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Dead Account Manga Review
After reading Dead Account, I think this work is going to be my new go-to example of “shonen slop,” but that being said, this is pretty good slop.
― I think a person's enjoyment of Shizumu Watanabe's Dead Account will mostly boil down to their ability to tolerate characters talking like Redditors nonstop. On its surface, Dead Account promises a deeper examination of the growing intersection between s...
Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord Volume 1-3 Manga Review
For this reincarnated salaryman, a life as an unwanted noble’s son is a ticket to a new beginning, but an easygoing life is a long way off.
― Human creativity is unendingly interesting to me. We are in an unprecedented time of stories that start in incredibly similar ways, and yet, each story is different enough for us to warrant taking time to tell you all about it. Today, we are speaking of the fir...
The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be Wife Volumes 1-6 Manga Review
Soft, slow, and sweet, The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be-Wife is mostly a nice bit of reassurance that, despite what the news may tell us, the world isn't completely horrible after all.
― It can sometimes feel like not a lot of romances start at the very beginning or go beyond the couple getting together. Either we meet them when they're already fully involved with each other or leave them at that...
Ren Arisugawa Is Actually a Girl Manga Review
If you’ve been reading manga for a while, chances are you’re familiar with the basic set up of Ren Arisugawa Is Actually a Girl.
― Norito Asaduki's Ren Arisugawa Is Actually a Girl is an interesting work. Not so much for anything it does within its text, but because of its place within fiction broadly today. It's a digitally published manga in a vertical format, which would suggest that it's a work p...
Jujutsu Kaisen Manga Series Review
The story becomes impenetrably incoherent to anyone without a PhD in Akutami’s fictional curse mechanics.
― What is it about recent big shonen hits that involve their protagonists engaging in cannibalism? My Hero Academia was bad enough, with Izuku Midoriya inheriting All Might's quirk by ingesting his hair. Then comes Jujutsu Kaisen's Yuji Itadori gobbling down Ryomen Sukuna's mummified finger to ga...
A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation Volumes 1-10 Manga Review
While I wouldn’t quite classify A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation as iyashikei isekai, there are definitely enough elements of that peaceful genre to make a decent case for it.
― Most isekai fiction in recent years relies upon one of a few set formulas, with nearly all of them taking a person from our world and depositing them in another, typically game-based fantasy realm. (The presence of RP...
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Manga Series Review
Vigilantes breaks the spin-off mold by shattering expectations, at times rivaling or even exceeding its progenitor manga.
― Spin-offs often come with the expectation that they're mere money-grabs, cynical exercises in milking popular franchises. Plenty of popular shonen manga receive short-lived spin-offs, most often comedic or episodic in nature, and they're rarely essential reads, even for die-hard...
You And I Are Polar Opposites Volumes 2-7 Manga Review
The story does a lot with setting up expectations, flipping them on their heads, but then making the reason for why they were flipped on its head different than what you would originally expect.
― One thing that caught me off guard about You and I are Polar Opposites was just how quickly our main couple got together. It's very rare nowadays to have a slice of life comedy romance where the two main le...
Tease Me Harder: A Sweet and Kinky Romance Volume 1 Manga Review
I never thought that I would use the word "wholesome" to describe an adult BDSM story, but here we are!
― I never thought that I would use the word "wholesome" to describe an adult BDSM story, but here we are! As a person who practices BDSM, I've always been quite unsatisfied with how it is portrayed in the media. It always seems to come from the perspective of people who genuinely don't understand t...
The 13th Footprint Volume 2 Manga Review
If I could just figure out the message behind all of the fires, I feel like I’d be a step closer to solving the mystery, and that’s either a brilliant use of a red (hot) herring or a carefully seeded clue.
― How do the puzzle pieces fit together? Like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, unraveling a mystery story involves finding the ways the nubs and gaps line up, and in many cases, we find ourselves ...
HOOL!GAN'S Volume 1 Manga Review
Alchemy may not turn lead into gold, but in Hool!gans it turns a lot of people into dust.
― Well, that sure was a lot of things exploding. Sometimes it even had a reason. But “reason” and “plot” take a second place here to “all hell breaking loose.” Lee Heartrib is an orphan. Saved on the street by the alchemist head of the Antilia
Family mafia, Lee is irresponsible, lazy and dedicated to the goal of...
Tales of the Hundred Monsters Next Door Volume 1 Manga Review
This is how you write a book about yokai.
― This is how you write a book about yokai. Yokai are, of course, the supernatural given form. Monsters of our own imaginations, mysteries of daily life, the strange, the unusual, the scary, who are assumed to have their own whims, and their own rules. Throw in a little non-linear storytelling that breaks all its own internal structure, then wind it up and le...
