• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Comment Policy
    • Disclosures & Disclaimers
  • Resources
    • Links, Essays & Articles
    • Fandomology!
    • CLAMP Directory
    • BlogRoll
  • Features & Columns
    • 3 Things Thursday
    • Adventures in the Key of Shoujo
    • Bit & Blips (game reviews)
    • BL BOOKRACK
    • Bookshelf Briefs
    • Bringing the Drama
    • Comic Conversion
    • Fanservice Friday
    • Going Digital
    • It Came From the Sinosphere
    • License This!
    • Magazine no Mori
    • My Week in Manga
    • OFF THE SHELF
    • Not By Manga Alone
    • PICK OF THE WEEK
    • Subtitles & Sensibility
    • Weekly Shonen Jump Recaps
  • Manga Moveable Feast
    • MMF Full Archive
    • Yun Kouga
    • CLAMP
    • Shojo Beat
    • Osamu Tezuka
    • Sailor Moon
    • Fruits Basket
    • Takehiko Inoue
    • Wild Adapter
    • One Piece
    • After School Nightmare
    • Karakuri Odette
    • Paradise Kiss
    • The Color Trilogy
    • To Terra…
    • Sexy Voice & Robo
  • Browse by Author
    • Sean Gaffney
    • Anna Neatrour
    • Michelle Smith
    • Katherine Dacey
    • MJ
    • Brigid Alverson
    • Travis Anderson
    • Phillip Anthony
    • Derek Bown
    • Jaci Dahlvang
    • Angela Eastman
    • Erica Friedman
    • Sara K.
    • Megan Purdy
    • Emily Snodgrass
    • Nancy Thistlethwaite
    • Eva Volin
    • David Welsh
  • MB Blogs
    • A Case Suitable For Treatment
    • Experiments in Manga
    • MangaBlog
    • The Manga Critic
    • Manga Report
    • Soliloquy in Blue
    • Manga Curmudgeon (archive)

Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Yoko Nogiri

Four New Shoujo Series from Kodansha

April 7, 2019 by Michelle Smith

Note: With the exception of Love in Focus, these are digital-only releases.

Love in Focus, Vol. 1 by Yoko Nogiri
Having really enjoyed Nogiri-sensei’s That Wolf-boy Is Mine!, I was happy to see another of her titles get licensed. Alas, it’s another short series.

Mako Mochizuki is entering her first year of high school and has been invited by her childhood friend, Kei Akahoshi, to attend a school almost four hours away from home by train. Both of them are really into photography, having been taught by Mako’s grandfather before he passed away, and this school has a photography club with a professional for an advisor. Furthermore, they both live in a boarding house occupied almost entirely by club members. The one outlier is another first year, an introverted guy named Mitsuru Amemura who claims to hate photos.

I really enjoyed Mako as a protagonist, and probably will always enjoy a lead character who’s truly passionate about something (and good at it, too). I also liked that it’s the way she sees the world, and her ability to find beauty in the smallest things, that convinces Amemura to open up about his past and consent to be her photographic subject. I could definitely do without Kei and his pissy possessiveness of Mako (even if he did invite her because he understood how lonely she was at home without her beloved grandpa) and hope that we’re not going to be expected to buy into a love triangle scenario.

It’s true there are shades of Shortcake Cake in this story, but it’s distinct enough that I intend to follow both of them. Also, this one has a really cute dog.

Love in Focus is complete in three volumes. Kodansha will release volume two in English in May.

My Sweet Girl, Vol. 1 by Rumi Ichinohe
My Sweet Girl has a fairly generic premise: Tsugumi Koeda (her last name means “twig”) is a short, skinny girl who believes she’s not the kind of person who gets to fall in love. “No guy has ever looked at me as a girl in my whole life,” she narrates, but this changes when she meets popular Masamune Sena, your standard princely shoujo love interest, who inspires her to begin expressing her femininity more overtly.

On the one hand, I liked Tsugumi’s insecurities about her physique and that she thinks things like, “I never, ever want to show my body to Masamune-kun.” Her wariness of being led on and her gradual realization that it’s okay to be more true to herself are good, too. On the other hand, the execution of this storyline at times leaves a lot to be desired. So many times, background characters will pipe up with cruel comments out of the blue and it feels so unrealistic. Like, random passing fifth graders berate Tsugumi for her appearance, and a group of boys who knew her in junior high interrupt her summer festival outing with Masamune just to call her a stick. We get that she faces some adversity, but this is verging on lame. Too, I lost track of how many times Tsugumi falls down, is knocked down, or passes out. It happens A LOT.

There’s enough to like about My Sweet Girl to entice me to return for a second volume, but if she falls down half a dozen more times in that one too, I probably won’t proceed to a third.

My Sweet Girl is ongoing in Japan, where the ninth volume has just come out. Kodansha will digitally release volume two on Tuesday.

Ran the Peerless Beauty, Vol. 1 by Ammitsu
Are you despondent now that Kimi ni Todoke has finished? Are you looking for a series with a similar feel? Look no further, because Ran the Peerless Beauty is here!

