Monthly Archives: April 2019

Hitman

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Hitman

A manga about a young new manga editor who promises to make a rookie manga artist successful.

This is the new manga by Kouji Seo who famous for romance series such as Fuuka and Suzuka. His previous works were never in a genre that interested me but I’m quite enjoying this one because it’s about making manga.

I really like how Seo uses an easy to understand game-like stats as characters are introduced. The editors are ranked by how many issues they’ve helped sell and the artist have a parameter the shows their strengths. I’m slightly concerned about how it’s beginning to turn into a harem for the male protagonist as the female characters are starting to blur the lines between professional and personal relationships with him. In any case, I’ll have to read more to see if that’s what this series is truly about.

~dakazu

M-san.

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M-san.

An autobiographical comedy about a true masochist.

Really enjoyed this one. The comedy is akin to Prison School where the protagonist and characters are being totally serious about their fetish but to the comes off as absurd to the reader.

I liked how the episodic stories were split between a former SM domanatrix who’s past keeps messing up her career as an adult porn actress, the weird happenings between M and his go to escort, and a flashbacks where young M begins to manifest his masochistic nature after being bullied by a cute sadistic classmate.

~dakazu

Egawa to Nishimoto

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Egawa to Nishimoto

A manga covering the real life baseball rivalry of Suguru Egawa and Takashi Nishimoto.

I’m a fan of Yasushi Hoshino’s Tetsuya – Jansei to Yobareta Otoko so I decided to check out his current series. Hoshino’s unique character faces work well to convey the drama between Egawa and Nishimoto as the manga begins with their high school careers and works it’s way to their eventual rivalry to be the ace pitcher for the Yomiuri Giants.

The author Yuji Moritaka is also the writer of the excellent Gurazeni: Money Pitch and I really like how intricately he covers everything from pitching technique to the public hype surrounding these two players.

I’ll definitely be reading more of this.

~dakazu

Change!

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Change!

A manga about a high school girl who gets draw into the world of freestyle rap battles.

While it actually isn’t that unique as a subject for manga, I’m pretty impressed with how rap battles are treated seriously here. I like how Change! follows the growth of the protagonist Shiori as she starts from the bottom and it motivates her to grow and builds her own rapping style.

Masahito Soda has done a lot of different manga and I was a big fan of his racing series Capeta. His artwork works well to capture the kinetic energy of a crowd at a rap battle.

It’s currently running in Monthly Shonen Magazine.

~dakazu

The Seven Deadly Sins

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The Seven Deadly Sins

 

This series will be ending soon and while I’m a bit sad I think it’s a good time to wrap up this epic story. I was personally a little disappointed at how the final battle played out. While it had some problematic things like Meliodas’ casual perverted side, I still think this was a great manga.

~dakazu

238 – Anime Interlude 10 – Dororo

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238 – Anime Interlude 10 – Dororo

Miki’s Stopwatch returns and fights through his audio problems as we discuss anime from the 2019 winter season and new stuff from the 2019 spring season!!

Continue reading →

Soft Metal Vampire

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Soft Metal Vampire

A manga about a girl who becomes targeted by the government and a squad of element manipulating dhampir squad that protects her.

I’m a fan of Hiroki Endo and while it’s nice to see him get back to his sci-fi roots, this series suffers from being pretty generic. The concept of these dhampirs manipulating different elements like Carbon or Nitrogen is something a child would come up with. Even the dhampirs’ mouths open up like a parasitic maw like the vampires from the movie Blade 2.

I will say Endo’s utilizing what he learned from All Rounder Meguru in all the action scene. Unfortunately everything from his monster to armor designs are just super rote and uninteresting.

It’s currently serialized in Afternoon Magazine.

I don’t think I’ll be keeping up with this one myself.

~dakazu

TIEMPO

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TIEMPO

A soccer manga about a timid player who is bullied by his talented senior but it leads to him to display an untapped potential of observation.

A decent sports manga by newcomer Daisuke Iino. It’s always interesting to see how sports manga are done a little differently when they run in a seinen magazine but this one seems like it’s closer to a typical shonen sports book. The best parts so far is seeing the growth of the main character as he unlocks his potential for soccer.

Currently running in Young Jump.

~dakazu

Kikaijikake no Juvenile

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Kikaijikake no Juvenile

A manga that takes place in a world where soldiers are enhanced with cybernetic prosthetics. A young cybernetic mechanic must use this weapon to get revenge on the criminals who murdered his mother.

A new series by PACT creator Shinnosuke Kuji. I really like the intensity of Kuji’s art when he draws characters who are just fuming for revenge. He conveys anger with heavy detailing on faces that juxtapose their overall simple designs.

With PACT I really hated how generic his overall design aesthetic was and unfortunately I haven’t really seen a great improvement here. I’m hoping that the story will makeup for that as I continue to check it out.

Currently running in Young Magazine the 3rd.

~dakazu