Houkago Teibou Nisshi
A manga about a high school freshman from the city who moves to the country seaside and joins an after school club dedicated to fishing.
The story is pretty basic newbie learning the ins and outs of subject “X” style setup. You can tell they made all the characters cute girls to juxtapose with the fishing subject matter. I really like how they cooked up everything they caught.
~dakazu
Shissou Nikki
A crazy true stories of how manga artist Hideo Azuma ran away from his home to live as a homeless scavenger. Sometimes he would live in the woods, other times he’d sleep under overpasses.
It’s pretty shocking to read about how he would literally dig through trash to find food to eat. His simplistic art style keep the mood lite despite the heavier material. I recommend this manga!
~dakazu
200 – Guest Gaiden 1 – The Bride was a Boy with Morgana Santilli
Join us for the 200th episode of Manga Machinations! We celebrate with special guest Morgana Santilli aka “Manga Maven” from the Comicopia Comics Store! She’s here to answer our questions about selling manga and to share some of her current favorite LGBTQ+ and Josei manga!
Check out Morgana’s website and follow her on twitter!
Continue readingThe Strange Tale of Panorama Island
A manga adaptation of the novel Panorama Toukidan drawn by ero-guro master Suehiro Maruo. Unlike Maruo’s other more extreme works, there is very little gore and violence in this adaptation. Instead he focuses on using his elaborate backgrounds and elegant designs to tell the story of a man who assumes the identity of his deceased look-alike friend to steal his fortune and build an hedonistic island paradise. An excellent manga and I’m glad I got to see another side of Maruo.
~dakazu
Toumei Ningen no Hone
A manga about a teenage girl who uses her ability to become invisible to murder her violent father that beats her mom.
I was surprised with how this series wasn’t about some kind of revenge fantasy. The main character, Aya, ends up spending the majority of the manga dealing with the aftermath of the murder and being haunted by a ghost of her father. I was really impressed with Aya’s character development. She goes from being a loner to someone who develops real relationships with friends and eventually decides to face the consequences of her actions. It really helped that almost all characters were deep and complex in their own way.
Good human drama with a hint of fantasy. I liked it a lot.
~dakazu
Jinmen
A manga where all animals suddenly have human faces and start murdering humans.
A pretty typical “____ starts attacking humans” story but using animals with faces aka jinmen was fairly unique. The art is good and the human/animal designs are very creepy. Oddly enough, my favorite parts were the bonus 4-panel style comedy strips they had at the end of each volume.
~dakazu
Hawkwood
A manga that follows a mercenary group fighting in the the 100 years war during the 14 century.
This manga was pretty good. The medieval Europe setting was very similar to Berserk sans demons and monsters. It’s a bit short and kinda has a non-ending but was worth reading.
~dakazu
Boku no Lunch wo Jamasuruna!
A manga about a freshman in high school who’s obsessed with making box lunches for himself. He constantly has to prevent others from eating his finely prepared meals which lead to comedic situations but he starts making friends though it as well.
A good food manga. Lots of the recipes they use are original and look very tasty. You can tell manga artist Kaho has experience drawing BL because there were heavy BL undertones, especially with the main character. Regardless I enjoyed this one.
~dakazu
Fuku wo Kiru Nara Konna Fuu ni
A manga about a young man who rediscovers his fashion sense after his sister helps him out.
I’ve read plenty of DIY/self improvement manga (mostly about food) but this is the first one I’ve seen that covers fashion. I didn’t really like it because pointing out flaws in someone’s fashion sense came off as pretentious instead of helping. This becomes more relevant later in the series when new characters show up that need to have their fashion “fixed”.
Not really for me and happy to read something else instead.
~dakazu
