A Manga Guide to Cosmetics and Skin Care by Ikumi Rotta Learning makeup through manga is a great idea — the visuals in Makeup Is Not (Just) Magic provide a terrific format for illustrated guides and educational content. Unfortunately, the material here is too often overwhelming and off-putting, likely to turn off the new readers whom the author says she wants to help. The author tells us she was previously a beauty consultant. Now she draws manga. Makeup made her […]

My Brother’s Husband volume 2 concludes the short, inspirational manga series by Gengoroh Tagame. Mike is still visiting Yaichi and his daughter Kana. (Mike was married in Canada to Yaichi’s twin brother, who has passed away.) Mike’s visit has caused Yaichi to start thinking about what it might be like to be gay and to begin recognizing the stereotypes and distrust visible in Japanese culture. As the book opens, Yaichi has had a dream about Kana perhaps growing up to […]

It’s around this time in a manga series with a relatively simple premise — a widower who’s tired of life finds comfort in an older cat that no one else wanted and enjoys the basics of having a pet — that I start wondering how the author is going to keep it going with descending into mere repetition. In A Man and His Cat volume 3, Umi Sakurai tells some longer stories about pet ownership as well as delving much […]

BL Metamorphosis is a charming, low-key manga about how friendship can develop based on shared interests, regardless of how different the friends might otherwise be. It’s a lesson I’ve learned myself, and it was refreshing to see it portrayed on paper by Kaori Tsurutani in this English edition published by Seven Seas. Ichinoi is 75 years old. One day, she stops into a bookstore after she finds her favorite cafe has closed down. She wanders into the manga section, where […]