I really want to support this series, because I very much want publishers to believe that there is a market for manga for adult women, not just girls, but its exaggerated sense of humor doesn’t quite match up with mine. Having experienced my own share of work discrimination in real life, I have a hard time finding it a laughing matter for Choko to be singled out for uncomfortable attention in the workplace. I don’t know the finer cultural distinctions, […]

It’s a good thing that I’ve had years of practice reading “boy comics”, material that, regardless of whether it’s appropriate and in spite of what’s going on in the story, position their female characters as eye candy for the male reader. If I didn’t, I’d have given up on this series by Yukiya Sakuragi long before now. Volume 17 was a real challenge in that area. I’ve mentioned the fan service before — the pinup shots of Suguri in bathing […]

Review by Ed Sizemore Akito Takagi is 14 years old and dreams of being a manga writer. However, he’s not a good artist, so he needs one as a partner. Moritaka Mashiro is Akito’s classmate and a gifted artist. He wanted to be a manga artist until he saw his uncle work himself to death in that job. After much arm twisting, Akito convinces Moritaka to join him. Together, they seek to become successful manga creators (called mangaka). Bakuman is […]

Because of the need to wrap up the series quickly in this second and final volume of the series, the flow here is choppy, but there’s still plenty of entertainment in its escapist, action-movie take on romance. In the first chapter, we meet Ran’s arranged fiancee Rinko, who was picked by his parents because it’s so important to the family business that he have the right wife. My first thought was, why can’t anyone have distinguishable names? I was already […]

I had been a little disappointed with volume 6, so I had completely forgotten that it ended with the start of a story about a showdown between two rock bands. One, House Dust, is a “visual kei” group (kind of like glam rock), with a made-up lead who happens to look just like Asuka, our otomen hero. The other, Freak Bones, is a rockabilly group led by a guy in an outrageous pompadour (although the name and the lyrics given […]