Author Archives: dakazu

given

Posted on by

given

A manga about a teenage boy who reluctantly teaches another boy how to play his inherited guitar.

I watched the anime and ended up reading the manga. The art by Natsuki Kizu is good but I was disappointed with the generic way the romance between Ritsuka and Mafuyu. Mafuyu’s tragic backstory seemed really rote and ultimately uninteresting. It’s a bit unfortunate because the manga has turned me off of watching any more of the anime and I enjoyed the actual music from the show. I just don’t want to bother with the story.

Anime is available to watch on Crunchyroll.

~dakazu

Shinkyu Chie no Osake no Ojikan desu

Posted on by

Shinkyu Chie no Osake no Ojikan desu

A manga from Chie Shinkyu enjoying food and drinks at home.

Another great non-fiction from the creator of Wakako Zake! I liked her series Shinkyu Chie no Neko Bitashi which was about her cats. Now she’s focusing on her wheelhouse of booze and sharing stories about drinking at home. Love it!

~dakazu

Tenchou, Dame, Zettai

Posted on by

Tenchou, Dame, Zettai

A manga about how a college student finds the dandy man of her dreams only to find out he’s actually a mature looking 16-year-old teenager.

I gotta say I can get behind this kind of shoujo manga. It’s reminiscent of My Love Story!! in a lot of ways. There’s a lot of good comedy to be had with a male love interest as muscular and manly as Duke Togo and juxtapose that with him dressing in a school uniform and riding a bicycle.

I really enjoyed this one.

~dakazu

Nekoze wo Nobashite

Posted on by

Nekoze wo Nobashite

A collection of depressing stories about Rensuke Oshikiri‘s life.

I love Rensuke Oshikiri and it’s always fun to read any of his non-fiction works like Pico-Pico Shounen or this one. The stories here range from the time Oshikiri lived with his mother in a small apartment to his school life where a violent teacher almost dropped him off the roof.

Oshikiri is always able to weave an entertaining story. I was particularly impressed with how he changed his art style for many of these stories into one that looks like it was drawn with heavy black lines. It gave everything a really melancholy look to it.

~dakazu

Katteni Shirokuma

Posted on by

Katteni Shirokuma

A manga about a polar bear cub being raised by in a family of brown bears.

A pretty interesting series. I’ve read other works by Koji Aihara and between his distinct art style and really low-brow sense of humor, it makes his manga different than other mainstream titles. And I’m not joking about his comedy sense. There’s a lot of jokes about defecating and sexual reproduction with the forest animals. It comes off as juvenile humor for adults.

Fun fact. The same polar bear shows up in Aihara’s Shin Ishu Kakutou Taisen as one of the animals battling in a tournament for supremacy of the animal kingdom.

~dakazu

255 – Manga in Motion 39 – Mirai

Posted on by

255 – Manga in Motion 39 – Mirai

This week we take a look at Mamoru Hosoda’s latest anime movie, Mirai! Tune in to hear what we thought about this story about a boy learning to accept his baby sister and how it compares to Hosoda’s other films!!!

Continue reading →

Yutai Nova

Posted on by

Yutai Nova

A manga about a young man who spies on his crush through astral projection until he meets another astral projected girl.

As far as a title from Shuzo Oshimi goes, I have to say that this one isn’t that great. I think everything he did before The Flowers of Evil fall under the category of ecchi seinen genre like Devil Ecstasy. There are some small glimmers of dark psychological motifs but it’s hard to parse them from scenes of an astral projection gang bang. It’s not surprising that one was seemingly canceled after 2 volumes.

Probably not worth reading even if you’re a huge fan of Oshimi.

~dakazu

Ride-On King

Posted on by

Ride-On King

A manga where the president of Pursia, Alexander Purchinov, who is obsessed with riding on top of things gets sent to a fantasy world where he will now ride mythical creatures.

Yasushi Baba got popular with the martial-arts genre and has slowly veered off into serious comedy. This series seems like the end result of his journey into absurdist territory. I’ve talked about how crazy Golosseum was and now Baba has taken his parody of Vladimir Putin and done an isekai series about riding dragons and wyverns. It’s bizarre to say the least.

~dakazu

Iwa kakeru! Climbing Girls

Posted on by

Iwa kakeru! Climbing Girls

A manga about a former national champion puzzle gamer who uses her ability of analysis to become a natural at climbing.

This is a typical setup for sports series where a complete amateur just so happens to have a particular ability that makes them excel at a sport. In this case, it’s climbing.

There’s a lot of emphasis on girls wearing tight fitting sports gear climbing which means there’s a lot of fan service pleasing perspectives. If that’s your thing then you’ll probably enjoy this but I think I prefer Kabedon! because it tackles the sport of climbing without excessive T&A.

Also is there a climbing boom in Japan or something?

~dakazu

Boukyaku Battery

Posted on by

Boukyaku Battery

A manga about a middle school ace pitcher and his genius partner catcher who disappeared suddenly, only to show up at a high school with no baseball team because the catcher lost his memory and turned into a buffoon.

When I first checked out this series on Jump+ I was taken back by how good Eko Mikawa‘s art was. Then I was laughing at how much witty comedy was done with such stylish looking characters. While the story setup is pretty typical for a baseball manga I really like Mikawa’s comedic sense.

It makes me laugh and I’d like to catch up to the current chapters if possible.

~dakazu