When it came out last year, I criticized the previous volume of Arina Tanemura’s age-changing fantasy for not giving us enough of the older version of the character. Idol Dreams volume 5, after wrapping up a competition between the singers, which means plenty of glamour shots of the cute girls in pigtails and short skirts, gives us more with the adult Chikage. However, the storyline isn’t about her. It’s about her patching up the relationship between her friend Tokita and […]

It’s been quite a while since I tried Food Wars — the last book in the series I read, I think, was volume 16 a year and a half ago. I checked out Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma volume 25 because the publisher was nice enough to send it to me, and at least I could tell what was going on. That’s thanks to the main content being two cook-offs, which are the best part of the series. There are […]

The concept behind Shortcake Cake by suu Morishita (alias for writer Makiro and artist Nachiyan) had promise, but I couldn’t keep the characters straight, because none of them are particularly distinctive. Ten lives two hours away from high school, so she moves into a boarding house to avoid the commute. Her friend Ageha already lives there, as do these stereotypical guys: * Riku, the flirtatious charmer who doesn’t understand why he instantly crushes on Ten * Chiaki, the cute boy […]

This charming schoolgirl shojo gets its title, Ao Haru Ride, from author Io Sakisaka’s vision of her story as a portrait of the characters on a ride through their youth. That age, according to her, is about feeling overwhelmed most of the time. In Ao Haru Ride, Futaba doesn’t like boys, except for Kou. She thinks that he’s different for being gentle, among other reasons, and when he shows her small kindnesses, she develops a crush on him. Then he […]