the few people who did not hate the end of the series. That xxxHolic: Rei seems to be starting off as though much of that ending didn’t happen, I admit I’m kind of hoping it’s got a lot more up its sleeve, and I’m willing to wait to find out. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the continuing adventures of the series’ original cast. So, yeah. I’ll be buying up the second volume with no hesitation whatsoever. Bring it on.

ASH: Even though it’s a smaller shipping list this week, there are still quite a few manga in which I’m interested. But, there’s only one that stands out for me as an immediate must-buy and that’s Satoshi Kon’s Opus. I’m very happy that his works are being released in English. I enjoyed Tropic of the Sea and am looking forward to reading more of his manga a great deal.

SEAN: The obvious choice would be Opus, but Ash already got that, so instead I will go with the final Neon Genesis Evangelion volume (available 11/25). I’ve been reading this series since Viz was putting it out in flipped 32-page comic books, and am ready to see if the ending will keep the main themes but avoid some of the depressing nihilism of the TV series.

What looks good to you this week?

SEAN: This may be the last chance I get to do it, so I apologize to all the other worthy series out this week. But my pick of the week is Higurashi: When They Cry: Dice-Killing Arc. An epilogue that delves further into the psychology of Rika Furude, it’s a lot darker than you’d expect, and while some of its motivations don’t make sense to me, it’s a fitting conclusion to the series (barring other side-stories that might get licensed in future). Also, Rika’s mom!

ASH: So many great manga are being released this week that it’s difficult to pick just one. But then I realized that the most recent volume of Takehiko Inoue’s Real was an option and that I couldn’t choose anything else. Real is a fantastic series and, in my opinion, one of the best comics currently being released in English.

MICHELLE: It is no exaggeration to say that I literally make a noise of delight upon realizing that another volume of Real is due for release, so I am going to have to go with Ash on this one.

ANNA: I knew there would be a lot of love for Real this week, which it certainly deserves. I’m going to make my pick the fourth volume of Gangsta though. This stylish seinen manga alternates between being gritty and heartwarming, and I’m looking forward to the further adventures of Worick and Nik as they navigate issues with the local mafia, the city of Ergastulum, and their own traumatic pasts.

MJ: Okay, wow, there are so many things here for me to choose from, I honestly do not know what to do. I’m always thrilled to see new volumes of Ooku and Real. They accumulate so slowly, I feel that I must carefully savor each new volume. And with both a new volume of Pandora Hearts *and* the art book Pandora Hearts Odds & Ends, I’m running the risk of fangirl overload this week. But the cover art alone has persuaded me to go with Yen Press’ new manhwa series, Milkyway Hitchhiking. I had a lot of love for the author’s earlier series One Fine Day (and I still maintain that if people aren’t actively ‘shipping No-Ah/Aileru, I don’t know what they’ve been doing with their time). The more I think about a new series from Sirial, the giddier I become. Gimme, gimme. Like. Now.

What looks good to you this week?

MJ: There are a number of really great choices coming our way this week, but since I’m guessing the juiciest of them will be chosen by others, I’ll allow myself the pleasure of picking the final omnibus volume of Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist. This is not only one of my favorite shounen series of all time, but also one of my favorite manga series, full stop. I’m thrilled that new readers may finally just be getting to the series’ glorious final chapters. I’m reliving my own experience vicariously through them—in my imagination at least.

ASH: Technically, the All You Need Is Kill omnibus was released last week, but because we initially forgot to mention it I’ll make a special point to pick it this week. I really enjoyed Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s original novel and I’ve been looking forward to reading the manga adaptation ever since I first learned that Takeshi Obata would be working on it.

ANNA: I know the fact that I’m so behind on 07-Ghost is a running joke, but I am really interested in finishing the series! So the latest volume is my pick of the week.

MICHELLE: I’m actually going to side with MJ on this one—Fullmetal Alchemist should be read by all manga fans!

SEAN: I kind of gave this away in my Manga the Week of post, but my pick is absolutely Showa: 1944-1953, Shigeru Mizuki’s story of WWII and its aftermath, how it impacted Japan, and how it impacted his own life. Go read this volume.

What looks good to you this week?

SEAN: There’s another giant pile of stuff that I’m interested in, but I’ll take the first omnibus of Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer from Seven Seas. I’ve reviewed the first volume digitally before, but am very pleased to see it in print: it’s rare to see a manga in the superheroes genre (as opposed to sentai or “group of fighters”), and there’s a lot of highly disturbing backstory to make this more edgy than most. Also, lizard. Can’t forget the lizard.

