MJ: We’ve got some interesting titles to choose from this week—not a lot in the way of long-standing favorites, but quite a bit of variety. Given my initial reaction to this series’ cover images, I’m surprised to hear myself saying this, but I’m giving my vote this week to volume two of Yuuki Kodama’s Blood Lad. I enjoyed volume one quite a bit—more than my colleagues, I believe—so I’ll be delving into the second volume with a great deal of optimism. Apparently, otaku vampires are my thing after all! This title was a surprise hit for me, and I’m really looking forward to continuing with it.
SEAN: We’ve finally hit the last bad end of Higurashi: When They Cry, and it’s a really bad end, as you’d expect with the title Massacre Arc. The arc after this is a bit contested among fandom, but everyone seems to love this one, which may end in tragedy but is the emotional catharsis of every other arc that came before it. It may not run in Jump, but the precepts of Friendship and Training (well, living through the arcs could be considered training in a way) are here in spades, and will help to achieve Victory in the Festival Accompanying Arc. No victory here, though. But oh so close.
MICHELLE: I think I’m gonna go with Durarara!! Saika Arc this week. As I wrote in a recent Off the Shelf, so far “this is shaping up to be a lot more linear than the original, and I’d say a definite improvement.” The story’s self-contained, so one could start here, but be prepared for a disorienting glut of characters at first. Since you’d encounter the same even if you started at the actual beginning, though, there’s really no difference.
ANNA: I think Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin comes out this Tuesday, and I am genuinely excited for that. Based on the Japanese Aizoban editions and produced by Vertical, this is a manga that should be a treat to own.
Readers, what looks good to you this week?
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