Drops of God: Mariage Volume 4-5 Manga Review
When you’re a baseball player, wine tasting is just like a baseball game
― Let's get the most important thing over with first. After reviewing Volume two and three, I did get my Comté cheese. I paired it with an affordable Côtes du Rhône red wine, fig crackers, and greens. It was delicious. Thank you for asking. Issei would have sneered. Or not. In these volumes, Shizuku enters the Tokyo Food and Win...
In the Clear Moonlit Dusk Volumes 2-8 Manga Review
In the Clear Moonlit Dusk feels like the sort of series I ought to be enjoying more than I am, which is an awkward position to be in.
― Mika Yamamori has proven over the course of her English-released series that you can't predict where her romances are going to go. Write off purportedly no-chance rivals at your peril and make assumptions about the trajectory of the story at your own risk; Yamamori i...
Touring After the Apocalypse Volume 2-3 Manga Review
Even after destruction, Japan’s tourist destinations are worth visiting.
― Upon reading Touring After The Apocalypse manga, I was immediately struck with a sense of familiarity. We've probably all read a few manga in which two girls scavenge for food and shelter after the end of the world, so my initial thought was that it felt like Girls Last Tour, with the same melancholy inevitability. More than t...
Wandance Volume 2-3 Manga Review
Wandance is a high-energy, competitive activity manga utilizing the world of dance in an effective and mesmerizing way.
― If everyone is always questioning themselves, then why do they feel bad for doing it? Crippling anxiety is totally relatable for pretty much everyone I know. Which is why it is both so common as a manga plot driver and weird that it's a real thing that we feel bad about in life. I...
The Moon on a Rainy Night Volume 1-7 Manga Review
This fun slice of life manga offers us a blueprint for a more inclusive world.
― In Volume 1 of The Moon On A Rainy Night, Saki meets Kanon. She's instantly intrigued by this apparently aloof beauty in what appears to be a pretty standard Yuri romance story. Saki is the traditional cheerful girl whose energy will change the intense loneliness of the traditional Japanese beauty, in what is still one o...
Killed Again, Mr. Detective? Volume 1 Manga Review
Killed Again, Mr. Detective? isn’t quite as good as it ought to be.
― As they say in the musical Gypsy, you've gotta have a gimmick. That feels particularly true for the mystery genre, where authors have been trying to outdo each other with quirky detectives since Hercule Poirot and his magnificent moustaches entered the scene in 1920's The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Over the years, fiction (manga ...
Gunsmith Cats Omnibus Volumes 1 and 2 Manga Review
There are multiple reasons why Sonoda’s Gunsmith Cats keeps getting re-published, and why it remains one of my very favorite manga of all time.
― Kenichi Sonoda's unmistakable art style helped fuel my initial intoxication with anime and manga. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, along with Appleseed's Masamune Shirow and Akira's Katsuhiro Otomo, Sonoda's perky girls with enormous eyes and gravity-defy...
Baki The Grappler Volume 2-4 Manga Review
The art is both better and more violent with each volume. Expect punches that carve up the body like knife-edged cannonballs.
― After Baki's initial appearance and victory in his first “official” match, this story settles into an ever more hyperbolic tale of unregulated fighting. In each subsequent volume, Baki will be matched with an opponent whose skills are unreasonable, whose strength is demonic,...
Shindou-kun's Tight Squeeze Volume 1 Manga Review
Shindou-kun's Tight Squeeze may not be the most creative romance manga out there, explicit or otherwise, but if you're looking for a spicy good time, it more than fits the bill.
― I've read most of Seven Seas' releases under its Steamship imprint, in no small part because I've crusaded for years on the concept that those of us who were little girls reading Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura are now ad...
Drops of God: Mariage Volume 2-3 Manga Review
Who will find the blue-eyed white sauvignon blanc?
― We last left Shizuku and Issei facing a challenge from a secret cabal of wine experts whose self-appointed role is to preserve Yutaka Kanzaki's true goal – the perfection of the “mariage” of wine and food. In Volume two, to be seen as worthy of the challenge of finding “The Drops of God,” Issei and Shizuku must first pass a preliminary test, consis...
Reincarnated in a Mafia Dating Sim Volumes 1-2 Manga Review
While I wouldn't call this a villainess story, Francesca does seem to view it as such by the end of the second volume.
― Touko Amekawa is no stranger to writing strong heroines who set out to get what they want. You may recognize her as the author of 7th Time Loop, a story about a young woman named Rishe determined to use her memories of her previous six lives to make her seventh one end the cycle of...
Baki The Grappler Volume 1 Manga Review
The fighting is utterly ridiculous, but so much fun, it is hard not to be entertained by this modern-day Lancelot whose strength is as ten because his heart is pure.
