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

Manga Poverty

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Manga Poverty

A chronicle of manga artist Shuho Sato’s struggle with trying to live off of manga artist wages and his decision to leave print publishers and start his own digital distribution manga website.

Super fascinating and informative read. Sato doesn’t not shy away from his bitter experiences dealing with publishers and how it effected his opinions on the manga industry. Great book and the only shame is that the English version doesn’t come with a manga introduction that was in the original Japanese version.

This is available for purchase on the amazon kindle store and we discussed this with Deb Aoki on a recent podcast.

~dakazu

207 – Manga in Motion 31 – Little Witch Academia

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207 – Manga in Motion 31 – Little Witch Academia

This week we look at the 2012 anime project that grew into it’s own full television show, Little Witch Academia! We’ll be looking at the original short and the crowd funded movie!

Continue reading →

Kanojo ga Bikini Armor ni Kigaetara

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Kanojo ga Bikini Armor ni Kigaetara

A manga about a cute house wife who sometimes returns to her fantasy world where she was the ultimate hero.

Yeah, this is 100% an ecchi manga. It doesn’t shy away from sexual stuff or lots of fan service. I don’t normally care for this kind of stuff but found myself really enjoying the contrasting art style when the wife travels between worlds. The fantasy world in particular had some really nice hand drawn shadows that aren’t used very often anymore. That art style change was good enough for me to finish both volumes.

~dakazu

Tokyo Kakugeki

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Tokyo Kakugeki

A manga that follows a family trying to survive after a nuclear strike in the heart of Tokyo.

This was a pretty chilling thing to read considering how everything was presented with realism. The book covers a lot of factual information about what happens during a nuclear explosion along with how to deal with the fallout afterwords. It was surprisingly light on human drama and almost came off as a manga version of a nuclear survival guide.

This series ran earlier this year around the height of the Korean missile scare. I that sense it seems a little opportunistic as was maybe trying to cash into current events. However on the other hand it is very informative and therefore useful. Hard to say if that makes it better all things considered.

~dakazu

Bokko

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Bokko

A manga about how a single man named Kakuri answers the call to defend the city of Ryo from an invasion army of Cho during the warring states period of ancient China.

Revisited this manga recently and it’s still so very good. Hideki Mori of Lone Wolf and Cub does some amazing art work that brings Ken’ichi Sakemi novel to life. I find it a little funny how the king of Shin is depicted as the ultimate bad guy in this series but in Yasuhisa Hara’s KINGDOM he’s a hero.

Great series and fun read.

~dakazu

My Darling is a Foreigner: We moved to Berlin

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My Darling is a Foreigner: We moved to Berlin

Another volume of Saori Oguri’s chronicle of interracial marriage. This one follows Oguiri as she relocates to Germany.

I loved Oguri’s series since I found it. Her cute drawings work well with a documentary-style storytelling as she explains everything about moving from Japan to life in Berlin. Super fun to read and very informative. I approve!

~dakazu

Ichinichi Gaishutsuroku Hanchou

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Ichinichi Gaishutsuroku Hanchou

A lighthearted spin-off of Gambling Apocalypse: KAIJI that follows foreman Ootsuki as he leisurely enjoys his 1-day vacations from the underground debt labor camp.

Compared to Mr. TONEGAWA: Middle Management Blues this spin-off is not purely a comedy. Sometimes the foreman just has a nice time eating good meals and other times he gets into some wacky adventures with his two underlings. I personally like this spin-off more.

My favorite part of this manga is that whenever the series needs to take a short hiatus from it’s serialization in Young Magazine, there’s a page that shows the foreman’s saving are depleted along with the message “We need to save up more money before we can go on another 1-day vacation!”

~dakazu