In looking over the manga I’ve read from Vertical, I’ve come to realize that they specialize in challenging works. With the exception of their two longest-running series — the heart-warming What Did You Eat Yesterday? and the weirdly comic My Neighbor Seki — the stories in Vertical releases are generally off-kilter and discomforting in some way. (Even the cat manga had some disturbing portrayals about home and family.) These are not manga you read for escapist enjoyment or light entertainment. […]

Now that we’ve caught up to the Japanese releases, enjoying this excellent cooking and relationship manga requires patience. In other words, What Did You Eat Yesterday? volume 12 is the only volume we’re going to get this year, since this is the only installment that came out in its home country in 2016. (I talked about volume 11 earlier this year, although it came out at the end of 2016 in the US.) Thankfully, Fumi Yoshinaga’s story of a gay […]

As always, this recipe manga series by Fumi Yoshinaga shares principles about cooking and eating that are universal and welcome, even if I can’t make the exact dishes. (Since the meals are based in Japanese home cooking, they often depend on ingredients, like shirodashi or mitsuba, that I wouldn’t know where to get. I usually end up looking them up on Wikipedia, since they aren’t translated or explained in notes.) But the specific recipes aren’t the point — the key […]

Don’t be misled by comparisons to Sabrina the Teenage Witch — Flying Witch by Chihiro Ishizuka is more in the vein of Yotsuba&!, a comfortable exploration of everyday domestic life, with a country flavor and the occasional weirdness. Makoto, accompanied by her cat Chito, has come to stay with her cousins Kei, a boy about her age, and Chinatsu, a younger girl. (The mother shows up later but isn’t particularly involved.) Makoto’s a witch — although that’s handled in odd […]

It’s been nine months since the previous volume, but What Did You Eat Yesterday? volume 10 was worth the wait. As the series has progressed, Fumi Yoshinaga has expanded the world of her characters. Shiro and Kenji now share meals with a lot more people than each other, as we see more about the wider circles of their lives. For example, in the first chapter, the administrative assistant from Shiro’s law firm has taken her co-workers out to her parents’ […]

I thought, by this point in the series, I wouldn’t have much to say about My Neighbor Seki volume 7, but then I remembered the earlier books. Back then, Rumi watched Seki’s creative transformations of his desk. She was an observer and interpreter for the reader, putting his actions into context. Now, it’s quite a contrast, as Rumi and Seki often wind up interacting. I mentioned this when commenting on the two books before this one, but this volume takes […]

Missing cat manga now that Chi’s Sweet Home has concluded? Never fear, author Konami Kanata has a new series with an adorable kitten. FukuFuku: Kitten Tales has an advantage over the previous series, in my opinion: the cat here doesn’t have an internal monologue in a cutesy dialect. In that way, it’s more true to cat ownership, as we simply observe the little kitty in her everyday life. She lives with an older lady, who works to give FukuFuku a […]

It’s interesting to see how Takuma Morishige’s My Neighbor Seki, based on a classically simple premise, has changed over its run. Previously, Rumi used to observe the crazy things Seki did during class, narrating to the reader in a way that added stories and context to his activities. Seki operated in his own, individual world. That was entertaining enough. But as the stories have continued, Rumi and Seki began interacting, and the stories occasionally wander away from their two desks. […]