ASH: It is another great week for manga! Both What Did You Eat Yesterday? and Black Rose Alice are at the top of my list. But, seeing as I have yet to master the skill of simultaneously reading two manga at once, I’ll be reading Black Rose Alice first and so will make it my pick of the week. I absolutely loved the first volume of the series and can’t wait to read the second.

ANNA: There’s a lot of great manga coming out this week, and if Ash hadn’t picked Black Rose Alice that would have been my pick. I feel like I have an extra chance to highlight some great manga, and the finale of Phantom Thief Jeanne is not to be missed. I’m not sure if any other manga has an ending quite as unique as this one, but it’ll be on my top 5 of crazy manga endings, for sure.

MJ: While I’m decidedly interested in everything that’s been mentioned, but I’ll be the one to go for volume five of Fumi Yoshinaga’s What Did You Eat Yesterday? I really don’t think I’ll ever be able to get enough of this series (or Yoshinaga in general, frankly). The food is scrumptious, and she’s got a way with dialogue that is truly unmatched. More, please!

What looks good to you this week?

ASH: So many great manga are being released this week that it’s difficult to choose just one. There are debuting series, like Barakamon, that I’m intensely curious about. There are continuing series, like A Bride’s Story, that I will definitely be picking up. But if I have to choose just one manga this week, I must go with the penultimate volume of Blade of the Immortal. The series has been one heck of a ride, and there’s no way I’m going to miss finishing it.

MICHELLE: Although I had fun reading the latest volume of Bloody Brat, it kind of feels too insubstantial to be a pick of the week. Instead, I’ll go for Barakamon. I don’t know much about it, but it seems like it has potential to be my sort of thing.

ANNA: I’m a bit torn between A Bride’s Story and Barakamon, and I think I’ll have to go with Barakamon because new series are always exciting! The idea of a manga focusing on a fish out of water calligrapher sounds interesting to me.

SEAN: I’m getting far too much this week, but as for the pick, let’s make it one of my old favorites, Umineko When They Cry. These omnibuses are good value for money, and the story is getting clearer even as it also gets much darker. Always an excellent read, provided you don’t mind the omnipresent bullying and child abuse the title is throwing a light on.

MJ: I’m pretty much equal parts excited about Barakamon and the latest A Bride’s Story, but to satisfy my love of all things Makoto Shinkai, I’ll go for the manga adaptation of The Garden of Words, out this week from Vertical. I’ve enjoyed the manga adaptations of both Voices of a Distant Star and (especially) 5 Centimeters Per Second, so this release is a no-brainer for me. There is something about Shinkai’s inner world that always, always draws me in, and so far, I’ve had the same experience with manga adaptations of his work. Let’s hope my luck holds this time around!

What looks good to you this week?

SEAN: I suspect that most of Manga Bookshelf will be of a Sunny disposition this week. So I’ll pick out the Alice in the Country of Diamonds light novel, Bet on My Heart. Alice has always done very well for Seven Seas, so you’d think that this would be a gimme for them to pick up. But the company is known for being highly reluctant to get any novels after their past struggles, so I’m hoping this one is really something special. Plus we can look at Alice’s trauma in prose form now!

MICHELLE: When you put it like that, I feel bad that I likely won’t be checking it out. I’m just kinda overdosed on the whole Alice thing. But yes, I am definitely keen on this week’s release of a new volume of Sunny, which I am nowhere near tired of.

ASH: Sunny is definitely a must buy, but I’m actually going to take this opportunity to pick the final volume of No. 6. The series has gotten better and better with each installment and so I’m hoping that the conclusion will be a satisfying one. After being disappointed with the rushed ending of the No. 6 anime, I’m particularly interested in seeing how the manga will handle it.

MJ: I’m certainly buying Sunny—of that there’s no doubt. But since that’s already been chosen, I’m actually going to reach off the list this week to take a chance on the first volume of NETCOMICS’ Give to the Heart. It was officially released in stores last week, but NETCOMICS has been so far off our radar for the past couple of years, that it nearly skipped my notice completely. As I mentioned in last week’s 3 Things Thursday, I’ve had mixed feelings about the author’s prior series, but I’m feeling up for a bit of a risk when it comes to new women’s manhwa. I’m fairly heartened by the series’ first user review on the NETCOMICS website, which reads, simply, “This book gave me a reason to live longer.” I’ll take it!

