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
I’m Standing on a Million Lives
A manga about a high school student who’s sucked into a parallel world with video game like revive, leveling, and equipment mechanics. He and two other girls must complete a quest within the time limit or they will be killed permanently.
The setting reeks of a lite-novel-esque harem and fantasy cliches. With a main character who keeps rolling shitty jobs that he somehow masters and exploits, it all feels very lite-novel-ly. I only kept reading it because I was bored at the time. Nothing special and not recommended.
Available from Kodansha Comics.
~dakazu
Crueler than Dead
100% straight forward zombie story. The only twist is that the main protagonist was cured of her zombie virus and now carries a few doses of a cure around. This manga even has a walled city where an upper class rule over the rest of the survivors like in George A Romeo’s Land of the Dead.
Like most Zombie stories it’s generic and forgettable besides the opening scene.
~dakazu
Houkago Teibou Nisshi
A manga about a high school freshman from the city who moves to the country seaside and joins an after school club dedicated to fishing.
The story is pretty basic newbie learning the ins and outs of subject “X” style setup. You can tell they made all the characters cute girls to juxtapose with the fishing subject matter. I really like how they cooked up everything they caught.
~dakazu
Shissou Nikki
A crazy true stories of how manga artist Hideo Azuma ran away from his home to live as a homeless scavenger. Sometimes he would live in the woods, other times he’d sleep under overpasses.
It’s pretty shocking to read about how he would literally dig through trash to find food to eat. His simplistic art style keep the mood lite despite the heavier material. I recommend this manga!
~dakazu
The Strange Tale of Panorama Island
A manga adaptation of the novel Panorama Toukidan drawn by ero-guro master Suehiro Maruo. Unlike Maruo’s other more extreme works, there is very little gore and violence in this adaptation. Instead he focuses on using his elaborate backgrounds and elegant designs to tell the story of a man who assumes the identity of his deceased look-alike friend to steal his fortune and build an hedonistic island paradise. An excellent manga and I’m glad I got to see another side of Maruo.
~dakazu
Toumei Ningen no Hone
A manga about a teenage girl who uses her ability to become invisible to murder her violent father that beats her mom.
I was surprised with how this series wasn’t about some kind of revenge fantasy. The main character, Aya, ends up spending the majority of the manga dealing with the aftermath of the murder and being haunted by a ghost of her father. I was really impressed with Aya’s character development. She goes from being a loner to someone who develops real relationships with friends and eventually decides to face the consequences of her actions. It really helped that almost all characters were deep and complex in their own way.
Good human drama with a hint of fantasy. I liked it a lot.
~dakazu
Jinmen
A manga where all animals suddenly have human faces and start murdering humans.
A pretty typical “____ starts attacking humans” story but using animals with faces aka jinmen was fairly unique. The art is good and the human/animal designs are very creepy. Oddly enough, my favorite parts were the bonus 4-panel style comedy strips they had at the end of each volume.
~dakazu
Hawkwood
A manga that follows a mercenary group fighting in the the 100 years war during the 14 century.
This manga was pretty good. The medieval Europe setting was very similar to Berserk sans demons and monsters. It’s a bit short and kinda has a non-ending but was worth reading.
~dakazu
