A food manga about an office lady who is too lazy to prepare food properly and instead uses mentsuyu or noodle sauce for easy to cook and delicious meals.
This manga seems like it would be perfect for my food loving sensibilities but I really disliked how it was a 4 panel layout comic. 4 panels are good for comedy but really limit you from having any dynamic shots of the delicious meals. A shame because Mizuki Setoguchi‘s concept of doing a food manga with only mentsuyu recipes was pretty unique. Close but no cigar for me.
After Morgana talked about I Don’t Know How to Give Birth! I found that Ayami Kazama had a few other non-fiction books that preceded that one. This one is the first in her series of autobiographical tales and it’s quite impressive she was willing to share so much of her embarrassing past. During Elementary school she would cry when confronted by boys because she thought everything she read in romantic shoujo manga was real. She spent her early adult life being obsessed with shipping fictional characters. Even when she started dating she had no concept of how to interact with others. It’s seems self deprecating but I really liked how she would be recapping all this to her editor who would jump in and point out everything absurd.
As Kazama reached the age of 30 she began a romance with a manga artist who she would go on to marry. I was extremely disappointed that her husband turned out to be Azure Konno who created Koe de Oshigoto!, a manga about forcing high school students to voice hentai dating simulators, which I despise. While I’m glad Kazama found someone who she found love with despite all her eccentricities, I really didn’t like that it was Konno. And unfortunately I found this out after I already bought the next book Totsuidemo Otaku desu. so I guess I’ll have to keep reading about them for now.
A manga about a genius fighting game player who’s been kicked off her team and ends up being scouted by a private school that is starting an e-sports curriculum.
So apparently this is a sequel series to Tokyo Toy Box which was about game development. Since I’m unfamiliar with Tokyo Toy Box I can’t comment on any connection between these two but I recognized the creator Ume from some of their other manga like STEVESor Nangoku Tom Sawyer. The story here is that Ren Azumino is an excellent player but she deals with prejudice for being a girl. The setup is simple and it addresses the issues with sexism in professional gaming but since this manga is relatively new, I’ll have to keep reading more to see if it handles these issues with some tact. But so far I’m enjoying this manga and I’ll probably look into reading Tokyo Toy Box as well.
I was equally surprised and excited to learn that Kazutomo Ichitomo took it upon himself to draw the continuation of Versus Earth with Versus Earth – War Hammer. He originally started posting new chapters over on Pixiv until he was able to self publish them through Denpa Bato. Since Ichitomo was just the writer of Versus Earth there is an obvious change in art style here. I don’t think Ichitomo does a bad job but I miss the shonen action style of Yoshihiko Watanabe.
So I was all ready to read the ending of this series when I found out Versus Earth – War Hammer is also unfinished! It’s been on hiatus since 2017 when Ichitomo got busy with other projects. At this point I doubt I’ll ever get to read the end of Versus Earth. Maybe somethings were never meant to be.
A manga about an everyday salary man who loves drinking and eating.
I was initially drawn to Roswell Hosoki‘s simplistic art style when I picked up this series. I didn’t know Hosoki has been drawing Sake no Hosomichi since 1996 and that it’s still on going. Each chapter is super short story and focuses on either food or alcohol or some aspect of both. You can tell Hosoki loves to partake in both himself and that enthusiasm spills over into these stories. Hosoki has made a career out of drawing many different seinen series about food and drink. They’re all enjoyable to read and also full of great recipe tips as well. Love this book!
A manga about a teenager who begins his journey to become the best Air Trek rider and become a Storm Rider and reach the pinnacle at Trophaeum Tower.
I went back and started reading this series and boy does it not hold up. Oh!great‘s art work is so detailed it borders on excessive sometimes. Dramatic poses are filled to the brim with background effects that are so impressive to read. But this shonen battle manga by Oh!great is equally filled with excessive fan service. Oh!great started as a hentai artist and it shows. I’m not opposed to T&A but when the first chapter of this manga has implied sexual assault I just disengage from the story content.
Air Gear just has an aggressive tone within the characters and the story and that combined with the beautiful but blinding art work does not make for an enjoyable experience. I’m pretty sure I ended feeling this way when I read through this manga the first time. This type of manga worked well for the early 2000’s but I’ve moved past any interest I had with Oh!great‘s titles.
This week Seamus revisits Yuichi Yokoyama with World Map Room and Iceland, Morgana picked up Magician A on a whim, and dakazu talks about the bittersweet Caterpillar Girl and Bad Texter Boy! Then we dive into the world of sex workers and outlaws with Buffalo 5 Girls! This unfinished series by Moyoco Anno raises many questions like “Who did the coloring?” and “How was the story going to end?” for the hosts!!!
A manga where vampires known as devils blend in among the human population. A young woman begins a dangerous relationship with a half-devil secret agent who is attracted to her.
I would hear about this manga a lot while it was serialized but I never got around to reading it until we did for the podcast. Turns out, I really enjoyed this mostly generic vampire drama. Ryo Hanada isn’t the most talented artist so sometimes the action happening wasn’t that clear on the page. Also the story was heavy with government conspiracies so I had to read it the English editions from Kodansha to fully parse the story. While Darfox and Seamus didn’t enjoy this title, anyone like Morgana who likes reading about emo vampires will surely enjoy this manga.
A manga where humanity is battling against deadly pillars who threaten to exterminate them appear from the ground. Teenager Haruto Teragane is dragged into this battle after becoming partially infected by a pillar shard.
A very decent sci-fi shonen action series. I enjoyed reading it in Weekly Shonen Champion. I thought Yoshihiko Watanabe‘s action scenes were engaging and while the story setup by Kazutomo Ichitomo was a bit generic I still enjoyed reading about Haruto learning to harness his pillar powers for good.
Unfortunately this series was canceled mid-story after 9 volumes. I was pretty bummed about it but I just learned that Ichitomo went on draw a sequel series called Versus Earth – War Hammer. I’m excited to track it down so I can finally finish this story!
This is one of the best manga we’ve read for this podcast. Yoshitoki Oima does a fantastic job crafting a story that truly examines all aspects of bullying. I think her visual representation of placing “x” marks on characters faces is genius. The anime movie is good but suffers from having to cram 7 volumes worth of material into 2 hours. I highly recommend this series that’s available from Kodansha.