ANNA: I’m going to go with Vagabond for my pick. Takehiko Inoue’s exploration of the life of Miyamoto Musashi is a modern day manga masterwork, and every new volume deserves to be celebrated.

What looks good to you this week?

MICHELLE: There are a few things I’ll be checking out this week, and while Say I Love You. and Blue Morning are certainly good enough to earn my pick, I must say that I am most looking forward to volume eight of Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, a compelling shounen adventure with some well-developed characters.

ASH: This is a good week with all sorts of manga releases that I’m interested in reading, but the manga I’m most curious about is Ajin. I’ve heard good things about the series, and dark seinen manga dealing with immortals and immortality sounds like it should be right up my alley.

ANNA: I just finished Say I Love You Volume 3 in preparation for the 4th volume coming out this week, so that is my pick! This series delves into some more realistic details about teen sexuality than many shoujo series. The characters also have much more frank discussions about the issues they are grappling with than I tend to expect. It is romantic, but much more grounded in reality than most of the shoujo that gets released over here.

SEAN: I’ll go with the 2nd omnibus of Whispered Words. It really is one of the best yuri stories to come out of Japan in the last few years, and manages to be in Comic Alive and yet not have a ton of fanservice. I greatly look forward to delving into Sumika and Ushio’s angst-ridden destiny some more.

MJ: Since many of this week’s releases have already been named, I’ll give my vote to the fifth volume of Shoko Hidaka’s Blue Morning. It’s been a long time since I had the opportunity to enjoy a plotty, multi-volume BL series like this, and it’s a real pleasure. Though aristocratic intrigue isn’t perhaps my romance genre of choice, Blue Morning is just idiosyncratic enough to charm me. This is perhaps my favorite of SuBLime’s licenses so far. Count me in for volume five!

What looks good to you this week?

SEAN: There’s an embarrassment of riches to pick from this week, but there’s one title that will be an obvious immediate read ASAP: Oresama Teacher. It’s simply the funniest shoujo manga out there, and I hope that anime fans who enjoyed Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, a shounen series also by Izumi Tsubaki, will give this one a try and see why the silliness may be partly biographical.

ASH: Any other week and I probably would have picked Vinland Saga, but I’ll stand with Sean this time in going for hilarious shoujo. Except my must read for the week is My Love Story!! I adored the first volume and am extremely curious to see how the manga works as a series.

MICHELLE: Despite a few of my favorites also on this list (it does give me a pang not to pick Natsume’s Book of Friends, given how much I’ve been loving it lately), the fact that volume two of My Love Story!! has been in my Amazon cart for at least a month makes it the obvious choice this go ’round.

ANNA: I love both hilarious and heartwarming shoujo. However, with autumn coming I find myself thinking that it would be fun to read manga where the main characters are bundling themselves up in furs, trudging through snow, and slaughtering the innocent. Therefore, the excellent Vinland Saga is my pick of the week.

MJ: I suppose I also come down on the side of slaughter, for though there are a number of interesting releases on the way this week (and, like others here, I’m very enthusiastic about the second volume of My Love Story!!), but it’s hard for me to look elsewhere in the wake of a new volume of Knights of Sidonia. This is still one of my favorite series currently running, and not just for its compelling mix of romance, sci-fi, and horror. I love its artwork so much, that if Vertical stopped releasing it today, I’d continue buying it in Japanese just so I could look at it. Definitely my must-buy title for the week.

What looks good to you this week?

ASH: It’s a very small shipping list this week for manga, but it also contains one of the volumes that I’m especially excited to see being released in English—Mentaiko Itto’s Priapus. After Gengoroh Tagame’s work, Priapus will be the first gay manga to receive a wide release in English as Bruno Gmünder expands its Gay Manga line. Itto’s work will probably appeal to a broader audience as well, seeing as Tagame’s can be rather…intense.

SEAN: It’s not really in my wheelhouse, but I can’t deny that Priapus should definitely be the pick of the week. That said, I’ll go with a title I will actually be reading, which is the new volume of My Little Monster, a fun shoujo series from our friends at Kodansha.

MICHELLE: I’m in the same boat as Sean. Priapus could be awesome, but the one I’m guaranteed to buy is the latest installment of My Little Monster. It’s in my Amazon cart as we speak!