Ran Takamine is seemingly perfect. She’s beautiful, rich, extremely smart, and athletic. She’s also been deemed undateable, as boys are too intimidated to talk to her, expecting her standards to be sky-high. In reality, though, she’s a sweet girl who works really hard and is completely inexperienced with boys. When she accidently sprays Akira Saeki with a hose while diligently performing her duties for the Gardening Club, she’s surprised by how cheerful he is about it.

Gradually, they become friends, bonding over their love of flowers. Akira’s father runs a flower shop and his ambition is to get good enough to create bouquets. Ran joined the Gardening Club to help “sensei,” but adds, “I had the feeling that I’d rather be around flowers than people.” Akira can see that, rather than being snooty, she’s just a bit awkward.

What reminds me of Kimi ni Todoke is both Ran’s classic beauty and her attitude. Her male classmates won’t make eye contact with her, but not because they fear being cursed but because she shines too brightly, but she’s really just a normal person with her own weak points. Akira is sunny despite some scary family circumstances—it’s not until late in the volume that Ran learns his mother is in the hospital—and encourages Ran to come out of her shell a bit.

I can see this evolving into quite a lovely story, and I am so here for it. I also hope to learn more about Akira, his circumstances, and how he sees Ran. We do at least know that their growing feelings are mutual, which is nice.

Ran the Peerless Beauty is ongoing in Japan, where the fifth volume has just come out. Kodansha will digitally release volume two later this month.

World’s End and Apricot Jam, Vols. 1-2 by Rila Kirishima
The blurb for the first volume of World’s End and Apricot Jam wasn’t very encouraging. “After breaking into Anzu Shinohara’s apartment and smashing his already broken keyboard, Hina Sakata quickly finds herself in his debt. As she works to pay him back, Hina finds out that Anzu is a vocalist in a band and becomes entranced, wanting to explore more of his unkown world.” It’s all technically correct, but suggested to me something more Sensual Phrase-y than what actually occurs, to my great relief.

Hina lives with her father, who is ostensibly the manager of an apartment building. He spends his days getting drunk, however, so she takes over his duties so that he doesn’t lose his job. One of their tenants is the slovenly guy in #304, who turns out to be a singer in a band. He’s also full of contradictions—and I don’t mean his transformation from “goofy weirdo” to “charismatic vocalist”—as he finds himself repeatedly drawn to Hina only to pull himself back at the last second.

It’s true that Anzu’s indecisiveness plays with Hina’s emotions, but it does truly seem to be unintentional. He’s in his twenties and has done a lot of things that he’s not proud of. (“I’m no good and a liar.”) And here is this girl, so sweet and great, whom he comes to care for in a way he hasn’t cared for anyone in a long time, and yet… is it right to encourage her feelings when she’s an innocent and might be better off without the baggage of his past and his angst?

Ultimately, I liked this series a lot more than I was expecting to. I also like that it’s a fairly short series; these sorts of scenarios can get tiresome when they go on too long.

World’s End and Apricot Jam is complete in six volumes. Kodansha will digitally release volume three on Tuesday.

Review copies provided by the publisher.

Filed Under: Manga, REVIEWS, Shoujo Tagged With: Ammitsu, Rila Kirishima, Rumi Ichinohe, Yoko Nogiri

My Week in Manga: September 26-October 2, 2016

October 3, 2016 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Although it is now October, there is still time to participate in September’s manga giveaway. This time around everyone has a chance to win Yona of the Dawn, Volume 1, the beginning of Mizuho Kusanagi’s shoujo fantasy epic! I came across a few interesting things online last week that I’d like to share: “Strip!”: The Manga Art of Anno Moyoco” at Nippon.com (once upon a time, I hosted the Moyoco Anno Manga Moveable Feast); The Lobster Dance posted The Sparkling World of 1970s Shojo Manga, Part 8 which focuses on the influence of The Rose of Versailles on Ouran High School Host Club and Haken no Osukaru; and Anne Ishii, manga translator and one of the founders of Massive, was featured on the fifteenth episode of Hey, Cool Job. There were a couple of license announcements from Viz Media that caught my eye, too: Ryoko Fukyuama’s manga Anonymous Noise will be released by Shojo Beat, and Haikasoru will be publishing the next three novels in Yoshiki Tanaka’s Legend of the Galactic Heroes!

Quick Takes

Goodnight Punpun, Omnibus 2Goodnight Punpun, Omnibuses 2-3 (equivalent to Volumes 3-6) by Inio Asano. The first omnibus of Goodnight Punpun was tremendous and left a huge impression on me. Likewise, the second and third omnibuses are incredibly well done. Goodnight Punpun is not always an easy series to read and can actually be pretty depressing and emotionally devastating. The direction of the story can often be anticipated simply by expecting that the most awful thing will happen at any given point. There are moments of joy, but for the most part the manga is a surreal and incredibly dark coming-of-age story. The worldview is extraordinarily pessimistic and bleak; most of the characters are miserable or broken in some way, and more than a few are frankly terrible people. And yet, I continue to find Goodnight Punpun to be a remarkable and compelling work even while it’s deliberately uncomfortable and heart-breaking. I find that I can empathize and even identify with most of the characters in at least some small way, which can actually be a little terrifying. Although Punpun is the series’ lead the second omnibus of Goodnight Punpun spends a fair amount of time delving into his uncle’s unfortunate past and one of the major perspectives explored in the third omnibus is that of his mother. Artistically, Asano portray’s Punpun and his immediate family more abstractly than the other characters except for during the more sexually-charged scenes, making them even more unsettling than they already are. I’m not entirely sure where Asano is going with the series or what sort of point he will ultimately make with all of the philosophical gloom, but I am willing to find out.