― This year at the American Manga Awards, Ashita no Joe: Fighting For Tomorrow won a very well-deserved Classic Manga Award. This post-war bildungsroman of a young man discovering himself through boxing is a moving tale. Now, we also hav...
May I Ask for One Final Thing? Volume 1 Manga Review
Sometimes you just want to see a perfectly prim Victorian-style lady haul back and beat someone's face in, all safely within the realm of fiction.
― By this point in pop culture history, we've probably all sat through as many villainess denunciation scenes as we can stomach. The story beats are as familiar as the back of your hand – the prim and proper, highly-ranked fiancée of a prince or similarly ...
Mansect Manga Review
Mansect is way too gross out for me to feel comfortable freely recommending it to any horror-lovers out there.
― Have you ever read a manga and thought, “Oh, this one's for the sickos (complimentary)”? Because those were exactly the words that immediately appeared in my head upon finishing Mansect. Originally published in 1975, this classic horror manga isn't for the faint of heart when it comes to i...
Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun: IruMafia Edition Volume 1 Manga Review
To hear Hiroja and original series creator Osamu Nishi talk about it, it seems that at least half of the entire point was Hiroja’s desire to draw everyone in natty suits.
― Alternate universes aren't just the stuff of fanfiction anymore. Or rather, they never have been; it's just that a lot of early fanfiction is rarely referred to as such. But how else would you describe 19th-century American humori...
Blade Girl Volumes 1-2 Manga Review
Blade Girl boldly sprints off of e-readers and onto the page, but can this print-on-demand release keep up?
― Back in April, I reviewed the first volume of Moare Ohta's Teppu—one of three initial offerings from the newly established Kodansha Print Club program. While I was thrilled to hold a copy of Ohta's underground classic in my hands, the quality of that print-on-demand release left me wanting. A...
Spider-Man: Shadow Warrior Manga Review
What the book lacks in story, it certainly makes up for with its creative artistic direction
― The world of common book superheroes is extremely malleable. For the most part, you can take a lot of traditional superheroes and put them into any unconventional setting. While you might need to jump through some logical leaps of why a character is in a completely different land or dealing with completely ...
Clevatess -Majū no Ō to Akago to Shikabane no Yūsha- Manga Review
Even though Clevatess isn't covering new ground in these first handful of chapters, I was surprised at how invested I was by the time I reached my chapter quota.
― The presence of dark fantasy stories is vast. It feels like I have read stories that have tackled your typical fantasy setting from every angle. I've seen it tackled from the perspective of kings, children, the hero, and, in this case, the...
Li'l Miss Vampire Can't Suck Right Manga Volume 1 Review
Everything is focused on Luna and her day-to-day school life with her willing blood-bag Ootori.
― Vampires and anime, eh? An eclectic selection of anime shows feature vampiric protagonists, from the classic (Vampire Hunter D, Hellsing) to the more recent, but superb (Call of the Night), and the appallingly dreadful, best left forgotten (Vlad Love). Worryingly, the manga Li'l Miss Vampire Can't Suck R...
SANDA Volume 1 Manga Review
This is a series about how the innocence of children has become so coveted to the point of becoming perverse, so what better person to set things on the right path then Santa Claus himself.
― From the creator of BEASTARS comes a series about the mythological creature known as Santa Claus. I didn't know what to expect when I read that out loud, but it's about as wacky and zany as you would expect from...
Mechanical Marie Volume 1 Manga Review
Only one volume in, I’m already rooting for Marie and Arthur’s future happiness together.
― With an absurd premise that requires suspension of disbelief on several levels, Mechanical Marie is nevertheless a delightfully sweet and funny high society romcom that I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish, leaving me eagerly anticipating not only the remaining five volumes in this short series, but also ...
Brain Damage Manga Review
If you like Junji Ito, it’s a good time to discover Shintaro Kago as well.
― All short story collections are mixed bags. That's not a pejorative statement about short stories by any means; it's simply the nature of the beast. Brain Damage, a collection of four horror tales by manga creator Shintaro Kago, defines this tendency. When it's good, it's very good, playing with horror and comedy in equal me...
Kill Blue Volumes 1-2 Manga Review
By its second volume, Kill Blue isn’t quite as good as it started.
― There are a lot of stories about second chances spanning all demographics of manga, anime, and light novels. In most of those cases, the protagonist of the story desperately wants a chance to go back and fix a mistake or rectify a problem, and many others wallow in the nostalgic notion that life was somehow better in high school. Bu...
Farewell, Daisy: Jun Mayuzuki Short Story Collection Manga Review
Mayuzuki’s sheer unpredictability and gleefully ribald storytelling are a breath of fresh air.
― Jun Mayuzuki is one of my current favorite manga authors, mainly for her most recent work on the still-ongoing Kowloon Generic Romance (the excellent single-season anime adaptation concluded only last season). I jumped at the chance to review this collection of her early manga work, some of which predate ...
