Sometimes it’s not just the comic that determines whether you like it or not, but the circumstances in which you find it. Peach Girl by Miwa Ueda was one of the earlier manga series I flipped through, but it wasn’t until the story was reissued in the right-to-left “authentic” format that it clicked with me. Perhaps that’s because I’ve gained a new appreciation for and am much more familiar with shôjo teen romance, or perhaps it’s because the art reads […]

Sorcerers & Secretaries, the debut graphic novel from web cartoonist Amy Kim Ganter, is a charming story of a young New Yorker whose dreams of fantasy conflict with her everyday life. Nicole is going to business school to please her mother and working as a receptionist to pay the bills. The only thing in her daily life she enjoys doing is daydreaming about the adventures of a kind sorcerer and then writing stories based on her dreams. This creative outlet […]

Tory’s a really bright kid with some really strange hobbies. He documents everything in his notebooks, and he’s obsessed with the new neighbor, Colin, another 15-year-old who moved in at midnight. Tory convinces his mother to switch him to Colin’s school, necessitating a two-hour commute from Queens to Long Island every day. There, Tory breaks into the guidance counselor’s office to find out more about the boy he’s fixated on Tory eventually gets to know Colin by using his perfect […]

(This overview was originally published in The Comics Journal #269.) Earlier this year, Tokyopop announced a promotional push called “Manga After Hours”, an attempt to market some of their more mature female-oriented titles to “chick lit” buyers. Some of the first titles in this line are the works of Erica Sakurazawa. From 2003 to early 2004, six of her books were released. Although manga publishers do cross-promote based on creators — a recent volume of Maison Ikkoku shipped with a […]

In the future shown in Chobits, persocoms are girl-shaped computer companions. A geek’s fantasy, they look just like real girls, except for their metallic ear casings, and they’ll follow their owner’s every command. Hideki is a typical sad-sack student struggling to pay his bills, so a persocom is far beyond his means. When he finds one in the trash, it seems like his wish has come true. As the premise suggests, there’s a lot of teasing to this series. Hideki […]

One morning, Sey is woken by moving men. Her mother has decided to go to Italy to work on her novel, and she’s rented out their house. Sey will be living with her mom’s friend Meja, a happy homemaker who’s always wanted a daughter. And here comes the element that sets I.N.V.U. apart from other teen manga romances: Meja does have a daughter, Hali, but Hali has to pretend to be her dead brother Terry to keep Meja from having […]

Momoi is a lovely girl with a violent temper, poor impulse control, and a grandfather who thinks he’s a mad scientist. Uehara has a crush on her anyway, but since he’s sensitive and shy, nothing is likely to result from his attraction to her. Until they both wind up under one of grandfather’s crazy machines… and they swap bodies in Your and My Secret by Ai Morinaga. Momoi as a boy becomes someone to look up to, someone who excels […]

Kare Kano: His & Her Circumstances by Masami Tsuda attracted me because of its lead character. Yukino is top of her class in just about everything until Soichiro, a similarly over-achieving boy, comes to her school. She learns to deal with her jealousy of him and her own growing self-awareness of the motivations driving her success. Their rivalry becomes love within a few books, after which the story turns to their friends, which is where I began losing track of […]