Category Archives: dakazu’s reading

Various manga dakazu’s read with some commentary

Blue Flag

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Blue Flag

A romance manga about a boy helping a girl trying to confess to his best friend.

I’ve always felt bad for manga artist KAITO as their previous series Cross Manage and Buddy Strike did not do well in Weekly Shonen Jump. However this series had been having good success on Jump+. I was reluctant to read it because I was kind of over the shonen romance genre but glad I did.

KAITO sticks to the standard tropes of romance stories but they put in a few modern twists. In particular, the reveal of one character’s possible feelings totally surprised me and I was also super into it(yes I’ve being vague on purpose to avoid spoilers!). Also a recent story arc examined the stigma of being friends with the opposite sex and was handled very well.

I’m glad KAITO has found success and I will be adding this to my list of manga to follow. It’s now available to read on Manga Plus app and website.

~dakazu

Sabishii No Wa Anta Dake Ja Nai

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Sabishii No Wa Anta Dake Ja Nai

A manga examining the controversy behind Japanese composer Mamoru Samuragochi claiming to be a deaf by interviewing people with hearing disorders and also Samuragochi himself.

I’ve enjoyed Kouji Yoshimoto’s non-fiction stuff ever since I read his series on Tezuka Osamu and this title was no exception. I was really impressed at how Yoshimoto takes the time to try and explain the struggles and situations being deaf brings in modern Japanese society. It’s always great to see proper representation of disabilities, especially for Japan.

Yoshimoto also gets into the process it took to interview Samuragochi and there are various scenes with his editor where they reflect on what was discussed. This gave the story a much more open ended feeling showing Yoshimoto openly struggling to see if Samuragochi was truly lying about being deaf or not.

Fascinating series and I want to read more! There is also a documentary about Mamoru Samuragochi called Fake that I want to check out as well.

~dakazu

Banana Fish

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Banana Fish

A manga about beautiful young American guy who teams up with a young Japanese photographer to take down a mob boss and a deadly new drug.

Man, this book is fantastic! I started watching the anime and got hooked. Tracked down the manga and read it non-stop. The story was super engaging and had me eagerly reaching for the next volume. I will say that it is very mature with it’s content and sure had a lot of rape in it.

I’ve finished it and will now be sad as I wait for the anime to catch up to the ending. Ash x Eiji forever!

~dakazu

Hashikko Ensemble

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Hashikko Ensemble

A manga about a boy with a low voice that’s invited to start a chorus at his vocational high school.

Shimoku Kio is most known for his successful Genshiken series but as someone who teaches people how to sing I was EXTREMELY skeptical of how Kio would be addressing this subject. After following this series since it began I can now say that some of the facts he says about singing are correct and others are wrong enough to be cringeworthy. 

It’s disappointing to me because I’ve always wondered how a manga would address the topic of choral singing but currently I’m reading this series with my hand over my forehead just waiting for the next awful falsehood about singing to appear on the page.

~dakazu

PLINIVS

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PLINIVS

A manga about the life of Gaius Plinius Secundus or Pliny the Elder. He was a Roman philosopher and the father of the Encyclopedia.

Mari Yamazaki has experience with Roman characters in her comedy Thermae Romae and with biographies in her adaptation of Steve Jobs. Apparently she really wanted to draw a serious story about Roman times and thought Pliny was a perfect subject. It’s co-created with Miki Tori. 

I really liked this book but it was a little difficult to follow all the characters and politics happening. The plot follows both Plinius and the Roman Emperor of the time Nero so there’s a lot of backstabbing and scheming drama. I will say Yamazaki has a unique skill in making real life people like Nero or Steve Wozniak very cute.

I plan on reading more!

~dakazu

BTOOOM!

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BTOOOM!

A manga about a top ranked video game player who gets kidnapped to an island and is forced to play a death match battle royale version of his game in real life.

…Yeah this is super stupid and totally generic. As if you couldn’t already tell by the cover that parodies an XBOX 360 game. The game itself is a copy of Bomberman.

This series finally ended recently and I was completely dumbfounded with their choice to put out dual final volumes. You can choose a Light/happy ending or a Dark/sad ending. I just about lost it when the antagonist’s secret motivations were completely changed for each separate ending. It just came off as a poorly written visual novel game or something.

Not recommend. You’re better reading Battle Royale(the novel because it’s superior to both the manga adaptation and movie).

~dakazu

Bokura no Q

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Bokura no Q

A manga about a boy being followed around by a mysterious talking sphere that grants him regenerative powers for answering it’s questions about life.

A pretty strange series that reminded me of series like Parasyte. The main character ends up using the sphere’s powers to battle against an antagonist who uses his own sphere to murder people as he pleases.

The art work of Jikei Ichima is a little rough around the edges but it gives the series a pretty unique feel. I’m willing to check out some more to see if the story progresses past a simple battle manga.

~dakazu

VS. Again

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VS. Again

A manga about a salary man who decides to rejoin his company’s volley ball team and pursue his abandoned dreams of getting to the premier V-League.

This was a really interesting seinen sports manga. I don’t think I’ve read a sports manga that focused on a commercial league before. The team struggles to balance their day jobs and their pursuit of joining the V-League. Sometimes they even have to fight against people that view the volleyball team as a waste of the company budget. The climax of the series even focuses on the potential end of the team after they start to win big because the company would not be able to afford the expense of going to a higher league.

A unique take on the sports genre. I really enjoyed this book.

~dakazu

GREEN WORLDZ

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GREEN WORLDZ

A science fiction horror manga about a group of humans surviving in a world over run with giant plants and insects. They’re led by a mysterious man who has ties to the main character.

This was a decent manga that I found pretty entertaining. The action was well done and drawn. I think my biggest complaint about this series was that a lot of it’s various designs such as story, characters, weapons, and monsters were either generic or were influenced from other things. Things like the big plot twist were super obvious. In an extra end-of-volume afterword Yusuke Osawa comments that he’s a huge fan of Bloodborne and it shows in the designs of weapons the characters use to fight with.

This manga was available through the Manga Box app and was fully translated but apparently Manga Box stopped the majority of their English translation support so it’s no longer officially available. A bummer.

~dakazu

Hajime no Ippo

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Hajime no Ippo

Look, at one point in my life Ippo was one of my favorite manga of all time. I would still advise people to check out the anime because if you haven’t heard punches accompanied by jet engines sound effects, you haven’t lived. However this manga has gone on for too long and it’s just tedious in so many ways now. Unfortunately the most recent events in this series make it clear that we’re still no where near the ending.

I pray George Morikawa will be able to finish what he started almost 29 years ago.

~dakazu