Destroy and Revolution

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Destroy and Revolution

A manga about a teenager with a supernatural ability called “oneness” who teams up with his friend to become terrorists in order to destroy the corrupt Japanese government.

This is another entertaining series by Kouji Mori. I was initially surprised that Mori started this science fiction story but it shares a lot of introspective scenes from the main characters which is a common theme in his other works like Jisatsutou and Holyland. Mori does a great job building the story slowly as the protagonist takes time opening up to his friend’s ideals about forcefully fixing society. Even after they being performing acts of terrorism there’s plenty of moments showing how complex the issues are. They actually don’t succeed despite growing more members who can access the powers of “oneness” and the story eventually leads to them taking on the American government as a world power. It’s all well drawn and engaging to read.

Mori is such a talented manga artist and this is just another example to his amazing body of titles.

~dakazu

Honjitsu no Burger

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Honjitsu no Burger

A manga about a genius chef who opens a restaurant that only serves burgers.

Pretty good series! I like food manga that limit themselves to a specific recipe or technique because it can stand out among others. Every chapter of this series introduces “Today’s Burger” which focuses on different burger recipes. The author Rei Hanagata does a good job connecting burger recipes from around the world as requests from restaurant patrons. This story setup reminds me a lot of Shinya Shokudō. Artist Umetaro Saitani makes all the burgers look delicious so reading this book makes me hungry! I think I’ll go make some cheeseburgers for dinner.

~dakazu

Rave Master

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Rave Master

A manga about a boy who embarks on a quest to find the 4 Rave stones and defeat the Dark Bring to save the world.

This is Hiro Mashima‘s debut work. It’s a pretty standard shonen action manga but you can see how he started with this book before moving on to his acclaimed Fairy Tail series. Fairy Tail is more refined in comparison but I find myself enjoying the stranger aspects of Rave Master, like the weird mascot Plue.

If you’re a fan of Fairy Tail I think you’ll find a lot to enjoy reading this. It’s available from Kodansha Comics.

~dakazu

Kaguya-sama: Love is War

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Kaguya-sama: Love is War

A comedy manga about a prestigious academy’s student council vice president Kaguya and student council president Miyuki who both try to make the other confess their feelings of love.

I got into this series when the anime adaptation started. I really enjoyed the anime and started reading the manga. This is one of those rare cases where I really prefer the anime over the manga. I think Aka Akasaka art is solid and I love this serious comedy about these two elite students who are too prideful to just admit their mutual attraction. It’s just that the anime voice cast really brings the characters to life and accentuates their likability while the manga versions sometimes comes off as cold. I’ll personally stick with the anime myself.

It’s available in English from VIZ.

~dakazu

312 – 6 Year Anniversary Guest Gaiden 7 – Translating and Publishing Doujinshi with On Takahashi

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312 – 6 Year Anniversary Guest Gaiden 7 – Translating and Publishing Doujinshi with On Takahashi

We’ve reach another milestone in Manga Machinations with our 6 year anniversary! We’re celebrating by interviewing On Takahashi, CEO of Irodori Comics and translator for game localization group Warlocs! On shares his childhood experiences learning Japanese through manga and anime, talks about his job working as a lecturer at a Japanese university, recounts his tough work schedule translating high profile video games, and stresses the importance of crediting localization staff. He breaks down the process of publishing doujinshi, informs us about the Japanese politics that will effect manga piracy, discusses the complicated issues of problematic content, and much more! Also, tune in after the outro for a bonus Death Stranding discussion by On and Darforx8!

Continue reading →

Meshi ni Shimashou

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Meshi ni Shimashou

A manga about a manga assistant who cooks experimental meals for a manga artist who is perpetually behind schedule.

We’ve discussed this on a recent episode.

I’ve always seen this manga in Evening Magazine but only skimmed through it. It wasn’t until we did our Kasane Retrospective did I learn this series was inspired by Doumu Kobayashi working as Daruma Matsuura‘s assistant! Suddenly jokes about the manga artist falling asleep with their mouth open painted a picture of Kobayashi catching Matsuura dozing off! The thought of Kobayashi farming ideas from his experiences cooking for Matsuura got me to reread this manga and search for potential behind-the-scenes events that could have happened!

As far as a food manga goes this book has two unique qualities. First, the recipes for the meals are often experiments so they don’t always yield a delicious dish. Second, the series features lots of surreal humor that removes it from reality. At one point, the Roomba becomes sentient and an ongoing character. So besides searching for insight into Matsuura’s work place, I also enjoyed the unique food and wacky comedy.

~dakazu

Mentsuyu Hitorimeshi

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Mentsuyu Hitorimeshi

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.

~dakazu

Renai Sanjigen Debut ~Sanjudai Otaku Mangaka, Kekkon e no Michi.~

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Renai Sanjigen Debut – Sanjudai Otaku Mangaka, Kekkon e no Michi.~

Manga artist Ayami Kazama‘s chronicle of her journey from shy girl to lonesome adult otaku to finally getting married.

We’ve discussed this on a recent episode.

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.

~dakazu

Tokyo Toy BoxES

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Tokyo Toy BoxES

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 STEVES or 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.

~dakazu

Versus Earth – War Hammer

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Versus Earth – War Hammer

The sequel series to Versus Earth.

We’ve discussed this on a recent episode.

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.

~dakazu