Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
The more I read this series by Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki, the more I enjoy it. I just have to learn not to read it when I’m hungry, because I start craving food that I can’t find! Oh, some types of ramen (noodle soup) and gyoza (dumplings) are available in my area, but I never dreamed of the possible variations covered here. And it’s not just about the food: The first two stories in Oishinbo a la Carte 3: […]
Read more
Miel Violette comes from a family of magicians, but she’s not good at magic. Her super-strength serves her just fine… until she meets a prince in disguise after clocking him with her purse. Becoming involved with him shows her that there might be reason to improve her skills in The Lapis Lazuli Crown volume 1 by Natsuna Kawase. The title comes from the idea that lapis lazuli is “associated with intelligence, insight, and good judgment”, a nice symbol for a […]
Read more
I’m looking at four title launches Tokyopop has coming out in June. (All prices in U.S. dollars.) Takeru: Opera Susanoh Sword of the Devil volume 1 is a standard format manga title, which means 192 pages for $10.99, their new price point. (But it’s selling at 20% off on Amazon, which puts it at $8.79. That may be why they shifted from $9.99 — under $10 books don’t get discounted as much as over $10 books do, so even though […]
Read more
I enjoyed Guy Delisle’s Shenzhen, so I was eager to try his earlier Pyongyang, in which he journeys to North Korea. I’m glad I did, because I found it to be an ever better book than the other, largely because the country is so much stranger. As in Shenzhen, Delisle is working in North Korea for a couple of months as a supervising animation director. The opening scene, in which he’s taken to worship at a giant statue of President […]
Read more
Shenzhen: A Travelogue From China captures Guy Delisle’s culture shock in visiting a country so very different from his own. Shenzhen is in Southern China, near Hong Kong. He’s been sent to this commercial city in the late 90s to supervise an animation crew. For three months, he’s got to deal with inferior work, a lack of other foreigners, and the things that are common to all big cities: dirt, noise, smells. There aren’t many translators, and those that are […]
Read more
Rick Geary is best-known these days for his true crime stories exploring historical murders, such as his recent The Lindbergh Child. In The Adventures of Blanche, he tackles similar past settings — three world cities during the early 1900s — but the action is definitely fictional. Geary’s traditional pen-and-ink style, with its thick lines and distinctive caricatures, does a wonderful job building a different world for the reader. As Blanche writes home to her parents, we see through her eyes […]
Read more
A journalist is given the task of finding the Ultimate Menu, the best of all his country’s food, for his newspaper’s 100th anniversary. The series that catalogs his quest has been running for over 25 years and 100 books in its native Japan, and highlights have been collected in the Viz manga series Oishinbo a la Carte. The first volume, Japanese Cuisine, focuses on several key meal ingredients, starting with dashi (stock/broth). Additional chapters cover rice and miso soup; sashimi; […]
Read more
Subtitled The Power of Negative Thinking, this series by Koji Kumeta is the story of depressed, suicidal schoolteacher Nozomu. (The title translates as “Goodbye, Mr. Despair”.) Except, not really. It’s really a device to tell stories about his various students, all of which have their own unusual problems. I found it first shocking and then wonderful, because I like black humor. In the opening scene, the eternally optimistic and hopeful Kafuka comes across her teacher trying to hang himself, as […]
Read more