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 […]

I was tickled by the concept of Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! when a fellow comic club member (hi, Rachel!) told us about it. Basically, office worker Adachi turns 30 and is still a virgin, so he gains the magic ability to read the mind of someone when he touches them. When he accidentally touches a handsome, popular coworker, he discovers that this coworker, Kurosawa, has a crush on him! So Kurosawa is trying […]

A Man and His Cat by Umi Sakurai adds a comfortable, enjoyable volume to the growing list of cat manga published in the US (of which the best-known are Chi’s Sweet Home and FukuFuku: Kitten Tales). It’s also one of the first releases from the new Square Enix manga line. This is my favorite of the genre, because I liked the two main characters. The cat has been at the pet shop long enough that he’s no longer a kitten, […]

I was in the mood for some light manga that resembled a rom-com, so I was looking forward to trying I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up. The premise is in the title: Machi agrees to marry the bubbly and persistent Hana in order to get Machi’s parents to quit pushing her to date and marry. Hana wanted to move in because she’s losing her apartment, and in return, she takes care of the housework. Machi knows […]

Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu volume 4 continues to be entertaining and delightful. I thought, with the previous book, that we’d be seeing longer stories at this point in the series, but I was glad to see I was wrong. Instead, we just see new stories with the characters we’re getting to know better, which makes it all more comfortable — particularly since you don’t need to remember their history to enjoy the chapters. In the first chapter, several previous customers come […]