A biographical manga about the World War II suicide bomber Tomoji Sasaki who was ordered to fly 9 suicide missions and returned each time, disobeying his orders to die.
This is one of those crazy stories that make you question if it’s actually true. The late Tomoji Sasaki was interviewed by writer Shouji Koukami who penned a biography that became a best seller in Japan. This manga adaptation by Naoki Azuma started recently in Young Magazine and I’m excited to read more!
This is such a fun one to read! I love everything from the man obsessed with potato salad to the man who enjoys walking home. Each commitment is strange and unique but also super relatable and mostly easy to understand. I even tried the combination of canned tuna and the grapefruit chu-hi for myself and enjoyed it.
There was a Japanese TV mockumentary which was extremely different and strange as well.
A horror manga about a high school girl, Kaida-san, who loves scaring the boy sitting next to her in class with her creepy stories.
This is Franken Fran creator Katsuhisa Kigitsu’s current series that runs in Shonen Champion. Fans of Kigitsu might be a bit disappointed with this one because the horror is pretty tame compared toFranken Fran but it’s probably due to it running in a shonen magazine.
The most interesting thing about this one is how Kaida-san tells her creepy tales. It’s almost always a 2 page spread filled with text and images illustrating the story but there are zero panels to separate anything. This format really changes the tone and almost makes you feel like you’re not reading a manga anymore. I found the large amount of text to be a bit annoying to navigate but the effect itself was pretty interesting.
I will say this series has some images that might trigger someone with Trypophobia so be warned.
This manga made me so mad because it’s just sadness porn.
I think the manga artist Yumi Endo is maybe trying to convey the horrors of child abuse through this series but the plot is so heavy handed it honestly feels exploitative for the sake controversy. The main girl travels to between child care facilities were the staff are either incompetent, fully abusive, or pedophiles. When you put the main character through the ringer it fails narratively to make me care anymore because it’s just becomes unbelievable.
This would have worked if the stories were episodic. Each chapter could examines a child abuse problem with different tales of different children. Putting one character through child neglect, child abuse, traumatizing care takers, sexual abuse, bullying, and everything under the sun just makes things laughably unrealistic and ultimately a detriment to the severity of actual child abuse.
This week we reach the end of Give My Regards to Black Jack! Join us as we give our final thoughts on Shuho Sato’s medical drama that asks, “What does it mean, to be a doctor?”!!!!
A biographical manga about a wife who is unable to have sex with her husband and her battle against normalcy.
When the manga adaptation by Yukiko Gotou of this popular memoir by Kodama began in Young Magazine I barely paid attention to it. I rolled my eyes, saying “Oh boy! Here comes another crazy tale about adult sex problems.”
Little did I know it was based on a real-life events.
Reading up on what happens to this woman is nothing short of tragic. I’m very interested to see the tone the series will take based on everything that will happen by the end of the story.
A manga where a high school specializing in athletics is transported through time to warring states period of Japan and the students must defend themselves against famous historical warlords to survive.
The concept of time traveling to the warring states period of Japan is fairly common but the twist is that along with the protagonist, the majority of the students are superior athletes who apply their sports skills to combat. The wild ping pong ace duel wields knives while the American football player tackles bandits to the ground. They all have to fight to survive and prevent history from changing as well.
It’s a pretty entertaining version of the misplaced modern citizens surviving in the past. Unfortunately it wrapped up what they called “part 1″ after 17 volumes and is now on hiatus. The creator, Masaki Kasahara, is currently writing a new series called Libidors so I doubt we’ll see “part 2″ for a while.
A manga about a young man who was convicted of murdering his teacher and the ramification of his notoriety on everyone around him.
I have a big problem with this series. The setup is that the main character murdered his teacher who was trying to rape his friend but the friend can’t testify because the trauma causes her to lose her memory. The twist is that she was the one who actually murdered the teacher and he took the fall to protect her. I just find it hard to believe that they would be able to fool forensics or police investigators to reach this situation.
The rest of the story is really just a tale of suffering. The most messed up thing about all the harassment his family goes through because of his choice to take the blame. I’ve read a few volumes and they’ve introduced a true antagonist. Given the tone of the series, I predict that the story might end with the main character actually murdering someone to truly become that “Shounen A” from the title.
A comedy manga about a priestess in a fantasy RPG world who is more obsessed about losing weight than fighting the Demon King.
Look, I get that this is supposed to be a comedy but I really thought it was just pretty stupid and borderline offensive with it’s fat jokes. The priestess Alicia isn’t even drawn in an obese fashion but when she falls on an enemy she does a critical blow because, what? She’s supposed to be fat? You’re only failing at representation of body types at this point.
I give Aoi Fujiwara a little credit for making a lot of jokes that relate directly to classic RPG troupes but the endless amount of fan service Alicia goes through just grossed me out.
It’s available in English from Kodansha but this definitely isn’t for me and I also don’t really recommended it. Maybe for an RPG fan who likes T&A.
A manga where a man who was forced to dispose of a body has a phone surgically implanted into his stomach by the victim’s father who seeks revenge.
This thriller series really kicks things off fast. You really just follow the main character as he’s forced to do everything against his own will. It’s interesting to see how he isn’t exactly innocent but he’s still in this horrible situation that slowly starts to unravel and drag down people around him.
It’s currently running in WeeklyYoung Jump and I’m interested to see how everything will end.
