Kengan Ashura
A manga about a martial artist Tokima Ouma who teams up with a weakling salary man to participate in a special tournament where corporations pick fighters to represent them.
Fairly decent fighting manga. Reminds me a lot of Baki where all other fighters have fun personalities and different martial arts styles. Artist Daromeon is very good.
There’s an anime coming in 2019 but it’s gonna be 3D and it doesn’t look promising.
~dakazu
Magical Girl Ore
A manga about an aspiring idol who becomes a magical girl to protect her loved ones except that means transforming into a muscular man who beats enemies to death with blunt objects.
Yeah, I loved this and thought it was hilarious. I especially loved how the sidekick mascot was a yakuza looking dude and Saki’s relationship with her best friend and fellow idol Sakuyo. The recent anime was also great with it’s dual cast for both the female/male versions of the characters.
Highly recommended for a good laugh.
~dakazu
Kekkai Sensen – Back 2 Back
Sequel series to Blood Blockade Battlefront.
It’s strange because this is a rare case where I will always prefer the anime over the original manga. After suffering through Yasuhiro Nightow’s horrendous panel layouts in Trigun Maximum that I couldn’t care less about Blood Blockade Battlefront when it started. After the anime came out I revisited the series and found that he had toned down his weird angled perspectives enough so I could finish it and get to his newer stuff with this series.
I highly suggest you check out the anime along with some classic Trigun for a good time.
~dakazu
214 – Ode to Kirihito part 1
On this episode we present part 1 of our Retrospective review of Ode to Kirihito! We explore the themes of discrimination in this mature series from Osamu Tezuka!
Continue readingMushi to Uta
An anthology collection of Land of the Lustrous manga artist Haruko Ichikawa’s works.
The themes here were human relationships with bizarre alien-like creatures. I particularly enjoyed her story about a lightning bolt that takes the shape of a human so it can get close to boy it saves from a falling airplane.
It was surprisingly filled with lots of human emotions. I liked it.
~dakazu
Jank Runk Family
A manga in a post-apocalyptic world where gangs fight over resources to survive.
Apparently this is spin-off of another manga called Oren’s that artist Hiroshi Takahashi wrote. I’ve read several of Takahashi’s works and they’re all about the manly world of street gangs and delinquents who fight to be the best. He usually focuses on themes of rivalries and male bonding through fighting and this one is very similar except the world setting is post-apocalyptic. To be honest, Takahashi’s usual aesthetics didn’t really match the world setting and I wouldn’t recommend this.
I’d recommend reading Crows or Worst which are much more entertaining.
~dakazu
6000
A horror manga about an haunted underwater facility 6000 meters below sea level and the humans who become trapped inside.
A decent horror manga that’s actually a bit scary. Combines Lord of the Flies style group insanity along with cosmic horror right out of H.P. Lovecraft. Nokuto Koike’s art definitely creeped me out. I also appreciated it’s shorter length.
I’d recommend this for horror fans.
~dakazu
Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san
A manga based around the real life adventures of Honda-san, who works in the manga section of a book store.
Love this series and the current anime adaptation. I was surprised how it wasn’t just funny but very informative about what happens behind the scenes in a book store. I somehow never thought that the bookstore themselves would be responsible for putting plastic wrappers on each individual copies.
The full series is available for free in Japanese on pixiv.and will be available in English from Yen Press soon. I highly suggest you check out the anime as well.
~dakazu
Kyukyoku Chojin R
A manga about a new high school transfer student who ends up being an android who is supposed to take over the world.
A early work by Patlabor creator Masami Yuki that’s one of the silliest comedies I read while growing up. Chock full of 4th wall breaking jokes and 80′s Japanese pop culture references, it reminds me a lot of something like Gintama.
I was thrilled to learn that after 31 years, they’ve released a new volume! Yuki has revisited this series recently to commemorate his 30 years of drawing manga. Loved how it still takes place in the 80′s.
A hidden gem of Yuki’s. Recommended if you like silly comedies and the 80′s.
~dakazu
213 – Guest Gaiden 2 – Representation with Amelia Cook
This week we launch our first special guest themed Gaiden series with Amelia Cook, creator of the Anime Feminist website! Get ready for a mega-sized episode as we interview Amelia about her manga/anime origins and how she started Anime Feminist. Then she joins us for a in-depth discussion about representation in manga/anime as we analyze our own positive and negative examples of female characters in shonen battle manga!
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