ANNA: It is cool that more gay manga is being made available in English! That being said, I’m excited for the latest volume of Gundam: The Origin. I’m looking forward to setting aside a long afternoon soon to get caught up on all the space battles and Char Aznable being all Aznably.

MJ: I’ll bring things full-circle here, because the only thing on my list this week is Priapus. I’m thrilled that it is being released, and even though I realize I’m not its intended audience, I’m pretty psyched to read it as well.

What looks good to you this week?

SEAN: I realize that the rest of the team will be focusing on only one or two titles this week, but honestly, there’s TOO MUCH for me to choose. But since it only comes out once in a blue moon, I will push the others reluctantly aside and cast my vote for the 4th volume of dark fantasy Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro. If I recall, the 3rd volume ended with us worrying if Kuro would survive past the fourth, so I look forward to seeing how far she makes it.

MICHELLE: I guess my reaction to the release of a new volume of Goong pretty much sums up my feelings about the series. And we’re getting rather near the end, too!

ASH: The manga I’m probably looking forward to the most (and longest) this week is A New Season of Young Leaves. It takes something special for a school-based BL to catch my attention. In this case it’s the author, Venio Tachibana, whose previous work in English I’ve enjoyed tremendously.

ANNA: Like Michelle, I have to go with Goong. This manhwa has one of the most addictive soapy storylines and the elaborate illustrations of the characters are always lovely to look at. The new volumes can’t come out fast enough for me!

MJ: I’m also interested in A New Season of Young Leaves, but I admit there’s really only one way for me to go this week, and that’s Goong. Goong, Goong, Goong. There aren’t a lot of soapy series I’m following these days, but this one will be a favorite always. And it doesn’t hurt that it is released here in hearty, omnibus-sized chunks. It’s always satisfying, and always lovely to look at. I can’t wait to read more.

What looks good to you this week?

ASH: It’s a rather light week for manga releases, but even so there are still a few series, like Genshiken that I’m currently following. However, the releases I’m most curious about this week aren’t even manga, though they are manga-related. Kodansha’s branching out with the Attack on Titan guidebook, but I’m particularly interested in reading Before the Fall from Vertical, which generally shies away from light novels.

MICHELLE: I have fallen several volumes behind on Bokurano: Ours, so I don’t know for certain that it’s still as depressing yet fascinating as it was early on. Perhaps the kids find a way out of their predicament! With that hope in mind, I recommend the final volume!

SEAN: I’m a sucker for infodumps, so the appearance of the Attack on Titan Guidebook is good news for me. I look forward to seeing the likes and dislikes of the entire cast in their biographies.

ANNA: There isn’t much coming out this week that appeals to me, so my pick of the week is Sparkler Monthly. I checked out their offerings recently, and I’ve enjoyed the online comics I’ve read from them. Check out their membership drive!

MJ: Anna, what an inspired idea! I will join you in your enthusiasm for Sparker Monthly! Though I admit I initially subscribed pretty much solely for the latest chapters of Jen Lee Quick’s Off*Beat, I’ve stuck around for the rest, including Quick’s new comic Gatesmith, which is very intriguing so far.

What looks good to you this week?

SEAN: My pick is fairly obvious, so I will start. It’s well known among Hayate the Combat Butler fans that when Athena Tennos arrives, the comedy gives way to emotional drama with potentially tragic consequences. Vol. 24 of the series features the climax of that story. Not to say there’s no comedy at all – when one of your allies is dressed as a Power Ranger, there’s always something to laugh at. But the stakes are higher here than they’ve ever been, and Hayate fans, unless they hate Athena, should be ecstatic to finally see this in English.

MICHELLE: I’m going to have to go with the Dark Horse omnibus reissue of Legal Drug this week. I’m always delighted to see a former TOKYOPOP title back in print, and now fans can read it without the frustration of its unfinished status, as Dark Horse also plans to bring out the sequel next year! It’s definitely a good time to get on board.

ANNA: I’ll go ahead and pick the concluding volume of Dawn of the Arcana, since we left it off the list last week. This shoujo fantasy series was a delightful read, featured an occasionally sassy heroine, and delved into geopolitical issues much more than many readers would expect. There’s a sudden plot twist at the end that actually does put everything that happened in the previous volumes in an entirely new perspective.

ASH: I’ll admit, the release that I’m most interested in this week is the new Legal Drug omnibus. I still have my old TOKYOPOP volumes, but Dark Horse been doing a nice job with its CLAMP releases so I may end up picking it up anyway. Plus, it’s great to see the series finally available again for new readers.

