Shinkyu Chie no Neko Bitashi
Wakako Zake manga artist, Chie Shinkyu, chronicles her days with her newly adopted kitten Sen-chan.
I love Wakako Zake and I love pets so this was right up my alley. It’s super cute!
~dakazu
Shinkyu Chie no Neko Bitashi
Category Archives: dakazu’s reading
UQ Holder!
UQ Holder!
A tale of a young boy who becomes a vampire and joins a special peace keeping task force made up of immortals. Eventually it’s revealed as a sequel to Negima! Magister Negi Magi.
I’m honestly not the biggest fan of Ken Akamatsu from his early days with Love Hina and his general focus on harem manga. I didn’t read Negima! but I followed UQ Holder! a little when it was serialized in Shonen Magazine. I recently tried catching up on the series but when I got to the part about alternate history/timelines I just threw my hands up and gave up. I don’t know what it is about time travel/alternate timelines but just like when it happened in Magical Girl Apocalypse I completely checked out. It just comes off as such a cheap plot device and makes everything overly complicated.
~dakazu
Imuri
Imuri
A fanatsy sci-fi tale of a young noble who gains a hidden ancient power used by his people to oppress a slave race. His adventures will lead him to become the leader of the slaves and revolt against his former people.
Yeah, this is basically just like Frank Herbert’s Dune but I don’t care. It’s so well done and I love the shojo-esque art style of Miyake Ranjyo. Truely an sci-fi epic in every sense. It’s awesome.
~dakazu
Boku wa Ikemen
Boku wa Ikemen
A manga about overweight and bitter salary man who becomes possessed and taken over by the ghost of his recently deceased good looking co-worker. Now his ghost co-worker is trying to fulfill his undying wish of proposing to the office beauty.
This is done by the same creative team that did Naraku no Hitsuji and while you can see similar themes of self-hate and dark personalities this is a complete 180 in tone from that book. I thought this series was well done and liked a far better than Naraku no Hitsuji. In particular, the rival girl was a really interesting and dark character that they gave a lot of depth to.
~dakazu
Narusawa-kun wa Oishii Kao ni Koishiteru
Narusawa-kun wa Oishii Kao ni Koishiteru
A food manga about how scary looking high schooler Narusawa is secretly just a guy who loves looking at happy girls eating his cooking. His life is suddenly interrupted when an Italian girl comes to homestay. Now he gets to feed her food and see her look happy everyday.
For a simple food manga the storytelling in this series was top notch. They really explain Narusawa by exploring a traumatic past and then addressing it. I liked how he gradually opened up to his classmates after cooking for three different girls changed his view on school life. You’d think the story setup would be just a simple harem but they don’t focus on the romance and instead focus on the relationship between characters. It’s so great!
A surprisingly deep story within a food manga. I approve!
~dakazu
Ashita no Joe ni Akogarete
Ashita no Joe ni Akogarete
Manga artist Sanbanchi Kawa shares manga drawing techniques and stories from when he was an assistant under Ashita no Joe creator Tetsuya Chiba.
I was surprised and how finely Kawa wrote about the drawing techniques used in creating manga. This series almost doubles as an instruction book for “How to write manga”. I’m not really a fan of Kawa’s manga because of his art style but this manga was so informative I didn’t mind.
~dakazu
Nikkan Yandere Fuufu Manga
Nikkan Yandere Fuufu Manga
A biographical manga about a real life yandere couple.
At first I was concerned why the manga artist was so attracted to her husband’s yandere personality. It’s later revealed she has to deal with an abusive home growing up and her yandere husband’s undying love actually helped her deal with those issues.
I can tell some of the stories are a little exaggerated for laughs but that didn’t bother me too much. I’m simply glad that the couple loves each other and seems to get along fine.
~dakazu
Gangsta.
Gangsta.
A manga about 2 men who who work jobs for both the police and mob in the corrupt city of Ergastulum.
I honestly had zero interest in this series but the anime adaptation was recommended to me when it came out a few years ago. I was seriously impressed with how well they handled the deaf character Nicolas and started reading the manga. Honestly speaking it’s strictly alright and not great. It went on hiatus for a while but now it’s back.
If you like mob stories with a mix of superhuman fighting than I HIGHLY recommend the anime over the manga. Available in English from VIZ.
~dakazu
Dare ga Kenja wo Koroshita ka?
Dare ga Kenja wo Koroshita ka?
A manga about how a secret group of hackers who saved the planet are being killed off one by one. It’s up to the Amish daughter of the killed “Sage” to solve the mystery of why the group is being targeted.
This honestly isn’t a very good manga and I only kinda read it in passing when it was online on Jump+. It was hilariously bad with Amish representation. I guess being Amish means you’re compensated with Goku-like strength to make up for not understanding technology?
Not recommended.
~dakazu
Aji Ichimonme – Tabete Kaku! Mangaka Shokukikou
Aji Ichimonme – Tabete Kaku! Mangaka Shokukikou
A spin off of the popular Aji Ichimonme food manga. Characters Itabashi and Bon-san interview famous manga artists to learn about what their meals were like during serialization.
This was a great informative book filled with fun food stories from manga artists like Naoki Urasawa, Jiro Taniguchi, Monkey Punch, Ryoichi Ikegami, and Tetsuya Chiba. I really liked it!
~dakazu