No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular! Volume 3

As Tomoko continues to wish for popularity, author Nico Tanigawa takes her (and us) to that bastion of school manga, the culture festival, in volume 3. Tomoko, the essential loner, knows she should help out — she doesn’t want to be accused of shirking — but she doesn’t have anything to do, and she’s too shy to approach others. Her extreme isolation and inadvertent self-sabotage is amusing, in the style of cringe comedy. I like the way her dialogue is […]

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xxxHOLiC Rei Volume 1

I never totally succumbed to the first xxxHOLiC series, but CLAMP (Legal Drug, Chobits) has its fans. I was glad, then, that this relaunch (“rei”, we’re told, means “return”) was comprehensible to the new-ish reader. Sure, if you read previous volumes, there are subtleties between the characters that you’ll notice, but the overall setup — mysterious witch Yuko takes clients and torments the nice young boy Watanuki who cooks for and takes care of her — is understandable enough. More […]

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Midnight Secretary Volume 5

In volume 5, Kaya is now working full-time for her vampire boss, but she’s jealous of an old friend spending more time with him, since the friend is also a vampire, and she’s an attractive one. Things get more complicated when the boss’ human brother and vampire mother come for a visit. More background on Kyohei, the boss, fleshes out his character and makes the emotional revelations of this installment more powerful. It’s gripping supernatural soap opera with a sensual […]

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Bunny Drop Volume 10

I suspect a number of readers may have approached this “bonus volume”, collecting Bunny Drop short stories, the same way I did. I had hopes that it would provide more of the cute “raising a kid unexpectedly” tales that made this series so charming in the early days. I didn’t want to be reminded of the unpleasant change the series took. Unfortunately, Yumi Unita’s authorial decision, to turn Daikichi and Rin from adoptive father and daughter into married couple, is […]

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Nijigahara Holograph

Continuing Fantagraphics’ program of bringing notable manga to English in deluxe presentations — titles so far include important historical shojo The Heart of Thomas and Moto Hagio’s Drunken Dream as well as the cross-gender series Wandering Son — their newest release is Nijigahara Holograph. Author Inio Asano isn’t new to U.S. readers; his previous works Solanin and What a Wonderful World! were released by Viz four years ago. Nijigahara Holograph has the same strong focus on character, but with much […]

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Say I Love You Volume 1

Say I Love You is a common type of shojo manga love story — loner high school girl is picked out and romanced by popular boy — that’s made special by art with josei touches. Mei won me over the same way she did Yamato. She’s been neglected by those she thought friends and bullied by other girls in her class, so she becomes a loner, trusting no one. Finally, when harassed by Yamato’s friend, who’s pulling up her skirt […]

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Happy Marriage?! Volume 5

Now that Hokuto and Chiwa have done the deed (spoiler for volume 4), she’s trying to be the kind of wife she’s learned about — cooking her husband breakfast; packing him lunch; making sure he’s got everything he needs before he leaves for work — although he doesn’t want that kind of fussing. One particularly memorable scene early on has him planting a kiss on her before yelling, “Stop acting like my mother. You’re my wife!” Of course, neither of […]

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Insufficient Direction

I’m amazed that Insufficient Direction made it into the translated English market, because it is SO geeky. Sure, lots of readers will identify with the idea of a nerd couple sharing their passions, but the specific references will be unknown to all but the most devout anime fans. Although I was quite surprised by an early mention of Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp — that 1970 TV show for kids featuring dubbed monkeys indicates the level of obscurity prized here. There […]

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