I enjoy manga set in the world of manga publishing. (This is in contrast to comics about making comics, which tend to be dopey and morose.) Even when Bakuman was ridiculous about its characters, for instance, I appreciated the bits about working in such a demanding creative profession and how the industry operated. I thus had high hopes for The World’s Greatest First Love, a yaoi series from SuBLime Manga about a new manga editor who winds up working for […]

The reincarnation shojo manga series by Chika Shiomi concludes in this fourth volume, bringing the story to a quick close. I’m a bit disappointed, but I think I was expecting something different from what the author intended. I wouldn’t mind reading more stories about how someone living life today interpreted visiting a historical period, or vice versa, but it seems to me that Shiomi instead wanted to make points about the nature of a person’s essential character and how past […]

Now that the premise has been established — young writer Yukari flips back and forth between now and the Edo Period, when he was a high-class courtesan — we can get down to the mystery of figuring out who else among Yukari’s new acquaintances are also reincarnated with him. There’s Mahoro, a shy classmate and fan of Yukari’s novels, and Satomi, nephew of Yukari’s housekeeper. He’s come to take his aunt’s place taking care of Yukari while she recovers from […]

High School Debut 3-in-1 Edition volume 5 is the final volume of the series, and it contains the equivalent of volumes 13, 14, and 15 of the single-volume run. Only volume 13 was previously published here, back in 2010. Having the volume start with a book I already read was a big help in catching up with the story of Haruna, goofy but warm-hearted tomboy, and Yoh, her “life coach” who falls in love with her. I enjoyed reading the […]