Category Archives: dakazu’s reading

Various manga dakazu’s read with some commentary

The Garden of Words 

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The Garden of Words 

A manga adaptation of Makoto Shinkai’s anime film about a teen who wants to become a shoemaker befriending a young woman he meets in a pagoda on rainy days.

We’ve talked about this movie on an episode a long time ago. It’s a gorgeous film but we really weren’t fans of the whole teacher/student romance because it’s super cliche and gross. I checked out this manga adaptation but I felt it didn’t really change my opinion of the story.

I’d recommend checking out the movie as long as you’re OK with a story about a teacher/student stuff. It should be interesting to see some of Shinkai’s themes that are carried over into Your Name.

~dakazu

Binzo

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Binzo

A manga about an idol otaku who becomes a zombie while still retaining his human intellect.

I rather enjoyed this despite the overused zombie genre. It was interesting to see the main character figuring out how to control his zombie powers and I really liked how they immediately set up another smart zombie serial killer as an antagonist. The story also follows the actions of the government which makes sense considering a zombie out break is happening.

The art style is very similar to Hiroshi Takahashi. Almost so that I was surprised when I realized he wasn’t the artist. 

I’m slightly torn that it was only 4 volumes. Short enough that it didn’t overstay it’s welcome but also felt that there could’ve been more stories to explore.

~dakazu

Chimoguri Ringo to Kingyobachi Otoko

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Chimoguri Ringo to Kingyobachi Otoko

A manga about a town being terrorized by a vampire with a fishbowl head and girl in a school swimsuit who dives into a victim’s blood to save them.

Yeah, the concept of this story is crazy but it somehow works. I will say all swimsuit stuff is definitely fan service but if you can look past that you have a uniquely different take on monster hunting. Youichi Abe must specialize in creating these supernatural horrors with a twist as he’s also done Vanilla Spider.

A bizarre but surprising enjoyable book.

~dakazu

Dagashi Kashi

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Dagashi Kashi

A manga about a strange girl obsessed with children’s snacks who tries to get the son of the owner of a rural candy store to take over her father’s business.

This series ended earlier this year and I’m really surprised it lasted this long. I read it when it started in 2014 but the concept of comedic stories revolving around a particular brand of candy ended up getting pretty stale in the long run. I also wasn’t a into the fan service with Hotaru’s character, especially in the anime series.

If you have a nostalgia or interest in Japanese candy you’ll probably enjoy this series if you can look past the T&A.

~dakazu

Gohoubi Gohan

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Gohoubi Gohan

A manga about an office lady who treats herself to a delicious meal once a week.

What a cute little series! I liked Tomoko Komo’s adorable character designs a lot. It’s nice to see a food manga that covers a wide variety of tasty treats. They range from extravagant lobster curry to simple instant yakisoba.

Very similar to Wakako Zake.

~dakazu

Inugami Kai

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Inugami Kai

A manga about a boy who befriends a mysterious talking dog that uses retracting forehead blades to fight other creatures.

So apparently this is a recent re-release of the original Inugami series that originally ran in the 90′s, which explains some of the dated artwork.

I personally thought this was alright. My main complaint was that the animal creatures using transforming blades and tentacles really seem like they’re aping off of Parasyte. The story setup also seems similar as both have the benevolent alien creature pair up with a human friend.

If you liked Parasyte then you might enjoy a similar story with this one.

~dakazu

H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space

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H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space

A manga adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s horror story where an old meteorite starts changing everything nearby on a hillside in Massachusetts.

This is the 2nd Lovecraft adaptation by Gou Tanabe I’ve read and I continue to really love his artwork and creature designs. I really enjoyed the pacing of this story and was glad they spread out the creeping terror through the whole 6 chapters.

You can buy English editions of Tanabe’s adaptation of The Hound and At the Mountains of Madness right now. Hopefully sales will be good enough that they’ll put out more of these.

~dakazu

Runway de Waratte

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Runway de Waratte

A manga about a girl too short to model and her aspiring fashion designer classmate who work to achieve their dreams for making it in the fashion industry.

A decent manga that’s currently running in Weekly Shonen Magazine. Fashion isn’t a typical subject, especially in shonen manga so I’m interested to see how it will fair. Luckily Kotoba Inoya’s artwork shines with the different designs of clothing.

I will say I end up laughing every new chapter because Inoya loves to create drama by making the protagonists react to some awful circumstance or put down with a shocked and despondent expression, usually every week.

I’m surprisingly into this series so far.

~dakazu

LV999 no Murabito

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LV999 no Murabito

A manga about a villager in a fantasy RPG world that’s figured out a way to reach the maximum level who plans on destroying his world where monsters and humans constantly fight.

This is based on a light novel so you get a familiar gimmick of adding an extreme element to established RPG tropes. In this case it’s an over powered villager. I didn’t find anything about this series that interesting but I did like how the villager is neither on the side of the human heroes or the demons. I might keep checking it out to see the reveal of the big baddie but not gonna get invested enough because it might be lame.

~dakazu

Kengan Ashura

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Kengan Ashura

A manga about a martial artist Tokima Ouma who teams up with a weakling salary man to participate in a special tournament where corporations pick fighters to represent them.

Fairly decent fighting manga. Reminds me a lot of Baki where all other fighters have fun personalities and different martial arts styles. Artist Daromeon is very good.

There’s an anime coming in 2019 but it’s gonna be 3D and it doesn’t look promising.

~dakazu