MJ: It is pretty much impossible for me not to pick Dark Horse’s re-release of CLAMP’s Legal Drug. Yeah, I’m well-known as a CLAMP fan, but this is one of the series’ I’ve waited to see continued with the most verve, and this re-issue of the original series is the first step forward. Additionally, I was a huge fan of Carl Horn’s updated translation of Tokyo Babylon, so that’s something I’m looking forward to in this release as well. I’m really quite excited!

What looks good to you this week?

ASH: The first week of the month has quite a few manga releases and a good deal of variety among those. I’m always happy to see new volumes in series like What Did You Eat Yesterday? and Library Wars: Love & War, but I think my pick this week will go to the debut of Noragami: Stray God, a series that already shows a lot of promise in just its first volume. The manga’s premise might seem familiar, but it pulls it off with humor and charm.

SEAN: Busy week, but I will go with Library Wars: Love & War, a personal favorite.

MICHELLE: There are at least half a dozen appealing titles on this week’s release list, but I haven’t had a new volume of Skip Beat! to enthuse about since last December—and shan’t again ’til next April—so I simply must avail myself of the opportunity. Skip Beat! is great! Go, Skip Beat!.

ANNA: This is tough, as I am torn between Skip Beat! and Library Wars: Love & War. So torn, I think I’ll have to go for something completely different and pick Midnight Secretary. This final volume comes with a bonus story titled “Midnight Butler,” which was pretty great.

MJ: Well, there can never be too much Fumi Yoshinaga in the world for me, so I’ll be the one to go with the latest volume of What Did You Eat Yesterday?, out this week from Vertical. In a week with Yoshinaga, she’s likely to overshadow everything else with me, and this week is no exception. Gimme, gimme.

What looks good to you this week?

SEAN: There’s really not a lot of literary, “worthy” manga out this week. It’s a load of titles that are the manga equivalent of candy. So I reserve the right to pick one of my favorite guilty pleasures that everyone has abandoned but me – The Wallflower. I expect to see a lot of laughs, some possible incremental advances of romance, and no end in sight. So very, very bad for me. I love it.

MICHELLE: Given that I’m not following anything else being released this week, my pick kind of falls on Say I Love You. by default, but I really am enjoying this series and probably would’ve picked it anyway.

ASH: I’m actually really excited for the eighth volume of No. 6. Things have been getting exceptionally intense (and heartbreaking) as the series approaches its end. Plus, we get a illustration gallery and color pages in this, the penultimate volume!

ANNA: I’ll have to throw in with Michelle, Say I Love You is by far the most interesting manga coming out this week for me.

MJ: I realize this series will seem like a strange choice for me, but I’m going with the second volume of the Sword Art Online novel series. I really enjoy this world and its characters, and it’s nice to read some prose once in a while, even when it’s escapist prose. I’m there, SAO.

What looks good to you this week?

MJ: There isn’t a ton of manga I’m dying to buy this week, but enough that I did have to make a relatively difficult choice. In the end, I’ve embraced a favorite artist, even if it might not be the work I’m most interested in seeing from her–and that would be Hiromu Arakawa and her manga adaptation of The Heroic Legend of Arslan, debuting this week from Kodansha Comics. Since I love Arakawa’s storytelling at least as much as her art, it’s not giving me what I want most (*cough* Silver Spoon *cough*) but I’ll take it.

SEAN: Looking forward to Arslan, but my heart, as ever, belongs to Dorohedoro. Though given the kind of manga it is, it’s possible that my heart may have already been removed. And used as a mask. Or in pies.

ASH: It may be a relatively quiet week for new manga but I’m still interested in quite a few of the releases–the most recent volume of Dorohedoro and the debut of The Heroic Legend of Arslan being only two of them. But my pick for the week is unquestionably Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son. In addition to being a lovely and sensitive story about identity and growing up, it’s also a series that is personally very meaningful to me.

MICHELLE: And I’ll bring it ’round again to Arslan. I haven’t read anything of Arakawa’s aside from Fullmetal Alchemist, so I’m interested to see what she’ll do with this story.

ANNA: The third volume of Gangsta. is coming out this week! I really enjoyed the first two volumes of this stylish and intriguing seinen title, and I’m hoping that the third volume delves into some additional back story about the main characters.

What looks good to you this week?