Assassination Classroom
A manga about a class of reject middle schoolers who are tasked to assassinate their alien like teacher before he blows up the Earth in 1 year.
Reread this today and it’s still so very good. Yusei Matsui over-the-top facial expressions shine through along with the excellent design of Koro Sensei. It’s such a bizarre concept for a series but it works perfectly as a shonen manga.
It’s available from VIZ along with a great anime adaptation.
~dakazu
Ai… Shirisomeshi Koro ni…
The sequel to Manga Michi. Follows Michio Maga and Shigeru Saino as manga artists living at the famous Tokiwa-sō in Osamu Tezuka‘s former housing.
This is essentially a continuation of Fujiko Fujio A.’s autobiography from the unfinished Manga Michi series. I love how Fujiko Fujio A. goes into a lot of background stories of fellow manga artist legends like Shotaro Ishinomori and Fujio Akatsuka who also lived in Tokiwa-sō. There are also a lot of extras included in each volume. Some contain pages of the manga the duo drew in the story while others have photos of the time they shot a Western movie on 8mm film.
This is a must read for manga history buffs. I absolutely love this series.
~dakazu
Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru
A manga about a weak boy who becomes a space traveling samurai on a quest to save the world.
We’ve discussed this on an older episode.
Hmmm, where to begin with this.
This manga is Masashi Kishimoto‘s follow up to Naruto but the art work is being handled by his previous assistant Akira Okubo. I think Okubo’s artwork is impressive but I find the panels are really busy with backgrounds that clutter the pages. Kishimoto’s writing is pretty poor in a lot of ways. The lore setup that a samurai must protect a princess that prays for his power feels really antiquated in modern times. And I’ve yet to see a female samurai and male prince combo that breaks this sexist stereotyping.
Towards the beginning there was also what seemed like a non-binary character who’s two hands spoke to them. One hand being female and the other being male. But Hachimaru tells them if they have male genitals that means they’re male and that throwaway line comes off as transphobic. I’m pretty sure Kishimoto didn’t intend it that way but in today’s political landscape this manga just comes off as ignorant.
Although I was interested to see how Kishimoto was basing this series off of Doraemon I don’t think I want to stick around until I see those direct connections. The series itself seems to be struggling in popularity and I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up being canceled sometime in 2020.
~dakazu
Kengan Omega
The sequel to Kengan Ashura.
Pretty interesting. I enjoyed Kengan Ashura and this series takes place 2 years after the end of that manga. We follow a new protagonist who begins his own journey of developing his martial arts style. It’s a more traditional storyline of watching a character grow and improve compared to Kengan Ashura where the fighter was already established and powerful. Though there is a powerful new character who looks just like that previous fighter. The main mystery of Kengan Omega is the origin of this new character.
My favorite part of this sequel is seeing the end result of cowardly salary man Yamashita transforming into a confident superior after the events in Kengan Ashura.
Currently available in Japanese on Ura Sunday.
~dakazu
Misakigaokaite
A collection of stories about the residents living in the city of Misakigaoka.
We’ve discussed this on an older episode.
This manga is a really good slice of life series. I liked how every chapter followed a different person living in the city. Some stories were melancholy and others were uplifting but every one had a sense of completion that worked well. Seiji Toda‘s art work is a little simple and the characters looked very similar but I really liked their storytelling.
~dakazu
Shiratama Kyouju no Shironeko
A prequel to Shiratama-kun.
I usually frown upon prequels but I can’t help but love this one. Mostly because you get a talking kitten and he’s super adorable.
This prequel explains the backstory of how Shiratama-kun spent his childhood hanging out at his father’s university. It’s really funny to see the professor hide the existence of his talking cat but can’t help but spoil him and play with him at school. As the story progresses more people learn about Shiratama-kun’s secret and it eventually leads to them revealing everything but this also helps him get accepted into human society and into school.
It’s 2 volumes and super cute.
~dakazu
Mogusa-san
A manga about a high school girl who secretly snacks throughout the school day.
Love this series. It’s such a lighthearted slice of life series. The titular character Mogusa loves eating so much that she has to constantly eat during class or risk her thunderous tummy rumble from happening. There’s so many unique ways she conceals her snacking as well. She’ll hide a giant portion of rice inside her dictionary cover or concealing 4 pieces of candy in her mouth without changing her face.
It is slightly bothersome that the premise of the series is about a girl who can’t enjoy food because she doesn’t want to seem like a glutton and that unto itself reflects sexist expectations for women. But as the series goes on Mogusa learns to accept her large appetite and open up to her friends about it, which helps.
~dakazu
The Wize Wize Beasts of the Wizarding Wizdoms
A manga about anthropomorphized animals who attend a school to learn magic.
Man, this one was such a disappointment. I love Nagabe‘s The Girl from the Other Side so I was looking forward to reading this.
Nagabe‘s art work shines in the designs of the various anthropomorphized characters. They have a similar but contrasting style to Paru Itagaki‘s BEASTARS characters. I loved the framing of panels and subtle touches like adding an animal index at the end of each chapter. Unfortunately I kinda hated all the stories.
There is a chapter about a romance between a teacher and student. As a teacher myself, I will tell you that nothing makes me roll my eyes faster than seeing this cliche in manga. It’s incredibly stupid. Another chapter had a creepy crow who manipulated others so he could claim the attention of his beautiful peacock friend. Then there was also a chapter about young vampire bats kissing and it felt like I was watching children exploring sexuality and that really grossed me out(though to be fair there isn’t any indication about their actually age).
Basically, lots of the story content seemed to line up with bad troupes of older BL and I really hated those parts. I did like the story between a red deer and his cold blooded lizard roommate because it felt devoid of those troupes. But I had high expectation for this book and I feel let down.
2/5 stars on the Morgana scale for me. It’s available in English from Seven Seas Entertainment.
~dakazu
Land Lock
A manga about death row inmates who’s airplane crash land on a snowy mountain peak of a remote island and they must try to survive amongst each other and strange hallucinations involving green butterflies.
We’ve discussed this on an episode of Darfox Dabbles.
This is not a very good manga. The setup feels like a cheap knockoff of Lost and Ai Odahara‘s art work is pretty average. The only reason I read it was because it was one of the first vertically formatted manga from Jump+ and in full color like the manhwa it’s inspired from. Unfortunately it didn’t do anything unique with that format so there’s barely any difference found in this traditional print version I checked out. There are other series on Manga PLUS like The Vertical World that are using the vertical format much better.
~dakazu
Nicola Traveling Around the Demons’ World
A manga about a young human witch who travels around the demon world with her demon salesman friend, Simon.
We’ve discussed this series on a recent episode.
Ever since Morgana talked about this book I’ve wanted to read it. Well lucky for me because I got a copy for Christmas. This might be the most wholesome manga I’ve read this year. I love Nicola and the fun adventures she had shopping at the Black Bazaar, hunting for mushrooms in the forest, or avoiding ghosts in a haunted hotel. Asaya Miyanaga‘s art work is so cute and detailed. I love the choice of sepia tone ink by Seven Seas Entertainment. It gives everything a nice warm feeling.
Love this series. You can get your copy from Seven Seas Entertainment today and I highly recommend it.
~dakazu