Double the Trouble, Twice as Nice Volume 1 Manga Review
In its first volume, Ichino's series is a lot of silly fun, utilizing familiar genre beats and making them enjoyable, even if they're nothing new.
― Ryo Ichino's Double the Trouble, Twice as Nice is, more or less, a combination of two familiar manga romance tropes: the adult who turns into a child and the hot guy pet. English-language readers will probably best remember them from Matsuri Hino's MeruP...
Short Game: Mitsuru Adachi's High School Baseball Collection Manga Review
Mitsuru Adachi’s short and sweet baseball anthology is an absolute home run!
― While piecing together Slam Dunk's English publication history last year, I spoke with a few industry veterans about the challenges faced by sports titles in the North American market. One of those experienced pros was Ed Chavez, the publisher of Denpa. As we chatted about these sports-specific hurdles, Chavez and his team...
Tower Dungeon Volume 1 Manga Review
Nihei’s eye for composition shapes many scenes with bizarre yet effective angles that truly conjure an air of terrifying verticality.
― I can only imagine that Tsutomu Nihei recently got into roguelike fantasy RPGs, and that must have inspired his latest manga, which is in many ways quite different from his usual work. Best known in the west for Blame! and Knights of Sidonia, his manga tends to be fu...
I Wanna Be Your Girl Volume 1 Manga Review
This is a nuanced story that deftly explores what it means to become an ally while diving into the teenage trans experience.
― Over the years, I've seen imprints come and go—most often because they were founded on half-cocked ideas that just didn't have the opportunity to fully form. With the release of Ink Pop's first manga title, Umi Takase's I Wanna Be Your Girl, I believe this brand-new imprint h...
Teppeki Honeymoon Volume 1 Manga Review
Sakae and Ena's relationship walks a very fine line in this book.
― Meca Tanaka is no stranger to shoujo manga – she debuted in 1998 and has been consistently creating manga ever since. Teppeki Honeymoon is the latest of her works to be translated into English; Viz released both Meteor Prince and The Young Master's Revenge, Tokyopop translated Pearl Pink back during the publisher's first incarnation,...
Alternative [Self Liner Note] Manga Review
For those of you who love 90’s alt rock, this one-shot manga might prove to be your cup of (pennyroyal) tea.
― This one-shot manga fell into my lap because, well, of course it would. I love guitars, I love anime and manga about guitar players. And when you've got 90's grunge music thrown into the mix, you've got the most obvious pick in the world. Manga creator Chiaka Yagura's Alternative [Self Liner...
Yaiba Omnibus 1 Manga Review
While the anime is great looking enough that I imagine it'll be most people's preference for experiencing this series, the manga has just enough of its own strengths to be worth checking out on its own.
― With the new Yaiba anime currently on air, and quickly proving to be one of the most impressive looking action shows of the year, the folks at Viz Media have also seen fit to release the original ma...
Senpai no Kohai Manga Review
Hanakage Alt’s Senpai no Kohai is, in its slender volume, a beautifully sweet love story.
― Sayuri knows that it's hopeless to fall in love with a straight woman. That's an academic consideration, of course, when in her final year of college, she fell head over heels for Risa. The adorable first year consumed all of Sayuri's thoughts, no matter how hard she tried to avoid them, and when she graduated...
Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man Volume 1 Review
In this, Spider-Man and Ultraman are kindred spirits, and I'm not quite sure what I expected their connection to be but I like this angle as a way to bridge these two very different characters.
― Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man is a solid start for an Ultraman and Spider-Man that hits most of the notes you would expect. The premise here is simple enough and totally in keeping with crossover tales o...
Spider-Man: Kizuna Manga Review
Spider-Man: Kizuna is a rather cartoony story, but succeeds at highlighting the appeal of Spider-Man in a traditional Japanese manga.
― With great power comes great responsibility! These words permeate throughout most, if not all, Spider-Man media, as it is the very mantra of the character himself. The ethos of Spider-Man revolves around a perfectly normal guy being pushed into situations where he is...
I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class Volume 1 Manga Review
There’s the potential for a stronger story if the rest of it can continue leaning into the exploration of social expectations that this first volume presents, and it’s planted enough seeds that I think it could get there.
― Although I enjoy my share of high school rom-coms, I'll admit that I was a bit wary of this one going in. While you can't always tell much about a series based on its title, light...
Unico: Awakening and Unico: Hunted Manga Review
This story is like a child's imagination come to life.
― Osamu Tezuka is a legend in the world of animation and manga. Not only is this man responsible for some of the most iconic series of all time, but his stylistic influences can still be felt to this very day. Many of his franchises, like Astro Boy, continue to persist into the modern day with adaptations or re-creations. So when I heard that one...
