I had thought that this was the last volume in the series by Kio Shimoku, but there will be at least one more. However, this book did provide the focus on Ogiue I was looking for. The aspiring manga artist suffers severe guilt over her explicit yaoi because of an incident that happened five years ago. At the urging of her friends, she’d drawn yaoi featuring a student in their class. When he and others found out about it, he […]

by Natsumi Ando; story by Miyuki Kobayashi; adaptation by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir An orphan girl is a great cook with an amazing sense of taste. As a young child, her life was saved by a boy who left behind only a silver spoon with the crest of a prestigious school. Now, she’s worked hard to get into the school to try to find him. I was expecting fun things from this series, because I love cooking. Sadly, I […]

It’s a time of change for the fanboys and -girls who make up the club dedicated to manga, anime, gaming, cosplay, and porn. Saki, the non-otaku who only hangs around because her boyfriend belongs, almost burned down the school by accident at the end of last volume, resulting in the club being put on suspension. To make it up to the members, she agrees to participate in a costume contest. There’s also the problem of them being locked out of […]

Thank you, readers, for recommending this title by Fuyumi Soryo — I enjoyed it! It’s intriguing in its premise and characters. The almost-stand-alone first chapter works as a lengthy introduction to ES, later renamed Ryousuke. He’s a psychic, capable of adjusting people’s memories and reading their impressions. We first meet him playing a kind of parlor trick. Someone asks him to pay for something he’s taken or used, he stares at them briefly, they blankly look back… and then they […]

I’d previously tried the first book in this series, but then, it didn’t click with me. Now, I felt less like I was reading a book, and more as though I was meeting a new group of people, friends of friends (since I’ve had so many recommendations about the series). That approach helped, since there was a lot I wasn’t told about these characters — it is volume seven, after all. Still, it didn’t matter. If I didn’t know them, […]

Illustrating the oddities of interpretation and the passage of time… This is the second time I’ve tried reading CLAMP’s xxxHOLiC. I know lots of people love it, but after the first time through, I shrugged. It didn’t do anything for me, and I found the atmosphere of mystery silly and pretentious. The authors seemed to be trying too hard. I’ve since changed my mind. I came back to it because someone (sadly, I don’t remember who) whose opinion I respect […]

I’d heard good things about this series by Kio Shimoku, but I found it disappointingly predictable. It’s a manga about being a fan of manga and anime, so its first strike is violating my self-referentiality rule. (In general, I find that comics about comics are more likely to disappoint me. They often indicate a lack of creativity and an author having a hard time coming up with fresh ideas, although for all I know, this is a well-respected and -established […]

Although containing more subtly-drawn characters than many manga series, Nodame Cantabile by Tomoko Ninomiya left no significant impression on me after reading. Shinichi wants to be a conductor, but he’s currently studying piano to improve his overall skills. (He also turns out to be quite the violin virtuoso when the plot demands.) Nodame is the girl next door, an untrained piano genius with a pigsty of an apartment. She’s driven by appetite, stealing other people’s lunches and loyal to whichever […]