Takakura-kun ni wa Muzukashii

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Takakura-kun ni wa Muzukashii

A manga about a transfer student who is so clumsy that he destroys everything he touches.

It’s pretty funny that this series is like an exact opposite of Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto. While Sakamoto makes everything he touches into something elegant, Takakura can’t even hold chalk without it crumbling to pieces.

The problem here is that in comparison, I feel like Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto does this gimmick way better with it’s jokes along with making some good characterization for it’s side characters.

A decent series but I’d rather read Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto instead.

~dakazu

Yama to Shokuyoku to Watashi

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Yama to Shokuyoku to Watashi

A manga about an office lady who loves to eat food while mountain climbing.

Love the mix of food with an outdoor activity. I seems like hiking/climbing has been a booming genre for manga in the last 5 years with titles like this one.

I’m always up for good food manga and definitely recommend this one for it’s nice art and lovely meals.

~dakazu

Space Battleship Tiramisu

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Space Battleship Tiramisu

A comedy manga about the stupid problems that a genius pilot in an interstellar space war struggles with on a daily basis.

This series falls into a category I like to call “serious comedy”. It’s where the characters are being 100% serious about their problems but from the reader’s perspective it comes off as lunacy and thus hilarious.

While I enjoyed the mix of everyday problems into the world of sci-fi mecha battles I got pretty bored with this series after the first volume. It felt like the gimmick wore out too quickly for my tastes.

~dakazu

221 – Guest Gaiden 3 – Interpreting with Jocelyne Allen

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221 – Guest Gaiden 3 – Interpreting with Jocelyne Allen

This week translator extraordinaire Jocelyne Allen returns to answer our questions about working as an interpreter and how it differs from translating books!

Check out Jocelyne’s blog & her professional website!

Continue reading →

Give My Regards to Black Jack

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Give My Regards to Black Jack

A manga about a young idealistic doctor who must battle against the harsh realities of the current medical system of Japan.

I love Shuho Sato’s Tokkou no Shima and always wanted to read this one. We checked out volume 1 for a recent episode. This book really shows how much Sato has improved his artwork as this earlier work is more rough around the edges. The subject matter seems pretty standard fare for any medical based drama but I did like the main struggle of the protagonist as he clumsily tries to fight against the modern medical machine.

You can read the entire series for free in English on Sato’s website Manga on Web by clicking here. Warning, the site is only in Japanese.

~dakazu

Higanjima

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Higanjima

A manga about a group of young adults trying to survive on a remote island ruled by vampires and hidieous monsters.

I personally love Higanjima but this series is not perfect by any means. First of all, the story doesn’t even start getting interesting until around volume 10. It’s asking a lot of a reader to trudge through a generic and mediocre for that long before you get to the good stuff.

Second, Koji Matsumoto is really terrible at drawing character faces. If you look closely, you can see that almost every character has the same face because he’s incapable of drawing them differently and it actually becomes worse the longer the series lasts.

Lastly, the grotesque designs of the monsters range from original to borderline stupid. There’s a lot of vile sexual violence thrown in there to boot and Matsumoto really seems like he’s leaning into trying to shock and awe the reader. Since the franchise has been serialized for so long and now entered it’s third run I feel like Matsumoto himself is struggling to up the ante now.

That said, there is something unique with the monsters and bad artwork in this book that continues to keeps my interest, along with it’s many fans.

~dakazu

Shingan no Yusha

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Shingan no Yusha

A manga about a shut-in who’s teleported to a fantasy world by selfish goddess who promptly discards him for being weak. He swears revenge and beings his quest to return to his home world by making a pact with another goddess for the power of the “God’s eye”.

It’s another typical isekai manga based on a light novel so it’s filled with typical male empowerment fantasies of female harems and ridiculously overpowered abilities. I will say that making the weapon of choice a log is both stupid and hilarious in a way almost made me wonder if the author is poking fun at a lot of fantasy light novel tropes. However everything else about this is pretty standard so I doubt that.

~It’s log~ It’s log~ It’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood! It’s log~ It’s log~ It’s better than bad, it’s good!~

Logs are good. Everything else is meh. Not recommended

~dakazu

Kiseijuu Reversi

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Kiseijuu Reversi

A spin-off of the Parasyte series that focuses on the son of mayor Takeshi Hirokawa investigating his father’s secret relationships with the alien Parasites.

Moare Ohta did a one shot for Neo Parasyte that was excellent so he was chosen to startup this spin-off series. I’ve only read a little but I’m happy to say that following the new character Tatsuki has really added a lot to the world of Parasyte.

I’m hopeful that this will eventually be brought to English officially so more people can enjoy more Parasyte!

~dakazu

Kyujyo Sajiki

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Kyujyo Sajiki

A manga about a man who loves baseball and always has his breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the stadium.

This is an unique read. It almost acts like a review of different real-life stadiums all across Japan. Each chapter follows the protagonist as he visits a different stadium, talks about it’s historical significance, comments on the layout of the stadium itself, and eats the food you can get from the stands. There’s even a hexagon graph at the end that rates everything from prices to how comfortably you can watch the game.

I personally don’t care about baseball but found this book informative and fun to read because of the focus on the stadium food.

~dakazu

In/Spectre

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In/Spectre

A manga about a teenage girl and a young man who have gained powers from dealing with Japanese mythical demons who work together to maintain the balance between the human and demon worlds by solving cases.

This series was suggested to us by a listener and I’m glad I got to check it out. I really liked how the yokai demons are presented not as pure monsters but have a wide variety between good and evil.

So far I’m not really behind the relationship between the main characters because a young girl being love obsessed with the guy seems so generic and gross but I hope they’ll expand on this and make it better.

Available in English from Kodansha Comics.

~dakazu