Nue's Exorcist Volume 1 Manga Review
Nue’s Exorcist is the sort of book that’s more fun the less you think about it.
― The history of the nue is long in Japanese yokai lore, dating back to at least the Heian period, when it was described in Heike Monogatari as a chimera-like creature composed of bits and pieces of snake, chicken, tiger, tanuki, and monkey. Different variations on the theme followed, but manga fans may best know it as th...
Spacewalking With You Volume 1 Manga Review
This American Manga Awards nominee is an unflinchingly honest and compassionate look into the lives of two neurodivergent teens just trying to get through life.
― Recently, I've found myself searching for works that leave me with a sense of catharsis—stories that send me through emotionally wrought tunnels and leave me coming out of it like I'd just gotten something off my chest. Thanks to a strong r...
CITY Volume 1 Manga Review
CITY revels in the casual charms of our lives, delights in our mundanity, and provides more than a few chuckles along the way.
― The first volume of CITY is a delightful slice of life slapstick romp that asks very little of the reader while eliciting a lot of great feelings. CITY is a simple work at face value. Three young women – Midori, Ayumu, and Wako – all go to Mont Blanc University in a city na...
Cosmic Censorship Volume 1 Manga Review
Confusion works decently well to keep readers on their toes, although if you like to fully understand what's going on at any given time, this may not be the book for you.
― According to the dictionary, a “censor” is, among other things, a wartime official who reads all communications to delete classified or dangerous information. That's not too far off from the way we more typically see “censor” and ...
BLACK BLOOD Manga Review
If you are or have ever been a connoisseur of the clang-clang, rest assured that Kuku gets it, and has provided a book that delivers.
― The surface-level selling points of a story can often be all it needs. The premise of Hayate Kuku's BLACK BLOOD certainly lends itself to the potential of denser themes: the nature of the human soul, the validity of suppressed and manipulated emotions that make peopl...
Senpai is an Otokonoko: My Crossdressing Classmate Volume 1 Manga Review
This is the sort of series I fully expect to see evolve over its ten-volume run. It’s as much about learning comfort levels and respect as it is about learning who it is you are or want to be.
― Note: I will be using he/him pronouns in this review, since as of this volume, that's what Makoto uses. Gender can be a performance. Because of socially mandated gender norms, that's true even if you identify...
Watari-kun's ***** is About to Collapse Volume 1 Manga Review
This book felt like watching somebody slowly wind a guitar string. Are they tuning the instrument, or do they want the wire to snap?
― Have you ever finished reading a volume of a manga where you just feel unnerved by the end? When I first picked up Watari-kun's ****** Is About to Collapse, I was expecting a semi-tragic story about two siblings trying to persevere in a new environment after losing th...
Outsiders Volume 1 Manga Review
Outsiders is a book that should have been better.
― Does this sound familiar? A teenage girl with a sense of being disaffected and socially dislocated, one day discovers that there's a whole supernatural world right under her nose, and becomes involved with a hot werewolf and a handsome vampire. It's not just Twilight that uses that setup, although it probably remains the most famous example of the p...
Stay By My Side After the Rain Volumes 1-3 Manga Review
Stay By My Side After the Rain is a remarkably well put together story. While each volume is more or less self-contained, they all build together to form a picture of two people overcoming their hurdles and finding happiness together.
― If there are two persistent narratives that queer fiction is beholden to, they're coping with homophobia and coming out. Both are real and significant in fiction and ...
Uglymug, Epicfighter Manga Chapters 1-10 Review
OK, what if someone was transported to another world but they were ugly? No seriously, that's it.
― OK, what if someone was transported to another world but they were ugly? No seriously, that's it. Is the story going to be some kind of biting social commentary about how beauty is in the eye of the beholder and how we don't give people a chance due to their physical appearances? Maybe the story is a c...
New Saga Volume 1 Manga Review
If you had the ability to go back in time and relive one of the most difficult journeys of your life, what would you do differently?
― If you had the ability to go back in time and relive one of the most difficult journeys of your life, what would you do differently? If you sacrificed everything for the sake of taking down an ultimate evil, do you think it's possible to accomplish the same goal witho...
Does It Count If You Lose Your Virginity to an Android? Volume 1 Manga Review
This manga asks and answers the question “What if the loveable loser in a sexbot comedy was a woman?” The answer won’t surprise you.
― If you've been reading manga for any length of time, you've probably encountered some version of the hapless, yet relatable, loser protagonist. He's a guy with no friends and a weird hobby, or the woman who looks super cool and together on the outside, but when she st...
Night of the Living Cat Volume 1 Manga Review
This manga has an amusing idea that could make for a funny one-shot manga or a spoof trailer, but feels ludicrously overstretched here.
