Category Archives: dakazu’s reading

Various manga dakazu’s read with some commentary

Boukyaku Battery

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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

Archimedes no Taisen

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Archimedes no Taisen

A manga about a mathematical genius who wages a personal war to prevent the Imperial Japanese navy from constructing it’s largest battleship, the Yamato.

This is a really unique historical war manga because the main character works to prevent Japanese involvement in World War 2. There’s a lot of military babble that went over my head but I’m still reading new chapters as they appear in Young Magazine.

I give Norifusa Mita a lot of credit because, while his artwork is not as bad as someone like Nobuyuki Fukumoto of KAIJI fame, I wouldn’t say it’s good either. Despite his artistic limitations Mita has created lots of popular manga in a variety of genres. This one is his first foray into the historical military genre and I have to say I’m impressed with it’s interesting premise.

~dakazu

Abyss Rage

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Abyss Rage

A manga about a blind martial artist who must battle for his life inside a remote island prison to save his girlfriend from the evil warden.

We’ve covered this manga on Darfox Dabbles.

I’ve enjoyed Nariaki Narita‘s Macho Gourmet series in the past. Reading this one has kinda pointed out how Narita falls in the category of artists who draw all characters and faces similarly. Also the antagonist of this series is a bald buff martial-arts freak with African facial features and he enjoys beating opponents with his fists before raping them. It’s problematic to say the least.

A decent martial-arts manga but I’ve read better. Available to read on Mangaplus.

~dakazu

Teenage Renaissance! David

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Teenage Renaissance! David

A comedy manga about a high school boy who resembles Michelangelo’s David.

This one was kind of a one-trick pony in my eyes. All the jokes would come from the impressive re-creations of famous sculptures and artworks by Yuushin Kuroki and putting them in context of a wacky high school setting. I’m actually surprised it lasted as long as it did in Weekly Shonen Jump before getting axed.

~dakazu

Food Fighter Taberu

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Food Fighter Taberu

A manga about the strongest competitive eater named Taberu.

This is a series by the great comedy manga artist Kyosuke Usuta. I’ve always enjoyed his absurdist and irreverent humor combined with an art style that looks professional in one panel and like a child’s chicken scratch drawing in the next.

Food Fighter Taberu is a decent comedy but it isn’t quite up to par to Usuta’s other series like Sexy Commando Gaiden: Sugoi yo!! Masaru-san or Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar, which are both god-tier in terms of comedy.

~dakazu

Tokyo Alien Brothers

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Tokyo Alien Brothers

A manga about 2 brothers who are actually aliens in charge of assessing Earth for colonization.

I loved Keigo Shinzo‘s Midori no Hoshi so I was excited to get into this. I really enjoyed the dynamic between the 2 brothers as the younger Fuyunosuke has assimilated well into society and while the older Natsutaro is a bumbling fool who’s always in danger of outing himself as alien. Their day to day interaction with humans are equally hilarious and endearing.

Looking forward to reading more!

~dakazu

B – Brahms 20-sai no Tabiji

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B – Brahms 20-sai no Tabiji

A manga about a young Johannes Brahms traveling with violinist Ede Reményi.

This series is strange. The main story happens concurrently with a modern high school student discovering the music of Brahms and trying to get with a girl who loves classical music. Even the main story suffers from spending a large chunk of the backstory on some side characters. If you’re doing a biographical manga about Brahms then just focus on him! Especially because this is only 3 volumes long.

Waste of what could’ve been an interesting bio-manga.

~dakazu

Billy Bat

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Billy Bat

A manga about a comic creator who’s character called Billy Bat turns out to be an entity that has been influencing history since the dawn of man.

Here it is. The manga that became the progenitor of our Manga Machinations podcast.

This title is so full of insane plot twists and mystery that it became the focus of our first discussions recorded in audio format. We spent hours theorizing the truth behind the white & black bat, breaking down the connection between Hitler and Lee Harvey Oswald, and trying to predict where/when the story was headed next.

Unfortunately in typical Naoki Urasawa fashion, the series ended with a whimper which also didn’t wrap up most of the confusing plot threads. But overall, the mountain of conspiracy theories we built on the way ended up being the best thing that could of ever started our journey as a manga podcast.

Here’s to you, Billy Bat. I pray for the day you’ll be officially available in English.

~dakazu