Monthly Archives: December 2019

Mogusa-san

Posted on by

Mogusa-san

A manga about a high school girl who secretly snacks throughout the school day.

Love this series. It’s such a lighthearted slice of life series. The titular character Mogusa loves eating so much that she has to constantly eat during class or risk her thunderous tummy rumble from happening. There’s so many unique ways she conceals her snacking as well. She’ll hide a giant portion of rice inside her dictionary cover or concealing 4 pieces of candy in her mouth without changing her face.

It is slightly bothersome that the premise of the series is about a girl who can’t enjoy food because she doesn’t want to seem like a glutton and that unto itself reflects sexist expectations for women. But as the series goes on Mogusa learns to accept her large appetite and open up to her friends about it, which helps.

~dakazu

275 – 2019 Year End News & Manga Review

Posted on by

275 – 2019 Year End News & Manga Review

Welcome to the final episode of Manga Machinations for 2019! Seamus is back, which means all the hosts are ready to discuss all the news stories from this year before sharing their personal top 3 manga, honorable mentions, and worst manga of the year!!!

Continue reading →

The Wize Wize Beasts of the Wizarding Wizdoms

Posted on by

The Wize Wize Beasts of the Wizarding Wizdoms

A manga about anthropomorphized animals who attend a school to learn magic.

Man, this one was such a disappointment. I love Nagabe‘s The Girl from the Other Side so I was looking forward to reading this.

Nagabe‘s art work shines in the designs of the various anthropomorphized characters. They have a similar but contrasting style to Paru Itagaki‘s BEASTARS characters. I loved the framing of panels and subtle touches like adding an animal index at the end of each chapter. Unfortunately I kinda hated all the stories.

There is a chapter about a romance between a teacher and student. As a teacher myself, I will tell you that nothing makes me roll my eyes faster than seeing this cliche in manga. It’s incredibly stupid. Another chapter had a creepy crow who manipulated others so he could claim the attention of his beautiful peacock friend. Then there was also a chapter about young vampire bats kissing and it felt like I was watching children exploring sexuality and that really grossed me out(though to be fair there isn’t any indication about their actually age).

Basically, lots of the story content seemed to line up with bad troupes of older BL and I really hated those parts. I did like the story between a red deer and his cold blooded lizard roommate because it felt devoid of those troupes. But I had high expectation for this book and I feel let down.

2/5 stars on the Morgana scale for me. It’s available in English from Seven Seas Entertainment.

~dakazu

Land Lock

Posted on by

Land Lock

A manga about death row inmates who’s airplane crash land on a snowy mountain peak of a remote island and they must try to survive amongst each other and strange hallucinations involving green butterflies.

We’ve discussed this on an episode of Darfox Dabbles.

This is not a very good manga. The setup feels like a cheap knockoff of Lost and Ai Odahara‘s art work is pretty average. The only reason I read it was because it was one of the first vertically formatted manga from Jump+ and in full color like the manhwa it’s inspired from. Unfortunately it didn’t do anything unique with that format so there’s barely any difference found in this traditional print version I checked out. There are other series on Manga PLUS like The Vertical World that are using the vertical format much better.

~dakazu

Nicola Traveling Around the Demons’ World

Posted on by

Nicola Traveling Around the Demons’ World

A manga about a young human witch who travels around the demon world with her demon salesman friend, Simon.

We’ve discussed this series on a recent episode.

Ever since Morgana talked about this book I’ve wanted to read it. Well lucky for me because I got a copy for Christmas. This might be the most wholesome manga I’ve read this year. I love Nicola and the fun adventures she had shopping at the Black Bazaar, hunting for mushrooms in the forest, or avoiding ghosts in a haunted hotel. Asaya Miyanaga‘s art work is so cute and detailed. I love the choice of sepia tone ink by Seven Seas Entertainment. It gives everything a nice warm feeling.

Love this series. You can get your copy from Seven Seas Entertainment today and I highly recommend it.

~dakazu

Kyuyaku Mother Ghoul

Posted on by

Kyuyaku Mother Ghoul

A prototype series to Mother Ghoul.

I guess Kiku Sugawara did this series first and it was originally called Holy Holy. This is only 2 volumes and feels like a smaller scale Mother Ghoul without a real ending. I’m glad that I read it because it fleshes out the backstory for certain characters who appeared in Mother Ghoul without any explanation. But I don’t think you need to read this before Mother Ghoul.

~dakazu

Poco’s Udon World

Posted on by

Poco’s Udon World

A manga about a man who returns to his udon shop home after his father passes away and befriends a young child who is actually a transforming raccoon.

Love this so much. This is a wonderful example of a story about paternal love that doesn’t have any grooming bullshit involved. The relationship between Sota and Poco is nothing but love. Caring for Poco helps Sota reconnect with people from his past and open new doors. It’s incredibly touchy-feely emotional writing by Nodoka Shinomaru and their gentle art style matches. The bittersweet ending was perfect as well.

There’s no official English edition but there is an anime of this and I highly encourage you to check it out.

~dakazu

274 – 2019 Year End Anime Review with Manga Mavericks

Posted on by

274 – 2019 Year End Anime Review with Manga Mavericks

2019 is coming to a close and it’s time to do our annual wrap up! This year we’re splitting our Year End Review between anime and manga. So for part 1 we’re joined by LumRanmaYashaand Colton from the Manga Mavericks podcast to talk about our top anime of 2019!!!

Continue reading →

Muhoutou

Posted on by

Muhoutou

A prequel to Jisatsutou. The Japanese government exiles convicts facing execution to a remote lawless island to fend for themselves.

I really wish Kouji Mori didn’t start this manga. Making a prequel to Jisatsutou seems really silly because we already know what’s going to happen. I’m not sure I care enough about our protagonist who is an innocent man trying to survive against all these other criminals. I really feels like Mori is just rehashing all the beats of Jisatsutou minus the suicidal youths, which was the most interesting part.

I’d rather Mori kept working on something totally new like his Sousei no Taiga.

~dakazu