― Night of the Living Cat will soon hit the screens as an anime series in July, with at least one huge name attached: Takashi Miike, on board as the “Chief Director.” You may know Miike from the live-action films of Ichi The Killer and other manga. I'll always rememb...
Dra-Q Volumes 1-2 Manga Review
Dra-Q is a hard series to recommend with its skin-deep characters and a plot that sometimes feels like the creator was just flying by the seat of their pants.
― Kodansha's copy for Dra-q, Chiyo's dark comedy/romance/horror manga series, says that it's perfect for fans of Dandadan and Call of the Night. While I wouldn't necessarily agree with the latter – the only real commonality they share is vampir...
The 13th Footprint Volume 1 Manga Review
The 13th Footprint’s first volume is mainly a setup, but it’s a lesson in how to do it well.
― While nothing else he's created has quite lived up to Erased's level of excellence, it's not for lack of trying on Kei Sanbe's part – both of the other mystery titles previously released, Island in a Puddle and For the Kid I Saw in my Dreams are very good. But The 13th Footprint's first volume comes closest...
They Were Eleven Manga Review
They Were Eleven is indisputably a classic, a beautiful example of how manga can transcend literary snobbery to be classified as literature in its own right.
― Of all classic shōjo manga creators, Moto Hagio has had the most success in English. Part of the Year 24 Group, which includes Keiko Takemiya (To Terra…), Riyoko Ikeda (The Rose of Versailles), and Yasuko Aoike (From Eroica with Love), Hagio h...
Dogsred Volumes 1-2 Manga Review
I can't wait for more people to discover this absolute slapshot of a classic in the making.
― About thirty-five years ago, a young mangaka from Kagoshima took Japan by storm with a little story about a relatively obscure sport—basketball. Fast-forward to today, it's pretty safe to say that this artist's love letter to shooting hoops became something of a Slam Dunk with its readers. While reading thro...
The Color of the End: Mission in the Apocalypse Volume 1 Manga Review
The Color of the End is one of the stronger “girls after the apocalypse” manga out there, more bitter than sweet and filled to the brim with loneliness.
― “Girls after the apocalypse” has become a subgenre of post-apocalyptic fiction. Whether alone, in pairs, or with their pets, young women traversing a ruined world have carved a niche in science fiction manga and anime, perhaps relying on the juxtap...
My Kitten is a Picky Eater Volume 1 Manga Review
If you like cats and stories about people taking care of cats, My Kitten is a Picky Eater will be a purr-fect fit for you.
― If you've ever owned a pet, then you've almost certainly learned that oftentimes, the best way to their heart is, of course, through their stomach. Such is the core of Migiri Miki's My Kitten is a Picky Eater (henceforth Picky Eater), which follows a new kitten owner—Mano—whose...
Shimazaki in the Land of Peace Volume 1 Manga Review
Every time I turned the page, I was worried about what would happen because the answer could've ranged from a gorgeous scenery shot to a violent execution.
― If there's one thing I can command Shimazaki in the Land of Peace for, it's the first volume's ability to create this incredible layer of consistency from beginning to end. Every time I turned the page, I was worried about what would happen beca...
Mask Danshi: This Shouldn't Lead to Love Volume 1 Manga Review
The biggest strength of this volume is the way it works with Sayama’s anxiety.
― Anxiety isn't always treated seriously in fiction. That could be because it's unique to everyone who deals with it; even if the same basic things make multiple people anxious, reactions and coping mechanisms will be different. In the case of Sayama, one of the protagonists of Mask Danshi: This Shouldn't Lead to Love, he ...
The Legend of Kamui Volume 1 Manga Review
The start of a legendary manga franchise, The Legend of Kamui is rife with social conflict and violence that isn’t for the faint of heart, but an excellent must-read for manga fans hungry for historical epics and political commentary.
― With each and every passing day comes another hardship. A family of farmers accompanied by
genin (outcast) assistants are working in the fields. A young genin child s...
Hunter × Hunter Omnibus Manga Review
Twenty-seven years after Hunter X Hunter's debut in Shonen Jump magazine, we can witness the start of Togashi's legendary manga again with this sleek omnibus edition of the first three volumes.
― Yoshihiro Togashi's decision to pen Hunter x Hunter a few years after infamously closing the book on Yu Yu Hakusho meant one thing: you can take the mangaka out of battle shonen, but you can never take the b...
A Sinner of the Deep Sea Manga Series Review
Akihito Tomi's A Sinner of the Deep Sea takes Andersen's tale and reframes it, asking what would have changed if the mermaid had a best friend who wouldn't just sit back and let her die.
― We all know the story: a mermaid ventures to the surface, falls in love with a human man, and ultimately ends up dying because of it. Hans Christian Andersen's literary fairy tale The Little Mermaid has become the ...
