Black Lagoon
A manga about a Japanese office man who ends up leaving his country and job to join a mercenary group while in Thailand.
Revisited this series after hearing it came back this year and it really hasn’t aged well at all. Maids & nuns with machine guns makes this feel like the a relic from a time when mixing fetishes with gun violence appealed to fans looking for “edgier” content.
Not for me but if you loved Black Lagoon it’s back so enjoy it I guess.
~dakazu
Chichi Chichi
A manga about a short picture book writer who ends us living together with a tall and very busty woman.
I checked out this book because it was done by the same creator of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid which I really enjoyed. Unfortunately I was very disappointed that this was a straight up pervy series that was just using breast fetishism and macrophilia as a selling point.
It tries to do some character building by having the main character be a victim of bullying but it’s kinda difficult be emotionally invested in someone who “accidentally” ends up titty fucking his roommate all the time and has a busty sister who wants to bang him.
Shallow and basic. Not for me.
~dakazu
18 Rin
A manga about a prestigious young teenager who starts working at an adult film production company to make ends meet after dropping out of high school.
I was extremely skeptical of this manga when I started reading it because I was just waiting for the protagonist to be taken advantage of in some horrible way and it does immediately start with some exploitative fan service by putting the girl in various porno costumes because she doesn’t own any other clothes. But while they do start with jokes revolving around her child-like innocence about sexual content, this series starts to focus on the members of the company working together to make a successful product.
There are some fun behind-the-scenes information about the Japanese adult film industry that were interesting to learn about and the wacky cast of co-workers ended up making this an actually nice story. The ending was pretty abrupt so I presume it ended up being got canceled. A shame because you could tell there were some story plots that were never finished.
There was a drama adaptation which I think could be funny and I’d like to check out sometime.
~dakazu
6th Bullets
A manga about a bullied high school boy who joins a special gun squad to fight against humans transformed into mutants by their dark desires.
Welp. This manga seems like it’s an amalgamation of a bunch of generic troupes that comes off as bland and unoriginal when put together.
Sexy woman in tight clothing? Check.
Humans turning into monsters based on their evil emotions? Check.
Main Character who has a heart of justice? Check.
Even the team’s name ammonymous is done in the same font as amazon.
Yusuke Osawa is not a bad artist and I rather enjoyed his GREEN WORLDZ series. I suggest people go read that instead of this.
~dakazu
Tokkou no Shima
A manga about Japanese soldiers during World War 2 that were assigned to man suicide torpedoes for the Kaiten squad.
A power manga about a horrible real life war story. Sato Shuho’s inking and shadowing shine to convey emotions of the main character and the tense submarine battles.
It’s a book I think that deserves to be brought over in English but probably won’t because of the subject matter.
~dakazu
219 – Scum’s Wish part 2
This week we continue our Retrospective review of Scum’s Wish! Will the dramatic events change how we feel about certain characters? Tune in to find out!
Continue readingDrifting Dragons
A manga about a troupe of hunters who take to the skies to hunt and eat dragons in a fantasy world.
Food manga is a favorite genre of mine. Sometimes manga about eating fantastical creatures can be good(Delicious in Dungeon) and other times it can be bad(Youkai Gohan: Shinsen no Ryourinin). This book is definitely one of the good ones, as the dragons are a fantasy stand in for whaling.
I also love that this series feels like it belongs in the world of Hayao Miazaki’s Castle in the Sky, with airships taken right out of that movie.
Available in English from Kodansha Comics.
~dakazu
Kaisha no Yatsu niwa Zettai Shiraretakunai
A manga about a bullied office lady who must fight to survive as her co-workers start transforming into pig-men who attack humans.
An interesting single volume manga. This book explores the dark desires of getting revenge as the protagonist who ends up using this fantastical situation to channel her pent up rage against everyone who’s wronged her. Thematically it reminds me a lot of Moyoco Anno’s In Clothes Called Fat. I thought the story imploded at the end as the scientific explanation on how humans eventually became pigs didn’t really work but the obvious symbolism and themes of this book still worked well thanks to it’s short length.
I also liked the meaning behind the title “I don’t want anyone at my job to find out”.
~dakazu
Ichi-F
A documentary manga about the daily life of the cleanup crew at the No. 1 Fukushima nuclear plant after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011.
An incredibly fascinating look at what actually happens at ground zero of a nuclear disaster. Kazuto Tatsuta details everything behind the lives of worker from the process of getting hired to the daily Geiger counter checks.
There is some controversy surrounding this book as readers have been critical about how the companies behind the Fukushima cleanup in it are portrayed too positively, thus suggesting that the manga artist is in cahoots with them some how. While I’m not very familiar with the Japanese politics behind everything, I will still say that this manga is still a wonderful resource for learning about how nuclear fallout is contained and cleanup crews work.
We dedicated an episode to this book if you’d like to listen for further analysis.
~dakazu
Happiness
A manga about a boy who’s world turns upside down after he’s bit by an ancient vampire.
This series starts kind of slow but once you get to the part with the protagonist looking up at the sky that looks just like Van Gogh’s Starry Night you’ll be hooked.
Shuzo Oshimi takes his art to a whole different level in this on-going series. Story-wise it goes into some truly twisted places but that shouldn’t any surprise to fans of Oshimi’s work.
Highly recommended and also available in English through Kondasha Comics!
~dakazu