Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again, Today by Hitsuzi Yamada is a weird but strangely attractive fantasy. Saku is an office woman who is terrible at taking care of herself. She lives alone with a cat, Yukichi, who is human-sized, walks on his back feet, and cooks and cleans for her. Yet he’s still entirely a cat, just a very large, housekeeping one. He wakes her up and cleans her up and makes sure she gets to work on time. […]
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Hiro Maijima’s I Am a Cat Barista volume 2 manages to improve on the first volume through adding another character: a dog patissier. I loved the idea of a magical cafe where a humanoid cat gave you just the treat you needed to make you feel better. With a similar humanoid dog making dessert, the shop got even better! Particularly since the dog likes to get pets from the customers. The first story had a useful lesson, too. A school […]
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One expects a cat manga to be adorable, and Sue & Tai-Chan volume 3 does not disappoint. It’s by Konami Kanata, after all, who’s well-known here for Chi’s Sweet Home, also about a kitten. This series doesn’t have the melancholy notes of a youngster missing mom that that one did, though. Instead, it’s all about how cats behave and how fun they are to watch. It’s also printed left to right and published in soft, relaxing color, to better appeal […]
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With volume 10, Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu has really settled down into a comfort read, much like the comfort food it promotes. One of the soldiers who’ve been frequent customers of the pub has an issue. His wife is pregnant, and her family has sent them excessive amounts of dried squid from her homeland. They want to give it away, so they enlist the izakaya’s help. (I was reminded of a similar problem that arises with Southern US home gardens, although […]
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There Are Things I Can’t Tell You is a single-volume M/M friends-to-lovers manga romance. You probably know whether you want to read it just from that description. I found it charming, well-paced, and with two young men I was rooting for. The blond Kyousuke is a popular, hard-working graphic designer. Dark-haired Kasumi is shy and clumsy. They’ve been friends since school, when Kyousuke looked out for the lonely Kasumi. Now, as adults, they still care for each other. However, Kyousuke’s […]
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I was really enjoying Silver Spoon, the series about a city boy who goes to an agricultural school and learns about himself through hard work and caring for animals. Then I forgot about it, for some reason, which has the beneficial side effect of giving me a complete series (15 books) to come back to. Where I left off, with volume 4, the “Tale of Autumn” storyline had begun. It finally finishes with two chapters in volume 8, but this, […]
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Perfect World volume 1 by Rie Aruga is the story of how Tsugumi learns to love a man in a wheelchair, and how she learns, as a result, what life is like for someone who has a spinal cord injury. Tsugumi had a crush on Itsuki when they were in school together, but she had lost touch with him. A work meeting brings them back into contact, but he’s since had an accident and is paralyzed. In this first volume, […]
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It’s been a while since I’ve talked about Wotakoi: Love Is Hard for Otaku. It’s not a manga series that inspires a lot of “must read now” emotion in me, but it’s probably the one that I can most relate to, as it’s about a small group of adult friends being geeky and fannish. Hirotaka and Narumi began by pretending to date, as she was afraid no guy would be able to tolerate her fandom behavior. By now, though, they’re […]
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