I recommend reading this second and concluding volume close to finishing the first. If you don’t, you might have forgotten who’s who and who’s dead. (A “story so far” or character list page would have helped me a lot in recalling where we left off.) I can’t imagine what it would have been like to read this in monthly serialization. It doesn’t really matter, though, since there are a number of reversals. This isn’t a mystery you can figure out, […]

Since I’ve been reading one “kill them off one by one” video-game-in-real-world title, I figured I’d try another. Doubt by Yoshiki Tonogai has the appeal of depending more on suspense, less on gory decadence. I’ve actually played a card game similar to the premise here, although in the manga, it’s done with cell phones for that modern touch. It’s called “Rabbit Doubt”. The setup is that there’s a group of “rabbits”, only one of them is secretly a wolf. The […]

This series has gotten some (deserved) flak for its treatment of women as visual fan service, and I can’t disagree — heck, just look at that cover — yet I’m still reading it when I want adrenaline-teasing escapism that requires no thought. The premise hasn’t changed from the first volume by Junya Inoue. We’re watching people stuck on an island blowing each other up, since only one can survive. There’s a lot of wallowing in violence and abuse, in order […]

Normally, starting a manga title with the fifth book in the series would be a recipe for disaster, but GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class is easy to jump into, since it’s a collection of four-panel (4-koma) strips. It’s also very approachable, with a cast consisting of art school students. Although I had no idea who the individual girls were, the situations and gags were still funny and touching. The jokes resolve around two main subjects: making art and summer. At […]