AMNERO Anthology Volumes 1 and 2
What would happen if Vash from Trigun had a jaded, loudmouth sidekick with a lactation problem?
― The AMNERO anthologies are less like serialized web novels and more like collections of individual chapters written by Hyocoro. Therefore, the first volume doesn't necessarily have a strong narrative flow. The first chapter feels like the pilot to the series, building up a sort of rescue mission that get...
Luciole Has a Dream Volume 1 Manga Review
We don't know precisely what happened or what will happen, but watching Lu's world unfold on the page is immersive in a way that the best fantasy should be.
― With most manga, whether you read them digitally or in print, it comes down to personal preference, or maybe budget and space concerns. But every so often one comes along that simply begs to be read in print. Luciole has a Dream is absolutely o...
Teppu Volume 1 Manga Review
Moare Ohta’s Teppu is a bonafide cult sensation, but is this print-on-demand release punching under its weight?
― In early December, Kodansha USA announced the establishment of their Kodansha Print Club program—a print-on-demand service that gives select digital-only titles the chance to shine in print. The publisher capped off this news by revealing the program's first trio of titles—Narumi Shigemat...
With You, Our Love Will Make it Through Volume 1 Manga Review
With You, Our Love Will Make It Through isn’t for everyone, but if it’s in your area of interest, I think it does a good enough job.
― Yes, this is a furry romance manga, and yes, it fits the criteria for young adult fiction. But those two things don't need to be either mutually exclusive or a terrible warning, and to be perfectly honest, any reservations I have about this story don't arise from the ...
Hereditary Triangle Manga Review
Despite a middle act that flirts with melodrama, there’s a thoughtful maturity to much of this short series as its cast explores complex emotions and questions about grief, change, and regret.
― Hereditary Triangle is technically a two-volume series, but the Yen Press edition politely collects them into a single volume, allowing readers to sink fully into the world of this quiet but compelling drama....
Be My Worst Nightmare! Volume 1 Manga Review
This wouldn’t be my first recommendation for high school-set, moderately explicit BL, but I also wouldn’t universally tell you to steer clear.
― Don't you just hate it when your dreams might be telling you something you don't want to hear? That's what Sayo Hoshikawa is afraid is happening to him. Despite his surface-level anger at his classmate Mashiba for things like “being tall” and “girls confessi...
Hikaru in the Light! Manga Review
Even if you can see where Hikaru's plot is going five miles away, none feels hackneyed.
― At times, Hikaru in the Light felt like a season of American Idol to me. We feel the intensity of the competition through its characters' hopes and aspirations, the glow of the stage, and the harsh rules laid down by the competition's judges and producers. It requires the winning idols an extraordinary cut above...
Corpse Blade Volume 1 Manga Review
I desperately wanted to make a pun somewhere about how this volume just isn’t as fleshed out as it needs to be, but its problems run deeper than that.
― Do zombie apocalypse stories ever really go out of style? It's like a pendulum—usually spurred by one super-successful title, they'll go in full force for a while. Then maybe there's a brief lull when audiences start feeling sick of what's become an ...
Welcome to Ghost Mansion Manga Volume 1 Review
Welcome to Ghost Mansion has a promisingly spooky premise that could develop later on, but its first steps don’t have it hit the ground running like it should.
― There exists an interesting premise within the initial volume of Nebukuro's debut manga. As a story about a landlord who rents an apartment out to the undead, there is potential in making this an enveloping, spooky story about the things th...
The Revenge of My Youth Manga Review
This manga knows how to use its tried-and-true premise about redoing the past to its advantage, giving us a start of a story that makes for a leisurely read even if it comes off as cliche at times.
― There's no going through life without regret. And there's certainly no avoiding those moments where every mistake, error, goof, and flub comes rushing back through your cerebral cortex like a never-endin...
I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day Manga Review
This story is hard to recommend based on the first volume, but it really gets better after this point.
― I Want to Love You Till You're Dying Day feels like a small story with grand ambitions. It's very humble and almost quiet in its approach to storytelling. Not a lot happens throughout this first volume, but every few pages you'll see an image or a character make a comment alluding to something muc...
Fall in Love, You False Angels Volume 1 Manga Review
If there’s a theme to be traced in this volume, it’s the idea of when it’s okay to be two-faced.
― When is it safe to be yourself? That's maybe a more intense question than you'd expect from Fall in Love, You False Angels, which is unquestionably a romantic comedy. But that doesn't mean that it lacks any heavier subtext, and the story of Otogi and Toki can be read in such a way to facilitate discussi...
Helena and Mr. Big Bad Wolf Volume 1 Manga Review
Despite its title, this series has less in common with fairy tales and more with classic children’s literature, complete with plucky orphans, gruff-but-kind adults, and alarmingly tragic backstories.
