Onna no Ana

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Onna no Ana

A collection of 4 strange stories from Fumiko Fumi. One is about about a girl who claims to be an alien and asks her teacher for a child. Another is about a girl who carries her brother’s face on the back of her head. And the final two are about a girl who treats a teacher like a slave through blackmail and a followup story about her actions being motivated by a demon.

Writing that synopsis makes these stories sound super weird but I really enjoyed this manga. I really liked Fumiko Fumi’s character designs and art. Especially the way she drew the black eyes and ink-like black hair.

Fumi is currently doing a series on Kurage Bunch called Ai to Noroi which is REALLY rough to read(especially considering it’s semi-autobiographical). Worth checking out if you can read Japanese.

After reading this book I’ll be looking for more of her other works.

~dakazu

Satsurikuhime

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Satsurikuhime

A manga about a boy who has to control his childhood friend’s murderous impulses to take down other serial killers.

The concept of a killer who hunts other killers has been done before. That said, I enjoyed the dynamic between the boy Ouji and the girl Ru. Ru is in love with Ouji and will get the urge to murder anyone she get’s annoyed with. Ouji himself always ends up getting attacked or beat up by the other killers but usually refuses to resort to using violence only as a last resort. I liked how even in the face of some truly wretched killers he would try and see if they could be redeemable before letting Ru slice them up with her razor nails.

The series was canceled early and unfortunately there is only a single volume to read. A shame because I would have liked read a little more of this.

~dakazu

Machimaho: I Messed Up and Made the Wrong Person Into a Magical Girl!

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Machimaho: I Messed Up and Made the Wrong Person Into a Magical Girl!

A manga about accidentally turning an insanely powerful & crass delinquent into a magical girl.

This book is crazy and extreme but also very entertaining. The juxtaposition of seeing a cute looking girl in twin tails rip the arms off demons while laughing manically is so absurd you can’t help but laugh. I especially enjoyed whenever the main character Kayo gets to smoke a cigarette because her reaction is always a giant “HOLY SHIT” complete with hearts and sparkles. There’s shameless fan service here but it’s done with in tongue and cheek that’s clearly going for a parody of magical girl shows and fan service in general.

It’s rude and crude and over the top. I dig it and it’s definitely a guilty pleasure kind of thing. Also it’s available in English from Seven Seas Entertainment so you can read it yourselves.

~dakazu

Avarth

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Avarth

A manga taking place in 12094 AD where Earth seems to have been rebuilt in the image of a popular MMORPG that is now ruled by NPC characters who claim to be gods known as “Avarth”.

You follow a space explorer named Lloyd who awakes from cold-sleep on his spaceship only to find the Earth in this state. He’s able to access the MMORPG and using his character on Earth to help stop the Avarth from terrorizing the surviving humans.

…yeah the premise is a convoluted mess.

This was really hard to follow and went all sorts of places that I can’t even remember because it was like mixing troupes from every post-apocalyptic story you’ve ever seen. In that sense it seems very lite novel-ish. 

It ends in 6 volumes and definitely seems like it got rightfully canceled without reaching it’s full conclusion. Not surprising.

~dakazu

Tsuredure Children

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Tsuredure Children

A manga about romance and comedy between a variety of characters in high school.

I only recently read through this series right before it finished it’s serialization in Weekly Shonen Magazine after checking out the anime adaptation earlier this year. Really loved all the jokes and heartfelt relationships between all the different couples. I really liked how some stories were very bittersweet and contrasted the other happy endings. Easily cried the most during this final volume as almost every story was resolved. 

Personal favorite couple was Ryoko & Agaki. I absolutely loved their final scene together. 

Also Toshiya Wakabayashi has some kind of superpower because he can make the biggest tears with snot nosed faces seem super endearing.

Available from Kodansha Comics.

~dakazu

209 – Seamus on Seinen 1 – Happiness

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209 – Seamus on Seinen 1 – Happiness

Darfox is out this week so we’ve picked a wide array of seinen titles for Seamus to check out!

Continue reading →

Moonlight Mile

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Moonlight Mile

A manga about 2 mountain climbing friends who race to see who can reach the highest heights in outer space after climbing every mountain on Earth. One takes the military route while the other focuses on construction and development.

I love this series and it’s near future setting for space exploration and development. Compared to Space Brothers of PLANETES, this is a very R-rated story that doesn’t shy away from hardcore sex scenes and graphic violence. One of the most interesting elements in Moonlight Mile is the development war between USA and China to become the first to colonize and claim the moon for resources.

Unfortunately Yasuo Ohtagaki has put this on hiatus and is currently working on Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt. When he finishes working on that I really hope he decides to comeback and finish this great series.

~dakazu

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