Author Archives: dakazu

Machimaho: I Messed Up and Made the Wrong Person Into a Magical Girl!

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Machimaho: I Messed Up and Made the Wrong Person Into a Magical Girl!

A manga about accidentally turning an insanely powerful & crass delinquent into a magical girl.

This book is crazy and extreme but also very entertaining. The juxtaposition of seeing a cute looking girl in twin tails rip the arms off demons while laughing manically is so absurd you can’t help but laugh. I especially enjoyed whenever the main character Kayo gets to smoke a cigarette because her reaction is always a giant “HOLY SHIT” complete with hearts and sparkles. There’s shameless fan service here but it’s done with in tongue and cheek that’s clearly going for a parody of magical girl shows and fan service in general.

It’s rude and crude and over the top. I dig it and it’s definitely a guilty pleasure kind of thing. Also it’s available in English from Seven Seas Entertainment so you can read it yourselves.

~dakazu

Avarth

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Avarth

A manga taking place in 12094 AD where Earth seems to have been rebuilt in the image of a popular MMORPG that is now ruled by NPC characters who claim to be gods known as “Avarth”.

You follow a space explorer named Lloyd who awakes from cold-sleep on his spaceship only to find the Earth in this state. He’s able to access the MMORPG and using his character on Earth to help stop the Avarth from terrorizing the surviving humans.

…yeah the premise is a convoluted mess.

This was really hard to follow and went all sorts of places that I can’t even remember because it was like mixing troupes from every post-apocalyptic story you’ve ever seen. In that sense it seems very lite novel-ish. 

It ends in 6 volumes and definitely seems like it got rightfully canceled without reaching it’s full conclusion. Not surprising.

~dakazu

Tsuredure Children

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Tsuredure Children

A manga about romance and comedy between a variety of characters in high school.

I only recently read through this series right before it finished it’s serialization in Weekly Shonen Magazine after checking out the anime adaptation earlier this year. Really loved all the jokes and heartfelt relationships between all the different couples. I really liked how some stories were very bittersweet and contrasted the other happy endings. Easily cried the most during this final volume as almost every story was resolved. 

Personal favorite couple was Ryoko & Agaki. I absolutely loved their final scene together. 

Also Toshiya Wakabayashi has some kind of superpower because he can make the biggest tears with snot nosed faces seem super endearing.

Available from Kodansha Comics.

~dakazu

209 – Seamus on Seinen 1 – Happiness

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209 – Seamus on Seinen 1 – Happiness

Darfox is out this week so we’ve picked a wide array of seinen titles for Seamus to check out!

Continue reading →

Moonlight Mile

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Moonlight Mile

A manga about 2 mountain climbing friends who race to see who can reach the highest heights in outer space after climbing every mountain on Earth. One takes the military route while the other focuses on construction and development.

I love this series and it’s near future setting for space exploration and development. Compared to Space Brothers of PLANETES, this is a very R-rated story that doesn’t shy away from hardcore sex scenes and graphic violence. One of the most interesting elements in Moonlight Mile is the development war between USA and China to become the first to colonize and claim the moon for resources.

Unfortunately Yasuo Ohtagaki has put this on hiatus and is currently working on Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt. When he finishes working on that I really hope he decides to comeback and finish this great series.

~dakazu

Blue Flag

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Blue Flag

A romance manga about a boy helping a girl trying to confess to his best friend.

I’ve always felt bad for manga artist KAITO as their previous series Cross Manage and Buddy Strike did not do well in Weekly Shonen Jump. However this series had been having good success on Jump+. I was reluctant to read it because I was kind of over the shonen romance genre but glad I did.

KAITO sticks to the standard tropes of romance stories but they put in a few modern twists. In particular, the reveal of one character’s possible feelings totally surprised me and I was also super into it(yes I’ve being vague on purpose to avoid spoilers!). Also a recent story arc examined the stigma of being friends with the opposite sex and was handled very well.

I’m glad KAITO has found success and I will be adding this to my list of manga to follow. It’s now available to read on Manga Plus app and website.

~dakazu

Sabishii No Wa Anta Dake Ja Nai

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Sabishii No Wa Anta Dake Ja Nai

A manga examining the controversy behind Japanese composer Mamoru Samuragochi claiming to be a deaf by interviewing people with hearing disorders and also Samuragochi himself.

I’ve enjoyed Kouji Yoshimoto’s non-fiction stuff ever since I read his series on Tezuka Osamu and this title was no exception. I was really impressed at how Yoshimoto takes the time to try and explain the struggles and situations being deaf brings in modern Japanese society. It’s always great to see proper representation of disabilities, especially for Japan.

Yoshimoto also gets into the process it took to interview Samuragochi and there are various scenes with his editor where they reflect on what was discussed. This gave the story a much more open ended feeling showing Yoshimoto openly struggling to see if Samuragochi was truly lying about being deaf or not.

Fascinating series and I want to read more! There is also a documentary about Mamoru Samuragochi called Fake that I want to check out as well.

~dakazu

Banana Fish

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Banana Fish

A manga about beautiful young American guy who teams up with a young Japanese photographer to take down a mob boss and a deadly new drug.

Man, this book is fantastic! I started watching the anime and got hooked. Tracked down the manga and read it non-stop. The story was super engaging and had me eagerly reaching for the next volume. I will say that it is very mature with it’s content and sure had a lot of rape in it.

I’ve finished it and will now be sad as I wait for the anime to catch up to the ending. Ash x Eiji forever!

~dakazu

Hashikko Ensemble

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Hashikko Ensemble

A manga about a boy with a low voice that’s invited to start a chorus at his vocational high school.

Shimoku Kio is most known for his successful Genshiken series but as someone who teaches people how to sing I was EXTREMELY skeptical of how Kio would be addressing this subject. After following this series since it began I can now say that some of the facts he says about singing are correct and others are wrong enough to be cringeworthy. 

It’s disappointing to me because I’ve always wondered how a manga would address the topic of choral singing but currently I’m reading this series with my hand over my forehead just waiting for the next awful falsehood about singing to appear on the page.

~dakazu

PLINIVS

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PLINIVS

A manga about the life of Gaius Plinius Secundus or Pliny the Elder. He was a Roman philosopher and the father of the Encyclopedia.

Mari Yamazaki has experience with Roman characters in her comedy Thermae Romae and with biographies in her adaptation of Steve Jobs. Apparently she really wanted to draw a serious story about Roman times and thought Pliny was a perfect subject. It’s co-created with Miki Tori. 

I really liked this book but it was a little difficult to follow all the characters and politics happening. The plot follows both Plinius and the Roman Emperor of the time Nero so there’s a lot of backstabbing and scheming drama. I will say Yamazaki has a unique skill in making real life people like Nero or Steve Wozniak very cute.

I plan on reading more!

~dakazu