― Despite its title, this Taiwanese manhua has less in common with fairy tales and more with classic English children's literature, where spunky kids befriend gruff-but-kind adults over a shared hobby or...
Vagabond Definitive Edition Volume 1 Manga Review
Inoue’s art is startlingly good. His keen eye for composition and posing, already put to amazing use in Slam Dunk, almost makes the characters leap from the pages.
― At its core, this initial three-volume collection of Takehiko Inoue's (Slam Dunk) adaptation of Eiji Yoshikawa's fictionalized biographical novel Musashi is about the terrible life decisions made by two seventeen-year-old boys. Full of h...
Mecha-Ude: Mechanical Arms Manga Review
Everything in Mecha-Ude Volume 1 is so close to the anime that, at times, it almost feels like reading through storyboards.
― During Fall 2024, here on ANN, I reviewed studio TriF's debut anime series Mecha-Ude as it aired weekly. Overall it was a great 12-episode show, densely packed with enough plot to fuel a series twice its length, elevated by wonderfully kinetic action animation heavily influenc...
Tokyo Alien Bros. Volume 1 Manga Review
By the end of the first book (of three), my initial interest had turned to boredom, and I couldn't see much of a point to what I'd read so far.
― Having read the first book of the Tokyo Alien Bros. manga, I confess I'm baffled, and not for the obvious reasons. The scenario isn't outlandishly way-out. Instead, it's very simple: two alien brothers living in modern Tokyo, posing as humans. Nor is the st...
Love and the Highly Sensitive Person Manga Review
This is a sincere but not-too-sappy tale of love and acceptance, both for oneself and others.
― It's always refreshing to see romances that explore uncommon perspectives and relationships, telling love stories that don't often get told. It's even more refreshing when they do it with as much kindness and empathy as Love and the Highly Sensitive Person does. This one-shot, PG-rated BL follows the hairs...
Re-Living My Life with a Boyfriend Who Doesn't Remember Me Volumes 1-2 Manga Review
Even questionable execution can’t rob the plot of its key point: Oriana’s desperation to save Vincent’s life.
― Time loops are fickle things. As any reader of the isekai subgenre can tell you, most of them only grant memories to the person doing the looping – as far as everyone else knows, they're living their lives for the first time. For Oriana, the heroine of Re-Living My Life with a Boyfriend Who...
Living With Him Manga Review
If you want something a little less spicy and a little bit more wholesome, there’s plenty here to make your heart flutter as a smile creeps across your face.
― I've never been to Japan, so I can't comment on how its society at large views same-sex relationships. But there seems to be a consistent theme in these stories where people never seem to entertain the notion that two guys could be romanticall...
Hell is Dark with No Flowers Volume 1 Manga Review
Somewhere between xxxHoLiC and Hell Girl lies Hell is Dark with No Flowers.
― Somewhere between xxxHoLiC and Hell Girl lies Hell is Dark with No Flowers. If you think I've made that comparison before, you're right – Matsuri's Phantom Tales of the Night can also be described that way. But Hell is Dark with No Flowers, based on the novel of the same name by Yoru Michio, is the better use of the descrip...
Firefly Wedding Volume 1 Manga Review
It isn’t a perfect way to phrase it, but Firefly Wedding’s first volume feels like it lands somewhere in between Yakuza Fiancé and Yakuza Lover.
― It isn't a perfect way to phrase it, but Firefly Wedding's first volume feels like it lands somewhere between Yakuza Fiancé and Yakuza Lover. That's not because there's a yakuza element to the story, at least not in those terms; set during what appears to ...
RuriDragon Volume 1 Manga Review
In spite, or perhaps because of how laid-back it is about Ruri’s seemingly bizarre circumstances, RuriDragon really feels like something special.
― Honestly, the fact that I'm even here reviewing RuriDragon at all is something of a minor miracle. While the manga debuted in Shonen Jump to pretty much immediate success, it quickly ran into trouble when its author, Masaoki Shindo, started suffering from...
Galette Manga Magazine Volume 1 Review
This is not a one-for-one version of the original Japanese volume; it is an adapted edition for the English-reading audience.
― In the mid-2010s, the runs of two of the three existing quarterly yuri manga magazines, Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari published by Shinsokan and Tsubomi published by Hobunsha came to an end, leaving some yuri artists with unfinished series and no place to serialize them. Some o...
Crescent Moon Marching Volumes 1-6 Manga Review
Crescent Moon Marching becomes a story of how young Mizuki understands what it means to be passionate about music and how crucial it is to improve yourself while understanding others.
― Originality is a tough thing to come by. The great Salvador Dali once said that those who imitate nothing produce nothing. Considering the infinite artists, musicians, writers, and other types of pen-wielders who have...
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