A manga about passengers trapped on a cruise ship that is actually a dining ground auction site for vampires.
Pretty good horror series. The story is a nice slow burn as the human passengers gradually realize they’re lives are in danger. My favorite part was the vampires putting on an live execution masked as a magic show to the passengers. Really dark stuff. They imply that different blood types are poisonous to the vampires so I’m interested to see how the humans will try to escape their grisly fate.
A non-fiction manga about a man who cared for his comatose fiance and finally married her 8 years after their original wedding date.
The first thing I did after reading this was check the internet to see if it was true and indeed, it is. The couple got engaged 1 year after first meeting and set their wedding date for March 11, 2007. 2 months before the date the bride-to-be Mai became ill and suffered from hallucinations brought on from Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. She was hospitalized where her heart stopped beating and she was put on an artificial respirator. From there she remained unconscious for over a year. During that time the fiance Hisashi visited her everyday for her recovery. When she finally regained consciousness she underwent years of rehabilitation to recover basic functions and had no memories of her fiance. Despite this Hisashi continued to help her with rehabilitation and in 2014 they finally got married, 8 years after their engagement.
The story is incredibly touching and moving. This manga adaptation by Junko Tamura is decent but I could tell they dramatized somethings because Mai standing up from her wheelchair to tell Hisashi she loves him doesn’t come off as actual fact. Didn’t keep me from crying while I read it though.
I love Fumi Yoshinaga but these stories weren’t great. They’re overly dramatic and don’t get away from the classic yaoi relationships that are basically sexual assault.
The longest multi part story is about a music teacher who sleeps with his student. I will say that I am really sick of stories involving romantic relationships between teachers and students. I’m a teacher myself and I think it’s one of the most overused plots that personally infuriate me. The music teacher is the one to come onto the student so that’s awful. The student is characterized as being somewhat dimwitted which makes it worse. And the happy ending to the story seems to justify that everything that happened was OK. It’s terrible.
Also you don’t say a student isn’t understanding solfege when you’re playing a random note on the piano. You’re mixing sight-singing with notating a melody!
A manga about a young man who is hunted through the darkest reaches of space for his bones that will supposedly grant any wish if captured.
This is Q Hayashida‘s newest manga and it’s just as strange and wonderful as Dorohedoro. This one takes place in space but everything has that unique Hayashida aesthetic. Spaceships and spacesuits alike have a very flesh-like look to them. Even the protagonist Sanko wears a skin of darkness that looks like a tattered robe. He wields an axe that easily separates the bones from it’s victims. Even his backpack transforms into a walking skeleton companion.
It’s really interesting to see the theme of bones throughout this manga so far but like any Hayashida series I’ll have to read more to learn about everything.
A series of stories involving food that Toru Seino experienced.
I really love Toru Seino‘s manga. His non-fiction storytelling is so witty and hilarious. He’s totally that friend you have who has the craziest stories to share.
This series is focused on sorely on food stories but they’re all hilarious and great. One of my favorites was how he went with a buddy to a restaurant that said ramen but looked like a sushi place. They entered and found the sashimi and raw fish dishes tasted amazing but the chef won’t serve sushi because he’s switched to making ramen. While they wait for ramen they notice another drunk customer who has wet himself but wants ramen. They predict that the ramen is so good it’s worth pissing yourself over but the end result is unspeakable.
One note about Seino is that he continues to include real life photography of these people. You can see the customer’s crotch is clearly damp but if he didn’t put a mosaic over the face I would call this exploitative.
This sequel stars a whole new group of people who are investigating the forests by Mount Fuji. I kinda love that they’re led a by scummy vlogger group. Keeps things very relevant for current times. I can’t wait to see which human survivors are involved with the Monkey killers and for all the treacherous backstabbing to begin!
A manga about a man who’s ultimate wish is to be killed by a high school girl.
This is an interesting one. While I didn’t like how they never explained why the man became obsessed with getting killed, they do tie it to his sexual urges as a form of autassassinophilia. And despite his desire to be killed he also takes into the account of whether a young girl has the strength to strangle him and to find a way where she wouldn’t end up being charged with murder afterwards. This realistic approach kept me reading what would otherwise be a simply exploitative story going for shock. I will say there were some really forced plot elements they included that needed to happen so everything would play out for the sake of the story. I was willing to ignore them just to see if all the meticulous planning by the man paid off.
I won’t spoil it but I think it helped that this was only a short 2 volume manga that was paced appropriately. Not sure I would recommend it though because I don’t it was interesting enough to outweigh the problematic themes.
A manga about a 17 year-old high school girl who battles in the Ladies Professional Shogi League.
Another great shogi manga. This one is unique in that it focuses specifically on the Ladies Professional Shogi League and that they’re considered inferior to the Japanese Shogi Association players.
What I really like about this book is that it really emphasizes the severity of each game for professional players. Many shogi manga like 81 Diver and March Comes in like a Lion say “to lose in shogi means death” and it’s really shown through the artwork here. There’s a panel with the protagonist’s opponent strangling her underwater as she struggles to literally escape her clutches. When she finally finds a way to turn the tides it shows her lunging at their neck to bite it. It’s intense to say the least.
This is a newer series running in Big Comic Superior and I’ll definitely be reading more.
A manga about a man who failed to become a professional shogi player who is lead into the world of underground gambling shogi by a busty maid.
I love this series. It’s completely ridiculous and over the top in the best way. I feel like Yokusaru Shibata honed in his craft of drawing someone giving a crazy reaction with this series. Unfortunately I’d say he also started to really lean into busty characters. I think this series skirts that fine line that doesn’t feel exploitative because the main character often comments on how ridiculous everything is.
One thing to note about any of Shibata’s works is that they occur in the same universe. Many fighters from his previous series Air Master appear here and it’s really humorous to watch them play shogi.
A manga about a genius but socially awkward hacker who teams up with a wealthy investor to “conquer the world”.
A decent thriller series. I really liked the dynamic expressions of the characters by Sadayasu. I liked the story in the beginning but towards the end it went into a wonky plot about government conspiracy and I kinda lost interest.
The hacker is the type of genius who suffers from communication disabilities but is obsessive over any computing. It wouldn’t be far off to say he has asperger syndrome but it’s never clearly stated. Probably for the best because I tend to have issues with misrepresentation of autism anyway.