Princess Princess Ever AfterPrincess Princess Ever After by Katie O’Neill. Originally released online as a webcomic, O’Neill’s Princess Princess (not to be confused with Mikiyo Tsuda’s manga Princess Princess which is a completely different work) has now been collected in its entirety along with a new epilogue by Oni Press in a slim but beautiful hardcover edition titled Princess Princess Ever After. The comic is an absolute delight, suitable for younger readers but still enjoyable for adult audiences. After the dashing and daring Amira rescues from a tower the kind and thoughtful Sadie (with her permission first, of course), the two princesses travel together on an adventure aiding those they come across are in need of a bit of extra help. Eventually they must confront Sadie’s older sister who is the one who locked Sadie in the tower to begin with and who is an even bigger challenge than the ogre they faced while on their journey. Princess Princess Ever After is an incredibly sweet, adorable, and charming comic. Although Sadie and Amira encounter plenty of danger along the way, there really isn’t any question that they’ll get their happy ending. The comic is a lighthearted fairytale with a number of lovely twists on some of the standard tropes, most notably the romantic pairing of two princesses, neither of whom is the stereotypical damsel-in-distress, but there’s more to the story than just that. O’Neill’s artwork in Princess Princess Ever After is colorful, energetic, and cute, fitting the tone of the comic perfectly. While it’s nice to have a self-contained story, it’s almost a shame that the comic is so short and moves along so quickly; I would love to read more about Amira, Sadie, and their adventures together.

That Wolf-Boy is Mine!, Volume 1That Wolf-Boy is Mine!, Volume 1 by Yoko Nogiri. Though it’s not necessarily a new trend, ayakashi and yokai seem to be fairly prominent in many of the supernatural shoujo manga that are being licensed of late. I’m not especially bothered by this since I have a particular interest in yokai and tend to enjoy the subgenre. The presence of pretty spirit boys doesn’t hurt anything, either. But when I can easily name a half-dozen ongoing series with a similar elements (not to mention those that have already been completed), I do start to wonder what a new series has to offer that is different or unique. One of the most recent examples of a series of this type is Nogiri’s That Wolf-Boy Is Mine! from Kodansha Comics. After only one volume it hasn’t really set itself apart from other manga with ayakashi themes and it seems fairly typical for the genre, and yet it’s a very enjoyable beginning to a series. The story plays out pretty safely in the first volume and there are no real surprises, although there are hints that things might be more than they initially seem. The characters are generally likeable and endearing as well; I’m especially fond of the titular wolf-boy and his easygoing nature. While many of the characters are close to being “types,” they do have a bit more depth to them than may first appear. However, I would like to see a bit more development in the characters and their relationships as the series progresses. I do suspect that Nogiri will deliver, though. So, while I wasn’t blown away by the beginning of That Wolf-Boy Is Mine! by any means, I did like it. The manga is off to a good start and has potential. Even if Nogiri doesn’t move beyond well-worn tropes, I’m still interested in reading more of the series.

The Paper Menagerie and Other StoriesThe Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu. My introduction to the work of Liu was through his short story “Mono no Aware” which was collected in the anthology The Future Is Japanese. That story was enough to convince me to seek out more of his work. This turned out to be a wise decision as his debut novel The Grace of Kings was one of my favorite books from 2015. However, at least for the moment, Liu is probably best known and recognized for his shorter works which frequently earn him awards and accolades. Although The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is Liu’s second book to be published, it is his first compilation of short stories and novellas to be released. It’s an exceptional and well-thought out collection, bringing many of Liu’s award-winning stories together with some of his personal favorites. Normally when it comes anthologies of short stories I find that their quality and strength can significantly vary from one to the next. However, all fifteen examples of Liu’s work in The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (which includes “Mono no Aware”) are excellent. Some are certainly more powerful pieces than others, but they are all engaging, meaningful, and thought-provoking. One of the things that particularly impressed me about The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is Liu’s ability to work in a variety of styles and genres. As a whole the collection tends to be fairly serious in tone and can be broadly described as speculative fiction, and Liu frequently incorporates aspects of Chinese and Asian culture and history, but there is still tremendous range among the individual stories. Even the stories which share common elements or themes are ultimately different from one another, offer fresh perspectives, and are each remarkable in their own way.

Filed Under: FEATURES, My Week in Manga Tagged With: comics, Goodnight Punpun, Inio Asano, Katie O'Neill, Ken Liu, manga, That Wolf-Boy Is Mine, Yoko Nogiri

 | Log in
Copyright © 2010 Manga Bookshelf | Powered by WordPress & the Genesis Framework