I was given a chance to sample some of the first SuBLime Manga titles. I don’t read much yaoi, but I enjoyed The Bed of My Dear King by Sakae Kusama. I tried a couple of the others, but they seemed to be just about getting two men to have explicit sex with each other. (Sometimes so much so that I stopped to verify that SuBLime has an over-18 rule.) Dear King, though, was compared to Future Lovers by one […]

As with any addiction, sometimes I’m afraid to talk about the hold Bakuman has on me. I called the series one of my Best Manga of 2011, due to how much I enjoy and anticipate reading it, but I well know that it also has flaws, mostly relating to its horribly cardboard female characters. Still, I look forward to each new volume with great gusto, since I love following the struggles of the manga artists and the details revealed about […]

I have been remiss in not talking more about this amazing series by Fumi Yoshinaga, because I fear it’s dropped off many readers’ radar. (Only one book a year comes out in Japan, and this was the only volume released in English this year.) It’s a challenging read, both in its use of Japanese history and in the way it tackles political expectations for its ruling women. The first thing that’s distinctive about the series is how striking it is. […]

In volume 8, the boys are now in college, where they run into a classic debate. A former classmate wants Takagi to write prose stories instead of manga because “novels are a higher form of literary expression”. This challenger, Iwase, is quite the achiever, writing an award-winning literary novel while maintaining straight A’s in school. While trying to impress each other, she and Takagi debate whether recognition or sales are more important, plus the value of entertaining people through their […]