327 – Manga Machinations Awards 2020
Welcome to the final episode of 2020! We’re doing things a bit differently this year by launching the Manga Machinations Awards! Darfox8, dakazu, Morgana, and Seamus have all created unique awards to go with their top manga picks from 2020! Enjoy our picks and have yourself a safe and happy holidays from all of us here at Manga Machinations! See you next year!!!
Continue reading326 – Manga in Motion 45 – Promare
We’re a year late to the zeitgeist but this episode the hosts review the 2019 hit anime film Promare! Also Morgana also talks about Junji Ito’s Remina and dakazu gushes about Ousama Ranking!!!
Continue reading325 – Triple Dip 46 – Radiant, A Bittersweet Life, Amazing Agent Luna
This week dakazu talks about heliocentrism with Chi. ~Chikyu no Undou ni Tsuite~ and shoujo romances with Busu ni Hanataba wo.! Then the hosts dive into a non-Japanese manga Triple Dip with Amazing Agent Luna, A Bittersweet Life, and Radiant!!!
Continue reading324 – Creator Cross Section 7 – Shigeru Tsuchiyama
On this episode Seamus discusses the penultimate volume of Ôoku: The Inner Chambers and dakazu learns about Miki Yakata’s breast cancer recovery in 27-sai no Nyugan Diary! Then we learn about the appeal of manga artist Shigeru Tsuchiyama through his mastery of drawing food and using simple storylines for a new Creator Cross Section!
Continue readingNew Japan Academy
A manga about wrestler Tetsuya Naito and his journey to become the champion at New Japan Academy
We’ve discussed this on a recent episode.
This is a weird manga. And I say that specifically because it is taking the “career” of New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s Tetsuya Naito and putting that into a fictional story.
Professional wrestling is a fascinating form of entertainment that becomes a mix of reality and fiction. I would’ve preferred an interview style manga that exposed some behind-the-scenes facts about the biggest storylines in New Japan. Instead we get a generic school setting and a retelling of events that are the equivalent of the WWE comics.
Hiroku‘s cute character designs also didn’t seem to match the wrestlers. But this series is 2 volumes total so I might revisit this to see if they get into Naito’s evolution of his character.
It’s available in English from Yen Press.
~dakazu
Seven Shakespeares
A fictional story about the origins of William Shakespeare.
We’ve discussed this on a recent episode.
While Harold Sakuishi may be taking some interesting historical liberties for the sake of storytelling, this series is very entertaining. Sakuishi is basically creating a narrative that includes every conspiracy theory about William Shakespeare. While some of his choices feel shallow and misrepresentative of cultures, you can’t deny his mastery of the visual narrative. My main complaint for this series is that unlike Sakuishi’s representative series BECK, this manga takes a long time until the story really starts getting into Shakespeare creating his famous plays in London.
Regardless, I am a big fan of this series and I’m very grateful that Harold Sakuishi returned to it after a 5 year hiatus with 7-nin No Shakespeare NON SANZ DROICT. That series has been rolled into Kodansha Comic‘s English editions of Seven Shakespeares.
~dakazu
Oshi no Ko
A manga about a mega popular 16 year-old idol who becomes pregnant with twins. When her mega-fan obstetrician is suddenly murdered, he finds himself reborn as one of the idol’s babies.
This manga is a collaboration between Kaguya-sama: Love is War writer Aka Akasaka and Mengo Yokoyari of Scum’s Wish fame. The premise of this series is pretty complex but you understand where story is headed in after the initial chapters. Yokoyari’s artwork is so great and I give Akasaka huge props for writing both this and Kaguya-sama: Love is War in Weekly Young Jump. I do question how Akasaka is bringing up the topic of social media’s effect on celebrities in the newest chapters, but I’ll have to read more to see if it’s handled appropriately.
~dakazu
Harigane Service
A sports manga about a high school volleyball player who can’t jump but his serves are 100% accurate.
We’ve talked about this on an older episode.
I’ve been enjoying Harigane Service since it started. The art style was so similar to Hideyuki Yonehara I was surprised to learn this is actually drawn by Tatsuya Ara. Ara had decent art work but the action is definitely not as dynamically exciting as Haikyu!! or other popular sports manga. However, I really like the story that follows this timid athlete who slowly overcomes his trauma thanks to his teammates. Currently the sequel Harigane Service Ace is serialized in Weekly Shonen Champion and it continues to be an entertaining series for me.
~dakazu
Caterpillar Girl and Bad Texter Boy
A manga about a socially awkward teenage boy who’s popular childhood friend transforms into a giant caterpillar monster.
We’ve discussed this on a previous episode.
I really enjoyed this book. It reads a bit like a dark fairytale and I really loved Sanzo’s simple but effective art. The design of the caterpillar monster was equally cute and creepy. If you want to read a bittersweet romance between a man and a monster, then this is a good book for you!
Available in English from Yen Press.
~dakazu
Pollyanna
A collection of comics and essays in celebration of the Mother/Earthbound video game series from 35 contributors.
We’ve discussed this on a previous episode.
This is a fantastic tribute to Nintendo’s quirky role-playing-game Mother/Earthbound! It took a long time for me to acquire this book because shipping was limited due to the pandemic but I was so happy when I finally got it. Some well known manga artists like Taiyo Matsumoto and Inio Asano and even Toby Fox, creator of Undertale, contributed to this collection. I love all the different stories that celebrate the wonderful world of Mother/Earthbound!
~dakazu