Category Archives: dakazu’s reading

Various manga dakazu’s read with some commentary

Shinotori

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Shinotori

A manga about a prisoner who escapes from a hijacked plane alongside a mysterious girl with wings into a world where a viral epidemic is transforming humans into cannibalistic bird monsters.

This is essentially a zombie manga except they’ve replaced zombies with birds. The artwork by Dr. Imu is fairly impressive and creative when it came to the various monster designs but the story felt really rote and predictable. It was pretty mediocre in my eyes and not really worth recommending.

~dakazu

O Maidens in Your Savage Season

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O Maidens in Your Savage Season

A manga about 5 high school girls of a literature club who become conscience about sex.

We discussed this on a recent episode.

This series is kind of a mixed bag for me. I like that it explores the youthful sexual awakening through the eyes of female protagonists. However a lot of these explorations lead to extremely dramatic moments, which the author Mari Okada is known for. I would’ve preferred if the series took a more thoughtful approach to sexual exploration like Scum’s Wish did, instead of using it to create drama for drama’s sake. I did think Nao Emoto‘s expressive artwork was impressive.

It’s available in English from Kodansha Comics.

~dakazu

Kuishinbo!

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Kuishinbo!

A manga about a salary man who’s large appetite leads him into the world of competitive eating.

I really love this series. I remember thinking how unique it was to cover competitive eating as a manga topic when I first read it years ago. Shigeru Tsuchiyama has made his career on making food manga and you can see why here.

It’s available in English through Kindle & comiXology.

~dakazu

Misoji Meshi

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Misoji Meshi

A food manga about a 30 year-old woman who enjoys meals at real-life restaurants and eateries.

I love me some good food manga and it’s always impressive when have ones like this that incorporate real places you can go visit. There are some really creative reaction scenes as the food sprout faces and talk to the woman in her imagination. I also really loved Shizuka Itou‘s art work. Almost all of her shading is done by hand and that gives it an almost pencil sketch like look.

~dakazu

Shiratama-kun

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Shiratama-kun

A manga about a cat with the IQ of a human who talks and goes to high school.

What a cute series!

The story follows the titular Shiratama-kun as he tries to make regular friends but one of his classmates is obsessed with him being a talking cat. There’s a lot of comedy revolving around him dealing trying to be treated normally but he can’t fight the fact that he’s a cat. My favorite part was how he would dance on a laptop to type and take notes during class. It’s really surprising to me that this ran in the seinen magazine Young Jump.

~dakazu

Pinsaro Sniper

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Pinsaro Sniper

A manga about an elite lady assassin who is an office worker by day and sex worker by night.

This has got to be one of the stupidest things I’ve read. It’s maddening because Koji Dabe‘s art is such high quality and it’s completely wasted on this dumbass concept.

The lady sniper works at a brothel at night and receives requests for assassination while giving her clients a blowjob. I can’t even express how ridiculous it is as these clients get their knob polished in graphic detail while they tearfully cry about their horrible situations that led them to hiring a hit woman. It’s laughably stupid.

This manga must be a prime example that sex sells and how publishers target male readers. A shame because Dabe clearly has the ability to draw something with more substance than this book.

~dakazu

Dämons

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Dämons

A manga about a man who’s desire for revenge awakens the power to control iron prosthetic arms like they were his own.

We’ve discussed this manga on an older episode.

This series is based on a one shot by Osamu Tezuka. It’s kind of amazing that Hideyuki Yonehara took such a small and short story that Tezuka did and crafted it into an epic 13 volume adventure.

Unfortunately I’d only say this is a pretty average action series. I’ve read Yonehara’s Full Ahead! Coco and this seems to be on par with his abilities. You get some decent action scenes but a lot of the narrative structure and overall designs are pretty insignificant.

Interesting because of it’s existence but not because of the manga itself.

~dakazu

Bateribaisu – Ningen Denchi to Suna no Kyozou

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Bateribaisu – Ningen Denchi to Suna no Kyozou

A manga about a world were humans can use weapons powered by their own electric power. Rebel forces fight against nobles who imprison them and treat them as human cattle.

We’ve discussed this on a recent episode.

This is a decent sci-fi series. The art work is handled by K Akagishi who also does Tondemo Skill de Isekai Hourou Meshi, which I love. Akagishi’s characters have a very angular look to them that reminds me of Yowamushi Pedal‘s Wataru Watanabe. There’s some great looking action set pieces that make great use of his kinetic art style. I really liked all overall designs that help sell this kinda mediocre story about 2 rebels who are actually spies for the nobles. When the spies are outed they are also cast out from nobility and left for dead but one of them is able to power a colossal robot and fight back.

I’m interested in reading more because I just enjoy K Akagishi‘s work so much.

~dakazu

Neun

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Neun

A manga about a child born from a secret Nazi mission by Heinrich Himmler to create heirs of Adolf Hitler escaping through Germany with his protector.

We’ve discussed this manga on an older episode.

I’ve gone back and revisited this manga to try and see what Tsutomu Takahashi is trying to do with this story about Nazis. My conclusion is that it’s trying to tell an interesting narrative about this ninth heir of Hitler who possesses an almost spiritual connection with souls that plays with the Nazi idealism of a perfect race. Once Neun awakens in his abilities he teams up with another heir of Hitler and sides against the Nazis, so that’s positive at least.

But it’s also filled Nazis and SS imagery that are given an almost beautiful look through Takahashi’s amazing ink work. I don’t think Takahashi is trying to romanticize Nazis as he writes them as evil and depicts their inhuman atrocities and horrors of war. But he sure likes to skirt that line as you have a female guardian dressed in a Nazi uniform brandishing a samurai sword and a cannibalistic SS doctor who keeps a literal human swastika in his office. It’s a problematic narrative with it’s subject matter and sometimes absurd content. I’d definitely recommend several other works by Takahashi over this one.

~dakazu

Gunjou

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Gunjou

A manga about a lesbian who murders the abusive husband of the woman she’s in love with.

We’ve discussed this on a previous episode.

Wow this is amazing. I’m incredibly impressed with Ching Nakamura‘s ability to write such an deep and dark narrative. The relationship between the wife and the lesbian is so wrought with drama but at sometimes comes off as too melodramatic. The story begins with the murder of the wife’s husband and everything that follows is uniquely intense but still grounded in reality. It’s really beautiful how well Nakamura is able to lead you along this almost bitter relationship as it works through the aftermath of everything until the end. It really matches the title of the series that is the Japanese word for ultramarine.

One of my favorite things about this story was that none of the the characters get named until the end of the volume. Even the two main characters are never named and it’s a unique characteristic for the story.

I’d love to see this series get an official release.

~dakazu