297 – Triple Dip 42 – I Want to Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die, Crown of Love, INVESTOR-Z
This week Morgana looks forward to reading more Blue Flag and BEASTARS while dakazu shares some of his favorite manga artists active on Twitter! Than the crew are ready to tear apart one of the three manga they read for Triple Dip! Will it be I Want to Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die, Crown of Love, or INVESTOR-Z!!!
Continue readingThe Unwomanly Face of War
A manga adaptation of Svetlana Alexievich’s book which won the Noble Prize in Literature.
We’ve discussed this on a recent episode.
I love these adaptations of historical events. Keito Koume does a fantastic job of bringing Alexievich’s oral history of Russian female soldiers during World War 2 to life. Since Alexievich interviews many veterans of war we get to see women who tended to the laundry, female snipers, and even female fighter pilots. But Seamus did warn me that Svetlana Alexievich tends to alter facts to fit the narrative she wants to tell so I won’t take her stories as absolute truths. Regardless, this series is great.
~dakazu
Puro Chichi
A manga about a stay-at-home father who vows to become a professional dad to care for his newborn son while dealing with his own diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome.
Really good series. I like how the focus was child care through the eyes of an autistic adult. Mieko Osaka did a fantastic job of representing Asperger’s syndrome and creating a positive representation with the father Nao.
I do question how Nao could have grown up without ever getting any diagnosis. The end of the story focuses on the relationship between Nao and his judgmental mother and it felt like it was for the sake of conflict. Also it ends abruptly but I still really enjoyed this manga.
~dakazu
Bokyotaro
A manga about a Japanese man who awakens five hundred years into the future after a malfunction in his cold sleep machine. Stuck in an abandoned post-apocalyptic world, he decides to try and travel from Iraq back to Japan.
This is Yoshihiro Yamada‘s current series and I’ve been really enjoying it. What sets apart this post-apocalyptic story from all the others is this twisted sense of logic the current society has adopted. Human decedents are not vicious cannibals but simple folk who have adopted a lifestyle devoid of material wants. The catch is they participate in brutal hunting rituals against deadly feral animals to prove themselves. I love this contrast that the main character struggles to adapt to.
I really think Yamada has a talent for sci-fi stories. His canceled Dokyoboshi was also really good. Fingers crossed this one lasts a while.
~dakazu
Monkey Peak the Rock
The followup to Monkey Circle and third series of the Monkey Peak manga.
We’ve discussed this on a recent episode.
Koji Shinasaka and Akihiro Kumeta have brought me more horror movie antics and I couldn’t be happier. This one follows a group of soldiers and scientists on a secret mission to capture the dreaded monkey creatures. A survivor from the first Monkey Peak story accompanies them as they investigate a cave and get trapped inside. The setting is similar to the horror franchise The Decent and it works really well. I eagerly look forward to seeing how everything will fall apart for the survivors.
~dakazu
H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness
A manga adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft‘s At the Mountains of Madness.
Gou Tanabe continues to adapt Lovecraft stories. This one is the best of the adaptations because unlike The Haunter of the Dark, The Hound and Other Stories, or The Colour Out of Space it’s a full series told over two omnibuses. This really allows Tanabe to fully realize the sights and horrors of the ancient city in Antarctica. His artistic interpretation of Shoggoth is truly impressive.
It’s available from Dark Horse Comics. If you’re a Lovecraft fan you will love this.
~dakazu
GIGANT
A manga about a high school student who meets his favorite porn star who has gained an alien power to grow in size.
We’ve discussed this on a previous episode.
This book is VERY Hiroya Oku. And by that I mean everything from the story to characters is very similar to Oku’s other works like GANTZ and Inuyashiki. You have strange humanoid aliens who dress strangely, a horny teenage protagonist, an excessively sexy female character, fantastical alien creatures, violent action scenes, and weird self-promotional scenes praising Oku’s other manga.
Basically if you’ve read Oku’s other stuff and like it, you’ll like this. Not really my taste but I’ll keep skimming it as I read through my issues of Big Comic Superior.
It’s available from Seven Seas Entertainment.
~dakazu
296 – Yu Yu Hakusho part 4
On this episode Seamus prepares to study Buddhist philosophy for Land of the Lustrous, Darfox checks out alternative manga Tsukiko and the Satellite and other stories, and dakazu continues to enjoy killer monkeys with Monkey Peak the Rock! Then Seamus sticks around for our Yu Yu Hakusho Retrospective as we finish up the dark tournament and get into the beginning of chapter black!!!
Continue readingDokyoboshi
A manga about a Mars space exploration mission gone horribly wrong which leads a young Japanese trucker named Dokyo to become an astronaut.
We’ve discussed this on a recent episode.
Wow, this manga is great. The astronaut training parts feel extremely close to Space Brothers and they’re good but the science fiction segments on Mars are the highlights here. A lone surviving astronaut tries to make sense of the incident that killed the rest of his crew and the mysterious Tesseract that stalks him. The Tessaract is able to manipulate objects that ignore perspectives which make for really interesting art work within the panels.
I’ve read a few of Yoshihiro Yamada‘s manga but I personally loved this one. I feel like science fiction is actually Yamada’s strong suite even though he’s more known for his historical series Hyouge Mono. I think it’s a damn shame that Dokyoboshi was canceled and the story is incomplete. Now I know why there are fans still clamoring for this series to get rebooted and finished. And I’m one of them now too.
~dakazu
Olympia Kyklos
A manga about an athletic ancient Greek vase artist, Demetrios, who time warps to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and becomes inspired from learning about field days, Olympic marathons, manga, and professional wrestling.
We’ve discussed this manga on a recent episode.
I think this manga is great but considering I’m a big fan of Mari Yamazaki it’s not surprising. This series is more lighthearted and comedy oriented so it’s closer to Thermae Romae than PLINIVS. I said it on the podcast as well but considering this manga covers Osamu Tezuka‘s Phoenix and professional wrestling, Olympia Kykylos might as well be the official representative of Manga Machinations.
~dakazu