July 25, 2017 Johanna Viz Manga Reviews Leave a comment

Master Keaton Volume 11

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about the Master Keaton series — the last I covered was volume 8 last year — because it’s not your typical manga series. Each volume is best approached as a short story anthology, held together by most (but not all) of the chapters having an appearance by Taichi Keaton, insurance investigator (and former special forces soldier, which helps when someone tries to kill him, which happens more often than you’d expect). By this […]

July 9, 2017 Johanna Other Manga Publishers Leave a comment

Dreamin’ Sun Volume 1

There’s a lot that’s familiar to the manga reader in Dreamin’ Sun volume 1 by Ichigo Takano, but it’s good-hearted and comfortable enough that I didn’t mind. Kameko has run away from home because her mother died, her father remarried, and the new baby takes up all their attention. She trips over a drunk guy in a kimono in the park who’s been locked out, and he offers her a place to stay. This, amazingly, is not creepy. It helps […]

June 25, 2017 Johanna Kodansha Manga Reviews Leave a comment

Kiss Him, Not Me! Volume 11

I was disappointed with Kiss Him, Not Me! volume 11 because it didn’t have enough of what I read the series for. I like the fan behavior and the various goofy activities the cast engages in for their love of anime and related pop culture. This installment, instead, is all ridiculous action sequences. When this storyline began in the last book, Kae had met again her childhood friend Takeru, now an established voice actor for her favorite anime series. There […]

June 13, 2017 Johanna Viz Manga Reviews 2 comments

Golden Kamuy Volume 1

My favorite type of manga is shojo romance, but the extent to which I enjoyed Golden Kamuy volume 1 shows how valuable it can be to break out of one’s usual reading patterns. This historical action-adventure by Satoru Noda was a thrilling introduction to a pair of intriguing characters. Sugimoto, a hard-bitten veteran of the Russo-Japanese War (1905), is trying to pan for gold in order to help his comrade’s widow. He was a hero, with a reputation that he […]

June 12, 2017 Johanna Kodansha Manga Reviews One comment

Kiss Him, Not Me! Volume 10

I thought, by this point, the series would have settled down to a comfortable familiarity, but by introducing a new character, Kiss Him, Not Me! volume 10 adds an interesting dimension to the gang of fans. Kae finds out that a long-lost childhood friend is now a key voice actor in her favorite anime. She used to defend Takeru from bullies when they were young, and he craves her protection again now, to help him manage the stress of a […]

May 2, 2017 Johanna Other Manga Publishers Leave a comment

My Brother’s Husband Volume 1

Gay characters have been portrayed in manga in a variety of ways. The best-known approach takes place in the yaoi genre, which concentrates on physical interactions and is aimed at women. My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame is the opposite, focused on normalizing a gay relationship to those who are uncomfortable with the idea. Yaichi is raising his daughter Kana alone. In this way, the book starts as a domestic fantasy, like Yotsuba&! or Bunny Drop, with a cute kid […]

April 17, 2017 Johanna Kodansha Manga Reviews Leave a comment

Say I Love You Volumes 10-15

I let a bunch of volumes of Say I Love You stack up, and coincidentally, it was right when the series took an interesting turn. The previous book, volume 9, was more of the high school love story that I was enjoying, but with these books, author Kanae Hazuki begins treating these kids as the adults they’re about to be. It’s fascinating to see the characters grow and the series transition from love story into meditations on growing up and […]

April 15, 2017 Johanna Vertical Manga Reviews Leave a comment

What Did You Eat Yesterday? Volume 11

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 […]

1 2 3 … 70 »