Umi Sakurai continues to build out this world, balancing moments of substantial emotional depth with scenes of cute cat behavior with universal appeal. A Man and His Cat volume 4 follows up from the previous volume. Hibino’s resentment towards Mr. Kanda, from the days when they were both concert pianists, is explained. Thankfully, they get new chances to interact, now that Kanda has retired from the stage, when they meet in the pet store and Kanda begins helping Hibino with […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu volume 3 is another enjoyable entry in the series about modern Japanese restauranteurs serving their cuisine to medieval Germans. Reading it is a comfortable escape, with lots to tickle the imagination and tastebuds. It’s based on light novels by Natsuya Semikawa, adapted and illustrated by Virginia Nitouhei. As one might expect at this point in the series, we continue moving away from the simple “one chapter, a new situation and character, one dish” structure. We’ve begun to […]

Wakako Zake is a digital-only food manga that concentrates on just that. There’s little characterization or extended storytelling, only descriptions of tasty dishes and the alcohol that goes with them in short (4-8 page) chapters. Wakako likes to eat alone and drink a lot. She resembles a grown-up Yotsuba, with big, black dot eyes and a similar level of focus. Her plans revolve around such activities as a pig-out feast of barbecued skewers or having potstickers with garlic before a […]